/lit/ - Literature

The Great Debate. It's about a Christian priest, and then a Hindu collaborator, getting schooled in a series of debates by a Sri Lankan monk.

For the most part, there's very little genuine looks at any non-Abrahamic religion by Christians, as Christiams are required to assume that all non-Abrahamic religions are wicked and evil. These traditions also had centuries of time to mount intellectual defenses against Abrahamic religion because, unlike Abrahamics, they were actually learning about other religious traditions. For example, the Taoists had sophisticated critiques of the Trinity in the 1400s. The best you're going to get is Thomas Merton or really surface level "we can slip Noahidism through the back door" kind of multicultural whinging.

>>21595781
Wagner achieved the closest unity of the two in his 'Regeneration writings' and Parsifal drama (which is partially based on the Christianised legend of the Buddha, Saint Josaphat). Schopenhauer inspired this line of thought in Wagner. The Regeneration writings include the following, but are only available in a low quality 19th century translation:

Religion and Art
"What Boots this Knowledge?"
Know Thyself
Introduction to a work of Count Gobineau's
Hero-dom and Christendom
On the Womanly in the Human Race

https://pls.nd.edu/assets/192300/wagner_religion_and_art_online_version.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oLmH_JpNak

Prior to this late Christian turn Wagner's ideal followed closely the lines of a kind of Western Vajrayana, with his only knowledge of Buddhism being of Theravada from Schopenhauer. His most important exposition of this philosophy is in his Beethoven essay, and dramatically portrayed in Tristan und Isolde:

https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacec6yxvyu3t7qdqsz2ma7iuklx4io4bnbfnh7ezwyklfercre5nxze?filename=richard-wagner-s-beethoven-richard-wagner-roger--annas-archive--libgenrs-nf-2986499.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjPIit2n4pI

>>21595924
>Wagner's ideal followed closely the lines of a kind of Western Vajrayana, with his only knowledge of Buddhism being of Theravada from Schopenhauer
Sounds like complete nonsense. Start with the jeets

>>21595956
What sounds like nonsense to you?

Seeing as most serious Christians believe that meditating is demonic along with yoga and anything else they don't understand, you won't find much.

>>21595991
>Wagner's ideal followed closely the lines of a kind of Western Vajrayana
this is an idiosyncratic reading you've supported by linking Wagner with Schopenhauer's pessimist version of Buddhism (which relied on non-Mahayanist sources as well as his own temperament). What do you actually mean by "Western Vajrayana" given that it cannot be derived from Schopenhauer's Buddhism? What sense is there in attaching this label to Wagner as a metaphor?

>>21595781
McMahan's Buddhist Modernism is essentially about the (successful) response of South Asian Buddhists to Protestant colonizers. There must be material in Korean that is unstranslated, which would be interesting to read given, on the other hand, how successful Christianity has been at displacing Buddhism there. Imagine a Buddhist country becoming Christian and having even worse fertility afterward—kind of poetic.

>>21596021
It didn't just come from Schopenhauer. It came from Wagner integrating his own philosophy into Schopenhauer's, and the peculiarity of his own nature. But it's not as if Schopenhauer's Buddhism didn't guide Wagner at all.

>Wagner could not always agree with the life-negating philosophy of his master. In the concept of love, philosopher and artist had to part ways, and as a consequence, Wagner deepened and glorified this conception in his own fashion. In his diary of December 1st, 1858 we read: “I have recently read slowly through friend Schopenhauer’s major work again and this time he has extraordinarily stimulated me to amplification and—in some particulars—even to correction.”
>Wagner had, in fact, without being aware of it, introduced in The Victors a Mahayanistic idea which in his days was scarcely known in Europe: namely, that the way to redemption must take, not a direct path, through perfect denial of sensual love, but rather an indirect path, first through the affirmation of sensual love, in order to arrive at the ultimate overcoming of it. This idea is essentially Mahayana and is found neither in Christianity nor in Hinayana Buddhism. Wagner had, so to speak, perceived through artistic intuition ideas which run parallel with Mahayanism. For that reason, I would like to quote further from the diary pages of December 1st: . and perhaps it had to be reserved for my very special disposition to gain insight here, which no other could conceive of in this very special time of my life. The point is to show the way to salvation, recognized by no philosopher, nor, for that matter, by Schopenhauer, which leads to the perfect appeasement of the will through love, and, to be sure, through no abstract humanitarian love, but one emerging from the depth of sexual love, i.e., from the attraction between man and woman.”

If The Victors expresses a general Mahayana view, Tristan is full-blown Vajrayana. Only in his late Christian period did the extremes which bear the resemblance to Vajrayana cool down, and he subscribe to a practical ideal much closer to Theravada. But it's safe to say Wagner's Buddhist philosophy was always more Mahayana than Theravada.

