/lit/ - Literature

>>16642807
>Traditionalists always say that Buddhism is compatible with perennial philosophy

They don't. Guenon was was antagonistic toward it early on but mellowed out into mostly indifference. Others came around to accepting it, at least certain schools.

Look up Marco Pallis's writings on Tibetan Buddhism, as he is really the one from the Traditionalists who did the most to legitimize it in their sphere.

>>16642807
If it wasn't "compatible" it wouldn't exist.

>>16642807
>Traditionalists
Traditionalists are retards to begin with, They are middle bourgeois boredom with their republic and since they are midwits they want to go back to some monarchy, but since they still hate being bossed around by the priest cast, they made up some mental garbage idolized by their dimwitted liebral vaginal audience about muh tradition supported by the state, ie public servants.

In other words, those megatards want a theistic fascism because they get bored and remain spineless while easily being indoctrinated by exotic mental circuses.

Traditionalists are vaginas.

Buddhism can't be perennial philosophy.

buddhism is just a teaching for people who are strong enough mentally to live like hobos in the woods & trying to be happy. Lay people have quickly a mental breakdown as soon as they hear about renunciation, which is why they prefer Mahayana, ''live in the present moment & that's enlightenment'' kind of feel good crap that rich socialites love to hear.

All the people who view buddhism has giving a shit about society is the hindus and mahayanists and of course the western liberal NPCs.

>>16642981
This

>>16643008
>look at me, so above and beyond the rest of humanities ideas that mine have never even existed

>>16642981
This

>>16643008
huh? evola isn't representative of the actual traditionalists authors like guénon and coomaraswamy, he is dumb but you probably equated him with the movement because of your own limitation and love for vulgar politics.
>theistic fascism
imagine typing this out. as if the traditionalists had any care for politics or anything not related to metaphysics.

problem is metaphysics is only accessible to the intellectual elite so the principles of traditionalism is simply lost on pretty much everyone

>>16642981
Yeah, it's funny how even a more LeftHandPath approach to spirituality Such as Buddhism can confer a high grade of responsibility to all the things here. Check Zen Buddhism.

>>16643086
Never thought of Buddhism like that, interesting

>>16643081
Evola actually proposes that action and bravery to face existence is the ultimate lesson we should gain from traditionalism, most of the others just equate to autistic scholars and historians. They stop half way, their ""lesson"" is the same as embarking on a journey to the fountain of youth just to check a box on a clipboard to confirm it exists, Evola is standing there holding out little filled tankards to all those who make it.

>>16643106
The tendency of evola faggots to deny the transcendental aspect of contemplation, or their modern penchant for exalting action and movement is humorous because from the traditionalist perspective, from which evola claims to write, it invalidates his entire works, ruining its legitimacy and congruence. by engaging in this pseudo war they cut themselves from what made evola interesting in the first place. In this way Evola and his fangirls are perpetually recreating the Fall, as is ironically the destiny of isolated action. Nervous agitation.

once more metaphysics is only accessible to a few people and you are making a perfect show for it. action and bravery to face existence is not the ultimate lesson, as is logically demonstrated by every metaphysicians throughout history. it is a noble pursuit, but it cannot be anything more than it is, unlike the pretentious evola and his readers claim to. Action is necessarily below contemplation. Negation of this principle is a simple rehash of modernity so it is parodic that people who claim to be against it purports traditionalism from a modernist perspective. Parodic.

>>16643106
You expressed it perfectly. I prefer Evola since his way is in accordance with all other occult traditions, in that action is the primary mode, not mere intellectualism.

>>16642807
gods I hate perennialism

Imagine caring about first principles and then being apathetic on the particulars.

>>16642981
So everything that exists is compatible with perennialism? What a sad worldview!

Imagine not understanding that religions and philosophies can arise in complete and utter ignorance. Imagine not have the discriminatory mind that is able to see that some paths do in fact lead down the mountain rather than up it.

Perennialism is the sissification hypno of philosophy.

>>16643210
Great post, I agree and have observed the same thing myself

>>16643210
That's because you have a gay conception that philosophy or the dogmatic tendencies of philosophers to merely figure it out and infinitely fractalize the universe until everything they do is utterly meaningless; or add too much sentiment and significance to every little thing that they bog themselves down with too much somehow doesn't make that philosophy mostly ultimately useless to anyone.

Contemplation implies a LACK of knowledge, not a surplus of it. Knowledge being a realized attribute. It has a democratic and leveling view of knowledge, that it is all just data that anyone can learn it as long as it's provided to them, and that a person is knowledgeable merely by the ability to make sense of things. Contemplation taking primacy over Action is to make more rope to climb but not having the muscles to climb it, and in case you forgot, some are brave souls and don't even give a shit and just grapple the cliff perfectly fine without the rope whether you'd call them smart or not. Given this, being an unga grunga retard with a predisposition to bravery and duty is a virtue here although it will never make one a genius.

I guess some people just despise their own tendency towards mediocrity in a way that emboldens them to actual be or become better.

Imagine if Jeff Bezos was simply named King of the earth on account of him having the most money, or we elected puppet after puppet by mere virtue of convincing the most retards to vote, this is your modern hellscape you get when you build the world off of philosophy and "enlightenment" instead of being, character and right action.

Imagine not understanding why having a 400lb blob being immobile strapped to a table for the rest of his existence will entirely negate the effect of how ever much steroids you pump into him, meanwhile any simple natural athlete or laborer will be infinitely more adjusted to living and infinitely more preferable. This is again, your contemplation to action.

And the contemplation Evola makes a mend with is because he understands that most of the people who will find his works will be thinker types and that also having a somewhat intellectualized understanding will help them face the modern academics. But the primary intention being that of great action that strengthens and aids the actual cause, not thinking simply to think.

Evolas action after he was bombed by the allies and paralyzed from the waist down was no longer mountaineering or physical fighting, NOR WAS IT sitting in his chair contemplating existence until he "figured another 1 of reality% out!". His action was writing a plethora of books commanding above all else that the reader familiarize themselves with a lifestyle of action if they want to make themselves and their peers truly able to face the scourge of modernity and restore the human condition. He was not a "reactionary philosoher" he was an ACTionary and be believed in ACTualization. And all your over-thinking falls superfluous to the side.

>>16643269
Imagine being the other way around you autistic faggot

>>16643210
t. Hasn't read evola #62730095

>>16644240
amazing, aint it?

Perennial philosophy is a Zoom call with Neo-Platonism, Advaita Vedanta, Sufism, and Kashmir Shaivism. Buddhists are not invited.

>>16644300
Buddhists explain the temporal nature of reality and every aspect of existence better than anyone. And the premise of both Buddhist and Perennialism is to transcend the impermanent nature that plagues mankind. Buddhists take Left hand path and try to Escape reality and reach Nirvana, Perennialists take the Right hand path and try to unite with the source, the Eternal something.

Buddhist thought is a critical aid to perennialism even if we come to conclusions because all of the infinite actions we both take to reach such states involves a very serious sense of responsibility with what we're involved with while living here.

>>16644357
Different conclusions*

>>16642807
>Traditionalists always say that Buddhism is compatible with perennial philosophy, but I don't really see the similarity.
I agree with the post who said read Marco Pallis, as he is the only Trad who I'm aware of who really explores this in depth, I think Schuon has a book on Buddhism too. When they say "compatible with perennial philosophy" they often just mean Advaita Vedanta, or a general ontological non-dualism, as found in Advaita, Vishishtadvaita, Hindu Tantra, Sufism etc.

There are some distinctions and points to be made in a discussion about this topic. We can separate the types of Buddhism relevant to our present discussion to:

1) 'original' Buddhism as taught by Buddha
2) The various Indian Buddhist schools
3) later East-Asian Buddhism

The Indian schools of Buddhism are mostly completely incompatible with Advaita Vedanta, with the exception of certain anonymously-composed Mahayana Sutras like the Tathagatagarbha class of Sutras which sometimes propound views similar to the Vedantic Atman, but these Sutras did not have entire schools of Indian Buddhism corresponding to them and formalizing their doctrines in the same way that there were distinct schools and identifiable thinkers who represented and defended the doctrines of Yogachara, Madhyamaka etc, this only really occurs to a significant later on in Tibetan and East-Asian Buddhism.

Guenon seems to have originally regarded Buddhism *as taught by Buddha* and the various Indian Buddhist schools to be garbage, while allowing that some of the later Tibetan and East-Asian Buddhism aligned with Advaita/perennial philosophy; although he took the position that this was due to Mahayana/Tantric Buddhists interacting with and learning from Hindu Shaivites and Chinese Daoists (for which there is an abundance of evidence btw).

Later on, in response to his discussions about Buddhism with Coomaraswamy and Pallis, Guenon revised his opinion to allow for the possibility that Buddhism *at its inception when it was being taught by Buddha* aligned with Advaita, and that the later Indian schools (i.e. Sautrantika, Sarvastivada, Yogachara, Madhyamaka etc) failed to understand this and represented degenerations of the earlier non-degenerated Buddhism; but that the proper essence of Buddhism was later reconstituted by certain Tantrists and Mahayanists, possibly both through Buddhist as well as non-Buddhist sources.

>>16644375
It is true that the majority or perhaps a significant plurality of Mahayana and Tantric Buddhist schools adhere to an understanding of sunyatta and anatta which is fundamentally opposed to Advaita/Upanishads/perennialism etc. This relates to the Mahayana/Vajrayana conception of the "three turnings of the wheels of dharma", each representing a successive stage in the teachings, with the first being the Pali canon, then the teachings on Sunyata and the Prajnaparamita Sutras, and then after this the third turning corresponding to Yogachara teachings and the Tathagatagarbha Sutras.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Turnings_of_the_Wheel_of_Dharma

Most or a plurality of Mahayana/Vajrayana interprets the 2nd turning (i.e. sunyata) to be the highest or absolute teaching, with the first and 3rd wheel being provisional and preparatory teachings or stages. However, there are also schools which disagree with this take. It is to this later category which don't hold sunyata and anatta (as propounded by Madhyamaka or Gelug etc) as the absolute truth that Guenon undoubtedly referred to when he wrote of certain Mahayana and Vajrayana as aligning with the primordial Tradition, and not the Mahayana and Vajrayana schools which adhere to the Madhyamaka positon which Advaita criticized in the first millennium. Some, like the Jonang school of Tibetian Buddhism hold the third turning to be absolute and regard the 2nd turning teaching of sunyata to be provisional. This relates to the debate between Shentong (empty of other nature) and Rangtong (empty of self-nature) in Tibetan Buddhism, wherein Shentong is a more Advaita- or Upanishadic-aligned view and is held to be Jonang and some areas of Kagyu Buddhism, whereas the Rangtong view represents the more Madhyamaka-aligned view which is opposed to Advaita and which is held by the popular Gelug sect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangtong-Shentong

Outside of Tibetan Buddhism you can find various examples or more Advaita-aligned positions within the various forms of Zen Buddhism and non-Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, i.e. Huangbo's (Chinese Zen) teachings about 'One mind', Jinul's (Korean Zen) teachings about Nirvana being a sublime essence that is present in all beings, or Kukai's (Japanese Tantra) teachings about the non-duality of oneself and Buddha/Mahavairocana. There could perhaps be some quite interesting discussions, if devoted students of these types of Buddhism posted more on /lit/, but unfortunately the majority of the in-depth Buddhist posters on /lit/ seem to adhere to some anti-foundationalist, deconstructionist, post-modernism-aligned interpretation of Madhyamaka which they amusingly often seem to believe to be reconcilable with materialism.

>>16644357
Buddhism has more in common with the gnostics described by Plotinus than it does with perrenialism. There is a shared discussion of the illusory nature of phenomena and the need to overcome attachment to our desires for these phenomena, but Buddhism believes the practitioner can overcome both men and gods to realize a sublime non-duality beyond metempsychosis while the Platonist, like the other perrenials, seeks henosis, to be joined to the supreme principle of god grounding all phenomena. The Buddhist meditates on the passing away of such phenomena as being empty of an essence to reach his enlightenment while the Platonist contemplates them as degraded copies of the true beautiful.

>>16644469
Either way their perspective is very useful, regardless of the truth in everything you said.

>>16644490
I think the perennialist lives in a certain kind of umwelt in which he sees perennialism. How else could one link the disparate manifestations of an absolute non-dualism that makes its appearance in marginal heterodox areas of the religions of the masses? And if the sages who have appeared have had to cloak their insights in the languages of their times to protect themselves, then personally I would buy into the idea of a perennial philosophy. But that isn't what you get from the exponents of perennialism but rather from Schopenhauer or Nietzsche. Someone like Spinoza or Shankara had to backstop his views as leading to God, even though God in these systems has been de-anthropomorphized into a conception of god so unintelligible as to be Buddhism with extra steps. Nirvana in samsara, etc. Buddha came the closest to universalizing the knowledge he was able to discover; some of his heirs elaborated well on this while others became confused and Buddhism became a mass religion for the average Buddhist. In the grand scheme it isn't that all the religions are the ecumenical in their root metaphysics but that the true sages are ecumenical without ever having met.

>>16642807
Filtered

>>16644300
I hope this was you arguing in favor of Buddhism, otherwise you're doing it wrong.

>>16643017
>All the people who view buddhism has giving a shit about society is the hindus and mahayanists and of course the western liberal NPCs.
Only NPCs fall for the denial of the Atman by Buddhism
>>16644357
>Buddhists explain the temporal nature of reality and every aspect of existence better than anyone.
No they don't, lol. The Buddhist positing of dependent origination as the cause of everything is undermined by the argument from contingency. And the Buddhist denial of the Atman doesn't align with how we actually experience consciousness, and their various attempts to patch holes in this were all refuted by Shankara. Every major Indian Buddhist school has serious holes and contradictions in its theories.
>>16644593
>I think the perennialist lives in a certain kind of umwelt in which he sees perennialism. How else could one link the disparate manifestations of an absolute non-dualism that makes its appearance in marginal heterodox areas of the religions of the masses?
It becomes obvious when you read through Ibn Arabis and Shankara's works and see them both talking about things like the Absolute being both the inner self and the ground of all being. Also, that's not true that it only appears in "mariginal, heterodox areas", That's loaded language which betrays your dishonesty. Vedanta is one of the main orthodox schools of Hinduism, and Advaita Vedanta and Vishishtadvaita Vedanta are neither marginal nor heterodox within Hinduism. Important Sunni theologians like al-Ghazali were important Sufi theorists themselves. The idea that Sufism is heterodox is more common in the modern world due to the influence of Wahhabi ideology, but for much of history it was often seen as an essential element of orthodox Sunni Islam.

>>16645274
>>16644593
>And if the sages who have appeared have had to cloak their insights in the languages of their times to protect themselves
Only Abrahamics did, the Hindus never had to cloak their ideas to protect themselves
>But that isn't what you get from the exponents of perennialism but rather from Schopenhauer or Nietzsche.
How do Nietzsche or Schopenhauer cloak their ideas to protect themselves? If anything they are much more open about their views and less cautious of persecution than many Sufi writers and Christian mystics.
>Someone like Spinoza or Shankara had to backstop his views as leading to God,
Completely wrong, God is the very basis of Shankara's theology, which is directly predicated on the Upanishads, again this is just more dishonesty
>even though God in these systems has been de-anthropomorphized into a conception of god so unintelligible as to be Buddhism with extra steps.
Are you so stupid as to honestly believe that non-anthropocentric conceptions of the divine are automatically equatable with Buddhism? Or that Advaita doesn't fundamentally disagree with Buddhism in all of the most important and fundamental questions of metaphysics? Also it's not unintelligible unless you have gleaned your knowledge about them from wikipedia and other shitty secondary sources.
>Buddha came the closest to universalizing the knowledge he was able to discover
Buddha says himself in the Pali Canon that he did not discover anything new, but was just continuing the teachings from of old which had been lost. And if you are measuring that success by the numbers of followers, then Jesus Christ came closest.

