“All compounded things are subject to decay. Strive with diligence” is one rendering of the last words of Buddha. This article focuses on the concept of a compounded thing, which also might be called a component object, or, more generally, a component entity.

What is a component entity? It’s simply an entity which has components, i.e., parts. A car has parts: engine, tires, etc. Water has parts: two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. An entity which does not have parts is pure, simple, and homogeneous.

Non-component entities include . . . what? Elementary particles? Elementary particles are now believed to be excitations in a quantum field.

The idea of an excitation brings us to the concept of act. A component entity is, in a sense, an act: i.e., the act of its components maintaining the proper relation through time. For instance, the components of the word ARE are the letters A, R, and E. But rearrange the components and the word ARE ceases to exist and we have the word EAR. Completely disassemble a car and the car ceases to exist. In its place you have a heap, a heap of components which if properly joined together would form a car.

As another example, take the components of your hand—your fingers, thumb, and palm. Curl fingers into palm and cover with thumb; you’ve made a fist. The dictionary says the word fist is a noun, an object, a thing. But rather than a noun, rather than being some thing, a fist is better pictured as an act, as something our hand does.

So, any component entity may equally well be regarded as an act: the act of its components maintaining the proper relation through time. We can mentally divide a component entity into its components, and we can then mentally divide each component into its own components. Do we ever reach bottom? Do we ever arrive at something which has no parts, which is pure and simple and homogeneous?

If we believe that we arrive at the same thing. That is, if we believe there is one “thing” (or principle, or entity) underlying all component objects, then we would have a monist worldview where some ultimate ground of existence exists which is pure, simple, homogeneous, and which is the foundation of all that exists.

Ultimate ground of existence is one definition of God—not a person God who lives outside the universe (Our Father who are in heaven), but rather a God which is not a person and which underlies the entire universe, of which the universe is a manifestation.