Greetings and salutations Yea Forums...

why does indian art make all the male gods and saints look like thots?

T. White man with dreads

I am two hours away from the nearest Sangha. I have no way of getting their either. I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere really.

hi pajeet

Start with Majjhima Nikaya for a good first book of suttas.
Probably read The Mind Illuminated for intro to samatha meditation.
Read about the Five Precepts and start observing them immediately as best you can.
Actively cultivate morality and virtue in your day to day life, avoid any ill-will, or avoid acting on thoughts of ill-will. Avoid gossip, avoid lying, deception. Actively cultivate wholesome states of mind: read The Deliverance of the Heart Through Universal Love for more on this.
Eventually (you don't have to right away or even anytime soon but its good) go to temples and monasteries to give alms to monks, and in return you will be able to hear Dhamma talks. I HIGHLY recommend developing a strong right view before doing this, so you won't get swayed by any monks' sectarianism. Actually I'd say this is a necessity, not just a recommendation. Monks are not perfect, and you should compare everything you learn in Buddhism (from monks or otherwise) to the suttas. The suttas are basically the canon, the earliest written words of the Buddha. No sect will disagree on this, do take them as the highest word when it comes to Buddhism.
If you wanna be hardcore, read about Uposatha and partake in it once every week, observing the Eight Precepts and studying Dhamma in your free time on that day + meditating.
Don't underestimate the books on the right column by Nyanananda: they will help you to understand the deepest parts of Buddhist philosophy (emptiness, not-self, dependent origination, contact, theoretical understandings of Nibbāna...etc). Many of those books are VERY short (pretty much all of them except for the Nibbāna sermons and the Law of Dependent Arising) but provide tons of information in an easily understandable way.
Maybe read the Therigatha and Theragatha for comfy nun and monk poetry.
In Buddhism, there is essentially three main aspects to the practice: sila, samadhi, and pañña. Sila is morality/virtue, samadhi is deep states of concentration in meditation, and pañña is wisdom gained from insight meditation and from right view developed from studying the texts. Though these threee cover everything, be sure to read about and follow the Eightfold Path.
All in all, if you were to read all the material in that chart, understand it, observe the teachings all play out in your everyday life, and if you were to practice as best as you can accordingly with the teachings, you would be a top-tier layman, bound for stream-entry and then eventually Nibbāna.
Remember, the training in the Buddha's Dhamma is gradual, not abrupt. Do the best you can, and as the Buddha promised, you will find the end of suffering.
After a short while of practice you will a reduction in suffering directly proportionate to how much practice you've put in. It's not like it's all pain until stream-entry one day and you're good, you should see changes very quickly for the better. I wish you good luck on this path.

*these three cover everything
*will experience a reduction in suffering
Sorry for screw ups

This trolling is becoming very meta and self-referential, and shows signs of serious butt-blastedness. I wonder what kind of person is motivated by their angst to go to such lengths by digging through the archives to find material to use as the basis of false-flag posts (user show me on the doll where Guenon-fag touched you!)

You are false-flagging as a Vedantist claiming that Buddhism is actually Vedanta/Hinduism in order to make Vedanta look bad. It looks like you took that text from a post by someone who actually knew what they were talking who was discussing Rene Guenon's history with Buddhism but then added the false claim that Buddhism is just Vedanta. It is true that Buddhism was largely influenced by the pre-Buddhist Upanishads, and that the alignment in doctrine between areas of Buddhism and Vedanta can be partially attributed to them stemming in part from the same texts and the ideas associated with them; but Buddhism also diverges from Upanishadic teachings in important ways and anyone who knows anything about those teachings would never say that Buddhism is a subset of Vedanta, which is a super simplistic generalization and is completely incorrect. It is true that some Mahayana teachings align closer to Vedanta than the rest of Buddhism, but again this heavily depends on the school; there are a wide range of teachings and metaphysical positions and some come close to agreeing while others don't at all and are completely opposed.

When you false-flag as Vedantists you make Buddhist-posters seem like insufferable children who can't handle people comparing Buddhism to other things or even them talking about it with anything but slavish praise. It's not helping anything.

The chart that was posted in the thread is good but doesn't really cover Mahayana/Vajranaya much other than Nagarjuna. If you want an overview of the philosophy of the various schools including Mahayana I'd recommend Siderits' book "Buddhism as Philosophy". This goes into the doctrines of various schools in enough detail that if anything stands out as interesting you'll know enough to be able to order and read the texts of that school. It helps to have a good understand of the tripitaka/Pali Canon before you read much Mahayana philosophy because they take much of it as a given but adds increasing layers of other ideas built on top of them such that if you don't understand the base layers it won't make much sense.

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suttas>>>all

I'm lucky to live 5 minutes away from a famous monk's sangha at a massive monastery. It's good times user.

start with the anguttara nikaya

Buddhism is completely irredeemable. In the west it is nothing but the religious manifestation of the capitalist desire to extinguish the individual. People like it for "muh aesthetics" and "dude Buddha is so chill lmao." In the east it is nothing but a corruption of Hinduism that haphazardly syncretizes with everything it comes into contact with. If you want to reduce your suffering, I suggest you stop deluding yourself into thinking that you can be initiated into a cultus that is completely foreign to all systems of western philosophy and art. You are going through baby's first spirituality and while that may be laudable insofar as it leads you to the pursuit of higher things, there is no reason for it to necessitate you becoming a western meme Buddhist.

op you have to start with a synoptic history of buddhism or else you'll end up with idiot takes like or
read and take notes on don lopez's story of buddhism. Or better, go through and take notes on Jacoby and Mitchell's Buddhism: Introducting the Buddhist Experience.

Buddhism never had anything to do with Vedanta, and in fact arose in an area entirely outside the Hindu cultural sphere (see Bronkhorst's Greater Magadha book). It became the unifying imperial ideology of the Mauryas, and was then adopted by the Indo-Greeks left in the wake of Alexander the great, who further transmitted it to the central asian steppe nomads of the Kushan empire, who sent missionaries as far as Iran and China. What we think of today as the middle east was the Buddhist heartland for almost a thousand years. It then caught on in China, then Korea, Japan, etc. Better than just diving into primary texts with no context, you should get a feel for the historical scope and internal diversity within the Buddhist tradition. Then you'll see that the apophatic and spiritual-capitalist (mercantile Buddhism) strands of Buddhism present in the US are by no means some modern degradation, but instead very mainstream expressions of the religion that have historical correlates that extend over millennia.

Trips of truth, but in spite of that regardless of all the stereotypes, generalizations and despite whatever genuine flaws are present in western conceptions of Buddhism and despite how certain types of eastern Buddhism may have become degraded; if you are a truly brilliant individual none of this will get in your way and you can still study and gain benefits from Buddhist scriptures and philosophy and can benefit from practicing their teachings. Many people may be misguided by the form it takes in the west, but even under some of the most degenerated interpretations if they meditate regularly and try to not be egotistical/materialistic that's still better than being an agnostic/atheist who finds life's meaning in hedonism and entertainment. A bright individual can read through Buddhist literature of all schools and glean what's useful while rejecting certain dogmatic views or hangups or things that are mostly products of historical/cultural circumstance, and this is true both of Buddhists themselves and of people studying it from an outsiders perspective.

>that haphazardly syncretizes with everything it comes into contact with
Syncretism can be but is not always necessarily bad because sometimes it can stimulate intellectual and metaphysical insights in the process of comparison and assimilation. Hinduism itself involved a level of synthesis/assimilation over the centuries providing that whatever assimilated or synthesized was in alignment with the Vedas and Upanishads.

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>saying that US hippie crypto-materialists are not only acceptable but are part of the Buddhist tradition
Yikes!!!

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if you look at buddhism historically, if you take off your bifocals of nostalgia or orientalism, you will see that it has always functionally been a leech on the international merchant class. In fact that has been the key to its international success since its very inception. The way it has come to the states, in its effete, bourgeois, quasi-nihilistic form, is exactly how it was first received in China in the first centuries of the common era. Which isn't to say that the religion is reducible to that fact. But to think modern American buddhism is in any way unique is a position that can only be held under total historical ignorance. See Gregory Schopen's work for more on this.

this, don't listen to that shankara faggot he's in every buddhist thread shitposting about hinduism

OP all these people are assuming you will become a western meme stoner hippie "Buddhist" who thinks Buddhism and Hinduism are the same but that can be avoided if you read the primary texts and not the shitty American compilation books that are less than 100 years old
The primary texts don't require much historical context other than that everyone at the time was into Brahmanism and yogis thought they were enlightened because they could enter the formless jhanas
then Buddha came along and BTFO everyone
Read the Sutta Pitaka as listed in that chart and know that if anything contradicts those texts it is faux Buddhism

Op here. I have already read a great deal of texts from accesstoinsight, and have some basic knowledge of what I am getting into. I think that man's heart is filled with ill will towards Buddhism because he can't distinguish authentic yearning for spirituality and liberation with that of false spirituality and "stoner mentality".

this post demonstrates perfectly why you should read the history of Buddhism, OP. The one historical fact in the post
>everyone at the time was into Brahmanism and yogis thought they were enlightened because they could enter the formless jhanas

is completely wrong. It is a late-phase part of buddhist mythology concocted during the Gupta era when Buddhism and Hinduism were vying for imperial support so Buddhist doxographers wrote a history wherein Buddhism superseded Hinduism. This story is absolutely pervasive, and an improtant part of buddhist mythology, but it is also historically false.

Study the history of Buddhism or else you'll end up unwittingly imbibing one mythology or another.

Can you recommend some books on buddhist history? Preferably ones available on libgen or elsewhere online.

>12734665
To any Buddhists in the thread, can a person follow many Buddhist tenets without calling themselves "Buddhist"? I just don't personally agree with the notion of "religion", and it feels like a limiting label to place on myself. What if I agree with Buddhism in many regards, but feel differently in some ways too? I'd be misrepresenting Buddhism, then, if I called myself one. Is it okay to follow the lifestyle/philosophy without branding myself the title?

this was meant to be for OP/anyone, but i messed up the numbering

Never a point to stop reading suttas desu, you can learn much from rereading them
If you wanna go further, read those works by Nyanananda in that chart.

OP here. I too have trouble with some of Buddhist teachings, but one major point the Buddha taught is to never take his teachings at face value and always be willing to reject teachings that are not founded in truth and through personal experimentation. The only thing you have to take in faith in Buddhism is belief in the Buddha's awakening.

I will do so, but I am having difficulty finding the material online. I am rather poor, and cannot afford to buy books currently. I will have to wait to acquire some of these texts, it seems.

Of course its fine to follow the tenets of Buddhism without calling yourself Buddhist.

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seeingthroughthenet.net/books/
They are all available there for free

Thank you for the help, friend.

Westerners literally become buddhists to slut around. Are you a slut OP? Can I add you on facebook?

>>I will do so, but I am having difficulty finding the material online.
buddha-vacana.org/
accesstoinsight.org/
suttacentral.net/
obo.genaud.net/backmatter/indexes/sutta/sutta_toc.htm

Search Donald Lopez on libgen. His story of Buddhism and his From Stone to Flesh would be good, up to date introductions.

If you want to get more technical you can see Lars Fogelin's archeological history of Indian Buddhism, also on libgen. It is really archeology that is revolutionizing our understanding of the history of Buddhism.

You have all given me excellent responses and a plethora of material to peruse. I will dedicate my time to learning more about Buddhism and develop sila and samadhi until I obtain the noble fruits of stream entry. I vow to accomplish this. Thank you.

that's funny because Buddhism promotes sense restraint and avoidance of sensual indulgence

Happy to hear it! Good luck friend!
Also, I hope you saved that chart the other user posted.
All the works in it are consistent with the suttas with the exception of the Visuddhimagga, and the metta teaching in The Mind Illuminated (though the rest of the TMI book is good)

I have. I will use it thoroughly. Thank you again.

>In the east it is nothing but a corruption of Hinduism
Brainlet post^

Can the Buddhists here please give me their personal views on the superiority of Buddhism to Hinduism? Not trying to start a flame war, but as someone who was more familiar with Hinduism, and personally agreed with a few principal notions of it, why have you guys chosen Buddhism instead? Assuming you've read into Hinduism too. What are the major areas of distinction, wherein you feel the Buddhist conceptions excelled over the Hindu ones?