>>16645274
>Also, that's not true that it only appears in "mariginal, heterodox areas", That's loaded language which betrays your dishonesty. Vedanta is one of the main orthodox schools of Hinduism, and Advaita Vedanta and Vishishtadvaita Vedanta are neither marginal nor heterodox within Hinduism. Important Sunni theologians like al-Ghazali were important Sufi theorists themselves.
I don't know enough about Hinduism but I strongly doubt the average Indian thinks he was god all along. So in terms of what is most commonly accepted, given that there are multiple schools of Hinduism, belief in trinities, belief in local deities not shared with other states of India, etc. I would not expect that the Vedanta which hyper-online Westerners like is the norm. For Islam I also doubt the average imam would agree we were god all along. God is clearly treated as a supreme ruler, avenger, and punisher.

>>16645283
>Only Abrahamics did, the Hindus never had to cloak their ideas to protect themselves
I would mostly agree the Abrahamic have a greater urgency for doing so, since intolerance is fundamental to the basic tenets of believing you have a pact with the one true god to the exclusion of all strange gods and their adherents, yes. But even India has its priors and conventions, though less procrustean.
>How do Nietzsche or Schopenhauer cloak their ideas to protect themselves? If anything they are much more open about their views and less cautious of persecution than many Sufi writers and Christian mystics.
To clarify I am not speaking with respect to Nietzsche and Schopenhauer's own 19th century views themselves and how they arrived at these, but what they had said of other thinkers. For Nietzsche, the unwritten philosophy of an author, the conclusions he did not follow through to, said as much as what they had written, anticipating the death of the author we take for granted today. For Schopenhauer, those arriving at the truth were a sort of fraternity existing outside of their nations, religions, times, and places, who had to contend with those in order to express themselves. My understanding is that the perennialist takes the inverse view, that they are linked by some metaphysical kernel buried in the various traditions.
>Completely wrong, God is the very basis of Shankara's theology, which is directly predicated on the Upanishads, again this is just more dishonesty
It's not dishonest to have a different view. You are saying he grounded his system in revelationary texts; I am saying he used the language of his conditioned world to backstop his system.
>Are you so stupid as to honestly believe that non-anthropocentric conceptions of the divine are automatically equatable with Buddhism? Or that Advaita doesn't fundamentally disagree with Buddhism in all of the most important and fundamental questions of metaphysics? Also it's not unintelligible unless you have gleaned your knowledge about them from wikipedia and other shitty secondary sources.
If he's calling it God and it's being defined as some sort of all encompassing basis of reality itself embedded in all things eternally without distinction, while said things are unconscious of it, then this is well aligned with many Buddhist schools' views on nirvana and not aligned with many religions' views of God or gods as having tremendous active influence over life on earth as something apart from that life. Granted Vedanta and Buddhism are both Indian systems but the cyclical scholastic disputes posted on /lit/ about which "refutes" the other do not interest me.
>Buddha says himself in the Pali Canon that he did not discover anything new, but was just continuing the teachings from of old which had been lost. And if you are measuring that success by the numbers of followers, then Jesus Christ came closest.
Plato says all knowledge is recollection and not to put truth to mob rule.

>>16645274
>by the argument from contingency
Not really. The entire conceptual framework that Indian philosophy takes place in completely rejects this entire idea, and in fact demonstrates that it's impossible. The whole point of "Cyclical time" is that it doesn't start, or end, it just keeps cycling.

>the Buddhist denial of the Atman doesn't align with how we actually experience consciousness
Not really. It's true that the Buddhist conception of anatman doesn't align with how language works, but then the idea that language is this infallible system that all reality works by is obviously silly. Why does the universe work based on English, and not German, or French, or Mandarin? You're a materialist, so you're probably going to retreat to Descarte's "actually the soul is housed in the pineal gland" argument that you picked up here because you've never actually read anything, but of course you've never actually read anything at all so you aren't aware that you can function totally fine without a pineal gland (albeit you have a hard time sleeping).

As for how we experience consciousness, you aren't conscious, so yes how humans experience consciousness is not how you experience it, as you don't have experiences. But, for actual humans with souls, no, the Buddhist explanation of consciousness aligns perfectly with lived experiences.

>Vedanta is one of the main orthodox schools of Hinduism
Vedanta is not considered Hinduism by the majority of Hindus. Its atheistic nihilism in their eyes. Ironically, Shankara commits the one single thing that Nagarjuna says only a nihilist or an idiot would do, when he stupidly says that "Emptiness" is a substance that things can be made out of.

You should read things, instead of just getting your philosophy from memesters on /lit/.

>>16643008
>they are midwits they want to go back to some monarchy
Confirmed for not having read any of the Traditionalists. None of them have ever stated a desire to rewind the clock back to the Middle Ages.

>>16645880
>If he's calling it God and it's being defined as some sort of all encompassing basis of reality itself embedded in all things eternally without distinction, while said things are unconscious of it
this is actually THE big reason why hindus in india (not memers on 4chan) consider advaita vedanta to be giga-atheism, because it directly denies the agency of brahman. it's the same reason that spinoza got kicked out judaism: you demote the divine in order to be enlightened by your own intelligence.

its why dualistic and monistic-but-dualist (lmfao fucking india) schools, both historically and today, have predomianted. shankara sort of refuted the entire reason he was doing philosophy, in that his attempts at saving the necessity of the brahmin caste from buddhism's rejection of its special place at the top of the food chain just did the exact same thing. if god is just the absolute grounding of reality, why do you need brahmins, given that literally everything a brahmin actually does, from ritual to meditation, is pointless?

>>16644300
I took a class on Kashmir Saivism while I got an A in the class I still left feeling I didn't fully grasp everything.

Can you recommend some English works on Kashmir Saivism and Advaita Vedanta that really elucidate the school of thoughts.

>>16646185
That's just what I've parsed from this board, that those are the Elite Four of the Trad League. (Buddhism is the Champion)

I keep hearing that (Theravada) Buddhists don't actually believe in reincarnation and just use it as a convenient fiction to assuage the lay devotees who aren't ready for the nihilism pill. Thoughts?

>>16646336
I've seen modernist Theravadins argue rebirth is momentary in one life rather than an actual process of lives being recycled but I doubt non-Westernized Theravadins are willing to believe an essential doctrine of their religion is just made-up allegory. That's a defense made by lonely churchmen who need to fill their pews with people who don't believe in anything.
>the nihilism pill
Buddhism isn't nihilism but if you delete enough of any religion's doctrines it will quickly become 'meaningless,' and start a runaway feedback loop of people reading the mutilated version and propagating it to other people sympathetic to the mutilation.

>>16646336
If you're hearing it from /lit/, ignore it. There's a clique on /lit/ that is vaguely aware of Guenon's comically ignorant views on Buddhism and Evola's learned but cherry-picked views on Buddhism, and attempts to synthesize the two. Evola thought that Mahayana Buddhism had been corrupted by stinky Chinks and that the Pali Canon was the true Buddhism and the Mahayana was entirely worthless (for finding Tradition, Evola didn't care about Buddhism on its own terms). Theravadins don't believe this (about the Mahayana canons being 100% worthless), there's an incredibly large overlap between the Chinese (and thus Tibetan and Japanese and Korean) Buddhist Canons and the Pali Canon. Guenon, meanwhile, thought that smelly jungle monkeys in SEA had corrupted Buddhism, and as such only Sino-Indian Buddhism had anything going for it. Despite this, he literally makes the exact same mistake that Shankara made, in doing exactly what Nagarjuna said not to fucking do (take Emptiness aka Sunyata as a material, or substance, that things can be made out of).

So they argue that Theravada is actually just Advaita Vedanta despite the Buddha being born almost 1,000 years before Shankara (because apparently he time-traveled to steal the Upanishads or something). They argue this because Nagarjuna was part of the Mahayana, so because Theravada is just the Eastern Orthodoxy to Mahayana's Catholicism, this means that the Theravada disagree with Nagarjuna, ergo they're just Advaita Vedanta, which as anons in this thread will tell you, is ACTUALLY just Indian Neo-Platonism.

Except that's wrong, Advaita Vedanta isn't just Indian Neo-Platonism, the Theravada-Mahayana divide is nothing at all like the Catholicism - Eastern-Orthodoxy divide, the Buddha wasn't a time traveler, and the Theravada aren't ackhshyuyually just devotees of Shankara.

>>16643761
>that ultra-bootlicking quote
People unironically like this faggot huh.

>>16646498
The Buddha had a collection of disciples. These numbered in the thousands at the time of his death. His teachings were broken up into three baskets: religious practice, monastic discipline, and higher philosophy. The first two were memorized by Ananda and Upali (who both had photographic memories). The third, however, was taught by the Buddha directly and as a discrete package to Shariputra (AKA Sariputta), as for a period of time every morning the Buddha asceneded to the heavens, taught Buddhism to the Gods, then descended to the Earth and gave Shariputra the cliff notes. Shariputra goes on to found the Abhidharma, although this term is used loosely. Western scholars disagree with this entirely and instead posit that the Abhidharma is a later invention, coming about between 500-250BC by Buddhist monks expanding on the Buddha's teachings in the first two baskets. It makes no difference for us.

The Abhidharmins essentially seek to create a theory of everything to describe the universe so they can figure out how the mind works for the purposes of achieving Nirvana. They totally accept the dependent origination (AKA sunyata AKA Emptiness) of people, the Buddha demonstrates this fact. However, just because we accept that people (and all things) are thus composite, made up of parts, and are thus Empty, what about the parts? If we break those down, what do we get? The Abhidharmins essentially advocate a form of Pluralism, in which the universe is made up of dharmas (no relation to the "dharma" of Abhidharma, or in the context of "The Way"). These are unchanging atoms in the philosophical sense, unsplittable primestuffs.

There's a rejection to this within Buddhism, from various schools who, all for their own reasons, reject this idea. The Heart Sutra is the eventual codification of this "Abhidharmin rejection". Nagarjuna, centuries before that, writes the Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way as an attack on the very idea of dharmas as being not Empty.

While this is going on, however, the Theravada (at this point there isn't a really clear division between the two in the way we would think of it today) are ALSO doing this. When Theravadins criticize Nagarjuna, it's either his "origin story" (supposedly he got his wisdom from the Snake Folk who live in the hollow earth), or his entire purpose (why bother when the Buddha literally does all of this anyways? Just read the Pali Canon). Today, the Theravada reject the idea of dharmas not being subject to dependent origination.

>>16646563
This isn't to say that either Theravada or Mahayana reject the Abhidharma as a TOOL. Rather, it's a tool, and like all tools it's imperfect, so don't confuse the finger pointing at the moon for the moon. This is also not to say that there aren't dharmas, however. I've seen brainlets on here allege that dharmas are atoms so Buddhism postulates that we live in billiardball universe so Aristotle was right and God is the guy with the pool cue, but this is not the case. Dharmas are things like "redness" and "sweetness" as much as they are "tiny ball whizzing through the void". Again, Buddhism's therapeutic nature makes it pre-eminently concerned with the mind, the metaphysical nature these threads usually take is totally alien to the Buddhist tradition. If the dharmas are Empty, you shouldn't cling to them. If they aren't Empty and you cling to them, you suffer, so don't cling to them. If they aren't Empty and you don't cling to them, you don't suffer, so who cares if they're Empty or not? This train of thought is totally alien to Westerners and leads to people getting incredibly angry when the inevitable question of "well then who made God?" comes along, because Indian philosophy not only totally rejects the idea that something didn't make God (even if it's just God making himself, whatever the fuck that means), but it also totally rejects billiardball universe as on its face absurd.

>>16646403
So in essence that view just speaks to a Western proclivity for rationalist, materialist interpretations of Buddhism?

>>16646591
Pretty much. A good analogy is 'moralistic therapeutic deism,' the American Millennial Christianity wherein God makes no demands of you and is just looking out for your well-being. If you strip the before-life and the after-life out of Buddhism, it starts turning into something like that, some kind of comforting superego to deal with the here and now rather than the eternal. Another parallel is the overly vulgarized pop-stoicism that has eclipsed generic self-help as of late.

>>16646544
Hylic detected

>>16642807
>inb4 Guenonfag
he already shitted up the thread, as usual

>>16643761
I've noticed the trend of Effort posters and Evola Posters having a high correlation.

Meanwhile anti-evola midwits have medium or small sized posts that misses the point every time.

>>16647351
If you can't be laconic you don't really know what you are talking about.

>>16643761
>Imagine if Jeff Bezos was simply named King of the earth...
Yeah modern society sucks balls, what does that have to do with ultimate perennial truth? What does that have to do with capital t Traditionalism? Yeah, modern life is full of stupid slaves and suffering and shit, but what does that have to do with metaphysical truth carried through the ages?

People are slaves because they do not contemplate, are ignorant of certain truths, and without those truths how do you decide how to act? Without contemplation, your action could be channeled into any action from any point of view, from BLM activism to bolshevik revolution. They're putting action above contemplation, aren't they?

>Contemplation implies a LACK of knowledge
No.

>>16647837
Contemplation is literally thinking to seeking knowledge

Aka something they don't have because they'd rather be a miserable crybaby instead of a man of Action.

>BLM puts action above contemplation
Yes but they also put not having a brain and Being easily manipulated interchangable NPC shock troops enslaved by the enemy above action. This was caused by public school btw (aka, a lack of tangible action meant to yield experiential wisdom and just sitting behind a desk told to digest information over and over and over and splurt it back on tests.

>>16647949
Thinking to seek*

Sorry to interrupt, but I made this thread about Jung partly with the criticism of the Traditionalists in mind: >>16647357
Would any Traditionalist care to share their views on that letter?

>>16645872
>I don't know enough about Hinduism but I strongly doubt the average Indian thinks he was god all along.
Whether something is widespread among the masses or not is not the determiner of whether a doctrine has been influential and widespread among the intellectuals, philosophers, mystics and theologians of a religion, i.e. the ones who codify and determine that religion's doctrines. It's widely acknowledged among academics that Vedanta been the most influential Hindu school since the first millennium AD, and that it has influenced many other sects even ones not identifying themselves as Vedantic. It is a different situation in Islam but again, when you actually look at the works of major Islamic thinkers throughout history many of them are open Sufis or influenced by Sufi doctrines. The most widespread denomination among Hindus is generally estimated to be Vaishnavism, and of the Vaishnavites the various iterations of Ramanuja's Sri Vaishnavism are the most popular/widespread, and in Sri Vaishnavism the human soul indeed was a part of God all along but this was obscured by ignorance.

>>16645880
>It's not dishonest to have a different view. You are saying he grounded his system in revelationary texts; I am saying he used the language of his conditioned world to backstop his system.
To use something as a backstop means to place something at the rear of a system, as its support or reinforcement. Brahman is not something placed at the end of Advaita Vedanta, as a convenient solution, but from the very beginning the Upanishads introduce to the reader or listener to Brahman, and then offer various dialogues, symbolism etc all for the purpose of elaborating on that very Brahman. Similarly, like the Upanishads Advaita Vedanta centers itself from the very beginning around the concept of Brahman. The positions that Advaita holds about Brahman are the direct result of a hermeneutic exegesis primarily of the Upanishads and also of the Brahma Sutras and Bhagavad-Gita; it is not as though Shankara's Advaita views came first and then he added Brahman to make it more logical as a backstop.

