/lit/ - Literature

>>23277325
>>23277519
>>23278124
This is why you start with the 'Jeets. Even the Chinese know it goes through the monk Bodhidharma. There's really no such thing as Zen. There is a mostly Chinese-mediated recension of waves of (often conflicting) Indian Buddhist literature which arrived scattershot in bits and pieces before export to Korea and Japan. This literature itself roughly speaking comes in three groupings, which for neutrality's sake are pre-Mahayana (or more pejoratively, Hinayana), Madhyamaka (Mahahana), and Yogacara/Vijñanavada (Mahayana). No-self isn't Zen. Enlightenment just being the eradication of ignorance of reality isn't Zen. The need to discipline minds clinging to external illusions isn't Zen. These ideas were all developed already in India, being debated back and forth, at different times, but to China it was all Buddhism. Mahayana has had an open canon, scriptures are allowed to be "revealed," complete opposite of Christianity in that regard, saints were allowed to reforge the religion in the absense of anyone to say otherwise. The only way to really appreciate the surgical brevity of Zen is to know this context; China (and Japan) were attempting to consolidate the collected works of "Buddha"

>>23257263
the mahasatipathanna sutta in the digha nikaya is essentially the og buddhist meditation manual

>>23221537
You start with the 'Jeets. Might also want to read some Western philosophy for balance

>>23071501
Good book, always start with the 'Jeets

>>23050531
>>23050549
>>23050563
This is why you start with the 'Jeets. Even the Chinks know it goes through the monk Bodhidharma. There's really no such thing as Zen. There is a mostly Chinese-mediated recension of waves of (often conflicting) Indian Buddhist literature which arrived scattershot in bits and pieces before export to Korea and Japan. This literature itself roughly speaking comes in three groupings, which for neutrality's sake are pre-Mahayana (or more pejoratively, Hinayana), Madhyamaka (Mahahana), and Yogacara/Vijñanavada (Mahayana). No-self isn't Zen. Enlightenment just being the eradication of ignorance of reality isn't Zen. The need to discipline minds clinging to external illusions isn't Zen. These ideas were all developed already in India, being debated back and forth, at different times, but to China it was all Buddhism. Mahayana has had an open canon, scriptures are allowed to be "revealed," complete opposite of Christianity in that regard, saints were allowed to reforge the religion in the absense of anyone to say otherwise. The only way to really appreciate the surgical brevity of Zen is to know this context; China (and Japan) were attempting to consolidate the collected works of "Buddha"

>>22827021
they didn't start with the Jeets, they started with Californians... even if you are more interested in Tibetan, Japanese, Thai etc. you start with the Indian literature

>>22700697
>>22700918
This arhat/bodhisattva/buddha stuff is a consequence of social and political realities involved in the reform or innovation of a religious tradition; it was necessary to produce this kind of discourse in order to legitimate what was in being introduced to the audience. To really dig into it is sectarian minutiae on par with theological speculation; the point is what the practitioner has vowed, which is to not abandon this world so long as there are sentient beings to liberate. It is like signing a 999-year lease, effectively you are going to do this forever, for many such kalpas. From the Mahayana (and Vajrayana/Esoteric Buddhist) perspective this is a greater goal than the sravaka or pratetkabuddha paths (collectively the "Hinayana", of which contemporary Theravada is a descendant), which are seen as striving for a personal entry into nirvana, that of the arhat, for whom nirvana is separated from samsara. That's really it. A better way to look at it is to read broadly and decide what is based for you, not based on theological babble but on the efficacy of what is being taught

look into Conze, Stcherbatsky, Snellgrove, and Guenther for some secondary literature

>>22558654
>secular buddhist
your problem is you did not start with the 'jeets... you must do the needful

>>22548050
you quite simply start with the 'Jeets

>>22519158
gnosticism is about escaping from a prison planet, buddhism is about escaping from gnosticism—not the same thing

>>22468612
seems like this thread is mostly shitposts but that's to be expected... as for this chart, Bhikshu Dharmamitra's 3 vol translation of the Avatamsaka has since come out and is superior to the older Cleary translation, which is too liberal in replacing Sanskrit Buddhist vocabulary with non-standard English terms

>>22450287
Start with the 'Jeets. No Japs and no Tibetans till you've read the 'Jeets

>>22425225
Start with the Jeets. Mahasattipatthana sutta

>>22387352

>>22366227
You start with the 'Jeets, simple as

>>22302980
Start with the 'Jeets you are looking for the skhandhas

>>22090836
Do you have anything to discuss or are you just asserting that topic A is the same as topic B?

>>22045848
Start with the 'Jeets. Addressed thoroughly.
>>22045895
They do not say "everything is brahman" that is hindu orthodoxy not buddhism

>>21999843
Avatamsaka > everything else > Lotus sutra

>>21883942
Nirvana isn't annihilation. Read a book, any book.

Is this why this board is so retarded? It's people who watch video game streamers when they aren't busy on /pol/? The book in question is probably fine for what it is, a selection of Pali suttas translated by the author, however I would recommend you pick up both the Long and Middle Discourses (latter also translated by Bh Bodhi) as a better starting point, both of which have decent introductory essays and comprehensive endnotes. As this volume is an abbreviation of those and the other Discourses, I would assume some of that information has been sacrificed to accessibility. (And if you do decide to read onward you'll now be buying the same texts twice). I would not consider any translation of Asian material to be a "normie gold standard for an intro into Buddhism" as they barely read to begin with, let alone this sort of literature. Alan Watts or his descended pop-spirituality contemporaries would be more appropriate.