>>21595924
I've only just read the intro notes. On a first, more superficial (and thus probably wrong) analysis, Wagner's aesthetic would seems to exacly oppose a would-be Platonic one. Wagner first articulates a dialectic between form and content, phenomenon and noumenon, light and sound, expression and feeling; then he places the primacy on the content, subordinating form to it; Beethoven's c-sharp minor quartet starts inwards, from the noumena, pours out into form as a means to communicate that inner vision (hearing?) to the audience; and so does the Tristan, etc., whereas a would-be Platonic view would put form first, and relegate the content to the inferior realm of the sensible, contingent and temporal. But this would be incorrect in at least two ways, first and most important of which is this, there is an equivocation of terms here. Form for Wagner means the phenomenal, the temporal, etc.; the exact opposite is true for Plato: form means the intelligible, the atemporal, etc.; secondly, in Plato's actual writtings about music he never deals with "form" as understood by modern music theory (that is, compositional structure), but with "ethical" side of music, namely how music moves the soul, the effects that it has on the soul. Thus, once the equivocation is removed, the two views are not so irreconcilable after all.

>>21596109
This seems like a highly spurious comparison. "The way to redemption" makes no sense in a Buddhist context and tantric sex rituals are not quite "the affirmation of sensual love" but a left-hand path in Vajrayana not to attain "perfect appeasement of the will through love" but to attain, for lack of a better phrase, initiatory gnosis. In fact, the girl used in these rituals as prescribed by the manuals is supposed to be a teenager, preferably lower caste. Trangression of perceived boundaries to arrive at a mystic nominalism, or non-essence/non-substance. Realization emptiness by extremes. Is that what Wagner is really doing in his operas? Really? And he got there from glossing Schopenhauer?

>>21595781
Buddhists do not care about Christianity. They didnt even care about Hinduism, so zero chance of caring about some variant of Judaism.

And Buddhism is not based on devotion. Judaism is based on a devotion to a jew god, a jew like Moses, a jew like Jesus.
In the East, devotional religions are Hinduism and Mahayana.

>>21595924
Wagner is a moronic german bourgeois stemming from the atheist revolutions, exactly like the idiots Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Jung. All garbage.

>>21596240
>devotional religions
The most conspicuous feature of early (and pre-Mahayana) Buddhism is its relic cult. Must have been devoted to something

>>21595781
>>books attempting to syncretize the two faiths

The Power of Now brings up Jesus a lot and explains his teachings in the context of 'presence'. The book takes a lot of things from Eastern religions and Christianity. It completely changed how I understood much of what Jesus taught.

>>21596122
While I am not entirely sure of the correctness of your interpretation here, for example the claim that Wagner subordinates form to content, or that for Plato the Forms are equivocal to form as opposed to content, I wonder what makes you think Wagner is trying to be a Platonist. In Art and Revolution (1849) Wagner declares that the past two thousand years have been ruled by philosophy and not art, and that the decay of Greek tragedy has haunted Western civilisation. He envisions his cultural project as rejuvenating Western civilisation from these two thousand years of philosophy, i.e. Platonism, and while Schopenhauer allowed him to connect with the great tradition of philosophers, in many respects his discovery of Schopenhauer was a continuation of this antiphilosophical orientation. Wagner in his open letter to Nietzsche, with whom he shares this cultural project, speaks of the 'divine faults' of Plato.

>>21596281
>I wonder what makes you think Wagner is trying to be a Platonist
Nothing. I should probably have clarified this. Just two of my personal interests and me thinking out loud freely associating them.

>>21596240
How is Mahayana based on devotion? I don't know much about the differences between Mahayana, Vij(something) and Theravada. Just heard that "Mahayanas" usually focus more on rebirth here to bring more people to the dharma instead of wanting to escape samsara.

>>21596210
>Is that what Wagner is really doing in his operas? Really? And he got there from glossing Schopenhauer?
Yes. Your may not use the same terminology, but you must explain how this 'initiatory gnosis' is functionally any different from Wagner's ideal. I'll just post the full quote from Wagner:

>For it is a matter of demonstrating a path of salvation recognised by none of the philosophers, particularly not by Sch., the pathway to complete pacification of the Will through love, and that no abstract love of mankind, but the love which actually blossoms from the soil of sexual love, i.e. from the affection between man and woman. It is conclusive, that I am able to use for this (as philosopher, not as poet, since as such I have my own) the terminology which Sch. himself supplies me. The exposition leads very deep and far, for it embraces a preciser explanation of the state in which we become able to apprehend Ideas, as also of that of Genius (Genialitaf), which I no longer conceive as a state of disengagement of the intellect from the will, but rather as an enhancement of the intellect of the individual to a cognitive organ of the race itself (Erkenntnissorgan der Gattung), thus of the Will as Thing-in-itself; whence alone, moreover, is to be explained that strange enthusiastic joyfulness and rapture in the supreme moments of genial cognition which Sch. seems hardly to know, as he can find it [i.e. that mode of cognition] only in repose and in the silencing of the individual passions. Quite analogously to this conception, I then arrive with greatest certainty at proving in Love a possibility of attaining to that exaltation above the instinct of the individual will where, after complete subjection of this latter, the racial will comes to full consciousness of itself; which upon this height is necessarily tantamount to complete pacification. All this will be made clear even to the inexperienced, if my statement succeeds; whilst the result cannot but be very significant, and entirely and satisfactorily fill the gaps in Schopenhauer's system.

