/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.16464701]

Why don't you meditate? Buddhist have it all figured out since time immemorial. Life is suffering -> sit down and concentrate -> get into absorption -> see the links of dependent origination as they arise in real time -> stop suffering. End of story.

[Anonymous No.16464746]

>>16464701
Too ego driven, narcisstic and addicted to external dreams and pleasures. I need to "make it". I know its only a matter of time before i surrender and before suicide i will let go of my mind created illusion of "me" but until then i have to suffer

[Anonymous No.16464753]

killing yourself seem like a much simpler way and concrete way to eliminate suffering

[Anonymous No.16464856]

>>16464753
And then you get reborn, so you continue to suffer.

[Anonymous No.16464893]

>>16464856
How do you know that, maybe you go to cool guy heaven

[Anonymous No.16464934]

>killing yourself seem like a much simpler way and concrete way to eliminate suffering

[Anonymous No.16465009]

>>16464753
Suicide usually occurs because you're too invested and care too much. That's literally the opposite of ending the suffering. You MAKE suffering, you get consumed by it, you live and die by it.

[Anonymous No.16465096]

>>16464893
You still suffer in the cool guy heavens. All conditioned beings suffer. All things experience dukkha.

[Anonymous No.16465190]

>>16464701
I like living in the flesh and I think their eternal rebirth ontology is a cope story invented with the express purpose to make you believe nirvana is the teleological end of life

[Anonymous No.16465227]

>>16464701
>see the links of dependent origination as they arise in real time
This is Visuddhimagga.

[Anonymous No.16465246]

>>16464893
Because the odds of you existing are greater than zero, you'll exist again and repeat your fate eternally. Only when you wake up can you escape the cycle.

[Anonymous No.16465289]

>>16465227
is this bad?

[Anonymous No.16465305]

>>16465246
>the odds of you existing are zero
>you'll exist again
fair enough
>only when you wake up do you escape
doesn't follow

[Anonymous No.16465386]

>>16465305
>>only when you wake up do you escape
>doesn't follow
I don't really know it either, it's just something a lot of Buddhists spout.

[Anonymous No.16465428]

>>16464701
First, I can't sit like that and contentrate and if I lie back or lie down then I start feeling sleepy and eventually fall asleep.
I have actually managed to reach meditative state several times while doing light (but intensive) exercise but it just happened, I could not reproduce it again.

[Anonymous No.16465647]

> see the links of dependent origination as they arise in real time

im a fellow newcomer and brainlet, i want to know what this means, sounds interesting. but im not sure i even know what you exactly mean with this and would like to kno more.

[Anonymous No.16465665]

I meditated every single day for 1 hour+ from 15-21, im 25 now and every time I try to meditate ever since then it doesnt work anymore. You know that refreshing feeling you get after a long session aje you open your eyes and its like everything is new? Haven't had that in years and my mind is perpetually calm and hyper aware of my own thoughts and actions and my environment. I think I broke it somehow and am now in a permanent meditative state...

[Anonymous No.16465719]

>>16465428
You can meditate however works. Full Lotus is great because you can keep your back upright on basically any ground for long periods of time. But you don't HAVE to do it, you can do Half Lotus, or sit Indian Style (do Euros call it that? Or is it "cross-legged" over there?).

>>16465647
Essentially, it's a hyper-awareness of what you're thinking and how it arises in real time. It's a deep introspection. There's a lot of technical stuff so it's more than just "lmfao just introspect bro", but a (possibly misleading) simplification is that yes, it is just getting really gud at introspection.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratītyasamutpāda#Twelve-fold_chain

[Anonymous No.16465735]

>>16465665
>and am now in a permanent meditative state...

Isn't that a good thing?

[Anonymous No.16465773]

>>16465647
it is to see how each link is dependent on or conditioned by the previous link. When one understands this process in a deep and profound way, the unconditioned state, Nibbāna, arises for the first time. This first instance is the Path Knowledge. One realizes that there is no personal self or ego, just an impersonal process dependent on conditions.

>And what, monks, is dependent origination? With ignorance as condition, formations come to be; with formations as condition, consciousness; with consciousness as condition, name-and-form; with name-and-form as condition, the six sense bases; with the six sense bases as condition, contact; with contact as condition, feel-ing; with feeling as condition, craving; with craving as condition, clinging; with clinging as condition, existence; with existence as condition, birth; with birth as condition, aging-and-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair come to be. Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering. This, monks, is called de-pendent origination.

