/lit/ - Literature

>>18665593
"The way Buddhists describe reincarnation" varies greatly between different sects, you'll need to be more specific than that

>>18665600
Theravada Buddhists

>>18665593
Pepes do not reincarnate.

Well that's why the vast majority of buddhists call it rebirth and not reincarnation

>>18665672
So then what's the point of ending the cycle of rebirth? Why should I care if some random inherits my karma?

>>18665678
Because that random will be "you"

Should I kill roaches to help them reincarnate?

>>18665685
How will it be me? Buddhists believe the mind dies along with the body, and they don't believe in a soul. The only thing that seems to live on is karma. I don't see how some random newborn inheriting my karma somehow makes them me. If you were wrongfully thrown in prison for someone else's crimes, would that mean that you're actually them?

>>18665678
Well my personal opinion is that it's about responsibility
If you could somehow cripple someone or mutilate them and get away with it, is it still not your responsibility ultimately?
Even if you don't personally experience any pain or suffering it could still effect you
So as a sinner living your life freely, when you die you will be reborn into hell and experience suffering for a very long time, their suffering is just as real as the suffering of a person you mutilated so you should consider them to be the same
Even ignoring the life of this sinner, in the chain of cause and effect that stretches back eons, the lives that came before you have suffered, they've been born in heavens but also hell, also has animals, also as suffering animals and if you don't try to end this cycle then the chain will continue on with the same suffering that goes on

>>18665698
Sorry I didn't mean to imply that you are suffering in hell but rather you've caused a being to be born in hell and they will suffer

>>18665698
>If you could somehow cripple someone or mutilate them and get away with it, is it still not your responsibility ultimately?
I wouldn't go out of my way to cripple or mutilate someone for no reason, but if I needed to live like a monk for them to not get crippled or mutilated... they're fucked.
>if you don't try to end this cycle then the chain will continue on with the same suffering that goes on
Again, why should I care? I'll be dead and the only part of "me" that will live on is my karma, which isn't actually me.

>>18665593
Why shoukd i care if i don't retain my past identity? The reborn me might as well be a completely different person

>>18665696
Your consciousness continues. You have a very oversimplified understanding of Buddhism. It's true that the mind dies, and it's true that they steer clear of the term "soul" or "self" (never explicitly denying nor affirming), but it's made quite clear, from reading between the lines, that you inherit your deeds, in this life and next. To assert otherwise, according to Gotama, is one of the possible "wrong views" that one can possess. They do not call consciousness self because it is not considered worthy of that name in itself.

>>18665719
Exactly. Why should I make sacrifices (no eating meat, no drinking alcohol, no sex, etc.) just for some random to have a chance at a better life than me? Fuck that.

>>18665722
>that you inherit your deeds, in this life and next.
Exactly, you inherit karma and nothing else really. Why should I go out of the way to make sure someone who isn't really me isn't born with bad karma?

>>18665710
>Again, why should I care?
Because you have compassion for the suffering of other people and want to prevent it?
>but if I needed to live like a monk for them to not get crippled or mutilated... they're fucked
I mean essentially yes but you have the benefit of the Buddha having been in this world and the teachings of the Buddha still remembered
You don't need to become a monk to secure a better rebirth in the future, you can be a lay practitioner and hope that in future rebirths there will be a time where you become a stream enterer
>>18665727
Well from the Buddhist point of view those things aren't meant to be seen as arbitrary sacrifices in the way idk, abstaining from pork or mixing linen and wool is in Judaism, they're meant to benefit you, in the case of monastic communities they also benefit the community

>>18665730
Why should you take future oriented actions as opposed to actions that gratify you right now? It's the same question, and it's your decision to make. The only thing to keep in mind is that small actions in the present often amplify into large differences over time. This is a teaching for commoners, though, if you're actually interested in enlightenment, you shouldn't be thinking much about future lives, and you should be focusing on the present moment.

