/lit/ - Literature

>>14723752
>How do Buddhists cope
With the fact that a complete logical system isn't the point?

>>14723759
Yes, but if the official doctrine which is supposed to correspond to the actual truth of things is completely logically incoherent and doesn't make any sense, then that's a good hint that it's not true, is it not?

>>14723752
Buddhism is what Greek sophistry would've become if there was no Socrates

WARNING! WARNING! Guenonfag is now in "spamming the board with Guenon/Eastern Thought threads" phase!

Guenonfag meltdown is underway!

>>14723796
kek

>>14723752
The same way Roman Catholics cope with Mormons.

>>14723939
But the difference is that there is no older Buddhist tradition which survives to this day which can discount the later ones like Roman Catholicism does with mormons, protestants etc The Buddhist schools whose ideas are refuted in that picture are the Buddhist equivalents of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, they are the earliest schools to try to formulate/systematize Buddhist teachings. Roman Catholics can say "yeah well the later stuff is nonsense which is okay because we are the unbroken tradition from the time of Christ" but from the very beginning of Buddhism all the schools had completely incoherent ideas.

>>14723752
What is the position of /lit/ Buddhists on these criticisms of Buddhist ideas/logic?

>>14724081
Reminder that you once asked this same question by posting this:

>>It's been 24 hours and none of you ming-mongs have replied to this. All the more embarrassing considering YoU CaN't HaVe Up WiThOuT dOwN mY dUdEz loooooollzzlz lmafaooo :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!1!111! was intended to be the epic GOTCHA retort. Writhing animals.

>>14723752
Depends on whose cristicisng it. Joe from New York will be taken less seriously than Guru Shakter from Tibet.

>>14723993
The same way that Catholics cope with Catholicism.

>>14723752
Please stop talking about Buddhism. Poo philosophy should not shit up a white board.

>>14724145
>poo

HURRRRR DURRRRR so fahnny racism! India invented all philosophies a thousand years before the Greeks even learned to read.

>>14724107
the criticisms of Yogachara and Sarvastivada on the left were made by one of the foremost Hindu philosophers while the criticism of Madhyamaka on the right was made by one of the foremost western scholars of Buddhism, so I think that's a good enough reason to consider them

>>14724101
>checking the archive (on moe incidentally since the warosu jannies have not finished sucking dicks yet)
>you haven't stopped pasting this

Idiot.

>>14724169
>It's been 24 hours and none of you ming-mongs have replied to this. All the more embarrassing considering YoU CaN't HaVe Up WiThOuT dOwN mY dUdEz loooooollzzlz lmafaooo :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!1!111! was intended to be the epic GOTCHA retort. Writhing animals.

Explain to us what you were thinking when you wrote this. How old are you?

>>14723772
three pounds of flax, anon

>>14724172

That you are an idiot, and I will continue to think so until you answer.

>>14724172
Made me chuckle

>>14724145

White people are boring

>>14724177
>muh zen koan excuses the fact that Buddhist philosophy including the schools that form the foundation of Zen are completely nonsensical and logically inconsistent
>dude just like ignore logic and turn off your brain lmfao
>these dumb Christians believing in a nonsensical bible though lmao, not like us sophisticated buddhists

>>14724282
>dude just like ignore logic and turn off your brain mY dUdEz loooooollzzlz lmafaooo :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!1!111!

Fixed your post for you Guenonfag.

>>14723752
Finite men have a hard time understanding the infinite wisdom. Like a secret, if the answers are told straight to you then they will no longer be. Like the koan, there is great and infinite truth in contradictions. Sorry you are too feeble minded to understand. They talk simply of nothing and everything

>>14724329
what basis is there for thinking there is infinite wisdom in Buddhism if the schools debunked in OP's picture form the basis of most Buddhist thought?

>>14724282
fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord

>>14724385
They believe what they do, it is their path and there is no wrong path. It is infinite wisdom from a wellspring of possibility. There is only a misunderstanding of what is really meant with what is said. The answers given are not direct, you must do your own homework. Like the Tao, what buddha speaks of cannot be said. Read the flower sermon, then do a big thinky. Then read max Stirner you fucking plebeian because whether he intended or not he is also a buddha

>>14724385
buddhist philosophy is not buddhism, but buddhists intellectuals have a hard time accepting this.

>>14723752
https://discord.gg/hCjX58e

>>14724156
>>14724235
Buddhism is unironically a religion that only white people can practice accodding to Gautama Buddha

>>14723796
Wew

>>14724658
no actually he was preaching to all the low caste brown people and agitating against the caste system, he was the SJW of ancient india

>>14724169

Actually, I just noticed warosu is finally back. Serendipitous, considering it got fucked up on the very day I noticed you were pasting that shit:

>>>/lit/thread/S14437315#p14444974

>>14724805
just answer the question for fuck's sake guenonfag

why would you ever post this
>It's been 24 hours and none of you ming-mongs have replied to this. All the more embarrassing considering YoU CaN't HaVe Up WiThOuT dOwN mY dUdEz loooooollzzlz lmafaooo :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!1!111! was intended to be the epic GOTCHA retort. Writhing animals.

So many walls of fucking text from random Internet spergs. I just can't motivate myself to read any of it.

>>14724819
The only one you'll ever need m8

>>14724140
kek

>>14723752
If you think Buddhism is illogical wait till you learn about Western religions.

>>14724235
Which white country are you currently squatting in?

>>14724819
this thread isn't actually about buddhism, it's two schizoposters fighting each other

>>14724911
>two posters
cope, guenon is one of the most popular memes on this board

>>14724911
I actually wanted to have a serious discussion but the one schizo poster wants to make the discussion about guenonfag to avoid addressing the points made in the pic posted by OP, as usual

>>14725153
>"refute" my insanity and bad faith arguing
>while i samefag and say "based" to myself
>and post shit like "No one has refuted me!! It's been 24 hours and none of you ming-mongs have replied to this. All the more embarrassing considering YoU CaN't HaVe Up WiThOuT dOwN mY dUdEz loooooollzzlz lmafaooo :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!1!111! was intended to be the epic GOTCHA retort. Writhing animals."
>for literally 3-5 years

people have tried talking to you in recent threads too and you just repeat "REFUTE ME" and post crazy shit

i'm sure all of these posts:
>>/lit/image/fG9nvXFvjBzGFskbe5usYg
resulted in lots of "serious discussions"

>>14725230
Again, I already admitted to being Guenonfag with the file name of OP's post, now I'm here for a serious discussion of the coherency or lack thereof viz buddhist philosophy and you're the one dodging the discussion, if you don't have a response it's okay to just say so, you don't have to keep engaging in smokescreen attempts

>>14723772
>but if the official doctrine
the official doctrine was divided into 35 schools, and the original teachings were lost in history. Not engaging anymore as this is a guenon bait thread. Remember to sage people

>>14723752
bump

>>14725300
I'm talking about Buddhism as it has been practiced throughout history though, does the fact that they lost the original teachings make the later schools immune from criticism?