[Anonymous No.16465856]

>>16464701
>he still believes in Nirvana and Awakening
You’ll never be an Arhat anon

[Anonymous No.16465860]

>>16465856
You’re a fucking arsehole m8, you’re a fucking arsehole

[Anonymous No.16465874]

>>16465647
I'll quote a nice explanation:
1/4
What is dependent origination and how does it work? When one sits and quiets mind, all becomes still. The next thing that might happen is a sound arising. A bird may chirp. The sound form (the chirp) hits the ear base (the organ, physical ear), and ear-consciousness arises. These three things — sound, the ear base, and ear-consciousness — are the contact link in the twelve links of dependent origination. Contact (phassa) is all three elements coming together so that “hearing” happens. In the same way, lighting a match, you have the match head, the flammable chemicals and the flint of the matchbox. When they are struck together, this is called contact. Heat and light arise, resulting in a flame. If either one of these three things are missing, “hearing” doesn’t happen. Once hearing happens, there arises a feeling (vedanā) associated with that sound; then perception arises that it is pleasant, unpleasant, or neither pleasant nor unpleasant (neutral). Feeling and perception are followed by craving (taṇhā) arising with the formula: "I like it” or "I don't like it” or “I don’t care.” This is where you start to identify with what is happening and take it personally. Craving can always be recognized as tension and tightness in the head. The tension or tightness is how you recognize craving. You must see and let go of this craving in the head; that desire is what is next going to lead you into thought (clinging) and then leads to the birth of action and resulting in “sorrow, lamentation, grief, and despair.” Following craving, clinging (upādāna) — or thinking — arises, the story about why you like it or don't like it. This is based on your past experience — what happened when that sound arose at some past time. You remember a time when you were bird-watching and heard a unique type of bird. Thoughts arise, and a story begins about the sound. Then there arises a drive or an urge to action associated with what you might do when that sound is heard. This is the habitual emotional tendency or behavior (bhava). For example, if you are a birdwatcher, when you hear a bird, you have a habitual tendency

[Anonymous No.16465883]

>>16465874
2/4
o reach for your camera, or you might have a tendency to reach for your binoculars. A habitual emotional tendency is something you always tend to do in a certain situation. It can be your habitual reaction to a feeling you have. Someone comes in the room and complains about something. You always react in the same way, by not liking it and emotionally reacting to the person complaining. Your spouse calls and says he/she will be home late from work — you may get this kind of call quite a bit, and react the same way every time with a negative reaction. It might be a judgment of, “you are unreliable,” or it might be a reaction to lash out because you think he/she isn’t telling the truth. It is habitual; it tends to come up when this situation occurs. When this habitual reaction arises, this is where the strong tendency to try and control your feelings with your thoughts arises. You observe that mind is disturbed and you react with frustration, trying to control the disturbing thoughts. This is the start of taking something personally. You become emotional. Mind has many factors or states of consciousness contained in it. There is a greedy mind, and there is a joyful mind. In the Anupada Sutta, the Buddha says that even the mental factor of decision is conditioned by previous actions from the past. This decision process is something that you might call a volition or intention, but we have to be careful to use those words because they might wrongly imply that there is a self “making a decision.” Decision is just a small, yet the most important factor of the “coming to a decision.” As stated previously, phenomena arise and pass like the sound of a bird, and are dependent on that sound for its existence. When your mind is very tranquil, you can see the decision factor arise as well as the “push” that goes with it to “make the decision.” It’s pretty interesting when you can observe your mind operating at this level and see how, truly, “you,” i.e., “I,” am not in charge. For example, a desire arises to get a cup of tea. You then continue to think about which tea might taste good. If you are very

[Anonymous No.16465888]

>>16465883
3/4
mindful, you can see the exact moment when you “decide” which tea to have. There is a moment in which “your” decision arises. If you back away gently, just allowing everything to arise, very carefully watching it (this is your mental investigation factor), you will see the decision (mental) factor arise entirely on its own. And then it also passes away. There appears this call to action arising through the craving attached to it. This craving is the push you feel to go into action. Is there really free will? Is there some soul or entity down deep making decisions? Kind of… yet at the deepest level, there is only the deciding mind that arises and passes away. So you have the decision there, but it is a conditioned decision. The phrase “volitional formations” used in the sutta texts is inadequate, not precisely correct. Volition indicates someone is deciding, but there is no one there to do that. There are only causes and conditions. There is no “you” that makes the decision, just the deciding moment. The only real power we have is to allow and observe, releasing and relaxing into that decision, seeing it fade away. Continuing, after the habitual tendency link in dependent origination comes the actual birth of action (jāti) link, and you get up to go get your camera. The drive to action translates into taking action. This can be bodily action (moving), verbal action (speaking), or mental action (thinking). Unfortunately, by the time you get back with your camera, the bird has flown away. Due to the result of your action in getting the camera, dissatisfaction might arise because now the bird is gone. You think your actions always will lead you to what you want, but you can never really positively be sure of the results of any action. The best-laid plans of mice and men… Then, what follows the Birth of Action link is the last link: Sorrow, Lamentation, Grief, and Despair. Yes, there are some happy moments here and there, but they are fleeting! Even if you get that

