/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19921667]

Is it accurate to say that Buddhism isn’t so much a religion but more like a meta religion or guide and exercise on how to be spiritual?

[Anonymous No.19921695]

>>19921667
I see what you mean about a meta religion. Considering it has the idea of the six worlds of samsara (which could be a mayahana addition?- at any rate I know the buddha declined to answer metaphysical questions like the nature of the cosmos or brahma etc) you cant help but find in that the idea of ghosts and gods. I say its a guide out of suffering which is all it really claims at the most basic level right.
Personally I like it in the context of animsitic taoism. Theres also something I find much more compelling about the idea of Kierkegaard's knight of faith when it's in the context of sttiving to be a bodhisattva.
Another thing I like about buddhism is, and something that makes me agree with you that it can be seen as meta-religious is that its adaptive and resistant to dogma. A Buddhist can look at Christ and say: "Yes, another arhat or bodhisattva". But it doesn't go the other way. This is why I think the future of religion or spiritually will be syncretistic and will certainly include much from buddhism.

Side question: if you had to chose one essential Buddhist text, what would it be?

[Anonymous No.19921756]

>>19921667
Buddhism is very much a religion to Buddhists. To many westerners, it is not a religion because it appears to lack theology, and the western idea of religion requires deity worship. But gods exist in Buddhism, just not God as in an Abrahamic creator who is transcendent from the cosmos. Gods are just a higher form of life, who are are in a state of ignorance little better than men.
>>19921695
Buddhism does integrate non-Buddhist religious elements but this is done frankly in a utiliarian or even condescending way. A genuine Christian could never accept the Buddhist interpretation of Jesus, and a genuine Hindu could never accept the interpretation of Brahmā. But a Christian convert or a Hindu convert could, and this would facilitate conversion. This is how for instance Heracles famously becomes Vajrapani. This is not the absence of dogmatic claims but rather a kind of pragmatism with regard to teaching. You don't destroy someone's whole framework of culture in order to explain something to them, or rather, you don't get someone to understand your framework without using a vocabulary they understand.

[Anonymous No.19921787]

>>19921756
Pragmatism would be a better way of communicating what I was trying to say, true. I can't help but see it as less religious than a way to deal with suffering. I see what you mean though. I think that sense of binding religiosity will (is) fading though and buddhism stands poised to really (already is) filling the void with that pragmatic approach towards lifes great questions. I think fundamentally buddhism is a variety of gnosticism really.
I see what you mean that buddhism isn't devoid of dogmatic claims but there are interesting points like when Sid was said to have taught on his death bed: "work out your own salvation with diligence."

[Anonymous No.19921807]

>>19921787
From what literary remains there are of gnosticism it appears to have taken up the notion of the demiurge or creative principle proceded from the one of Platonism and identified it with materiality as something to be negated, something dualistically evil. Buddhism does not blame someone for creating a world that makes one suffer, rather it is a false view of the momentariness of phenomena which produces an affect of suffering for the sentient being. In other words, you are the demiurge, you are the one whose actions continue to ripen into effects that make up your becoming of pure or impure states.

[Anonymous No.19921819]

>>19921667
Why does Buddhism offer so much more difficulty for people to understand? It's pretty simple.

[Anonymous No.19921826]

>>19921819

[Anonymous No.19921900]

>>19921819
I think it's no more difficult to understand than Christianity, it's just that most people think they understand Christianity when they don't.
I've never read either the New or Old Testament in full, I don't claim to understand it, but I'm an oddity in that most people through sheer osmosis believe they 'get it'.

[Anonymous No.19921920]

>>19921667
no, because the ascetic exercises of buddhism, meditation etc weren't invented by siddharta, he learned them from other practices and are present in other religions and non religions

[Anonymous No.19921925]

>>19921667
No, there are supernatural elements and descriptions of the afterlife and Devas that make it a religion.

>>19921819
The first four parts of the Pali Canon is like 6,000+ pages. Largest religios literature on the planet.

[࿇ C Œ M G E N V S ࿇ !KNDY/Ar.iI No.19921943]

THE ACCURATE THING TO SAY WOULD BE THAT BUDDHISM IS A NIHILISTIC, FATALISTIC, DEMONISTIC CULT; ANTITHETICAL TO CHRISTIANITY —ID EST: CATHOLICISM—, WHICH IS WHY IT HAS BEEN VIRULENTLY PROMOTED, FOR ALMOST A CENTURY, BY MISCELLANEOUS ATHEISTS, INCLUDING «PROTESTANTS».

EMBRACE BUDDHA, BE EMBRACED BY SATAN.

[Anonymous No.19921951]

>>19921819
The West is centered around the individuals notion of the self while Buddhism speaks about ridding one self of it. It's contradictory for many, they can't grasp what there other than the self. At best they mistake it for existentialism or stoicism.

[Anonymous No.19921962]

>>19921925
>No, there are supernatural elements and descriptions of the afterlife and Devas that make it a religion.

>implying all Buddhism is the same
Don't be a twat, you know that most people speak of Siddhartha Gautama when they think Buddhism. And then to paint it all as one sect is just arguing in bad faith.

[Anonymous No.19921992]

>>19921807
I meant gnosticism in a more general sense of salvation or liberation through knowledge or understanding.
I'd be interested to know to what extent that interpretation of gnosticism ("I am the demiurge") was actual in historical gnosticisms. I would think its not impossible at the esoteric level.

[Anonymous No.19922001]

>>19921925
Those things dont make something a religion though. Imo its adherence to dogmas that make a religion. Look at the etymology of the word, from latin, to bind together.

[Anonymous No.19922097]

>>19921943
retard

[Anonymous No.19922166]

>>19921951
>stoicism
What is the difference between them? Aside from the concept of self and non self?

[Anonymous No.19922225]

>>19921943

[Anonymous No.19922249]

>>19921925
>there are supernatural elements and descriptions of the afterlife and Devas
true, but playing devil's advocate, they can be interpreted as symbolic, specially the devas and the realms of rebirth

[Anonymous No.19922426]

>>19922166
Existentialism is losing meaning through the dissolution of the ego while the path to enlightenment is gaining meaning and unity through it.

[Anonymous No.19922430]

>>19921667
>Is it accurate to say that Buddhism isn’t so much a religion but more like a meta religion or guide and exercise on how to be spiritual?
Umm, no. Read a book

[Anonymous No.19922474]

>>19921943
abandon your attachment to autistic grandstanding and you might be reborn as a Spaniard

[Anonymous No.19922517]

>>19921667
No

[Anonymous No.19922609]

>>19921992
>I would think its not impossible at the esoteric level.
If it was a truly esoteric doctrine then it hasn't been handed down to the present and is lost. Oh well.

[Anonymous No.19922945]

>>19922426
>>19922166
Sorry, forgot to elaborate on the stoicism comparison.

Eastern enlightenment is extremely similar to stoicism but diverge in terms of higher pursuits. Stoicism is dealing with your lot in life and lessening the suffering, Buddhism is essentially the study of the self or lack of it, and how to progress spiritually within the world. Stoicism is a cope, Buddhism is a nurture.