>>14726168
so you really do use new IPs to bump your own retarded threads. Thanks for the confirmation. How you aren't permabanned is beyond me. Did you blackmail hiromoot or what?

>>14726185
calm down, I'm just trying to have a discussion about Buddhist philosophy, is that too much for you to handle without throwing a tantrum?

Read GEB

>>14726235
>calm down, I'm just trying to have a discussion about Buddhist philosophy
no you are not, you are spamming this board and i won't continue to take your bait. Fuck you

>>14726241
whats that?

>>14723752
I'm not reading a tl;dr barely viewable image on my phone. Condense it and I will tell you why it's wrong.

>>14726254
I am, I want to know why and how all the early schools to attempt a systematic formulation of Buddhism could have all made such glaring errors, and what the implications of this are for Buddhism, and what this means about what he originally taught

>>14724282
The Bible is objectively not truthful no matter how hard you cry.

>>14726276
You can go and read the /lit/ thread where those posts were made by entering the post number on warosu and reading the original posts, or you can open the image in a new tab and zoom in

>>14724465
The portion the materialists take from Buddhism is also a part of the religion though not the full idea.

>>14726267
Godel Escher Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
One of those books that is called "transdisciplinary" when really it's about a few core very abstract ideas that the book has to help you develop through example, through both theory and art
One of the primary focuses is Godel's incompleteness theorems and their implications, partly explored through an explanation of Zen buddhist thought, particularly the notion of the "Mu" answer ("not have/without") and the practice of reading paradoxical koans to open oneself up to enlightenment

>>14726168
>Buddhism is wrong because of this this this. Never mind what the original beliefs were.

Like criticizing all christianity because of mormons.

>>14726288
I'm not reading any more of your schizo ramblings. Quote an actual serious academic on Buddhism and not that nobody moron Guenon.

>>14726303
false analogy, it would be more like criticizing it on the basis of Catholicism, and Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, part of the issue is that every early attempt to make sense of the Pali canon by Buddhist thinkers resulted in incoherent ideas and logic being propagated, not for lack of trying though, all the Buddhist thinkers who were doing this extensively studied and referenced the Pali Canon. If an exhaustive study of the Pali Canon by people who devote their lives to doing so and practicing Buddhist teachings cannot produce a coherent formulation of Buddhism, then what does that say about the original teachings?

>>14726309
>Quote an actual serious academic on Buddhism and not that nobody moron Guenon.
That's what this is anon, it's time to face the music. In the picture posted at the top of this thread on the right side is a critique of Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka by Richard Robinson, one of the most important and influential western scholars of Buddhism. And on the left side is a summary of the critiques of Sarvastivada and Yogachara by the important Hindu philosopher Shankaracharya, summarized by the Indian academic Chandradhar Sharma.

>>14723752
it's over for Guenonfag on /lit/. time to make his way to /fit/, hit the gym, and come up with a new worldview

>>14726851
This is all he has in life. He'll never stop posting these threads. Spamming /lit/ is probably stopping him from killing people.

>>14726880
he is mentally ill. probably a shitskin arab trying to dupe chad whites into becoming a mudslime

>>14726361
Robinson was already refuted, get over it.

>>14723752
>How do Buddhists cope with
I don't know they seem to be doing just fine

>>14726961
that image says modern scholars like Siderits and Huntington affirm the logic he uses to refute nagarjuna, I see no refutation of Robinson in that image

>>14727176
>new IP again
lol

>>14727123
this

>>14727203
>>14727123
>nice temples means the philosophy being garbage is okay
just further proof that western buddhists are closeted materialists

>>14727203
>>14727123
Cringe! Buddhism simply can't contend with Shankara's pure logic

>The Chandoga Upanishad coincidentally says that one must do everything Mahayana Buddhism prescribes, except also shit on the floor.
- Adi Shankara

>>14727246
you said how do they cope with an 'inconsistent' philosophy, again they seem to be doing just fine. Not their fault Shankara's legacy isn't as influential.

>>14724081
They have all been answered. Guenonfag is not interested in debate which is why all he ever does is to post the same images and never ever formulating his own arguments.

Buddhists aren't autistic enough to print screen their own posts and repost them over and over again.

>>14727289
No, actually no Buddhist on /lit/ has ever tries to rebute any of these criticisms of Buddhism

>>14724235
Ok spic nigger go back to your hut

>>14727309
They have. You need help.

>>14727309
>>/lit/image/fG9nvXFvjBzGFskbe5usYg

bro you need to get help

Dude what drives this behavior? You keep spamming same shit again and again, claiming that they haven't been answered. But they have, but you either ignore rebuttals given to you, or give rehashed answer or screencap that has been btfo'd earlier. Don't you have anything else to do with your life than spam some mongolian scrabble forum?

https://discord.gg/FFwRXKq

the only good thing about buddhism is it teaches you good meditation techniques. discard everything else and throw it in the trash

>>14723752
>How do Buddhists cope
by Being

How come nobody in this thread can refute his criticisms of Buddhism?
I dont even like Guenonfag, but it seems like nobody can refute what he has been saying about Buddhism, I am white, but I might consider converting to Hinduism or Islam soon, it seems like the most logical course of action to take. Most white people cant debate for shit

>>14728389
Another Westernised Atheist Materialist "Buddhist" I see. Why do you bother desperately clinging on to eastern Slave Moralist systems to fill the void caused by the collapse of Christianity?

Just read Nietzsche and unspook yourself. Meditation does nothing.

>>14728602
>Another Westernised Atheist Materialist "Buddhist" I see

>>14728599
t. guenonfag

>>14728612
Read theory brainlet. Meditation does literally nothing, unspook yourself

>>14728615
Not Guenonfag, im a white European who genuinely is looking for a defense of Buddhism, but it seems like Hinduism is the best option now to save my Nation from modernist degeneracy

>>14728619
>it seems like Hinduism is the best option now to save my Nation from modernist degeneracy

>>14728619
ah yes Hinduism will save us!

savage Europeans can learn much from these noble sages!

>>14728623
>>14728635
>>14728636
Ok I take that back, I guess we don't need Hinduism after all. I suppose Guenonfag's criticisms of Buddhism really just amounts to grandstanding. Or perhaps Sunni Islam is the answer?

>>14724748
There's levels tohow dumb this is

>>14728389
Based.

>>14728617
Meditation develops ultimate concentration that can be used to read theory.

.

>>14723752
>Read the Buddha of Babylon
Dravidian backflow introduced interesting schismatic effects. There are linguistic arguments for the attribution of the Dao to the Buddha, coming from old Chinese.

