Ultimate reality

Ultimate reality is "the supreme, final, and fundamental power in all reality". This heavily overlaps with the concept of the Absolute in certain philosophies. Buddhism In Theravada Buddhism, Nirvana is ultimate reality. Nirvana is described in negative terms; it is unconstructed and unconditioned. In some strands of Mahayana Buddhism, the Buddha-nature or the Dharmakaya is seen as ultimate reality. Other strands of Buddhism reject the notion of ultimate reality, regarding any existent as empty (sunyata) of inherent existence (svabhava). Confucianism Chinese theology In Confucianism and general Chinese theology, Tian connotes the highest principle of creation, monistic in both structure and nature. This conception of Tian evolved over time: in the earliest Confucian canonical texts (such as the Analects of Confucius), Tian was a transcendent universal creator and ruler similar to that of the Hellenistic philosophies and Abrahamic traditions. During the Neo-Confucianism of the Song dynasty, Tian became the will and embodiment of the "natural order" of things, the universal principle guiding the cosmos. Hellenistic philosophy There have generally been ideas of an impersonal supreme force or ultimate reality in Hellenistic philosophy, such as among the Stoics, whose physics pantheistically identified the universe with God, rationally creating the cosmos with his pneuma, ordering the cosmos with his logos, and destroying the cosmos in ekpyrosis, only to start the process in rebirth all over again. Among the Platonists of all generations, the highest reality as Form of the Good or The One, an ineffable and transcendent first principle that is both the origin and end of all things. Hinduism In Hinduism, Brahman connotes the highest universal principle, the ultimate reality in the universe. In major schools of Hindu philosophy, it is the material, efficient, formal and final cause of all that exists. It is the pervasive, genderless, infinite, eternal truth and bliss which does not change, yet is the cause of all changes.