/lit/ - Literature

In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon

>Couldn't find a flowchart and I want to know where to start.

Follow the memes, start with the Greeks.

>>7338877

>>7338877
Daodejing
Zhuangzi
Siddhartha
Bodhidharma
Dogen

>>7338889
Strange, I just ordered Schopenhaur's masterpiece (I call it that because I always fuck up the title, don't mind it), does it really tie in with Buddhism that well?

Wasn't he more of a whiney cunt?

>>7338901
Schopenhauer was the first western philosopher to read eastern shit and take it seriously, so yes.

no, schopenhauer never whines.

>>7338913

Schopenhauer is nothing if not a whiner

read 'on women'

>>7338913

Ah, Durant didn't do him justice in Story of Philosophy then, he came off like a whiney twat.

Also the whole having his lecture with Hegel and being mad when noone showed up thing stop me from thinking kindly of him, maybe reading what he has to say will change that.

>>7338889
OP here by the way.

Thanks man, this is actually really nice! Sorry if it was already on the wiki!

>>7338901
In the end he quit like a fuckboy.

If you want something austere and non-intellectual (read: not the same thing as anti-intellectual), read Zen Flesh, Zen Bones.

If you want a quick verse primer on Buddhism, get the Dhammapada. I recommend the Easwaran translation.

If you want something denser, get the original Theravadan scriptures. First post in the thread is the best version. Also read the Heart and Diamond Sutras.

If you want popularizers, D.T. Suzuki (Zen), Lamya Surya Das, Thicht Haht Nanh, Pema Chodron, and the Dalai Llama.

But most important of all, practice.

>>7338889
>mfw when all over that chart save for the political stuff
do i write a book or what?

>>7339211
>But most important of all, practice.
Practice what? What?

>>7339211
Ive read his translation and commentary is innacurate in parts:

Mr. Easwaran's translation credentials are impeccable (he's done acclaimed versions of the Upanishads and the Gita), so I ventured into his book with high expectations. It starts off with an 85 page introduction and is padded throughout with commentary. (Except for the introduction, all commentary is from the pen of Stephen Ruppenthal, who according to selfgrowth.com is an expert in the fields of Chinese and Sanskrit Buddhism.) I certainly have no problem with commentary, provided of course it's substantive and offers some insight into the text I might not otherwise have gotten.

Easwaran starts with some background history of India before the Buddha's arrival on the scene. What he broaches here is pretty rudimentary, but his many references to Jesus and then Einstein started to make me uncomfortable. Why? Well, it is a popular, New-Agey sort of thing to try to wrap up every great person in the same bag-never mind their disparate fields and backgrounds-as if they're all in cahoots with each other, teaching the same thing. Whether or not one believes this is actually the case is beside the point. Dragging a twentieth century physicist and Biblical figures into a discussion of the Dhammapada does nothing to illuminate the text. It would have been far more informative, for example, if the Dhammapada's place in Buddhist literature, history and culture had been elaborated upon. But even this much is never done.

More worrisome than Jesus and Einstein, though, was Easwaran's insistence on using Sanskrit terminology in his discussion of the Buddha's teaching. Given that the Dhammpada is originally in Pali, I saw no reason that the Pali terminology could not have been used. To me it bespoke an ideological bias or, even worse, a subtle, perhaps unconscious, condescension.

As I continued reading my alarm grew, for the number of factual inaccuracies began mounting up. Following is a partial list:

1. The statement (on page 26) that the Buddha "stands squarely in the tradition of the Upanishads" is very misleading. In fact, we are not certain which if any of the Upanishadic teachings he had direct contact with. That some of the Upanishads had come into form prior to his time is certain; that some evolved after him is also certain. Whatever the truth of it, there is no doubt the Buddha's philosophical stance is at odds with that of the Upanishads and this, as much as anything else, is what has delimited Buddhism from what later became Hinduism.

2. Concerning the Buddha, Easwaran writes (on p. 27): "Meditationhe offers to teach to allas a way to happiness, health, and fulfillment in selfless service." Umno. The Buddha constantly enjoined his disciples to seek out solitude, to shun attachments and burdensome affiliations in the pursuit of mental culture through meditation. He most certainly was not a social activist. This is Easwaran's Gandhi-esque influence coming through.

>>7339275
Nothing.

>>7339276
>>7339276
3. "he is loved todayby perhaps one quarter of the earth's people" (p. 27). If only this were true! Latest estimates place Buddhists in the range of 350 million to a wildly optimistic one billion worldwide. No matter where in that range you plant your flag, Easwaran's estimate is a pipe dream.

4. On page 62, when the Buddha is nearing death, Easwaran sticks the following words into his mouth: "But, Ananda, you must know that I will never leave you. How can I go anywhere? This body is not me. Unlimited by the body, unlimited by the mind, a Buddha is infinte and measurless, like the vast ocean or canopy of sky" If I wore dentures, I'm sure they would have fallen out at this point. For in fact the Buddha said something very nearly the opposite. In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, the source text for the scene, he says "Ananda, have I not told you before: All those things that are dear and pleasant to us must suffer change, separation and alteration? So how could this be possible? Whatever is born, become, compounded, is liable to decay-that it should not decay is impossible." T. S. Eliot's words in "Burnt Norton" seem especially applicable to Easwaran: "Human kind cannot bear very much reality." From this point on I knew I was dealing with a translator who had a very definite-and very un-Buddhist-agenda.