>>14723772
>this is your mind on western "philosophy"

>>14727405
That's not true, stop lying, I have never seen any argument ever posted saying anything in the picture is wrong. Instead of insisting that they have been why dont you just post one (1) argument disputing anything in the picture

>>14728876
You do this every single thread. You copy paste other people’s work, ask others to ‘refute’ it and when you get a reply you blabber on and post long walls of texts without much substance expecting people to engage with your shitposts. After that you claim victory and make a new thread saying ‘I have never seen this being refuted please gib argument’. Just a few days ago you literally had to spend 14 hours just to put together a retort because you couldn’t handle not getting the last word in an anime forum (you had to keep bumping it even just to stall the thread and made excuses like you had ‘work’ even though you ended up posting them within 1 minute of each other).

You seriously need professional help.

>>14728876
You do this every single thread. You copy paste other people’s work, ask others to ‘refute’ it and when you get a reply you blabber on and post long walls of texts without much substance expecting people to engage with your shitposts. After that you claim victory and make a new thread saying ‘I have never seen this being refuted please gib argument’. Just a few days ago you literally had to spend 14 hours just to put together a retort because you couldn’t handle not getting the last word in an anime forum (you had to keep bumping it even just to stall the thread and made excuses like you had ‘work’ even though you ended up posting them within 1 minute of each other).

You seriously need professional help.

>>14728623
>pictured: Rene Guenon with his disciple Julius Evola bowing before him

>>14728636
Looks like fun.

>>14729120
The key difference is I openly said "This is wrong but it's a lot of information, give me some time to write up a reply" and was transparent about it, whereas the buddhists in this thread are just posturing and saying its been debunked or responded to but without actually saying how or why or posting anything.

>>14729217
They respond but you ignore it or play dumb.

>>14729337
Will you show me where such responses have been made then? Because I have seen no responses actually defending the ideas of those schools in light of the criticisms made, only people saying "well that's not original Buddhism"

>>14729217
you just keep repeating that your opponent is incorrect, i have never seen you have a fruitful dialog with anyone. although i have seen people try their best to meet you halfway, and you straight up lie about what they said and distort it etc.

echoing the "get help" sentiment, it's clear you have some kind of monomania mixed with severe autism. seriously dude, at least consider that the problem might be partly you

>>14723752
where are the quotes on the left from?

>>14728617
Meditation leads to higher states of consciousness

>>14729573
The book "The Advaita Tradition in Indian Philosophy" by Chandradhar Sharma

https://archive.org/details/TheAdvaitaTraditionInIndianPhilosophyChandradharSharma

>>14726361
>In the picture posted at the top of this thread on the right side is a critique of Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka by Richard Robinson, one of the most important and influential western scholars of Buddhism
OH NO NO NO GUESS WHAT ROBINSON ALSO HAD TO SAY OF ADVAITA

>Buddhist Religion, A Historical Introduction (Robinson, Johnson 1970)

>Specific Buddhist groups had also had an effect. The Advaita Vedanta school founded by Gauqapada and Sankara in the sixth and seventh centuries applied Yogacara ideas to the interpretation of Vedic texts
Buddhist Religion, A Historical Introduction (Robinson, Johnson 1970)

>>14729886
oh shit guenonbros, we got too cocky!

I knew we shouldn't have trusted a Buddhist!

>>14729886
>The demise of the Sangha, however, did not mean that Buddhist doctrines disappeared from India without trace.
>The Buddhist doctrine of harmlessness had inspired the brahmins to do the Buddhists one better by becoming vegetarians
>The Buddhist ideal of the renunciate life had been incorporated into the Hindu life cycle as the fourth and final stage of life
>In a more pervasive manner, the Buddhist notion of karma as a moral rather than a ritual force had permeated Indian thought, as had the notion of Dharma as rectitude of the mind rather than Vedic orthopraxy
>The measure of how quietly pervasive these Buddhist ideas became in Indian society is indicated by what happened when the Asokan edicts were deciphered and translated in the nineteenth century. According to many Indians, there was nothing particularly Buddhist about Asoka's message, for it conveyed what they regarded as the basic ideals of Indian morality as a whole. Perhaps the best symbol of the continuing Buddhist influence on Indian life is the Dharma wheel that the Indians placed in the middle of their flag on gaining independence from the British. It was the only symbol that all segments of Indian society would accept as a sign of what united them.

>>14723752
bump

>>14723752
Indians are retarded and the Chinese and Japanese rescued Buddhism

and whether the system is illogical or not, if the only thing you take from buddhism is accepting the impermanence of self, life and reality then it did a good job

>>14729886
Robinson is wrong there. That is a common mistake that researchers of Buddhism make who have not studied Advaita closely, they assume that because the idealism of Yogachara predates Shankara that therefore Shankara uses Yogachara ideas or was influenced by Yogachara. The truth is that the idealism of the Upanishads predates both Yogachara and Buddhism, and it is from there that Shankara derives his absolute idealism from. Shankara in fact in his works closely analyzes Yogachara ideas and criticizes them extensively while carefully distinguishing them from his own Upanishadic idealism. The only way that someone could make the mistake of thinking that Shankara applies a Yogachara analysis is if they hadn't read through his works and seen how he criticizes Yogachara and explains how his own ideas are different. On the left side of the picture in OP's post is Shankara's extensive criticisms of Yogachara, in light of them it makes no sense whatsoever to say he applied a Yogachara analysis. Robinson was only a specialist on Buddhism and not Hindu philosophy and thus isn't as fully qualified to make statements on Hindu philosophy as people who specialize in it. The academic Chandradhar Sharma, who specialized in both Madhyamaka and Advaita and who is hence fully qualified to comment on both Buddhist and Hindu philosophy rightfully writes the following in his book distinguishing Yogachara and Advaita:

>"Shankara believes in epistemic realism and ontological idealism. He is equally opposed to subjective idealism (like Yogachara) and ontological realism. For him, the empirical reality of this world of subject-object duality cannot be denied nor can its ultimate reality be upheld. The world is empirically real and transcendentally unreal. It would be absurd to suppose that Shankara, while criticising Buddhist idealism, compromises with his own idealism or becomes a realist or uses the arguments of realism in which he himself does not believe. Shankara accepts and defends only epistemic realism as it is not incompatible with his absolute idealism."

I accept Robinson's refutation of Nagarjuna's logic because that is a field he specialized in and hence was qualified to comment on but reject his comments on Advaita, Robinson is out of his depth there and scholars who specialize in Hindu philosophy like Sharma are more qualified to comment on that subject.

