/lit/ - Literature

>Who was The Buddha?
A person like you and me that observed and abandoned the illogical human behavior and sought for what really matters in life: The true Freedom!

>How does he solve that?
Siddhattha Based Gotama mastered all Supra-Jhanas, more precisly: The sphere of infinite space, the sphere of infinite consciousness, the sphere of infinite nothingness, and sphere of neither perception nor non-perception (Nibbana).

>What was his conclusion?
Anicca: No matter how long it takes, everything meets its end.
Anatta: Nothing is eternal or independent in origination.
Dhamma: The moment is the fruit of your beliefs, thoughts, behaviors, etc..
Khamma: Your actions. But it is more deep than that.
Vippaka: The seeds of your future Dhamma.
Skandhas: Form , Feeling, Perception, Mental formations, Consciousness.
Kilesas: Sensual desire, anger, sloth-torpor, restlessness-worry, and doubt.
Samsara: The conditioned.
Nibbana: The unconditioned.

Dukkha: X (Give it an object).
The Three Noble Truths: X, The origin of X, The end of X.

The Noble Eightfold Path is the way leading to the cessation of Dukkha:
Wisdom: Right View - Right Intention
Morality: Right Speech - Right Action - Right LiveliHood
Meditation: Right Effort - Right MindFullness - Right Concentration.

>Where I Begin?
A Path to Freedom: A Self-guided Tour of the Buddha's Teachings:

https://accesstoinsight.org/ptf/index.html

https://www.dhammatalks.org/index.html

>>18762098
start with MahaPrajnaParamita-Sastra by Nagarjuna if you want to read Buddha texts.

if you want to practice Buddhist deeds, learn about Great Compassion Mantra, or if you want it simple, try Om Mani Padme Hum and chant it 108 times everyday

>>18762168
Sounds gay. There must be more to it than just paralyzed moralism.
>>18762181
>just chant this shit from an archaic language that you are completely disconnected from 1000 times every day bro.
No thanks.

>>18762222
>paralyzed moralism
what?

>>18762168
hey, how can i contact you? you sound like a Buddhism geek, i saw your posts on /x/, very impressive, i want to talk with you more, give me an address
>>18762222
this is the thing that makes me scared when i post Buddhist posts on 4chan, one line of insult can take you forever in Avici Hell and i don't want that to happen to anybody here.

>>18762290
>one line of insult can take you forever in Avici Hell and i don't want that to happen to anybody here.

>>18762312
it's true, if you insult Buddha, the Dharma or any Monk who holds moral life, you can be reincarnated in Hell. one sentence with bad words can lead you to Avici Hell.

>>18762098
The text in that pic could be compiled into 5 pages of your average book. Why do you tryhards even insist on "begin with X, start from Y", when most books are easy to wrap your head around by just grabbing them and starting to read. If you don't know a concept, look it up on the internet.

>>18762321
>if you insult me you're going to hell bro
If you think that got the Buddha any followers then you're a fucking retarded. This is the kind of shit that comes later from the religious establishment that wants to protect its own ass. This is as laughable as the pope claiming to be the Vicar of Christ. Get the fuck over yourself.

>>18762290
Thanks, but I am just a Bodhisatta. I'm studying Abhidhamma now.

>>18762290
>this is the thing that makes me scared when i post Buddhist posts on 4chan, one line of insult can take you forever in Avici Hell
great religion

>>18762168
>sphere of neither perception nor non-perception (Nibbana)
Wrong

>>18762776
Tiime to share your good merits and explain me what is wrong. :)

>>18762098
>Its such a clusterfuck of different sects
Every religion that's been around for a while is like this
Christianity is a similar clusterfuck

>>18762811
Wrong, there is only one proper church of Christ.

MEDITATION

>Guided kasina meditation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kox4o-hG28

>Samathabhavana/ Samadhibhavana = Serenity meditation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Reedj7nuh4o

>Vipassanabhavana/ Paññabhavana = insight meditation.

COMPREHENDING THE MINDFULNESS OF BREATHING - Nyanamoli Thero
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kY4zVThpro

Deconstructing Sensory Experience & Nondual Practice, with Michael Taft Session 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Ei9s8t2Sc

>Jhana/ Chán/ Zen/ Dhyana/ Seon/ Thiền = Profound meditation that leads to the enlightenment.