>>16648214
>If he's calling it God and it's being defined as some sort of all encompassing basis of reality itself embedded in all things eternally without distinction, while said things are unconscious of it then this is well aligned with many Buddhist schools' views on nirvana and not aligned with many religions' views of God or gods as having tremendous active influence over life on earth as something apart from that life.
This conception of Brahman is present in the very earliest Upanishads which predate the live of Buddha by several centuries such as the Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads, so it makes no sense to ascribe to Buddhist influence what can be plainly be seen in Hindu scriptures which predate Buddha. Here are some textual citations which show the truth of what I say:

>God as-all encompassing basis of reality
He said: "That, O Gargi, the knowers of Brahman call the Imperishable. It is neither gross nor subtle, neither short nor long, neither red nor moist; It is neither shadow nor darkness, neither air nor akasa; It is unattached; It is without taste or smell, without eyes or ears, without tongue or mind; It is non—effulgent, without vital breath or mouth, without measure and without exterior or interior. It does not eat anything, nor is It eaten by anyone.
"Verily, under the mighty rule of this Imperishable, O Gargi, the sun and moon are held in their respective positions. Under the mighty rule of this Imperishable, O Gargi, heaven and earth are held in their respective positions. Under the mighty rule of this Imperishable, O Gargi, moments, muhurtas (about forty—eight minutes), days and nights, fortnights, months, seasons and years are held in their respective positions. Under the mighty rule of this Imperishable, O Gargi, some rivers flow eastward from the white mountains, others flowing westward continue in that direction and still others keep to their respective courses.
- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 3.7.8-9

>>16648222
>God itself itself embedded in all things eternally without distinction
Yajnavalkya said: "He who inhabits the earth, yet is within the earth, whom the earth does not know, whose body the earth is and who controls the earth from within—He is your Self, the Inner Controller, the Immortal.
"He who inhabits water, yet is within water, whom water does not know, whose body water is and who controls water from within—He is your Self, the Inner Controller, the Immortal.
"He who inhabits fire, yet is within fire, whom fire does not know, whose body fire is and who controls fire from within —He is your Self, the Inner Controller, the Immortal.
"He who inhabits the sky, yet is within the sky, whom the sky does not know, whose body the sky is and who controls the sky from within —He is your Self, the Inner Controller, the Immortal. "He who inhabits the air, yet is within the air, whom the air does not know, whose body the air is and who controls the air from within—He is your Self, the Inner Controller, the Immortal.
- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 3.8.3-14

>God doing so while said things are unconscious of it
"This Self has entered into these bodies up to the very tips of the nails, as a razor lies hidden in its case, or as fire, which sustains the world, lies hidden in its source. People do not see the Self, for when viewed in parts It is incomplete: when breathing, It is called the vital breath; when speaking, the organ of speech; when seeing, the eye; when hearing, the ear; when thinking, the mind. These are merely Its names according to Its functions. He who meditates on one or another of Its aspects does not know, for It is then incomplete: the Self is separated from Its totality by being associated with a single characteristic
- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.7.

"He who inhabits the mind, yet is within the mind, whom the mind does not know, whose body the mind is and who controls the mind from within—He is your Self, the Inner Controller, the Immortal.
- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 3.7.16.

>Plato says all knowledge is recollection and not to put truth to mob rule.
Then why did you say that Buddha came closest? By what standard are you trying to establish that? It seems like you just want that claim to be true but don't actually have any good reason for why it should accepted as true.

>>16648231
>>16646084
>Not really. The entire conceptual framework that Indian philosophy takes place in completely rejects this entire idea, and in fact demonstrates that it's impossible. The whole point of "Cyclical time" is that it doesn't start, or end, it just keeps cycling.
Yes, it really is undermined by the argument from contingency. In Hinduism the cyclical time is caused and sustained by Brahman, it doesn't magically appear on its own. And in Hinduism these cyclical times periodically come to an end and are remanifested again, the time itself doesn't continue eternally but at the beginning of a new cycle, space, time and the rest of the universe are manifested out of non-manifestation all over again. Almost nobody in Indian thought except Buddhists accept the fanciful notion that there can be eternal time existing on its own without that time being caused or sustained by a God. Jainism admits cyclic time while denying there being a God who is the cause; but they partially rescue themselves from the contradictions which Buddhism lands itself in by declaring that the universe is itself an eternal and uncaused entity with a definitive and unalterable shape. Buddhism cannot do this because to say that there is an eternal uncaused entity violates too much of their other metaphysical claims, because for Buddhists there can be no eternal and uncaused entities and all things are supposed to be dependent on other things.

When someone asks "Why does the universe exist instead of nothing? Things don't just cause themselves to exist for no reason" and the Buddhist answers with "dependent-origination" what they are saying is that the various components of the universe have forever been interacting and causing each other to exist in a series of mutual dependencies eternally. But this results in the situation that the dependently-arising universe as a thing or entity itself becomes eternal and uncaused, the only thing "causing" or being responsible for its beginninglessness being included within that very universe itself, that universe is not caused by anything exterior to itself. While the things within itself may dependently interact with one another, the very fact of there being a universe comprised of dependently-arising things for eternity makes that very universe uncaused by virtue of its beginninglessness; which contradicts the Buddhist claim that everything is dependent on other things and that nothing is eternal, for their theory makes the universe not dependent on anything exterior to itself.

>>16648238

Things which are contingent don't exist without being caused by a non-contingent thing, to say that there are only an eternal series of contingent things causing each other leads to an absurd infinite regress when trying to explain how they exist to begin with, as Buddhists don't admit the disparate elements and entities which participate in dependent origination to themselves be eternal. In a beginningless series of cause and effect between a chain of non-eternal and contingent things (such as the 12 links of dependent origination) it cannot actually exist unless the individual members of that chain are themselves beginningless and eternal (which Buddhism denies), because as a non-eternal thing, link-6 cannot arise unless it has link-5 to depend for its arising, and that link-5 cannot arise unless it has link-4 to depend on for its arising, and since this is a cyclical chain the very first link cannot arise unless the one at the nominal end of the chain (i.e. the 12th link) has arisen before it. It results in a "chicken and egg" problem, since all the links depend on the previous ones, they cannot arise unless the previous links have already arisen, but since none of these individual components are eternal there is no way for any of them to exist prior to give rise to the successive links of dependent origination; hence a beginningless cyclical series of contingent and non-eternal cause and effect relations would be unable exist at all. Since the beginning of the chain is produced from the link at the nominal end of the chain it results in the illogical situation that the effect would be producing its own cause, like a woman giving birth to her own mother.

>the Buddhist denial of the Atman doesn't align with how we actually experience consciousness
>Not really. It's true that the Buddhist conception of anatman doesn't align with how language works, but then the idea that language is this infallible system that all reality works by is obviously silly.
I never claimed Language is an infallible system that all reality works by. Yes, indeed the Buddhist conception of anatman completely fails to account for and align with the smooth continuum of consciousness which we all experience while waking. As even Surendranath Dasgupta (who often tries to apologetically defend Buddhist philosophy) writes in his 5-volume history of Indian philosophy: "The Buddhist attempts at explaining this notion of self-identity by the supposition of the operation of two separate concepts are wholly inadequate, as has already been shown. The perception of self-identity can therefore be explained only on the basis of a permanently existing self". Without an unchanging witness-consciousness (i.e. the Self or Atman) who abides and continues between moments, it becomes impossible to account for how we detect change and recognize the identity of things over time.

>>16648238
>>16648243
>You're a materialist
No, I'm not
>Vedanta is not considered Hinduism by the majority of Hindus. Its atheistic nihilism in their eyes.
That's wrong, stop lying. Orthodoxy in Hinduism is defined as belonging to or being derived from one of the six Āstika schools of Hindu philosophy, i.e. Nyāyá, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā, and Vedānta. As one of the six Āstika schools, Advaita Vedanta is undoubtedly orthodox and any academic who studies Hinduism can tell you this.
>Ironically, Shankara commits the one single thing that Nagarjuna says only a nihilist or an idiot would do, when he stupidly says that "Emptiness" is a substance that things can be made out of.
This is not true, stop lying. You lie constantly, it's really a mystery to me how someone who takes an evident interest in spiritual matters can lie so shamelessly and so often. Shankara never writes anywhere or otherwise implies that "Emptiness is a substance which things can be made out of".
"
Shankara dismisses Madhyamaka Buddhism as not even worth spending time trying to refute when he writes in his commentary on Brahma Sutra verse 2.2.31. that Madhyamaka "is contradicted by all means of right knowledge and requires no special refutation. For this apparent world, whose existence is guaranteed by all means of knowledge, cannot be denied, unless some one should find out some new truth (based on which he could impugn its existence) - for a general principle is proved by the absence of contrary instances."

Shankara doesn't write anything else about Madhyamaka or write that emptiness is a substance, you are lying.

>>16648246
>>16646140
>shankara sort of refuted the entire reason he was doing philosophy, in that his attempts at saving the necessity of the brahmin caste from buddhism's rejection of its special place at the top of the food chain just did the exact same thing.
You are so clueless that it brought a smile to my face. Shankara did not "refute the entire reason he was doing philosophy" but defended the caste, the Vedas and Vedic rituals in his works. He only said that Vedic rituals themselves do not produce liberation (that Vedic rituals produce moksha or liberation is not stated once anywhere in the Vedas) but he argued that their purpose is to help one absolve sins and purify one's mind, thereby preparing oneself for the renunciation of desires which is required to reach liberation. Here are some choice quotes from Shankara which prove what I say and which should you don't know what you are talking about:

"nothing enjoined by the scriptures can be unworthy of performance" - Shankara, Isa Upanishad bhasya verse 8
"If all these (Vedic) rites and meditations, as enjoined, are properly observed, they become the cause for the purification of the mind of one who is free from desires and longs for emancipation" - Shankara, Kena Upanishad bhasya introduction

>if god is just the absolute grounding of reality, why do you need brahmins, given that literally everything a brahmin actually does, from ritual to meditation, is pointless?
What Brahmins do is not literally pointless as Shankara himself explains, but they help to preserve, teach and transmute the doctrines of Hinduism to each next generation and they conduct rituals which help to purify people's hearts, thereby preparing them for liberation. Shankara also accepts in his works that Vedic rites designed to acquire certain material ends or to reach heaven actually do produce those results, so if someone considered those results important or if they desired material wealth or sons then the Vedic rites preformed by Brahmins which lead to those things wouldn't be pointless. And if someone only care about liberation and didn't desire sons, a wife, wealth etc then the Brahmins would still not be pointless as Shankara himself explains.

>>16646336
>I keep hearing that (Theravada) Buddhists don't actually believe in reincarnation and just use it as a convenient fiction to assuage the lay devotees who aren't ready for the nihilism pill.
that's secular buddhism mostly with Stephen Batchelor
Batchelor was some tibetan student, then went into the pali tradition then went into secular stuff.

>>16646498
>Despite this, he literally makes the exact same mistake that Shankara made, in doing exactly what Nagarjuna said not to fucking do (take Emptiness aka Sunyata as a material, or substance, that things can be made out of).
Guenon doesn't write about Sunyata/Madhyamaka in his works, and he never writes anywhere in his works that emptiness is a substance or material of which things can be made.

You just can't help yourself from lying can you?

>>16648214
>To use something as a backstop means to place something at the rear of a system, as its support or reinforcement. Brahman is not something placed at the end of Advaita Vedanta, as a convenient solution, but from the very beginning the Upanishads introduce to the reader or listener to Brahman, and then offer various dialogues, symbolism etc all for the purpose of elaborating on that very Brahman. Similarly, like the Upanishads Advaita Vedanta centers itself from the very beginning around the concept of Brahman. The positions that Advaita holds about Brahman are the direct result of a hermeneutic exegesis primarily of the Upanishads and also of the Brahma Sutras and Bhagavad-Gita; it is not as though Shankara's Advaita views came first and then he added Brahman to make it more logical as a backstop.
Writing a longer version of what you already said doesn't change the meaning. Whatever Shankara's commentary on the Upanishads is that leads him to turn God or Brahman into the non-dual grounding of an ignorant world that does not know itself is by him made to find support in revelationary texts. Suppose this is in dialectic with someone who does not respect the authority of the text or is merely ignorant of it. Then his backstopping of his views in it is meaningless. Shankara's audience was not (You) or me for that matter but literate Indian philosophers in an India where Buddhism was in decline, and he happens to rescue something strinkingly similar to Buddhism for the Hindus, using what Hindus believe, not unlike Plotinus combing Plato and Homer for his own system, or any other sage forced to deal with those incapable of being laconicnbut filled with compassion for them never the less.

>>16648357
>and he happens to rescue something strinkingly similar to Buddhism for the Hindus
It's not though, Avidya (ignorance) is already in the pre-Buddhist Upanishads, as is non-duality. You are just interpreting older, Hindu ideas through a Buddhist lenses.

>>16647949
>Contemplation is literally thinking to seeking knowledge
>Aka something they don't have because they'd rather be a miserable crybaby instead of a man of Action.
It sounds like you don't really have any theory here other than being a glory-loving timocrat. The active/contemplative distinction is modern nonsense. If action does not come from contemplation then where does it come from? And contemplation is not possible without having perceived, and is not what we perceive the actions of bodies? So the two must continue to reinforce one another. As far as we know, no one ever sat to death thinking for their entire life. And no one worthy of being called human ever acted his entire life without any reflection, in total obliviousness to his will. What you are actually mad about is rooted in a trad argument over priests vs warriors but they've been abstracted into a principle of contemplation versus a principle of action. And there is a simple answer to which is "better," and that is neither, since affirming a caste system affirms the castes in it, and whoever rules does so by the fact that they've convinced the others they should, and anyone who argues "no, I should rule" threatens this very system in the first place and sets himself up as the next target.

>>16648388
In a long enough body of work you will find support for any view, and certainly a skilled writer will be able to break and bend it to his will if it does not seem to be willing to give him what he wants at the outset. I think few people would deny Vedanta and Buddhism belong to Indian philosophy, which as we know has pre-Buddhist ideas. But where were the Shankarins until Shankara came along? It's no different than Luther holding up his Bible and saying he doesn't see a pope. He's right of course; the Bible never says the metropolitan of Rome should be the pontiff of messianic Judaism. But the Catholics in their way are right that Christ said a man whose name means rock is the rock of the church, that the earthly body of the faithful shall have a leader as initiated by the Logos. And this was of course an important issue for a Germany leaving the Middle Ages, whether it had to take orders from Italy or Austria. In the same way, a Buddhist doesn't need the Upanishads to conceive non-dualism, but Hindus do.

>>16648453
>But where were the Shankarins until Shankara came along?
Their views are expressed in the primary Upanishads which date from around 800 BC to 400-300 BC, as well as in the Bhagavad-Gita (~100 BC), the Brahma Sutras (200 AD) and Gaudapada (~500 AD), and in some of the Puranas which mention non-dualism, there are various other earlier thinkers as well whose ideas and quotes are cited in the Brahma Sutras and in Shankara's works, although their works did not survive down to the present day

>>16648453
>In a long enough body of work you will find support for any view,
You gave the two examples of ignorance and non-duality earlier as "buddhist-like", in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad from centuries before Buddha we have countless references to those subjects using dozens of elaborate metaphors as well as the text itself directly using talking about those things

Ignorance in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad verse 4.4.11.

