/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15165425]

Searle makes the point that much human communication presupposes the mind-independent existence of many of the entities which are communicated · about. This is a condition for the possibility of communication, and the fact that one does take part in such communication proves that one assumes that such entities do actually exist independently of one's mind. Such communication also, of course, assumes that the people with whom one communicates exist independently of one's mind. If I am to say to you that I am going to bathe in the pool of water, I must assume that the pool of water which I am planning to bathe in is accessible to your cognitions, as well as to mine. I also must assume that this pool of water is not simply a shared conceptual construct which we both have, but that there is an actual, i.e. mind-independent, pool of water which I (and you too) may bathe in (provided it is large and deep enough!). What could it mean, I wonder, to believe that one is going to bathe in a conceptually constructed pool of water (and, perhaps, with a conceptually constructed friend)?! So, a difficult problem for Nagarjuna is how, if everything is a conceptual construct, a public world would be possible.

Nagarjuna would of course admit that the unenlightened person believes that (many) entities have svabhava, i.e. are more-than conceptually constructed, even though this is not, according to Nagarjuna, a correct belief. Unenlightened people do not know that the world which they conceptually construct is a conceptual construction. On the contrary, unenlightened people erroneously perceive and erroneously believe the conceptually constructed world to be (largely) mind-independent. As Candrakirti says, entities, though in fact conceptually constructed, 'exist [as mindindependent entities] from the perspective of the consensus of the world'. ('jig rten grags pa'i sgo nas yod pa yin). This 'perspective of the consensus of the world' is, of course, wrong, deluded. The true nature of entities is hidden, not apparent, for unenlightened people. Thus, perhaps Nagarjuna would claim, it is the false belief in more-than-conceptually constructed entities which allows the unenlightened person to participate in a public world. But, then, it is not really that there is a public world which the unenlightened person participates in, but rather a world which he falsely believes to be public (but which is really his conceptual construction)!

[Anonymous No.15165426]

>>15165425

And this reasoning has the peculiar consequence that, if one came to know and perceive that all entities are in fact without svabhava, i.e. are conceptual constructs, then the false belief and perception which enables one to participate in an (apparently) public world would be destroyed. The enlightened Madhyamika would see not only that all objects of the supposedly public world are conceptual constructs but also that the very people with whom he might share the publicly accessible world are themselves his own conceptual constructs. There are in fact no other people who have similar karmavipaka to oneself and with whom one might therefore participate in a commonly acknowledged conceptually constructed world! The enlightened Madhyamika must surely be a solipsist (which seems to me to be a peculiar sort of enlightenment).

It is difficult to see how, in this condition, the bodhisattva ideal - which is a fundamental pillar of Mahayana (and hence Madhyamaka) spirituality - could be enacted. It does, after all, seem to be a real paradox (and by this. I mean a non-sensical statement, a contradiction) that the bodhisattva saves all sentient beings yet there are no sentient beings to be saved (for they are all the bodhisattva's own conceptual constructs). The realization of emptiness - i.e. of the conceptually constructed nature of everything, including all sentient beings - would seem to be incompatible with the ideal of compassion. The bodhisattva who holds together knowledge of emptiness and compassion is not so much extraordinary as deeply puzzling.

[Anonymous No.15165468]

>>15165425
>>15165426
tl;dr?

[Anonymous No.15165480]

>>15165425
buddhist philosophy is not buddhism, and only mental masturbation

[Anonymous No.15165796]

>>15165468
Two of the fundamental premises of Mahayana Buddhism and the ideas of "it's most important philosopher", i.e sunyata (everything is empty of own-nature and specific phenomena such as ideas, objects, beings etc are mere conceptual constructs) and bodhisattva (idealizing compassion and delaying your own liberation from samsara to stay back and try to liberate other beings) result in absurd contradictions when taken together such as that the path of the bodhisattva becomes pointless and silly if everyone that you could ever interact with and try to save are mere conceptual constructions of yours

[Anonymous No.15165813]

>>15165425

They are neither more nor less than conceptually constructed, but this construction is their reality as such, far more solid than a Materialist or otherwise "external" one.