How to Jhana — with Michael Taft
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K5ypXyF3dY&t=946s

Jhāna (1): The Treasure Within by Ajahn Sona
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFlIkr4qrL4

The Jhanas – Seven Steps to Heaven (and One Beyond) by Ajahn Brahm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tfct_zW88A

>>18762842
>/lit/
Sorry

>>18762098
Breh.... Just meditate....
htm.sirimangalo.org

>>18762798
It's possible for someone to attain the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, and then cling to that state as an eternal place where their soul can live forever, or the place where their soul is destroyed.
All of the jhana states are conditioned, but they lead to the unconditioned.

>>18762098
Buddhism is entirely dependent on its institutional aspect (ironically) because there's no way that as a layman you'll be able to act like a proper Buddhist, so you'll need to refer to the monks, and the monks cannot live without laypeople feeding them, so neither is independent each other, not unlike the Catholic Church.
Know that Theravada institutions are slowly becoming more and more pliable because when a church acts a service it cannot have too much attrition with what the lay demographic wants. As the population becomes more modern, they're ordaining more nuns, and the nuns are starting to screech against the patriarchy, which is step 1 toward total dissolution. Soon you'll probably have nuns who can have sex because they'll question what sexual misconduct means, and not shave their head or act like monks, because that's what women do once they are allowed in. They destroy everything in the name of "subverting the patriarchy". Every leader of the old world knew about female tendencies but now that we believe in the gender equality meme everything is falling apart, because women are not wired like men and there's very little anyone can do about it.
This is why institutionalized religion sucks and will always suck. It will inevitably cater more and more to what masses want. Instead of being strict about what the original leadership figured out about life, they give it up to cater to masses of evil, selfish, childish, hedonistic people who will only demand more and more because they're basically paying the church to exist and reaffirm them into salvation.
Avoid all institutionalized religion.

>>18763410
Absolutely based post. Even Islam is starting to let females in and the screeching has already begun.

>>18764274
Apparently Buddhists of the forest tradition did try to have nuns some 1000 years ago and they gave up on them shortly after.

>>18764426
I mean Theravada, Thai forest is recent

>very attached to lady friend
>not dating or anything but have very strong feelings
>perhaps too strong
better to overcome attachment by just leaving it alone or by working through it?

>>18762098
Pick up a basic primer on Buddhism. If you know any Asian languages, go through those, because the tradition, while corrupted and moribund, has not completely died out.
It will take a while to understand, but here are some basic concepts as I understand them.
1. The Three Jewels are the Buddha, the Dharma (the truth he discovered), and the Sangha (the body of disciples who inherited and continue this truth).
2. The Buddha forsook the world at 29, achieved nirvana at 35, and achieved parinirvana, i.e. he died, at 80. During the 45 intervening years, he travelled around the Ganges Basin and spread the four great truths. These are that life is suffering; suffering is caused by attachment; that attachment can be destroyed; and that there exist methods for destroying attachment (duhkha-samudaa-nirodha-marga). These methods include the Noble Eightfold Path (aryastangamargha) and the Six Paramitas.
3. Within a century of his death, five hundred of his disciples gathered in the capital of the state he lived in and compiled the first two of the Tripitaka, i.e. the Vinayapitaka and the Sutrapitaka. The former contains the monastic rules, and the latter contains the teachings of the Buddha.
4. Within a century of the compilation of the first two of the Tripitaka, the final, the Abidharmapitaka, was compiled. This contains commentaries on the Sutrapitaka.
5. The Pali Canon, which you have likely heard of, is the only complete extant original compilation of these Tripitaka. Complete compilations exist also in Tibetan and Classical Chinese, but these are translations.
6. There are three major Buddhist traditions in existence today. The oldest, Theravada, emerged immediately after the death of the Buddha and spread to the south. The next and largest, the Mahayana, emerged 300-400 years after the death of the Buddha, and spread to East Asia. The last, the Vajrayana, or Tantric, emerged 800-900 years after the death of the Buddha, and also spread to East Asia.