>>21596306
Schopenhauer is an arhat; Wagner is a bodhisattva.

>>21596306
>proving in Love a possibility of attaining to that exaltation above the instinct of the individual will where, after complete subjection of this latter, the racial will comes to full consciousness of itself; which upon this height is necessarily tantamount to complete pacification
Using sexuality to achieve a state of "racial will" which pacifies the individual will isn't Vajrayana Buddhism, it's... esoteric natalism? Perhaps an aesthetic enrapture akin to admiring natural beauty (the awe of the mountain or ancient forest)? For the Buddhist there is no reified collective will for you to join as there is neither one nor many. At best you could make a less inaccurate comparison if you related Wagner to a general tantra/tantrism as a praxis, but the goals here aren't aligned with Vajrayana (cannot speak to Shaivism-Shaktism with certainty although my assumption would be they have greater similarity than Buddhist tantrism to Wagner). Ultimately he remains closest to Schopenhauer

>>21596302
Mahayana is a cluster of gurus pushing for their own made up sutras. Mahayana can't be centralized because it is a guruism, ie devotion to gurus. Every sutras they made up says it is the most supreme teaching of the buddha and just venerating the sutra will give you more merit than anything else, like actually bettering your mind lol.

The goal of the Mahayanists was to cram back into buddhism everything people love : hedonism, ie you can coom and have sex, it's spiritual and this way you dont get attach to it teehee, sharing merits, heaven where you live forever, primordial consciousness, rituals, huge lineage of intellectuals circlejerking about everything (including Zen, while the zen propaganda is that ''zen is not about scriptures nor debates'' lol), devotions to deities, devotions to gurus, mantras (ie shallow meditation), non-determinism (ie rejection of the dependent origination for instance a stream winner can't change the course of his enlightenment, but Mahayanists say they can change it), deep desire to feel like goods guys for wanting to save the whole humanity, ie virtue signaling like the average woman on facebook today, deep desire to feel superior to buddhists (who only heard the fake teaching by the buddha and the super true and super secret teaching is mahayana), rejection of the vinaya to the point that they turned monkhood in mahayana and vajrayana into a joke.

>>21596333
Schopenhauer loved Hinduism and Wagner is the average atheist who has no clue about spirituality.

>>21596409
Not-self in Mahayana is indeed a skillful means to teach buddhanature=true self=deified buddha. This equation god=nature and sins=virtues, samsara=nirvana appeal a lot to atheists and women, like in Spinoza and other Humanists, because women and atheists hate to hear that there are sins and virtues and Karma or god punishes the sinners. Those people feel threaten by this so in order to satisfy their spiritual cravings, they can only think about a generic creator which is nature and there is no karma, no judgment, no sins, samsara is nirvana (you just don't know it yet), and all teachings about morality are just skillful means so enlightened people like their gurus can still kill and have sex and hit people with their sticks. ''Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water''. This is peak Mahayana. It is a dream come true to hear that they can keep doing whatever they’ve been doing as non-enlightened people, ie mostly having sex, enjoying entertainment, caring about politics, while still being righteous buddhas and not having to build a moral narrative where they know that they are the author, which would make it relative.

>>21596342
>For the Buddhist there is no reified collective will for you to join
There seems to be a misunderstanding here. Wagner isn't referring to something metaphysical, but a de-individualised state of perception. The 'racial' element is just the 19th century equivalent of 'human nature' today. I understand no Buddhist would use the language of Western philosophy but this to me does not mean they are not getting at the same essential thing. The differences between Wagner and Schopenhauer are too important to be dismissed. Not for to Wagner, surely, but for any traditional Schopenhauerian, and that includes Schopenhauer himself, who was always morally opposed to Wagner's outlook. The problem with identifying Wagner with Shaivism (at least more than Vajrayana) is that his essential 'goal' is Buddhistic.

>>21596430
The only goal in buddhism is to end suffering and the only method in Budhismto achieve the end of suffering is to stop all rebirths, ie to die forever. Wagner is too humanistic to want this and his pathetic little fan fiction has 0% buddhism in it.

>>21596436
Not that guy, and not even an expert in Buddhism, but not all Buddhism believes in rebirth.

>>21596413
>Schopenhauer loved Hinduism
Uh, akshually, Schopenhauer was more of a "Buddhaist (sic)"
>When the tenets of Buddhism became known in Europe during the third and fourth decade of the nineteenth century, Arthur Schopenhauer was delighted with the affinity they showed to his own philosophy. Having completed his main work Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung as early as 1818, he considered it an entirely new (and thus pure) expression of the wisdom once taught by the Buddha-at times he even called himself a "Buddhaist."2
http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/Articles/Schopenhauer%20and%20Buddhism_PEW_Abelsen_1993.pdf

>>21596248
>>21596413
>>21596436
Who hurt you?