[Anonymous No.15166029]

>>15165425
>Searle makes the point that much human communication presupposes the mind-independent existence of many of the entities which are communicated · about.
This is conventional language’s implication, sure. A Buddhist might rectify it (if they wanted to sound insane) by saying, “This conditioned body-mind apparatus is going to go bathe itself in what it perceives as a pool, even though neither the body-mind apparatus nor pool have swabhava in reality.”

> So, a difficult problem for Nagarjuna is how, if everything is a conceptual construct, a public world would be possible.
This is why Buddhists came up with the two-truths doctrine (conventional truth and ultimate truth). The physical, material, sensorial, apparent ‘reality’ is fortunately quite stable and predictable in our day-to-day dealings. So it’s like a stable, solid, predictable illusion. The fact that it’s so persistent makes us forget the sphere of consciousness all of it is taking placing in. Mountains can still be mountains in our common speech and dealings, because there does seem to be a mass of rocks there which stays relatively still and which reflects light into both our eyes similarly. In the higher view, the mountain is interconnected with everything else in reality and couldn’t be a mountain unless the entire world-minus-the-mountain were there as a sort of background contributing to its mountainness, allowing it to be a mountain.

But our very division (of mountain in the ‘foreground’ and the rest of the world in the ‘background’) is, again, part of the conventional view. The only thing separating the mountain from the rest of the world, putting IT (the mountain) in the foreground and the rest of the world in the background, is our own deliberate attention in that moment. It’s our own minds, which are addicted to creating and dealing with concepts, making that mountain. Background and foreground could also be one if there’s no observer there splitting them. If you turn off your mind for a second, all that mountain appears to be is some splashes of color appearing to a mysteriously ungraspable observer (you yourself, the hand that cannot grasp itself and eye that cannot see itself). Why privilege either way of looking at the world? Splitting reality up into “separate things with their own self-nature” is just as valid as the so-called “higher” view where there are no such things as separate entities with swabhava, self-nature. This is why Buddhists use both modes.

[Anonymous No.15166194]

>>15165813
that results in a form of solipsism which makes the bodhisattva doctrine and the idealizing of it ridiculous
>>15166029
Your explanation doesn't do anything do to remedy the contradictions between emptiness and being bodhisattva, madhyamaka denies that there are existing individual entities on the level of absolute truth and so the two truths doesn't save there from being a contradiction because in absolute truth they dont have existence and on the level of conventional truth their seeming reality and appearances are false conceptual constructs. So on neither of these two levels is there any existence attributed to them which would give one a reason for trying to help liberate them. Delaying one's liberation from samsara to helps others who are mere conceptual constructs as Mahayana says bodhisattvas should do would be like delaying one's liberation so that one could preach Buddhism to the imaginary figures in your dreams every night.

[Anonymous No.15166252]

>>15166194
>Delaying one's liberation from samsara to helps others who are mere conceptual constructs as Mahayana says bodhisattvas should do would be like delaying one's liberation so that one could preach Buddhism to the imaginary figures in your dreams every night.
Great comparison. One admissible difference is that the ‘dream figures’ in this case really are perceiving, suffering, etc. This is why I frequently bring up on /lit/ that Buddhists aren’t quite trying to say that we and everyone don’t exist, don’t have selves, in the sense that we don’t have qualia, aren’t attached to feelings and thoughts, etc. Buddhists seem to be saying instead that the self is nonlocalized, decentralized, void, empty, or however you want to put it. It’s not in our emotions, our body and its sensations, or our thoughts. It allows these to exist and observes them but is not just in any one part of them where you can point and say, “Here it is!” So the bodhisattva ideal is to make the dream figures realize that they are just dream figures and that the awareness which allows them to exist at all is not localized or centralized anywhere in their dreamselves.

[Anonymous No.15166333]

>>15165425
>Nagarjuna
>somewhat related to Buddhism as taught by the Buddha

[Anonymous No.15166348]

>>15166333
Nagarjuna was actually teaching super-Buddhism which transcended even the Buddha’s teachings. The Buddha’s teachings are not “Buddhism”, a cult to follow. He was simply one man who saw some truth and got fame for it. Others have seen the same truth and possibly even greater truth without becoming as famous.