"‘Cheerless indeed are those worlds covered with blinding darkness. To them after death go those people who are ignorant and unwise"

Non-duality in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad verse 4.3.32.

"An ocean, a single seer without duality becomes he whose world is Brahman, O King, Yajnavalkya instructed. This is his supreme way. This is his supreme achievement."

>inb4 when the Upanishad itself talks about ignorance and non-dualism... it didn't actually mean it! Those are Buddhist ideas! You are like Luthur claiming Protestantism is the meaning of the bible, nevermind that the pre-Buddhist text directly talks about ideas I want to pretend are Buddhist!

>>16648510
That you can find such ideas using the Upanishads is a credit to them but that I can find them without them is a credit to the ideas.

>>16646084
>Vedanta is not considered Hinduism by the majority of Hindus.
The absolute state of this board

>>16648566
And they have the nerve to talk shit about Theosophy lmao

How can Buddhism not collapse in the face of Thomistic arguments of contingency and composition, and the Aristotelian criticisms of Heraclitus?

>>16648453
there was no advaita as a distinct school until Shankara/Godapada showed up and plagiarized buddhist non-dualism in order to legitimize advaita among the bhakti centric population of india, any trace is either lost or simply didn't exist to begin with.

>>16648597
mental formations are conditioned, easy, hence all intellectual work defied through the fantasy of talking about reality is crap

>>16649117
Why should I believe in your position if you admit that it is irrational?

>>16649117
>mental formations are conditioned, easy, hence all intellectual work is crap

>Uses reasoning to attack reason

>>16649117
You just made an argument there. So the Thomistic arguments about the necessity of a necessary being to metaphysically assemble contingent/composites things, and the Aristotelian arguments against the metaphysics of flow of Heraclite and Buddha, demand answers.

>>16649173
Yes, the Dharma is a raft

see: Wittgenstein's ladder

>>16649236
Why would we take an incoherent raft?

>>16649241
again, see: Wittgenstein's ladder

>>16649254
Again: why would we take an incoherent raft when there are other rafts that lead to the same mystical states without major inconsistencies in their metaphysics?

>>16643086
Zen is not left hand path stuff dude, that would be tantra, of which Tibetan Buddhism has the greatest focus on such things. Most Buddhism follows right hand path type methods and ideals.

>>16649259
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittgenstein%27s_ladder

>>16649259
those other rafts are just plagiarized rafts, shankara remains a cryptobuddhist

Simple as.

>>16649261
see also: vamachara in hindu traditions. literally translates to left hand path (tantra means warp or weave to show it is different or abberant from traditional practice towarss enlightenment or whatever

>>16649264
Based

>>16649264
>>16649262
Are you going to answer my question or am I waiting for nothing?

>>16648597
Can you expand on what exactly is the incompatibility between the criticism of Heraclitus and the Buddhism?

>>16649269
>In philosophy, Wittgenstein's ladder is a metaphor set out by Ludwig Wittgenstein about learning. In what may be a deliberate reference to Søren Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments,[1][2] the penultimate proposition of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (translated from the original German) reads:[3]
>6.54
>My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.)
>He must transcend these propositions, and then he will
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittgenstein%27s_ladder

See: Wittgenstein's ladder

>>16649269
Shankara plagiarized Nagarjuna, get over it.

>>16649280
Okay, so I'm waiting for nothing.

>>16649274
Heraclitus and Buddha share the same metaphysics of flow/process: negation of substances, everything is impermanent, always changing, etc.

>>16649281
I don't care retard, the fact is that his system doesn't have the major inconsistencies of yours.

>>16649293
>the fact is that his system doesn't have the major inconsistencies of yours.
Sorry bhai, based Ramanuja (pbuh) and Madhva (pbuh) exposed Shankara and Advaita for being inconsistent. That's just the fact.

>>16649286
the Dharma is the ladder, see? was it really that hard to put 2 and 2 together?

>>16649300
checked and based

>>16649301
Thanks buddhabro :)

>>16649300
V
>Again: why would we take an incoherent raft when there are other rafts that lead to the same mystical states without major inconsistencies in their metaphysics?

>>16644357
>Buddhists explain the temporal nature of reality and every aspect of existence better than anyone
Buddhists deny the fundamental reality of the self. 'nuff said

>>16649311
are you really that low IQ that I have to spell out the logic behind wittgenstein's ladder step by step like im lecturing a toddler? is this the power of 'mr. metaphysically consistent logician'?

>Advaita is logically consistent
How do Advaitin's square the fact that this claim violates Godel's second incompleteness theorem?

>>16649324
Fool, all metaphysical systems, even Thomism, say that in the end God is ineffable and therefore that in the end rational systems fade away. That doesn't change the fact that the Buddhist raft is filled with huge logic-metaphysical holes that almost all other rafts don't have, and it's not by quoting Ramanuja (whom you haven't read) that you're going to contradict this point. Do you understand u braindead?

>>16649326
Start by understanding the theorem.

>>16649335
Are you going to answer my question or am I waiting for nothing?

>>16649331
You don't even know the parable of the raft lol, have you even read anything past page 2 of Shankara's bhashya?

>>16646084
>The buddhist accuses anyone of materialism
the irony is killing me

>>16649326
They are not up to that level of logic, they like to pretend though, however they are only just beginning babby-tier elementary set theory.

>>16649345
Buddhism refuted materialism (Charvakism), he isn't wrong.

>>16649344
Ok, i'm wasting my time.

>>16649380
it's ok to concede defeat I guess, I'll take the win.

>>16649314
>being a self baby

never gonna get enlightened

>>16649286
>everything is impermanent, always changing, etc.
nirvana is not changing, thats the point of niravana

>>16649462
Pro-tip:
No one ever was enlightened because it's a carrot and a stick deal, enlightenment being the carrot.

>>16649326
The second incompleteness theorem only applies to formal systems. Advaita Vedanta is not a formal system which lays out all its axioms in ways which can be mathematically modeled, so the second incompleteness theory is inapplicable. Attempts to apply the theorem outside of the realm of mathematics, as you are attempting to do now, have generally been rejected.

>Appeals and analogies are sometimes made to the incompleteness theorems in support of arguments that go beyond mathematics and logic. Several authors have commented negatively on such extensions and interpretations, including Torkel Franzén (2005); Panu Raatikainen (2005); Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont (1999); and Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom (2006). Bricmont and Stangroom (2006, p. 10), for example, quote from Rebecca Goldstein's comments on the disparity between Gödel's avowed Platonism and the anti-realist uses to which his ideas are sometimes put. Sokal and Bricmont (1999, p. 187) criticize Régis Debray's invocation of the theorem in the context of sociology;

>>16649326
We're talking about people who argue that the Buddha was a time traveler dude. You're bringing in topics that are beyond them.

>>16649286
The Two Truths Doctrine handles what you're getting at in both cases in >>16648597.

The argument of contingency, as stated above, is just outright rejected in all Indian philosophy. Aristotelian thought only maintains it as a means of defending an assumption they already have (the existence of some Prime Mover). The Prime Mover comes first, the argument of contingency is a defense of the Prime Mover; the universe having a "start point" is only held so you can say that there has to be a starter. There is no start point, according to the Indians, the universe is cyclical and eternal. If you reject the desire to have a Prime Mover, you don't need an argument of contingency. The Kalam Cosmological Argument, which is what 99% of people on here mean when they say "cosmological argument" or "argument of contingency", was created explicitly to defend the necessity of Allah. Aquinas's take on the subject, that there needs to be God because otherwise the universe could also not exist, is also totally rejected in Buddhist philosophy: nothing can not-exist. It's just flat out impossible. Non-existence can't be. We can, however, discuss HOW things exist (unicorns exist, just in your head).

>>16649781
But we can hold whatever axioms (namely, the existence of a God that HAS to be the Prime Mover) we want, so a better question is the same one Plato asks: how can we have anything if everything is in flux? If all things are Empty, then what are they made of? The deep nihilism and incoherence of Advaita Vedanta comes from its mistakenly taking Emptiness, Sunyata, Dependent Origination as a statement of WHAT things are, that they are "made of Emptiness" (Guenon actually makes this same error that Shankara does, word for word; it's the same one that Nagarjuna explicitly says not to do). Emptiness, Sunyata, is a description of things. Things are real, Emptiness is just a way of describing HOW they are real.

All things being in flux does not mean that chairs are constantly becoming tables. Tar is in flux, but tar makes like one droplet a year. Things are made of parts, and those parts are made up of other parts. These parts can be removed. These parts change by simple virtue of moving through time and space.

Plato's criticisms of not being able to refer to the river that's always flowing is apt, and Buddhist thought would say that yes, that is true. No statement can truly be made in the Ultimate Sense. Buddhist thought says that there are "Ultimately True" statements, and "Conventionally True" statements. The former, as Nagarjuna demonstrates, can never be done 100%. No 100% Ultimately True statement can ever be made. Wittgenstein, among others, comes up with similar statements. Ayn Rand, of all fucking people, comes up with something similar, albeit unintentionally: she believed you should only say something if you could define every single word in the statement, including the words in the subsequent statements. You can't actually do this without creating an infinite chain of words.

>>16649805
Language and conceptuality are flawed tools. They were not made to convey Ultimate Truths, they were made to convey Conventional Truths. Indra's Net, everything is "floating" in a vast infinite web, every node being everything else. Everything is defined by everything else. Pluto has some small impact on you. To Ultimately describe you, you'd have to describe your relation to Pluto, and literally everything else in the universe across all time and space.

But, who cares? Conventionally, we know that 99% of "you" comes from a small number of things. We can draw our focus to just a small number of things in the web. Your car is Conventionally real, and it drives you to the store. Your computer is Conventionally real, and you shitpost on it. You are Conventionally real, and you shitpost. Our ability to convey Conventional Truths is ultimately based on the fact that "you know what I mean". And you do, as every time you open your mouth, or even think via language and conceptuality, you take something in that big web of infinity, and just define it by the (also Conventionally Real) things around it. Good enough. Disagree? Go tell the cashier at the store that money is only Conventionally Real and as such does not exist.

The "goal" of philosophy from the Western perspective, coming up with a perfect linguistic description of reality, is on its face rejected. Lived experience is the only way to truly know anything in the Ultimate sense. Buddhism as a religion is all about figuring out (increasingly creative and bizarre) ways of conveying Ultimate truths through experience. This is where whacky shit like Koans and Zen monks slapping each other with sandals comes in.

Buddhism is a religion, this metaphysical wanking that e-Vedatins and "Thomists" (lol) like to engage in is intellectual masturbation that Buddhism rejects outright. It's a religion of practice.

>>16649825
>Buddhism is a religion, this metaphysical wanking that e-Vedatins and "Thomists" (lol) like to engage in is intellectual masturbation that Buddhism rejects outright. It's a religion of practice.
but muh contemplation

Where did the belief that enlightenment can be attained while living a worldly life come from?

>>16642807
Weekly reminder that Perennialism is gay and for plebs who can't tell the difference between religions. Practicing perennial philosophy means your either don't understand history, orthodoxy or (most likely) both. Being a perenniallist in almost any context and any other age before the twentieth-century would result in you getting your head spiked off a rock for deviance.

>>16649946>>16649946
>Where did the belief that enlightenment can be attained while living a worldly life come from?

Mahayana

>>16649781
>We're talking about people who argue that the Buddha was a time traveler dude.
No, nobody has said that

>>16649805
>Guenon actually makes this same error that Shankara does, word for word; it's the same one that Nagarjuna explicitly says not to do
Neither Guenon nor Shankara do that, neither of them write that about emptiness in their writings, why do you continue to lie repeatedly after you've already been called out for lying? Do you think people just won't notice or something?

>>16649261
That was my point. Is that stupid niggers forget that The left hand path aspect of Buddhism is only ascertained by means of a responsibility and a right hand path participation... Which again fits with perennial philosophys immediate and mid-term goals.

>>16647435
That's simply not true, and even if Evola or Evola posters did speak more briefly you would entirely deny what they said and call it archaic of fascist platitudes of whatever variety.

>>16650735
The so-called effortpost about Evola which you were lauding ends with referring to writing books as "action" as if books were not a product of contemplation. The entire post is incoherent, like anything which enforces the contemplation/action distinction.

>>16648426
You haven't read Evola.

The "knowledge" you get from contemplation is something experiential about yourself or reality which is actualized into your state of consciousness or your very being, not something abstract that's illusory or intellectual you manifest only in the mind.

Evola isn't telling you not to think ot having a retarded fit about something irrelevant. He's describing the Action principle taken to it's fullest extent which is what the ancient world had in every level of the caste system but this world has replaced with Philosophy and intellect and so it deadens and cheapens the experience and FUNCTION in being here.

Heres a TTS from Evola that more thoroughly describes this:
https://youtu.be/trB7-b6UitA

>>16650795
No it fucking isn't. When you're paralyzed, Writing books about an important subject is a form of action, then again telling everyone who reads them to take action is a form of action. Simply thinking yourself to death and NOT creating great works or anything for that matter is perfectly described as mere contemplation.

>>16650808
>Evola isn't telling you not to think ot having a retarded fit about something irrelevant.
Sure but that poster was, probably based on skimming the Metaphysics of War and wishing he could be one of Nietzsche's blonde beasts. Still, mind and experience continuously reinforce one another, without the extension of bodies the mind would have nothing to grasp and without mind there would be no possibility of standing outside the endless cause and effect to plot a course of action.

>>16650835
Yeah how is that any different from a priestly contemplative caste telling the warrior action caste what to do? You've split apart thinking and acting into strawmen symbols of the castes and since thinking is lunar and chthonic and action is based and redpilled, wheelchair man has to be active no matter what so his production of literature is awarded to the active instead of the contemplative.

>>16650411
Other than the Vedantins on /lit/ who argue that the Buddha just stole everything he said from a man born over 1,000 years after he died.

>>16650420
>I have never read anything by Guenon or Shankara, but I'll have you know...
Then your opinion doesn't matter. If you're unaware of Guenon's views on the fana of al-fana, and on what lies behind the extinction of extinction, you're literally clueless on this topic and should refrain from having an opinion. If you're unaware of what the ENTIRE POINT of what Shankara's works are about, then you are literally clueless on this topic and should refrain from having an opinion.

This is a common problem on /lit/, where you attach yourself to these vague topics and base your own self worth off of being part of the "in-crowd" for being on the "right side", but you don't even know why these supposed divisions exist.

>>16651152
>Other than the Vedantins on /lit/ who argue that the Buddha just stole everything he said from a man born over 1,000 years after he died.
Nobody has ever said that, as anyone who knows enough about Vedanta to contrast it with Buddhism knows that Shankara lived in the 8th century. When people say that Buddhism took ideas from Hinduism they are talking about Buddha taking ideas from the early pre-Buddhist Upanishads which predate the live of Buddha. I have never once seen a single person in all of these countless eastern philosophy threads ever claim that Buddha stole ideas from the man Shankara who lived in the 8th century. It seems like you have some sort of weird compulsion where you make up these elaborate strawmen of your opponents in order to shift the conversation away from all of the contradictions and holes in Buddhist theory.

>If you're unaware of Guenon's views on the fana of al-fana, and on what lies behind the extinction of extinction,
That is a Sufi doctrine which has nothing to do with Madhyamaka Buddhism or Sunyata, I don't know why you feel as though bringing that up is relevant to the present discussion. I can recall where Guenon writes about the Sufi doctrine of the fana of al-fana in his book 'Symbolism of the Cross', nowhere when he writes about that does he say that emptiness is a substance of which things can be made as you have falsely claimed multiple times.