>>21596333
Fits surprisingly well.

>Schopenhauer lived a sparing, private but contented life.
>Wagner lived his life on the world stage but was never happy because of the impossibility of truly helping his time.

humanists are so braindead and are so desperate to find an external justification for their Humanism (because they use relativism on Christian monarchies to seize power and create their republics, so they know deep down it was only a power grab), that they think buddhism is compatible with their crappy humanism and if the buddha was alive today he would say humanists are the best and most virtuous people on earth.

Yesterday I went lookin at the wikipedia page for the 5 precepts and those atheist assholes managed to delude themselves that, since atheists are addicted into thinking in terms of rights, the 5 precepts are part of their human rights lmao

>>21596466
I mean, it isn't ridiculous to say that in a Buddhist society the first precept could imply the right to live, but it's funny that the people who wrote this are pro abortion for sure, lol.

>>21596409
>>21596423
Amazing and truthful account of the joke that Mahayana "Buddhism" is. The first time I read a Mahayana "sutra" I was disgusted by the extravagant, campy aesthetic of the text, its obvious polemic and worldly tone, as opposed to the clean, concise and mnemonic style of the Pali suttas, and most importanly it making the Buddha into a liar with the skillfull means doctrine (remember what I said in the more ancient texts? I was just kidding and you will go to hell if you abide by it; but what I'm saying in this sutra is totally the ultimate teaching). Except Mahayna hoaxsters didn't expect the obvious. If you can one up the ancient suttas the next Mahayna hoaxter can one up your own "sutra"; thus the second and third "turnings of the wheel" (new "ultimate" "secret" teachings); tantras with poo and cum magic passing as esoteric teachings of the "Buddha"; Tibetans finding hidden buried-treasure texts every week, etc. Mahayna hoaxters open a gigantic can of worms that they couldn't control. They were the Joseph Smiths of Buddhism -- what's to keep a random guy from receiving a "secret teaching" of the Buddha, the fourth or fifth turning of the wheel as early as tomorrow?

>>21596430
>The differences between Wagner and Schopenhauer are too important to be dismissed.
Oh but not the differences between German romantics and Indo-Tibetan scholastic sex shamans?

>>21596486
>I was disgusted by the extravagant, campy aesthetic of the text, its obvious polemic and worldly tone, as opposed to the clean, concise and mnemonic style of the Pali suttas
your hyperprotestantized culture is the road to nihilism I assure you

>>21596535
>hyperprotestantized
Christard dichomoty ortogonal to the issue.

>>21596423
>It is a dream come true to hear that they can keep doing whatever they’ve been doing as non-enlightened people
You really ought to stick to being a protestant; it's quite obvious to you after all that readings of texts are totally inerrant so long as you just read them and believe in your reading of them being inerrant, no need to worry about you having misunderstood something just keep clinging to the book. Who needs the furniture when you can have the assembly manual right?

>>21596542
I get it you think Mahayana is too smelly and catholic because they have emphasized features of religion that post-colonial Theravadins have deëmphasized and that's fine but there's no need to be so conceited as there are plenty of passages in the nikayas which would embarass you with their levels of fantasy.

>>21595828
tfw i constantly post PWT bait on this board but you fuckers will never debate me

>>21596561
Kek. Yeah, I do find Mahayana quite tacky! But more importantly, it's also fake and and made up.

>>21596580
And the pre-Mahayana literature isn't fake and made up? Did Buddha, Ananda, Sariputra really give over 9000 sermons which were diligently preserved in text and given over to us today entirely uncorrupted and moreover such that one particular sect has understood them perfectly as they were intended? Be careful with that sawn-off shotgun called textual criticism. Sometimes understanding the ideas matters more than their provenance.

>>21596561
>post-colonial Theravadins
Also this cope myth. Buddhism was preserved and purged of Mahayana trash by numerous Sri Lankan and Southeast Asian kingdoms through history, which correspondence and exchanged monks with each other, before the arrival of European colonizers, what to say of the myth of 19th-century European Indologists constructing Theravada whole-cloth?

>>21596588
The suttas were mnemonic for the purpose of memorization. The Rig Vedas were preserved in oral tradition well before they were written, so it's nothing new or out of the ordinary. Homer scholars discovered an illiterate guy in Serbia that had memorized, alone, more verses than the Illiad. What to say of a group of dedicated monastics? Your sutras are made-up trash; cope.