>>18763410
>Soon you'll probably have nuns who can have sex because they'll question what sexual misconduct means, and not shave their head or act like monks, because that's what women do once they are allowed in.
My friend, monks already do this in East Asia. They drink, eat meat, work regular jobs, take up wives, and even visit prostitutes. It's been like this for more than a century. Also, regarding institutionalized religion, here is an article that may interest you:
https://www.crisismagazine.com/1995/pros-and-cons-of-disestablishment-did-the-separation-of-church-and-state-benefit-religion-ernest-l-fortin

>Yet the scheme was anything but foolproof for at least two typically Tocquevillian reasons. The first is that it heightened religion’s vulnerability to the single greatest threat to the life of democratic societies, the tyranny of public opinion. It exempted religion from government control but subjected it that much more thoroughly to the “intellectual domination of the majority.” Clergymen, who sensed the irresistible power of this domination, were forced to “treat it with respect” and, in all matters not contrary to faith, “defer to it.” They could try to “purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in time of equality,” but they knew that any attempt to “conquer it entirely” was out of the question. This much was evident from the sermons preached by clergymen. Priests and ministers had enough sense to eschew politics but their minds were very much on earthly things. In listening to them, it was hard to tell “whether the main object of religion is to procure eternal felicity in the next world or prosperity in this” (II.ii, 10).

>The problem was compounded by the fact that, deprived of state aid, the churches had to compete for their members and rely on voluntary contributions for their subsistence. This put them in the position of having to cater to the changing tastes and moods of their constituencies. No one, not even the clergy, was at liberty to contradict the passions that the commitment to the pursuit of material wealth arouses or to defend any teaching that runs counter to “the prevailing ideas or the permanent interests of the mass of the people.” Henceforward, religion would owe a large part of its vitality to the “borrowed support of public opinion,” outside of which there was no force capable of sustaining a prolonged resistance (I.i, 5).

>>18764831
>My friend, monks already do this in East Asia. They drink, eat meat, work regular jobs, take up wives, and even visit prostitutes.
Mahayana doesn't count

>>18764876
Why?

Throwing it all away and turning to Christ. It's all right at your doorstep and you're trying to convert to religion from far away lands

>>18765091

>>18765099
nikka i MADE that meme. poser catholics are poorly misguided. We live this life. Christ and His Church IS the way to Heaven. St Bernadette's body is not rotten after over 50 years without any treatment. Hosts bled in Buenos Aires. Look into these miracles
Convert and you shall be saved

>>18765066
Because he's an Ameriblubber and is transplanting his conception of religion onto Buddhism. The Pali Canon is the Buddhist Bible ergo Sola Scriptura applies to the Theravada so the Mahayana aren't Buddhists like how Catholics aren't Christians.

This is completely horseshit of course because the Theravada absolutely do not treat the Pali Canon anything like low-church Protestants treat the Bible, Sola Scriptura ironically aligns more with Mahayana views on how Sutras work, and "Mahayana" is so broad of a category as to be almost useless on its own.

>>18763410
The Theravada doesn't have a Bhikkuni lineage, and the Mahayana Bhikkuni lineages are locked behind several layers of protection. The Buddhist monastic-laity relationship cannot really be compared to the Christian clergy-laity relationship principally because what the two relationships are trying to achieve are different. A Christian clergyman is actively trying to control the assented-propositions and actions of the laity, but a Buddhist monk isn't. Buddhist monks, out of kindness and charity, interact with the laity for mutual benefit, but there's absolutely nothing in Buddhism about a group of monks not just locking themselves up in a mountain and nibannaing out. To that end, unlike the various denominations of Christianity, Buddhism can very easily constantly draw off from society people who Want Out. This IS how Buddhism has operated in the past; even in periods with massive politically integrated establishments and clerical bureaucracies.

Furthermore, the Theravada is the most insulated against what you're describing for two reasons. Firstly, the Theravadans lack a bhikkuni lineage, so one source of Poz is just flat out not present. A fundamentally different method would be needed to subvert these societies. Secondly, the Theravadan tradition ("Theravada" literally means "Way of the Elders") is setup to allow for Buddhism to return to a state of wandering monastics living off the land whenever needed. Unlike Christianity, which really has no way of existing independent of top-down enforcement via political power and frankly no interest in continuing to exist if it loses political power, the Theravadan Buddhist tradition is not only capable of this but also fully willing to. Buddhism can totally go back to where it was around 0AD as just a monastic sect of traveling ascetics.