[Anonymous No.16465897]

>>16465888
4/4
picture, you’ll wish the bird had stayed longer, or that you’d recorded its song, etc. In the twelve links of dependent origination, we just went through the last part of the process, the grosser and observable part. These are the last seven: Contact; Feeling; Craving; Clinging; Habitual Tendency; Birth of Action; and Sorrow, Lamentation, Grief, and Despair. These are the ones you can see without having to go too deep into the meditation. Contact Feeling Craving Clinging Habitual Tendency Birth of Action Sorrow, Lamentation, Grief, and Despair. The first five links of the full twelve links of D.O. come before the ones listed above and can be understood as potentials. They can only be observed as subtle movements in mind with the exception of ignorance which is your understanding. Later, when your meditation goes deeper, you will see the arising of the first five: Ignorance Formations Consciousness Mentality-Materiality and the Sixfold Sense Base. The Buddha said that it all starts with ignorance of how things work; that is, ignorance of the truth of dependent origination, and of the Four Noble Truths, which makes clear that craving drives the whole process of suffering. It is this “ignoring” of the Four Noble Truths which leads us to act in unwholesome ways, which creates endless suffering.

[Sage No.16465932]

What a retard, for what reason do you post your shitty walls of text that no one will read.

[Anonymous No.16466353]

I actually read that "shitty walls of text" aloud and slowly, both in English and German, tried to think about what every word, sentence or concept could mean. Maybe one day it'll make sense to me (or just sense, for "me" doesn't exist?)
If there is no self, who is suffering?
Is it only experienced by phenomena forming a conscience but cut off from the rest of the whole process not realizing their true nature being in a trap of preventing such a realization to appear?
sorry for bad english

[Anonymous No.16466418]

>>16466353
>If there is no self, who is suffering?
Exactly. The whole point, then, is coming to grips with that.

>Is it only experienced by phenomena forming a conscience but cut off from the rest of the whole process not realizing their true nature being in a trap of preventing such a realization to appear?
In a sense, yeah. But the trap is also the idea that "oh, well, MY conscious is the illusion, but there's a REAL CONSCIOUS out there to unite with". That's just as saying that your conscious is eternal and unchanging.

[Anonymous No.16466421]

>>16464701
>Life is suffering
Yeah, and?
Life is suffering, Life is joy, Life is sadness, Life is excitement, Life is anger, Life is love, Life is fear and Life is satisfaction, that's what make life interesting, I enjoy life because I can experiment all kinds of emotions and at the end of the day even if I'm sad, I feel human and that brings satisfaction to my existence.

[Anonymous No.16466455]

>>16466421
this. polytheism is a much healthier lifestyle. No wonder the chinese are psychopathic dog killers

[Anonymous No.16466481]

Philosophy is superior, even dialectics is superior.

[Anonymous No.16466515]

If you are a westerner please consider Christianity. You are not conditioned to practice Buddhism effectively. Buddhism will leave you depressed in the long run.

[Anonymous No.16466517]

>>16466421
>Life is suffering
This is a poor translation of the first Noble Truth, "Nidham Dukkham", meaning "Pain is". "Life is suffering, among other things", as you stated, is far more apt.

[Anonymous No.16466525]

>>16464701
because it doesn’t do anything, you’re just tricking yourself into thinking you’re changing by wasting time meditating. the fact you even made this thread is just you further trying to convince yourself that you have figured out life but you haven’t. if you did this post wouldnt exist.

[Anonymous No.16466533]

>>16466421
You likely misunderstand what "suffering" means in Buddhism and tie it to something negative when Buddhism doesn't see it as such. It's just a fact of life.

[Anonymous No.16466577]

>>16465897
This makes a lot of sense. Thanks, anon.

[Anonymous No.16466594]

>>16466515
>if you are european
>consider the middle east rabbi

[Anonymous No.16466622]

I do meditate. I am on day 20 or so. It's very difficult, but my monkey brain has quieted down a bit, especially when meditating. I do it for maybe 15 minutes a day. Focusing on the breath.

[Anonymous No.16466637]

>>16464701

you had it right until you said that meditation would stop suffering

[Anonymous No.16466896]

What are the best books about the different kinds of meditation?

Preferentially, something that is more down to earth and doesn't try to be poetic.

[Anonymous No.16466941]

>>16466637

a book called "undoing yourself" has some nice basic exercises to play with, will increase awareness

[Anonymous No.16467018]

>>16466515
This is of course the ultimate problem that westerners need to solve. Christianity destroyed all other native faiths but Christianity is unbelievable which leaves only nihilism and atheism. So either we'll destroy ourselves through atheism or we go back to Christianity which causes atheism.

