/lit/ - Literature

its not about thinking its about being

>>10129624
I'm not OP, but what books would one suggest I start with in pursuing Buddhism or its philosophies. Approaching it like a philosophy rather than a religion, is what I mean to say.

>>10129652
>Approaching it like a philosophy rather than a religion

You're in for some frustration. How about you just approach it as a religion and not be so afraid of its supernatural themes?

>>10129652
its not a religion in rhe western sense, your fear is ungrounded

>>10129675
supernatural themes?

It's basically the "giving up" of all philosophy

>>10129693
>While this explanation was being given, there arose to Sakka [king of the gods] the dustless, stainless Dhamma eye — "Whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation" — as it also did to [his following of] 80,000 other devas.

The Buddha spends plenty of time teaching celestial beings, of which there is a vast and complicated hierarchy. The Buddha can read minds, teleport, recall past lives, etc.. When he renounced the life element, the world literally shook.

There's a devil, named Mara, who acts more or less like the Abrahamic devil. The Buddha even had an immaculate conception.

People who talk about Buddhism as a "philosophy" are basically unwilling to admit they like a religion. It's silly. You can learn valuable things from a religion.

>>10129675
This but buddhisticly

life denying pleb garbage
hurr durr you are not you, you are not emotions you only experience them muh ego death

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foJDhI3EW_s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW56LunBYqM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHzhcMb0uuo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w97VI-YZuqM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re2j9GKVto8

>>10129947
How is it life-denying to embrace the universal?

>>10129724
Buddhism has many forms. Some forms, such as Zen, have less "religious" elements

>>10129947
>life denying
Buddhism is possibly the single most life affirming religion. It is only through double negation that there can be true affirmation.

"Dude lmao like just shut off your brain": The Religion

>>10129724
But if Buddhism is a religion then how can I shallowly adopt its trappings to serve as a self-congratulatory Orientalist mask to cover up my own middle class white liberal Boomer apostate Christian nihilism?

>>10129652
Read this first; http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/heartsutra.html
Then to understand it in terms of a philosophy read
Zen and Western Thought and Zen and Comparative Studies, both by Masao Abe.
Mahayana Buddhism is highly logical, check out Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, too.
For Tibetan Buddhism, start out with the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra

>>10129988
>"Dude lmao like just shut off your brain":
nah that's catholicism

gautam should have removed karma from the doctrine, absolutely inane concept

>>10129995
Zing! Good one. How do you give gold on this site?

>>10129624
I have never seen a buddhist who doesn't look like a nu-male.

>>10130002
t. 20 year old intellectual

>>10130001
that's right render unto Caesar, pleb

This is the beginning of meditation. You don't know what you're supposed to do, so what can you do? Well, if you don't know what you're supposed to do, you watch. You simply watch what is going on.

When somebody plays music, you listen. You just follow those sounds, and eventually you understand the music. The point can't be explained in words because music is not words, but after listening for a while, you understand the point of it, and that point is the music itself.

In exactly the same way, you can listen to all experiences, because all experiences of any kind are vibrations coming at you. As a matter of fact, you are these vibrations, and if you really feel what is happening, the awareness you have of you and of everything else is all the same. It's a sound, a vibration, all kinds of vibrations on different bands of the spectrum. Sight vibrations, emotion vibrations, touch vibrations, sound vibrations -- all these things come together and are woven, all the senses are woven, and you are a pattern in the weaving, and that pattern is the picture of what you now feel. This is always going on, whether you pay attention to it or not.

Now instead of asking what you should do about it, you experience it, because who knows what to do about it? To know what to do about this you would have to know everything, and if you don't, then the only way to begin is to watch.

Watch what's going on. Watch not only what's going on outside, but what's going on inside. Treat your own thoughts, your own reactions, your own emotions about what's going on outside as if those inside reactions were also outside things. But you are just watching. Just follow along, and simply observe how they go.

Now, you may say that this is difficult, and that you are bored by watching what is going on. But if you sit quite still, you are simply observing what is happening: all the sounds outside, all the different shapes and lights in front of your eyes, all the feelings on your skin, inside your skin, belly rumbles, thoughts going on inside your head -- chatter, chatter, chatter. "I ought to be writing a letter to so-and-so.... I should have done this" -- all this bilge is going on, but you just watch it.

You say to yourself, "But this is boring". Now watch that too. What kind of a funny feeling is it that makes you say it's boring? Where is it? Where do you feel it? "I should be doing something else instead." What's that feeling? What part of your body is it in? Is it in your head, is it in your belly, is it in the soles of your feet? Where is it? The feeling of boredom can be very interesting if you look into it.

Simply watch everything going on without attempting to change it in any way, without judging it, without calling it good or bad. Just watch it. That is the essential process of meditation. ~alan watts

>>10129724
That is because the philosophy and the magical elements of the Buddha that are more common to religions come out of separate primary texts but also overlap. The Abhidhamma's do not concern themselves with the Buddha's ability to walk through walls but to elucidate the words of the Buddha, sometimes by referring to older suttas and teachings but also to write original philosophical treatises to iron out any inconsistencies.

>>10130001
>It's not idolatry to pray to a statue of a saint because saints help convince God, who is omnipresence, all knowing, and all benevolent to let me accept his grace and forgiveness so that I can get into heaven through faith but I also need to produce works because there needs to be evidence of faith in one god I mean three gods no wait three and one god(s) and maybe Mary too and it makes sense just accept it on faith, and we're not pagan even though our liturgical language is latin which was never spoken by God just by the pagans who killed God and one bible translation we liked but hey we are true to Jesus' words because our church is based off a Pharisee who knew Christ better than anyone but only after he died and no on else saw him
surely topples Buddhism by sheer means of logic

>>10130002
And you are not? Buddhists are Chads anyway.

>>10130117
>>10130002
yep, buddhists are chads
>The Buddha is an outstanding example of a royal ascetic; his natural counterpart in dignity is a sovereign who, like a Caesar, could claim that his race comprehended the majesty of kings as well as the sacredness of the gods who hold even the rulers of men in their power. We have seen that the ancient tradition has this precise significance when it speaks of the essential nature of individuals who can only be either imperial or perfectly awakened. We are close to the summits of the Ariyan spiritual world.

>A particular characteristic of the Aryan-ness of the original Buddhist teaching is the absence of those proselytizing manias that exist, almost without exception, in direct proportion to the plebeian and anti-aristocratic character of a belief. An Aryan mind has too much respect for other people, and its sense of its own dignity is too pronounced to allow it to impose its own ideas upon others, even when it knows that its ideas are correct. Accordingly, in the original cycle of Aryan civilizations, both Eastern and Western, there is not the smallest trace of divine figures being so concerned with mankind as to come near to pursuing them in order to gain their adherence and to "save" them.

>>10130159
>Then the Blessed One, when he had heard Brahmâ's solicitation, looked, full of compassion towards sentient beings, over the world, with his (all-perceiving) eye of a Buddha. And the Blessed One, looking over the world with his eye of a Buddha, saw beings whose mental eyes were darkened by scarcely any dust, and beings whose eyes were covered by much dust, beings sharp of sense and blunt of sense, of good disposition and of bad disposition, easy to instruct and difficult to instruct, some of them seeing the dangers of future life and of sin.

>As, in a pond of blue lotuses, or water-roses, or white lotuses, some blue lotuses, or water-roses, or white lotuses, born in the water, grown up in the water, do not emerge over the water, but thrive hidden under the water; and other blue lotuses, or water-roses, or white lotuses, born in the water, grown up in the water, reach to the surface of the water; and other blue lotuses, or water-roses, or white lotuses, born in the water, grown up in the water, stand emerging out of the water, and the water does not touch them,--

>>10129652
Start here:
http://webdelprofesor.ula.ve/humanidades/elicap/en/uploads/Biblioteca/bdz-e.version.pdf

>>10129994
This is a terrible selection. Buddhist masters and Buddhological scholars themselves greatly emphasize the need of starting with commentaries first before main texts for many valid reasons.

You aren't going to get shit from just reading a heart sutra right off the bat, nor will have any understanding of what Nagarjuna is getting at in his MMK.

>Mahayana Buddhism is highly logical
This is misleading, Mahayana Buddhism isn't a tradition but a huge number of very different sects, including Vajrayana (aka "uncommon Mahayana"). Some of them are highly topical and frankly don't place emphasis on logic, others are very logical and critical.

And the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra isn't a Tibetan text. While earlier Indian commentators had great influence on Tibetans it is misleading to start there for several reasons.

>>10129988
>"Dude lmao like just shut off your brain": The Religion
This is an embarrassing caricature even for this board and is on par with the embarrassing caricature so many dumb Westerners where they imagine Buddhism is a feel-good "all is one" psychology that is all about being happy.

>>10130002
what you say little boi?

>>10130012
Alan Watts was never a scholar of Buddhism and half the time pushes new-age stuff dressed up in Buddhistic language.

what's the difference between mahayana and theravada? which of those 2 memes do westerners more often fall for? or are western interpretations too degenerate to actually meet any of those 2 memes?

convoluted nihilistic death cult

>>10130273
Theravada is a specific tradition within the category of Nikayana. Mahayana isn't a specific tradition but rather a larger category like Nikayana.

>or are western interpretations too degenerate to actually meet any of those 2 memes?
Actually Western Buddhological studies have improved by leaps and bounds over the past 25 years and is now in fact extremely impressive, something that highly regarded Buddhist masters actively assert. Monks unironically take classes by leading Western academics in the field.

The problem is the huge disconnect between academia and more 'scholarly practitioners' and the average Western "Buddhist", who tend to be very shallow in their practice and study. This isn't really unlike other religions, the issue is that most Buddhist traditions place so much more emphasis on the details for its soteriological efficacy (both in practice and study) than say Christianity soo the "average" follower is really left behind.

>which of those 2 memes do westerners more often fall for?
A couple of decades ago Mahayana traditions were clearly more popular. Now most of the Indo-Tibetan crowd are much older, majority of the youth are tending towards other Mahayana traditions like Zen or are going for Theravada... The reason is due to popular misconceptions about historical consistency, directness in practice, and lacking rituals and other religious elements. Also I suspect that considering the Indian Mahayana and Indo-Tibetan traditions are so much more robust and complicated makes it less appealing to the average person who wants to be "into" a religious or contemplative tradition at the level of a minor hobby.

That said there is a fairly decent swelling of the Ukranian and Russian youth embracing Indo-Tibetan traditions at a much higher rate than they are Zen and Theravada etc.

>>10130159
was Evola redpilled about buddhism? or was he just projecting his own beliefs into it?

He BTFO Nietzsche

>>10130416
Given the time, Evola was so ahead of the curve in his analysis of Buddhism. He is far less prone to error and projection than his contemporaries were in analyzing Buddhism.

Perfect? No, but that isn't exactly possible given the scope of Buddhist writings and thought. He was right on the money far more than he was not.

>>10130268
Don't poison minds with your little vehicle garbage. Greater Buddhist masters just as equally disregard commentaries and texts as further clouding the way. Even the hinayanists themsleves don't want to read their texts. The anon asked for Buddhism as a philosophy, and I gave him valid suggestions.
>Tibetans it is misleading to start there for several reasons.
Oh really? Tibetans start there.

>>10130085
lol this is on par with Zeitgeist

>>10130268
>embarrassing caricature
It's a joke. Did you detach from your sense of humour already?

>>10130462
>Don't poison minds with your little vehicle garbage.
You must be responding to the wrong person here.

>The anon asked for Buddhism as a philosophy, and I gave him valid suggestions.
No you gave him meme suggestions that were shit.

>Oh really? Tibetans start there. (because Tibetans share one tradition and all schools function similarly)
You're a goddamn joke mate. Neither one of my Tibetan teachers have ever emphasized this text and during Ch.NN's SMS teacher program the text is never studied. I know for a fact that neither Mindrolling nor Tsechen Chokhorling start with that text because I've been there personally and the GBI and IBA don't because I am familiar with the curriculum.

All that can be said is that it isn't rare for Gelugpas and Shakyas to work on commentaries of this text, but it would be absurd to believe they generally start with the text. While the work and its commentaries are virtually absent from most Kagyu and Nyingma curriculums fullstop.

>>10130512
>You must be responding to the wrong person here.
I am, I apologize.
>No you gave him meme suggestions that were shit.
Look buddy, you're the guy suggesting Tibetian buddhism, like that's not a shitty meme.
>. Neither one of my Tibetan teachers have ever emphasized this text and during Ch.NN's SMS teacher program
Okay, from my experience with Tibetian refugees the Bodhicaryavatara is the go-to introduction in their early studies. But I defer to you.