Gautama, Siddhārtha. Dislike him. A cheap nihilist, insipid and foolhardy. A pied piper, pathological narcissist and a cloying moralist. Some of his modern disciples are extraordinarily amusing. Nobody takes his claims about remembering past lives seriously.
Majjhima Nikāya. His best work, though an obvious and shameless imitation of Yājñavalkya's "Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad"
Dīgha Nikāya. Dislike it intensely.
Dhammapada. Dislike it intensely. Ghastly rigmarole

>>18765137
Oh no it's the epistemological weightlifter. Sorry sweatie, the Blessed One's holy miraculous relics number in the tens of thousands, each capable enlightening countless sentient beings and indestructible in form until the end of this eon.

>>18765159
Adding on:

The fundamental difference, to use >>18764831 to demonstrate, is here:
>had to compete for their members and rely on voluntary contributions for their subsistence
Which is to say that Christian clerics had to compete not only with each other but with other sources of entertainment for viewers. Religion had become just a source of entertainment.

But Buddhism can, has, and will survive as just monks. Buddhism doesn't strictly speaking need a laity for anything other than slow infusions of more monks, and one dude per decade IS enough for it to survive. A Buddhist monk doesn't need a congregation to preach to, a Christian priest absolutely does.

More importantly, Buddhism is about attempting to sidestep the entire system by which religion can even be entertainment (there's rules about monks not being able to watch puppet shows). Buddhism isn't competing for the attention of the people who are into that sort of things because there is no one else to compete with

>>18765182
So what about Buddhism in East Asia, where, as I noted, monks are allowed to take up wives, eat meat, and have jobs? Are there still pockets of genuine monasticism?

>>18765159
>Buddhism can totally go back to where it was around 0AD as just a monastic sect of traveling ascetics.
okay.... so why dont they?

>>18765182
>Buddhism doesn't strictly speaking need a laity for anything other than slow infusions of more monks, and one dude per decade IS enough for it to survive
One of the more unique aspects of Buddhist his as compared to other religions that often you'll have just one guy kick off an entirely new school that revitalizes the religion for the next few centuries in a given place, simply on the basis of having read and understood a particular sutra and liking it enough to teach and comment on it

>>18762154
this is retarded, vajrayana is an outgrowth of mahayana not a completely separate branch

>>18765210
I especially like how Tendai is listed as both Vajrayana and Mahayana.

>>18763410
>Avoid all institutionalized religion.
As opposed to what? Come up with your own shit?

>>18765137
>St Bernadette's body is not rotten after over 50 years without any treatment.
Her face looks like it's made of wax. I wonder why?

>>18765201
They do. There is a German monk that have been living in a tree in Burma for 30 years.

>>18765234
read the forensic statements

>>18765205
Yeah, this is literally how the Thai Forest Tradition got started. The Thai king just picked some Hmong dude to create a new sect within the Theravada.

>>18765198
Again, Mahayana is super fucking broad. SOME Buddhist traditions allow monks to continue having a relationship, even living with, an existing wife. SOME let them eat meat under certain conditions. SOME let them have a steady employment (all monks chop wood and carry water). Not all of these are involved at once even if just one is. Some Vajrayana schools have esoteric teachings that use sex as a means of achieving a heightened state; some rituals involve eating meat to understand monism and transience; some use alcohol as a loosener (most sects allow monks to drink tea, remember). But just because you can have sex as part of SPECIFIC rituals doesn't meant that you can have a wife. Some of these schools even hold these special rituals as a sort of "end-ritual", wherein one disrobes, then does the ritual, and then either re-robes (possibly with a lower rank), or just remains a layman. Again, it varies sect to sect.

There are still many areas of "genuine monasticism". In fact most Buddhist monks by number would fall under this "genuine monasticism". Many of them are small in number, but then that's kind of the point. The Buddha (or the clique of monks who invented him as a character, these two options are fundamentally identical and the latter does not, on Buddhism's own grounds, devalue the teaching) designed Buddhism around being able to do this.