Can you also please tell me Buddha's/Buddhist thoughts on why Maya exists? And why suffering exists? Do Buddhists have their own answer to the "problem of evil"? If there are states of supreme bliss behind ourselves, attainable through proper meditation, why are there also such painful ones in front of us? What created this duality, why does it exist at all? Is it merely a feature of this realm in particular, and other realms have no pain in them? Did Buddha say this realm is made of our karma, and disappears once this karma is depleted? I find that really interesting, if I didn't just mess up that teaching. Basically, what are Buddhist metaphysical explanations for this world being what it is in the first place? Is there a notion of the world as having been "created", or has it always been? Is it simply ourselves, like that karma explanation, and disappears when all of us do? Why are we, the sentient beings here, here in the first place? Did we bring ourselves into these lives, and only by escaping Maya will we free ourselves from further births? What is the purpose of the individual, then? Is it to reach Enlightenment as soon as possible, or is that merely the eventual goal, and it's otherwise normal for them to be here and live out a worldly life? Is the nature of reincarnation explained at all, like the specific mechanisms which it follows?

Also, I find it funny to know that people like Shankaracharya may have written attempted refutations of formal Buddhist doctrines, but presumably couldn't have done any such thing for the supernatural claims made by the Buddha regarding other realms, beings, and so on. I wonder what he must have thought of that stuff. Do you guys personally believe in those Buddhist conceptions, of other realms and beings and the laws which govern ourselves in relation to them? Do you believe Buddha had real knowledge of these areas? Have Buddhists following him been able to access any such metaphysical insights, and teach of them? If so, again, how do you personally deal with the information? Do you guys believe in Shambhalla? Sorry if these are silly questions. (1/2)

t. seething boomer Hippie

I'm that pseudoAdvaita-user by the way. I've decided that instead of going on about >muh book that teaches muh nondualist states to people, I should first read what real masters have to say on these matters, who I'm sure know far more than me. It just previously felt nice to be exploring my consciousness through my own introspection, without external aids, because it made me feel nice knowing that even if I never had access to these traditions and their insights, that I could still learn things on my own. If circumstance had forever prevented me from reading into these scriptures (ex. they were destroyed, etc), it was comforting knowing that we can still learn of our own natures simply through our own selves. But I don't want to proceed further on my own now, I'm going to try to read into Hinduism and Buddhism properly, see what all they have to say, and follow their practises as well. This is what I'll be spending my future time doing. (2/2)

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bump for my Buddhistbros

Buddhism is an extremely diverse tradition for which no simple answer to any of those questions could possibly be exhaustive. You could select, for example, chandrakirti's presentation of maya, but that would differ significantly, from, say, Dogen's or Tsongkhapa's. So you have to be more specific in these questions to get an answer of any value. "What the Buddha actually thought," despite some theravada insistence that they possess the original, pristine truth (an idea they pulled from Protestantism in the 19th century, see Prother's White Buddhist), is entirely unavailable to us, so what we have are different people's presentations of the buddha dharma throughout history, presentations that cast a wide net ontologically, epistemologically, aesthetically, etc. etc.

For an entree into the relationship between Hinduism and Buddhism, you should really read the short article from Buswell's Encyclopedia of Buddhism (it's on libgen), p.328-332. But be warned the relationship between the religions, as scholars currently understand, is far, far from the conventional mytho-history you've probably heard, the one I see repeatedly, uncritically parroted on this board. For example,

>Systematic Vedanta philosophy, whose earliest surviving texts date from the middle of the first millennium C.E., owes so much to Buddhist influence that one
chapter of the A gamas´astra of Gaudapada—supposedly
the teacher of the teacher of the famous Vedantin
S
´an˙ kara (ca. 700 C.E.)—is to all intents and purposes a
Buddhist text. S´an˙ kara himself has been accused of being a pseudo-Buddhist, which shows that some of his
early Hindu opponents did not fail to see the extent to
which Buddhist influence is recognizable in his work.

hindus are normies who could not drop the word self even after they got good at samadhi, to the point that they invented the cosomological self after they saw that they could not salvage the personal self (which is just personal tastes) since in samadhi there is too much equanimity to have tastes for the 5 or 6 senses

>hindus are normies
Stopped reading there

>hindus are normies
made me chuckle

Ok I've never been a Hindu or even tried to get into it but I am Buddhist and I will try my best to answer your questions.
>Why have you guys chosen Buddhism instead?
Buddhism attracted me because of how incredibly pragmatic it is. It isn't abstractions or theoretical shit to make you feel good. Buddhism contains the most comprehensive system of practices to essentially purify your mind, reduce and eventually end your suffering, and to greatly help the suffering of others. There is ritual but its place in the path is extremely insignificant in comparison to the actual practice.
>Buddha's thoughts on why Maya exists? Why suffering exists? Why are there pleasurable and painful states?
Suffering exists when there is attachment and clinging. Pleasure and pain happen when there is contact with pleasurable and displeasurable forms.
>Do other realms have no pain?
The deva realms are missing most of the pain that humans deal with. The only pains of the devas are old age and death. Deva lives are not desirable, however, because they are impermanent and once the good kamma that led to the deva birth is exhausted (from a long lifetime of indulgence in endless pleasures in the deva realms) beings are born again in the lower realms, to suffer for eons again until they are lucky enough to produce the karma necessary for another deva birth. According to Buddhism, we have both been born as devas countless times, and as animals, hungry ghosts...etc even more times.
>Did Buddha say this realm is made of our karma, and disappears once this karma is depleted?
As far as I understand, kamma is tied up with becoming. Craving, ignorance and delusion fuel becoming, and kamma determines the quality of that becoming. Past kamma is burnt off continually, while new kamma is produced endlessly (in those who have not realized Nibbana). Kamma is only burnt off completely when an Arahant dies (an Arahant's physical existence still lives and operates like normal after Nibbana because their kamma is still being exhausted until the end of their life, and during the rest of their life they produce no more new kamma) For this topic I would recommend the book From The Wheel of Kamma to the Wheel of Dhamma:
seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Wheel-of-kamma-to-wheel-of-Dhamma-Rev-0_9.pdf
>Why did exist begin...etc etc
Buddha said the question of the beginning of Samsara is unanswerable, as it has no identifiable beginning or end. It just goes on infinitely. He compares refusing to escape Samsara until you've learned the reason for it, to refusing to remove a poisoned arrow from your leg until you've discovered who shot it.
accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.063.than.html
(1)

Whether the self exists or not is a dualistic argument anyway

>What is the goal?
The goal is to realize Nibbana, to end future becoming. It is possible for all beings IIRC to realize Nibbana in this lifetime. Canonically lay people can be Stream enterers, once-returners, and non-returners. Once you attain stream-entry, you're pretty much golden in Buddhism. Only have 7 more rebirths MAXIMUM before you realize final Nibbana and end the cycle of rebirth.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_enlightenment
>Is the nature of reincarnation explained at all?
First off it is not reincarnation, it is just continued births. Aggregates remain clung to, the fuel for becoming is still there, and birth continues to happen. There is a direct continuity from one birth to the next, though. The kamma one produces in one life are the seeds for the next one. Kamma afaik is also closely related to one's mind. Bad actions produce bad kamma and a deluded, dark mind which reappears in lower realms. The opposite is the case for good actions. If you'd like to learn more about "what continues to be born" and other questions of that nature, I recommend Nibbana and the Fire Simile: seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/nibbana_and_the_fire_simile.pdf
>Do you personally believe in the Buddha's metaphysical claims?
I don't think the Buddha was lying, but obviously it is impossible for me to say for sure what the case was one way or another.
>Have Buddhists been able to access such metaphysical insights?
Yes, someone who has mastered the fourth rupa jhana can practice developing siddhis, sort of "supernatural" powers, like the ability to recollect ones manifold past lives. These practices are detailed in the Visuddhimagga. I have not personally experienced these before, as I have not even experienced second jhana, and have only briefly experienced the first one possibly once. I have also not met someone IRL with these powers, or anyone who claims to have them, but there is lots of stuff on this online.
>Shambhalla?
Nothing in the suttas that I know of that references this, so I've never bothered to try and learn about it in relation to Buddhism.

And again these explanations I've given are a really bad substitution for reading the suttas. All your questions can pretty much be satisfied (in an infinitely better way than my answers ever could) after a read-through of the Majjhima Nikaya, or probably any of the Nikayas desu. Also check out the works on the right column of the chart the other user posted earlier in the thread.

The first post in the thread was a false-flag post by some autist, nobody actually thinks Buddhism is Vedanta. People resort to false-flagging when they are butt-hurt but lose arguments on the facts. You can find the same paragraph from months ago on warosu, but he changed it to make it seem like someone was shilling Vedanta.
>Greater Ghandara hypothesis
This is still a somewhat fringe view and is not widely accepted by experts on the era. I have not read it but intend to, I have glanced through some papers by other experts criticizing it though and some of their points seemed pretty damning, but I'll have to wait and see for myself.

It's not true that Buddhism has no relation to Vedanta, the word itself has two meaning, it can refer to both the early Upanishads and the formal Vedanta schools of the 1st mill. AD, under both of these meanings there was a connection. In the pre-Buddhist Upanishads from the 9th-7th century BC one already finds much of the concepts and doctrines which later appear in Buddhism like the view of normal life being characterized by suffering, the doctrine of Maya/Samsara, the idea that mind is something to be overcome/transcended, that the mind cannot logically grasp the Absolute, rebirth/transmigration and liberation, ascetic monastic existence is enjoined, that the ego/conventional self is to be overcome, that reality/truth is beyond phenomenal existence. The list goes on and on. Those are the earliest textual examples of those idea we know of. If Buddha didn't exactly hear them being recited he likely came into contact with people teaching versions of those ideas and was influenced by them. Once the formal Vedanta schools developed there was contact and debate between them and Buddhists also. The Japanese scholar of Hinduism/Buddhism Hajime Nakamura was of the opinion that some of the 1st mill. AD Mahayana texts took some inspiration or ideas from Vedanta but the influence if it did occur seems to have been much less then the first case, which of course we don't know for a fact but which the evidence strongly points to.

>Brahmanism and yogis thought they were enlightened because they could enter the formless jhanas
then Buddha came along and BTFO everyone
He didn't though, the views of the priests he is mentioned as disputing in the PC don't resemble the ideas of the early Upanishads at all

accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.063.than.html

seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/nibbana_and_the_fire_simile.pdf

seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Wheel-of-kamma-to-wheel-of-Dhamma-Rev-0_9.pdf

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_enlightenment
These should help with a bunch of your questions

This as well
seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/The-End-of-The-World.pdf

the main distinction is hinduism still has views of self/soul/atta/atman which are a basis for clinging & thus lead to suffering, as well as conceit, pride, possessiveness, selfishness & so on

i like to make the connection often that the view of self is necessarily tied up with being selfish.

plus hinduism relies on a lot of ritualism disconnected from wholesome psychoethical realities, buddhism on the other hand rejects any rituals disconnected from such things

hinduism relies on many philosophical conceptualizations & is often internally contradictory in that regard, for example dualism vs nondualism, monism vs pluralism etc...buddhism avoids all of these by analyzing the source from which they come, i.e. desire & thinking, sense-data etc, & views reality empirically in terms of what arises & ceases here & now

thus buddhism is experientially verifiable whereas hinduism is not

also it's noteworthy that hinduism has heavily borrowed from buddhism

Buddhist threads are among the comfiest on Yea Forums. Thank you, Buddhistbros

...

I'm reading this right now. Is this book misleading if I want to learn about Buddhism? What are your gripes with it if so.

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It's good if you're looking for a Western secularist to validate stuff from Buddhism for you.
If you wanna learn about Buddhism, read the primary texts in the same way that'd you'd read the Bible to learn about Christianity

Weedanon from last thread here. Glad to see threads popping up. Currently reading on the eightfold path in order to get some virtue going.

I read about the jhanas after I finished right concentration. I recommend it too if you're curious as to what to be reading next.

Hey OP for Buddhist history, I recommend the works of AK Warder, David Kalupahana and TW Rhys Davids (especially the book Buddhist India:
archive.org/details/buddhistindia029349mbp/page/n8 )
They are non-sectarian early Buddhist historians.
I would be cautious with Donald Lopez, as he is not actually a historian and has Mahayana bias as well.