We have to get out of the loop. Not sure neo-paganism have the ability to do this but also Buddhism as a complete system demands a native religion to fuse with, otherwise it becomes just barren atheism + meditation, lacking any aesthetic and cultural value. But as previously pointed out Christianity destroyed these native religions, Buddhism can't flower in a sterile environment. So a westerner can't ever become a Buddhist in more than name only.

Christianity did quite a number on us.

[Anonymous No.16467032]

>>16466515
>(((christianity)))

[Anonymous No.16467041]

>>16467018
Christianity by and large destroyed it's own inner (mystical) traditions too, with some exceptions.

[Anonymous No.16467057]

>>16466515
The main issue is that Westerners are basically psychologically incapable of taking Buddhist doctrine seriously

[Anonymous No.16467062]

>>16464701
meditation in the religious way its someone giving you a cheap book to "know yourself". and you are reading again and again and again and again till you believe it.
meditation in the western world is just xanax.
the real intimacy its beyond meditation.

[Anonymous No.16467095]

>>16467018
"Neo-Paganism", in my opinion, is sort of like Atheism: a liminal state. It requires a degree of skepticism, and for one to step back from any engagement with religion. Most people eventually fall into some kind of memeplex that either is explicitly a religion, or a might-as-well-be-a-religion. Catholicism (but SSPX so its BASED), Buddhism, National Socialism, Hinduism, Marxism, BLM, Carl-Sagan-ism, whatever. The moment you start making meaningful positive religious statements instead of merely negative ones, you leave atheist and neo-paganism. If you're worshiping Ares under some whacky Platonic schema, you are no longer a Neo-Pagan. Whatever it takes to describe you is vastly more autistic, but you're not a neo-pagan.

I totally agree that Buddhism, and any religion period, can't flower in a Liberal society. But then, Liberalism is a religion itself. Vajrapani was Hercules before he was Vajrapani, if you remove the Liberalism, other religions will fill the void.

[Anonymous No.16467215]

>>16464753
dude man thats Buddhism you got to kill your SELF your ego dude

[Anonymous No.16467299]

>>16465719
In the US we call it criss cross applesauce.

[Anonymous No.16467415]

>>16466421
ok hedonist

[Anonymous No.16467636]

I think you should look towards the religion of your Ancestors. Especially if you are a Westerner. Buddhism is unhelpful to most Westerners.

[Anonymous No.16467856]

>>16464701
>>16464856
EXPLAIN REBIRTH TO ME OR I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU! DON'T DUMB IT DOWN INTO SOME VAGUE SHIT! EXPLAIN REBIRTH TO ME RIGHT NOW OR I'LL LITERALLY FUCKING KILL YOU! HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU BE REBORN IF THERE IS NO YOU? WHAT THE FUCK ARE SKANDAS? DON'T DUMB IT DOWN OR I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU

[Anonymous No.16468004]

>>16467636
>religion of your Ancestors
Dont mind if I do!

[Anonymous No.16468031]

>>16467299
we call indian style

[Anonymous No.16468043]

>>16468004
I mean, who knows where my anglo-saxon ancestors even where when Europe was at peak paganism? I feel like most descendants of Germanic migrants have been Christian as long as they've been "European", no? Maybe I'm wrong.

[Anonymous No.16468071]

How do I use meditation to pull out memory of things I've read but forgot?

[Anonymous No.16468072]

>>16467018
>but also Buddhism as a complete system demands a native religion to fuse with, otherwise it becomes just barren atheism + meditation, lacking any aesthetic and cultural value.
The ancestor is unironically Gnosticism. Eastern religion grafted onto the pre-existing Christian infrastructure, but with a "Christian" dialectic that actually makes sense. See Cathars ("Good Christians"), for example.
>inb4 edgy gnostic
Well it's a lot better than creating paganism anew. We've got the Nag Hammadi and the Bible to still go off of.

[Anonymous No.16468099]

>>16468071
Meditation tends to pull out of your memory random things that you had completely forgotten about and have no reason to be remembering so vividly. But it won't unlock things you're looking for.

[Anonymous No.16468102]

>>16465190
Not all buddhist thought consists of literal rebirth

[Anonymous No.16468113]

>>16468099
Nice dubs. Yeah, I've experience that quite often. I mostly do 15 minute breath meditation. I've experienced random memories quite often. Pretty interesting stuff that pops up too. The one time I meditated for 40 minutes it got real deep and introspective. But I still feel like there's something I'm missing, something I have yet to unlock.

[Anonymous No.16468206]

How can I start meditating? Want to meditate for hours each day, I have nothing else to do except for run and browse web.