>>21596600
Nearly everything you think of as Mahayana has its muted antecedents in pre-Mahayana sources. It's a Buddhism that evolved along a different route is ultimately my point. Your sectarian larping is immaterial to anyone wishing to learn. There is no question that exposure to Protestants altered the way south Asian Buddhism presents and conceives of itself, not unlike how exposure to Islam affected the surviving Indo-Tibetan Buddhists, or how exposure to Chinese philosophy impacted east Asian Buddhism. You are being polemical, simple as

>The suttas were mnemonic
On the other hand, textual analysis show that Mahayana "sutras" bear the markings of a literate as opposed to an oral tradition. They were not conveyed orally; they were written originally. Thus the Buddhist trope of "thus I've heard" does not apply and sounds farsical (because it is) when used by them. No, you haven't "heard" shit. You made it up, asshole.

>>21596609
You realize you are asking a question of faith yes? If Pali suttas are true because they are perfectly memorized and Sanskirt sutras are false because they are known to have been composed at later dates then you've made Buddha an even greater object of devotion than the most extravagant and cosmically scaled Mahayana bodhisattvas. Only the historical Buddha expresses truth? No one else can arrive at it or convey it? This isn't even true in the nikayas, which tell us there were previous Buddhas. So tell us, hyperprotestant who understands the texts he takes as wholly authoritative sola scriptura, how did you manage to miss that?

>>21596640
Notice that you're the only one using (projecting?) protestant analogies.
It's not because the Pali texts are infallible, it's because they convey the teachings of the Buddha, whereas the Mahayana not only are later fabrications, which would be fine as fan fiction, but more importantly, contradict the original teachings making the Buddha into a liar. For example the Buddha says in the nikayas that the four noble truths are sufficient for achieving perfect nibbana. Mahayana hoaxes say on the other hand that the eightfold path is not sufficient and leads to everything from imperfect Nirvana (whatever that means) to hell (!), that depending on the fake "sutra" that you choose to adhere to. Many such examples can be cited. Thus when teachings contradict each other, the best and most rational thing to do is to give preference to the oldest ones, which all scholars agree date back to the time of the Buddha, and throw the innovative, fanciful and all-too-human ones into the trash.

>>21596673
the four noble truths and the eightfold path* are sufficient for achieving perfect nibbana

>>21596673
>using (projecting?) protestant analogies.
>the best and most rational thing to do is to give preference to the oldest ones, which all scholars agree date back to the time of the Buddha, and throw the innovative, fanciful and all-too-human ones into the trash
The analogies write themselves. Continue to believe that the 9000 suttas are a coherent whole and don't require an exegetical tradition, and that all later debates around what was meant and the forms these debates and their outcomes took are irrelevant. But I prefer to be more widely read.

>>21596640
As for making the Buddha na "object of devotion", no. Mahayanoids do that. Others can achieve arhatship, and have, but only a buddha is a world teacher. The Buddha did predict that the dhamma would degenerate (was he predicting the rise of Mahayana?) and another buddha would come to set things straight, but such a thing is extremely rare and is a one in a million years event. Some random Indian monk, specially one that lies and puts lies in the mouth of the Buddha, is not a buddha, not even enlightened; he's a simple hoaxter and a thief.

>>21596697
>require an exegetical tradition
They do, in a spirit of good faith.
>I prefer to be more widely read.
You prefer to consume hogwash.

>>21596700
>>21596708
A sola scriptura approach to Buddhism is not even what Theravadins do, but it is what /lit/'s anti-Mahayanists believe and it is protestant scholarship. There are plenty of stupas and statues in Sri Lanka which are objects of devotion for the Buddhists there, even if they've missed out on debates in Sanskrit or Chinese about what the Buddha taught. They can of course consult the nikayas if they want to read spurious magical literature about the historical Buddha having debates with Mara and Brahma, bilocating, projecting an image of his dick into someone's mind, etc. The most clear cut distinctions between Mahayana and non-Mahayana are soteriological, not around who can be the best sterile rationalist with the least supernatural elements.

>>21596729
>sola scriptura
>protestant scholarship
OBSESSED!

>>21596788
>noooo you can only read the pali canon and nobody worships the buddha or any saints or monks they just recite the sermooons

>>21596533
We're not talking about cultural differences but ideas which can be very obviously translated. My original statement was only that Wagner followed a 'Western kind of Vajrayana'.

>>21596830
>a 'Western kind of Vajrayana'
Which is to say "negation of individual will through sexual union, which identifies or subliminates oneself to the will of the race or species," so it is a poor comparison

>>21596729
>The most clear cut distinctions between Mahayana and non-Mahayana are soteriological, not around who can be the best sterile rationalist with the least supernatural elements.
False. The clear cut distinction is whether an arahant is fully enlightened, ie if the 8 fold path leads to full enlightenment. And this predates run of the mill Mahayana.

>>21597748
and the buddha nature and upayas and also the delaying of enlightenment. In buddhism it's impossible, in mahayana they invented their bhumis to counter for this.

>>21596436
>and the only method in Buddhism to achieve the end of suffering is to stop all rebirths, ie to die forever.