[Anonymous No.15166356]

>>15166252
>One admissible difference is that the ‘dream figures’ in this case really are perceiving, suffering, etc.
But Madhyamaka gives no reason to assent to that proposition because to them the conceptual constructs of people that we encounter when awake dont have anymore reality than the degree of reality which conceptual constructs encountered in dream have, and these waking conceptual constructs dont correspond to actual suffering entities anymore then the ones in dreams do

[Anonymous No.15166444]

>>15166194
>that results in a form of solipsism which makes the bodhisattva doctrine and the idealizing of it ridiculous

My point being that this is what makes entities most real.

[Anonymous No.15166581]

>>15165796
Other beings also suffer in the same way as you though through reifying what is actually empty. So if you suffer because of these things then so will they; even if they fundamentally have no own-nature, so compassion toward them can be logically justified.

Although I agree, rigid morality and Buddhism do not really square. Buddhism would be a much better religion if it admitted that it is in reality an amoral system, like Advaita.

[Anonymous No.15166781]

>>15166356
Because it accepts the 4 Noble Truths, it still accepts that the suffering is there. The suffering is real. Can’t just say it doesn’t exist. It’s inescapable. Hit yourself on the thumb with a hammer or just go on living and getting attached to impermanent people, situations, pleasures, etc., and you’ll see. So one tries to save ‘others’ from this suffering after one has oneself freed oneself from the suffering, and this is done as a natural, compassionate function.

[Anonymous No.15166969]

>>15166252
>>15166781
Not the same person you’re replying to. There is suffering despite of the unattached, “empty” self being completely untouched by it right? What does make a “value” of karma? If it is not my true self, essence or whatever, that suffers and acts, what is the difference between following the path of Buddha or being completely deluded by what has no reality whatsoever? What is “real” remains pure, why what has no reality have this weight to drag what is untouched to witness suffering?

[Anonymous No.15167159]

>there are people in this world who think religious philosophy is a serious subject

[Anonymous No.15167169]

>>15167159
>religious philosophy
>not redundant
Go read a book for once in your life

[Anonymous No.15167194]

>>15167169
if you write one, i'll read one

[Anonymous No.15167317]

>>15166781
>So one tries to save ‘others’ from this suffering after one has oneself freed oneself from the suffering
Yes, but if other beings are just one's conceptual constructions then they are just unreal creations of ignorance and are not actually sentient entities experiencing suffering, preaching sunyata teachings to others would be a sign that someone wasn't enlightened because if they were they would understand there is no point because there is no way to effectively transmit teachings to other people when anyone that you would interact with are just your own conceptual constructions and not sentient entities who also suffer

[Anonymous No.15167375]

>>15167317
this, also to complement your point a true enlightened person wouldn't even see suffering in other's identification with unreal suffering

[Anonymous No.15167729]

>>15166969
>>15167317
>>15167375
There’s no fundamental difference between enlightened and unenlightened people, it’s just that the “enlightened person” has realized a way to be detached from their own suffering. “Preaching sunyata” is not the only function of so-called “enlightened people.” Some are called pratyekabuddhas, those who seek enlightenment only for themselves and don’t try to preach about it to others or save others. According to legend, the Buddha was supposed to have been like this for a while after his enlightenment, because he didn’t think others would be able to understand his teachings truly. Some enlightened people start religions or cults, or infiltrate their own culture’s religions/cults to spread the teachings further. Some don’t.

Anyway, all your excessive rationalizing is just because you’re thinking extremely abstractly and philosophically about the whole thing. The Buddhist bodhisattva ideal also includes compassion, a devotional aspect. It’s like asking Christians, “What’s the point of trying to save others and convert them if God decides their own ultimate fate anyway, if everything is in God’s hands and you’re just a weak puny mortal?”

[Anonymous No.15167886]

hey use religion general next time

[Anonymous No.15167895]

>>15167886
No. This is a rare thread where people are actually discussing some philosophy.