>If you're unaware of what the ENTIRE POINT of what Shankara's works are about, then you are literally clueless on this topic and should refrain from having an opinion.
The ENTIRE POINT of Shankara's writings are to demonstrate that the doctrines of Advaita Vedanta follows from an exegesis of the Hindu scriptures. I've read about 90% of Shankara's writings, he never once does what you are accusing him of doing. It is precisely because I have read most of Shankara's writings that I was able to quickly identify that you are telling blatant lies about them. I just cited you the one passage where he criticizes Madhyamaka Buddhism, nowhere in his writings does Shankara say that emptiness is a substance out of which things are made as you have falsely claimed. I really don't understand why you continue to insist on lying about this. Do you have some sort of mental illness? What is it that could possibly cause someone to repeatedly insist that someone writes something in their works which they never do against all evidence and despite people providing you with citations showing that you are wrong?

>>16651152
Why don't you just provide a citation for the pages of which texts where Shankara allegedly says the things which you are claiming that he did?

>>16646336
That is basically what pic related says.

>>16651374
>I have never once seen a single person in all of these countless eastern philosophy threads ever claim that Buddha stole ideas from the man Shankara who lived in the 8th century.
you're clearly pretty new to 4chan then because guenonfag did this for a year straight, and still does this on /his/.

>>16650866
The priests don't do much contemplating, they do asceticism and rites

There isn't a brain behind everything, there is a God behind everything.

contemplating>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>acting

>>16651961
Do you have a single source to back up that claim?

Is this the weekly shankara=cryptobuddhist thread?

Anyone still remember when only a few people on /lit/ knew that cryptobuddhism is the standard response to advaitaboos? Those were dark times, thankfully now everybody knows

Maybe Im just stupid but these autism arguments seem pointless.

>>16653801
You have simply not opened your third eye enough to understand the deep CONTEMPLATION of guenonfag. For example reflect on this post he once made -
>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.

>>16653801
No, you're not. If Buddha, Shankara, Evola or whoever were to witness these threads they'd take it as a pathetic joke. All intellectual fumblings with no basis in lived experience and action.

>>16653801
They are, but sometimes I learn interesting tidbits of info from the interactions

>>16653787
What was Guenon's thoughts on Nagarjuna?

Some say to read Evola and to ride the tiger.
Others tell me to read Guenon and to contemplate.
And some tell me to read Castaneda and fry my brain on psychedelic drugs.
How do I into traditionalism? How do I live my life?

Currently reading an anthology of all of Plato's works right now. Do teachers of virtue exist?
I just want to end the cycle of birth and rebirth and quit living as a slave.

>>16653968
Guenon never mentions Nagarjuna in any of his works. Although he writes in "Intro" that the Buddhist schools which Shankara criticized in the 8th century were degenerated versions of original Buddhism and were anti-traditional; and as Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka was one of the schools which Shankara attacked, that would imply Guenon thought the same of it or else he would have made a point to distinguish it from the other Buddhist schools which Shankara attacked.

>>16654044
Just wondering what the basis of this statement is, in that refutation of advitas, cause in my own readings, I dont remember him mentioning anything about Nagarjuna at all. Unless something im missing something very obvious.

>>16654043
Castaneda has nothing to do with Traditionalism (as a school of thought) and his own teacher literally says he only had Carlos use drugs because Carlos was too stupid to loosen his perception in any other way.

Anyway, if you want no shit-traditionalism without getting lost in the weeds of obscure Eastern traditions just start with Evola. You can't go wrong there.

>>16654065
*Unless im missing something very obvious.

>>16654071
This, evola is a good practical starting point

>>16654071
>>16654076
Why are his books so ridiculously expensive?

>>16654098
Just get them online for free

>>16654098
>>16654100
https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Julius+Evola%22

>>16654100
>>16654112
Srry i prefer smelling the paper and doing magik sex rituals with the books
i will buy them used

>>16654123
The books on Amazon aren't that expensive, if you have a job anyway.

>>16654123
Ah I can understand that my friend, I also prefer physical copies but I am not as picky. Best of luck to you

>>16654065
>Just wondering what the basis of this statement
If you mean from that image which gets posted every now and then about muh Shankara cryptobuddhist it's because the image was made by some neurotic guy who is always seething about Guenon and Advaita. I'm not sure why he wrote that sentence but it seems he was trying to make some jab at Guenon by saying that if Guenon was a "real perennialist" then he would accept Nagarjuna as valid too because all religions are valid or something, but that totally misses the point and just shows you the guy who made the image is a moron because Guenon didn't describe himself as a perennialist and he didn't accept every sect of every religion as valid (demonstrated by his attacks on Protestantism for example) and he specifies why in his works.

>in that refutation of advitas,
what refutation of Advaita? accusing something of taking an idea from something else is not a refutation of their idea

>>16654127
>if you have a job anyway.
hehe no

>>16654133
I am just wondering what the statement is based on if Nagarjuna was not mentioned by Guenon explicitly. if you said it is nothing, then I will wait and see if someone else has a counterpoint.

>>16654137
Save up as best you can then

>>16644469
Actual Platonism is closer to Buddhism and Gnosticism, phenomenon is a shadow not just a degraded copy of the true sublime. Shadows can appear to be completely different than what's casting them, in Buddhism phenomenon is based on a chain of cause and effect rooted in desire, but this creates a feedback loop where the dreamer is chasing phantoms and forgets that he's in a dream within a dream. The buddhist realizes the futility of trying to find truth in distorted reflections, and bypasses them altogether as a dreamer becoming lucid and awakening.

>>16654123
>prefer doing magik sex rituals with the books
>I will buy them used
ummm, what if someone else used those books for those same purposes?

>>16654168
Even better

>>16649280
Plato and Laozi said something similar to this

>>16654157
it's probably from the guenonfag days, when an autistic spammer touted guenon was as a man who had written essays attacking nagarjuna for distorting the buddhas doctrines, which were of course just advaita vedanta as he'd gone into the future and stolen it from shankara. he also really hated whitehead because whitehead had never read plato (which is just factually wrong).

these images, and the one in >>16653787, are less about any sort of actual argument and more so about just making LARPers mad and turning their own memes around on them (incoherent, retroactively refuted, etc).

>>16655630
>less about any sort of actual argument and more so about just making LARPers mad and turning their own memes around on them
Yes, that seems most likely explanation

>>16655630
true, but it is also true that literally everybody other than guenonfag thinks shankara=cryptobuddhism. guenonfag only ever cited wikipedia and things he googled. every other source is unanimously agreed that shankara is basically a mahayana buddhist who synthesized it with vedanta's overall framework.

>>16643086
buddhism is not left hand path lmao, it's just a via negativa, you just remove things and check what's left

>>16656435
lol, Shankara completely rekt buddhism and exposed it for the pile of sophistry that it is

>>16642807
how do you explain this buddhist sutra otherwise?
>There is, bhikkhus, a not-born, a not-brought-to-being, a not-made, a not-conditioned. If, bhikkhus, there were no not-born, not-brought-to-being, not-made, not-conditioned, no escape would be discerned from what is born, brought-to-being, made, conditioned. But since there is a not-born, a not-brought-to-being, a not-made, a not-conditioned, therefore an escape is discerned from what is born, brought-to-being, made, conditioned.
>https://accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.8.03.irel.html
never heard a satisfactory explanation from the "lmao, there's nuthin'" buddhist crowd

>>16646336
if reincarnation doesn't exist, what do you get with buddhism that you wouldn't get jumping from a cliff?

>>16656462
shankara "rekt" buddhism by everyone in history other than guenonfag agreeing he was more of a buddhist than a vedantist?

even the other vedantists? who all hated him and said "stop bringing buddhism into our philosophy you retard"?

real vedantists are the ones who came up with the term "cryptobuddhist" because they all universally looked at shankara's philosophy and went "uhhh... this is just buddhism with brahman at the end?" which is what it is.

>>16656515
Shankara rekt Buddhism by pointing out the contradictions in the various schools and how none of their metaphysics makes sense, and how Buddhism is wrong to deny that we have a consciousness which is different from and which observes the activity of the mind.

Buddhists are NPCs who don't have inner consciousness or who are blind to it. In pic related Shankara BTFO's every single school of Buddhism which denies the self (including Madhyamaka) by showing how we have a consciousness that is different from the contents of thoughts, and by debunking all the sophistic arguments that Buddhists typically use to deny this.

>>16653571
there's no difference between those

>>16656543
hot opinions, but we're not talking about whether shankara hated buddhism but with the fact that everybody in history has basically agreed that he was taking all his ideas from buddhism

everyone even agrees that he stole buddhist monasticism

>>16656470
Seems to me that Buddhism is similar to Protestantism in this regard, in that they for the most part refuse to systematize and reify what truly can not be spoken of, for just like Parmenides pointed out, anything that is even thought is within Being, and which then according to Buddhism is subject to suffering. Both Buddhism and Protestants rejected the rationalism that attempts to speak about the truly unspeakable. Unfortunately a lot of Buddhists from this deduced that "there is nothing" like you say, and a lot of Protestants nowadays refuse to reason about anything and have devolved into just Bible grammarians who can say nothing at all outside of the Bible.

Although obviously not saying that Protestantism or Buddhism is similar in doctrine or that their "Absolutes" are in any way supplementary.

>>16656559
>hot opinions,
It's funny because even you realize that I'm right and even you are not even willing to defend the Buddhist theory of mind because in order to do so you have to argue that we are all NPCs.

Shankara completely rekt Buddhism by exposing its theory of mind/conciousness as a pile of nonsense which is clearly wrong. This is why Buddhism vanished from India when it became apparent to everyone that it was the religion of NPCs. Buddhists complaining about Shankara just do so to avoid facing one of the central flaws at the heart of their theories. They are eternally butt-blasted that Shankara pulled back the curtain and exposed them all as NPC retards.

>>16656513
You could argue that you'd be happier in this life, but if you don't believe in rebirth then you could also just replace "jumping off a cliff" with "ODing on heroin". This is why the Buddha spent a lot of time arguing against the Carvakas, who argued just that (tl;dr reality literally does not make sense if you reject rebirth).

>>16656470
If your intrinsic nature was to suffer, you could never stop suffering. It is precisely because of Anatman, of the lack of intrinsic self-nature, that enlightenment, the cessation of suffering, and indeed anything at all, is possible. "Emptiness" is not a material, it's not a noun, it's an adjective, a descriptor. Things are Empty precisely because they are real; they can only be real if they are Empty. "Emptiness" does not say what does and does not exist (because something can never not exist), but rather it describes how it exists. The fact that you are Empty (of intrinsic-self nature) is why you can go to sleep, and wake up. If your intrinsic self-nature was to be asleep you could never awaken; if it was to be awake, you could never sleep.

Nagarjuna elaborates on this, tl;dr its just the Two Truths. Something having an Ultimately True "beginning" doesn't make any sense, things can only have Conventionally True beginnings (and endings).

>>16656543
>oh shit, i got called out!
>i know, i'll post a completely acontextual walltext and hope that no one reads it, because i certainly haven't!
Great job bro, you sure showed him. You are right about one thing, though: No one is going to read your image.

>>16656559
everyone for a thousand years, from western academics to hindu philosophers, to the majority of practicing hindus today, agrees that shankara is a cryptobuddhist who is mostly doing buddhist philosophy with brahman added at the end.

stay mad, or read a book sometime.

>>16656613
You are aware that Buddhism died out in India 200 years prior to Shankara being born, right? It had nothing to do with some obscure atheist philosopher tipping his fedora, Buddhism was NEVER popular in India. It completely rejected the Brahmin caste's position, and got shat on for it.

It was popular in Gandhara, and when Gandhara got conquered by Muslims, the intellectual center of Buddhism in the Indosphere went away.

>>16656619
>i'll post a completely acontextual walltext
You mean the completely contextual passage where Shankara shows that the Buddhist denial of the self qua witness-consciousness is completely retarded, and that only NPCs could fall for it?

>>16656619
i don't think happiness is the goal of buddhism? you would just dwell in the jhanas if that was the case, rather than shoot for nirvana

>>16656641
pure cope, Buddhist existed all over India at that point, Ghandara falling would not cause Buddhism to vanish all over southern and eastern India at the same time

>>16656641
This is who you are arguing with. He comes here only to have this argument over and over again. He will start copypasting pre-prepared walls of text to you if he hasn't already.

>>16656673
based, he is like a shining beacon in the darkness, awakening from their slumber all of the poor souls who have fallen victim to the NPC siren song of no-self, appearing like a flash of lightning to show them the luminous existence of their own consciousness, which NPCs have duplicitously conspired to hide from them in order to prepare them for assimilation into the globohomo Borg

Buddhism = Shit
Advaita Vedanta = Good

>>16656725
Go post your naked body again in a pathetic attempt to make yourself a forced meme.

Why do you think people don't remember? It was only a few months ago.

>>16656654
I think the kind of person who would argue against rebirth would also reject nirvana.

>>16656662
No it didn't, it'd been reduced to like four monasteries.

>>16656728
>Advaita Vedanta = Good

>>16656740
>Go post your naked body again

Why would I when you already have it saved on your hard drive along with countless of my shitposts from over the years? Your homoerotic love-hate obsession with me is already intense enough that I don't need to do anything to further strengthen it

>>16656741
>No it didn't, it'd been reduced to like four monasteries.
wrong, the Muslims didn't reach and sack Nalanda until the 12th or 13th century, the broader Muslim invasions into the rest of India didn't begin to take place to any significant degree until a century or two after Shankara

>>16656769

>>16656784
I still remember when you were begging and crying for people to stop bullying you after you spammed the board for days on end and /lit/ absorbed it and just made fun of it. Was that all an epic troll too? You started posting your naked pics, and then posting them pretending to be someone else reposting them, right after that.

I'd love to know what cocktail of borderline disorder or manic/depressive disorders you have. You have the craziest extremes of "lmao I am /lit/'s most epic troll" and "WHY IS EVERYONE BEING MEAN TO ME?"

>>16656842
>I still remember when you were begging and crying for people to stop bullying you
That never happened but sure, whatever you schizo

>I'd love to know what cocktail of borderline disorder or manic/depressive disorders you have.
I could ask the same of you, you are the one who has obsessively cataloged and saved every shitpost and joke which I made for the last two years, and who continues to repost them literally hundreds of times, you are completely obsessed with me.

>>16656864
It happened several times. You're doing it right now, you're claiming to be le epic troll man but when someone "slanders your reputation" you desperately have to set the record straight. If you really were this master troll, you would not care when people point out your faggotry.

The same thing triggered your meltdown last time. You were spamming, but when people started parodying you, you flipped out because it made you look bad. You have always been very upset about being confused with the Swedish tranny lover too.

You deeply, deeply care. You melt down and say "die" and "fuck you you fucking piece of shit" to people when they repost your most embarrassing moments. You think there's a troll network set up to stalk you. There isn't, it's just a slow board and people remember all the embarrassing shit you did. Because you did it for months.

Now reply to me with a big post "refuting" all my claims about your le epic troll persona, that you don't care about because it's just a persona. By the way, you were obviously the tranny lover, not the Swede. The Swede was chill.