>>10130562
Like it or not Tibetan Buddhism is the best depository for the majority of old Indian Buddhism and also holds by far the most innovation in Buddhist thought after the 12 great Indian philosophers themselves.

>>10130610
I agree that it's interesting, but I find chan/zen more spiritually fulfilling and innovating, at least for me. To each his own, I suppose. Both have a rather misleading image as they were marketed to the west, which is why I believe we both can freely call the other memes.

>>10130621
There is very clear knowledge of Chan in Tibetan Buddhism at least as early as Nubchen Sangye. Despite the popular Tibetan story Hashang never left Tibet, his writings have been found and it is clear parts of Tibet had an explicit Chan lineage.

I would seriously consider taking a close look into Dzogchen and forms of Chagchen. In particular the subtle criticisms of Chan coming out of Dzogchen (which end up affirming Chan to a significant extent). The approaches between Chan and the basis of Dzogchen (first half of Dzogchen) are extremely similar. The big divergent point is the non-visualized visionary component that Dzogchen approaches far more carefully (via thogal, second half of Dzogchen) was left fairly undeveloped in Zen/Chan.

I'm convinced at this point that thogal (practiced after the basis of Dzogchen is somewhat stabilized) is the greatest contemplative discovery in Buddhist history and is unsurpassed by any other tradition.

>Both have a rather misleading image as they were marketed to the west
Agreed, fortunately there are movements within both to push back against this. The Korinji Rinzai Zen Monastery for example is doing some amazing things.

>>10129624
Thinking about converting

Western esotericism is superior.

tfw you will never go to tibet and be taught by monks

>>10130878
how is a dead tradition superior to a living one?

>>10130878
Western esotericism is taken from Egypt. It's rubbish.

>>10130679
I'll wait until that shit is de-culturalized.
probably good stuff but not going to waste my time. (same with zen)

>>10131031
That's probably not going to happen in our lifetime. The vehicles that have been developed for preserving the good stuff certainly isn't perfect as it has those cultural frills you mention. However there currently is no serious alternative being developed that has anyway to preserve and safeguard the rigor required to maintain and properly transmit the good stuff.

The best options at the moment is something like the Dzogchen Community headed by Chögyal Namkhai Norbu or Anam Thubten's Dharmata Foundation. Both have lived much of their life in the West and have semi-secularized and streamlined considerable portions of their curriculum while maintaining the necessary rigor for those that actually want the good stuff. Yet both aren't fully de-culturalized by any means and it is hard to imagine how they could go about furthering that without jeopardizing the integrity of the good stuff.

It will probably take very serious Western practitioners like Robert Olds or Lama Drimed Norbu (Alwyn Fischel) to do that properly. Problem is people like that tend to come out of their decade retreats with no desire to entirely de-culturalize the material even if they do peel it back quite a bit. Olds went fairly far with it only to then turn and re-wrap it in a sort of gaia/neo-paganist presentation.

It is one of the many reasons I respect the work of Elias Capriles so much, because he preempted the concerns laid out by the speculative non-buddhist crowd before they were on the scene. In fact he seems to take Laruelle's work more seriously than they do.

>>10130878
>read crowley
>magick is just a skeptic approach to meditation
wew

>>10129624
Buddhism is the layman's Taoism

>>10131196
>pleb Taoism
kek

Elite Buddhism is the patrician's Taoism.

Meme trash
>>10129652
>>10129679
It is a fucking religion in the 'western sense' you stupid nu-agers.
>>10130418
*nglos can do no such thing, only fail.

Buddhism is a scam used by Indo-Tibetan cartel of wizards to use commoners as spiritual capacitors, meditation is simply harvesting the biostability of practioners for THEIR uses. Few know this!

>>10131257

Buddhism is a cult used by Indo-Tibetan cartel of wizards to use commoners as spiritual capacitors, meditation is simply harvesting the biostability of practioners for THEIR uses. Few know this!

>>10131266
oh shit, the demiurge deleted his post, now it points nowhere

>>10131268
Source?

>>10131367
it is what it is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NVsyMalJXo

>>10131268
>sharing based Indo-Tibetan secrets
DE:LET THIS NOW

>>10131384
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfdMdbSnNSw

>>10131384
Holy shit Alex Jones is actually a zizekian-tier genius.

>>10129988
>But if Buddhism is a religion then how can I shallowly adopt its trappings to serve as a self-congratulatory Orientalist mask to cover up my own middle class white liberal Boomer apostate Christian nihilism?
All you need is your ego for that. Welcome to samsara.

>>10130679
>>10131179
I've heard about Dzogchen on the boards a couple times. What's so special about it?

>>10129624
http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/The%20Buddhist%20Philosophy%20of%20Thought_Piatigorsky.pdf

Buddhism is something that can't be understood by Western society/perspectives. Everyone who tries to commandeer the religion in the West is a hack and needs to stay in their lane or get the fuck out.

>>10132027
>Dzogchen
thogal and yangti are what is so special

To get the real run down read:

http://webdelprofesor.ula.ve/humanidades/elicap/en/uploads/Biblioteca/bdz-e.version.pdf

and then the first two volume of the Beyond Mind Papers.

In short though it is the heir to all of the innovation of Buddhist thought. The first half of it is the summit of Vajrayana yet is a distinct path based on much more direct and sudden principles. While the second half is truly in its own class and entails meditative technologies that are simply unparalleled.

It has the most in-depth understanding of the arising of ignorance, sentient beings, and the process of the path, and the most direct understanding and modulation of the subtle phenomenological anatomy so critical to tantra.

This is why almost all Tibetan masters, no matter their lineage tend to practice at least the first half of Dzogchen, even modern Gelugpas, who historically oppressed it because it threatened their political dominance.

Its origin comes out of a group of tantrics out of Nalanda that began to seriously question the need for generation stage practices and began to realize that completion stage practices were sufficient themselves, and it exploded from there.

>>10132174
The only real groups in the West to have accepted or even studied Buddhism are occult in nature. Some have been around for quite awhile and predate modern 'western' thought

>>10129947
not life denying, just tries to have you realize that the higher your highs, the lower your lows. if you keep everything on the level you wont be in bliss but overall in a happier state. or a less sad state

not to mention that mindfulness will have you stop 'procrastinating your happiness' and realize that being in the moment and spontaneous will make life more pleasurable than waiting until some date in the future to enjoy your life

>>10132174
>>10132426
/x/ please /out/

Western occult groups are notorious for bastardizing Buddhism. They were never and have never been much in the know. Aside from formally trained Western retreatants, there are several academics that are also very serious practitioners.

JLA is a perfect example of this, he is the world authority on Bon and leading scholar on Nyingma, and is one of the most serious Western practitioners of Dzogchen alive by far.

>>10129947
>muh ego death

Buddhism doesn't assert ego death you fucking asshat. Advanced Vajrayana practitioners also have the best orgasms.

>>10131208
You stated those two as comparatively the same man, cmon

>>10131268
Holy fuck some people are bat shit crazy

«Annoyance, morbid susceptibility, incapability for revenge, the desire and thirst for revenge, the brewing of every sort of poison— this is surely the most injurious manner of reacting for exhausted men. It involves a rapid depletion of nervous energy, an abnormal increase of detrimental secretions as for instance that of bile into the stomach. To the sick man resentment ought to be more strictly forbidden than anything else—it is his particular danger: unfortunately however it is also his most natural inclination. This was fully grasped by that profound physiologist Buddha. His "religion” which it would be better to call a system of hygiene in order to avoid confounding it with a creed so wretched as Christianity depended for its effect upon the triumph over resentment: to make the soul free from this was considered the first step towards recovery. "Not by hostility is hostility put to flight; through friendship does hostility end”: this stands at the beginning of Buddha’s teaching—this is not a precept of morality but of physiology.»

>>10130268
I saw you, Ulandino

>>10132393
So are we talking about better explicative and practical methods here or is there something new discovered?

why people in human resources love to get the workers on meditation ?

i mean it's fun to read and it's liike a minor lsd trip but im not sure it contains too many truths.

> Of course Mahāyāna is the word of the Buddha.

What do people here think of Taoism? Any book recs? Thank you in advance.

>>10130268
>Alan Watts was never a scholar of Buddhism and half the time pushes new-age stuff dressed up in Buddhistic language.

I don't see how that long quotation is different from pic related

>>10132549
>you will realise you are not you
>not ego death

>>10132525
sounds boring, mediocre, bourgeois and middle class as fuck

>>10133687
Read the Tao Te Ching and then Zhuangzhi.

>>10134260
>being so intellectually limited that you refer to 2000+ year old metaphysical teachings with sterile and economical language like 'middle class' and 'bourgeois'.

>>10133619
stress-reducing, concentration enhancing, helps with regulating emotions, etc.

>>10133831
>you will realize you are not you

That isn't Buddhism nor is it anatta. Buddhists are not eliminative about the person. Buddhism isn't Vedanta.

>>10133703
>I don't see how that long quotation is different from pic related
That's on you.

Tilopa is talking about something very specific for experienced yogis, it isn't general advice, it is a precise calibration of the state of non-conceptual chagchen. Most of what Watts is saying there is coarse analysis.

The last sentence of his is a subtler but critical divergence. He talks about "watching everything", a kind of mindfulness of the present moment, but this is abandoned in chagchen. Mindfulness entails a subtle sense of maintaining presence and is wholly conceptual, which is why in the advanced practices such as chagchen mindfulness itself is explicitly dissolved.

>>10133681
The lesson of Mahayana is that clinging to the words of Shakyamuni is a mistake.

>>10132916
Nietzsche had no clue what the fuck he was talking about in regards to Buddhism.

>>10133589
Both.
As for the latter, thogal and critical features of the subtle tantric-phenomenological anatomy were new discoveries.

>>10134329
>being so intellectually limited that you refer to 2000+ year old metaphysical teachings with sterile and economical language like 'middle class' and 'bourgeois'.
i was speaking about that guy's definition of buddhism, not about actual buddhism, of which i know nothing

who is the best buddhist ever?

>>10134725
It depends in what respect you mean, for example the person that probably influenced Buddhist philosophical innovation the most was probably Nagarjuna.

>>10134824
he looks pretty cool

>>10134827
He also appears to be the first in world philosophy to take seriously the idea that reality may be fundamentally paradoxical and that arriving at the limits of thought (where paradoxes lie) won't necessarily indicate an error of reasoning.

>>10130273
Zen (mahayana) is the biggest meme in the west that there is.

>>10135427
Zen in general is a meme (this is merely my zen of zenning the zen so that zen can never zen again).

>>10135423
That was already postulated by Zhuangzi some 500 years before, even if he wasn't systematic about it.

>He whose mind is thus grandly fixed emits a Heavenly light. In him who emits this heavenly light men see the (True) man. When a man has cultivated himself (up to this point), thenceforth he remains constant in himself. When he is thus constant in himself, (what is merely) the human element will leave him, but Heaven will help him. Those whom their human element has left we call the people of Heaven. Those whom Heaven helps we call the Sons of Heaven. Those who would by learning attain to this seek for what they cannot learn. Those who would by effort attain to this, attempt what effort can never effect. Those who aim by reasoning to reach it reason where reasoning has no place. To know to stop where they cannot arrive by means of knowledge is the highest attainment. Those who cannot do this will be destroyed on the lathe of Heaven.

>>10135497
I'm just reporting what leading Buddhological scholars assert, in this case Jay Garfield.

That said, Zhuangzi doesn't at all seem to be talking about reality being fundamentally paradoxical. Merely that the highest attainment is beyond the limits of thought.

>>10135547
To be on the same page, what do you mean when you say reality is fundamentally paradoxical?

>>10135558
https://jaygarfield.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/limits-of-thought.pdf

>>10129624
To me it seems like Buddhism attempts to overcome suffering by avoiding rebirth and thus never having to be subjected to "this whole mass of suffering" again. And I get that suffering actually means unsatisfactoriness. Things cease as they arise, decay as they grow, go as they come and that means no one can ever be satisfied permanently as long as they abide by the reality of becoming, and to overcome this reality is to intercept the chain of becoming (attachment) which leads to the state of unconditional phenomena (nirvana) and the prospect of avoiding rebirth and thus suffering.