[Anonymous No.15168014]

>>15167729
I can see your point perfectly only insofar as we admit that this reality has a legitimate degree of reality and existence. Not because this is a transient, already fated to destruction world that it doesn't participate in a degree of Being. It is precisely this interconnection between Ultimate Reality and the World that we either see one or the other as nothing when compared to each other. Looking upwards we see different degrees of Being with their own realms (I think this is developed in some kinds of Buddhism too, no?), but Ultimate Reality itself is nothing of it, it is beyond Being, beyond everything; and the same reversely. It is impossible not to fall for radical solipsistic nihilism if not acknowledging the inherent degree of reality of this world, a problem that is not only concerned with Buddhism but any nondual doctrine.

[Anonymous No.15168528]

>>15168014
>>15168014
>I can see your point perfectly only insofar as we admit that this reality has a legitimate degree of reality and existence.
Denying the reality of the world is only one specific (mis)reading of Buddhism. If we weren’t just overly academic types discussing this on /lit/ and were seriously a Japanese guy or Tibetan man looking for enlightenment hundreds of years ago, and found our Zen master or Tibetan yogi, we would possibly be slapped, kicked or punched by them at certain points to remind us to stop philosophizing and pay attention to what is most intimately at hand.

Nagarjuna himself, with the 4-fold negation, would say:
A.) Reality is real
B.) Reality is not real
C.) Reality is both real and not real
D.) Reality is neither real nor not real
He (and other Buddhists) would say that falling into any of these answers is falling into an extreme in some way, whether it’s reality-denying nihilism or something else.

[Anonymous No.15168538]

>>15165480
Stirner is a spook.

[Anonymous No.15168635]

>>15168014
>Looking upwards we see different degrees of Being with their own realms (I think this is developed in some kinds of Buddhism too, no?), but Ultimate Reality itself is nothing of it, it is beyond Being, beyond everything;
Also yes. This is in some Tibetan Vajrayana schools of Buddhism, where they split the world into the nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya, dharmakaya levels (which in some readings is something like “physical,” “subtle”, and “super-subtle”, or “manifest-body,” “subtle-desire-body,” “unmanifest source of all”).

[Anonymous No.15169471]

Searle's point is not original to Searle, it is the basis of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, which is a purer expression of it, i.e. there must be something real or else language would have nothing to refer to. As Wittgenstein later realized, this is a delusion, because the fundamental basis of language is not reference but shared forms of life. This point needs unpacking of course but I am just giving a brief response.

However the real objection to Nagarjuna here doesn't depend on this point, but is simply to say, "Isn't a contradiction for a bodhisattva to act for the benefit of others, if they are not real." This point is answers by the great Madhyamika Shantideva (whom /lit should read more of):

9.75
‘If sentient beings do not exist,
For whom should we have compassion?’
Compassion is for those imputed by confusion:
They are accepted for the sake of the result.

The principle of the bodhisattva working with the illusions of samsara 'for the sake of the result', i.e. in order to achieve buddhahood.

[Anonymous No.15169577]

>>15165480
imagine posting about something you've never read or cannot understand.

[Anonymous No.15169758]

>>15169471
so basically: you should love and be nice to every being? not that i think this is idiot or whatever, quite on the opposite i think this is indeed the only way.

[Anonymous No.15169793]

>>15169758
According to Buddhism you should develop impartial love for all beings in order to develop bodhichitta, the mind of enlightenment. Love is not an objective in itself because it is still part of a samsaric mind. Being nice relates to conduct and is usually appropriate.

[Anonymous No.15169888]

>>15169793
love is a tricky word perhaps, it can relate to one's own corporal, temporal sense of satisfaction, so i think that being compassionate, pitying all beings would render that expression of union of everything within oneself as proper.
btw
>Being nice relates to conduct and is usually appropriate.
so in Buddhism is not Knowledge that saves or liberates? The realization would be a mere means to the proper conduct, and so the end as a liberating praxis?

[Anonymous No.15169930]

>>15169888
Not that guy but proper conduct is supposed to be an aid to realizing Buddhahood. After Buddhahood, rules of conduct don’t apply anymore because your conduct is spontaneously compassionate.