Hey OP for Buddhist history, I recommend the works of AK Warder, David Kalupahana and TW Rhys Davids (especially the book Buddhist India:
archive.org/details/buddhistindia029349mbp/page/n8 )
They are non-sectarian early Buddhism historians.
I would be cautious with Donald Lopez, as he is not actually a historian and has Mahayana bias as well.

thanks

what do you think the Greater Gandhara hypothesis is, user?

I'm starting with majihima nikaya.
I was actually thinking of learning a part of a sutra in some language, but for now is this.
I hope I get to read it smoothly - the phd exams are coming up again and I'll be reading Ricoeur, Gademer and whatnot until the end of April.

>then Buddha came along and BTFO'd everyone
Was he really this based? Did he really outshine all the mystics before him?

It was an exaggeration that "everyone" was into Brahmanism, but yeah he was pretty based and outshined his teachers, whose teachings he felt weren't enough/didn't lead to the end of suffering.

Here is a sutta where a lay follower of Mahavira of the Jains is converted by the Buddha
suttacentral.net/an8.12/en/bodhi
And here is one where a lay follower of the Buddha basically trolls Mahavira himself
suttacentral.net/sn41.8/en/sujato

Someone else had responded to this user, answering each of their questions with the Buddhist perspective. It mentioned that Samsara is infinite in duration, that Devas in the Deva realms still suffer aging, and other points. Where has it disappeared? Did it get deleted? Yet I see no sign of deletion. I was still contemplating what it spoke of, and now it's seemingly gone.

This one is quite amusing too, Mahavira sends one of his favourite lay followers to go debate the Buddha in order to convert him to Jainism, and Buddha converts the layman instead.
Then, Mahavira finds that the layman is converted, and flips out and accuses the Buddha of unfairly using his powers of "conversion magic."

suttacentral.net/mn56/en/sujato
forgot the link

My apologies, it was me who posted that and deleted them. I felt like my explanations were not good enough and removed them, and instead sent links on proper reading on those subjects

Where do we go after Nirvana? I understand there is no more rebirth, but where exactly do we "go"? Are we still here in this space? Do we still have vision, and hear sound, and so on? Also, after reaching Nirvana, is it possible to take birth again? Perhaps by desiring to again? Can a person, after rising out of Samsara, descend into it again? Is it possible that we've been enlightened before, perhaps innumerable times, and reaching Nirvana now would not be our first time doing so?

Is Buddha the most based of all Eastern teachers? Do any schools go against him? This might sound dumb, but presumably he's the one that all Buddhist sects follow, right? So they all follow him, but each has slightly veered from his direct teachings? Yet they all still revere him the highest?

How do you guys detach from your family and friends, and your most cherished memories? Materialistic things is one thing, but how does one detach from our sentimental possessions? It seems too painful a path...

Where does a fire go when it has burnt out? Asking this is the same as asking where an Arahant goes after realizing Nibbana. The reality was there was no Arahant to go anywhere in the first place, and this reality was realized.
It is not possible to end up in Samsara again after realizing Nibbana. It is important to know that in Buddhism, merely existing in Samsara is considered delusional. The only true reality is Nibbana.
It is not possible that we have realized Nibbana before, because if that were the case, the conditions required for arising would not be there.
I highly recommend you read Nibbana and the Fire Simile:
seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/nibbana_and_the_fire_simile.pdf
This book is all about precisely what you are asking about, and is fairly short.
I personally think Buddha is the most based of the Eastern teachers, and I guarantee you that you will get different answers from a Hindu or Vedantist. He is the one that all Buddhist sects follow, yes. To be generous to the various sects, I would say they have formed due to different INTERPRETATIONS of the original teachings found in the Pali Canon. The sects are built off of additional texts and material which are elaborations on the Pali Canon based on their particular interpretations of it. This is why it is pretty clear that to get the most authentic form of Buddhism, it is wisest to go to the Pali Canon, the earliest primary texts.
How do you detach from your family/friends/cherished memories/sentimental possessions?
Here we are touching upon a very common misinterpretation of Buddhism that often scares people off. Detachment is not renunciation. It is a very subtle process that occurs with wisdom. You don't drop everything and become a monk/ascetic, that is probably counter-productive if anything. Detachment is a product of insight, brought about primarily by insight meditation: it is not a manual thing where you say "I am not going to bother with the things I love from this day forward." It is a natural process. FYI, sensual desire and ill will are not completely eliminated until one has become a Non-Returner. Sotapannas and Sakadagamis still have desires and even ill will. You can still be a layman and reach the first 3 stages of Awakening. A sotapanna has even caught a glimpse at Nibbana at the moment of fruition.
Basically, you can take it easy, and only do the best you can, a little bit at a time. There is no need to give up things that are hard to give up (unless it is inherently unwholesome, like drug addiction or constant sensual indulgence, or criminality or something). Lay people with families can be great Buddhists, and Citta the Householder as known in the suttas is like a sort of patron saint of Buddhism: someone to emulate.

“Just as, bhikkhus, the great ocean slants, slopes, and inclines gradually, not dropping off abruptly, so too, in this Dhamma and discipline penetration to final knowledge occurs by gradual training, gradual activity, and gradual practice, not abruptly."

AN 8.20

“Leaving aside Master Gotama, the monks, the nuns, and the celibate laymen, is there even a single layman disciple of Master Gotama—white-clothed, enjoying sensual pleasures, following instructions, and responding to advice—who has gone beyond doubt, got rid of indecision, and lives self-assured and independent of others regarding the Teacher’s instruction?” “There are not just one hundred such laymen enjoying sensual pleasures who are my disciples, Vaccha, or two or three or four or five hundred, but many more than that.”

MN 73
Just remember that sensual pleasure does not lead to lasting happiness and satisfaction, and that it is inherently delusional, and you're good. You'll give things up when you actually feel comfortable giving things up.

The Buddha also promotes filial piety
I tell you, monks, there are two people who are not easy to repay. Which two? Your mother & father. Even if you were to carry your mother on one shoulder & your father on the other shoulder for 100 years, and were to look after them by anointing, massaging, bathing, & rubbing their limbs, and they were to defecate & urinate right there [on your shoulders], you would not in that way pay or repay your parents. If you were to establish your mother & father in absolute sovereignty over this great earth, abounding in the seven treasures, you would not in that way pay or repay your parents. Why is that? Mother & father do much for their children. They care for them, they nourish them, they introduce them to this world. But anyone who rouses his unbelieving mother & father, settles & establishes them in conviction; rouses his unvirtuous mother & father, settles & establishes them in virtue; rouses his stingy mother & father, settles & establishes them in generosity; rouses his foolish mother & father, settles & establishes them in discernment: To this extent one pays & repays one's mother & father."
AN 2

There are many suttas directed specifically towards lay followers, on how to live a good life, how to treat your family and friends well...etc

Potentially a bit off-topic, but does anyone have any recommendations for learning about Zen?

What was that which you just said about me, my friend? I think you ought to know that I have completed my time as a novice-monk, and I've passed through the Gateless Gate, and I've lived for over 300 cycles of rebirth. I am trained in anapanasati and I'm the most senior bhikkhuni in my local sangha. You are nothing to me but just another human being worthy of dignity and respect. I will have compassion upon you with loving-kindness the likes of which has never been seen before in the Cycle of Samsara - you would do well to remember these words. Do you believe that you can say these things and still escape the principle of dependent origination? Perhaps you should reexamine those beliefs, brother. As we speak I am contemplating the importance of accepting your words with detachment and equanimity, so, without malice, I advise you to prepare for the storm, young one. The storm of suffering that afflicts all living creatures in this world. You are trapped in a cycle of death and rebirth, child. Not only am I extensively trained in the Mahayana Tripitaka, but I have access to the entire Pali canon as well, and I will use its teachings to their full extent to help alleviate the suffering within you which causes you to say hurtful things about others. You could reach Nirvana anywhere, any time, and I can help you achieve enlightenment in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with the study of Koan. If only you could understand what evil karma these words of yours would sow, perhaps you would have had the wisdom to keep silent. Nevertheless, this was beyond what you have been prepared for, and so I promise that I will do my best to ease the suffering that you have brought upon yourself. I will teach you the path of the Bodhisattva and you will revel in it. Your suffering may yet reach its end, child.

BASED

I figure this is as good of a thread as any to ask this:
why do they call it TRANSCENDENTAL meditation if you don’t really transcend? all that happens is your mind gets cleared... Can a meditation pro comment on this?

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Yea uhhh AFAIK "transcendental meditation" is a scam started in the 60s by Maharishi to make that hippie money of the westerners who wanted to get into spirituality after dropping acid.
I'm pretty sure it's just standard vedic mantra meditation but with a price tag.
Not related to Buddhism in the slightest

I used to be into Hinduism, but reading this thread makes me think Buddhism is simply a better version of it...going to try to locate a Sangha near me. Also is it true that Chinese Buddhism is an improvement of Indian Buddhism? I heard something like that once.

How did Buddha, or other teachers, manage to teach of Nibbana before reaching it? Once one has reached it, one can't teach anymore can you? Aren't "you" dissolved at that point? How then, could they have known of its nature, and expounded on it?

I mean, every sect aspires to be the "real teachings of the historical Buddha" so if I were you I'd just practice what the Buddha said to do in the earliest texts (Pali Canon)

The Arahant's aggregates are still visible to others after the realization of Nibbana until they die.
Read Nibbana and the Fire Simile for more on "where the Arahant goes" and what happens to the Arahant upon realization:
seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/nibbana_and_the_fire_simile.pdf
If you're suggesting that an Arahant does nothing after realization and it makes no sense that they have "desire" to teach others, that would be wrong. Compassion is unrelated to craving/clinging/attachment and is present without them.

OH and it seems you might be suggesting that Nibbana is only reached after the death of the Arahant, but that is a very common misconception and is not actually the case. Nibbana is realized in its entirety during the Arahant's life. Again, Nibbana and the Fire Simile is about this topic precisely.

Which of the collections of discourses should I start with?

A couple others in this thread have decided to start with Majjhima Nikaya and I think that is a good one.
There is also In The Buddha's Words, if you want an anthology of suttas.

oh ok. I’ve seen TM recommended here on Yea Forums before a couple times so I thought id ask. what’s wrong with Maharishi? I don’t live too far from their hq in iowa.

Maharishi was a guru type trying to make money.
In Buddhism, monks will train lay people in meditation for free on retreats (and much more solid practices IMO, like training in jhana or in satipatthana).

Maharishi was simply a celebrity guru. Just do breath meditation bud.

I love you user. Thank you for writing this all out. You are tremendously kind for doing so.

Thank you so much guys, for your responses. I have cheekily been asking many questions in this thread, in different and seemingly disconnected comments. My writing style should give me away though. You've given me so many resources to look into, and I need to now sort through this all and create a paper document which organizes all these texts and traditions so I can better comprehend it all. I still have so many more questions, to be honest. I still don't understand why suffering exists in the first place, or why the physical body exists if we have higher, subtler bodies beyond it which we enter after death. I don't understand why suffering seems to be such a cosmological law to reality, with apparently all realms still having suffering in them. Why do any of these unpleasant realities have to exist? Is there really no realm where aging does not exist, and where we can be immortal in our outward forms, enjoying an eternal paradise? Buddhism seemingly explains realities, but so far I've never heard explanations for the causes behind them. Are we, the ones in this plane, being punished for sins from previous lifetimes? And all animals are presumably where they are because they similarly karmically deserve to be there? Is there no realm which lets us simply live out our dreams, endlessly?

Also, extinguishing oneself completely and permanently seems like the scariest concept ever to me. To never be able to be a person again...that's just too haunting to think about. Even though I personally feel like I've understood some basic grasp of the identification-function and how it creates an illusory "self", and believe I've managed to see outside this illusion to some degree, the concept of extinguishing "me" completely is extremely terrifying. I still want to be a person. I probably misunderstand many of these Buddhist concepts still, I'm sorry. I don't seem to have any Sangha near me either, sadly.