[Anonymous No.16468219]

>>16467856
Explain death. How do you experience nothingness? Rebirth makes more sense than death to me(not OP)

Given infinite amount of time after your death, it is possible that entropy fluctuations can recreate our brain and bring us back alive. Therefore we are immortal.

[Anonymous No.16468227]

>>16468206
Start small. 5 minutes. Set a timer. Sit down. Close eyes. Start breathing. Focus on the breath. The mind will wander. When you realize your mind has wandered, go back to focusing on the breath. Do this until the time is up. The next day, set a timer for 10 minutes. Do the same. Work your way up to half an hour. Then go read some shit. From what I understand there are tactics and methods of thinking while meditating that do different things beyond this simple meditation. I have yet to get that far. But when I am meditating I see real benefit, and the experience itself is rough. Both because you want to not be doing nothing, and because the brain will make you remember all the horrible things you've repressed for years. But you just gotta accept it and focus on the breath again. You are a mountain and the thoughts are clouds just passing on by.

[Anonymous No.16468235]

>>16468227
Huh? No.

[Anonymous No.16468239]

>>16468235
oh.. okay, anon. :(

[Anonymous No.16468244]

>>16468206
Don't try to meditate. Don't do anything. Concentrate on this while meditating"everything is already perfect". Don't try to seek anything in meditation enjoy it.

[Anonymous No.16468248]

>>16468004
sorry your ancestors have very little to do with pagan and norse mythology. Judaism or Christianity for you.

[Anonymous No.16468274]

>>16468248
>Judeo-christianity
cringe...

[Anonymous No.16468296]

>>16467041
>some exceptions
such as?

[Anonymous No.16468325]

>>16468274
yeah it's just judaism

[Anonymous No.16468330]

>>16468244>>16468244
>>Don't try to meditate. Don't do anything. Concentrate on this while meditating"everything is already perfect". Don't try to seek anything in meditation enjoy it.

that's meditation according to upper east side asshoels

[Anonymous No.16468342]

>>16468296
Like some have already mentioned ITT. Orthodox Christianity maintains some connection to their mystical roots, then some Catholic types like the Carmelites who gave us outstanding figures such as St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila.

But by and large, the Church did exactly what Christ called out the Pharisees for

>Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.

[Anonymous No.16468345]

>>16467856
The claim is that controlling the citta is making it peaceful + the vedana-sanna (ie feelings perceptions) are fabrications of the citta + excited citta gives displeasing vedana-sanna, ie sensuality, ie what is felt by humans and animals and ghosts, and calmed citta gives pleasant vedana-sanna, ie what is felt by devas.

So the path is to stop polluting the citta by greed, aversion and delusion, which will make vedana-sanna better than when they are polluted and resulting in sensuality, and even better they will stop like it is the case for arahants..

[Anonymous No.16468360]

>>16464701
Why do tradcath larping faggots think buddhism and meditation are demonic

[Anonymous No.16468377]

>>16464701
https://files.catbox.moe/9uo1to.webm

[Anonymous No.16468412]

Why would I? Doing nothing seems like a huge waste of my time

[Anonymous No.16468463]

>>16468360
I’m not any of the things you addressed but my point is that Buddhism doesn’t work well for Westerners. Our culture does not mesh well with Buddhism. Most westerners who practice Buddhism end up deeply unhappy. Some anons on here have told me that the point Of Buddhism isn’t happiness. Regardless, I know a lot of Westerners who are insufferable. I suggest looking into the faiths of your culture. I have no problem with Buddhism, it’s just widely documented that Westerners deeply suffer after adopting it.

[Anonymous No.16468497]

>>16464753
this desu
>>16468345
>citta
>vedanna-sanna
why cant you just use normal words and not be obfuscationist? If the concept is hard to explain in one word, just use multiple.

[Anonymous No.16468503]

>>16468497
it's not good to translate crucial words

[Anonymous No.16468518]

>>16464746
What’s wrong anon? :(

[Anonymous No.16468532]

>>16468463
I'm sure you're right and I agree with you somewhat. But tradcaths specifically hate all eastern religions and their practices and attribute them to demons. I'm just curious about why they do that and how they can justify that belief

[Anonymous No.16468870]

>>16468497
>why cant you just use normal words and not be obfuscationist? If the concept is hard to explain in one word, just use multiple.

because brainlets believe there's something incredibly profound about foreign words having nuanced or vague meaning

1. citta means mind, mind being just as vague a concept as citta, but if you say citta it makes you sound more knowledgable
2. vedana means feeling or sensation
3. sanna means perception

[Anonymous No.16468933]

No, life isnt suffering

[Anonymous No.16468940]

Mad pseuds itt who think they're enlightened

[Anonymous No.16468966]

>>16464701
meditated for an hour today and yesterday, feeling good

[Anonymous No.16468970]

>>16467057
I'd like to hear more, could you elaborate?
>>16467018
>Not sure neo-paganism have the ability to do this
To me, neopaganism comes off as a cynical effort to galvanize the shreds of European ethnic identity. It's not an attempt to find metaphysical answers, it's simple mimicry: the European Identiarians see that the strong groups have gods and supernaturalism, so they think they need gods and supernaturalism to be strong too. In reality all of the dogma they need is already in their possession, and they should be putting all of their weight, everything they have, into political victories. Neopaganism is a plain distraction.

