Being and events: Huayan Buddhism's concept of event and whitehead's ontological principle
Abstract
I will compare Huayan Buddhism's metaphysical vision ith that of A.N. Whitehead, both of them emphasizing that events in dynamic relation constitute the fundamental elements of reality. In Huayan Buddhism, all events are organically related to each ot and thereby constitute a harmonious and dynamic network of existents as metaphorized by Indra's Net of Jewels, in which one jewel reflects many other jewels and many reflect one. In Whitehead's view, events, or actual entities in Process and Reality, constitute the basic elements of the universe that are in the proces of creativity in which many are integrated into one while adding a new one to the many. The purpose of this comparative work is to philoophically articulate an ontology ofdynamic relation in support of a theory of strangification.