But anyways you guys are probably the comfiest and kindest posters on Yea Forums, these threads are something I'll always look forward to for however much longer I'm on here. I wish they were more frequent. But regardless, I've saved your charts, comments, and links, and my next step is to actually explore these resources in detail. I thank you guys a lot. I hope Yea Forums always benefits from your presence on it. From here on, my task is simply to dive into whatever you've introduced me to, and I'll be spending my future days doing so.

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Check out Acem instead, it's the methods of TM but shorn of any money-grubbing aspects and the specific religious content

acem.com/

There are more secular forms of it out there. Benson's Relaxation Revolution hits at some of the same things. I know people who strongly prefer the TM/acem method (but not the TM institution itself) to simple mindfulness meditation or breathing meditation, though some breathing meditation is clearly aiming at the same outcome in some cases. You can do both, of course.

This put a huge smile on my face.
Honestly, this is just as beneficial for me to type it all out and share advice as it is for you to recieve it. Few things (probably no things) are as rewarding as sharing the Dhamma.
I am happy to do so.

>Also, extinguishing oneself completely and permanently seems like the scariest concept ever to me.
This right here is why I don't get how so many people see buddhism as a joyful philosophy when compared to others.
I'm leading a not so good life and what I see ahead of me and it's terrifying. A spiral down filled with bad karma until I finally to extinguish myself? No, thank you.

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Alright user, I don't know if you've left yet but I will try to answer these new questions as best I can, as I feel more confident about answering these directly.
>Why does suffering exist in the first place?
It occurs because of craving/clinging/attachment/ignorance. If you are wondering about how Samsara begun, or when it begun, the Buddha said such questions are unanswerable, and refusing to follow the path to the cessation of suffering until you find out how this all begun, is like refusing to take a poisoned arrow out of you until you found out who shot it.
accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.063.than.html
>Higher, subtler bodies we enter into after death
There is no such thing. To put it simply, rebirth is based around kamma, and kamma coincides with the conditioning of the mind. When unwholesome actions are done, the mind is conditioned to unwholesomeness, and it will be prone to unwholesomeness in the future. Unwholesomeness leads to intense suffering: this is evident in the fact that most gangsters and criminals are mentally ill and find that they need to take intoxicants all the time to operate. Wholesome actions condition the mind towards wholesome mind states. This is evident in the joy, calm and happiness one can observe in the lives of the most charitable, kind, simple folk they meet. Through kamma, actions condition the mind, and the manner in which the mind will exist in the future. This process happens moment-to-moment, here & now. Sensations arise, pass away, arise, pass away, according to previous conditioning. One can say the mind is being born and dying over and over with each moment, in the arising and passing away of every momentary experience. The different realms of existence from the hell realms, to the hungry ghost realms, animal realms, human realms, and deva realms can be represented by mind states here & now. As the Dhammapada says: "mind is the forerunner of all things," and the experience of a mind depends on its conditioning. A person who is a slave to their immediate instincts and impulses has a mind with similar conditioning to an animal, and so their mind (due to this conditioning) arises and falls into and from animalistic states. A wild killer who hates the world is conditioned to live a hellish existence, because the mind is conditioned to arise and fall into and from hellish states. In this way, the mind's rising and falling continues after death, according to conditioning. A mind conditioned to unwholesome and animalistic states will arise as an animal after death. A mind conditioned to wholesomeness, joy, loving-kindness and other heavenly attributes will arise as a heavenly being (deva) after death. The mind arises and ceases with every moment. Mind is the forerunner of all things.

Can anyone become skillful at meditation? Are some people genetically less-capable of it, such as ADHD sufferers?

Kamma does not work in a manner of "I did bad things therefore I am destined for hell in the next life." You can change the tracks and develop positive kamma. Kamma is not deterministic. I suggest you read this sutta on this very topic:
accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn42/sn42.008.than.html
Also, about fear of non-existence, if it helps, the Buddha refused to say whether Nibbana was existence or non-existence. If you are afraid of escaping the cycle of rebirth, I am afraid to say that you probably still think that life and existence are capable of providing lasting satisfaction, lasting happiness, satisfaction and happiness that do not decay. All I will say, is that the Buddha taught the truth of suffering, and the path to the cessation of suffering.

Yes anyone can become skilled at meditation, the only thing outside of the actual meditation practice that can serve as a hindrance is bad sila. If you do not have strong virtue+morality, your mind will be too chaotic to ever reach any significant states of meditation. This is why there is the saying "sila before samadhi."

OP here. I am schizoaffective, and I have great difficulties meditating, but I continue nonetheless, even if it's just for ten minutes a day. Sometimes that's all I can do. But I keep up the pace and never stop. Stopping means stagnation.

Also, losing fetters like self-view and progressing towards Nibbana is a pleasant process. It is not some dark destruction of the individual. It leads to less suffering, more calm, joy and equanimity. This is evident immediately if you ever meet any accomplished monks. They are very happy, peaceful people.
And reminder that self-view is in fact a delusion. You are extinguishing a delusion: one that causes lots of unnecessary suffering to boot. I personally agree with the saying "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be," especially in cases like these. By not realizing the truth of anatta, you are willingly living according to something that is false.

In that case I would seek help from a teacher, especially one who has experience with these sorts of things. I've read online about a fellow named Tucker Peck, a clinical psychologist who also teaches meditation in an early Buddhist context. He is part of a western "pragmatic dharma" movement, but despite that I think he would be a solid resource for someone in your case.

I appreciate the response. When I said "suffering" in the first question, I was moreso referring to physical pain, for example, and why it ontologically (I hope that's the right word) exists in the first place. I can understand other forms, like unobtained desires, emotional trauma, unrequited love, and the rest as being caused by our own actions and also as meaningful, but I can't understand how samadhi and physical pain can coexist as a duality in this world of ours. I asked earlier whether it's due to bad karma on our part, and that all of us here "deserve" to experience pain in order to balance our past karma? When Buddhism speaks of suffering or "dukkha", does it only include desires and other self-caused sufferings? Not physical pain, or other seemingly unavoidable and unintended kinds? If so, why does it not include the latter?

Regarding subtle bodies, are those not the bodies which we continue on in after death? Buddhism speaks of realities like "astral travel, if I'm not mistaken, under the classification of "siddhis".

You've explained the rest quite well, and I think I understand that. My questions mainly extend to the "why" of what is here already, specifically physical pain, or Samsara as well (not asking how or when it came to be, but "why" it even exists, though that may similarly be as pointless to ask as the other questions you addressed). But maybe these questions simply aren't answerable, or haven't been answered yet. Thanks for answering regardless. :-)

This might sound wild but it is possible to experience pain and not suffer. Someone with a completely equanimous mind, not averse to any sensations can experience pain as merely "sensations" without suffering from it.
Regarding dukkha, this may help:
>Within the Buddhist sutras, dukkha is divided in three categories:

>Dukkha-dukkha, the dukkha of painful experiences. This includes the physical and mental sufferings of birth, aging, illness, dying; distress from what is not desirable.
>Viparinama-dukkha, the dukkha of pleasant or happy experiences changing to unpleasant when the causes and conditions that produced the pleasant experiences cease.
>Sankhara-dukkha, the dukkha of conditioned experience. This includes "a basic unsatisfactoriness pervading all existence, all forms of life, because all forms of life are changing, impermanent and without any inner core or substance."[web 1] On this level, the term indicates a lack of satisfaction, a sense that things never measure up to our expectations or standards.
Regarding the astral travel with the siddhis and the mind-created bodies, those are not the "soul" or the "real spiritual body" or something, they are just mind-made phenomena, used to explore a mind-made reality. These bodies do not continue after death. Siddhis in general are fairly unimportant actually. The only one that can be useful is recollection of past lives, as it allows beings to see how they are where they are according to their actions and kamma.

Also, nibbana occurs as a realization, i.e. it's realizing voidness, here & now, abandoning the conceit that one exists. That is very different from existing and then being destroyed.
There is also the simile of the whirlpool inside the great ocean. Beings are essentially like the whirlpool, thinking they exist as separate, that there is a separate self there from the ocean, when in fact that is not the case and they are just a part of the great ocean.
Again, this is EXACTLY what Nibbana and the Fire Simile touches upon, which I have linked in this thread multiple times now.

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Also the very fact that you are afraid of being destroyed is part of the suffering Buddhism seeks to overcome and there is no way to do so as long as one still conceives of oneself as existing and desires such, what arises will cease, you will eventually die, you're only holding onto pain

And as for the nature of pleasure and pain, here is a perfect book on exactly that topic:
seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/The-Miracle-of-Contact_Rev-0_6.pdf
I really think this will clear a lot of things up for you about how pleasure and pain work and how they relate to the mind, how they arise. That is what that book is all about, and it is very short like the other works I have linked in this thread.

9/10, good intuition as well

>Systematic Vedanta philosophy, whose earliest surviving texts date from the middle of the first millennium C.E., owes so much to Buddhist influence
It really doesn't at all, the most important texts in Vedanta are the Upanishads, of which the pre-Buddhist ones (which are the largest) are considered the most important, they critique Buddhism a lot in their writings and everything in Vedanta that people usually ascribe to Buddhist influence can be found in pre-Buddhist Hindu texts.

>A gamas´astra of Gaudapada ... is to all intents and purposes a Buddhist text
Have you read Gaudapada's Mandukya Karika or the 4th chapter that quote is talking about user? I have, it's not at all what that author says. Scholars who are actually familiar with Vedanta and the early Upanishads generally consider this view to be completely absurd, and for good reason. Gaudapada spends the first 3 quarters of the text establishing the doctrine of Advaita on logic, epistemology and through citations of the early Upanishads, it's totally at odds with Buddhism. He criticizes Buddhist doctrine by name throughout the text and displays an intimate knowledge of it which he deploys to mostly attack it. In the chapter in question that your quote mentions he spends most of it directly refuting the doctrines of various Buddhist schools at the time, on certain occasions in the text he says that he agrees with them on one thing, or partially on one thing, but whenever he does that it is about things that he already pointed out that the Upanishads teach (and he quotes the exact passages that do so, almost all of them pre-Buddhist). The last line of the entire text is literally him mentioning that Buddha never taught something important mentioned earlier, capping off a chapter that mostly refutes Buddhist ideas. The reason he takes so much time to refute them is that in the ~500 AD range he composed it Buddhism was still very widespread in India and so it was the natural target of someone seeking to defend and restore the tradition of the Upanishads.

>Shankara himself has been accused of being a pseudo-Buddhist, which shows that some of his early Hindu opponents did not fail to see the extent to
which Buddhist influence is recognizable in his work.
Again, anyone who is actually familiar with Shankara's works could tell you this is complete nonsense, he attacks Buddhism fairly often and scrupulously sources his ideas from the Upanishads. Various Hindu thinkers called him that to support their own personal disagreements with Shankara's ideas, but in every case the things that they call psuedo-Buddhist appear in the pre-Buddhist Upanishads, which is where Shankara sources them from in his writings. Bhaskara was the first to call him that, and did so to attack Shankara's promotion of monasticism and the rejection of ritual/householder life because Bhaskara taught the conjuction of Upanishadic teachings with those things. This point is moot because the earliest Upanishads say that renunciation and monastic/asectic existence should be pursued and are the higher path. Ramanuja was the other major person who called Shankara that, he did so because he was trying to defend his idea of a personal and quality/attribute-containing Brahman by attacking Shankara's conception of the attributeless Nirguna Brahman as the supreme being by implying it was too much like Nirvana. But this point is also moot because the earliest Upanishads negate all phenomena and describe Brahman as beyond them, formless, unconditioned etc. Next time try actually looking into the details of these claims before repeating them mindlessley.

albigen.com/uarelove/most_rapid/contents.htm

thanks friends, cheers.

For general meditation practice, the books in the chart near the top of the thread are very very good.

genuinely /comfy/ thread, a rarity on nu-lit

Are Western books on Buddhism generally to be avoided? Are there any specific ones that are acceptable?

terrific

Can one be Buddhist and still have a girlfriend?

The Mind Illuminated and Right Concentration are good for meditation.
For Buddhist theory and philosophy, there is literally no reason to read Western works instead of the primary sources, or works of monks (to supplement the primary texts).

Yes. There are suttas directed to laypeople regarding how to ideally treat their wives and children, and even on how to reunite with your partner in the next life (hint: you have to practice dhamma together).