5. "The Buddha's dry description of the four dhyanas hides the fact that traversing them is a nearly impossible achievement" (p. 67). Not true! Though certainly difficult, the jhanas (dhyanas) are not beyond the attainment of the average person, given sufficient application, good health, and supporting circumstances. Easwaran's statement is nothing but sensationalistic.

6. His discussion of the first four meditative absorptions (jhanas) (pp.67 ff) is way off, both textually and in terms of how these states are actually experienced. Most egregiously, on page 74, he seems to equate the experience of third jhana with bodhi, i.e. enlightenment, which it most certainly is not. The Buddha time and again made clear the jhanas are conditioned states and that their attainment is not particular to his path. Easwaran drives off a cliff when, still in the context of the third jhana, he evokes the Yogacarin "storehouse consciousness" (alayavijnyana) and Jung's "collective unconscious"-all on the same page! By this point in my reading I knew I was dealing with an incompetent.

>>7339295
7. It gets worse. His discussion of karma (p. 76) is incoherent. He equates the third jhana with mystical "oneness" (p. 77), and on page 78 says of fourth jhana "this is nirvana" (OMG!). He invokes Mahayanist doctrines of intrinsic purity and true nature (pp. 79, 96 et al) and says (p. 80) that the Buddha "loved the world as a mother loves her only child." (Apparently he had not read the suttas.) He repeats (p. 95) nonsense from the Milinda Panha concerning what is reborn ("neither the same nor another") and alleges that "Pali is a vernacular descendant of Sanskrit" (p. 100). This is patently false. Here is Bhikkhu Bodhi on the nature of Pali's origins: "Scholars regard this language as a hybrid showing features of several Prakrit dialects used around the third century BCE, subjected to a partial process of Sanskritization. While the language is not identical with any the Buddha himself would have spoken, it belongs to the same broad linguistic family as those he might have used and originates from the same conceptual matrix" (Bhikkhu Bodhi, In the Buddha's Words. Wisdom Publications, 2005, page 10).

I think you get the picture. And this is just the introduction! In short, Easwaran has authored a cataclysm of errors and sentimentality.

A word on Ruppenthal's contribution: he, too, gives birth to numerous doozies of distortion. For example: p. 121 muddles a discussion of nirvana; his understanding (p. 130) of the anagami is totally wrong; the Buddha is alleged to have been Hindu (p. 138); chapter twelve on self wallows in ambiguity; I could go on and on. In short, Ruppenthal's commentary, like Easwaran's introduction, is a toss. If you know your stuff and read it, you'll either laugh or cry. If you don't know your stuff, you'll just be misled and come away with all sorts of deluded misunderstandings about what the Buddha really taught.

I've already written far more than I usually would for a book review and I haven't even gotten to the translation proper. Fortunately other reviewers here on Amazon have already covered this aspect adequately well-see, e.g., Shigeki J. Sugiyama's review (also under 2-star reviews). Basically, if you compare Easwaran's translation to those of others you will see he is amazingly free in his interpretations, to the point where fidelity of meaning is suffering like an old man with a case of the ague. At points it hardly qualifies as translation. And this is not surprising, for nowhere in the book does Esawaran actually talk about translation per se-what his standards were, his intentions, how reliant he was on the commentaries, which commentaries, etc. In other words, this version of the Dhammapada is really the Dhammapada according to Easwaran. It is not the Buddha's; it is hardly Buddhist. The only thing good I can say about it is that thanks to Easwaran's natural literary talents the text is highly readable, even poetic. Kudos to him on language and expression.

>>7339259
Doesn't mean much man, all those readings shouldn't take more than 6 months.

>>7339304
well it's not that i read them, but that i agree with all of them at the same time

>>7339310
Ah', well, in what sense?

Are you self-taught or do you have a university-level education in phil/lit/related field?

The latter should give you a better idea of what you're getting into.

Don't mean to discourage you, it's just that I've never met anyone whose asked me if they should write a book who has turned out as anything but financially dependent.

Hope you aren't the kind of guy who tries to bohemian, quits half-way, then leeches material off loved ones with no real-world skills and probably psychosis from all the LSD.

>>7339319
>do you have a university-level education in phil/lit/related field?
Currently studying /lit/.

>it's just that I've never met anyone whose asked me if they should write a book who has turned out as anything but financially dependent.
No, no, I get where you're coming from.

>Don't mean to discourage you
I do admit the lack of financial skills, but I've never really tried to be bohemian and I think I'm done with (my really short) drug phase.