[Anonymous No.15169958]

>>15169793
>According to Buddhism you should develop impartial love for all beings in order to develop bodhichitta, the mind of enlightenment.
This isn’t put perfectly. Bodhichitta is inherent in us. We only have to reach it, or it has to be awakened, is another way of putting it. Chitta means mind or consciousness, bodhi- means awakened, to awaken. Bodhichitta is thus “awakened consciousness.” A parallel in the Christian tradition is the word “repent” in the Gospels and rest of the New Testament. In the original Greek, that’s “metanoia”, made up of “meta” (beyond) and “noia” (from nous, mind). In the New Testament texts, people are told to “repent” or undergo repentance/conversion, which, again, in the original Greek really is something like “transform your mind” or “go beyond your own (current) consciousness.” Implied in it is a total change of outlook, of being, in which you learn to love one another as Christ loved everyone. You don’t force this divine love by being artificially polite, you first get converted by Christ and then you really experience divine love for everyone and everything.

[Anonymous No.15170332]

>>15169958
Except in Buddhism obviously there is no need for Christ, or an external deity of any kind. This is the superiority of Buddhism to theistic systems.

Love is a cause of bodhichitta, as is compassion, but bodhichitta is more than both of these, being both the determination to achieve enlightenment and enlightenment itself. All the texts on bodhichitta talk about 'developing' bodhichitta - bodhichittapada/byang chub kyi sems bskyed. Only the tathagatgarbha teachings use terms such as 'innate'.

[Anonymous No.15170702]

>>15170332
Christ is the Logos of all logoi. There is no manifestation of Love greater than the Trinity and the kenotic Incarnation. God is neither external nor internal, His energeia is the power of Love sustaining all things, it is by a reversive kenosis of our part that we understand and are embraced by His Love and in consequence gather all beings within ourselves, as He did for us and all the cosmos.
I don't know what kind of Buddhism you follow, if the corrupt, nihilistic one or the original which is basically advaita vedanta. In any way, there is no Knowledge or Realization as perfectly apophatic as the unitive Love of the Triadic Monad.

[Anonymous No.15170735]

>>15170332
Nice point

>>15170702
I’m not that poster but I see enough similarity between the characters and teachings of Buddha and Christ that I could easily consider myself both and neither Buddhist nor Christian. Jesus was clearly on some level that the average person wasn’t. I consider Jesus and the Buddha to both be enlightened saviors or helpers of humanity. The Buddha’s original teachings about compassion and caring for others since they are intimately connected with yourself sound like Christ’s teachings that “whatever you do to the least of these little ones, you do to Me.”

[Anonymous No.15172078]

bump from me

[Anonymous No.15172676]

>>15170332
Depends on the school of buddhism. Some teachings say that achieving enlightenment by yourself is impossible, and you need the help of a buddha, in those schools there is buddhist trinity trikaya.

[Anonymous No.15173507]

Some surprisingly good posts itt.
OP, what I think you forget is:
1) Even when you dream, what you see might not be real, but it makes you feel emotions as much as waking reality does.
2) Solipsism does not make much sense if you take anatta into account. Why help others when they are not real you ask? "Others" and "you" are problematic concepts, with a more un-localized conception of the self you realize that your acts of compassion are about others as much as they are about you. But I'm still using the same confusing words. You should try reading more teachings to acquire intuition about the emptiness of the self.

>>15172676
Those schools are the ones that accept the tathagatagarbha teachings right?

[Anonymous No.15173555]

>>15169958
>>This isn’t put perfectly. Bodhichitta is inherent in us.
that's hinduism

[Anonymous No.15173589]

>>15173507
>Those schools are the ones that accept the tathagatagarbha teachings right?
Yes

[Anonymous No.15173695]

>>15173507
>the emptiness of the self
what does it mean

[Anonymous No.15173708]

>>15172676
>in those schools there is buddhist trinity trikaya.
Not early buddhism

[Anonymous No.15173759]

>>15173695
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.059.nymo.html

[Anonymous No.15173891]

>>15173759
Nice, but what does he mean about consciousness? How does a liberated one has knowledge of his liberation if he needs to be emptied of consciousness too?

[Anonymous No.15174214]

>>15172676
This is very misleading. Nowhere in Buddhism is it taught that the buddha can bestow enlightenment upon you. Every single school of Buddhism agrees that the only path to nirvana is the eightfold noble path, which causes the cessation of the defilements. No buddha can take away your defilements for you, or circumvent the path for you. That tathagatagarbha teachings are no different. They are differentiated from other schools only by emphasizing that the buddha qualities naturally manifest once the defilements are pacified, whereas other schools have different ideas about what happens after nirvana/enlightenment.