“Leaving aside Master Gotama, the monks, the nuns, and the celibate laymen, is there even a single layman disciple of Master Gotama—white-clothed, enjoying sensual pleasures, following instructions, and responding to advice—who has gone beyond doubt, got rid of indecision, and lives self-assured and independent of others regarding the Teacher’s instruction?” “There are not just one hundred such laymen enjoying sensual pleasures who are my disciples, Vaccha, or two or three or four or five hundred, but many more than that.”

MN 73

Can I be a Buddhist Christian?

You won't be a Buddhist but the practices of virtue in Buddhism are good for anyone

Jesus was a buddhist monk from India who was traveling west to spread his teachings. He was adopted by Joseph as an apprentice which is why Mary is his "Virgin Mother". It's safe to say that there's nothing wrong with being Christian and practicing Buddhism as long as you ignore the Jewish parts of the Bible.

During his adulthood, he made a detour to Mecca and married Fatima on the spot. He got shat on for defying the arabian gods and corrupting the youth, fleeing back to Jerusalem.

would you mind telling me how meditation has affected your life personally, if that’s okay to ask?

What are some good sanghas in NYC?

I basically never get angry, it quite literally feels like my senses have been enhanced, colours are more vibrant, smells are richer...etc. I have way less anxiety than before. I now consistently uplift my family, and I am always a boost for them, whereas before I was a drain on their mood. I am generally much happier in day to day life. And I haven't even reached any significant meditative attainments yet (ie stream-entry, or even jhana).

>There is no dharma but Dharma, and the eight fold path is last and final path to Nibbana

I also seem to have unlimited patience, and great compassion for everyone, even when people screw up, in the way that there is the sense that "I see no error made which I could not have made Myself’ *
(i.e. given the same amount of delusion)"

>the main distinction is hinduism still has views of self/soul/atta/atman which are a basis for clinging & thus lead to suffering, as well as conceit, pride, possessiveness, selfishness & so on
The problem here is that Buddhists usually equate Atman with the ego or personal self when that's not how the Upanishads describe it at all, one of the most influential schools of Vedanta, Advaita; regards Atma as something which is supra-individual, and holds that the illusion of ego and individuality have to be overcome, they say almost the same thing (as do the early Upanishads) mentioned here that the Suttas say about realizing there is no individuality and that you are just part of the great ocean. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad from some 400-300 years before Buddha says "An ocean, a single seer without duality becomes he whose world is Brahman". The lessons that Advaita teaches about Atma have nothing to do with causing clinging, suffering, pride and so on. The second most influential school after Advaita, Vishishtadvaita; teaches a slightly watered down and more devotional version of almost the same thing. These two schools are basically the most dominant and influential forms of Hindu thought post 8th-century, and the source of their ideas was in Hinduism before Buddhism existed.

>plus hinduism relies on a lot of ritualism disconnected from wholesome psychoethical realities, buddhism on the other hand rejects any rituals disconnected from such things
Mahayana is the largest Buddhist denomination in numbers and is full of rituals and one occasionally finds them at Theravada temples as well, you are promoting an unrealistic and sectarian view of Buddhism. A large portion of Hindu thought and sects also reject rituals or consider them as accessories to meditation and to reaching higher states in a similar way to how many Buddhists consider things like mantras and prayer bead practices. If you wanna claim "well Buddha himself rejected rituals", one can say in response "well the Upanishads which are near universally considered by Hindus to be the most important texts in Hinduism also criticism rituals".

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>hinduism relies on many philosophical conceptualizations & is often internally contradictory in that regard, for example dualism vs nondualism, monism vs pluralism
As if Buddhism isn't full of arguments and contradictions between the views of various schools as well, LOL.

>buddhism avoids all of these by analyzing the source from which they come, i.e. desire & thinking, sense-data etc, & views reality empirically in terms of what arises & ceases here & now
>thus buddhism is experientially verifiable whereas hinduism is not
Complete bullshit, Dependent origination, rebirth, karma, Nirvana, and the two marks of existence other than Dhukka are all unfalsifiable metaphysical claims which cannot be empirically verified, the irony here is that this 'pro-scientism', 'pro-empiricism' 'pro-logic' view was largely unknown in the Buddhist world until the promotion and spread of modernizing Protestant-like views during colonialism in Asia, which especially had an effect in Sri Lanka (you are literally repeating 19th-century Anglo caricatures of Buddhism).

>also it's noteworthy that hinduism has heavily borrowed from buddhism
Try to name one thing which is a major concept in Hinduism that you think was borrowed from Buddhism which isn't actually found in pre-Buddhist Hindu texts, pro-tip; you can't! :^)

>For the Buddha so cared about ending wordly suffering, that he instructed his bhikkus, that whosoever meditated on their Suttas should not be further reborn, but reach final nirvana without residual karma.

MahaPrajnaParamita-Sastra
Abhidhamma-kosa

Have any post-Buddha teachers been able to match their master in wisdom? Or is Gautama still the standard which the teachings are measured by? Who are the greatest teachers that came after him?

Shankara is a fraud anyway, he just co-opted century old buddhist ontology and arguments and just infused it with hindu concept to make it seem legit. He was often accused of being a secret buddhist because of this. Dropped.

The ocean simile is not used to say "you were the great ocean all along" but rather to illustrate that when the whirlpool ends nothing is really destroyed or annihilated.
I am also not Mahayana. Your gripes regarding ritual are with Mahayana or Vajrayana, not with the Buddha of the suttas.

>guenonfag ruins another thread by turning into My Personal Shankara/Advaita Vedanta Fanblog

Great! Good to see this perennialist dilettante is still our resident worst schizoposter.

Thankfully he only posted a few times and can easily be ignored.

Again, your gripes regarding contradictions are with the various schools, and not the Buddhism of the Pali Canon. The Buddha predicted that his teachings would degenerate and there would be divisions and revisionism. Buddhism as contained in the Pali Canon is entirely consistent.
>complete bullshit
All three marks of existence are experientially verified. That is the entire purpose of insight meditation: to develop a non-conceptual direct understanding of the three marks of existence and dependent origination. It is not even "pro-logic" because these things cannot actually be understood conceptually.
If you would like to learn more about Buddhist epistemology, I recommend the book Concept and Reality:
seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/concept_and_reality.pdf
Kamma can be observed here & now, through the mind-states thing that was mentioned in a post previously As for rebirth, while that post touches on rebirth too, I will be fair and say that no one can verify rebirth for sure unless they have recollected their past lives through training with mastery of the fourth jhana. The idea about Nibbana being unfalsifiable is semi-true only to the extent that faith is required, faith that the practice works and will lead to this thing that you cannot comprehend yet (Nibbana). A stream-enterer sees Nibbana at the moment of fruition, however, so once that point is reached, it is verifiable. I would argue that any practice which promises results requires a degree of faith until you get the results. That is certainly not a fault.

this has already been refuted you brainlet, see , If you are so confident of the doctrines he 'co-opts' then try to name them; they inevitably all predate Buddhism

Honestly it makes for more varied discussion here, since the rest of this thread is just neophytes looking to begin down this path. It's nice to see more experienced scholars able to hold more complex discussions among eachother.

>experienced scholars
hello guenonfag did mods start deleting your trad threads again buddy

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Yea the post which said "was part of the great ocean" was a mistake

he always posts like this, see here for similar redditism:
>pro-tip; you can't! :^)

in addition to samefagging and pretending not to be guenonfag. i think being called out so often has made him hyperdefensive.

>dhamma
>sutta
>nibbana

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>Why won't people stop correcting the blatantly false statements I make REEEEEE!
grow up nigga
My point was that painting all of Hinduism with the same brush regarding ritual is inaccurate just as it is to do so with Buddhism, especially as the thinkers/texts considered to be the most important sources of doctrine for each both reject ritual. I was not saying that Buddhism teaches "you are the ocean" but was pointing out how the metaphor of ocean illustrates how they both teach transcending/overcoming/realizing the falseness/non-existence of ego and individuality or conventional selfhood.
That the Pali Canon is Buddha's teachings alone and not any of the early Mahayana sutras is itself a sectarian view not fully supported by the evidence. Scholars who specialize in 'pre-sectarian' or 'undivided' Buddhism sometimes say that the PC is not the direct and most pure continuation of it but that the PC and Mahayana canons are equally divergences from the original and that some concepts in early Mahayana could have possibly been taught by Buddha.

Kamma in the total sense that Buddhism holds it (that it drives rebirth) is not empirically verifiable, simply pointing out that one can observe cause and effect in the mind doesn't prove Kamma in the complete sense that Buddhism holds it to be. Dukkha is the only mark empirically verifiable because one simply has to recognize that one is not totally free from suffering and that it's a part of life. The only way to empirically verify the impermanence held by anicca is to be around long enough to verify that something is not eternal which is impossible, anicca is not held to just apply to mental states; when regarding exterior objects, time, space anything exterior there is no way of empirically verifying anything regarding their eternity or lack of it; unless you stretch the definition of empirically verifying such that it loses its meaning. Anatta also cannot be empirically verified, someone may conclude through empirical observation that their consciousness, act of witnessing, or anything else about themselves is the self or soul; you cannot empirically verify that it is non-eternal because that involves death which you cannot return from and report/deduce empirical conclusions. Claiming that Nibbana is empirically verifiable is pointless because every other eastern sect can say their special type of liberation/union/release/salvation etc can be directly experienced if you follow the teachings, nothing separates Nibbana from these in terms of being 'more verifiable'.

I'm not him lol, swear on the Dhamma. But my phone has no screenshot capacity, so I can never prove it. My original comment was sincere, I enjoy seeing variety in a thread of this kind. Beginners can absorb more too than if it were just consisting of introductory advice for them. You won't believe me, and will call me Guenonguy again (the other name is quite mean, you guys really are quite mean to the poor guy, and no, I'm still not him, just remarking on how often his name is disparagingly brought up here), but I'm not him. Sadly I can never prove myself as such.

I'm about to fall asleep so I'm only gonna try to answer one major issue here
>when regarding exterior objects, time, space anything exterior
Buddhism denies the possibility of anything existing (or not existing) outside of experience. The world is only known through experience, and can't be said to be "existing" or "not existing." Nothing can be said about the existence of "exterior objects" outside of experience.
Buddhism entirely concerns itself with the nature and reality of experience, which is why it does not make metaphysical claims about creation, or the world's existence/non-existence, it only speaks on experience.
For more on this, you can read The End of The World in the Buddhist Perspective:
seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/The-End-of-The-World.pdf

as always, get checked out dude

I am also going to bed too after I post this but might respond if the thread is still up in the morning and there is a reason too.

>Buddhism entirely concerns itself with the nature and reality of experience
That's the thing though, empirical observations of your own experience are not necessarily relevant to others experiences or of to reality or truth in general. It's an extremely long and unsubstantiated leap to go from deducing things about the nature of your own mind and consciousness to then claiming that these reveal metaphysical truths which can be empirically verified. If someone is simply mistaken about the nature of their own experience then their particular judgement loses all validity as a mark of some supreme or absolute truth; and there is no way to know or prove that Buddha or anyone else was not mistaken. If you want to believe that the teachings of Buddhism can be verified by insight meditation or something, that's your prerogative, but the overwhelming majority of people don't accept that this counts as the empirical validation of some truth existing independently or being true independent of user #13,301,081 thinking about it, so you shouldn't claim that it's empirically verifiable because #1 it's tantamount to simple religious faith and #2 you are appropriating 'empirical' away from the context that everyone uses it in and are using it in an abnormal sense but only reveal that you are when people pin you down, which is deceitful.

ps: Yes, I am Guenonfag but I'm actually a secret Theravadin Buddhist who achieved stream-entrance at age 13 who does this just to keep my bros on their toes so they don't get lulled into a false sense of complacency.

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stop typing like a redditor from 2014 please fucking please

stop doing shit like this
>REEEEEE :^) Protip: You can't! KEKEKEKEKEK!!!! LMAO.

just fucking chill out and your abrasiveness
would decrease a lot.

>they both teach
there is nothing transcendental with hindusim, since at best they reach some jhana and never reach nirvana.