[Anonymous No.16469061]

>>16464701

[Anonymous No.16469081]

>>16464701
Will meditating get me a gf

[Anonymous No.16469083]

>>16469061
>quoting the: bro all the other gurus are shit, just listen to me, the anti-guru guru
He even got filtered by Maharishi

[Anonymous No.16469398]

>>16464746
>Ego driven
top kek. The aim is to abandon the ego as it is an illusion, but somehow according to you it is "ego driven".

[Anonymous No.16469403]

>>16469398
Anon says he is toà ego driven you midwit. Being able to read is a requirement for this board

[Anonymous No.16469406]

>>16469403
too*

[Anonymous No.16469409]

>>16469061
>all meditation is a self-centered activity
That's kind of the point.

[Anonymous No.16469424]

What does Buddhism say about revenge?

[Anonymous No.16469435]

>>16469424
the desire for revenge is a denial of impermanance, in other words, if you desire revenge you're clinging to ego and the idea of the self, if there's no self, there's no one to avenge

[Anonymous No.16469460]

>>16469435
Something seems to draw me to Buddhism but I have a serious problem with grudges. I can get past things people say, but if a person I love is physically harmed I turn into a monster and I will forever track and remember them until such time as I get revenge.

How would you suggest someone deals with this?

[Anonymous No.16469470]

>>16469460
i'm not sure, i have some sympathies toward buddhism, but revenge is a great motivator and i never forgive. personally i think buddhism is best treated as a toolbox of potentially helpful insights and techniques, rather than as a all-consuming worldview itself, i think the "buddhism is nihilism" people ultimately have a point

[Anonymous No.16469474]

>>16469470
Thank you for being honest.

[Anonymous No.16469531]

>>16469424
>What does Buddhism say about revenge?
That it is cringe & still craving. Even worse, it is about mundane spooks.

[Anonymous No.16469735]

>>16469470
>i think buddhism is best treated as a toolbox of potentially helpful insights and techniques, rather than as a all-consuming worldview itself
This is ALL religion outside of Abrahamic religion. The entire concept of "-ism" is inherently Abrahamic. In China, Buddhism is 大道 (da4dao4, lit. "the big path", more aptly "The Great Way") and 佛教 (fo2jiao4, lit. "Buddha teaching"). Buddhism's great syncretic ability comes from the fact that ALL religious activity is naturally syncretic, it's Abrahamism that's weird. The Buddha flat out says that unless you're a monk (and most people should not be monks) you only need to do so much. You only CAN do so much.

As for the charge of nihilism, I'm going to agree and disagree. In a philosophical sense, no, it's not. It's just flat out not. Buddhism denies neither objective reality nor objective truth. However, there is a third usage, and that is that people use nihilism to mean "it says that the mundane things that we care about, like cars, taxes, and girlfriends, aren't important". In that sense, yes, I agree. I would say that any religion with an ascetic component also falls under this, however.

>>16468360
Because TradCaths are just atheists who want the moral puritanism of low-church Protestantism, but are also acutely aware that they lost the atheism vs christianity debates, so they have to cloak their activities under a new banner so as to not be mega-cringe.

[Anonymous No.16469941]

>>16465647
Pratitya samutpada

[Anonymous No.16469985]

>>16468463
There's an interview-book with the Dalai Lama from the 1990s, Imagine All the People where he calls out how much mental illness there is among Westerners.

[Anonymous No.16469994]

>>16464701
that only makes sense if you believe in reincarnation

[Anonymous No.16470009]

>>16469994
You mean rebirth. Buddhists reject reincarnation.

[Anonymous No.16470017]

>>16470009
it's the same thing

[Anonymous No.16470024]

>>16470017
No, it's not.

[Anonymous No.16470029]

>>16470024
prove it

[Anonymous No.16470037]

>>16470029
Reincarnation posits a Self to incarnate repeatedly. This Self is unchanging, and permanent. Buddhism rejects this idea: There are no Selfs (big S). There is instead, rebirth. Things are collections of parts. These parts go on to make up other things. That's rebirth.