>>14729454
All I'm looking for is a response to the criticisms of Buddhist philosophy posted in OP's pic, I don't know why you are so obsessed with making personal attacks on me. It is ridiculous and absurd that you are rudely making all sorts of unsubstantiated attacks my character while I've been the one respectfully asking if people can provide a response. If you don't have any response or anything to say about these criticisms of Buddhism then just say so, but you make your fellow Buddhists look bad when you launch personal attack after personal attack while refusing to provide any responses to the criticisms of Buddhism that have been advanced in this thread. I find it amusing that the people who are the most willing at a moments notice to launch all sorts of vicious ad-hominem attacks are those who are into a religious philosophy which preaches truthfulness and compassion for everyone, if anything I've been the paragon of Buddhist virtues in this thread while you've been acting in ways that any proper Buddhist should be ashamed of.

>>14730987
Sharma is a an advaitin crank who advocates the completely non-scholarly, purely religious position that the philosophy of the Upanishads is Advaita. Nobody agrees with this. He's a neovedantist from mid-century India, of course he thinks Advaita is the philosophy of the Upanishads. Pic related has a review of him and similar neovedantists in it.

But even Sharma states repeatedly that Mahayana "developed" the "seed" of the Upanishads:
>Prof. Bhattacharya rightly observes that the Upanisadic seed of idealism developed by Buddhist teachers who flourished before Gaudapada has influenced him

>[Gaudapada] discovered that these similarities were due to the fact that Buddha himself had partly assimilated the Upanisadic teachings, which were, later on, developed in the Mahayana schools of Madhyamika and Vijnanavada.

>The dialectical method though developed in the Mádhyamika school did not originate with it or even with Buddha. Its origin is found in the Upanisads and its first exponent is the sage Yajñavalkya.2 The doctrinal similarities, as pointed out by Gaudapada himself,are due to the fact that Buddha himself took these doctrines from the Upanisads and these were developed in the Maháyána schools.

>The Hinayana schools missed Buddha’s advaitavada and elaborated a metaphysics of radical pluralism. The inner contradictions in their metaphysics led to the rise of the Mahayana schools of Madhyamika and Vijnanavada. The Madhyamika is the most faithful representative of Buddha. All the important aspects of Buddha’s advaitavada indicated above have been faithfully and systematically developed by the Madhyamika in his philosophy.

Even while trying to superimpose his completely non-scholarly religious opinion, that the Upanishads somehow always already contained Mahayana-like nondualism, he still admits that Mahayana "developed" and "elaborated" the "seeds" contained in the Upanishads, including dialectical method. So it's good to know you think he's a reliable authority.

>>14731229
No one is obsessed with making personal attacks on you. People are rather sincerely telling you to get some help. This is unhealthy behavior:
>>/lit/image/fG9nvXFvjBzGFskbe5usYg

As is this:
>It's been 24 hours and none of you ming-mongs have replied to this. All the more embarrassing considering YoU CaN't HaVe Up WiThOuT dOwN mY dUdEz loooooollzzlz lmafaooo :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!1!111! was intended to be the epic GOTCHA retort. Writhing animals.

Even by 4chan autism standards this is bad. You are arguing with phantom enemies on an anonymous image board. You will be here in ten years still thinking you're having a "debate with Buddhists." I'm not even a Buddhist, I probably agree more with you than with them on various issues. But they are generally the ones trying to have good faith conversations with you, while you simply declare the infallibility of your religious interpretations and argue by pasting Wikipedia blurbs. Or as another anon said, posting scholarship when it suits you but saying scholars are all atheistic plebs when the scholarship disagrees with you (as it does, since it universally declares Advaita to be massively influenced by Mahayana).

>>14728858
Considering the only reason you're able to type that shit is because of western advancements I'd say western philosophy and western thought is superior. Its so annoying seeing thirdworlders think their statues and backwards culture with no logical foundation is anything to be proud of or respected, while they type on a computer using the internet build by the west to tell westerners they suck, turn off your computer and blow me.

>>14731344
Sharma is not a crank, you are just saying that because you don't like his opinions, he is a respected mainstream scholar. He is right to say that the Mahayana further developed absolutist ideas that originated from the Upanishads, because this is where Buddha got them from and then the Mahayana further elaborated on them, Shankara did not take them from Mahayana but got them directly from the source that Buddha got them from. There isn't any fundamentally original idea or teaching in the Buddhist Pali Canon that isn't already in the pre-Buddhist Upanishads and Vedas.

>>14731727
>Sharma is not a crank
He is a neovedantist who claims that Advaita is the original philosophy of the Upanishads. This is a very dated, very politically laden, but very common stance among semi-scholarly Indians between about 1890 and 1970. The privileging of the Advaita tradition was already waning by the late 19th century in Europe. Most European scholars of that time read the Upanishads as perhaps monist in tendency, but certainly not nondualist. By midcentury, certainly, mainstream scholarship was well aware of the massive influence of Mahayana on Gaudapada and Shankara.

Actually you should see this as a credit to your countrymen, since Indian philosophers had been well aware of Mahayana's influence on Advaita since the beginning. As the image spells out, the initial reaction of most Hindus was that Shankara had just taken up Mahayana Buddhism (not just its ideas but its customs as well) and added Upanishadic atman at the end.

Sharma is in an extreme minority of doctrinaire Advaitins who impose their personal religious view on the Upanishads, a small minority view in India I might add. Radhakrishnan, also cited in that image, is a similarly "Advaiticizing" figure. Because of his fame and the widespread use of his sourcebooks, he's still read these days somewhat, but always with the caveat that he is a reductivist and represents a neovedantist position that nobody believes other than religious neovedantists.

> Shankara did not take them from Mahayana ... There isn't any fundamentally original idea or teaching in the Buddhist Pali Canon that isn't already in the pre-Buddhist Upanishads and Vedas.
As long as you understand that this is your personal religious stance and that you are in a tiny minority, even among Hindus, nobody cares if you believe this. But simply repeating it ad nauseam doesn't mean anything to anyone but yourself.

>>14731775
>He is a neovedantist
No he isn't, where is your proof that he is a Neovedantist? Neovedanta differs in a lot of ways from Advaita and in his books he just writes about traditional Advaita and ignores neovedanta. The influence of Mahayana or the lack of alleged influence is a debated topic that there is no consensus on. Mahadeva's book on Gaudapada, Michael Comans book on Advaita/Gaudapada and in Sharma's book they all deny the claim that Gaudapada or Shankara took any doctrines from Buddhism but say rather that their ideas are rooted in the Upanishads, only one or two of them says that the Buddhist arguments they were evaluating and refuting influenced them to formulate their arguments in certain way, but not that they obtained any doctrine from Buddhism that wasn't already in the Upanishads.

>As long as you understand that this is your personal religious stance and that you are in a tiny minority,
It's not just me. Coomaraswamy shows this in his books and essays, Ken Wheeler has essays talking about this as well. The Buddhist scholar Carolne Rhys Davids wrote about this also, as did the Polish scholar Stanislaw Schayer.