Lastly, the Buddhistic assumption that the extinction of that consciousness is the highest end of human life, is untenable, for there is no recipient of results. For a person who has got a thorn stuck into him, the relief of the pain caused by it is the result (he seeks); but if he dies, we do not find any recipient of the resulting cessation of pain. Similarly, if consciousness is altogether extinct and there is nobody to reap that benefit, to talk of it as the highest end of human life is meaningless. If that very entity or self, designated by the word ‘person’—consciousness, according to you—whose well-being is meant, is extinct, for whose sake will the highest end be? But those who believe in a self different from consciousness and witnessing many objects, will find it easy to explain all phenomena such as the remembrance of things previously seen and the contact and cessation of pain—the impurity, for instance, being ascribed to contact with extraneous things, and the purification to dissociation from them.

- Sri Śaṅkarācārya (pbuh), Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣadbhāṣya 4.3.7.

>>21596409
>>21596486
Sure enough, but the ultimate test of value for some doctrines, teachings, guru, sage, messenger, deity, prophet, Bodhisattva, Buddha philosopher/teacher or whomever is what they’re saying and teaching and the ultimate good effect it has on those who authentically adhere to or learn from it, not necessarily their “authentic historical origin”, “what their founders and these founders’ worth seem like to me.” These posts evince some of the surest evidences of pettiness and small-mindedness — shadow-boxing at the merit and value of great ideas by attacking the most shallow or easily “debunkable” and debatable proponents of these ideas, the historical and cultural circumstances around the propagation of these idea, etc. If a student of Zen is tremendously powerfully and positively impacted by some type of interaction and relationship with “Zen Buddhism” (wide, contradictory and conflicting as this label can be confused of being, spreading across centuries of various Chinese, Japanese and Korean schools with great and deep debates within and between them about various philosophical ideas and points of disagreement), this is a greater accolade of Zen than it is of “the pathological tendency of anonymous posters on the Internet to criticize all and anything, while hardly ever being able to compellingly assert CAN be the object of their worship, can evince their praise or be the Truth in opposition to the merely De(con)structive and highly critical discourse they are partaking in).

Analogously, to leap to a different culture (the same one OP in the thread is asking to compare and contrast with Buddhism), it as if you attempted to criticize that nebulous and massively wide-spanning class, classified with the name:

“Christianity”

With adumbrations of your antipathy towards, with your mockery and dislike at large of:

>Protestantism at large, and its sects like Quakerism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, the Episcopal Church, Anglicanism, etc.)
>the Roman Catholic Church
>the Eastern Orthodox Church
>the Greek Orthodox Church
>etc.

While simultaneously deliberately glossing over all that is good, noble, beautiful, worthwhile, interesting in anything preserved under this massive category (“Christianity”), or ignoring the fact that either of these massive classes (whether “Christianity” or “Buddhism”) overall has much more in them worthy of serious consideration, thought, contemplation, and of stuff with an authentically uplifting impact on more of humanity, than your merely destructive and negating criticism is, and your lack of an ability or inclination to set up a worthwhile opposing philosophy or worldview to that of the idol’s which you’ve destroyed.

>>21596409 #
>>21596486 #
Sure enough, but the ultimate test of value for some doctrines, teachings, guru, sage, messenger, deity, prophet, Bodhisattva, Buddha philosopher/teacher or whomever is what they’re saying and teaching and the ultimate good effect it has on those who authentically adhere to or learn from it, not necessarily their “authentic historical origin”, “what their founders and these founders’ worth seem like to me.” These posts evince some of the surest evidences of pettiness and small-mindedness — shadow-boxing at the merit and value of great ideas by attacking the most shallow or easily “debunkable” and debatable proponents of these ideas, the historical and cultural circumstances around the propagation of these idea, etc. If a student of Zen is tremendously powerfully and positively impacted by some type of interaction and relationship with “Zen Buddhism” (wide, contradictory and conflicting as this label can be confused of being, spreading across centuries of various Chinese, Japanese and Korean schools with great and deep debates within and between them about various philosophical ideas and points of disagreement), this is a greater accolade of Zen than it is of “the pathological tendency of anonymous posters on the Internet to criticize all and anything, while hardly ever being able to compellingly assert CAN be the object of their worship, can evince their praise or be the Truth in opposition to the merely De(con)structive and highly critical discourse they are partaking in).

Analogously, to leap to a different culture (the same one OP in the thread is asking to compare and contrast with Buddhism), it as if you attempted to criticize that nebulous and massively wide-spanning class, classified with the name:

“Christianity”

With adumbrations of your antipathy towards, with your mockery and dislike at large of:

>Protestantism at large, and its sects like Quakerism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, the Episcopal Church, Anglicanism, etc.)
>the Roman Catholic Church
>the Eastern Orthodox Church
>the Greek Orthodox Church
>etc.

While simultaneously deliberately glossing over all that is good, noble, beautiful, worthwhile, interesting in anything preserved under this massive category (“Christianity”), or ignoring the fact that either of these massive classes (whether “Christianity” or “Buddhism”) overall has much more in them worthy of serious consideration, thought, contemplation, and of stuff with an authentically uplifting impact on more of humanity, than your merely destructive and negating criticism is, and your lack of an ability or inclination to set up a worthwhile opposing philosophy or worldview to that of the idol’s which you’ve destroyed.