>>16656901
>It happened several times. You're doing it right now
No I'm not, I'm making fun of you at this exact moment by laughing at how obsessed you are with me, and how pathetic it makes you look by devoting so much of your time to saved my shitposts and reposting them
>but when someone "slanders your reputation" you desperately have to set the record straight
No, you have tried to dox me multiple times because of your deranged homoerotic obsession with me, and a few times I have pointed out how one could easily tell the person in question wasn't me, but that was it.
>"die" and "fuck you you fucking piece of shit"
I have never posted that or anything like it
>You think there's a troll network set up to stalk you.
No, it's just one seriously neurotic jewish guy living in the UK

>>16656938
Can't wait to have a discussion with you all day about how you don't care about your zany trollposts or how they're received, you're just a wacky guy and everyone is obsessed with you, while you obsessively hunt down every critical comment and set the record straight (by lying as usual), but you have already proved my point so I don't have to. You care, a lot.

At least you're more careful about being caught lusting after trannies now. And you probably won't post your naked body again because that was fucking embarrassing. Or will you now, because I said you won't? Only time will tell..

See you for the next episode of "Guenonfag is simultaneously a carefree jester and insanely obsessed with managing his 'image'."

>>16656812
Nalanda is in Eastern India, not Gandhara.

>>16656978
>Can't wait to have a discussion with you all day about how you don't care about your zany trollposts
If I cared, why would I continue to make them?

>you're just a wacky guy and everyone is obsessed with you
No, just you are Shlomo

>>16642807
Buddhism tends to be anti-degeneracy, so most traditionalists like that. However, a traditionalist Christian will virtually never say that a non-Christian religion (other than Confucianism, Shinto, or another "non-religion") is compatible with their philosophy. That said, Buddhism is one of the religions that's friendlier wth Christianity so there's more sympathy towards it than other (some) religions.

>>16656986
>If I cared, why would I continue to make them?
look up sunk cost fallacy

>>16656984
Yes I know, the fact that Nalanda was active until it was sacked, and that it was receiving receiving royal patronage from the Pala Empire from the 8th to the 12th century puts lie to the claim that Buddhism had vanished from India before Shankara's time, as does the fact that there were major Indian Buddhist contemporaries of Shankara like Santariksita, as does the fact that in the 7th century Hsuan Tsang described Indian Buddhism as being only in decline from its height but not vanished, and that he recorded there still being thousands of Buddhists in the cities of India at the time.

>>16656998
>look up sunk cost fallacy
I enjoy shitposting and joking because it amuses me, and I enjoy pointing out the flaws in NPCddhist doctine because it brings me joy to see people awaken to the light of their own consciousness, I have no "sunk cost" in anything

>>16656993
You're confusing Traditionalism with traditionalism.

>>16657038
>Buddhists are NPCs
>why yes, I do believe I am merely an ignorant fragment of Brahman rather than a permanent individual

>>16656993
>Buddhism is friendlier with Christianity
Only among people who don't believe in anything, i.e. Western church shoppers and moralistic therapeutic deists. Buddhism and Christianity are not compatible. Look up the history of Christian efforts to convert Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Japan, both were repulsed by the Buddhists. Shinto is polytheistic or (polydaemonic) so that's out too. Confucianists have household gods and ancestor worship, definitely not kosher.

>>16657317
> am merely an ignorant fragment of Brahman rather than a permanent individual
That's incorrect. Ignorance inheres in the Jiva, Brahman/Atman is not itself ignorant. I am not the Jiva which I observe. I am the observing Atman or Brahman, which is permanent. The Jiva is something separate from me, it is an object whose appearance is given to me.

>>16657365
>No, I'm not an NPC, I'm just a Non-Player Character being piloted remotely by forces beyond my control, which is why I am not capable of thought!
lol

>>16657025
So, now you've shifted the goal posts.

>>16657389
>No, I'm not an NPC, I'm just a Non-Player Character being piloted remotely by forces beyond my control, which is why I am not capable of thought!
I never said, you are just twisting my words. I am not the jiva, I am not the body, I am not the mind, I am pure consciousness. This pure consciousness is the pilot or inner controller (Antaryāmin) of the body and mind. So, I am not being "piloted remotely by forces beyond my control" but I myself am the pilot. Typical NPC mistake you made to mistake the pilot for the piloted.

NPCs are unable to realize their own consciousness (if they even have one), I have realized my own consciousness and know that it is different from the body and mind which appear to it.

>>16657389
>So, now you've shifted the goal posts.
No I haven't, I'm just pointing out that there is an abundance of evidence which shows that the claim made earlier "Buddhism died out in India 200 years prior to Shankara being born" is utterly false

>>16657365
>That's incorrect. Ignorance inheres in the Jiva,
Ok yes plain being in the world leads to ignorance
>Brahman/Atman is not itself ignorant.
Sure, assuming there is a capital-G, I would think he should be omniscient
>I am not the Jiva which I observe.
So you are not the conventionally assumed (You), ok
>I am the observing Atman or Brahman, which is permanent.
So you are actually God all along but ignorant of this
>The Jiva is something separate from me, it is an object whose appearance is given to me.
So... you only appear to have been born a person/self.
Then there is no self and you are an NPC relative to the Absolute Self, of which you are ignorant due to being born an NPC by the Developer. Now, when people speak of the NPC they are clearly speaking of a pluality of scripted characters which the Player does not control directly. However, NPCs only spawn based on the Player's inputs in the game, and the Player assumes he is actually controlling his own character, despite having not coded the Game. The Player follows what inputs are determined by the Developer and the NPCs respond based on those inputs. So too the player is avidya, ignorant, subject to involuntary respawning so long as he does not power off the Game completely and become pure binary code.

>>16657428
>I am pure consciousness
Oh, so you aren't an Advaita Vedantin at all, you're actually an adherent to one of the numerous dualist schools of Hindu thought. You believe that you are something separate from Brahman.

>>16657428
>i'm not real, i'm actually being piloted by something else separate from me
so... you're an NPC then. you're a puppet, and Brahman is pulling your strings.

>>16657495
Yeah this actually sounds more like vijnanavada, which unfortunately for him, makes him a Buddhist. Read the Cheng Weishi Lun

>>16657502
Even if we take him to be a Player character, he still is not in control of himself as he must follow the Developer's code. Being a Player or an NPC is actually a false dualism as both are constrained by the same Game.

>>16657488
>Sure, assuming there is a capital-G, I would think he should be omniscient
Yes, I as Brahman am omniscient. However, in the present state of association with the Jiva this is not readily apparent to the mind of the Jiva. When I speak of what "my mind" is capable of, it is really pure consciousness piloting the mind, using it to speak of what that mind, which is different from pure consciousness, is capable of. The mind of the Jiva is not omniscient
>So you are actually God all along
yes
>but ignorant of this
The Jiva is ignorant of this, the Atman or Brahman isn't. The Jiva superimposes its own ignorance onto the Atman, but the Atman is unaffected by this.
>So... you only appear to have been born a person/self.
>Then there is no self and you are an NPC relative to the Absolute Self
Incorrect, Brahman is the Self, pure consciousness is the Self. You keep confusing the Jiva and the Atman. I am not the Jiva, you keep mistakenly using the words "you" in speaking to me when you are actually speaking about the Jiva, who is not me.
>of which you are ignorant due to being born an NPC by the Developer.
The Jiva is ignorant of this, but I am not the Jiva, so I am not the NPC, I as Brahman am the Developer playing my own game
>Now, when people speak of the NPC they are clearly speaking of a pluality of scripted characters which the Player does not control directly. However, NPCs only spawn based on the Player's inputs in the game, and the Player assumes he is actually controlling his own character, despite having not coded the Game. The Player follows what inputs are determined by the Developer and the NPCs respond based on those inputs.
I think you are stretching the NPC analogy too far, I not sure what point you are trying to make anymore. The NPC meme is helpful in elucidating the nature of the Buddhism/Vedanta discussion because Buddhists typically deny that there is a separate observing consciousness who is different from the contents of consciousness such as thoughts or sensory perceptions. In this way it shows them to be NPCs because they either don't have or don't realize that they have this consciousness.
>So too the player is avidya, ignorant, subject to involuntary respawning so long as he does not power off the Game completely and become pure binary code.
Again, you are confusing the Jiva and the Atman, the player character may be considered an NPC, but that would make it the Jiva. The consciousness of the real-life person playing the videogame is separate from that virtual player in the video game and it observes that video-game character as the object of its own consciousness, just as the consciousness of the Atman observes the Jiva as its object, just as our consciousness observes the body and thoughts as its own objects.
>>16657495
No, because Brahman is pure consciousness, I as pure consciousness am Brahman, "Consciousness is Brahman" - Aitareya Upanishad 3.3, "Pure Intelligence alone" - Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.5.13.

>>16657502
>so... you're an NPC then. you're a puppet, and Brahman is pulling your strings.
No, you are not understanding. I am Brahman, the string-puller, pilot and inner controller. The physical body and the mind are the puppets whose strings I pull

>>16657516
>vijnanavada Buddhism
that was refuted by Shankara

>>16656619
>If your intrinsic nature was to suffer, you could never stop suffering. It is precisely because of Anatman, of the lack of intrinsic self-nature, that enlightenment, the cessation of suffering, and indeed anything at all, is possible. "Emptiness" is not a material, it's not a noun, it's an adjective, a descriptor. Things are Empty precisely because they are real; they can only be real if they are Empty. "Emptiness" does not say what does and does not exist (because something can never not exist), but rather it describes how it exists. The fact that you are Empty (of intrinsic-self nature) is why you can go to sleep, and wake up. If your intrinsic self-nature was to be asleep you could never awaken; if it was to be awake, you could never sleep.
ok now how is this emptiness different from brahman (which is one's, reality's, real self and nature)? in the end it is all apophaticism.

>>16657624
>The NPC meme is helpful in elucidating the nature of the Buddhism/Vedanta discussion because Buddhists typically deny that there is a separate observing consciousness who is different from the contents of consciousness such as thoughts or sensory perceptions. In this way it shows them to be NPCs because they either don't have or don't realize that they have this consciousness.
You are saying there is such a consciousness outside of its contents, backstopping it as Brahman on the basis of revelationary texts, and then calling the conventional existence an ignorant birth. If the only way we have this container is because god said so then you are just his coding, and it wouldn't matter if you are a Player or an NPC because you don't actually exist as a real (You) after all but are merely His Ideas. Pratitya samutpada does not require this leap; we can simply observe that we were not conscious without sensation, and if we so desperately require more explanation we can have an alaya vijnana storing all these affections but that does not escalate to being a Self That is God But Does Not Know It Is God. If you are piloting your birth body as an extension of Brahman then it is He who coded you and you are not a Player. If an NPC is a not-Player it would follow that you are an NPC. Since neither have an absolute existence they are empty.

>>16657624
>>16657629
So, then you are just an empty shell being piloted by some outside entity. You are an NPC.

This is why everyone has been mocking you guys for the past 1,200 years, just so you're aware. This nihilistic incoherence right here.

>>16657643
If we strip away most of what is actually defined by Brahman to just "dude you can't say anything about it man" then sure, we could say that. If we take Brahman to be "all that is and nothing more" yeah sure then we could totally say that Buddhism accepts that.

But the moment we leave that realm of simplicty and start actually trying to understand things, we enter a problem. Firstly, the (orthodox) Buddhist position rejects the idea of there being some "ground", that you could dig down through Emptiness to find. It does this both because it rejects the idea of "digging through Emptiness" because Emptiness isn't a thing, but also because there simply is no ground at all (Nagarjuna goes over why this couldn't be but tl;dr if it can't change how can you interact with it, thereby changed it from interacted to uninteracted). If you accept "okay the ground isn't actually the ground but rather it's a good enough approximation", then Buddhism is totally cool with that, which is why there like eight Buddhist theories and systems for explaining any given phenomena. There is some reality, words can't really describe it, but we can get close so come up with as many as you can and pick the one that works best.

But this rejection of the ground, and the rejection of the idea that language can ever 100% accurately describe reality (even "Emptiness" as a word is just a tool) is partially where the differences with Brahman (and certain ideas of God in Western philosophy) differ.

>>16657624
>Again, you are confusing the Jiva and the Atman, the player character may be considered an NPC, but that would make it the Jiva.
I would agree we cannot separate the player character from the NPC and that we can take both as births. What I dispute is the Atman->Brahman
>The consciousness of the real-life person playing the videogame is separate from that virtual player in the video game and it observes that video-game character as the object of its own consciousness
We've killed the metaphor now and opened an infinite regress. The map covers the whole territory
>just as the consciousness of the Atman observes the Jiva as its object, just as our consciousness observes the body and thoughts as its own objects.
You'd have to backstop this with the Upanishads to say there is no self but instead a Super-Self, which really doesn't make you any less of an NPC than a Buddhist since the Buddhist also believes the (You) walking around and eating and shitting is also an illusion. If the sensible world is all NPCs it becomes a question of what is beyond that; for you the God who is All who is Self (which makes the conventional you not-real) and for the Buddhist it is a non-descriptive Absolute which doesn't receive a theistic personification or any sort of descriptive self.

>>16657634
>Shankara
Retroactively refuted by Xuanzang

>>16657701
>>16657712
Different anon here but it is quite simple: there is no inside or outside, there is no one and another, there is no Player and non-Player, there is no reality and unreality, there is only Brahman. But I think Advaita Vedanta ends up with the problem of Maya, which even though is not as problematic as the buddhist samsara, still has problems.

>>16657701
>You are saying there is such a consciousness outside of its contents
Obviously
>backstopping it as Brahman on the basis of revelationary texts,
There is no backstopping involved, the texts directly state that this is so
>and then calling the conventional existence an ignorant birth. If the only way we have this container is because god said so then you are just his coding,
Again, you are confusing the Jiva with the Atman, I am not just the coding because I am not the Jiva, I was never born, I am not the body, I am not the container which appears in consciousness. The body appears in consciousness because as Brahman, the coder, that was my doing or coding.
>and it wouldn't matter if you are a Player or an NPC because you don't actually exist as a real (You) after all but are merely His Ideas.
Again, you are repeatedly confusing the Jiva with the Atman, the Jiva doesn't actually exist as a real (you) after all, because the Jiva is not the real (you) or (me), I am the Atman which is separate from the Jiva. I actually exist as a real (me) as the Atman
>Pratitya samutpada does not require this leap;
Maybe so but it is completely incoherent idea which was refuted by Shankara and Gaudapada and it does not and can not explain the arising of anything including the universe or samsara, because a cyclical chain of non-eternal components cannot produce and sustain themselves for beginningless eternity just as a daughter cannot give birth to her own mother
>we can simply observe that we were not conscious without sensation, and if we so desperately require more explanation we can have an alaya vijnana storing all these affections
But that cannot account for the continuity of consciousnesses because the Alaya Vijnana is still subject to momentariness in Vijnanavada
>but that does not escalate to being a Self That is God But Does Not Know It Is God.
That's not what the Atman is, only the Jiva does not know
>If you are piloting your birth body as an extension of Brahman then it is He who coded you and you are not a Player.
Brahman (me) pilots the (not me) body which He (me) manifested with His (mine) powers, Brahman (me) coded the Jiva (not-me), again you repeatedly are confusing the basics
>If an NPC is a not-Player it would follow that you are an NPC
Brahman (me) is at once the Developer and player
>Since neither have an absolute existence they are empty.
Brahman, which is me, does have absolute existence and is not empty

>>16657712
>So, then you are just an empty shell being piloted by some outside entity. You are an NPC.
Again, you dullards keep confusing the basics.