Buddhism at its core is an ascetic teaching based around small numbers of monks living together off of the land. Clerical bureaucracy and preaching to the laity are nice and all, but they're not essential. In Christianity, preaching to the laity is the entire point, and the monasticism is just a secondary thing.

>>18765201
In many places, it's already happened. Many sects have very little clerical bureaucracy and consist of a bunch of bald dudes in robes living in the mountains. Sometimes, strangers come and join up. Buddhists are well aware that modernity sucks and that Buddhism is at odds with it, these people aren't dumb. I can explain why Buddhists would ever want to leave the "Bald dudes in the mountains" state if you'd like, but I think you're more so getting at something different than "why would a monk ever want to help the laity".

>>18765255
More on this?

>>18765264
I am particularly interested in Japan. Can you speak to the state of affairs there?

>>18765277
The average Japanese only interacts with Buddhism for funeral purposes. Many monastic lineages still exist however.

>>18765267
Heard it from another monk but I don't remember where, but it was from that "politically incorrect" monk. Well actually the monk supposedly had to leave the tree in the last few years because a local chicken farm expanded into the area and the place got filled with chicken feces and other nasty stuff. Also the monk was getting really old. So a local lay family built him a hut in their backyard for him to live in.

>>18765264
>Buddhism at its core is an ascetic teaching based around small numbers of monks living together off of the land
Begging isn't exactly "living off the land". Theravada monks can't even cut down plants so they certainly couldn't live off the land. Although I know some Mahayana grow food

>>18765293
I mean among those who have taken monastic orders. I hear that many work as professors at, for instance, Ryukoku University while also being monks. Is this permitted?
>>18765296
Has no one written about him?

>>18765264
To add onto this:

Using >>18765224 as a way to segue into this, Buddhism accepts that you can engage in empiricism, so if all Buddhists except one dude were killed off, that one dude could totally just recreate Buddhism from first principles. Once you get the basics of Sunyata and have memorized a few lists of the X# of Ys and the like, you can, by the Buddha's own words, recreate Buddhism. This is actually what the Buddha is said to have done, and is totally in line with Buddhism's internal cosmology. Every now and then some dude sits down, meditates, comes up with Buddhism, Buddhism is, it dies out, it goes away, repeat.

Compare this with Christianity which holds an absolutely rigid historicity and historical direction. Jesus came, stuff happened, and he laid out a doctrine. You can ONLY get this doctrine from him, nowhere else, and you cannot derive it from first principles AT ALL and you have to get it ENTIRELY right from an accepted source. Attempting to conjure Christianity out of empiricism is punishable by damnation, even if you get it right. Once you have access to this doctrine, it is then required of you to spread it.

To that end, Buddhism can totally survive (theoretically indefinitely) as just a bunch of bald dudes in the mountains. Christianity absolutely cannot.

>>18765277
The "monks having wives and jobs" thing is overblown. The Japanese feudal system didn't like the idea of a man rejecting his duty to his clan by not taking a wife, and it didn't like the idea of a man not having some kind of job (monasticism only being "a job" if you're a bureaucrat or a Shinto Priest alongside). So, men take wives, and then go out and become monks. Then they work as carpenters or street sweepers and give their money to poor people. Are there rural monasteries that don't interact with the laity? Certainly. But in Japan, as in China, the idea of compassion is emphasized. Begging is itself a compassionate act, after all.

Don't get me wrong, there's obviously heinous degenerates and rule breakers, but there were also Popes who not only had children by also pre-pubescent same-sex lovers. That doesn't mean that every Pope as a rule has been some kind of ruler breaking sexual deviant, nor does it mean that every Christian is.

>>18765257
They all say her face is covered in wax.

>>18765171
have u reached Gnosis yet? will you ever? you know u gotta be homeless right?

>>18765362
Doctor Comte, writes: "From this examination I conclude that the body of the Venerable Bernadette is intact, the skeleton is complete, the muscles have atrophied, but are well preserved; only the skin, which has shriveled, seems to have suffered from the effects of the damp in theIncorrupt body of St Bernadettecoffin. … the body does not seem to have putrefied, nor has any decomposition of the cadaver set in, although this would be expected and normal after such a long period in a vault hollowed out of the earth."