In the end it just seems like spiritual anti-natalism to me because it implies that birth is ultimately undesirable since it leads to "aging, sickness and death". And for all of this to work we have to accept te idea of rebirth and by extension karma, both of which are unsubtantiated by science. Not too mention the fact that it proposes a life denying path toward nirvana (you have to be a monk until you die).

It isnt necessarily a bad religion, hecks its the most contemplative and least dogmatic religion out there but its main premise is flawed and its solution is really defeatist.

>>10135634
I don't have time to read all of this atm, but man

>The emptiness of emptiness means that ultimate reality cannot be thought of as a Kantian noumenal realm. For ultimate reality is just as empty as conventional reality. Ultimate reality is hence only conventionally real! The distinct realities are therefore identical.
Nagarjuna sounds like he's everything I've heard him be hyped to be.

>>10135740
>In the end it just seems like spiritual anti-natalism to me because it implies that birth is ultimately undesirable since it leads to "aging, sickness and death".
From what I understand, I think the difference to be drawn here is that Buddhism isn't a "position" in the same sense as anti-natalism. It's not a moral dilemma that people are in samsara, and you're not less "right" in that sense for not being Buddhist, as it all follows the laws of causality. I'm pretty sure there's some Mahayana doctrines that say everyone will eventually be released anyway. It's the difference between saying you'll be forced to go through something so why wait and coming to terms that it will happen one way or another.

>its main premise is flawed
How so?

>its solution is really defeatist
Why is things coming to an end a defeat?

>>10135740
>(you have to be a monk until you die)
This isn't true, IIRC. The Buddha considered all basic roles in society important, and spiritual growth still attainable with adherence to the Noble Eightfold Path.

>>10134343
Anatman is equivalent to ego death you rambling pseud

>>10135740
It definitely isn't designed to promote a healthy productive society, like Christianity. Buddhism's goal is a different one. Whether that goal is noble or not probably depends if you believe in Buddhist metaphysics.

>>10130307
expand on "death cult"

>>10136361
No it isn't remotely. Setting aside the ambiguity of "ego death", Buddhists are not concerned with eliminating personhood, and that is ego death. They recognize there isn't a substantial self (much like Hume did), but that there is still a valid appearance of a person, and they absolutely do not seek to eliminate that valid appearance.

They do not deny that you are you and I am me, and that we are not the same. In fact they criticize denying this self-evident character of distinct persons and personhood as more deluded than believing a substantial self. It is called 'taking emptiness as a view', and that is mocked as incurable.

Put another way, Nagarjuna distinguishes between, "self", non-self, and "non-non-self". He criticizes the former and the latter, identifying the middle as the truth of Buddhism.

>>10137389
That's still just a different set of labels to describe the same thing, which practitioners of different schools of Hinduism agree are actually identical.

>>10135740
good post I agree entirely

if the buddha were born into todays western world devoid of the cultural belief in samsara/karma he would have simply killed himself

buddhism always striked me as a depressed man wanting to end it all, but saw it pointless because he'd simply be born again, so he had to do some mind autism or some shit to TRULY suicide

basically cuck yourself out of life: the religion

pathetic, beta, weak

>>10135750
He is probably the mega-autist of world philosophy. He understood, outlined, and resolved problems that took the western philosophical tradition another 1000+ years just to become aware of.

>>10137600
>cultural belief in samsara/karma
Buddha was born in a region where the dominant religious traditions weren't samsaric. He didn't come into contact with those traditions until he set out on his journey. Even then concepts like karma/samsara are distinctly different from other traditions.
Educate yourself, my nigger.

>>10135777
>It's the difference between saying you'll be forced to go through something so why wait and coming to terms that it will happen one way or another.

In buddhist eschatology, you can either move up or down the rebirth chain. If you're a good laymen, you go to the heavenly (deva) realms and if you're bad, you go to hell (Naraka). So one would ask why forego rebirth into a higher realm? The buddha would answer that even in the higher realms nothing is permanent, so you'll have dukkha there too. Because birth necessarily leads to sickness, aging and death the ultimate solution is to cease birth in the next life, its the only way to rid all suffering. I did not say it's a moral dilemma that one finds oneself in samsara with each birth, in fact buddhists have paradoxically told me that birth is a good thing since it allows for the person to be enlightened and achieve nirvana. But to recognise that birth should ultimately be abandoned is an anti-natalist approach to reality.

>“Then the monks of the group of five, thus taught and instructed by me (Buddha), being themselves subject to birth, having understood the danger in what is subject to birth, seeking the unborn supreme security from bondage, Nibbāna, attained the unborn supreme security from bondage, Nibbāna; being themselves subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement, having understood the danger in what is subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement, seeking the unaging, unailing, deathless, sorrowless, and undefiled supreme security from bondage, Nibbāna, they attained the unaging, unailing, deathless, sorrowless, and undefiled supreme security from bondage, Nibbāna. The knowledge and vision arose in them: ‘Our liberation is unshakable; this is our last birth; now there is no more renewed existence.’” -MN 26

>How so? Why is things coming to an end a defeat?
Suffering is conditioned by birth (see Twelve Nidānas), and thus the cessation of birth is the cessation of suffering. This might seem self evident, one cannot suffer if one does not exist. But it's flawed in that it characterises existence itself as invariably dukkha. If the end of suffering means you have to cease to exist, then yes that is a defeatist solution.

The Buddha however denies his philosophy is annihilationist and refused to answer when asked whether he will exist after his death or not. Some buddhists rationalize that since there is no 'you' to exist in the first place (anatta), there is no one that is permanently annihilated. But reading the above sutta, its obvious that you have to split hairs to avoid the conclusion that one is essentially gone (in the next life) once they are liberated.

>>10137615
>Buddha was born in a region where the dominant religious traditions weren't samsaric. He didn't come into contact with those traditions until he set out on his journey. Even then concepts like karma/samsara are distinctly different from other traditions.

Now that's something I didn't know. Sauces?

>>10137582
>That's still just a different set of labels to describe the same thing
Not even remotely the same. One is like recognizing that the figures you see on a mirrors surface are illusory appearances but are nonetheless there, and the other tries in vain to polish the appearances away or just denies their appearance outright.

Nagarjuna wasn't just playing word games when he laid out the aforementioned trichotomy.

Garfield: "Buddhists are eliminativist about the self, but not about the person. That is an important distinction."

>which practitioners of different schools of Hinduism agree are actually identical.
Ever since Buddhism has been on the scene modern Hinduism has tried to borrow from it while feigning superiority. They can make stupid claims as much as they would like, repetition doesn't dull the stupidity of it.

>>10135740
only liberals care about science, and perhaps a few greeks

1/10 for writing

>>10137600
The best part is that you think you are smart for caring about this opinion.

>>10137901
but liberals are the woo-ey new age types that hate christianity but revel in buddhist nonsense

>>10137615
Jainism was already an established tradition by the time of buddha, sramanic religion was already a thing bruh

>>10137818
>the other tries in vain to polish the appearances away or just denies their appearance outright

But this isn't true at all.

>>10137818

>>10135875
There are precepts for the layman, then there are rules for monks (vinaya). Sure spiritual growth is attainable for the laity, but nirvana isn't. At best they can achieve stream entry (7 rebirths left) but they'll never reach the Arahant stage because they'd still be bound up by attachment to worldly phenomena.

>>10138004
The didn't have internet back in the day, you fuccboi. Of course Samsaric traditions were a thing, but there's no way for the Buddha to have known about any of them until he was already balls deep into his ascetic journey. Even then, Buddhist doctrine differs greatly from contemporary traditions.

Too much theorising, Not practical enough to be practiced today

>>10138966
He didn't need internet, he could have just walked to his local ascetic down the forest path (which he did)
>The Buddhists have always maintained that by the time the Buddha and Mahavira were alive, Jainism was already an entrenched faith and culture in the region
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_Jainism

The likelihood that the Buddha didn't know about Sramanic traditions until he was 'balls deep' (by this im assuming around the time of his enlightenment under the tree) is quite low since Sramanic religions were already popular in the region that the Buddha lived
>Pande attributes the origin of Buddhism, not entirely to the Buddha, but to a "great religious ferment" towards the end of the Vedic period when the Brahmanic and Sramanic traditions intermingled.

Even then Sramanic ideas were already embedded into the indian philosophical fabric that astika traditions (vedic oriented) were influenced by it
>Several Śramaṇa movements are known to have existed in India before the 6th century BCE (pre-Buddha, pre-Mahavira), and these influenced both the āstika and nāstika traditions of Indian philosophy.[356]

This means that the Buddha's teachers, both of whom were brahmanical would have been aware of these sramanic ideas and probably taught them to young Siddhartha, who was known for employing Jainish meditation extremities before he found the middle way.

His ideas may differ from other traditions in its details but that doesn't the dominant belief wasn't Sramanic oriented.

Crypto-Materialism.

Suicide for people who like suffering.

>>10138005
The other is person eliminitism, You said there was no distinction and I am pointing out that there absolutely is. You haven't actually explained why they are the same.

>But this isn't true at all.
But this isn't true at all...

>>10139005
Depends on the tradition and organization. There are plenty of practice oriented organizations that are primarily concerned with regular people integrating knowing-presence of the nature of their own mind throughout their daily lives without having to take long retreats or block out sections of their day for "practicing".

Dharmata Foundation, Dzogchen Community, and the Pristine Mind Foundation (to a lessor extent) are all fairly low on theorizing.

>>10129988
>meditation is about 'clearing your mind'
It's the year 992,678,549,23,448,840 BCE

Listen to me, Vedanta is the end game.
Who cares about deities, reencarnation or whatever wacky states of mind you can reach?

All that takes place in awareness. You are this awareness. Awareness does not care about karma, about being liberated, or about death.

Awareness is like space, it accepts everything, makes no request and its ever content.

Sat-chit-ananda, stupid religious freaks.

Really though, if you wanna read something, go read Ramana Maharshi, NIsargadatta, or watch some Rupert Spira videos.

Buddhism is crap for the ones that can't take the direct path of just being aware of being aware.

>>10139609
>Who cares about deities, reencarnation or whatever wacky states of mind you can reach?
Literally Vedanta. Vedanta tries to reduce everything to an artificial, ontological oneness, not realizing the "awareness" they are obsessed with is conditioned.

>muh non-duality
Awareness of awareness (svasamvedana) is a meme, and one also found in lessor Buddhist schools (yogacara and sautrantika). All you end up doing is reifying mind's clarity and mistaking temporary non-dual states for direct knowledge-presence of the nature of consciousness.

advaya BTFOs advaita every single day, learn the difference.

>>10129652
In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon by Bikkhu Bodhi
Buddhism/s: An Introduction by John S. Strong

>>10137626
>But to recognise that birth should ultimately be abandoned is an anti-natalist approach to reality.
My point was on the "abandon" part. Buddhism doesn't have an imperative to convert people. You're either convinced by it or not.

>But it's flawed in that it characterises existence itself as invariably dukkha.
How is existence not inherently contain duhkha?

>If the end of suffering means you have to cease to exist, then yes that is a defeatist solution.
Why? Why is surviving necessarily a victory? Are you the one that's putting out premises?

What would be a non-defeatist solution to you?

>>10139766
I'm really curious, how could awareness be conditioned?

And, what do you think of Ramana Maharshi?

How the hell can awareness be artificial? And what else there is besides it?

>>10135740
>And for all of this to work we have to accept te idea of rebirth and by extension karma, both of which are unsubtantiated by science
This is what happens when you study a religion out of its cultural context and pretend its a philosophy.
You have to shift your mind towards a not atomist nor non-atomist point of view. The middle way is the whole fucking point of Buddha's teachings.
>>10137626
>So one would ask why forego rebirth into a higher realm?
To wait for the coming of Maitreya? To go to one of the several boddhisatva heavens?
As quoted anon said >>10135777, there is a doctrine of Mahayana called tathāgatagarbha, which essentially claims everyone can be a Buddha.
>>10137626
>Suffering is conditioned by birth (see Twelve Nidānas), and thus the cessation of birth is the cessation of suffering.
Correct.
>This might seem self evident, one cannot suffer if one does not exist.
The point of cessation of suffering IS NOT non-existence. You can refer to Nagarjuna and the concept of sunyata for this. I've said this before in another thread, and it's something I paraphrased from John S. Strong's introduction to Buddhism/s when he explains sunyata: Reality (skhandas, dhammas and the twelves nidanas) oscillates between non-existence and existence but never gets to be either.

Krishnamurti also BTFO all this religious doctrines.

What do you guys think of him?