>Ah', well, in what sense?
It's hard to be concise but let's see:
- I very much agree on the metaphysical tenets of Buddhism and Taoism,
- Despite my understandment of the irreality of self I very much strive to nourish my ego,
- I do this understanding the growth of that illusion will cause a counter force,
- I delight in both resisting and being defeated by that much greater force,
- So I'm fine with being both sadist and masochist, both a denier and believer of God
- Both types of experiences have lead me to what I think must be "religious experiences"
- I suppose then, that I must be practicing a state of inaction, by a complete saturation of self, taking the ego to its logical conclusion?
- I believe all experience is separation and so pleasure and pain are inherent to it
- This does not make any of them "wrong", complete wrongness is impossible (so is complete correctness)
- Freedom can only be attained through submission, and the only true victory is surrender
- At this point I'm lost and do not mind
- I don't mean to come off as huge try hard, I find pleasure and pain in the smallest of things as well. Peace and quiet are great, but to me they're completely related to death.

So, looking at this and back to the chart, I supposed I'm closest to the absurdists(?) like Camus, but in a more personal sense; and also I've never been influenced by the works mentioned. Dunno if I'm saying something worthful or just dumb.

>>7339444
Also I forgot, when I asked if I should write a book, I wasn't looking for aproval, but being humorous; I'm already working on a bunch of books, albeit I'm too much of a pussy to try my hand at proper phil writing.

>>7339519
>I'm already working on a bunch of book

How does this work out for most /lit/ majors.

Even if I look at elite schools it seems there are many more students trying to get a book out than books I've heard of.

Do mediocre writers get by or do mostly all of them revert to something else?

OP here, I think I'll start with Bodhi's In the Buddha's Words.

Thanks guyz.

>>practicing mindfulness
kek

>>7338877
mfw triples dubs

read this
https://4ch.be/his/thread/108709/#109207
especially the video on vipassana

DO NOT READ:

Alan Watts
Terrence McKenna
Robert Anton Wilson (i love his fiction but he knows fuck all about Buddha)
Timothy Leary

Some of the stoner faggots on /lit/ will get butthurt but these retards are the main reason Buddhism and Hinduism are so raped in the West

>>7341891
Alan Watts' Way of Zen is actually alright as a light intro. The rest are not very good.

>>7341891
>Robert Anton Wilson

I thought prometheus rising was supposed to be decent?

>>7341891
If one has already obtained a basic knowledge of the teaching of the buddha, I think Alan Watts' lectures on youtube are a great resource. He is more of a talented public speaker than a scholar, so his examples are a great supplement to the more accurate readings of scholarly works. Dont listen to them before though, especially if you want to pursue Theravada or Mahayana buddhism, Watts only gives a decent background to Zen and he takes many liberties with his interpretations.

>>7338877
I recommend this book. It gives a guide that you're looking for

>>7338877
You're there already.

>>7338916
lol only whiner betas of any gender read that as an attack.

>>7341891
Alan Watts was my entrance into Buddhism as a southern methodist. Even though he's not the best authority on Buddhism he certainly was a great ambassador for Buddhism in the West. The Way of Zen is actually quite good as an introduction. So are his lectures. As you become more involved in Buddhism you'll start to shed Alan Watts from your list of resources, but I'll appreciate what he did for many of us.

>Note that I do have a stomach for the abstract, I found the likes of Hegel and the other German idealists quite fun to read

bupm

>>7341789
Good choice.

>>7339295
>3. "he is loved todayby perhaps one quarter of the earth's people"
To be fair he might have simply meant the number of people liking the Buddha, without necessarily following him. I think the number of those would be pretty high.

>>7341824
>unironically directing people to that terrible pasta

>>7338877
Start by realizing Buddhism isn't one coherent system

https://meaningness.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/modern-buddhism-forged-as-anti-colonial-weapon/

>>7339276
7 whole points?
i think maybe you are missing the point

>>7344109
start by swallowing a blog post on the internet kek

>>7344109
>site claims that traditional Buddhism has no ethical system because the Buddha did not make "justifications" as understood by Western philosophical tradition
JUST

>>7344128
There's more points within those points and there's points outside of his 'points'. My point was that I've read it was innacurate in parts, so I posted that review to help OP make a more informed decision on what to read.

>>7343134
I had a lot of difficulty understand what this line was supposed to mean. Was it a joke?

>>7344136
The point is that modern liberal values have been shoehorned into Western Buddhism.

Also, the Buddha didn't have a coherent ethical system with justifications as understood in a Western context, true.

>>7344130
Then rather

The Making of Buddhist Modernism by McMahan

>>7338877
Here you go Anon.

>>7345101
>The point is that modern liberal values have been shoehorned into Western Buddhism.
True, but it's better to read >>7345126's suggestion to understand the what, how and why of that.

>Also, the Buddha didn't have a coherent ethical system with justifications as understood in a Western context, true.
Even that assertion has to be taken with a large grain of salt, because things like "you see, most buddhists struggle with ethics, trust me i know this is so" can never count as evidence for the workings of ethics (a similar amateurish stance permeates the other "analyses").
Of course, this might be true for many Western Buddhists specifically, but that's not because there are no coherent ethics to be found in the Buddha's teaching, but because the affected Westerners simply don't know what the hell they are doing.