[Anonymous No.15174238]

>>15170702
This is a combination of dogma and confusion. If your god is neither 'internal nor external', why refer to him as 'god' or as 'He'? If your theology is truly apophatic, it must must negate the existence of god.

I follow the Mahayana and the philosophy of Nagarjuna.

[Anonymous No.15174369]

>>15174238
He is neither internal nor external in the sense that there is no tension in theosis, Other and Not-Other, Bheda Abheda.

> If your theology is truly apophatic, it must must negate the existence of god.
In fact, one can't say God exists in the same way as we and all phenomena do. He is beyond any conception. And we refer to Him as He because deification is not an undifferentiated coalescence into an impersonal consciousness or whatever, it is plenitude of Love; and as God because we don't conceive any Divinity but Him.

[Anonymous No.15174483]

>>15174238
Also, what is not a dogma? There is no metaphysics/theology without dogma and no mystical experience without theology. Dogma and theology are means.

[Anonymous No.15174551]

>>15174369
How can your god be 'beyond conception' while at the same time you describe him in very specific terms - male (rather than female), love (rather than hate), divine (rather than mundane). Is your god a loving male divinity or not?

As for what is not dogma, the true apophatic philosophy - that of Nagarjuna - is not dogma, because it makes no assertions whatsoever.

[Anonymous No.15174578]

>>15174551
>I follow the Mahayana and the philosophy of Nagarjuna.
Blessed

[Anonymous No.15174769]

>>15174551
God is not conditioned by any term, description is not definition, we call Him One but He is also Three, we call Him Son but He is also Father and Spirit, this is true apophaticism.
The plenitude of His Love is not created, phenomenal love, but we call it Love because phenomenal love is not unreal, in the same way we call things ens, being, we say they exist, etc. Asserting Nothingness, Emptiness is as dogmatic as saying God is pure Being. We can't say anything about what He is in Himself. All of this is just meaningless to you as buddhistic sunyata, anatta is meaningless to me. Buddha never denied the Self and as Coomaraswamy said, Buddhism is understood more as what it never was than that which it truly was.

[Anonymous No.15174829]

>>15174769
>we call Him One but He is also Three, we call Him Son but He is also Father and Spirit, this is true apophaticism.
No, that is just being illogical.

[Anonymous No.15174877]

>>15174769
> we call Him One but He is also Three, we call Him Son but He is also Father and Spirit
> apophaticism
Pick one

> Asserting Nothingness, Emptiness is as dogmatic as saying God is pure Being.

We do not assert emptiness, for as Nagarjuna said:

The emptiness of the conquerors
Truly delivers one from all views.
Whoever holds a view of emptiness
Will not attain accomplishment.

> Coomaraswamy
We do not rely on western moderns for what the Buddha said. We rely on Nagarjuna. Nobody knows what the Buddha 'really said'.

> We can't say anything about what He is in Himself.
And yet you can't stop going on about him.

Shantideva:
Since it is inconceivable to describe
A creator who is inconceivable, what would be the point of trying?

[Anonymous No.15174931]

>>15174214
Not bestow enlightenment, but their help is necessary. Or so it told in my book about vajrayana buddhism.

[Anonymous No.15175006]

>>15174769
>Buddha never denied the Self and as Coomaraswamy said
Coomar peddled a traditionalist misinterpretation of Buddhist doctrine employing semantics in order to try and force-fit Buddhism into a traditional framework. I wouldn't take him seriously on the subject of Buddhism.

[Anonymous No.15175315]

>>15173695
You know Plato's Forms? They aren't real. So where is the table? If there's no Ideal Table in the Realm of the Forms, what is the table? It isn't anything. That's not to say the stuff you would call a table isn't real, but rather that tables are not real, the-thing-you-call-a-table is really just the result of countless processes and events that shaped the-thing-you-call-a-table to be the way it is.

Now do that for everything.

Even yourself.

