Theravada Buddhist Philosophy’s Ultimate Reality in the Viewpoint of Science

Abstract

This article presents to study the ultimate reality in Theravada Buddhist Philosophy and science, and to analyze the ultimate reality in Theravada Buddhist Philosophy in a scientific viewpoint. This is documentary research. In the study of the first objective, it was found that the ultimate reality in Theravada Buddhist Philosophy is identical (yathãbhuta), intercourse (sondhi), and moderate (majjhima). In order to understand the ultimate reality, one is to consider that thing conscientiously and precisely until one can see it as it really is and this is called Yonisomanasikãra wherein Nibbãna is the objective in understanding such reality. In nature the scientific reality is atheism which does not believe in all supernatural phenomena that surpass the present natural world and believe in the natural knowledge gained from reasoning to testify the assumptions. The method begins with an identifying problem, setting assumptions, testing and collecting data and then analyzing data and concluding. To acquire the knowledge, there are 5 steps and the objective is to seek knowledge and apply it to benefit mankind and the ultimate reality in Theravada Buddhist Philosophy to some extent is not diametrically opposed to the reality in science especially corporeality. However, science mostly aims to study materials while Theravada Buddhist Philosophy extensively aims to study both materials and non-materials.