>>14732135
>The influence of Mahayana or the lack of alleged influence is a debated topic that there is no consensus on.
See picture here >>14731344

There is as much consensus as there possibly can be. Not even advaitins deny it, they just dodge the issue by saying that Mahayana was expressing what was already in the Upanishads. This is what Sharma himself does.

People can make up their own minds about the consensus on this issue. I'm not trying to convince you because I am fully aware you could never be convinced.

>>14732153
>See picture here
Yes, it's a self-serving picture which only cites sources which agree with you while ignoring all the evidence to the contrary in the three books I just named. None of them dodge anything but they cite the Upanishad verses in their books showing that those ideas are Upanishadic in origin.

>>14732166
As I said, anyone interested can decide for themselves whether the sources cited are biased or not. You're citing perennialists and a fucking Youtuber. The image cites pro-Advaita sources, including Sharma (who you just said is reliable) and the second president of India, one of the more famous Advaita advocates.

Your manipulative bullshit only works when people think they're going to get a fair discussion out of you. Where did it get you? People have learned to simply state the facts and ignore your BS tactics. You ruined your own hopes of having decent discussions here with your terrible behavior.

>>14732187
Radnakrishnana himself is a Neovedantist and so acvording to you he is not impartial anyway, there are two different scholars of Hinduism named Sharma, Chandradhar Sharma in his book on the Advaita Tradition denies that Advaita obtained any doctrine from Buddhism and maintains that Gaudapda and Shankara only got their doctrines from the Upanishads. It is you who come off as an unhinged schizo and make buddhists look bad with your constant stream of bizarre personal attacks.

>>14732259
Chandradhar Sharma is cited in the image. It's apparent you didn't even read it. He was also cited above. It's like your fucking brain resets after every three minutes and you just go back to your default talking points.

I am not a Buddhist. Like (it seems to me) many others, I just got tired of seeing you be a horrible prick to people. For the last time, get help.

>>14728599
Guenonfag is you convert you might then have a moral standard to realize what you're doing is wrong.

>>14730987
>I accept Robinson's refutation of Nagarjuna's logic because that is a field he specialized in and hence was qualified to comment on........Robinson is out of his depth there
that isn't actually what he 'specializes' in, he just wrote a 7 page piece regarding the method of refutation Madhyamika (and subsequent schools). He specializes in early Indian philosophy (and Chinese philosophy) and has written about Shankara too (pic related) which suggests that he was well familiar with his work. So you're suggestion that he's out of depth in some areas simply does not hold.

You are just cherry picking sections of sources that suit you.

>>14732471
method of refutation Madhyamika employs* I should say

>>14732471
>robinson's very first footnote is karl potter, the first author from >>14731344 who says categorically that the upanishads weren't advaita

lmao

>>14732262
>Chandradhar Sharma is cited in the image. It's apparent you didn't even read it.
I did read it, you try to discredit him to avoid addressing any of the arguments and evidence he writes about by accusing him of holding the position of 'religious advaitins' for saying that the Upanishads already contained the views of 'religious advaitins'. But Sharma is not the first scholar to hold this view but in fact this is a fairly common view among scholars including non-Hindu scholars who've studied this historically. For example Andrew Nicholson in his recent book 'Unifying Hinduism' accuses the influential Indologist Paul Deussen of being a "Advaita apologist" (pg. 25) for saying that he thought that the Upanishads were consistently Advaitin in their ideas and themes. And in (page 6) of the recent book 'Religion for a Secular Age' by Green, the author points out that one of the other most important early Indologists Max Muller also believed that Shankara's interpretation of the Upanishads was the most accurate one that best reflected their ideas. Guenon and Coomaraswamy both read Shankara extensively in Sanskrit and held this view as well

>I am not a Buddhist. Like (it seems to me) many others, I just got tired of seeing you be a horrible prick to people.
It's ironic and amusing that you would accuse me of being a horrible prick to people when you have let loose a constant stream of unhinged personal attacks on me while I have refrained from personally attacking you and have just addressed the subject at hand

>>14732723
Like I said, as long as you and other people understand that your opinion is in the extreme minority in scholarship, I don't see anything wrong with telling people about these sources. People can decide for themselves.

You're obviously entitled to your opinion on the Upanishads. I just think onlookers shouldn't be deceived into thinking it's the standard or "orthodox" opinion (as you once argued against a very patient anon). At least you're citing sources now, rather than doing it when it suits you and then saying scholars are all retards when they contradict your position. Although some of your sources are non-scholarly, or badly out of date. I love Muller but one doesn't exactly cite Muller as an authority these days, except with great care. But as I said, let others decide.

As with your selective use of scholarship, you are selective about when you want to be civil. When you're lying and manipulating other posters into thinking neovedanta is Hindu orthodoxy, samefagging yourself like a psychopath, trying to bully people out of arguments and lying about what they said afterwards, you're a prick. In situations like these you pretend to be civil.

I just wish you'd evaluate your life. You and I both know you're not normally civil, your normal mode is the aforementioned crazy shit. You and I both know you searched those books you're citing on Google Books. We both know you samefag and do all kinds of weird shit like that. Is this a good expenditure of your time?

>>14732471
That simply means he is capable of glancing though a few parts of Shankara's Brahma Sutra commentary. He offers no evidence for his claim that Shankara 'applies a Yogachara analysis' but makes it in a throwaway comment. Gaudapada and Shankara both criticize Yogachara and go out of their way to explain in detail why and how Advaita are different, in light of these attempts and Robinson's lack of mention of them there, Robinson's claim becomes suspect. At the very least if you want to be taken seriously when you claim X person had the view of Y school then you have to explain why it wasn't true when the X person in their writings criticized the views of Y school as wrong and described them as different from their own views. I am familiar with the ideas of Yogachara and it is quite different from Advaita despite it also being a sort of 'idealism' just as Advaita or Yogachara both differ heavily from the various types of German idealism. The following are from Sharma's book explaining the different between Gaudapada's Advaita and Yogachara, Shankara's Advaita is almost identical to Gaudapada's and his Advaita differs from Yogachara in exactly all of the same ways that Gaudapada's. If you want to claim that Robinson is right in saying that Shankara applied a 'Yogachara analysis' then you should explain why this is true or how Robinson could be right on this when they differ so much. And there are dozens of Upanishads verses talking about maya, ignorance, illusion etc and multiplicity being false so simply saying "they are both idealisms involving an illusion" isn't enough because quotes talking about that can be found in every primary Upanishad

"Gaudapada is a teacher of Advaita Vedanta and advocates ontological idealism only, while Vijnanavada is idealism par excellence—both ontologically as well as epistemologically. Gaudapada rejects epistemic idealism as illogical and unwarranted. Though Gaudapada places the world-objects on a par with dream-objects and illusory objects due to their ultimate unreality, yet he does assert the empirical difference between these; even though the difference is only of degree yet it is very important in our empirical life. Vijhanavada, on the other hand, places all objects, whether world-objects or dream-objects or illusory objects, on the same level and pronounces them as utterly unreal like a sky-flower or a barren womans son.