>>10139861
Well yes, its not exactly the 'convert or go to hell' thing that abrahamical religions command. But the point is there's only one path to the cessation of sufferring and that path always leads to the cessation of rebirth. The fact that buddhists are trying to put an end to their own rebirths means that at some fundamental level they see birth as something not worth continuing. This doesn't mean they have ill will against birth itself but it does mean they don't assign a positive value toward it, i guess the more appropriate label is that they're non-natalist instead of anti-natalists.

>How is existence not inherently contain duhkha?
It doesnt just contain dukkha, merely existing is dukkha according to the Buddha. This is why he said that even Brahmaloka, the highest heaven in buddhist eschatology, is still subject to dukkha because it is impermanent.

Dukkha stops whenever becoming stops, and birth stops when becoming stops so you won't continue to exist upon death (though buddhist will often invoke the three marks to argue against claims of annihilationism). The logical conclusion to the premise 'existence is suffering' is that existence has to cease in order for suffering to cease. This in my opinion is a flawed reasoning because it presupposes suffering a priori to existence.

>Why? Why is surviving necessarily a victory? Are you the one that's putting out premises? What would be a non-defeatist solution to you?

There may be no way to meaningfully solve suffering in the buddhist framework of religion without ending rebirth because of the fact that it says everything except nirvana is conditionally existing and thus impermanent and thus dukkha. Perhaps the Buddha could have taught that there exists a 'nirvana heaven' where people are reborn into and exist eternally and unconditionally just like the christian heaven, maybe as platonic forms. I don't know really, but all I do know is that the end of birth = end suffering is defeatist.

Chesterton "refuted" buddhism in one of his books. Despite being a beautiful philosophy, it fails when it comes to the good of the people because it's too individualist, it's a religion that's all about the self and very little about the other.

playing the OHM game is essential for overcoming resistance and therefore getting laid

>>10140131
Entirely full of himself and generally full of shit. He completely embarrassed himself with Trungpa.

>>10140244
Please explain how the problem with Bodhisattvas is that they care too little about the other.

>>10140281
Explain why they do not.

>>10140279
How exactly? I think Trungpa is such a minor fellow. And even Trungpa described Krishnamurti as an arhat, which Trungpa certainly was not.

>>10140301
You must not know what a Bodhisattva is

>>10140097
Awareness (samprajana) is conditioned and relative because is a mental factor (caitta) which is always associated with mindfulness (smrti). Mental factors arise simultaneously with a mind.

>Ramana Maharshi
There is no monopoly on spiritual profundity, but I believe most spiritual profundity is still delusory. So while most great sages are still subtly deluded, they are still great and still living in said profundity.
That said, time is short, I believe there are sages more worth studying.

>How the hell can awareness be artificial?
I was referring to the artificiality of the sort of ontologized oneness/non-duality vedanta mistakenly trends towards. In actuality, there is no substantially existing state or condition that is truly free from duality as such.This is why Buddhist texts virtually never use the term advaita and instead use advaya, which is getting at a subtle yet crucial distinction at the very heart of much of this.

>>10129624
can buddhists do all the stuff that was in doctor strange?

>>10140336
>And even Trungpa described Krishnamurti as an arhat
This is entirely false, Trungpa refused to see murti again after their interview because he thought he was a deluded fraud. I know a chap who a close student of Trungpa since the early days, murtis people tried to organize a follow up several times and Trungpa was having none of it and made this clear to his students.

>which Trungpa certainly was not
Why in the world would you think Trungpa would be interested in being an arhat? He practiced Dzogchen and held major Kagyu and Nyingma lineages, these traditions consider arhathood a temporary deviation. Keep in mind that most Tibetan Buddhist traditions disagree with the Tsongkhapian elevation of arhats.

>>10140340
Please, if you could expand on that explanation?

Awareness is the field on all things are perceived. And I mean awareness as in sat-chit-ananda.

Mental factors happen INSIDE awareness. And how exactly is a sage, like Ramana, being subtly deluded? I mean, he answers questions based on the asker's level of understanding, so his "teachings" can't be taken at face value.

And whats the point of going further in such profundity, what else there is?

I've read the Tripura Rayasha, and it says that different jnanis have the same wisdom, but in a way different. Like types of jewels.

>>10140357
In what way is Krishnamurti deluded, coming from a freaking traditionalist monk?

>>10140218
>The fact that buddhists are trying to put an end to their own rebirths
There are several schools of Buddhism and some claim it's [virtually] impossible to exit samsara without the aid of a living buddha, and so their practices are based upon praying to the future buddhas and making merit to be born in higher realms to wait for the coming of future buddhas.
>they don't assign a positive value toward it
In Mahayana there is the concept of the bodhisattvas, who out of compassion "delay" their final enlightenment. So you could say there is a positive value towards birth.

I feel you have a fundamental misunderstanding or misuse of the concept of existence.
Cessation is not non-existence. Nibbana is not non-existence.
Moreover, does everything that has a birth have inherent existence?
Existence is empty. It's not a matter of existence versus non-existence. Buddhism is characterized by non-dualism and several "dialectic" paradoxes.
>Dukkha stops whenever becoming stops
On his last days the Buddha contracted a digestive disease. This is interesting because it says even the Buddha was subject to Dukkha.
>The logical conclusion to the premise 'existence is suffering' is that existence has to cease in order for suffering to cease
We come once again to an occidental [logical] view of a completely different culture. You have to ask, is non-existence also suffering? My answer would be existence and non-existence are empty (sunyata) as opposed to svabhava.

>>10135740
>and its solution is really defeatist
You should realize there's no fight to begin with.

>>10140371
Trungpa formally renounced his monk vows in '69 and was not functioning as a monk for at least 6-7 years prior to that.

You really aren't familiar with his writings if you are describing him as "traditionalist" of all things. You know, the man who regularly tripped on lsd with his close students, was a heavy drinker, and very well sexed. Typical traditionalist monk.

>>10140437
Is there anything more conservative than flamboyant rebellion?

>>10140339
Tell me what it is damn, Mr. Buddhism-expert...

>>10129675
but that's what you're meant to do Anon.

>>10140364
>expand on that
Awareness is a mental factor requiring an object to be mindful of, there is no awareness field or substance to it. This mental factor is dualistic by nature.
>Awareness is the field on all things are perceived. Mental factors happen INSIDE awareness.
This is a kind of storytelling, a fantasy. There is no "awareness" as such.
>satcitananda
Considered an ultimate, unchanging existent and again something just imagined.

>>10140445
Rebellion from what exactly?

>>10140519
>A Sense of Where You Are by John McPhee
According to Rupert Spira, this dualistic nature is not true. The objects awareness experience are in fact, made of awareness, there is no distance between the subject and object. This distance is the thing that is a kind of storytelling.

He talks of going out of the experience of being a body-mind that is in the world, to the experience of being an awareness, that experiences the body-mind AND the world

and then you go the notion that awareness encapsulates the body-mind-world, but that still dualistic

He says, when you go back to objects, after this kinda of "work" (done by meditations and self-inquiry) you realize there is no distance between the subject and the object. You bridge the gap.

What do you think? I look at Rupert Spira and find him a very reasonable, down to earth guy, that LOOKs (look at his eyes) like hes "got" somewhere.

Sorry if this is confusing.

>>10140468
Literally someone who chooses the other first instead of himself

>>10140364
>And how exactly is a sage, like Ramana, being subtly deluded?

All experiences are conceptual per se. For example the dhyanas aren't levels of consciousness or grades of tranquility, they are subtle concepts the mind focuses on.

Advaita, in nearly all usages is an abstract noun referring to a kind of thing, and furthermore that very thing in itself. A real, truly existing state of 'non-duality'. With this view one pursues a false nature that is an ontological, transpersonal, homogenous, unconditioned existent. It reduces all to a single substance that is self-existing.

When put into practice this tends to lead to mind's clarity being reified into an artificial abiding background/substratum that serves as an independent foundation for a "witness" or "true, higher self" etc. This is a major deviation from direct non-conceptual knowledge of the essence of mind.

>And whats the point of going further in such profundity, what else there is?

What else is there is your own natural state, and only there is the total end of existential lack. One's actual condition is epistemic, (metatrans)personal, heterogeneous and free from the extremes of existence and non-existence etc. It is insubstantial and so isn't an existent, and rather is merely the recognition that phenomena are free from dual extremes. It is non-reductive and so doesn't leave anything in its wake... there is nothing established in which or of which to be a part.

Conditioned phenomena and their non-arising/empty nature are ultimately neither same nor different. This means that these phenomena have never truly come into existence in the first place, and thus have been pure and empty from the very beginning. With 'conditioned' phenomena as such being a misconception, the immediate means to realize this fact is the cessation of the cause of the misconception of a 'conditioned' phenomenon, aka ignorance. As such, mind's clarity is left as empty rather than being reified. This is critical to becoming familiar with the essence of mind as it actually is.

Now, the mind is conditioned, but the essence of mind is unconditioned. However, the unconditioned cannot be a direct object of mind and the essence of mind itself is no more aware of or cognizant of anything than a mirror's surface is of its reflections. So becoming directly familiar with this involves properly resting in a moment of unfabricated consciousness without even supersubtle reference points. If there is something to focus on or recognize, then the mark has been missed, including space, nothingness, fields of awareness, a witness, etc.

>>10129995
Bazinga great reeeetort

>>10140538
There is a difference between overcoming the extremes of dualism and being truly free from duality itself. Reducing the distance between subject and object is merely work on removing the extremes, it does nothing to end duality totally. There is no substantially existing state or condition that is truly free from duality as such.
> The objects awareness experience are in fact, made of awareness
That is a story, trying to collapse duality with an imaginary bridge of concepts.
>He talks of going out of the experience of being a body-mind that is in the world, to the experience of being an awareness, that experiences the body-mind AND the world
The tight grip of subtle ego, now in extra large.
>that LOOKs (look at his eyes) like hes "got" somewhere.
Of course, there are a plenty of 'somewheres' to get. Not all somewheres are made equally, most trails are either only partial or turn out to lead to imagined places.

>>10140779
What practice (if practice isnt already an already "tainted" word) do you recommend?

>>10140538
the way to measure the progress has nothing to do with duality, it is about the rest and how often and what triggers you

>>10129652
milinda panha

>>10140218
>The fact that buddhists are trying to put an end to their own rebirths means that at some fundamental level they see birth as something not worth continuing.
Couldn't you say it is "not necessary" to continue as well, rather than "not worth"?

>i guess the more appropriate label is that they're non-natalist instead of anti-natalists.
I guess.

>It doesnt just contain dukkha, merely existing is dukkha according to the Buddha.
That's why I added the inherent. Contain is not that good a metaphor. It'd be like saying water contains wetness.

>This in my opinion is a flawed reasoning because it presupposes suffering a priori to existence.
That's why I was asking you how it was that it didn't "contain" duhkha? Or are you contesting making such a priori claims in themselves?

>all I do know is that the end of birth = end suffering is defeatist.
Well, I'd like you extrapolate on why. I mean, honestly, even if you feel you're "irrational" or "sementimental" about it or whatever.

But it seems to me that the problem is that you see "existence" as a positive while in the Buddhist framework, "existence" is a negative for most. By positive and negative I don't mean necessarily a value judgment, but rather an existential one: that there is something there. So the problem arises because people have an existential void or thirst which is unfulfillable because reality is inherently empty. However that emptiness isn't the same as the existential void, it's rather more like a neutrality. Because that emptiness is in itself empty though, is that (>>10135750) there's actually no other world there that can satisfy your demand, meaning the demand isn't applicable in the first place.

See, we can say a human being needs water to survive. Now, a persona who is constantly thinking about how they might get dehydrated, regardless of their situation, is manic. If a person in a drought looks for water and finds none, and so dies without regret, then I don't think you could call that person defeatist. If a person, knowing that eventually their body will die and it will no longer need any water, doesn't lose their head when they are thirsty or there's few water, if they don't pointlessly lash out at others or try to come up with a solution that would make them survive at the cost of no longer being what they are, I don't think that is defeatist.

I understand why you would think of it as resignation, but isn't that idea of the evil of resignation always predicated on what could have been? You might think there's still more potential in there, but doesn't that mean precisely that you are not satisfied with existence, that you're still looking for something more, that it doesn't feel fitting or right? Who, then, is denying life here?

And I'm asking you properly, not rhetorically. If you do have answers, please give them.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn03/sn03.025.than.html

>>10140218
Why is birth or life worth it again?

>>10140419
>You should realize there's no fight to begin with.
This. Approaching buddhist ideas with competitive mindset of a modern day dudebro won't do you any good, the teaching will look to you like it's from another planet.

