/lit/ - Literature

>>21699732
This is a silly conception and sounds like it's based off of skimming posts on this board or looking for the worst reading of them possible. I've even posted on occasional similarities between Buddhism and Christianity, as well as in the Buddhism-Nietzsche thread, but with the obvious note that major differences at their cores make the regular interpretations of them incompatible.

Buddhism is Buddhism (unless it's some clever Nagarjunian tetralemma denying that Buddhism is Buddhism, Buddhism is not-Buddhism, etc., or Zen saying in the vein of, "Buddhism is not Buddhism). It is itself. It can be compared to other traditions, and people wanting to speak of a "universal wisdom" can overplay these similarities (although sometimes the similarities are obvious and don't have to be overdrawn), but ultimately it is still itself, and going to have some rather different teachings than, say, Sunni Islam.

>How do I learn what Buddhism really really really is? These can’t all be true, can they?

Like other religions -- say, Christianity -- this itself is going to be a loaded answer with a variable response. You'll get Protestants saying "sola scriptura," just read (a translation of) the New Testament and Gospels especially (also curated by bishops of the Church over centuries deciding what to leave in and what take out) and come to an understanding of it yourself guided by your own faith and intuition, Roman Catholics and Orthodox folks will have a different idea.

However, in the case of Buddhism, it's a bit hard (to put it mildly) to read the entire fucking Pāli Canon (one collection of it shown here), the scriptures taken by the Theravada Buddhists as the standard and authentic words of the Buddha and his closest disciples. So even if you are going to the most "barebones", fundamental roots of Buddhism as Theravada/Hinayana Buddhism, purporting to be the most authentic and based on the most original and authentic texts, you're going to probably need some scholars or monks relaying it to you in a condensed form, in secondary literature you trust or find valuable.

>>18495628
You could start with the dhammapada (teachings of the buddha), the Holy Scripture of the Buddhists (Pali Canon) is massive (pic)
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.intro.budd.html

>>18127293
>Dhammapada
>Gandhara Sutras
Pic related is the Pali Canon. If you want Theravada literature, anything written before 1900 will be monastic commentaries on passages of the Pali Canon.

>>17617974
No one who knows what they're talking about would ever recommend reading the Pali Canon to a beginner, and there's a reason for that. This is why people offer things like What the Buddha Taught, which was written recently for Westerners, or the Heart Sutra, which is part of a long line of summarizing the Buddha's teachings. The logocentrism of Abrahamic religion does not apply here, just like how it applies nowhere but Abrahamism. This is why I said what I said in >>17617467. The Pali Canon is not awful (the most popular English translation is garbage though, absolutely), it serves its purpose. That purpose is different from the purpose of the Bible.

Pic related is the Pali Canon.

>>17490386
I'm not the only one that does this, this is a pretty common point in these threads. The Theravada in SEA don't really even read the Pali Canon, they read mountains and mountains and mountains of commentary. Strictly speaking, the final third of the Pali Canon itself is commentary on the Buddha's teachings (whether it's the Buddha's commentary on his own teachings or that of monks shortly after his death depends on your specific doctrinal and exegetical leanings).

Could someone recommend a good book that compares the Theravada and Mahayana schools of Buddhism? I'm looking for a metaphysical, doctrinal and theological focus rather than a purely historical one, but context is appreciated, especially regarding lineage divergences.
Please avoid shitflinging, I don't care at all about hinduism, I just want a detailed comparative analysis of the two vehicles.

>>16935467
Really? You've read the ENTIRE Pali Canon?

>>16217865
>There's not enough time to read ALL the holy books of the major religions
Every now and then you'll get some dumbass who doesn't know anything saying something dumb about Buddhism, and when questioned he'll say he read the entire Pali Canon.

Pic related, the Pali Canon. It's a literary canon of texts in the Pali language.

I think the problem comes from this Protestant idea that the Bible is all you need, and you can divine the meaning of it from the aether without any outside information, so clearly this is how all religions work. Confucianism isn't a literary and philosophical tradition stretching from Confucius himself up to the present, it's just the rote study of the works Confucius himself wrote and nothing more. Islam is just the Quran, and nothing more.

>>11629442

>>10918503
What do you mean brah? Any pleb should be able to get through this no problem

>The Buddhist scripture (Pali canon) is 57 volumes

Holy shit! Is Buddhism the most patrician religion ever? Can other religions even compete?