>>14732845
Vijhanavada separates the ‘form' from the ‘content' of consciousness, rejecting the objective ‘content'as utterly unreal (parikalpita) and retaining the ‘form ’ as relatively
real (paratantra). Gaudapada rejects the distinction between parikalpita and paratantra which unnecessarily disturbs our empirical life and puts these both under samvrti
or vyavahara. For him the ‘content’ and the ‘form' of consciousness are inseparable and enjoy the same status as both arise together and vanish together. Vijhanavada rejects the objective world as utterly unreal because it does not exist outside of consciousness. Gaudapada, like the Madhyamika, treats the world as ultimately unreal or false (mithya), because it is indeterminate (achintya) either as real or as unreal or as both and so is a self-contradictory appearance due to maya or avidya. The world of dream and illusion and the empirical world are perceived by us. Each works on its own sphere and is set aside only when sublating consciousness dawns. Gaudapada identifies the Absolute with the foundational Self (Atma) or Brahma, while Vijhanavada calls it Vijnaptimatra (pure eternal non-dual consciousness), Parinispanna or Dharmadhatu.

Vijhanavada believes that the Parinispanna Vijnana-matra due to beginningless and transcendental Vasana of objectivity becomes paratantra or condidoned by the wheel
of causation generating the world-cycle of origination and annihilation in which momentary vijnanas and vasanas go on producing each other until paratantra is freed from the transcendental Vdsand or Avidyd by rooting out ‘objectivity ’ from the stream of consciousness and regains its original purity as Parinispanna. Acharya Gaudapada does not accept all this. He rejects epistemic idealism and the pluralism, momentariness and creativity of vijnanas and the theory of real causation. The Real itself appears as individual subjects and also as the world of objects. The subject-object duality is to be removed by the elimination of difference (bheda); by the realisation that jiva is Brahma and the world also is Brahma, because Brahma is the ground-reality of both. This realisation dawns in nirikalpa samadhi in which knower, known and knowledge are immediately realised as non-different in transcendental non-dual consciousness."

>>14732802
Again with the unhinged personal attacks, you accused me of lying, manipulating, being selective, samefagging, being a psychopath, bullying and being a prick, all in one post kek. You just don't stop! It's really unhinged and bizarre.

First you said that 'only religious advaitins' believe that the Upanishads are consistently Advaitic in their ideas, and then when I showed this was demonstrably false by pointing out that two of the most influential Indologists Muller and Deussen both held this view as well as Guenon and Coomaraswamy then instead of admitting that what you said was not true you made seven (7) different personal attacks against me. It's very weird anon and you seem to be demonstrating many of the behaviors which you accuse me of doing.

>>14732845
For the record, it is a pretty common opinion that Gaudapada (or rather the text(s) assigned to him) are influenced by both Yogacara and Madhyamaka.

>>14732893
Yes, I am accusing you of those things, see >>14724101 for exemplary "unhinged" behavior.

>two of the most influential Indologists Muller and Deussen
Muller was a Schleiermacherian Protestant pietist and proto-perennialist who studied with Schelling directly and wrote in the mid-19th century. There are probably more contemporary books about Muller's highly personalized metaphysics, and how he read this into the philosophies he studied, than there are about Shankara himself. You don't want to cite Max "Natural Religion" Muller in a paper unless it's a carefully qualified reference to his philological work.

Do you actually know anything about Muller? I can highly recommend reading any of his Gifford lectures. But you're only interested in searching for soundbites about him on Google Books, so nevermind.

Deussen is generally considered to be an Advaita reductivist, also. "Apologist" might be too strong a word but honestly it fits. If only you knew how much these Western scholars are trying to turn your Hinduism into Schleiermacher's pietist ecumenism, you wouldn't ally yourself with them so quickly.

>>14732935
>For the record, it is a pretty common opinion
Yes, some scholars think so and others don't, saying "it's a pretty common opinion" is just an appeal to authority which fails to address the multiple scholars I've listed already who disagree, and which fails to rebute the point I just made that went into the specifics.

>Muller was a Schleiermacherian Protestant pietist and proto-perennialist.
>Deussen is generally considered to be an Advaita reductivist
Yes, I know that you are going to want to discredit both of them now that I have cited them, the point though I'm making is that what you said was factually wrong that only 'religious advaitins' believe that the Upanishads are consistently Advaitic, as I just cited two of the more mainstream and influential Indologists who believed so, as well as two other people viz Guenon and Coomaraswamy, both of whom read Shankara in Sanskrit like the two Indologists did and the latter of whom was a respected member of academia. Ergo 4 other well-known authors and scholars none of whom were formally Advaitins all thought so as well and so, a major claim which you made in that image and the whole reason why you dismiss the scholarship of Chandradhar Sharma was itself shown to be demonstrably false. That your image that you put such effort into would get such a basic claim blatantly wrong and that you dismissed a scholar disagreeing with you on a demonstrable false basis attests to the truth of the rest of the image and your other arguments.

>>14732994
>basis attests to the truth
attests to the inaccuracy or lack of truth I meant to write, I'm tired and you can make fun of me for mistyping if you want but the point remains

>>14732994
It's overwhelmingly the majority opinion, is the point. Very few scholars deny the influence of Buddhism on Advaita. Any textbook, any standard narrative written in the last several decades will tell you that Advaita is basically Buddhism with a Vedantic twist, because this is scholarly consensus. It's also the opinion of a great many Hindus, including many prominent Advaitins, as the pic here >>14731344 can demonstrate if anyone is curious.

I don't want to discredit either Muller or Deussen. But they wrote in the 19th century, and they distorted the traditions they wrote about. Much of the work done by oriental studies (unfashionable term but still) in the last century has been to stop itself from seeing the entire world through the eyes of a German absolute idealist. Muller and Deussen epitomize this tendency, alongside Schleiermacher.

I don't follow your statements about Sharma. Sharma is an Advaita reductivist because he believes that the Advaita reading of the Upanishads is self-evident. If one doesn't believe the latter, then his statements that Mahayana is extremely similar to Advaita are most easily interpreted by assuming a relationship of influence. Which is, like I said, the consensus among scholars. Sharma himself points to at least some influence when he says Mahayana "developed" the Upanishads and Gaudapada absorbed this "developed" philosophy. Radhakrishnan agrees, Vivekananda agrees, almost all living scholars agree, most non-Advaitin Hindus agree, etc.