[Anonymous No.16470045]

>>16470037
what does it matter then if I (or non-I) am reborn as a caterpillar or whatever

[Anonymous No.16470055]

>>16470037
why call it re-birth and not just birth then? and what does enlightenment accomplish that i could't accomplish by blowing my brains out? the parts are still going to go on to make up other things either way

[Anonymous No.16470060]

>>16464701
Meditation for a christian is continual. God tells us to pray without ceasing. Meaning that if we abide by his law and walk in his light, and by studying and attending to scripture, we are meditating. I dont believe the word occurs in the english translations, but meditatio occurs throughout meaning contemplate, reflect, but also practice and study, and, in certain contexts, to cultivate.

[Anonymous No.16470064]

>>16470045
There is some continuation between you and the caterpillar. So, it's not totally correct to say that you die and then wakeup hatching out of an egg, except yes, it is, because Buddhist philosophers totally accepted the idea of things like memories or awareness being one of the parts that can get reborn in the next life.

So, from a really hedonistic point of view, being a caterpillar isn't fun, so you wouldn't want to end up there, even if in doing so your mental processes would be downgraded such that you wouldn't mind it (I assume caterpillars don't mind being a caterpillar).

[Anonymous No.16470071]

>>16470055
See >>16470064. There are mental processes that will continue. Death isn't just "black void snuff out", stuff keeps going.

So yeah, you could kill yourself, but you'd just get reborn in a worse-off place because suicide nets you bad karma, and you'd still be subject to dukkha because all conditioned beings are.

[Anonymous No.16470077]

>>16470071
sounds like reincarnation then, but i already agreed that buddhism makes sense IF you believe in reincarnation

[Anonymous No.16470081]

>>16468004
Just ao you know theres a much longer recorded history of syncretism between hellenism and christianity in the alchemical tradition. Additionally greek is a european language and the bible has been written and preached in greece for two thousand years.
Also that image is a total fucking joke its got the monty phython cloud shit snd that bs ‘3d imaging’ muh science muh biology rendering of Jesus, which isnt based on jack shit

[Anonymous No.16470083]

>>16470064
but the caterpillar will be born either way, what does it matter if it has parts of me or if it doesn't, the image looks pretty much the same

[Anonymous No.16470086]

>>16468031
I call it indian style becausd it pissed someone off when i said it and now ill never go back

[Anonymous No.16470090]

>>16470077
It's an autistic difference, yes, I will totally agree. But it is a difference. Reincarnation would posit that the Real You that is repeatedly incarnating is the same always, forever, and will never change, but under Rebirth it's totally possible that the lump-you-call-a-soul (according to however you define a "soul", there's many) will at point Y have none of the parts that it has at point X, akin to how your body cycles through every atom composing it every 8 years.

If you're only concerned about a small time frame of your current, past, and next life, then yeah, they're "more or less" the same thing, however.

[Anonymous No.16470093]

>>16470077
so like all religions it relies on faith, which for some is the most insurmountable obstacle

[Anonymous No.16470106]

>>16470083
>caterpillar will be born either way
Not necessarily. A big part of karma is whether or not a being is born at all. Your actions result in a caterpillar being born, that some ambiguous part of your mental process (among other things) will then go into. How literal you take this is up to you. You can view "knocking up a ghetto whore" as a form of rebirth, as you've created a being that is in some part you as it has your parts in it, and it's in hell because living in the ghetto sucks, and this view IS reflected in Buddhist tradition. The Buddha, however, did teach what we can colloquially call the "waking up as a caterpillar" form of rebirth as well.

[Anonymous No.16470120]

>>16470106
so buddhism is anti-natalist?

[Anonymous No.16470125]

it seems like a video game where you have to level up in consciousness to the human stage where you can finally understand the objective - rejecting desire and leveling up and out of the game, like animals are trapped w/o consciousness in a state of eternal desire and production, eating and fucking

[Anonymous No.16470147]

>>16470120
Not at all, in fact it's pro-natalist. Not everyone can, or should, be a monk. There needs to be householders, who breed. Because Buddhism posits a multiverse, you can even be reborn in another universe. But humans (or "human-enough" if we get big-brain) beings are really important, as we're uniquely positioned to get out of the wheel of Samsara. Thus, householders should have lots of kids to "draw" souls from the multiverse to the human realm, so some of them can become monks.

On a big enough level, we can say that it's "anti-natalist" for all life to achieve nirvana, but that's so far out that it's not even worth thinking about. You could say Abrahamic religion is "anti-natalist" because at a certain point all humans ascend and stop breeding, as well. But then, what you're talking about is something fundamentally different than the "life sucks, don't have kids" that anti-natalists are selling.

[Anonymous No.16470167]

>>16469398
Idk Anon, most "Buddhists" I know can't shut up about it and clearly get a high out of how unique it makes them.