I'd say the only fight there is, is the one that ever swinging pendulums of life impose on us and it's only true as long as you buy in like a fly that keeps hitting the window when there's an open leaf next to it.

Thoughts on his works?

>>10141391
Because then you'd be able to shitpost on an online anime image board silly

Does rebirth not imply a set amount of souls? Why does the population increase at a rapid rate when souls regularly (I'd presume) exit the cycle as they're enlightened?

>>10141427
Nope.

>>10140962
Chogyal Namkhai Norbu does open webcasts several times throughout the year. He is a highly qualified Dzogchen master and gives direct introduction every webcast.

Then one should practice atiguruyoga with white ah and thigle, it is the most streamlined and impersonal guruyoga imaginable so don't get caught up on the name, it strictly deals with approximating your own mind's essence and nothing more. Each session of doing this can take as little as a few seconds if you choose.

Understanding is far more important than meditation, until you get this understanding meditation remains conceptual and with reference point. This takes some time being critical while one engages with the aforementioned.

Once you gain familiarity with mind's essence and are without doubt you aren't falling into subtle deviations (certain states of kun gzhi being the most pernicious deviations in their similarity) you can begin dropping into it without atiguruyoga, and so are practicing a much more direct form of trecko. Trecko is the ideal practice for the regular contemporary person, as it requires no formal sitting throughout the day and rather is just suddenly blending familiarity with mind's essence with everything you do.

Until the webcast and direct introduction, practicing a very similar form of of chagchen-dzogchen synthesis is a good place to start.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncrNEAAMgSs

>>10141427
Watered down new-age stuff, doesn't realize that mindfulness of the present moment is actually a deviation and not the way to awakening.

>>10141534
This is addressed in early sutras, sentient beings are infinite since beginngless time, with the universe cyclically expanding and contracting. One passage elsewhere paradoxically says that though beings are infinite there are more beings that have reached freedom than not.

Also there is nothing substantial to 'souls' in Buddhism. Which is why when a master projects a sprulpa, that too is considered a kind of sentient being, just made of living perceptual light abiding in other minds.

>>10141870
>Also there is nothing substantial to 'souls' in Buddhism.
To highlight this point, the salistambhasutra says unambiguously "there is nothing whatsoever that transmigrates from this world to another world"

>>10141883
How does reincarnation work without a soul?

It was the Rick and Morty of the ancient times

>>10141901
uhh anon just stop, no need to bring logic into this

>>10141901
There's a lot of different theories behind this. I am not too well versed in Buddhist logic, but some schools says there is a karmic stream that collects your karmic imprints from one life to the next. I believe Tibetan Buddhism rejects this and says the existence of the clear white light is sufficient enough to link lives through the intermediary bardo state after death.

>>10141243
>Couldn't you say it is "not necessary" to continue as well, rather than "not worth"?

Existence is binary, you either want to be reborn or not and if you don't care either way, you'd still be reborn because it takes (unique) effort to forego rebirth, it isn't a coin toss. Saying 'it isn't necessary' or 'I wouldn't mind not being reborn' is either a cop out or just means 'no'.

>That's why I was asking you how it was that it didn't "contain" duhkha? Or are you contesting making such a priori claims in themselves?

Existence is existence, it may lead to suffering (in the conventional sense) to some degree depending on the outcome of your life but it isn't equivalent to existence. The Buddha believes otherwise, that because its impermanent and leads to aging, sickness and death, it is equivalent to suffering (dukkha). These are claims made by the Buddha himself, not me.

>Well, I'd like you extrapolate on why. I mean, honestly, even if you feel you're "irrational" or "sementimental" about it or whatever.

I don't 'feel' it's irrational, I claim that it is. Ending your own cosmic existence to avoid suffering is akin to burning down your house so that it won't be brought down by a hurricane. Basically it's a non-solution. I don't see how I could explain any further, it isn't that hard to grasp.

>But it seems to me that the problem is that you see "existence" as a positive while in the Buddhist framework, "existence" is a negative for most. By positive and negative I don't mean necessarily a value judgment, but rather an existential one

Yes that was my point in the first place, maybe I didn't convey it succinctly enough for you.

>See, we can say a human being needs water to survive ...snip...

Any sane person would rather have water than not. The person could very well come to the conclusion that if he dehydrates and dies, he wouldn't be thirsty in the first place and it would just be the natural course of things. But he doesn't, he wanders elsewhere to find a reservoir, therefore he affirms life. Agitating about finding out how to solve this water problem isn't the point here, the point is that people would rather continue to exist than not exist, so therefore the solution of end of birth = end of suffering is flawed, meaningless and defeatist.

>I understand why you would think of it as resignation ...snip...

So far i've been giving the benefit of the doubt when it comes to buddhist metaphysics, I don't actually agree with it's characterisation of the human predicament but I'm arguing within the confines of it's own philosophy to show how it's life-denying. It, like Christianity, starts with the axiom that life itself is the problem and people are predisposed to the ills of this world until they find a way out of this life. But unlike Christianity it doesn't affirm a perfect after life to which suffering is all but gone, but rather just intercepts rebirth. They're both life denying but one of them is defeatist in nature.

>>10141427
babby's first non-dualism

>like, just live in the now bro you'll totally be like transformed deuuud

>>10141901
Transmigration is an illusion. The talk of mind-streams rather than souls is basically pointing to a causal dynamic of super-loci with no underlying locus. So nothing is 'incarnated' rather it is like an impression in clay where neither the clay nor the impressor have ever actually come into existence.

There is literally no reason to follow Buddhism today. The Brahmins of the Nyaya school had completely dismantled all their arguments and drove them out of India over a thousand years ago.

>“You, Bauddhas (Buddhists), hold that there is no soul, yet you construct caityas(towers) to enjoy pleasure in paradise after death; you say that everything is momentary, yet you build monasteries with the hope they will last for centuries; and you say that the world is void, yet you teach that wealth should be given to spiritual guides. What a strange character the Bauddhas possess, they are verily a monument of conceit.”

>>10141972
> but some schools says there is a karmic stream that collects your karmic imprints
Typically acknowledged as an indefensible conventional position, just a heuristic.
>says the existence of the clear white light is sufficient
Tibetans say no such thing. Clear light is a meme translation of od gsal and od gsal isn't an existing thing, nor does it causally link lives.

>>10141991
>muh Nyaya
>'Buddhism says our precious cast system is to be disregarded'
>but muh political power
The Brahmins in question were either too stupid or disinterested to even understand Buddhism, just read the Vigrahavyavartani. They were engaging in absurd polemics against a Buddhism that doesn't exist and Nagarjuna BTFO'd them.

The fact that your average Pajeet isn't philosophically literate enough to make an informed choice doesn't speak to anything, else we should all stop and bow our heads to the conman Osho.

>>10141997
then answer the question yourself instead of being a nit-picking bitch, I said I wasn't well versed you cunt

>>10142000
>doesn't refute the argument
Read up on Indian history. The reason for the decline of Buddhism in India is directly connected with the fact that they lost pretty much every single argument against the Brahmin philosophers of the day. The Buddhists soon lost patronage and had to run off to gook land

>Nagarjuna BTFO'd them
Kek. Perhaps you should read up on this guy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kum%C4%81rila_Bha%E1%B9%AD%E1%B9%ADa

>>10132525
>not life denying, just tries to have you realize that the higher your highs, the lower your lows. if you keep everything on the level you wont be in bliss but overall in a happier state. or a less sad state
Jesus Christ how horrifying

buddhism is nothing more than a suicide cult, that would literally be a suicide cult if buddhist didn't believe in retarded shit like karma and samsara

>>10141991
the biggest strawman

>>10142015
So it's not a suicide cult?

>>10132525
>if you keep everything on the level you wont be in bliss but overall in a happier state. or a less sad state

This sounds like being prescribed lithium

>>10142025
It's a suicide cult propped up by fancy terminology and wishy washy spiritual rubbish

>>10132525
>not life denying, just tries to have you realize that the higher your highs, the lower your lows. if you keep everything on the level you wont be in bliss but overall in a happier state. or a less sad state
Sounds like the enlightened state of the medicated consumerist suburbanite. Something to spend a lifetime striving for - mild contentment, mild detachment, and mild mediocrity.

>>10141976
>Existence is existence, it may lead to suffering (in the conventional sense) to some degree depending on the outcome of your life but it isn't equivalent to existence. The Buddha believes otherwise, that because its impermanent and leads to aging, sickness and death, it is equivalent to suffering (dukkha). These are claims made by the Buddha himself, not me.
so why life is worth it?

>>10142007
>Read up on Indian history. The reason for the decline of Buddhism in India is directly connected with the fact that they lost pretty much every single argument against the Brahmin philosophers of the day. The Buddhists soon lost patronage and had to run off to gook land
More like the hierarchical monopoly on every facet of Indian society wanted to impede the flourishing of a destabilizing philosophy.

>>10142007
>doesn't refute the argument
You didn't make an argument.
>yet you construct caityas(towers) to enjoy pleasure in paradise after death
False.
>you say that everything is momentary
Extreme momentariness isn't a consensus Buddhist position and something roundly criticized by the majority of Buddhists.
>you say that the world is void
Buddhists don't assert that the world is ontologically void, Buddhists assert ontological undecidability.

>you should read up on this guy
Hagiography aside, I love Kumarila. However, he largely just repeated criticisms of earlier Buddhist schools made by other Buddhists as they were innovating.
His screed against sautrantika for example is literally just repeating Nagarjuna's argument. Legend says he studied at Nalanda, where Nagarjuna's arguments against earlier Buddhist schools were studied at length (and still are studied in Indo-Tibetan traditions).

>>10142025
kek

>>10142037
What exactly is the "fancy terminology" of Buddhism? Or the "wishy washy" part of Buddhism?

>>10142006
Why not both?

>>10142007
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kum%C4%81rila_Bha%E1%B9%AD%E1%B9%ADa

>them feels when using Buddhist polemics against Buddhists because you don't have your own arguments.

>>10142054
Because saying "umm no actually" without providing any alternative is not productive, just annoying.

>>10142045
>More like the hierarchical monopoly on every facet of Indian society wanted to impede the flourishing of a destabilizing philosophy.
Buddhists weren't egalitarian at all, stop this meme. There are Suttas which clearly state that a Boddhisattva can only be born as a Brahmin or a Kshatriya. The decline of Buddhism is solely due to its failure as a philosophy (or whatever you want to call it)

>>10142049
>Hagiography aside, I love Kumarila. However, he largely just repeated criticisms of earlier Buddhist schools made by other Buddhists as they were innovating.
His screed against sautrantika for example is literally just repeating Nagarjuna's argument. Legend says he studied at Nalanda, where Nagarjuna's arguments against earlier Buddhist schools were studied at length (and still are studied in Indo-Tibetan traditions).
Completely wrong, Kumarila's criticisms shook the foundations of Buddhism. The philsophers Shantarakshila and Kamalashila penned refutations of Kumarila's arguments. Taranatha's account can't be completely trusted, since Buddhist historians are known for their distortions, but even he admits Kumarila defeated many Buddhist philosophers in debate. He was anything but unoriginal.

>>10142165
>There are Suttas which clearly state that a Boddhisattva can only be born as a Brahmin or a Kshatriya.
Gee I wonder who could be behind |||that|||.

>>10129624
That fully depends on what you're talking about. Buddhism is a blanket term. Which turning of the wheel of dharma?

Are we talkin

Therevada
Mahayana
Vajrayana

Or Chinese Buddhism? Or some other branch?

>>10141976
>I don't 'feel' it's irrational, I claim that it is. Ending your own cosmic existence to avoid suffering is akin to burning down your house so that it won't be brought down by a hurricane. Basically it's a non-solution. I don't see how I could explain any further, it isn't that hard to grasp.

From my still very primitive understanding of Buddhism, it says you don't need the house to live. Your attachment to the house makes you worry about it; you have to clean it, do regular maintenance, worry about natural disasters. This is naturally unnerving. So Buddhism asks: so why do I need the house? Isn't there something beyond it? Why should I waste my time defending it from a hurricane if I can just get rid of it?
Leaving the house and experiencing things outside the box of existence is enlightenment. And what is outside the house isn't another existence, because the house itself is existence, just like it isn't non-existence, because it isn't the reverse of the house. What is outside a box is not a non-box. It's entirely something else.
So if there's something that is entirely something else and not comparable to the limited and worrysome world of the house, why would you nourish the (intrinsically impossible) idea that you could live inside the house without having all the worries that are intrinsical to the house? Why is leaving the house defeatist or not desirable in any way?

