/lit/ - Literature

>>22521804
The fundamental ego-substanceless-ness or not-self of all phenomena, anatta/anatman/nairatmya is the essence of Buddhist thought and what differentiates it from all other systems.
"Nihilism" comes from a few different readings. One is the Nietzschean, which interprets a general notion of Buddhism in alignment with Schopenhauer as a pessimistic doctrine of rejecting the world and thus considers it nihilism. But Nietzsche doesn't really care what Buddhism is per se and is using it as an example of world denial without ressentiment, to be contrasted with the Christian world denial, which is based on ressentiment. Nietzsche doesn't have access to substantial Mahayana literature that would expound on the non-duality of samsara and nirvana either, since this is decades away from getting translated and disseminated by indologists studying the prajnaparamita literature or by Japanese advocates of Zen. Understanding this, one would see it is not world denial, and there goes one form of nihilism.
Another nihilism charge is that of the theist opponent of the Buddhist. This should be extremely familiar, as in the West, extant Christians assume atheists are nihilists because they deny the ultimate reality of god. In Indian discourse this is Brahma(n) or Ishvara. The specifics don't matter much, it's enough that Buddhists deny a creator of the universe to be labeled as nihilists. This is a very foul smelling argument because it would suggest the theist only believes in god to avoid being called a nihilist. So if you want, you can pick up Nietzsche here even though he doesn't agree with Buddhism and use him as cudgel, since they were both arguing with some of the same priestly people who had ceded their power to evaluate to "God."
Finally there are negating or apophatic doctrines like anatman or sunyata. Anatman is in every form of Buddhism and denies a permanent ego-substance or own self-nature. As you may recognize if you are familiar with Platonism, immortal souls and immortal God go hand in hand, so Buddhists are totally consistent here in saying no to both rather than picking and choosing. Madhyamaka is the school that makes sunyata its core and influences the rest of Mahayana Buddhism. This "emptiness" doctrine is really just an elaboration on anatman in its most basic sense, nothing has a self in the sense of that permanent enduring substratum. Nagarjuna is taken to be the founding thinker here, and for him and his tetralemma methodology, we cannot say of anything that it is x, not x, both x and not x, or neither x nor not-x, and this has been a nightmare of doxography ever since, with a long list of Indian, Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, and also Korean Buddhists attempting to say "yes, but how do I explain non-dualism using language?" The consistent denial of any objects of discourse to be ultimately real is what gets this Buddhism called nihilism. But all Buddhists disagree that this is nihilism and provide many arguments to the contrary.

>>22252497
Wanting no spooks is a spook