[Anonymous No.16470209]

>>16470147
>"life sucks, don't have kids"
>life sucks, ascend to the x avenger aheaven brahamn real reality
its the same, dont lie to yourself with we need more poeple so more people can ascend that is total nonsense.

[Anonymous No.16470236]

>>16464701
meditating = poor man's thinking

[Anonymous No.16470239]

>>16464753
all the answers implying there is another life.
>but hey, buddhism is not a religion.

[Anonymous No.16470252]

>>16465009
retarded argument.
if i suffer, of course i care. my aim as a buddhist is not caring anymore, therefore suicide is the most logic solution, becuase that will be the exact outcome.

[Anonymous No.16470266]

>>16470252
Any religion with ascetic character is met with accusations of being suicidal. Maybe it never occurred to believers that they should just kill themselves because that isn't what is taught. Especially if you are starting from doctrines of metempsychosis or cyclical existence.

[Anonymous No.16470273]

>>16470093
Anyone who says Buddhism is not a religion is either a. full of shit, or b. equating religion with (mono)theism

[Anonymous No.16470284]

>>16470081
>Just ao you know theres a much longer recorded history of syncretism between hellenism and christianity in the alchemical tradition. Additionally greek is a european language and the bible has been written and preached in greece for two thousand years.
Also that image is a total fucking joke its got the monty phython cloud shit snd that bs ‘3d imaging’ muh science muh biology rendering of Jesus, which isnt based on jack shit

[Anonymous No.16470304]

>>16470266
> metempsychosis
this is indeed the only correct answer to the suicide argument. which is pretty pathetic. but honestly i didn't expect anything better from niggers and chinks. the christian theology (not the jewish one) is a thousand times more intelligent and deeper , and i say it as an atheist.

[Anonymous No.16470314]

>>16464701
lol why do that when you can bump your brain with feelgood chemicals from drugs. thanks bigpharma

[Anonymous No.16470338]

>>16467856
Ok so imagine you are standing in a lake with a glass in your hand. You scoop up some water. The water in the glass is a person. You pour the water back into the lake. That's karma. Once the glass is empty, i.e. the person has died, you scoop up more water from the same spot. The "karma" has swooshed around the water in the spot so the new person won't be the same but it's constitution will be influenced by the karma of the previous version.
Karma is causality and rebirth is also causality. Read Schopenhauer's fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason to find out more.

[Anonymous No.16470350]

When I meditate in half lotus or burmese for a couple of weeks my hips become really stiff. Practising stretches only makes it worse. Believe me I have tried. I am now siting seiza with some padding but I am not 100% satisfied

[Anonymous No.16470361]

>>16470304
I don't see how the Christian afterlife would make more sense to an atheist than metempsychosis. Just as matter is recycled so is "soul." Your body is made up of bits and pieces of everything that has ever existed; you are not as you are some kind of new matter. Your mother made you out of energy which had to come from somewhere else. With Christian metaphysics, somehow souls are created ex nihilo for every person and these at death are then sent off to be rewarded or punished until the end of time. Where were these souls prior to birth? Schopenhauer criticizes this as well, that there is so much Christian obsession with an afterlife but no interest in what came before or how it became so.

[Anonymous No.16470364]

>>16466515
Alan Watts had a great talk on this
It's in the second half of this here video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr_20uEVOiE

[Anonymous No.16470382]

>>16468227
>I have yet to get that far
oh anon...

[Anonymous No.16470408]

>>16470338
>DON'T DUMB IT DOWN INTO SOME VAGUE SHIT!
at the moment he start to dumbing it down into the vaguest shit ever.
the problem is that you can not dumb down rebirth because it is implicitly dumb. its the believe of millions of people but is profoundly silly as hell or heaven believers. dont embarras yourself trying to explain it.

[Anonymous No.16470424]

>>16470361
>Where were these souls prior to birth?
In the Logos. Have you read any theological work in your life?

[Anonymous No.16470426]

>>16470361
metempsychosis is not about rearrangement of matter, otherewise it would never work as an objection to the suicide argument. quite the opposite, it wpuld defy also the theory by which the enlightened one would cease to suffer and free himself from the cycle of life and death.
christian sould makes sense in its own fiction: we are matter, we move and think thanks to our soul, which is immortal by will of god, if you behave yourself.

[Anonymous No.16470435]

>>16464701
>life is suffering
Just kys yourself then lmao

[Anonymous No.16470436]

>>16464701
I don't like sitting around doing nothing so I do mindless tasks when I want to relax.

[Anonymous No.16470438]

>>16470435
kiss myself?

[Anonymous No.16470439]

>>16470284
Cool bro i explicitly said i hated science and you still wojaked
The utter state of wojak fags
Also jung filter back at it again

[Anonymous No.16470440]

>>16470435
Don't kill yourself, kill your Self