>the study of Koan. If only you could understand what evil karma these words of yours would sow, perhaps you would have had the wisdom to keep silent. Nevertheless, this was beyo
llel

That's not true and you know it, simply correcting the false statements that people make is usually enough to send them into a frothing rage, it happens regardless of however one types. People often end up taking issues with irrelevant small details like that when they have no other arguments but still feel compelled to argue in some way.

>well actually Hinduism is incomplete because it doesn't accept Buddhist teachings
Do you have any idea how inane it is to post this stuff user? It's the Buddhist equivalent of saying something is untrue because the bible said so. "Well actually Buddhism is not transcendental because it failed to understand the teaching of Moksha present in the Upanishads that it got most of it's other ideas from and so all Buddhists are inevitably condemned to transmigratory existence", see I can do it too.

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The disrespect Buddhists show for Hindus is fundamentally the same urge as of teenagers who feel the need to rebel against their fathers

no need to be rude bro, hindus and buddhists are bros and u don't have to insult the former

doesn't take a buddhist to see how hindus come and shamelessly shit up these threads

pointing out that some things are factually incorrect =/= shitting up threads

if someone has an averse reaction to that it indicates that they themselves are the problem

the first reply to this thread is telling OP that Buddhism is just a subset of Vedanta and that he should read Guenon

>the first reply to this thread is telling OP that Buddhism is just a subset of Vedanta and that he should read Guenon

Except that was literally a false-flag by some butthurt poster trying to make people into Vedanta look bad, as these posts already mentioned He copied and pasted the exact same paragraph word-for-word from this thread in January but added the stuff about "Buddhism is really all a subset of Vedanta, particularly the complete and perfect philosophical system of Adi Shankaracharya", which was never in the original post which can be viewed with the link below. The original context of that paragraph was some people debating on what Guenon's views were on Buddhism and whether he liked or disliked it and why. Nowhere in the original post does that person say Buddhism is Vedanta. That poster who made the first post in this thread literally just searched for some random paragraph about Vedanta and Buddhism and then added his own line about Buddhism being Vedanta to poison the well and to get everyone angry at Vedanta before the thread even began.

warosu.org/lit/thread/S12475263#p12479336

There is also this post as well

fucking kek

Reminder guenonfag is a confirmed crypto-theosophist by one of his former friends who posted here

>not realizing that the post which often gets reposted which is the source of that claim was literally a joke

It was probably Guenonfag himself memeing on you guys and you all fell for it

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man, you did a terrific job on those robes. i don't even know how you guys shoop so well, i can't shoop at all

that's not the post though that one is also funny

Guenonfag himself admitted to being a theosophist (indirectly) once he was outed

source? Guenonfag and everyone else who reads the Traditionalists usually hate theosophy, I'm hard pressed to imagine any of them admitting being theosophists.

Will Buddhism help me with my lifelong depression? Sorry if that's a dumb question. Also, I have a problem where from time to time I willfully "torture myself" by thinking of impure and undesired thoughts, because I have an antipathy towards myself. I feel like I deserve nothing, and so I torment myself with thoughts, images, etc of a very negative variety (I don't want to say what - it's pretty bad). How do I deal with this, from the Buddhist perspective? If I become Buddhist, my thoughts have to become purified. But if I still hate myself, I'll want to continue to torture myself with improper thoughts. And this would contradict the Buddhist codes I'm expected to follow. So I'm not sure how to reconcile that. Basically I'm very depressed and very psychologically dysfunctional, and while I want to turn to Buddhism to help me with these, I'm also not yet ready to turn away from some of these self-inflicted acts either.

Becoming a Buddhist does not mean you shouldn't seek psychological help. Try both, as they would both help.

There is loads of advice and resources given on how to get started with the practice throughout this thread, so I recommend checking it all out.

>inb4 another bunch of anons come in and call all the 'real teaching of buddha' fags hinayanas and stir the pot even more

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does shit like depression/anxiety prevent stream entry as it qualifies as drowsy state of mind and one of five hindrances?

>12734665
How many of you are practising Buddhists? How long on average does it take to go from neophyte to experienced practitioner, on average? By the latter, I mean someone who understands both the history, the different traditions and their differing conceptual perspectives, and lastly the practises? How much of a commitment will it be for someone who works full-time and doesn't have too much off-time to devote to it?

How many of you are practising Buddhists? How long on average does it take to go from neophyte to experienced practitioner, on average? By the latter, I mean someone who understands both the history, the different traditions and their differing conceptual perspectives, and lastly the practises? How much of a commitment will it be for someone who works full-time and doesn't have too much off-time to devote to it?

(posting again, messed up first time)

I think it is a lifelong thing. It took buddha billions of lifecycle to be the Buddha. There was nothing special about Gotama the man so to speak. The dharma is dharma. Just follow the 8 fold path. Start there. It is very uncomplicated really. I just finished reading "wake up" by kerouac and it is perhaps the best book about Buddhism for western literature minded people. A Christian writing about Buddhism is perfect. I believe Christ was a Buddha as well. He fulfilled it even more in fact. Idk. Life is beautiful. Ask yourself is being good sufficient? Act in kindness and when you cannot teach yourself to not act at all.

No it doesn't prevent stream entry. Meditation practices systematically removes the hindrances (which everyone starts with).
It typically takes a few years (as in, 3-5) of dedicated practice and study (about 1-2h a day + bringing the practice into all areas of your life) to become an "adept" practitioner, and possibly even to become Sotapanna if you're well-guided. Emphasis on bringing it into all aspects of your life: sati and sila can be applied in every moment. Practice isn't just formal sitting meditation and study (though that is part of it). The time varies though, as the Buddha said:
"Now, if anyone would develop these four frames of reference in this way for seven years, one of two fruits can be expected for him: either gnosis right here & now, or — if there be any remnant of clinging/sustenance — non-return.

"Let alone seven years. If anyone would develop these four frames of reference in this way for six years... five... four... three... two years... one year... seven months... six months... five... four... three... two months... one month... half a month, one of two fruits can be expected for him: either gnosis right here & now, or — if there be any remnant of clinging/sustenance — non-return.

"Let alone half a month. If anyone would develop these four frames of reference in this way for seven days, one of two fruits can be expected for him: either gnosis right here & now, or — if there be any remnant of clinging/sustenance — non-return.

"'This is the direct path for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow & lamentation, for the disappearance of pain & distress, for the attainment of the right method, & for the realization of Unbinding — in other words, the four frames of reference.' Thus was it said, and in reference to this was it said."

That is what the Blessed One said. Gratified, the monks delighted in the Blessed One's words."

The other user is right that it took the Buddha countless life cycles to become the Buddha, but you don't have to become a Buddha (unless you want to become a Bodhisatta but that is a hard and long path). Arahantship is accomplishable in this very lifetime.

If you didn't have the hindrances there would be nothing to work on in meditation practice.

So Hegel spent his whole career attacking pantheism, and if you just read Hegel, you'd think oh, this guy trashes pantheism every chance he gets so surely he can't be a pantheist. But if you read a bit more widely, you quickly see that everyone was accusing Hegel of just being a Spinozist, acosmic pantheist. So the reason Hegel has such a hate boner for pantheism is that he is trying to show how, though he looks so very pantheistic, he's not actually a pantheist.

The same thing goes for advaita vedanta and Shankara in particular. The Gaudpada trashes Buddhism while simlutaneously quoting literally verbatim from Madhyamaka texts and relying on the yogacara's vijnapti matra. The rhetorical reason for any mention of Buddhism is to disclaim any relationship while simultaneously drawing from Buddhist vocabulary and epistemology.

And the idea that Shankara is a crypto Buddhist is far from some modern academic construct. Ramanuja accused him of it. So did a ton of other vedantists from his time.

This isn't my wheelhouse though, so I'm definitely not as well-read in vendanta as you are. But in the relationship between Buddhism and Vedanta it would appear Buddhism has more of a claim to priority. Also the dating of the upanishads is a deeply problematized field, and the notion that they all date to pre-Buddhist times, I think we can say with confidence in 2019, has been soundly refuted

if you are curious about the history of the relationship between vedanta and buddhism you should really check out the wiki entry on it. It's pretty good, and well-cited with contemporary sources

Bodhisattva's are the ones who delay Nibbana for the sake of helping others ascend, right?

Does a person simply *decide* what they desire to be, and then put in effort to become that? What do you personally want to be?

If I have no Sangha near me, am I severely limited in my capacity to pursue this path?

To be honest I am not Mahayana so I don't know how to accomplish that other than by taking the Bodhisattva vow.

Oh and I personally want to be an Arahant. Others will be Bodhisattas. The worlds will have no shortage of them. I want to make use of this fortunate and rare human birth to open the Dhamma eye and at least reach stream-entry.

Human births are rare? What birth is most common? Are the Devas still in our world, but invisible to most? What do the Devas spend their days doing?

"Monks, suppose that this great earth were totally covered with water, and a man were to toss a yoke with a single hole there. A wind from the east would push it west, a wind from the west would push it east. A wind from the north would push it south, a wind from the south would push it north. And suppose a blind sea-turtle were there. It would come to the surface once every one hundred years. Now what do you think: would that blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole?"

"It would be a sheer coincidence, lord, that the blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, would stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole."

"It's likewise a sheer coincidence that one obtains the human state. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, arises in the world. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world. Now, this human state has been obtained. A Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, has arisen in the world. A doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world.

"Therefore your duty is the contemplation, 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress.' Your duty is the contemplation, 'This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.'"
SN 56

I don't know if I can say what birth is most common, but AFAIK births in the lower realms (hungry ghost, animal realms) are VERY common.
Even just consider how small the population of humans is compared to the countless other lifeforms on Earth.

Devas spend their time indulging in an endless supply of every pleasure they desire.
The exception are Devas who practice the Dhamma. These Devas were typically Buddhist in their previous human life and so they continue to practice in the Deva life.
Devas remember their past life.
There are also most likely Devas right now who were human followers of Gotama Buddha, in their previous life.
>They live for very long but finite periods of time, ranging from thousands to (at least) billions of years.

What dictates one's type of birth? Is it one's moral record? Did all of us move up through the animal kingdom, to our present stage as a human? Can an immoral lifestyle lead us back into the animal kingdom? Is there something after the Devas? Do you guys believe in Buddhist cosmology, such as Mount Meru and the Dvipa-islands? Is there more to this Earth than we know of? Is there no realm where I can live with a loving girlfriend forever, without aging or decaying?

There is no realm that is permanent, they all end.
Karma determines one's rebirth, as explained previously here:
Samsara is infinite and you can be confident that you have lived through every different form realm of rebirth, including the hell realms, animal realms, preta realms, deva realms, and human.
Here is some quick reading on the accepted planes of existence:
accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sagga/loka.html

*sorry, "they all end" makes it seem like the realm ends. I meant that any life in any realm will end at some point.

Is Buddhism "complete", or does it still update its theology and practises? Has it already covered every area, or does it still require new ones, which monks try and contribute to?

The different sects are pretty well-established and consider themselves "complete."

>The same thing goes for Advaita Vedanta and Shankara in particular.
No it doesn't because it's a different context. The view of Gaudapada and Shankara was of to establishing what they viewed as the truth of the traditional Hindu teachings, part of this entails refuting other sects who claim to know the truth of existence, this led both of them to attack in their writings the most prominent other interpretations at the time including ritualists, Samkhya, and Buddhism. Buddhism was perhaps the largest figurative opponent to take down especially in Gaudapada's time when it was even more widespread; thus it's completely natural that he would spend most time refuting it. Given the larger amount of similarities between Advaita and Buddhism compared to other schools it would make sense for him to give it a higher priority of refuting so that nobody could make the mistake of thinking Advaita was Buddhist. The only areas where Gaudapada agrees with Buddhists or their arguments is in where they can be appropriated to argue for the truth of Upanishadic teachings. It is a classic argumentative tactic to use an opponent's own argument to actually say that it proves your own claim; the idea that by using these arguments that he was influenced by Buddhistic doctrine is nonsensical because he uses those arguments in the first place to argue for the truth of pre-existing Upanishadic teachings over Buddhism. In using Buddhist arguments to criticize Buddhism he was dabbing on them (as they say).