To summarize: All of this hinges on whether you think it's simply, hermeneutically obvious that the Upanishads contain the nondualism of Shankara's Advaita Vedanta, so that Shankara's position is just an elucidation of and commentary on those positions. If you think that, more power to you - but only a small minority do, most of whom for religious reasons. And even many religious Advaitins don't bother defending this position since it's very hard to defend.

If you want to say that you personally think that Shankara's Advaita is the Vedanta of the Upanishads, go ahead. But it's not true that this is anything like the mainstream position.

>>14733005
Why would I make fun of you for a typo

Also I wanted to add that it's almost ironic what sides of this issue we're on, because the pluralism that I'm defending in the history of Indian thought (which allows for such things as the Upanishads not having a single philosophy but many, and Advaita being a later development rather than the original revealed truth of the Vedas) was actually pioneered to prevent eurocentric bias in studying Indian thought.

The standard account of the rise of neovedanta/advaita is that western scholars and western-educated Indians who thought in western terms wanted to prove that India had an original, pure religious tradition that was "as good as" Christianity and Greek philosophy. But in the 19th century that meant simplifying it to a monolithic idealism. It damaged more than it helped.

All the people saying that India is characterized more by heterodoxy than by orthodoxy, by dialog and development more than by a single correct tradition variously being forgotten and recovered, they are really trying to dignify India in a much deeper way than any reductive nondualist for whom everything has to be a permutation of nondualism.

>>14731344
LMAO guess who was skeptical of the Advaita-centric interpretation of Vedanta. It is none other than Robinson, who reviewed a book that collected papers from eastern philosophy conferences from '39 to '64 on the subject of Indian philosophy in which he points out the fact that 11/19 articles are:
>by members of the Advaita Vedanta Establishment, and they try repeatedly to represent Advaita Vedanta as the essence of Indian religion and thought, or to make the other schools preparatory or ancillary to Shankara's.

So even in his time, he noticed how self confessed Advaitins tried to bluntly crown their interpretation as the king of Upanishadic expression and more widely the king of Indian thought in its entirety. We are seeing this behavior being repeated right now, to this day with this neovedantists ravings. It's amazing.

pic related if you want to read the whole review, which goes into detail about other things troubling Indology within the Indosphere.

>>14733078
>>14733078
Damn, ironic that it's Robinson himself. And that I just posted this >>14733075 right before, about the exact sort of pluralism Robinson is concerned with here. He even critiques the neovedanta/nationalism connection.

>[E]leven out of the nineteen articles are by members of the Advaita Vedanta Establishment, and they try repeatedly to represent Advaita Vedanta as the essence of Indian religion and thought, or to make the other schools preparatory or ancillary to Samkara's.

>[T]heistic Hinduism assuredly did not arise within the Vedic tradition.

>[I]t is possible to make some generalizations about the minds of Hindu philosophers who lean to Vedanta and got their B.A.'s between 1909 and 1933. They are very sensitive to Western criticism, and undertake to answer even patently unworthy charges against India and her thought.
Sounds familiar.

>>14732723
>Max Muller also believed that Shankara's interpretation of the Upanishads was the most accurate one that best reflected their idea
remember when you dismissed Muller (and western scholars in general) when I brought him up to cite the fact that Brahmins tampered with the Upanishads? I see that you are happy to cite them now when it suits you. Oh but I guess Muller was right only in this instance, just like Robinson is only right when he supports your views.

Neovedantist cherry picking cannot get anymore blatant folks.

>>14733139
I just posted that pic right before reading your comment lol. Robinson even mentions, just as you explained, how Indian philosophers disregarded puranic/agamic sources (which exemplified popular Hinduism) in order to pose alongside 'proper' philosophy to a Western audience "as if for photographs".

>>14730987
>academic you quoted in the OP post
>contradicts the stupid shit you say
>"uh... He's wrong."

Kek

>>14733416
Yes, as I explained I accept his refutation of Nagarjuna's logic as that is the area he specialized in and hence was fully qualified to comment on, whereas there are multiple other scholars specializing in Hindu philosophy who disagree with this claim of Robinsons about Advaita. As hard as it is to believe you can accept the views of someone on one subject while disregarding them on another, accepting the views of one scholar on something doesn't mean you have to or should uncritically accept what they say about everything else. In Robinson's case I cited people who were more qualified than him to comment on that matter who disagree with him. As far as refuting Nagarjuna's logic and showing the flaws in it however there would be few people more qualified than Robinson so I accept his judgement there. In any case I've offered reasons and evidence for why Robinson is wrong about Advaita whereas we are 144 posts into this thread without a single person seriously attempting to defend Nagarjuna's logic in light of Robinson's eviscerating of it.

>>14732845
>He offers no evidence for his claim that Shankara 'applies a Yogachara analysis' but makes it in a throwaway comment
In the same book he analyses all schools of Buddhism, including Yogachara which he saw as eerily similar to Advaita (as do most scholars who commented on the Yogacharic inspiration for Godapada's 4th chapter of his Karika). He didn't make that statement out of thin air.

>At the very least if you want to be taken seriously when you claim X person had the view of Y school then you have to explain why it wasn't true when the X person in their writings criticized the views of Y school as wrong and described them as different from their own views
Just because someone claims their views differ completely or that they 'refuted' such views, doesn't mean they actually differ completely from that view enough to dismiss allegations of appropriation, it seems like a fallacy to assume this line of thinking.

>>14733473
>Yes, as I explained I accept his refutation of Nagarjuna's logic as that is the area he specialized in and hence was fully qualified to comment on, whereas there are multiple other scholars specializing in Hindu philosophy who disagree with this claim of Robinsons about Advaita. As hard as it is to believe you can accept the views of someone on one subject while disregarding them on another, accepting the views of one scholar on something doesn't mean you have to or should uncritically accept what they say about everything else.
Yes, we call that cherry picking. Good job.

>In Robinson's case I cited people who were more qualified than him to comment on that matter who disagree with him
It's quite convenient that you consider people more qualified to comment on some things that coincidentally agree with your own views while consider those people unqualified if they don't happen to agree.

Funny how that works.

>>14733602
You seem so eager to nitpick my own views, I'm curious, do you have a response to or an argument against Robinson's refutation of Nagarjuna's logic or against Shankaracharya's refutation of the other two schools of Indian Buddhism? That is what the thread is about after all and that's really what I'm interested in and curious about. I'm going to chuckle to myself if this thread reaches the bump limit without anyone even trying.

>>14724145
Reported for racism. Sorry anon, but you're runnimg counter to the rules of this site, and the spirit of this board.

>>14728623
That is so based, though. How could this be used to mock an ideology, when it really only promotes it? I'm not "Hindu" but would feel honored to be blessed by a wild monkey.