The doctor was amazed by the state of preservation of the liver: "What struck me during this examination, of course, was …the totally unexpected state of the liver after 46 years. One would have thought that this organ, which is basically soft and inclined to crumble, would have decomposed very rapidly or would have hardened to a chalky consistency. Yet it was soft and almost normal in consistency. I pointed this out to those present, remarking that this did not seem to be a natural phenomenon."

>>18765341
>Has no one written about him?
Don't think so. But hermits are fucking everywhere in southeast Asia so it's probably not weird enough to get that much attention. These Buddhist countries are a completely different world than the West when it comes to this. If it happened in the west then there would be countless reports and documentaries but over there it's just a more zealous than normal monk.

The monk("politically incorrect dharma") that spoke about the other guy lived by himself for 15 years in caves deep in rural Burma. No one wrote anything about him either as far as I know, although the local Burmese thought he was an arhat

>>18765388
it reminds me of primitive tribesmen divining each others entrails

>>18765393
I can attest to this anon claim as a SEA ape you will find random monk living in near isolation alone and barely anybody would know about them except from the few local.

>>18765393
I don't know any of the local languages. Should I go take a look sometime?
>The monk("politically incorrect dharma")
I just looked at that guy's site. What's the story behind him?

>>18765342
It should also be noted that in the case of China, like in Japan, both having adopted Confucianism prior to Buddhism, there was difficulty with adopting the more Indian notions of monastic life, and the presence of what were sometimes seen as idle, parasitic, tax evading, responsibility-free, wealth hoarding, landlording monasteries lead to almost cyclical persecutions/crackdowns/purges eg. as under the Tang dynasty. Chan monks, however, the Chinese originators of Zen, did not forbid themselves from manual labor, and outlasted most of the other sects, less able to weather changing government support/suppression.

>>18765159
>>18765182
Seems like a load of shit. If you're telling me that the great majority of Buddhist monks were not, at the very least, NOT wholly opposed to the export of corporate Buddhism to the West during and after the sexual revolution because of all the USD they would get out of it, you'd be telling a very blatant lie. Even today Buddhist monks have a greater reputation for being conmen and scam artists than any other ascetic group from any other religion.

>>18765388
You can't really trust any of this unfortunately because he could have just been given an extraordinary sum by the Church to say all that.

>>18765455
>the export of corporate Buddhism to the West
What the fuck are you talking about? If by "Corporate Buddhism" you mean shit like McMindfulness, then that wasn't exported to the West, that was made in the West.

Where the fuck do you think the Poz starts, anon? I'll give you a hint: It's not Asia.

>>18765482
Yeah they were never going to exhume the body of a popular charismatic figure and declare she was not miraculous.

>>18765484
Buddhist bureaucrats like the Dalai Lama and his extended clique were highly involved in exporting Buddhism to hippies, naturally so. Denying this, or acting baffled that someone would state something like this, like what you're doing now, is disingenuous.

/lit/ is worse than /x/ holy shit

>>18765542
I fail to see how the Dalai Lama is to blame for assorted grifters exploiting the world's greediest, laziest, and least cultured people, particularly in the 1960s, when there were plenty of people into joining cults as a social phenomenon, Buddhist led or otherwise.

>>18765571
Don’t fixate on the Dalai Lama, the point is that the conglomerate that is Buddhist bureaucratism, or whatever the Buddhist equivalent of the Church is(and don’t tell me it doesn’t exist) exported it to the west. If you’re the anon making the argument that Buddhist theology is independent of the Buddha, or that Buddhism has the largest number of decentralized communities/monasteries out of any other religion, then that’s an entirely different topic. Buddhism is still the religion that fleeced the west the most out of any other religion in the 20th-21st centuries, and that by far. And it was Buddhist monks/communities who made a killing out of it, not solely (((third parties))).

>>18765705
This is your brain on burgerism

>>18765705
Look (((2016igger))), you're not going to save "the west" by seething about people taking an interest in Buddhism, or about the grifters who've made money off them. Just admit you're butthurt that we're not in the middle ages anymore and move on with your life.

>>18762168
>Anatta: Nothing is eternal or independent in origination.
>Nibbana: The unconditioned.