The body or Jiva is the empty shell, I am not that body or Jiva, I am Brahman, the pure consciousness which their pilot, witness and inner-controller. NPCs don't understand this and believe themselves to just be the body and individual thoughts and sensory perceptions

>>16657730
>You'd have to backstop this with the Upanishads to say there is no self but instead a Super-Self,
Your sentence doesn't make any sense, because the Super-Self *is* the self
>which really doesn't make you any less of an NPC than a Buddhist since the Buddhist also believes the (You) walking around and eating and shitting is also an illusion.
False, because the Buddhist doesn't admit that there is any non-illusory (you) while the Vedanists does, in that the Atman or Brahman *is* the 'you'
>>16657739
And how do you believe he did that?

>>16657776
>Brahman (me) pilots the (not me) body which He (me) manifested with His (mine) powers, Brahman (me) coded the Jiva (not-me), again you repeatedly are confusing the basics
Your basics are confused themselves. Consciousness is Brahman but the born body is not? Wasn't he supposed to be All? If Brahman has creation separate from himself then what is the body made from? And somehow my consciousness is still him while my body is merely something he would have fashioned? What is this other than Brahman we now need to introduce for the Atman to pilot? And all the while we must recall the Atman is not a creation of his like the body apparently is, but something that gets to be part of the All because of the backstop.

>>16657810
>how do you believe he did that
Paraphrasing refutation of the Great Lord, If something produces something it is not eternal, the non-eternal cannot be all-pervading, and if it is not so then it is not real. If god were all-pervading and eternal why would he engage in any specific production? That would mean some desire or condition had entered to influence him and now he is no longer a single cause

>>16653801
that's an actual enlightenment

>>16657728
Yes, yes. The thing is that I think buddhism deems all other traditions to posit a systematic, enclosed kind of knowledge when it is far from truth. In Advaita Vedanta, Christianity, Platonism the convert reaches a Douta Ignorantia, to use a term from Cusanos, or the Socratic Ignorance ''I only know that I know nothing''. The end is the same: utter apophaticism, but the path toward it is different. Thus I think sometimes that even though Buddhism is laudable for its apophaticism, its simplicity ends up in a dogmatic belief. All the other traditions I said have doctrines that will explain exactly all things and all things pointing to the Ineffable One with even logical consistency (even the illogical paradoxes pertaining to the different degrees of reality in relation to God - or whatever you want to call it - fits in that logic).
The ground is the Ungrund.

>>16657866
Because God is Good and everything good is productive and not sterile, infertile, static, dead.

>>16657823
>Your basics are confused themselves.
No they aren't, lol

>Consciousness is Brahman but the born body is not?
Yes, the born body is a part of māyā, which is Brahman's power, energy or Śakti. Brahman's power which Brahman possesses is not the same as Brahman Itself in It's nature as pure consciousness.
>Wasn't he supposed to be All?
No, Brahman is only the "all" in the sense of being the all-pervasive absolute reality underlying māyā, not in the sense of being identical with the objects within māyā itself
>If Brahman has creation separate from himself then what is the body made from?
The body of what? Brahman using His power of māyā effortlessly projects the appearance of the phenomenal world within Himself
>And somehow my consciousness is still him while my body is merely something he would have fashioned?
Yes
>What is this other than Brahman we now need to introduce for the Atman to pilot?
it is exactly what Brahman projected with his power of māyā
>And all the while we must recall the Atman is not a creation of his like the body apparently is
correct, the Atman is the creator, Brahman, the Atman wields the power of māyā
>but something that gets to be part of the All because of the backstop.
Again, māyā and Brahman are not both part of some vague undefined "all"

>>16657866
What a lame attempt at refutation, it is not so much a refutation as demonstrating Xuanzang's ignorance of the basic doctrines of Hinduism

>Paraphrasing refutation of the Great Lord, If something produces something it is not eternal
The whole point of māyā is that the eternal (Brahman) is never actually producing, creating, emanating or transforming a non-eternal thing out of an eternal thing. The māyā is only a virtual image, it only appears to exist at the level of conditional or contingent reality to beings who are subject to avidya, but it truly was never created or emanated on the level of absolute reality. The wielding of māyā by Brahman is not a sudden change which compromises the eternity and immutability of Brahman, like how a sudden act of creation ex-nihlio would, but it is Brahman's very nature or svabhava to wield the power of māyā, and Brahman always eternally does so in an unchanging manner like how the sun always emits light without that inducing any change in the sun or requiring any specific action by the sun. Hence this point is invalid.
>the non-eternal cannot be all-pervading, and if it is not so then it is not real
Brahman is both eternal and all-pervading so this is a meaningless point
>If god were all-pervading and eternal why would he engage in any specific production?
Because it is Brahman's nature to do so like the sun. Māyā is Brahman's power, and as an eternal all-pervading being Brahman always effortlessly wields that māyā because it is Brahman's nature to do so. Brahman does not have or need reasons for anything, He expresses māyā as His power because He possesses it, and not for any other reason.
>That would mean some desire or condition had entered to influence him and now he is no longer a single cause
False, because there is no reason for Brahman wielding māyā other than that māyā is His power and it is His nature to wield that power

>>16658223
>>16658236
I thought advaita vedanta was supposed to be non-dual but here we are with God creating everything because it's his nature to create everything. No amount of Sanksrit vocabulary will get you away from the fact that you are backstopping the debate on the revelation that God did it. Your particulars of how he did it do not change that. The world being an illusion separate from him but populated by his consciousness does not change that. So he's not All after all, his production is by you claimed to be other than him, and we in corporeality are back to being NPCs coded by him, and all this elaboration is so because it is his nature to make it so.

>>16658372
>muh backstopping
you keep using that word as if you are holding out hope that it will give your attempted criticisms the force they have been lacking
> I thought advaita vedanta was supposed to be non-dual
It is
>but here we are with God creating everything because it's his nature to create everything.
Yes, how does that compromise non-duality at all? The māyā-world only exists virtually and not at the level on absolute reality on which Brahman is, and in liberation it is revealed that the māyā-word never truly existed to begin with; ergo there is no contradiction or problem
>No amount of Sanksrit vocabulary will get you away from the fact that you are backstopping the debate on the revelation that God did it.
There is no backstopping you clown, the Upanishads directly say that Brahman creates the world through maya, it is a central feature right from the beginning, no backstopping involved, if you like I can provide a list of citations. There is no reasonable explanation for the universe other then God or Brahman.
>Your particulars of how he did it do not change that.
Change what? There is no problem to change
>The world being an illusion separate from him but populated by his consciousness does not change that.
change what? there is no problem or contradiction to change
>So he's not All after all, his production is by you claimed to be other than him, and we in corporeality are back to being NPCs coded by him, and all this elaboration is so because it is his nature to make it so.
Yes, with the qualification that Brahman is “All” in the sense of being the all-pervasive, unlimited absolute reality (which the visible world of phenomena isn’t), and that “we” are not the NPCs engendered by Brahman’s māyā but we are Brahman ourselves

>>16658468
>There is no backstopping you clown, the Upanishads directly say that Brahman creates the world through maya, it is a central feature right from the beginning, no backstopping involved, if you like I can provide a list of citations. There is no reasonable explanation for the universe other then God or Brahman.
If revelationary text isn't a backstop for criticism of theism then I don't know what is. In any event, if these virtual images of Brahman are not Brahman but false images conceived by the Brahman dwelling as consciousness within the viewers of these images, the viewers themselves being Brahman, why is Brahman ignorant of himself and mistaking images of himself for his true Self? You can arrive at non-dualism without the gymnastics involved in trying to square creator with created and having to deal with your first cause leading to a creation that is actively deceiving itself because it isn't creation at all but the creator not being able to see all of himself at once or being solar and unconcerned with his emissions. Because if that is your All then it really isn't a God at all but some kind of cyclical body-corpse constantly in renewal as it decomposes and sprouts more life from the same without any comprehensible agency to a human mind (which wants to know about its time and space and causation as if it belonged to phenomena), that needs to be called God so that your local priest doesn't burn you at the stake, or because you don't like Buddhists.

>>16658657
> If revelationary text isn't a backstop for criticism of theism then I don't know what is.
What are you trying to say? I challenge you to fully elaborate the same point you are trying to make here without relying on the word backstop and other vague insinuations
>In any event, if these virtual images of Brahman are not Brahman but false images conceived by the Brahman dwelling as consciousness within the viewers of these images
Brahman doesnt conceive those images, the mind of the Jiva does, Brahman observes that mind doing so without being tainted by or falling prey to its ignorance
>why is Brahman ignorant of himself and mistaking images of himself for his true Self?
Brahman is not ignorant of Himself and He doesnt mistake things, the Jiva is ignorant and the Jiva mistakes things
>You can arrive at non-dualism without the gymnastics involved
there are no gymnastic involved
>in trying to square creator with created and having to deal with your first cause leading to a creation that is actively deceiving itself
again, it does’t, see above
>because it isn't creation at all but the creator not being able to see all of himself at once
He can though
>Because if that is your All then it really isn't a God at all but some kind of cyclical body-corpse constantly in renewal as it decomposes and sprouts more life
False, this is mistaken and results from you wrongly attributing the ignorance of the Jiva to Brahman, which He doesn’t have

>>16658767
>What are you trying to say? I challenge you to fully elaborate the same point you are trying to make here without relying on the word backstop and other vague insinuations
It wouldn't matter to me if your views on Brahman are canonically Vedic. I am not Hindu. "Thus sayeth the Upanishads" doesn't work to prove anything. That's rhetorical. Maybe I will read them at some point, maybe not. It's possible your interpretation is correct but I do not need to accept that as lending you greater authority.
>Brahman doesnt conceive those images, the mind of the Jiva does, Brahman observes that mind doing so without being tainted by or falling prey to its ignorance
Didn't Brahman make these minds? Or are the minds caused by the images, which he did not make? For that matter the ignorant births, enwombed by these images; those aren't really him either? What is he making exactly? Just the Self? But this Self is recused from affliction by these illusions that are images, births, minds? What is Brahman's role in all of this other than to escape charges of atheism, if he isn't grounding the phenomena at all, nor what is affected by them?
>Brahman is not ignorant of Himself and He doesnt mistake things, the Jiva is ignorant and the Jiva mistakes things
I think we can agree that births are mired in ignorance but my trouble here is how you are connecting them to your most perfect Absolute. What is the ground for those births, which contain him as Self but do know they do because of birth? You know I came across in one of the Enneads recently a sort of explanation for this, that the souls in the world are basically fulfilling an organizational purpose on behalf of Zeus and so have one foot in the higher from which they proceed and one in the lower which they are managerial of. Their involvement with baser things contaminates them so to speak. But Plotinus is citing Plato so if we don't recognize Hellenistic priors we have to see if we can agree without Plato or agree with Plato first in order to agree with Plotinus.
>there are no gymnastic involved
>False, this is mistaken and results from you wrongly attributing the ignorance of the Jiva to Brahman, which He doesn’t have
So Brahman is unborn, but if we are Brahman why are we born? If there is a constant symphony of death and birth on the ground of the Absolute, with some of his parts are seeing these images and some not, how is he is not responsible for what he sees despite being All? Back to the monkey bars we go.

>>16659124
>>16659124
> It wouldn't matter to me if your views on Brahman are canonically Vedic.
That’s not the point, the point is that you are trying to use the word “backstop” as a cheap rhetorical device to attack Advaita in leu of having a substantive argument. But you havn’t explained what is inherently bad in the first place about obtaining such doctrines from scriptures, ergo to whine about “backstopping” lacks any force as a critique. And Buddhists do the exact same thing when their scriptures come from an allegedly omniscient man who figured everything out. If I wanted to mimic you I could whine about Nirvana or Sunyata ‘backstopping’ Buddhism every time you mentioned them.
>Didn't Brahman make these minds?
yes, Brahman creates through maya those minds of the Jivas, which themselves have the seeming subjective experience of embodiment and ignorance, but Brahman is fooled by or trapped by those experiences but merely is aware of the multitude of Jivas having them
> the ignorant births, enwombed by these images; those aren't really him either?
No, Jivas are not Brahman but an appearance of Him so to speak
>What is he making exactly?
Everything which is not the pure consciousness that is Brahman, e.g. “not this”
>Just the Self?
Brahman doesn’t make the Self, Brahman is the Self
>But this Self is recused from affliction by these illusions that are images, births, minds?
What are you even asking here? The Self or Brahman is omniscient and observes everything It creates via māyā without being affected or bound by any of that which It observes in the slightest
>What is Brahman's role in all of this other than to escape charges of atheism
Brahman is the cause of the origin, maintenance and dissolution of the universe, while also being the inner unaffected luminous consciousness of all sentient beings within the universe. Nothing in this whole scheme takes place without Brahman.
>if he isn't grounding the phenomena at all
What do you mean by grounding? Nothing takes place except through the manifestation which Brahman permits to take place, Brahman is inner thread running throughout everything which keeps everything in order and functioning “ Under the mighty rule of this Imperishable, O Gargi, heaven and earth are held in their respective positions” - Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, in this sense Brahman ‘grounds’ everything but I’m not sure what you were asking. Nothing in any of this would make sense without Brahman so I’m puzzled why you would ask what is the point or role of Brahman in it
> I think we can agree that births are mired in ignorance but my trouble here is how you are connecting them to your most perfect Absolute.
There is no way to account for how they can arise without an Absolute who is the cause

>>16659456

>What is the ground for those births, which contain him as Self but do not know they do because of birth?
Brahman is the ground of māyā in the sense that Brahman is the one who wields the power of māyā and ensures that it continues. Those births don’t need any other ground to take place than Brahman’s power of māyā, maybe you can clarify what you are asking
>I came across in one of the Enneads recently a sort of explanation for this
Interesting but that’s not the explanation the Upanishads give
>So Brahman is unborn, but if we are Brahman why are we born?
We (Brahman) are not born, only the Jivas (which we are not) is born but Brahman is not, your question has the wrong premise, the cycle of transmigration of the Jiva is beginningless and eternal because the Jiva is an image of Brahman, who is beginningless and eternal. The cycle continues until liberation; and this continuence of the cycle is caused by Brahman never ceasing to wield his power of māyā
>If there is a constant symphony of death and birth on the ground of the Absolute, with some of his parts are seeing these images and some not,
You are confused, Brahman is partless, Jivas are not “parts” of Brahman, they are something different from Brahman, which Brahman observes. There is only one absolutely partless and homogenous Brahman-Atman-Self in the entire universe
>how is he is not responsible for what he sees despite being All?
What do you mean by ‘responsible’? Brahman is responsible for the entire universe in the sense of being its cause and maintainer, Brahman is also responsible for being the cause of everything Brahman sees by virtue of Brahman’s power being the source of those things Brahman sees. Brahman creates the forms which the Jivas inhabit, and permits them to act and have subjective experience via the light of His conciousness animating their bodies and minds (while remaining outside them and all-pervasive in It’s unmodified form) as wind rustles and picks up the leaves on the ground. However aside from their basic starting position as Jivas which is determined by Brahman, Jivas then become responsible for their own ignorance and bondage because of how it is the actions, urges, delusions of the Jiva which keep it further in that state. Brahman doesn’t force Jivas to stay trapped in ignorance, they do that to themselves by the choices they make over various lives and their non-attaining of illumination.

>>16659456
*but Brahman is NOT fooled by or trapped by those experiences

>>16657810
>I am Brahman, the pure consciousness which their pilot
And is that inside your head, or everywhere?

If it's inside your head, then how is this non-dual, given that you have separated yourself from Brahman? If it's everywhere, then how are you not an NPC, given that you believe that you are incapable of thought, are just a shell being remotely piloted, and don't even exist?