>>18665730
Read the Kesamutti Sutta

We have this thread every day. We had it today already even. Read a fucking book about it, not wikipedia

>>18665739
Precisely. They're intended to benefit you both in this life and the next. Hedonism and attachment create suffering.

>>18665685
>>18665722
A lot of mental gymnastics to say that "you" are indeed not reborn, since karma isn't you, and that there's no reason to give a shit about rebirth

>>>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindstream
Go for it, anon

>>18665593
Buddhism deals with consciousness not personality

>>18666571
They make up dozens of extremely convoluted concepts to justify their assertion that the soul doesn't exist, and never stop to think that maybe a simple explanation was preferable all along to this clusterfuck of copes.

>>18665593
Stop cluttering the board with the same asinine questions every single day and go read a wikipedia article, since books seem too hard for you

>>18665602
If you think any part of what you think "you" are remains when you reincarnate you are most likely wrong, that is a safe assumption. Also keep in mind the difference between the Laity and the Monastic populations of Buddhists, in study and application of the teachings and ideals. The laity practice is often different, and a lot of it is based on almsgiving. I listened to a sermon on Anitya, or Anicca in Pali. He looked at a body builder and pulled at his skin and said something to the effect of why build this when it is not lasting. The experience of being strong itself is not a lasting thing. Another thing to keep in mind, this religion self immolates in protest. Free Tibet.

>>18665593
It's a major problem. Because Buddhism denies personhood, reducing the self through dependent origination to a bundle of simples (which in turn are found to be nothingness) there is nothing for karma to attach to over a cycle of rebirths. The bundle self loses its dependently arisen attributes upon death, and there can be no continuitity in rebirth because there is no substantial "basket" to ground or hold attributes for the next incarnated self, who of course is just another bundle of dependently arisen attributes.

One school of Buddhism developed a school of personalism to resolve the problem and recreate, on Buddhism terms a "pudga", a de facto atman/soul/self for karma to attach to and ground itself to to make the system work. They were reasonabley succesful in India but never spread outside and died off to the Islamic invasions and resurgent Hinduism, leaving the missionary non-personalists dominant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pudgalavada

>>18668978
>It's a major problem.
It'a not.

>>18668978
IEP article on them
>Pudgalavada Buddhist Philosophy
https://iep.utm.edu/pudgalav/

Aside from the karma-attachment problem there is the problem of there being no basis for normative compassion if no self exists, threatening the entire ethical project of Buddhism.

>IEP
If the effort to gain anything for oneself is essentially deluded, how can it not be equally deluded to try to gain anything for other persons, other selves? If to be liberated is to realize that there was never anyone to be liberated, why would that liberation not include the realization that there was never anyone else to be liberated either? Yet it was out of compassion that the Buddha, freshly enlightened, undertook to teach in the first place, and without that compassion there would have been no Buddhism.

>>18669076
The history of Buddhist sectarian disputes would disagree. It has always been a major problem debated within Buddhism and was a major reason why Buddhism collapsed and died in its own homeland to philosophies and faiths that retained a soul/self. Buddhist ethics is fundamentally incoherent without a self to ground karma or compassion.

>>18665727
You don't lose something inherently valuable when you drink alcohol for example, you only lose your addiction, ergo it does not count as a sacrifice.

>>18668410
Tibet was freed by German philosophy.

>>18665593
It's like a new game + but shitty

>>18665593
If when I die my brain shoots a laser beam into a pregnant womans stomach, transferring my basic personality traits and karma into a fetus, I wouldn't consider that baby just a "random newborn" I would definitely consider that to be my future self. It's like if someone made a sentient computer with my personality. Technically it's not me, but it's close enough that I would care about it

>>18669216
Except the baby wouldn’t inherit your personality, according to Buddhism. Only your karma.

>>18665593
How is karma even fair if a reincarnated being doesn't have any memory from their previous life?
Their are being penalized for something they don't know they did 8pjr4

>>18669119
Lmao. The "scholarship" on this board is peak comedy.