If everything is dependent in origination, there must be no state that is free from determination. Therefore, the soteriological goal of Buddhism is doomed from the start.

>>18765542
>>18765705
So, what you're saying is that Westerners brought the corporate bullshit to Buddhism. So your basic claim is, by your own admission, wrong.

>>18766103
The first point is incorrect in the Theravada tradition; tl;dr Nibanna, Space, and a few other things that don't really matter are unconditioned. In the Mahayana, tl;dr Nirvana is conditioned, but what it means for Nirvana to be conditioned is not the same as what it means for Samsara to be conditioned.

>>18764485
That’s wife shit right there my guy.

>The Buddha ordered a pizza

>>18766103
The whole point of being non-enlightened person is that you're not able to find Unconditioned beyond all there is. You nedd to be Sotapanna at least to get it.

>>18765342
>To that end, Buddhism can totally survive (theoretically indefinitely) as just a bunch of bald dudes in the mountains.
This is what the tradition says, but unless Buddhism gives you magical mpreg powers I doubt a monastic community could survive in isolation. Buddhism needs laypeople. Also, what is Vinaya? There is a canon, you know.

>>18762098
>How do I get started with Buddhism?
Read the suttas first, WITHOUT any interpretations /explanations, and allow that to inform your own judgments of the various third hand teachings available. Always check back to the suttas when evaluating your practice and the various modern teachings.

P. S. "In the buddhas words" is probably a pretty bad introduction in my opinion. Literally just start reading suttas. It's not hard

P. P. S. Most commentarial teachings should be considered "wrong" or at least misguided.

Start with the suttas

Start with the suttas

>>18765182
>Buddhism doesn't strictly speaking need a laity for anything other than slow infusions of more monks
This is completely false. Buddhist monks are not a bunch of dudes who go to a monastery to become enlightened in privacy. This is like the #1 thing that monastic orders make clear to new bhikkhus. Monasteries are a communal effort, you commit to the sangha as much as the dharma. If what you said is true then every Buddhist monk would have no reason to join a monastery, they'd all be isolated sadhus, and they would still need a lay framework to exist, to incentivize people to give them shit and protect them, like the sadhus in India who are seen as holy men. The Buddha himself went around begging for food and so do the monks. Buddhism was not "designed to be flexible", it simply became watered down out of necessity. There is an exchange here and it's the lays helping the monks to get good Karma and the monks begging from the lay to stay alive. A whole lot of Buddhist dialogues are about how a monk is supposed to behave with the lay, when collecting alms etc. Buddhism cannot exist in a vacuum. I'd wager that no religion can attain a certain status without this requirement, because without establishing a relationship between a clergy and the lay, or at least binding a community in the religion, it would never become manifest.

>>18765159
>Because he's an Ameriblubber and is transplanting his conception of religion onto Buddhism.
Or maybe I just think that Mahayana is grifter shit that came up as fast food Buddhism in times of crisis all over history.
It completely twists the original intent of Buddhism in favor of spamming Asian Hail Marys and.... well...

>>18767318
>Buddhist monks are not a bunch of dudes who go to a monastery to become enlightened in privacy. This is like the #1 thing that monastic orders make clear to new bhikkhus. Monasteries are a communal effort, you commit to the sangha as much as the dharma.

You are not incorrect in general, however, this isn't true in all cases. For example, there are Forest monasteries in sri lanka where your expectation is to train all the time, speaking to no man, and the senior monk accepts all offerings and deals with all the lay people without speaking to them. Don't forget that the original instruction of the buddha is really quite encouraging of solitude and it is really quite individualistic. The group aspect is a useful tool but not the main thing as no being can attain to understanding or wisdom for another. It's important that you're wholly responsible for your own mind. Monasteries are conventional dhammas which allow for practicalities of mass training to be facilitated, but at the real heart of the practice, it's just you and your own kilesas when it really comes down to the brass tacks. Yes, the Sangha support each other, and it was praised by the buddha, but that is not mandatory, as we can see from the suttas where the Buddha praised solitary monks such as maha-kassapa and others who practiced entirely on their own.

>>18767346
>For example, there are Forest monasteries in sri lanka where your expectation is to train all the time, speaking to no man, and the senior monk accepts all offerings and deals with all the lay people without speaking to them.
You still have to get recognition from the lays, Thai forest monks cannot grow food. It is specifically intended that depend on the lays.