>>16659494
yeah, i think this is why the advaitins usually stay on the offensive in these threads. the moment they actually have to explain what they believe, it just turns into a big autistic incoherent mess. it's no wonder no one in india believes this shit. if you have to spend ten posts each hitting the character limit going line by line defending your belief that you're an NPC and don't actually experience thought, you're making a critical fucking error.

these fags should less time talking about thought and more time observing it.

>>16659456
>But you havn’t explained what is inherently bad in the first place about obtaining such doctrines from scriptures
No debate possible reduced to comparing godbooks. Your godbook wouldn't lie to you so it must be true. Elementary stuff here.
>yes, Brahman creates through maya those minds of the Jivas, which themselves have the seeming subjective experience of embodiment and ignorance, but Brahman is fooled by or trapped by those experiences but merely is aware of the multitude of Jivas having them
> No, Jivas are not Brahman but an appearance of Him
So then Brahman's creations are ignorant of the Atman in them which is also Brahman; this possession makes them truly Brahman, who is not ignorant. Even allowing for births to be mere appearance, you are still holding there is Brahman behind them, but why have all this ignorance? Shouldn't those who are Brahman not have these illusions? affecting them?
>Everything which is not the pure consciousness that is Brahman, e.g. “not this”
Pure consciousness is uncaused, then, but why is it God? We need to blow smoke and slaughter animals for God or else he will punish us. This is clearly not the usual big guy. Good thing he is still God though or else we'd have trouble with our god-fearing peers.
>Brahman doesn’t make the Self, Brahman is the Self
>Brahman is the cause of the origin, maintenance and dissolution of the universe, while also being the inner unaffected luminous consciousness of all sentient beings within the universe. Nothing in this whole scheme takes place without Brahman.
Clearly there are affections happening or appearing to happen, if only conventionally, otherwise it would not be in dispute among the born/created as to whether or not we are Brahman or are caused by Brahman, or have have the Atman of Brahman but are ignorant of our sharing in him. If what is being affected is not-Brahman and the untouched Brahman kernel doesn't have contact, now we have to invent some other thing to be a recepticle of the false imaginary world and so get further and further from non-dualism, since we refuse to place Brahman into any of these images.
>What do you mean by grounding? Nothing takes place except through the manifestation which Brahman permits to take place, Brahman is inner thread running throughout everything which keeps everything in order and functioning
I mean you are saying all the illusions are birth and birth is not Brahman, even though everything is supposed to be through him. He keeps getting recused from the trial of there being ignorance, as if he didn't make the sentient lives which are perceiving him falsely and which somehow also contain him in them, which ought to make them him and therefore not-ignorant.
>There is no way to account for how they can arise without an Absolute who is the cause
There are but it becomes my scripture versus your scripture since we cannot describe something that cannot be qualified in language, though you have taken to deifying it.

>>16659494
> And is that inside your head, or everywhere?
Everywhere by default includes inside my head, without being inside my head it wouldn’t be everywhere, but would be “everywhere, except in anons head” which is not truly everywhere
>If it's inside your head, then how is this non-dual, given that you have separated yourself from Brahman?
I haven’t separated myself from Brahman, my Self, which is me, is Brahman, and that Brahman which is me is inside my (the Jivas) head at the same time that Brahman is everywhere, that’s what “all-pervasive” means
>If it's everywhere, then how are you not an NPC, given that you believe that you are incapable of thought, are just a shell being remotely piloted, and don't even exist?
Because as I have repeatedly explained already but which has escaped your comprehension, it is not “my” body, it is not “my head”, the body and head which I as Brahman observe is not me. I am not the Jiva which is itself piloted by me (Brahman), I am the pilot. This is like the seventh or eighth time I have explained this in this thread alone, try to pay attention please. Both Buddhism and Vedanta deny that the body is the self, so why are you now addressing me as if the body I observe is my self? It’s not something which you are supposed to believe if you actually took Buddhism seriously, and neither do I believe it, so why act as if it is the case when you are arguing for the Buddhist perspective? It makes no sense.

>>16659520
lol, Im laughing at your seething

>>16659473
>Brahman creates the forms which the Jivas inhabit, and permits them to act and have subjective experience via the light of His conciousness animating their bodies and minds (while remaining outside them and all-pervasive in It’s unmodified form) as wind rustles and picks up the leaves on the ground.
Ok, so he is the first cause of the births after all, having created that which they appropriate (or if he isn't we have something other than Brahman who is creating things, who lacks Brahman as a cause and now the system is dualistic)
>However aside from their basic starting position as Jivas which is determined by Brahman, Jivas then become responsible for their own ignorance and bondage because of how it is the actions, urges, delusions of the Jiva which keep it further in that state.
So he allowed his forms to give rise to ignorance, why would he do that? Ignorance is an absence of knowledge of good yes? If he is good how could he create ignorance which is bad?
>Brahman doesn’t force Jivas to stay trapped in ignorance, they do that to themselves by the choices they make over various lives and their non-attaining of illumination.
Ah so we have the freedom to throw away the not-Brahman that is making us ignorant and go back to being Brahman. Kind of a weird thing for him to have done to himself.

>>16659791
>No debate possible reduced to comparing godbooks. Your godbook wouldn't lie to you so it must be true. Elementary stuff here.
The exact same argument applies to the scriptural sources of Buddhism.

No debate possible reduced to comparing buddhabooks. Your buddhabook wouldn't lie to you so it must be true. Elementary stuff here.

In any case Advaita gives logical explanations of all their doctrines, so the attack on the scriptural source makes no sense when you could attempt to attack the logic under-girding the doctrines sourced from the scripture. In other words you are just being lazy and attacking something irrelevant which is really a dig at Buddhism just as much as its a dig at Vedanta, or Taoism, or Platonism etc

>So then Brahman's creations are ignorant of the Atman in them which is also Brahman;
Yes
>this possession makes them truly Brahman, who is not ignorant.
False, the Atman residing within that Jiva does not make that Jiva in its entirety Brahman. Only the Atman is Brahman. The fact of the Atman being within the Jiva, does not make anything about that Jiva Brahman. That Jiva's mind, ignorance, body, thoughts etc do not become Brahman just because Brahman is inside the Jiva.
>Even allowing for births to be mere appearance, you are still holding there is Brahman behind them, but why have all this ignorance?
Ignorance follows as a natural consequence of Brahman wielding His power of māyā
>Shouldn't those who are Brahman not have these illusions? affecting them?
This question repeats the above mistake that the Jivas *are* Brahman, the Jiva is not Brahman and the Jiva suffers from delusion due to its ignorance. The Atman-Brahman residing within the Jiva is not deluded and He does not suffer, because He is not that Jiva.
>Pure consciousness is uncaused, then, but why is it God?
For multiple reasons, but among them that the caused (e.g. the universe, time, space etc) can only arise from the uncaused, but not vice-versa.
>Clearly there are affections happening or appearing to happen, if only conventionally, otherwise it would not be in dispute among the born/created as to whether or not we are Brahman or are caused by Brahman, or have have the Atman of Brahman but are ignorant of our sharing in him.
I'm not sure what you mean by "affections"
>If what is being affected is not-Brahman and the untouched Brahman kernel doesn't have contact, now we have to invent some other thing to be a recepticle of the false imaginary world
Why would we need to invent something to be the receptacle of the false imaginary world? It's totally unnecessary. Brahman is the receptacle (i.e. container) in the sense that when Brahman uses His power of māyā to project the māyā-world within Himself, then that māyā-world is contained within the infinity of Brahman.
>and so get further and further from non-dualism, since we refuse to place Brahman into any of these images.
Not so, because you never explained why we need to invent anything else

>>16659844
>Ok, so he is the first cause of the births after all
Yes, but there is no "first" creation of them since they are eternal and beginningless like Brahman is. Brahman is beginningless and eternal, and Brahman wields His power of māyā without beginning and for all eternity, and as a consequences of that, the multitudes of Jivas which are appearances of Brahman are also eternal and without beginning, although they can attain liberation.
>So he allowed his forms to give rise to ignorance, why would he do that?
Because it is Brahman's nature to do so just as it is the sun's nature to emit light continuously. This does not cast Brahman as a bad actor though, because as the Brahma Sutras explain, Brahman is the impartial cause like rain which rains on all seeds equally, and whether Jivas are destined for hellish or heavenly states and realms is entirely due to their own actions, just as it is the type of seed which determines what plant emerges from the ground, and not the rain which rains on all seeds.
>Ignorance is an absence of knowledge of good yes? If he is good how could he create ignorance which is bad?
Advaita says that good and evil are metaphysically unreal categories which appear real to us because of māyā, but that these categories don't exist on the level of absolute reality, and that Brahman is neither a "good" opposed to evil, nor an "evil" opposed to good. It is a completely amoral metaphysics. Hence, these sorts of questions about good and evil are pretty much meaningless to Advaita (although they recognize that humans have a psychological need for such questions, which is why they provide the above explanation for why Brahman is not a bad actor but is really just impartial)

>>16659844
missed the last question
>Ah so we have the freedom to throw away the not-Brahman that is making us ignorant and go back to being Brahman. Kind of a weird thing for him to have done to himself.
Brahman never did anything to Himself. The Jivas which Brahman observes are not Brahman. Brahman is completely, forever and ever, totally unaffected, unbound and untainted by His own power of māyā. It's really that simple

>>16659949
I don't see the value in continuing the line by line here. If ignorance is a consequence of Brahman wielding his power, he is causing ignorance, and that is our biggest problem, the one undergirding the dispute over births vs Self. So now he is responsible for the illusions, and so the births, the false notions of a small self as opposed to his Self, and so forth. At this point your recourse is going to be to whatever Upanishad spirits him away from that consequence and enthrones him as unblemished or unmoved by illusions, which only exist for births and not for him, even though he is supposed to be non-dual with the universe that is him. But that is scriptural, not logical, and to return to the illusion problem, if we are also saying he is consciousness why would he also be causing illusions for consciousness? Should we believe in a liar? And call him god? You will deny he causes the illusions but if he is the first cause then he cannot escape deceiving we who are Self, if he is truly within us. I have only cited Xuanzang, which I did to prove a broader point of so-called refutations from treatise being irrelevant (and indeed the subsequent conversation has hardly solved the problem of having your great lord create things that he would have no need for if he himself is complete and not moved by anything).

>>16660001
You've personified eternity, which is why eternity is is being charged with consequences which apply to the personified. You could replace it with samsara or Nature or something just as easily without making it God.

>advaita is logically consistent.....until it hits a wall of illogic and replies with: thats just Brahman’s nature bro
So basically they end with the Brahman of the gaps argument to escape the glaring holes in their metaphysics? lol this thread has been eye opening

>>16660032
>I don't see the value in continuing the line by line here
When you make 8 or 9 points in a post it's easier and more organized for me to reply this way

>At this point your recourse is going to be to whatever Upanishad spirits him away from that consequence
What consequence? There are no consequences for Brahman whatsoever, the only consequences are for the living beings which have to undergo the spiritual journey to liberation, but this is neither a problem for Brahman nor is it a problem for the coherency of Advaita as a doctrine.
>which only exist for births and not for him, even though he is supposed to be non-dual with the universe that is him.
Brahman is non-dual in the sense that He is non-dual with (i.e. identical to) the Atman, and Brahman is non-dual in the sense that in the absolute reality of Brahman there is no dualities remaining, but Advaita never said that there is no lesser duality or ontological hierarchies at the level of conditional/contingent existence. So the idea that "uhhh but there is a māyā-world which contradicts Brahman's non-duality" is just a strawman argument because Advaita never said there were no ontological hierarchies in their metaphysics whatsoever, quite the opposite in fact
>But that is scriptural, not logical, and to return to the illusion problem
What is not logical about it? You haven't identified the component which is not logical, until you identify this and explain why it is not logical then your claim here is just a subjective opinion which can be discarded
> if we are also saying he is consciousness why would he also be causing illusions for consciousness?
This has already been answered, your question here is just "why does Brahman wield his power of māyā" but rephrased, and that question has been answered like 4 or 5 times already
> Should we believe in a liar?
Did Brahman lie? Nope. Did Brahman say that this world is real but lie to us when He said that? Nope. In any case morality is not admitted as something which is truly real in Advaita so your morality-based appeal here is meaningless.
>You will deny he causes the illusions
Did I not say that Brahman is the cause, wielder and possessor of māyā, and thus of everything within māyā?
>but if he is the first cause then he cannot escape deceiving we who are Self, if he is truly within us.
That's where you're wrong kiddo, Brahman deceives the Jivas but not Himself, the Brahman within the Jiva is not deluded.
>(and indeed the subsequent conversation has hardly solved the problem of having your great lord create things that he would have no need for if he himself is complete and not moved by anything).
It's not a problem unless you admit that it's a problem for the sun to emit light for which the sun has no need, but this is foolish and you would never admit this, ergo it's not a problem for Brahman either.

>>16660082
>You've personified eternity
No I haven't, Brahman is an impersonal God in Advaita. If other people can't help but project personified attributes onto God or Brahman then that's their problem, not Advaita's.
> You could replace it with samsara or Nature or something just as easily without making it God.
But then it wouldn't make sense anymore and one would have to explain where samsara or nature comes from

>>16660156
To say that Brahman has an inherent nature is not logically inconsistent you dummy

Well, I have to go to bed now because I have to get up very early for work tomorrow, I'm still working away from home even in the middle of a pandemic, but if there are any more questions or points worth responding to in this thread then I will respond to them if the thread is still up tomorrow

>>16658014
>t. braindead westerner who thinks zen is buddhism

>>16658031
>All the other traditions I said have doctrines that will explain exactly all things and all things pointing to the Ineffable One
you can't explain the ineffable. also buddhism does not give a shit about the ineffable and it is only in Mahayana that they talk about this. Plus explanations are for autistic pseuds who hate praxis.

>>16660178
>No I haven't, Brahman is an impersonal God in Advaita. If other people can't help but project personified attributes onto God or Brahman then that's their problem, not Advaita's.
Shankara's Smartism disagrees with you

>But then it wouldn't make sense anymore and one would have to explain where samsara or nature comes from
samsara or the universe could always be there 'just like brahman'.

>>16660156
that is the problem of all misguided monists, they try to logically prove to you that the logical nature of the absolute is that it is above logic, therefore listen to my logic and not the other guys logic and also give me money so i can buy my own shitting street

>>16656470
can someone explain this? is this sutra just wrong?

>>16660412
point to =\= explain
>>16660565
> Shankara's Smartism disagrees with you
the worship of the 5 dieites in Smartism is meant to symbolically represent the higher attributeless Nirguna Brahman, it does not mean that the Supreme (para) form of Brahman in Advaita is personal
> samsara or the universe could always be there 'just like brahman'
Wrong, because the changing+conditioned cannot cause itself to arise but must go back to an unchanging, unconditioned, uncaused cause, ergo samsara, dependent-origination and nature are all completely insufficient answers
>>16661335
I have asked on /lit/ about that same passage before, because of the concept of upaya buddhists if they want to can just write off whatever they dont like in the Pali Canon as Buddha just symbolically couching emptiness etc as though it were some Absolute, and that is often the sort of answer I get when asking those sorts of questions

desu can't really take buddhism seriously unless if it's seen as a "via negativa" for hindusm for an overtly ritualistic time that lost connection with the source of those rituals, more or less as Evola saw it, except he also injected some of his own warrior/heroic autism in there that not sure if it was really there

when reading actual sutras the buddha seems to almost never make any positive or negative claims about anything final, except as a method to remove what's not important, and the few allusions he makes sense to hint at something transcendental, even though fixation on that are considered just distractions to the actual path