>>10141976
wait a minute, what do you call existence, besides the likes of dislikes of sensuality and thoughts and consciousness?
are you one of those normies who claim they are their consciousness?

To all the anons in the thread who seem knowledgeable on buddhism, do you guys have any general recommendations? On both Buddhist doctrines and history, specially on history, because I want to at least know what are all these schools of thought that are being talked about.

>>10142165
>here are Suttas which clearly state that a Boddhisattva can only be born as a Brahmin or a Kshatriya.
Which suttas exactly? Also the Pali Canon isn't an authority on Bodhisattvahood.

>The philsophers Shantarakshila and Kamalashila penned refutations of Kumarila's arguments.
Whoa holy shit anon you mean to tell me that panditas penned criticism of their contemporaries? Unprecedented!

>Taranatha's account can't be completely trusted, since Buddhist historians are known for their distortions
Taranatha's account can't be trusted because he was a Tibetan born nearly 800 years later.

> Kumarila's criticisms shook the foundations of Buddhism.
Stop being vague, exactly which original criticisms of his "shook the foundations of Buddhism", and what refutations did his contemporaries pen as a response?

>>10142250
Chinese Buddhism is Mahayana. Vajrayana is just uncommon Mahayana. Theravada is Nikayana.

>>10129624
Doesn't hold a candle to the ancient western arts.

"Those who search for meaning inside, often fail to find it right under their noses."

>>10143025
This. White people have far superior philosophy, history and genetics. It's self evident to those who are not ignorant.

>>10142752
Buddhism and Dzogchen: Vol. I; Buddhism: A Dzogchen Outlook -Elias Capriles

Ornament Of Reason: The Great Commentary To Nagarjuna's Root Of The Middle Way

Indian Esoteric Buddhism -Ronald M.Davidson

Introducing Tibetan Buddhism -Geoffrey Samuel

Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks -Gregory Schopen

The Ideas and Meditative Practices of Early Buddhism Tilmann Vetter

Les Sectes Bouddhiques du Petit Véhicule -André Bareau (dated work, too charitable to Theravada, still considered a must-read)

>>10143025
>"Those who search for meaning inside, often fail to find it right under their noses."

Buddhists don't search for 'meaning inside'.

>>10143054
Thanks! Appreciate the range of the literature. So far, I have only had contact with jodo shinshu, as the local temple is shin buddhist. If anyone could add other works, I'd be more than thankful.

>>10141976
>Existence is binary, you either want to be reborn or not
Says who?

>Saying 'it isn't necessary' or 'I wouldn't mind not being reborn' is either a cop out or just means 'no'.
It seems to me that you want to make two conclusions into the same thing because they don't give you what you want.

>Existence is existence, it may lead to suffering (in the conventional sense) to some degree depending on the outcome of your life but it isn't equivalent to existence.
Yes, we know life isn't only suffering. But I don't get why that doesn't make it not an intrinsic part of life.

>I don't 'feel' it's irrational, I claim that it is.
Okay. But that still doesn't explain it.

>Ending your own cosmic existence to avoid suffering is akin to burning down your house so that it won't be brought down by a hurricane.
That would imply that there's a cosmic house or a cosmic you that could last forever somehow. You're again making the same assumption that Buddhism is telling you to dismantle the house, that it's your obligation to do it, when that's not the case and it's only a matter of cause and effect.

>the point is that people would rather continue to exist than not exist
Except that if there are people that would not continue, then this is not the case. Your appeal to what "people" would do is no different to the resignation of dying being natural. All you're doing is pedestelizing the human will. You assume there's something there in all people and if they tell you there isn't then they're liars or they have done some great evil to themselves. But if I'm following you correctly, assuming you're taking the Nietzschean position, then that doesn't make sense either because it's also will to power and in the end there's only will against will and it all comes down to this affirmation or the other. In the end, to me, you're just being stubborn, in which case, what's there to even argue?

>the axiom that life itself is the problem and people are predisposed to the ills of this world until they find a way out of this life.
Except nirvana is precisely there *not* being a way out of this life. The point is for there to be no other life. Living for heaven is no different than living thinking of what will happen in your next reincarnation. I don't think you can get less life-denying than that. What would you suggest, otherwise? Everything else seems like postponement. All the search for meaning and worth in a dark and threatening world doesn't seem very life-affirming to me.

>>10142341
This is accurate.
To add some sources:
"By & large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by (takes as its object) a polarity, that of existence & non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one."
-SN 12.15

>>10142398
>likes of dislikes
likes or dislikes

from jamgon kongtrul's "torch of certainty"

>When you hear the views of another sect, do not denounce them but simply maintain your faith in the Buddha’s words.

>>10141976
>>I don't 'feel' it's irrational, I claim that it is. Ending your own cosmic existence
You sure love to use fancy words to comfort yourself about your opinions while claiming to be pragmatic.

>starts with the axiom that life itself is the problem
is it not axiom, learn logic

it does not start with ''life is a problem'', it is conclusion.


Overall = you do not know how to use words, you do not know logic and you claim to be rational and pragmatic like a good little rationalist who love to think he is a free thinker.

Makes me think.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Does anyone know of a good book about indian logic systems, indian thought or indian philosophy? Reading about tetralemmas and that it was conceived in India made me curious about indian logic. I'd prefer something introductory and/or with a buddhist approach.

>>10143841
A good place to start:
Read "Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka" and "The Dispeller of Disputes. Nagarjuna's Vigrahavyavartani" -both by Jan Westerhoff

Also read "Moonshadows. Conventional Truth in Buddhist Philosophy" by "The Cowherds" (a group of scholars).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HakplugtPQI
Where is this footage from? Why do they clap their hands? Why are some monks not shaved? What's that ritual at around 12 minutes about? Why are they using those red hats? What the fuck is that thing at 18:15?
Tibetans are fucked up. I'm amazed.

>>10142752
Oh another one came to mind anon, 'Making Sense Of Tantric Buddhism' by Christian K. Wedemeyer. It has been very well received by scholars on both sides (formal Buddhist training and secular academic training)

>>10143049
Part of the glorious history of white people is their willingness to analyze other cultures and import the good bits, whether material or philosophical.

It isn't an either or, some Buddhist cultures have legitimately useful cultural knowledge, and you would be forsaking your ancestors to not colonize and make use of the good bits.

>>10143054
>>10144100
Why are your recs so biased towards tibetan tradition

>>10144098
>Where is this footage from?
It is a hodgepodge of different video clips footage from three or more monasteries.

>Why do they clap their hands?
Those monks are on the debate grounds and clapping is part of the debate ritual. Tibetan monks have carefully turned everything into mnemonic symbols in order to rigorously sustain high bodhisattva aspirations etc.
>What's that ritual at around 12 minutes about?
Well we only see a little bit from 12:15 to 12:45, so can't determine the specifics. But at around 12:15 they are bringing in torma offerings and then it shows them offering the mandala. Likely some puja like a long life puja or the preparatory offerings for a ripening empowerment.

>Why are they using those red hats?
Tibetans in all seriousness fucking love hats and have manny different kinds of hats. In this case those specific red hats distinguish the tradition as non-gelug. Basically once proto-gelug (which at the time was calling themselves "new sakyapa") became gelug and began to really seize political power brutally from the 15th century onwards, non-gelug alliances were forged and this red-hat business is part of it. It appears initially the Kagyupas were this hat and it was basically imported by Sakya and the one Nyingma institution (the rest of Nyingma was heavily decentralized and was a smattering of family lineages).

> What the fuck is that thing at 18:15
Another kind of torma. Initially I thought it was a pre-chod offering but it is clearly for a wrathful action kīla ritual. This is complicated stuff and just working out the symbolic significance of the dagger (kīla) is a feat. Basically though Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche is being depicted during that part of the video as forcefully subduing local demonic obstructions.

>>10144265
You are a scholar sir.
In general, I'm hesitant towards Tibetan Buddhism mainly because how tainted it got in the west with new-age shit.
I'd be much more interested in the political and cultural developments of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism.
>seize political power brutally from the 15th century onwards, non-gelug alliances were forged and this red-hat business is part of it
Really interesting stuff.
Is there an archive with Tibetan Buddhism ritual footage or something like that?

>>10129624

It's a whole bunch of horseshit cloaked in language games and brainwashing. inb4 Reddit, but there is no such thing as enlightenment, it's just tricking your brain into believing something.

>>10144118
>Why are your recs so biased towards tibetan tradition
At least four of those texts have very little to nothing to do with the Tibetan tradition directly and focus on early Indian Buddhism.

As for the remainder, because Indo-Tibetan Buddhism incidentally became the defacto receptacle for Indian Buddhism as Buddhism died out in India. Tibetans generally took maintaining Indian lineages and studying the Indian philosophers extremely seriously, considering themselves "mere red-faced barbarians" in comparison to the spiritually sophisticated Indians.

This reverence for the early Indian mahapanditas and mahasiddhis lasted for over a thousand years, where nearly all Tibetan innovation was carefully contextualized and scrutinized through the lens of these Indian masters. So much so that early 19th-20th century Tibetans can be read lamenting this saying that it is time for Tibetans to drop this hypersensitivity and that they had long done their due diligence as they innovated. Also despite their problems, in terms of innovation Tibetans simply have taken Buddhism further than any other while remaining true to the essence of early Indian greats. You can't really understand what Buddhism has become and what it has come to offer without having a solid understanding of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.

>>10144288
Awakening has nothing to do with belief you goofball.

>>10144285
>I'm hesitant towards Tibetan Buddhism mainly because how tainted it got in the west with new-age shit.
There are plenty of Tibetans and serious Western students that have been and will continue to push back against this kind of thing. Also, progress is being made even on the more casual front, for example on the dharmawheel forums in the Tibetan Buddhist sections people are now fairly quick to call out new-age bullshit and run it off.

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche:
"The aim of far too many teachings these days is to make people “feel good,” and even some Buddhist masters are beginning to sound like New Age apostles. Their talks are entirely devoted to validating the manifestation of ego and endorsing the “rightness” of our feelings, neither of which have anything to do with the teachings we find in the pith instructions. ...On the contrary, the dharma was devised specifically to expose your failings and make you feel awful.

...It is such a mistake to assume that practicing dharma will help us calm down and lead an untroubled life; nothing could be further from the truth. Dharma is not a therapy. Quite the opposite, in fact; dharma is tailored specifically to turn your life upside down—it’s what you sign up for. So when your life goes pear-shaped, why do you complain? If you practice and your life fails to capsize, it is a sign that what you are doing is not working. This is what distinguishes the dharma from New Age methods involving auras, relationships, communication, well-being, the Inner Child, being one with the universe, and tree hugging. From the point of view of dharma, such interests are the toys of samsaric beings—toys that quickly bore us senseless."

>Is there an archive with Tibetan Buddhism ritual footage or something like that?
I don't believe anyone has organized an archive yet. A lot of the focus now is just trying to translate and preserve sections of the canon, since there are thousands and thousands of pages still to go.

>>10144118
I should note that I also recommended >>10144065
The first two there are concerned with Indian Buddhism and most of the essays in the latter one deal with Indian Buddhism (with a few dealing with Tibetan commentaries on Indian works).

>>10144344
>the dharma was devised specifically to expose your failings and make you feel awful.
kek, I love this guy
You managed to get me into researching about Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, sir. Still, my prejudices still stand, specially about the esoteric part of it. All the rituals, and esoteric practices (e.g. dharmapalas and yidams) really bother me. Wasn't the Buddha against all of this? If Tibetans are so serious and methodists in studying the indian sources, why did they develop so much unique things? As far as I know, inside the sangha, Vajrayana is the most frowned upon by the other schools.

What do buddhists think of Jesus and Christianity?

>>10144392
>Wasn't the Buddha against all of this?
The lesson of Mahayana is that clinging to Shakyamuni or the teachings of any one Buddha is a mistake.
Also, in some fairly early Indian Mahayana commentaries you can see skepticism regarding the authenticity and authority of scripture. Their reasoning was that the texts claiming teachings by the Buddha weren't written by him nor people that knew him, while the adherents to the text didn't even 'know someone that knew someone that knew the man himself'. They were realizing they didn't have a choice but in some sense to work together to figure this stuff out for themselves, using scripture in a far more tentative, deliberate way and explicitly acknowledging the performative elements of writing new scripture.

