[VanDerSmok]

What got me thinking about it was reading up on the defunct Vaibhashika Sect - one of the schools termed Hinayana by the Mahayana.

They asserted part-less particles to be the basis of reality, one school claiming that the particles do not touch each other but are held together by space. These aggregate into the objects we see and mistakenly take to be substantial. They don't exist as substantial objects but can be broken down into permanent phenomena - ie part-less particles.

These guys got a good kicking by just about every other Buddhist school but it got me thinking about what they were actually trying to do.

Nowadays we have scientists to tell us about the basis of phenomenal reality and they are uncovering all kinds of interesting stuff and good luck to them. Back in the days of the Vaibhashikas, religious theory was supposed to represent a true account of everything - a complete and unifying universal truth.

From our modern scientific perspective, this 'necessity' seems redundant and we see such "philosophising" as being an irrelevant addition to Buddha's core teachings.

The ancient Church insisted that a flat earth, as God's prime creation, was the pivotal point of the universe with all celestial bodies orbiting it. It made their doctrines solid and universal. Perfect universal order was proof of divine handiwork.

In a more sophisticated manner the Vaibhashikas were also doing a similar thing. Reality has to have a basis, otherwise it could not arise, therefore (quantum physics like) part-less particles are an obvious choice allowing for Buddha's teachings on mistaken imputation to be unified with an all-encompassing reality - a comprehensive, universal truth.

My thoughts were about to what extent, if at all, do we as Buddhists still look to make our practice a universal truth by reference to the external world.