>>18767356
Yes, it depends on the laypeople, but it doesn't mean that the Buddha praised being a layperson. Recall that until the death of Anathapindaka, the deeper teachings of the buddha weren't even disseminated among the lay people. Being a lay person when a Buddha-sasana exists is very much a second rate decision and should be considered as such

>>18767356
Of course you are entirely correct about the monastic order not being able to exist without the laity, I would never deny such a thing. I am just emphasizing that while the true practice cannot exist without the lay people, it doesn't mean that the lay people are doing the true practice.

>>18767388
>it doesn't mean that the Buddha praised being a layperson.
>I am just emphasizing that while the true practice cannot exist without the lay people, it doesn't mean that the lay people are doing the true practice.
I never contested that, laypeople are just accepting that they don't have the discipline to do what the monks do, and they help them for Karma. But the two groups are co-dependent, it doesn't matter if the laymen's practice isn't "true".
>Recall that until the death of Anathapindaka, the deeper teachings of the buddha weren't even disseminated among the lay people.
But Buddhism could only get away with this because it was founded on the framework of Hinduism, which implied that helping ascetic holy men gives you good Karma. Let's be honest here, without this framework a begging monk would just be a beggar.

>>18767344
What books have you read that would give you this opinion?

>>18767287
>Also, what is Vinaya? There is a canon, you know.
Not him, but what do you mean by this?

bump

>>18764485
Those urges are just animal instinct. They're impermanent and eventually if you get together romantically there will come a time where your energies don't match up like they used to any more. That's the way of the universe. So indulge if you want, but if you reflect like this you will see that it's fundamentally pointless to act on those urges, in the long run.

>>18762168
>Anicca: No matter how long it takes, everything meets its end.
this feels wrong. How can existence or time reach an end?

>>18767344
the buddha himself said the dharma would slowly vanish in the span of centuries after his death and enlightenment would become almost impossible so pure land makes sense for this reason

>>18769994
In the Theravada tradition "time", like Nibbana, is unconditioned. It doesn't actually change at all, and it's not really interacted with. The same goes for space. They aren't "things" at all. To that end, "everything" doesn't include space and time.

In the Mahayana, however, space and time are absolutely conditioned, but nothing is discrete, so when we say that time "ends" what we really mean is that "time" as we understand it in our universe eventually ceases to exist as it currently does, but that doesn't mean that alternative "times" stop existing outside of our universe. You don't cease to be when your dad dies, and he continues on through you and blah blah blah blah.

>>18766153
>So, what you're saying is that Westerners brought the corporate bullshit to Buddhism.
Holy shit nigger. Are you fucking retarded?

>>18767291
OP here. This is literally the only useful answer I got ITT. Just going to read random suttas from http://buddhasutra.com/ fuck Buddhist books and their globohomo sponsors.

>>18771636
Typical /lit/ poster, hates books and reading

does anyone have the start with the greeks chart

>>18772388
Sir this is an Indian buffet

>>18765484
is Mcmindfulness good? got a rec for it a while back

>>18772430
I gave up halfway through. The author just repeats the same points from the article he wrote about it over and over and over and over. I highly recommend a book called American Dharma by Ann Gleig if you want a survey of what Americans have done to Buddhism.

>>18772446
thank you for the helpful answer anon

>>18772417
only chart on the catalog thought Id ask, now im craving indian food damn

>>18772505
The article is actually pretty decent but it just can't hack it as a book. McMindfulness is really just an offshoot of "modernist" Buddhism anyway. First you say it's not really a religion and it's actually just therapeutic neuroscience, then you say it's focused breathing when you feel irritated by your confinement at a terrible and unengaging job and need to concentrate.

>>18772520
so just diluting it and then repurposing it to comfort people who otherwise would probably snap at their shitty jobs?

>>18772539
Yes I think I lose a few milimeters of enamel when I see or hear the word mindful at work, it's more annoying than the work. If you meet the Buddha in the office, fire him.

>>18762321
why do you believe that?

>>18762829
lol no. pathetic attempt.

>This thread.
Just post a single book so that I can start with something.