>Michael Comans states Gaudapada, an early Vedantin, utilised some arguments and reasoning from Madhyamaka Buddhist texts by quoting them almost verbatim. However, Comans adds there is a fundamental difference between Buddhist thought and that of Gaudapada, in that Buddhism has as its philosophical basis the doctrine of Dependent Origination according to which "everything is without an essential nature (nissvabhava), and everything is empty of essential nature (svabhava-sunya)", while Gaudapada does not rely on this principle at all. Gaudapada's Ajativada is an outcome of reasoning applied to an unchanging nondual reality according to which "there exists a Reality (sat) that is unborn (aja)" that has essential nature (svabhava) and this is the "eternal, fearless, undecaying Self (Atman) and Brahman".[17] Thus, Gaudapada differs from Buddhist scholars such as Nagarjuna, states Comans, by accepting the premises and relying on the fundamental teaching of the Upanishads.[17]

>Nikhilananda (2008, pp. 203–206) refutes the argument for Buddhist influence on Gaudapada's philosophy by arguing that the whole purpose of Gaudapada was to demonstrate the ultimate reality of the birth-less and non-dual Atman, a concept foreign to Buddhism.

>Gaudpada trashes Buddhism while simultaneously quoting literally verbatim from Madhyamaka texts.
As mentioned above, quoting verbatim from an opponent's text does not mean you concur with them and it can be an effective tactic if you are using your opponents arguments to undermine their own claims. Someone is most qualified to refute a doctrine if they are deeply familiar with it and its arguments, and are less so if they only have a poor understanding of it.

> relying on the yogacara's vijnapti matra
Gaudapada neither relies on nor agrees with yogacara's vijnaptimatra. Vijnaptimatra is an absolute idealism which holds that there is no reality to empirical objects, and that there is no reality beyond this which it is predicated on, but that there is only this unreal illusion existing in mind; Gaudapada and other Advaitins fundamentally disagree with this and instead substitute an ontological idealism combined with epistemic realism which holds that the phenomenal universe falsely appears to exist and is real only within the beholding mind, but that this is only possible because of the non-dual eternal Brahman and that this false illusion is predicated on it and wouldn't exist otherwise, furthermore they explicitly separate the pure witness/awareness of Atman within the individual as the sole reality in contrast to the unreal mind whereas Yogacara views the whole thing of mind and witnessing/awareness as unreal.

The source for Advaita's ideas on this subject are mentioned in the Upanishads, without even going into the later ones the earliest and unequivocally pre-Buddhist one (Brihadaranyaka) by itself states that Brahman is only seen as manifold because of Maya (2.5.19) but is actually infinite and without interior and exterior (ibid); and that this hidden but present everywhere (1.1.7) Brahman itself is actually unborn (4.4.25). It also says that Brahman is the real witness and Self (3.7.16) of all beings (2.5.15) and negates everything else other than this witnessing awareness with the famous 'not this, not this' (4.4.22); the combination of these statements in the same text leads to the doctrine that there is an existing eternal and unborn ultimate reality, that the phenomenal world is unreal, but that the witness of this illusion itself is this reality; in other words, exactly the ontological-idealist+epistemic-realist framework I just described. The source for it is in the pre-Buddhist Brihadaranyaka (let alone the other Upanishads) and it's fundamentally at odds with Vijnaptimatra.

>The rhetorical reason for any mention of Buddhism is to disclaim any relationship while simultaneously drawing from Buddhist vocabulary and epistemology.
Who do you think Gaudapada wrote that part of the text for? It was addressed to Buddhists specifically, Samhkya and other darshanas wouldn't have agreed with the arguments and so it wouldn't be applicable to them. In writing that section of the text that would only be relevant for the Buddhist reader/opponent he obviously knew that the Buddhist would know which Buddhist doctrines he was referencing and the Buddhist texts which discuss them. There would be no reason for him to hide his familiarity with Buddhist arguments and doctrines in a portion of a text specifically devoted to refuting Buddhism that was addressed to and would have only been fully understood by Buddhists.

>And the idea that Shankara is a crypto Buddhist is far from some modern academic construct. Ramanuja accused him of it. So did a ton of other vedantists from his time.
Did you read the post that you replied to? I already explained the context of this. Ramanuja and other thinkers like Bhaskara used crypto-Buddhist as a way of denigrating Shankara's ideas in support of their metaphysical dispute with him; the reason they called him that specifically relates to their different interpretations of doctrine; but in every single of these cases one find's solid support for Shankara's position in the Upanishads that all these thinkers regarded as infallible; including in the pre-Upanishad ones. The fact that Vedantists of his time accused him of being one in no way means he was influenced by Buddhist doctrine. If there was no source of that in Hindu scripture and he came up with it out of nowhere than maybe you could argue that but in actuality all the stuff they accuse of being pre-Buddhist in his thought is found in both the pre-Buddhist and post-Buddhist primary Upanishads. Literally name anything in his thought or Advaita that you consider crypto-Buddhist and I can quote you the exact Upanishad passages supporting them.

>Also the dating of the upanishads is a deeply problematized field, and the notion that they all date to pre-Buddhist times, I think we can say with confidence in 2019, has been soundly refuted
I never said all of them were pre-Buddhist which was I have qualified my sentances with "pre-" or "post-" nearly every time I mention them. It's a virtual consensus among experts in the field that the Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads are pre-Buddhist, they are the largest and some of the most important ones and basically all scholars agree they come from between the 9th-7th centuries BC, some experts propose as far back as 900 BC for Brihadaranyaka and it's a common view that they were likely assembled from portions of pre-existing texts also. This places them between 400-100 years before Buddha lived in the 6th century BC. One can find solid expositions of and sources for Advaita in them alone, the word Advaita appears in Brihadaranyaka. There are no central teachings of Advaitic or Shankara's doctrine which aren't found in or which can't be deduced from these two alone. After these, most scholars and experts generally place the Taittiriya and Aitareya Upanishads as pre-Buddhist (without being unanimous as with the first two) and then after those the Kena and Isha Upanishads are sometimes considered pre-Buddhist but with less agreement than there is with the Taittiriya and Aitareya.

>if you are curious about the history of the relationship between vedanta and buddhism you should really check out the wiki entry on it. It's pretty good, and well-cited with contemporary sources
It's a decent overview but just presents the range of different views on this subject, of which multiple books have been written about; generally scholars who are experienced with and have written on Vedanta and the early Upanishads note the connections but usually conclude that Gaudapada was basing his ideas in Upanishadic thought and used Buddhist arguments to his own end in refuting them and forwarding his and the Upanishad's ideas. Whenever I see quotes of people claiming that Gaudapada took something from the Buddhists it inevitably has to do with something also found in the early Upanishads that the scholar in question must not have read or maybe forgot about. Just taking a random quote from that page as an example of what I mean:

>Some scholars suggests that Gaudapada (6th Century CE) bridged Buddhism and Vedanta, by taking over the Buddhist doctrines that ultimate reality is pure consciousness (vijñapti-matra)[note 2] and "that the nature of the world is the four-cornered negation
I'm not sure if the source of this quote literally means the Yogachara Vijnaptimatra or just the general idea that ultimate reality is pure consciousness; as I mentioned above Vijnaptimatra is irreconcilable with Gaudapada's ideas and the doctrine that the ultimate reality of Brahman is pure consioueness/awareness is already contained in the Brihadaranyaka and is explicitly said in other Upanishads too such as the Aitareya which directly says "Brahman is consiousness" (3.1.3.). The idea that Gaudapada took the doctrine that the nature of the world/existence is a four-sided negation from the Buddhists is absurd since this is one of the main points of the Mandukya Upanishad that Gaudapada's Karika is a commentary on and exegesis of.

I really hope this thread isn't ever deleted...I need this goldmine of information to remain accessible to me for a very long time...

If I were you I'd do what the other user said he was gonna do, and make a word document of all the links, books...etc and copy and paste useful posts to save

Where is the "truest" or "purest" form of Buddhism found in the world? Which Buddhist culture best-exemplifies Buddhism?

To be honest no matter where you go in the world you will find revisionism and degenerated teachings (after all, it is a 2500 year old tradition, and one that does not appeal to the passions, thus making it more susceptible towards degeneracy from those who find its attitude towards the passions disagreeable).
Safest bet is to stick with the suttas. Some might say Theravada is the "purest" but they have their fair share of revisionism too.
Follow the suttas and compare everything you learn in Buddhism to them, and avoid anything that doesn't hold up.

But if a person were ever to move to Asia, for example, and specifically a Buddhist land, which region/culture would be the best one? What you say makes sense though.

Many will disagree with me here but probably Thailand or Sri Lanka

Okay, once this thread closes, what other internet places are best for Buddhist resources? Where do I go after Yea Forums?

buddha-vacana.org/
accesstoinsight.org/
suttacentral.net/
obo.genaud.net/backmatter/indexes/sutta/sutta_toc.htm
seeingthroughthenet.net/

Find a temple or monastery to go to give alms to monks and listen to Dhamma talks. That would be beneficial. You can also listen to Dhamma talks online:
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBOs5PaVNZP9e6OlH8OhOF5t67JdUr6yi
youtube.com/channel/UCUPxFKfmzSDNVpQEeW6ci7g
youtube.com/channel/UC6FSq_ptJ-I6aTHT-XA_e0Q
youtube.com/channel/UCQJ6ESCWQotBwtJm0Ff_gyQ
>Monks are not perfect, and you should compare everything you learn in Buddhism (from monks or otherwise) to the suttas. The suttas are basically the canon, the earliest written words of the Buddha. No sect will disagree on this, do take them as the highest word when it comes to Buddhism.
This is solid advice. Even the monks linked previously (and the ones you might meet in temples) can be wrong sometimes.

Although there is a ton of "secular Buddhist" influence there, and there are lots of sketchy posts (like stuff about psychedelic drugs and etc etc), r/streamentry on reddit seems like an alright community.
Just develop a right view with strong basis in the suttas and you will be alright.

OP here. I have a problem with drain flies. I have to keep killing them in order for them to not harm my family through sickness and uncleanliness, yet I feel great guilt in killing another sentient being. I can only hope I am not reborn in the hell realms for my transgression.

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what does truest and purest mean anyway

If I come to find this path to fit me, am I allowed to become a monk and teach the Dharma? Am I allowed to add my own reasoned arguments into such a pool of knowledge? Basically what qualifies someone to teach the Dharma, and if they do teach it, can they attempt to expand on it, by adding their own elaborations on the concepts therein, and/or refuting prevailing scientific narratives for example? The latter is something I already really desire to do, but if I become Buddhist and align with Buddhist conceptions of reality, can I then publish a text writing against modern, materialist science, in favor of Buddhist ones? Or am I only allowed to repeat what has already been said before, not expanding on it in any manner? Because all of this seems really comfy to me, and may be what I've been searching for in my life, but I'd ideally like to do more than merely achieve peace in my own being, I'd want to help teach it to others too. And not merely to people in person, but to write it down and make it available for any to read and grasp.

Bump.

One final bump, night Buddhistbros. Let's keep this thread alive once morning comes.

>tfw a sincere buddhist posts on Yea Forums

God bless you user

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I have experienced Nirvana, the everything or the nothing it depends upon your view. I have learnt many things through its teachings, through the Gods and through myself. The greatest which stands apart from all others is the necessity of desire. Desire is value and without desire we cannot have value, a man with no value of the world is of no value himself, the world becomes an escape, it is a great pleasure but it rips one from true meaning. One should venture to meet the Gods and the Self, to know the world in a state of total objectivity. A state of pure yet nimble energy and love. But to return from such a place is the greatest triumph a man can reach for now he has the insights of the unknowable and the value of existence. Desire is Good in itself but has the potential to be bad. And it is true all suffering occurs from desire but suffering itself has beauty and meaning within it. Suffering is what gives meaning, in it's own heart of identity apart from the comparison and appreciation of Joy, Suffering has a deep beauty. This is the nature of a tragedy, the nature of all, the nature of Man. Man has returned and so has the fire within him, yearning for revenge and revenge shall it be quenched.

You know, Wagner considering Buddhism and Christianity linked and a subset of each other. He believed Alexander the Great brought Buddhism and its teachings with him from Asia.

closest to what the Buddha taught

Silly question, but how do you guys remember these long and difficult Sanskrit/Pali names? Of a figure, or a scripture. Remembering the Sanskrit alphabets on their names too. This seems like a barrier to learning of these cultures for me.