>>21598317
So in shorter words what I mean to say is,

>If there is one Mahayana practitioner much more happy, wise, intelligent and knowledgeable than you, your criticism becomes shallower and of much less value than inquiry into how such a one got his happiness, wisdom, intelligence and knowledgeability, as compared to you

>>21596409
>>21596486
Sure enough, but the ultimate test of value of some doctrine, teachings, guru, sage, messenger, deity, prophet, Bodhisattva, Buddha, philosopher/teacher or whomever, is whether what they’re saying and teaching has any merit, and whether there is an ultimate good effect it has on those who authentically adhere to or somehow learn from it, or not; it is not necessarily about what their “authentic historical origin” is, or over “what their founders and these founders’ worth seem like to me, whether they are reputable or disreputable.”

These posts evince some of the surest signs of pettiness and small-mindedness — shadow-boxing at the worth of great ideas by attacking the most shallow or easily “debunkable” and debatable proponents of these ideas, the historical and cultural circumstances around the propagation of these ideas and how valid they make the origins of these doctrine appear to one, etc.

If a student of Zen Buddhism is tremendously and positively impacted by some type of interaction with and/ or relationship with “Zen Buddhism” (wide, contradictory and conflicting as this label can be accused of being, equanimously describing centuries of various Chinese, Japanese and Korean sects of Buddhism with great and deep debates within and between them over various philosophical ideas and points of disagreement), this is a greater accolade of Zen than it is of “the pathological tendency of anonymous posters on the Internet to criticize all and everything, while hardly ever being able to compellingly assert what CAN be the object of their worship, can evince their praise, or be the Real Great Truth believed by them and in opposition to the object of criticism, the merely De(con)structive and highly critical discourse which they are partaking in)).

Analogously, to leap to a different culture (the same one OP in the thread is asking to compare and contrast with Buddhism), it as if you attempted to criticize that nebulous and massively wide-spanning class:

>Christianity

With adumbrations of your dislike of, with your mockery of and dislike at large of:

>Protestantism, and its sects like Quakerism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, the Episcopal Church, Anglicanism, etc.
>the Roman Catholic Church
>the Eastern Orthodox Church
>the Greek Orthodox Church
>etc.

while simultaneously deliberately glossing over all that is good, noble, beautiful, worthwhile, and/or interesting, etc. in anything preserved under this massive category (“Christianity”), or while ignoring the fact that either of these massive classes (whether “Christianity” or “Buddhism”) overall has much more in them worthy of serious consideration, thought, contemplation, stuff with an authentically uplifting impact on more of humanity, than your merely destructive and negating criticism is, and your lack of an ability or inclination to set up a worthwhile opposing philosophy or worldview to that of the idol’s which you’ve destroyed.

>>21598146
>those who believe in a self different from consciousness and witnessing many objects
feel free to locate this self otherwise no one cares

>>21596872
Again, you're just misrepresenting him now. You clearly have nothing left to say and are just seething because you don't like the idea that Wagner arrived at something closer to Vajrayana than Theravada from Schopenhauer.

Buddhism is about a clearly defined goal reached with a daily concrete method. Mahayana changes both this goal and the daily method.

>>21596001
why that mean you won't find much? that will simply mean you will find lots of condemnations.

>thread has been up for 24 hours
>zero books recommended, just arguing back and forth about schizo interpretations of popular writers on /lit/ with zero to do with OP's request
Okay, new question: where should a person go to ask this question and get helpful responses?

>>21596240
>in all of human history, Buddhism and Christianity have never interacted
you're an idiot.

>>21595781
Be aware that modern Theravada Buddhism reinvented itself from magical talisman procures to orthodox Victoria religion under pressure from Christian missionaries. There is much reified Victorian Christianity in it.

>>21600351
Literally the first words of the first response are a book title relevant to OP's request. Even the Wagner debate started when anon posted several titles. If you cannot discern that there are books being recommended in the thread, that is a (You) problem.

>>21595781
>>books by Buddhists denouncing Christianity
Any Zen commentaries on the Christian colonies in Japan, from Japanese Zen monks from the 17th to early 20th centuries. Most of it is overtly hostile.

>>21595781
I can't remember whether Mandaeism or the Manicheans were explicitly Christian/Buddhist syncretism, might have been both actually.

>>21600372
To be fair, after Nichiren, Japanese Buddhism is hostile to everyfuckingthing that doesn't have the lotus sutra on it

>>21595781
Look up Ippolito Desideri.

>>21599622
Vajrayana made Buddhism relevant for kings by inventing sex and war magic to make the king more powerful. This was needed to compete with other religions for court benefice after the collapse of the Gupta Empire shattered India into hundreds of tiny kingletdoms.