> If Tibetans are so serious and methodists in studying the indian sources, why did they develop so much unique things?
A substantial portion of these things actually come from Indian sources, including things like dharmapalas, yidams, and several of the rituals in that video. Even Dzogchen came from a group studying at Nalanda.
That said, bringing things to their limits and further innovating is bound to happen if groups of people are critically analyzing these things with the kind of rigor and zeal that Tibetans bring to studying and practicing dharma. Just like how uncommon Mahayana (Vajrayana) emerged out of common Mahayana through Indian masters taking the latter and its limitations seriously, people begin to draw reasoned conclusions and solve subtle issues that come up... and these things add up over a long time.

>esoteric practices (e.g. dharmapalas and yidams) really bother me.
A big problem is that there is a tremendous cultural divide and most people have trouble understanding just how comfortable Tibetans are with hyperbole. So it is easy to mistake more topical statements for critical statements, something that from the inside seems obviously distinct to the well-versed Tibetan. This really causes a lot of trouble for more casual students.

Lappon Namdrol: "No, a Yidam is not a sentient being possessing its own continuum. It is a method, that is all. People who do not understand this point, whether Tibetan or Western, do not understand Vajrayāna. In other words, yidams exist as methods, but not as sentient beings. There is no external Kalacakra existing somewhere whom we petition for blessings when we do a Kalacakra sadhana."

>>10144344
>>10143058
>>10137626

this is why Buddhism fails to differentiate itself from the Abrahamic religions or other Dharmic religions, as it is just another flavor of people pursuing a sensationless void under the delusion that living with a stick up their ass keeps the universe intact

>>10144489
What's the reasoning behind the term "uncommon Mahayana"?

>>10144489
>As far as I know, inside the sangha, Vajrayana is the most frowned upon by the other schools.
Much of the Sangha clings to Shakyamuni. Beyond that, Vajrayana tends to offend nearly everyone (including fledging Vajrayana practitioners), it comes with the territory. Even within Tibet, as Vajrayana entered the sterile monastic environment, there have been various attempts to domesticate it a bit. Gelugpas being the crudest example, as they outrightly denied the validity of several tantras, banned the practice of various things (across Tibet, not merely within their institutions), and in general kept a cautious distance from it (reserving it for their elites) because it makes them uneasy. The progenitor of Gelug himself considered Vajrayana the only means to achieve full awakening (buddhahood) in one life, but refused to participate in it because he thought it would give his students the wrong idea (his understanding of Vajrayana was somewhat shallow and overly emphasized karmamudra).

This is why Nyingma in particular is so fascinating, because for the bulk of its history it has had little to no institutionalization and has remained a wild, decentralized collection of family lineages that fully embrace Vajrayana in all its glory.

In short, it isn't surprising that other schools frown upon Vajrayana, because it is so radical that it touches a bit of a nerve even in much of Tibetan Buddhism.

>>10144522
>as it is just another flavor of people pursuing a sensationless void
You should feel embarrassed for thinking this has anything to do with most of Buddhism. Nirodhasamapatti is a deviation.

> under the delusion that living with a stick up their ass keeps the universe intact
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche:
"By and large, human beings tend to prefer to fit in to society by following accepted rules of etiquette and being gentle, polite, and respectful. The irony is that this is also how most people imagine a spiritual person should behave. When a so-called dharma practitioner is seen to behave badly, we shake our heads over her audacity at presenting herself as a follower of the Buddha. Yet such judgments are better avoided, because to “fit in” is not what a genuine dharma practitioner strives for.

Think of Tilopa, for example. He looked so outlandish that if he turned up on your doorstep today, odds are you would refuse to let him in. And you would have a point. He would most likely be almost completely naked; if you were lucky, he might be sporting some kind of G-string; his hair would never have been introduced to shampoo; and protruding from his mouth would quiver the tail of a live fish. What would your moral judgment be of such a being? “Him! A Buddhist?” This is how our theistic, moralistic, and judgmental minds work. Of course, there is nothing wrong with morality, but the point of spiritual practice, according to the vajrayana teachings, is to go beyond all our concepts, including those of morality."

>>10129624
the religion of hate and war. just look at what they do to poor muslim in myanmar

>>10144522
> under the delusion that living with a stick up their ass keeps the universe intact

"Having drunk dog, donkey, camel,
and elephant blood, one should
regularly feed on their flesh. Human
flesh smeared with the blood of all
species of animals is beloved.
Entirely vile meat full of millions of
worms is divine. Meat rendered
putrid by shit, seething with
hundreds of maggots, mixed with
dog and human vomit, with a coating
of piss—mixed with shit it should be
eaten by the yogin with gusto." —Saṃpuṭa Tantra

>>10144484
Depends on the Buddhists, some holders of political positions will claim he was a bodhisattva, others will say he was just another non-buddhist spiritual practitioner.

Also this is interesting:
https://earlytibet.com/2007/12/02/christianity-in-early-tibet/

>>10144489
>how comfortable Tibetans are with hyperbole.[..]
So, supernatural powers are not actually real? Riponches and high Tibetan (= Buddhists for this matter) masters are canonically said to have powers. The mystical obviously has an important symbolic and metaphoric component, but the literal and supernatural element is said to be equally true (as I understand).
>>10144533
>it has had little to no institutionalization and has remained a wild, decentralized collection
I don't know about Indo-Tibetan Buddhism in general, but in India and East Asia, Buddhism was seldom institutionalized.
On a side note. The lineage-centric nature of Vajrayana could be its downfall as well as its key to success.

>>10144529
It has to do with the prevalence of it compared to more common forms of Mahayana, both here and across all world systems.

>>10144560
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/09/25/myanmar-searches-more-hindu-corpses-mass-grave-unearthed

Those poor dindu mussies

How does one as a westerner get initiated into authentic tibetan buddhism? are online methods legit? I just dont wanna accidentally join a new age cult.

>>10144550
>>10144563

the good ol' "you know buddhism has nothing to do with buddha or the dharma"

>>10129652
>>10129947
>>10129988

Buddhism should be understood as an ontological doctrine foremost rather than anything else. It is also rigorously procedural and all its' methods in attaining ascesis are very well defined not to mention difficult for anyone who'd have grown up in the Western world.

>>10130002
Maybe in the West where most undergrads embrace Buddhism in its form as a popular cult, having only read secondary accounts of it instead of its' canon. Plenty of Tibetan monks have a lot of muscle mass

>>10130416
Evola's 'Doctrine of Awakening' actually cites a lot of the Pali canon impartially

>>10144577
>So, supernatural powers are not actually real?
To be nit-picky, Buddhists assert all phenomena within a natural world, so any powers would be something like supernormal or supermundane rather than supernatural.

Quibbles aside, virtually all Buddhist traditions have had some claims of powers. In the Pali Canon the Buddha teleports across a river instantly and in another case he flies into the sky. The Japanese had designated weather controllers etc.

>masters are canonically said to have powers.
And high realization and stuff like this is where it gets very tricky. Many times such things aren't intended literally, several times they are.

A simple example, say a respected yogi finishes a 12 year thogal retreat after 6 years of serious studying and training under a master. When people might claim he is a buddha, they tend mean literally in that case. However in other cases with a public figure passes or when showing respect to their guru they might say they were a living buddha/vidyadara, and in cases like this they generally are just being hyperbolic. At first glance or reading random comments out of context the average person would be in no place to discern the difference.

> was seldom institutionalized
In the sense being discussed, institutionalization or not for anything non-high-tantra is a separate matter. Vajrayana in East-Asia doesn't go beyond 5th yana so isn't high tantra. And while there were tantrics that intermingled around institutions like Nalanda in India, there was still a clear distinction that allowed Vajrayana practitioners to avoid any in-group pressure to domesticate the presentation and practice of high-tantra. With most of Tibetan Buddhist traditions, Vajrayana was brought directly into the monastic colleges themselves, so very interesting dynamics arose for better and worse.

>The lineage-centric nature of Vajrayana could be its downfall as well as its key to success.
The lineage-centric nature of Vajrayana is essential to it, so if it leads to its downfall then so be it.

What needs to die is the tulku system, since from the beginning it has largely been a politically driven system. Which isn't to say there necessarily aren't real tulkus, only that they would be few and far between...something educated Tibetan lamas regularly admit in private and some like DJKR and Ch.NN publicly say. The problem is that thus far, and despite how broken it is, it is the best system ever implemented for really capitalizing on and making something of spiritual prodigies at a young age.

Anyway, I'm out for the night.

Inherently nihilistic by denying the ego in favor of the universe which you are not a part of.

>>10145202
>wht is panentheism.

>>10145220
Irrelevant.

>>10143211
>Says who?
Says I.

>It seems to me that you want to make two conclusions into the same thing because they don't give you what you want.
Or they just don't answer the question directly. If a person is agnostic about his coming rebirth, he will still to be reborn because there is unique effort in wanting out. You can't change this fact about Buddhist metaphysics.

>That would imply that there's a cosmic house or a cosmic you that could last forever somehow. You're again making the same assumption that Buddhism is telling you to dismantle the house, that it's your obligation to do it, when that's not the case and it's only a matter of cause and effect.
I never made this assumption at all. All I'm saying is that the Buddha said 'if you guys want out, here is the way' and that way leads to the end of birth. The Buddha explicitly said that craving for non-existence is not what his philosophy is about, I recognise that. But he made no effort to disguise his philosophy as anything other than the end of birth and thus end of worldly existence.

>For a long time, monks, you have experienced the death of a father ... the death of a brother ... the death of a sister ... the death of a son ... the death of a daughter ... the loss of relatives ... the loss of wealth ... loss through illness; as you have experienced this, weeping and wailing because of being united with the disagreeable and separated from the agreeable, the stream of tears that you have shed is more than the water in the four great oceans. For what reason? Because, monks, this saṃsāra is without discoverable beginning…. It is enough to experience revulsion toward all formations, enough to become dispassionate toward them, enough to be liberated from them.” -SN 15:3

>Except that if there are people that would not continue, then this is not the case....All you're doing is pedestelizing the human will....snip....

Sure there might be some people that don't have this Shchopenhaurian 'will to live' but the exception doesn't prove the rule. Given sufficient conditions, most people would rather continue to exist than not, so the only meaningful way to solve suffering (whatever it may be) is within the realm of existence. The Buddha would say that within all realms of life other than nirvana, the conditions are never sufficient (before everything else) so that the only way out of this suffering is to end the cyclical existence visible in all realms. It's simply tautological reasoning.

>Except nirvana is precisely there *not* being a way out of this life. The point is for there to be no other life.... What would you suggest, otherwise?...snip..

It doesn't matter what I suggest otherwise, I don't need a positive claim to negate a proposition (even though I've given you an idea of what a non-defeatist argument would look like in buddhism). What matters is that the buddhist solution to all suffering is flawed and it's overall philosophy is life-denying. At least according to my estimation.

>>10129624
If you're religion is being praised by uni hippies I think it says a lot.

>>10145353
it doesn't says anything actually
all religion is the same a collection of ideologies made sacred. it's useless for most desu for depressed people it's understandable.

>>10145202
what people take as me or mine is already a fantasy, there is no denying what does not exist outside your little imagination.
Also, using a picture of N here is retarded.

>>10145369
>what people take as me or mine is already a fantasy, there is no denying what does not exist outside your little imagination.
Bullshit. Existence exists. Reality is not a fantasy but real and in front of you. If everything is simply a fantasy, then I guess you wouldn't mind if I take all your property and, maybe if I feel like it, your life, because being one with the universe means that you're not yourself. This is inherently what I mean whenever I say that Buddhism is inherently nihilistic. By not having a sense of self, by denying existence, all that is left is nothing and nihilism. Yet too many people say that it's just similar to stoicism; controlling your emotions, not entirely suppressing and removing them. But past the rhetoric, you see that it's actually what is being preached.

>Also, using a picture of N here is retarded.
He shares my views on Buddhism. And I'll post whatever I damn well please. Maybe you should just act zen and control your desires by not caring at all.

>>10129624

buddhists need to give up their idols, their delusions of reincarnation and 'no-self', give up their agnostic-atheism and commune with their Creator for once in their lives, otherwise they would have wasted this 'precious human birth' doing breathing exercises and chanting mantras in futility.

>>10145415
>yea just bow down to some kike on a stick and recite bible verses, you'll be fine

Equally as time wasting 2bh

>>10145415
I'd rather practice exercises that give me tranquility and insight, while also presenting me with a confrontation of my wrong doings (both towards others and me), than pray for a god as shitty as the abrahamic god, if that's what you're getting at.