[Anonymous No.15175543]

>>15174877
Care to tell me how that is not apophatic? Relation of the Three Persons of the Godhead can be understood only apopahtically: Father is neither Son nor Spirit; Son is neither Father not Spirit; Spirit is neither Father nor Son. In the same way we understand that there is a difference between the begetting of the Son and the procession of the Spirit, but the nature of the difference is not communicable.
Christian apophaticism transformed rational speculation in mystical contemplation, which the very Godhead exhales; ''That which is beyond all attainment cannot be attained except in a manner which does not attain it'' (answering >>15174829 too here).

>And yet you can't stop going on about him.
Do you think when I speak of Him, He is exhausted? ''What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth?''

This is all pointless, no matter what I tell you, all words are empty to speak of Him. It doesn't change anything at all. You see my suffering, I see your suffering.

>>15174877
>>15175006
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEnb2cFWKBs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52QOc7De0GU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOMgzn2Vrc0
Why does he make nagarjunists seethe so much?

[Anonymous No.15175587]

>>15175315
ok but the atoms exist? why do things that dont existe make me suffer when i dont identify myself with anything since nothing exists? my pain doesnt exist yet it makes me respond to it.
why does buddha talk about enstrangement, loathing of the body, etc etc? why do i need to loathe what doesnt exist

[Anonymous No.15175735]

>>15175543
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEnb2cFWKBs

Usual academic delusions predicated on the usual dogmas:
- early Buddhism = best buddhism
- early Buddhism = real buddhism, what Buddha 'really' taught/meant
- oldest extant texts = early Buddhism, real Buddhism
- all commentaries and traditions are corruptions

None of these dogmas are supportable. He even admits without a time machine there is no way to verify what Buddha really said. Buddhism was an oral tradition for generations so you cannot point to the date of any extant text as proof of what Buddha really taught. That is, it was already an interpretative tradition by the time the nikayas - the entire basis of this argument - were written down.

Even if by some miracle you could show that the Buddha taught the self exists, would Nagarjuna's logic become flawed, would the madhyamaka be refuted? Or course not.

[Anonymous No.15176161]

>>15175543
>christcuck posts Theoria Apophasis
>the guy that routinely mocks Christianity and its mental midget metaphysics

[Anonymous No.15176170]

>>15175587
Atoms are also empty.

[Anonymous No.15176221]

>>15176161
I dont care about what he says about Christianity lol, he is a gnostic. But he is pretty accurate when it comes to buddhism (advaita vedanta)

[Anonymous No.15176667]

>>15175543
>theoria apophasis brought into argument again
AHAHAHAHAHA

[Anonymous No.15176673]

>>15165425

[Anonymous No.15176705]

>>15175587
>loathing of the body
this is denounced as hedonism is denounced
problem is in the mind, not in the body, which is why the buddha disagreed with hardcore asceticism of not eating for months etc

[Anonymous No.15176730]

>>15176667
Imagine being btfo by that fatfuck jesus christ

[Anonymous No.15176740]

>>15176705
Mind? What mind? He says there is no consciousness. And why should there be any kind of estrangement in relation to the body?

[Anonymous No.15176754]

>>15176730
i watched that vid a long time ago, can you remind me what it says?
iirc it says that the buddha does not deny the self, but denies that it is found in the 5 aggregates, instead it is found somewhere else. right?
this is obviously wrong, on the self we have the usual fourfold negation. does not exist, does not not exist, etc

[Anonymous No.15176782]

>>15176754
>on the self we have the usual fourfold negation. does not exist, does not not exist, etc
I mean yeah, the Upanishads, Gaudapada, Shankara, also said the same thing; platonists the same about the One, as well as Christians on the Godhead, etc etc

[Anonymous No.15177082]

>>15176782
> the Upanishads, Gaudapada, Shankara, also said the same thing; platonists the same about the One
Yes.
>as well as Christians on the Godhead
No.

[Anonymous No.15177170]

>>15177082
Whatever makes you happy.

[Anonymous No.15178633]

>>15176221
No he isn’t, he even lied about his so called ‘credentials’ and knowledge of Pali. He’s a fraud.

[Anonymous No.15178832]

>>15175543
>Ken Wheeler
wasn't he some hack photographer who tried to shill his camera reviews by posing as a woman?