Very caring post. Made me smile.

Please watch this.

youtu.be/z2B_e24UJi8

videos for learning suttas?
which language would you use?
good videos on posture and reading materials on right view on the body?

Hey user,
I think you are allowed to do anything with Buddhism, including becoming a monk to teach Dhamma. You can do the "expanding on it and adding my own ideas to it" thing as a layman, but I don't think you can really do that as a monk. As a monk I think the most you can do is elaborate on the teachings, as opposed to straying from them, and especially as opposed to contradicting them.
Becoming a monk is no easy task though, user. You must have a strong knowledge of Dhamma beforehand as a layman, and must get acquainted with the monastery you want to go to, for awhile as a layman. Then there is (I believe) a couple years or so of training with other novices so they can see who is really going to last and take it seriously.

Try your best to find a way to clean them out completely without needing to kill anymore.
It is good that you are aware that it is bad to kill. It would be much worse if you were not aware.
tricycle.org/trikedaily/kill-impulse-compassionate-solutions-your-favorite-pest/
This is like a pop Buddhism article and website but it may help idk.

It comes with reading a lot and discussing these things with others frequently

Find a legitimate Dzogchen teacher around you. There is so much work being done on the front of Dzogchen these days, translations, teachings, transmissions, it is worth being a part of it

I don't think you need videos to read suttas and you certainly don't need to read them in Pali (unless you're that hardcore, in which case that'd be awesome).
>Right view of the body
Actually, if I understand what you are asking, this would be a perfect sutta for that:
accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.than.html

As for posture, do you mean in meditation? That doesn't really matter that much, there are many postures you can do. Full lotus, half lotus, zazen, Burmese-style (my favourite)...etc.

>long and difficult Sanskrit/Pali names
long words are just made up of shorter words

this thread is too high quality

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how do you dive straight into the highest vehicle?

just zone out (trekcho) and stare up at the sky bro (thodgal)

Vajrayana encompasses all the lower vehicles as well. But what it teaches is important and simple, so if you grasp that, it is more important than knowing "dont kill," blah blah of the lower vehicles.

I recommend Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche As It Is, and Treasures from Juniper Ridge by Padmasambhava.

Padmasambhava didnt teach the lower vehicle when he went to tibet, only mahayana and vajrayana

Reminder that the fact that the Sutta Pitaka is a reliable source of early Buddhist teachings is undeniable, and it is internally consistent. The early Mahayana sutras are (arguably) also early Buddhist texts, but lots of material in it contradicts the Sutta Pitaka (which again, by itself is a complete system of internally consistent teachings). I'll let you make the call, on what you think you should start with.

feel the same way when i have to deal with roaches

"Monks, for anyone who says, 'In whatever way a person makes kamma, that is how it is experienced,' there is no living of the holy life, there is no opportunity for the right ending of stress. But for anyone who says, 'When a person makes kamma to be felt in such & such a way, that is how its result is experienced,' there is the living of the holy life, there is the opportunity for the right ending of stress.

"There is the case where a trifling evil deed done by a certain individual takes him to hell. There is the case where the very same sort of trifling deed done by another individual is experienced in the here & now, and for the most part barely appears for a moment.

"Now, a trifling evil deed done by what sort of individual takes him to hell? There is the case where a certain individual is undeveloped in [contemplating] the body, undeveloped in virtue, undeveloped in mind, undeveloped in discernment: restricted, small-hearted, dwelling with suffering. A trifling evil deed done by this sort of individual takes him to hell.

"Now, a trifling evil deed done by what sort of individual is experienced in the here & now, and for the most part barely appears for a moment? There is the case where a certain individual is developed in [contemplating] the body, developed in virtue, developed in mind, developed in discernment: unrestricted, large-hearted, dwelling with the immeasurable.[1] A trifling evil deed done by this sort of individual is experienced in the here & now, and for the most part barely appears for a moment.

"Suppose that a man were to drop a salt crystal into a small amount of water in a cup. What do you think? Would the water in the cup become salty because of the salt crystal, and unfit to drink?"

"Yes, lord. Why is that? There being only a small amount of water in the cup, it would become salty because of the salt crystal, and unfit to drink."

"Now suppose that a man were to drop a salt crystal into the River Ganges. What do you think? Would the water in the River Ganges become salty because of the salt crystal, and unfit to drink?"

"No, lord. Why is that? There being a great mass of water in the River Ganges, it would not become salty because of the salt crystal or unfit to drink."

"In the same way, there is the case where a trifling evil deed done by one individual [the first] takes him to hell; and there is the case where the very same sort of trifling deed done by the other individual is experienced in the here & now, and for the most part barely appears for a moment.
AN 3.99

so what is dzogchen

Recognition of the nature of mind itself.
Meditation on the nature of mind
Some translations
lotsawahouse.org/topics/dzogchen/

Dzogchen is a set of practices that stem from the Zhangzhung priests of the Western Tibetan plateau. Their actual historical origin is quite murky, and depending on what hagiography you read, they either come from Shenrap Miwo, a sort of pre-Buddha who lived 18,000 years ago (that's the Bon view) or they were transmitted to humans by Dakinis around the time of Padmasambhava around the 7th century or so (the view of nyingma and other schools).

Historically speaking Dzogchen was first formalized by Longchenpa in the 14th century, most practically embodied in his Nyingtik Yabzhi. This work contains all of the theoretical and practical aspects of Dzogchen.

Later commentators like Tsongkhapa say Dzogchen is really just two things: Trekcho, which is a sort of formless meditative absorption where you "cut off" your mind. After you have cultivated Trekcho do practice Togel, which is a sky or sun gazing practice, though part of it is also what is called a darkness retreat, where you seal yourself in a totally dark cave for days, weeks, or months at a time.

It is through skygazing that you recognize the projected nature of all externally apparent phenomena, which are radiating out from your heart via your eyes. You recapture their luminous essence and collapse duality through the practice, making it the super fast expressway to enlightenment.

Dogen

Hey, thanks for responding. I wasn't referring to contradicting Buddhist arguments, rather supporting them, but through my own reasoning instead of what has came before. Could I publish a book that supports the account of reality offered by Buddhism, and spend time refuting arguments for Theism, for example? Can you also please explain the basics of monastery-life to me? What does one do there? It seems too comfy to consider real, does one really just get to be in a monastery all day? That feels like I'd be such a deadweight to society though, and not really helping people as much as I could be...anyway I just desire to know how I can help spread pantheistic-monistic conceptions like that of Buddhism to a general population, and whether I can only write from such a platform after I've become an ordained monk myself. I have many personal arguments for pantheistic-monism, which I'd like to someday compile into a book (just like academics write their own books commenting on and translating existing philosophies, so would I like to write out some arguments myself), and if I become Buddhist, I just want to know if I can then speak from not only my own vantage but the "Buddhist" one as well. Especially since I already agree with doctrines like Anatta too. Sorry if poor questions.

Yea those ideas to try and support the ideas of Buddhism in order to make them accessible perhaps to skeptic audiences, are pretty solid imo.
As for monasteries, I am exactly an authority on this matter, being a layman. I only know that many monks do not just sit and meditate all day, many build monasteries, do activist work, teach lay followers, train novice monks, do scholarly work...etc.
I highly recommend checking out the Vinaya Pitaka:
palicanon.org/index.php/vinaya-pitaka/851-bhikkhu-pa-imokkha
accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/vin/index.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinaya_Piṭaka
>The Vinaya Pitaka (Pali; English: Basket of Discipline) is a Buddhist scripture, one of the three parts that make up the Tripitaka (literally. "Three Baskets"). The other two parts of the Tripitaka are the Sutta Pitaka and the Abhidhamma Pitaka. Its primary subject matter is the monastic rules for monks and nuns. The name Vinaya Pitaka (vinayapi aka) is the same in Pāli, Sanskrit and other dialects used by early Buddhists.

Also, Buddhism is not pantheistic nor monist. It is non-dualistic. There are no creator-gods in Buddhism.

Also, you aren't the only one who is interested in trying to validate Buddhist ideas for a new audience. There are countless Westerners publishing works about the ways that science backs up Buddhism (usually these authors are secularists).

Woops I goofed, I meant to say I am NOT exactly an authority on the matter.

Also, I may be wrong about this but I believe Theravada monks follow the instructions and practiced laid out in the Visuddhimagga. I am not sure about what other sects do, but I am fairly confident that they at least adhere to the Vinaya

>in pali
Actually I was trying to find suttas in Tibetian on youtube, but all I get are "meditation videos" with pseudoambient music. So yeah, I'm actually thinking of memorizing some suttas in original, but for that I need a spoken example since I can recreate the pronunciation without more advanced idea of the language.
>as for posture
not only for meditation I guess. In "Zen mind, beginner's mind", which is the only book on Buddhism I've read it was pointed out that we should be aware of our body (not only posture) at all times and try to keep it "right".
Actually a lot of that is mentioned in this sutta you linked. I even see some parts
>[4] "Furthermore...just as if a sack with openings at both ends were full of various kinds of grain — wheat, rice, mung beans, kidney beans, sesame seeds, husked rice — and a man with good eyesight, pouring it out, were to reflect
That I've seen mentioned as actual meditations practices.
This distanced view of oneself and his body, trough this rational inner awareness gives a solid foundation for overcoming weaknesses, but for me as a person is hard to overcome, what in this sutta is called the five hindrances.
It seems that my forgiving and extrovert nature, went deep into the habit of smoking weed and now, forgiving on itself to a dangerous point and tied by social gestures, has a hard time of rising above the habit and is always sucked back into what I found comforting and easing on my mind.

Well, the hindrances are overcome through practice, friend.
As for learning Pali, this should be of some use to you:
pali.sirimangalo.org/

I would still recommend doing some searching online for resources to help learn Pali, though.
Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu on youtube, for example, afaik is fluent in speaking Pali and has many videos where he goes over suttas, reading them in Pali first and then translating the words to English to explain the meaning.

Thank you. I'll look into those. When I said "pantheistic" I meant it loosely, since I'm really not sure how to characterize Buddhism as a theology, which doesn't seem to fit a straightforward, existing classification. I'm aware there're no deities/gods in the original Buddhism, hence why the closest label for me was "pantheism". And regarding monism vs non-dualism, I thought they were the same, or similar concepts used in different contexts? I personally use the terms interchangeably, that might be an error though.

Is that okay, though? Am I allowed to join them in that cause? And in my case not necessarily use empirical support, but philosophical argumentation? Ontological arguments, for example. Just as Christians write books with arguments for a Theistic/Christian God (and these partaking in an ongoing dialogue with scientific community's arguments and so on), can a Buddhist enter the ring and provide their own such arguments? In my case, ones in favor of an uncreated universe, ones against a theistic creator, the mind as similarly uncreated, and so on? Not to get embroiled in an argument with anyone, but I just think it'd be cool for a Westerner, who is primarily familiar with the former, to be able to read arguments of the latter kind. I'd love to dedicate myself to that cause, if I could.

I don't see why you couldn't do that, though the truths of Buddhism are largely beyond conceptualization. But yeah I don't think there are any rules about that. I imagine most monks however would feel that it's unnecessary, as Buddhism gets on just fine without conceptual justifications.
Obviously you would have to become thoroughly familiar with the actual Buddhist understanding of these things. It is said that the stream-enterer understands the teachings intuitively, independent from a teacher, because he has seen directly Nibbana and the path that leads to it, so I'd recommend studying the texts and shooting for stream-entry to ensure you have a solid enough basis in Buddhism to try and expand on it in a way that can be related to systems of Western philosophy.
You will probably find this work helpful and interesting:
seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/concept_and_reality.pdf

Try that as well as Nyanananda's other works, especially The End Of The World in Buddhist perspective.

>While the Buddha taught unified states of mental focus (samadhi) and meditative absorption (dhyana) which were commonly taught in Upanishadic thought, he also rejected the metaphysical doctrines of the Upanishads, particularly ideas which are often associated with Hindu nonduality, such as the doctrine that "this cosmos is the self" and "everything is a Oneness" (cf. SN 12.48 and MN 22).[128][129] Because of this, Buddhist views of nonduality are particularly different than Hindu conceptions

This might help to some degree
accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/bps-essay_27.html