>>10145415
>"christian meditation"

>>10145464
>fulfilling your human purpose and communing with the Divine is a waste of time

By definition no.

>>10145472
While much of western christianity has lost or neglected spiritual exercises in favor of doctrine/apologetics and evangelism the eastern church is very much alive and invested in spiritual training, internal purification and self discipline, not only to overcome sin but also to attain the vision of the divine (theoria) and perhaps even union with Him (theosis). The eastern christianity is a liturgical religion and one of spiritual exercise.

>>10145415
What the difference between mantra and prayer? You're both just babbling nonsense in futility thinking your in some other worldly trance without real world outcome.

>>10145503
>other worldly trance
You really are. You could argue it's a physical trance with nothing to do with anything transcendental, that our brain is wired to do it, but it still does not falsify the fact that people DO in fact enter "some other wordly trance"
>without real world outcome
spoken exactly like somebody who has never done it
mantras, meditation and entering a trance in general has very real and positive impacts on your mental and physical health; if it helps you reach enlightenment... well, that's up to you

>>10145503
The difference is true prayer will orient the subject properly within the cosmos and develop authentic humility since he is moving closer to his Creator, admitting his dependent position as creature, and realizing his latent divinity, made in the image of God . True prayer is transformative and has real world outcomes in the sense of changing sinners into saints, changing neurotic states of mind into healthy ones, changing bad habits into good, orienting the soul to be gentler and loving towards others, destroying deception and falsity.. etc.

While repeating mantras in the buddhist context is literally just babbling into the void, it doesn't orient the subject properly and help him understand his true origin and his true purpose; in fact the buddhist framework denies the subject's ultimate ontology, denies his relation and dependence on God, and his role as creature and his identity as person, and so his imago dei is totally twisted and suppressed. Any short term physiological benefits are outweighed by the long-term cons, the spiritual prelest, the inevitable nihlism and emptiness it brings, and the falsity of the practice.

>>10145543
then why are buddhist meditation techniques (MBSR, MBCT and the like) scientifically shown to be more beneficial for the mind in terms of brain matter growth and neural re-wiring? I haven't read a publication that shows how christian prayer/meditation improves the mind as well as buddhist techniques.

Christian prayer is basically TM (transcendental meditation) but with a judeo-christian twist. Not worth delving into imo.

>>10145543
but what if there's no Creator?

>btfo

>>10145543
yes, the normies who cling to their fantasy of god fail to be good at jhanas, so they are stuck to a life of hedonism, and even fail harder to go beyond jhanas. And they love so much their opinions that they fail to even consider something else to alleviate their pathetic life . Sucks to be them.

>>10145621
>what if no creator
so you created yourself? trees and animals and minerals created themselves, stars and the sun and space made themselves? come on.
Finite, contingent, entities with clear harmony of design all beckon to their creator. "the fool says in his heart there is no God"

>>10145616
bodily improvements are of some use in this life but will be no use when you encounter your Creator and have to carry the weight of your sins before him. Heaven wheels above you, displaying to you her eternal glories, and still your eyes are on the ground.
Buddhism discounts and ignores the fate of the soul, and so its "seeming" pragmatism is simply that, a seeming, a fleeting vapor.

>>10145654
the who made God? did God made himself? lol come on you pseud

>using the watchmaker argument

kek

>>10145654
Do you think that one day, you will be able to stop interpreting what you experience through convoluted concepts that you learnt from strangers, and just use simple words for what you experienced and staying down to earth?

>>10145677
>who made the unmakeable? who made that which has no beginning and no end?

if you believe in causality and you see some design in the world then the concept of an ultimate cause, a first cause, a designer should not be too alien to your thought, but should actually be very agreeable.

>>10145736
>convoluted concepts that you learnt from strangers

which words are confusing to you?
finite, harmony and contingent (dependent) are confusing to you? Pragmatism? Heaven? Creator?

>>10145654
Did you manage to eradicate your desire to masturbate or sex?

>>10145654
As if the the notion of creating or generating is a good one. Rationalists always think that whatever idea pop up in their mind is relevant and that somehow it is smart to slap their ideas on sensual experience. What an embarrassing method.

Abandon thread

>>10130268
>life of poverty
>begs enough protein to be gigantic

Something is fishy in Kuala Lumpur

I don't understand Western Secular Buddhism, how can you read any of the crazy shit in the pali canon and go "he was speaking in metaphors"?

Nothing

>>10145754
>if you believe in causality and you see some design in the world then the concept of an ultimate cause, a first cause, a designer should not be too alien to your thought, but should actually be very agreeable.

First cause and designer aren't same thing you stinking pseud, the big bang was the first cause because there was no such thing as causality before it. Heck there was no space-time before the big bang, so that the dimension to which causality can occur is lacking and God can't have possibly caused anything.

>inb4 god is not bound to time and space

I dare you to make this claim

>>10146028
they don't read the pali, they read modern, western buddhism books and websites that filter everything for them in a way that is palatable to secular, fedoras who worship scientism.

>>10146094
>First cause and designer aren't same thing you stinking pseud

I didn't say they are the same by definition. What I meant was that they go together, a first cause follows by logic otherwise you get an infinite regress and other problems, and 'designer' follows by observation of the world and life its intricacies, harmony and complexity so first cause and designer are actually one and the same, but by different reasons.

>the big bang was the first cause because there was no such thing as causality before it.

the big bang is just the earliest hypothesized space-time frame our physics hypothesizes about, it isn't a "first cause" it's more of a a first-effect, or earliest effect, within our reference frame. Whatever condition made the big bang possible would have to be outside time-and-space, by definition.
If it was not outside time and space then the big bang would be impossible. So the big bang really implies a transcended dimension actually, which isn't surprising since a catholic priest came up with the idea.

Oh great the christcucks showed up, I knew something didn't smell right

I repeat. Abandon thread.

>>10129995
m'lady

>>10145267
>You can't change this fact about Buddhist metaphysics.
I never claimed you wouldn't be reborn for being agnostic on the question. That still doesn't make a "I don't have to" into a "no". I'm not talking about metaphysics here.

>I never made this assumption at all.
But you're still working on the assumption that there is "a house" which can be defended from the laws of nature. Which, besides the metaphysical problem, is ridiculous because if you could defend from them, from outside them, they wouldn't be the laws of reality; as if there were somehow two essences in this world, as if there were dead and alive things that had no relation to one another.

>but the exception doesn't prove the rule.
Sure it does. Most people couldn't read. Now it's common place.

>The Buddha would say that within all realms of life other than nirvana
Nirvana isn't something separate from samsara.

>even though I've given you an idea of what a non-defeatist argument would look like in buddhism
I've honestly failed to detect it.

>it's overall philosophy is life-denying
I have to repeat again that I can't wrap my head about how something in life can be life-denying. If life is this certain existence then there could be no way for me to deny it. I think you're simply taking pulling in a different direction as not pulling. To me something "dead" is not less "life" than something alive.

>>10146028
Secular Buddhism is a dumb meme. Serious practitioners from the West are neo-traditionalist and if they don't believe something they just don't believe it. What they find valuable, and what they plainly see in their own state, isn't at all predicated on the more fantastical claims.

>>10145202
Buddhism doesn't "deny the ego" nor is it "in favor of the universe". Nietzsche had access to little Buddhist material and understandably worst scholarship. He really had very little idea what Buddhism was about.

>>10145415
Sounds like you are trying to convince yourself.

>>10145503
Proper mantra has nothing to do with trances or being in any "other worldly" state.

>>10146000
The early texts explicitly depict the Buddha as saying that when he passes they are welcome to relax the vinaya in accordance with what they see as necessary. The vinaya was largely there to begin with because the Buddha was concerned with branding their oral tradition properly and would have to make up rules as they went along because of misbehaving monks.

The shitty Sthaviras tried to add a bunch of things to the vinaya (this vinaya is the one that makes it in the modern Pali Canon reconstruction) which is why there was a major schism.

>>10129988
Top tier post

If the buddha did not believe in reincarnation, then would he have just killed himself?

for example: 2 noble truths

1. life is suffering
2. so kys

It always striked me that the buddha was just a guy who wanted to die but thought it pointless because he believed in samsara, right? if you suicidde you just go to the hungry ghost realm or some shit.

so buddhism is just a cosmic suicide method

and what is so bad about samsara anyway you little pussy bitch? harden the fuck up waa waa waa I'm gonna get old and die one day I better do mind autism bullshit for my entire life so it NEVER happens again waa waa ablooo ablooo

buddhism = cuck yourself out of life nihilist death cult for chink slant LOSERS

>>10148009
Parinirvana isn't annihilation you retard. Oppenheimer of all people put it pretty well:
"If we ask, for instance, whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say 'no;' if we ask whether the electron's position changes with time, we must say 'no;' if we ask whether the electron is at rest, we must say 'no;' if we ask whether it is in motion, we must say 'no.' The Buddha has given such answers when interrogated as to the conditions of man's self after his death; but they are not familiar answers for the tradition of seventeenth and eighteenth-century science"

>>10148009
>It always striked me that the buddha was just a guy who wanted to die
In the Pali Canon it depicts the Buddha before he died saying he enjoys this place and could imagine enjoying another hundred years of life here.

>>10148009
(You)

>>10148009
>this is the education level of the average /pol/ user
If you achieve nirvana you can kill yourself with no issue. Suttas actually talk about this monk who had some severe medical condition and took his own life after nirvana. The Buddha signed off on it as non-problematic. The Buddha himself lived and taught after nirvana for 40 years, so if he wanted to kill himself he could have just done it.

>>10129624
The best religion out there. Honestly preaches peace and love and how to make yourself better. One day we will all leave from this world and we will take nothing with us, so why do we hold on to the things in this world if they do not come with us to the next world?
If there was more Buddhism the world would be a better place,

>>10148188
>>>10129624 (OP)
>One day we will all leave from this world and we will take nothing with us, so why do we hold on to the things in this world if they do not come with us to the next world?
Everyone know that idiot, that why we hold thing here and now.

ITT: people who don't understand Buddhism make uninformed criticisms of it which any Buddhist could best respond to only by laughing

other people are overly enthusiastic about it while still not understanding it totally

>>10129624
Cheap nihilism.

>>10148477
But you understand it totally right anon?

>>10142752
If you have a decent background in western philosophy and want to understand Buddhist ideas in terms of western philosophical terms, read Buddhism as Philosophy by Mark Siderits

>>10148477
By this thread alone it seems not even Buddha knows what's up

>>10150185
It should be noted that while Siderits is a respected scholar some of his positions in that book are heavily criticized by people like Westerhoff, Komarovski and Lang.

My issue with him is how clunky and strained his translations are.

>>10150613
Well he is depicted as basically saying he is holding the majority of what he knows back, and that he in particular is just focusing on describing a straightforward path to end existential lack. Considering it was an oral tradition this was probably the best strategic move to maintaining fidelity of what he was most interested in relaying.

It is unclear how deep his wisdom actually went. That said if we are basing it solely on what he offered then no that particular nirmanakaya has been surpassed by other realized panditas and yogis in certain respects, however he started the wheel turning and they all stood on his shoulders to do so.

>>10150185
Nah, I'm really looking for buddhism as described and practiced by buddhists, while trying to avoid any watered down perspective of it. Maybe I'll read that book later, after I've built up a bit more basic knowledge about it.

>>10151588
>while trying to avoid any watered down perspective of it.

Then 100% start with http://webdelprofesor.ula.ve/humanidades/elicap/en/uploads/Biblioteca/bdz-e.version.pdf

It isn't watered down at all and is written by someone with legitimate retreat time (over 6 years) with some of the great Buddhist masters of our time.

>>10153092
Appreciate it.

>>10153092
Trying to download this but its stuck at 0%. What is the books title? Maybe i can find it somewhere else

>>10154007
Nvm i figured it out.
http://dharmadata.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11:dzogchen&catid=17&lang=en&Itemid=122

>>10154017
Try the original link again, it is back up, he has substantially revised the draft since the one you found (that one is a couple of drafts ago).

http://webdelprofesor.ula.ve/humanidades/elicap/en/uploads/Biblioteca/bdz-e.version.pdf

>>10154496
To highlight this, one of the older drafts of that work is almost three hundred pages fewer than the latest draft.

>>10154496
There's a version in Spanish in his web, and since Capriles is Venezuelan I was thinking that might be closer to his original thoughts, but, is the English version more complete?

>>10154727
The english version appears to be the most recent edition.