>>14723772
Buddhism is largely an instrumentalist philosophy. In fact, the large corpus and possible contradictions are considered an advantage, as they allow the dharma to appeal to different types of people. What other religion is so open to syncretism? Not many except Jainism.

Even the historical existence of gautama is not that big of a deal regarding praxis.

>>14731426
Ah yes, leaving your grandparents to die in a nursing home while you gorge yourself on burgers and become a fat as fuck faggot that jerks off to cuck porn. Truly Western culture has reached the peak of humanity. You act like Plato invented C scripting instead of being an old man who complained about the degeneracy of figurative art.

>>14733718
>all of these oddly specific insults
Projection.

>>14733619
>Do you have a response to or an argument against Robinson's refutation of Nagarjuna's logic
Robinson doesn't refute Nagarjuna's logic (pic), he just classifies his method of refutation (prasanga) as absurd if it could be claimed to apply to all schools, which is what Nagarjuna was actually getting at according to CW Huntington. In other words the main point of prasanga was to show how svabhavic doctrines reduce to absurdity but would also 'absurdify' itself if it ran into problems that later schools rectify themselves in order to defend their arguments, eventually proving Nagarjuna's point. This isn't an excuse to counter-commonsense claims made by Nagarjuna, I'm just saying your claim that Robinson somehow 'BTFO' and 'Destroyed' Nagarjuna's logic is unfounded. Robinson even examines other logical operators within Nagarjuna's system without appealing to any apparent dissemination of his whole system, which can be found here:

>Some logical aspects of nāgārjuna's system by Richard H. Robinson
https://philpapers.org/rec/ROBSLA

>>14733619
>I'm curious, do you have a response to or an argument against Robinson's refutation of Nagarjuna's logic or against Shankaracharya's refutation of the other two schools of Indian Buddhism?
I guess since that anon posted something about Robinson I'll try and answer the other 'refutation' that you keep crying to have answered.

Shankara’s criticism of the Sarvastivada's idea of momentariness appears to be based on a dynamic conception of causality in which the paradigm may be said to be the case of intelligent will transforming some material according to a design. Such is the creation of the world (iksha purvaka srishti) as also of the potter’s making of pots. Shankara essentially identifies cause and effect, regarding causation as nothing but transformation. The Buddhist view in contrast resolves causality into the invariance of succession where the cause is devoid of any motion or influence. The Buddhist model of causation is not the production of commonsense objects like pots, but the infinitesimal process of becoming, as illustrated in the stream of consciousness. As for Shankara’s difficulties about the reconciliation of the three aspects of becoming in a single moment, this difficulty was raised and considered at length in the Abhidharma. The Sautrāntika answer was that the samskrta laksanas belong to the sequence or pravaha. Static commonsense objects need to be replaced by continuous processes or flux. The identity of an object is defined by its characteristic function which must express itself instantaneously and cease. As a new function emerges a new object must be held to have been produced. However, the indiscernibility of similar successive moments and functions leads to a sense of persistent identity in sequence. It seems that Shankara criticism did not follow through to the end result which I suspect he presupposed in the beginning.

>>14733938
In terms of his criticism of Vijnanavada (Yogachara), Shankara follows a procedure different from the one he followed when criticizing Sarvastivada. He concentrates on the Vijnanavada denial of the external world but begins by a careful exposition of the principle arguments used by it. Apparently, he has in mind principally the version of Vijnanavada as found in Vasubandhu, Dignaga and Dharmakirti. Vijnanavada is actually really close to Advaita and it seems like Shankara does his best to try and make clear the distinction for its epistemic realism as valid in order to justify Atman, which is absent in Vijnanavada since Shankara could easily superimpose Atman and subsume Vijnanavada. However he doesn't do so because it would give credence to Buddhist schools and establish its primacy in Indian thought. But what strikes me is that he's claiming that in order to disprove Yogachara, he attempts to prove the unreality of the world through 'self-contradictory character' of this world. This is exactly just Sunyavada. It's quite telling that he employs arguments against both these schools but on the subject of Sunyavada simply chooses to classify it as nihilism, without giving it the same analytical treatment as the other schools.

>>14733962
And as for the wholly nihilistic interpretation of Sunyavada, it is difficult to find sufficient justification for it. Buddha himself declared that he advocated the middle way which avoids both being and non-being and ruled out both eternalism and nihilism, he identified it with pratityasamutpada which meant that nothing could be or could be conceived without dependence on something else. This was a doctrine of the relativity of all phenomena. The counterpart of pratityasamutpada was nirvana which was inconceivable and hence beyond such categories as being or non-being. Nagarjuna claims to follow the middle way and identifies it with pratityasamutpada and Shunyata. It is clear that Sunyata is not to be understood as non-existence in the empirical sense. Sunyavada, thus, is clearly not to be construed as nihilism in the ordinary sense. Furthermore Nagarjuna's two truth schema which did not deny the importance of convention allowed Nagarjuna to defend himself against charges of nihilism, understanding both correctly meant seeing the middle way. Charges of nihilism against Sunyavada didn't actually start with Shankara. Coincidentally it was the early Vijnanavadins such as Asanga who made these charges, and Shankara was really just parroting Vijnanavadins before saying Sunyavada was 'below criticism'. It's quite suspect that he would pull a drive-by shooting when it came to Sunyavada and can only be explained by him trying to shy away from contrasting his system to sunyavada which would alas reveal the apparent similarity of its framework and only intensify plagiarism accusations (although he sort of did that when he critiqued the other two schools).

>>14733619
>That is what the thread is about after all and that's really what I'm interested in and curious about
Your thread is about how Buddhists 'cope' not being 'illogical', like others have said they seem to be doing fine and are not bothered about autistic debates and 'logic' posturing that Hindus like yourself seem to stress about and have to let everyone else in this board know, as if you have some sort of inferiority complex.

But again, thanks for demonstrating your willingness to cherry pick authors when it suits you and being the scholarly gatekeeper who decides which author is qualified enough for you to accept their arguments as legitimate (which so conveniently fall affirms your own arguments)

>>14733838
this isn't the first time he's made cingey anti-west ravings

>>14734091
I'm sure Guenonposter believes he would be in the highest caste and not cleaning up shit. lol

guys I'm having trouble wondering if we should trust this guy for his word, I mean I know he's a scholar, publishes articles in well known journals and has a sound argument but he......... kinda disagrees with me, should we trust pic related?

The beginning few 'refutations' do not seem logically valid to me.

You can have both a 'unity' of forms and motion simultaneously - as in the special theory of relativity where a particle is both a point in motion over time and a singular line when viewed from a 'space-time' perspective.

.

>>14723752
Why is logic so unbuddhistical?
He, chew on that koan.