[Anonymous No.15178906]

>>15178633
>>15178832
Nagarjunists still seething

[Anonymous No.15178960]

>>15176740
>He says there is no consciousness
He doesn’t deny consciousness, he simply said it is a conditioned phenomenon.

[Anonymous No.15178993]

>>15178906
Ken’s a fraud, get over it.

[Anonymous No.15179221]

>>15178993
Original Buddhism is basically Advaita Vedanta, get over it.

[Anonymous No.15179231]

>>15178960
therefore empty, no?

[Anonymous No.15179326]

>>15179221
> Coomaraswamy's interpretation of the nikayas is "Original Buddhism"

[Anonymous No.15179390]

Every modern reinterpretation of Buddhism that claims to know 'early Buddhism' or 'earliest Buddhism' or 'original Buddhism' is just Buddhist protestantism and every modern reinterpreter is a third rate, degenerated Martin Luther. The modernist/protestant mind always devolves into individualism in which everyone has to have their own, personal relationship with the Buddha (who they misunderstand as Jesus) and they cast away ancient living traditions with contempt.
But when you look at the personal qualities of these individualists and free thinkers, they are invariably midwits who cannot even master the basic moral practices of Buddhism, let alone achieve wisdom.
The Buddhist traditions do not corrupt Buddha's wisdom - literally the opposite: they preserve it and transmit it. Without the traditions, in the hands of Youtube pseuds and Wikipedia autodidacts, the Buddhadharma is quickly recast as just one more degenerate mode of Protestant Christianity.

[Anonymous No.15179466]

>>15179390
The Buddha and Buddhist scriptures and traditions can all burn in hell.

[Anonymous No.15179498]

>>15178832
Yep, his insanity was well documented on /p/, which some people in that board suspected that he'd regularly posted there himself. He was found plagiarizing other people's photographs on some occasions and even a photo shootout to some fedora wearing goon (which he later maliciously spread false rumors about him denying a cancer patient refund-money for his workshop). This is just the a slice of what he's been doing online (he was responsible for creating fake accounts to vandal buddhist blogs, buddhist subreddits and buddhist books on amazon that disagree with his thesis about selfhood).

[Anonymous No.15179522]

>>15179498
>He was found plagiarizing other people's photographs on some occasions
why is it that there is this common disposition to plagiarize among traditionalists/neovedantists? From guenon's plagiarism of theosophy, shankara's plagiarism of buddhism, etc

[Anonymous No.15179762]

>>15179326
C A F Rhys Davids, Chandradhar Sharma and countless others.

[Anonymous No.15179775]

>>15179466
The Abrahamic's Hell is not real.

[Anonymous No.15179778]

>>15179522
you forgot Buddha's rehash of the Upanishadic teachings

[Anonymous No.15179793]

>>15168528
>A.) Reality is real
>B.) Reality is not real
>C.) Reality is both real and not real
>D.) Reality is neither real nor not real

[Anonymous No.15179803]

>>15170332
>Except in Buddhism obviously there is no need for Christ, or an external deity of any kind. This is the superiority of Buddhism to theistic systems.

[Anonymous No.15179815]

>>15174551
>it makes no assertions whatsoever
Based assertion, brother.

[Anonymous No.15179892]

>>15179466
Buddha lived before Christ and did not hear of him, so he might have converted when Christ preached the Gospel in Hades.

[Anonymous No.15179965]

>>15179775
>>15179892
You clearly do not get Buddhism.

[Anonymous No.15180002]

>>15179231
Empty != not real.

[Anonymous No.15180038]

>>15165425
Who cares

[Anonymous No.15180984]

>>15179498
>Kendra Wheelright
AHAHAHAHAHAH
This is called a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. Bound by a fetter of views, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person is not freed from birth, aging, & death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair. He is not freed, I tell you, from suffering & stress.

[Anonymous No.15181219]

>>15167895
Buddhism is not philosophy. It's garbage.

[Anonymous No.15181893]

>>15180984

[Anonymous No.15181900]

Isn't it telling that the thread goes to shit just as that Hindu anon discovered it and decided to stink it up?