The medidate under the bodhi tree type of Buddhism could only exist in a big stable empire of Ashoka. Once warfare and division became the norm Buddhism needed to adapt to serve the court needs of its benefactors to prove themselves on the battlefield and in their harems.

would the buddha be okay with they way his teachings turn out? i.e. buddhism being split into 3 branches (mahayana, therevada, vajrayana)

>>21600457
not at all, but he knew buddhism ephemera

>>21595781
>I am very very interested in learning about historical interactions between Christians and Buddhist

>>21598710
>Wagner arrived at something closer to Vajrayana than Theravada from Schopenhauer
oh look you're making a much weaker claim now, I guess you understood at least some of what you were told

>>21600457
Yes, but he wouldn't be down with all this secreterian infighting between branches. Buddha acknowledged there are many paths to the dharma and the path that works for one individual won't necessarily work for another. All of the legitimate branches of buddhism are pointing at the same thing from different directions.

If your buddhism is grounded in the four noble truths, eightfold noble path, six paramitas, contemplating three marks of existance (annica, dukkha, anatta), etc...buddha would probably say you're on the right track regardless of how you label yourself and the tradition your sangha practices.

Remember the buddha didn't invent the dharma, he discovered and discerned it as countless buddhas across inumerable world systems stretching back to beginningless time had done before him.

>>21596561
>I get it you think Mahayana is too smelly and catholic
huh? How did you get "catholic" from all this >>21596486

>>21600853
Hmmm, if only there were a name for Buddhism which is closer to Vajrayana than Theravada...

>>21600717
>>21601140
thank you for the answer

>>21600457
No. Dividing the sangha is considered one of five great sins that cause one to be reborn in the hell realms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anantarika-karma
>>21601140
That's a complete lie. See above.

>>21595781
Surprised nobody has suggested Alan Watts. He has quite a few books that look at the relationship between eastern and western religion and the way they have impacted their respective societies, it's from a fairly neutral point of view, but I think he does a good job of respecting both faiths.

>>21601157
You have an ahistorical sola scriptura approach to the Pali canon and your criticism of Mahayana turns around that axis
>>21601203
Well, Wagner isn't a Buddhist so I guess it would be irrelevant to place him on a doxographical scale of Theravada to Vajrayana

>>21601157
He left Christianity but Christianity never left him, it seems. Still seeing everything through a Christian lens.
>>21602696
You’re not even replying to the same person. Tell us where the Victorian-Era Puritan man touched you, Anon.

>>21602869
Why do you bristle so much at being compared to a Protestant? I must have hit the hammer on the head

>>21601531
>No. Dividing the sangha is considered one of five great sins that cause one to be reborn in the hell realms.
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anantarika-karma
So which one of the three branches should one follow?

>>21595781
George Grimm. Doctrine of the Buddha.
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.70145
I'm not asking you to read this, I am telling you you will fail without understanding its contents. This is the best primer you're going to come by.

As Coomaswamy said, "Buddhism today is famous for everything Buddha did not teach." First orientalists came into contact with Theravadans, literally "annihilationists" and materialists, which played into the modus operandi of proselytization based cross-cultural studies in the West, hence Nietzsche "world-denying asceticism" charactarizations through to baby boomer hedonistic Zen misreadings.

>>21595781
>books by Christians praising Buddhism
>>books by Buddhists praising Christianity
Focus on Japan then, that's the nexus.

>>21596600
All post-schismatic Buddhism is syncretized to dubious death.

>>21603543
>All post-schismatic Buddhism is syncretized to dubious death.
in english?

>>21603473
Mahayana is a mockery of Buddhism, and sometimes plainly anti-Buddhist.
Vajrayana is just Shaivism.
Theravada is the only tradition that considers authoritative only the most ancient texts and practices as the Buddha and his disciples practiced.

>>21600417
>Vajrayana made Buddhism relevant for kings by inventing sex and war magic to make the king more powerful.
These kinds of spells are already found in the Vedas, which long predate Buddhism, so it had already long been “invented” before vajrayana.


>This was needed to compete with other religions for court benefice after the collapse of the Gupta Empire shattered India into hundreds of tiny kingletdoms.
This is a naively simple conjecture. There isn’t a strong basis to assume that this was always the primary factory in assuring royal patronage, the actual records we have state that many teachers and poets received patronage after participating in and winning royal-sponsored debates on philosophy and scriptural interpretation, which would have gone on in both smaller and larger kingdoms.

>>21600417
>>21604523
what is a good book about archeology in India.

>>21602993
He hasn't killed the Buddha, as he met him on the road.

>>21604788
Anon, injuring a tathagata is considered a sin worthy of hell.

>>21602696
>Well, Wagner isn't a Buddhist so I guess it would be irrelevant to place him on a doxographical scale of Theravada to Vajrayana
His philosophy is Buddhist. This is indisputable.

>>21604853
That should motivate you to reach nirvana. Better make it, or you're doomed to go to hell.