/lit/ - Literature

>>19048086
I think the best course of action would be to grow up and stop larping as a yogi

>>19048086
NGMI

>>19048113
im not a yogi. i simply take my refuge in the buddha, dhamma and the sangha.
>>19048126
t-there's always next life right ?

>>19048086
>never red a book in 5 years
>only skim wiki-pages since i know books are drenched in culture,zeitgeist and dogma and bloated by it beyond recognition
>try to think and meditate about life before going to sleep
>either grow as a person or have a goody night sleep while hugging my second pillow

get on my level OP

>>19048086
unironically just sit

>>19048134
>i simply take my refuge
Have you actually done this? Ritually speaking. Or are you just reading books? It's fine to read books but books don't make you an x-ist. They make you a reader of books.

>>19048213
i take the 5 precepts. intellectually i agree with buddhism and i am going to join a buddhist congregation when covid restrictions go away

i want to do a 10 day meditation course, but im currently engaged in a distance learning university degree that offers me very little time.

>>19048264
That's good. In the meanwhile there are meditation manuals in both the nikayas and mahayana sutras.

>>19048272
yes i've read the satipathana sutta ad some other suttas on meditation
+ yuttadhammo's guide + gunaratna's guide + half of thanissaro's guide.

>>19048134
As per buddhist phenomenology, your next life will have nothing to do with you past karmic seeds anyway.

>>19048417
source?

>>19048426
Anatta and anicca?
What continues past death? It's not the skhandas, so it's just the karma that keeps flowing and ends up forming a new existence.

>>19048086
Meditation should be pleasant and something you look forward to. It should not be a strain or a chore.

>>19048446
How do you make it something to look forward to and not an abstract "oh man I really should do that" thing that you never actually do

>>19048086
Just do it on the next reincarnation bro

>>19048450
Do a form of meditation that you love

>>19048456
I don't have any.
I mean zazen is just sitting down, which I do occasionally, but it doesn't count

>>19048431
whats the point of becoming a buddha then?

>>19048461
If it's not fun, not enjoyable, you won't stick with it. You need to do a practice that sticks and is right for you, and you see results, otherwise you get discouraged and go back to where you were. TM might work for some people, Vipassana for others, Kriya Yoga for others: find one you like.

>>19048417
Only in an ultimate sense
>>19048431
Ah you're just wiki'ing stuff together. There is retribution of karmic seeds but a (You) is no different from other phenomena. That doesn't mean there's no one experiencing results. It means the results and the (You) are interconnected.
>>19048446
Buddhism is not primarily meant as a therapeutic practice. There are meditations on corpses, wrathful deities, etc. You are not supposed to become attached to the experience of meditation.

>>19048086
Posture of hands like this is necessary?

>>19048497
no.

>>19048086
>how do i remedy this
Start meditating.

>>19048509
Will I see some cool shit during meditation? I haven't read any Buddhists literature except some talks by UG but today I ironically sat on my ass for an hour and my conditioning went from sad/happy to none like zero. I was watching sounds and thoughts come and go. Things I get fixated on seemed like nothing but conjured up mental demons of environment around me. Like zero feeling which can't be translated into language without contradiction.

What was this experience?

>>19048495
>That doesn't mean there's no one experiencing results.
Yes but it's not 'you' as in the you that is phenomenologically being experienced during this life.
Look I'm not even anti-buddhism or anything, some parts of the metaphysics I find exceptional, I'm just saying that taken to its logical conclusion, there is no you that meditates, there is no you that is enlightened, and there is no you that is reborn. Dzogchen doesn't equate nirvana to samsara for nothing.

>>19048569
Bro I experienced exactly this during my ironic meditation today >>19048556

What should I do next? I feel like one can't keep up with it while living in a society, having family, friends, job etc. this is why they have monasteries, right?

I think a lot of people think of meditation as some nebulous "good thing" that they "should do" like exercise or eating healthy or whatever. But they don't have a concrete motivation or goal, so they don't feel like they're making progress when they meditate, and it's just a waste of time. The Pali word for meditation is 'bhavana' which means development or cultivation. What mental qualities do you want to cultivate? Do you want to become more compassionate, or less envious, or what? Do you want to get better at focusing? Zen monks can just meditate on voidness because they're experts, normal people need to start with a tangible goal.

>>19048569
>Dzogchen doesn't equate nirvana to samsara for nothing.
That's a way earlier formulation than Dzogchen, already discussed in Indian mahayana literature.

>>19048728
So all Mahayana schools hold that belief?

>>19048759
There's nitpicking but I've definitely seen it in Nagarjuna, Asanga, Vasubandu, Mipham, the prajnaparamita sutra, others. By implication of Nagarjuna it's probably in Aryadeva, Chandrakirti, Shantarakshita, and Kamalashila but those are less fresh in my mind atm

>>19048446
>should
>should

Keep thinking

>>19048791
Keep being unnatural

>>19048791

>>19048915
What's that mean?

>haven’t read a single book
>post on /lit/ every day, basing my opinions of books on the Wikipedia synopsis

>>19048470
Nirvana.

>>19048086
https://youtu.be/aDuLn-Kj93c

meditate, here's a guided meditation you can easily follow


https://youtu.be/z2y9N3IdEqY and here's alonguer one if you wanna go deeper

>>19048486
this

OM

>>19048086
You have ruined your mind with too much knowledge. Oh well. Maybe you’ll get it right in the next life.

>>19048086
https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness/dp/1501156985

>Read shit books
>Doesn't do anything about Atman
Ngmi

Just close your eyes op

>>19048086
niggerus u r scared, lazy and feel like you can always do something more worthwhile GO NOW GO SIT AND CLOSE YOUR EYES AND BE AWARE OF YOUR BREATHING AND CLOUDLIKE THOUGHTS
DO IT FAGGOT
DO IT
AT LEAST 10 MIN DO IT
COME BACK AND REPORT TO US

>>19048086
decide to do it every day at a specific time, and how long you do it doesn't matter, even 1 minute counts.

>>19048618
>What mental qualities do you want to cultivate?
Skepticism and detachment from concepts. How do I do it?

>>19048209
This

>>19052764
Start with the pyrrhonists

>>19052764
>>19052980
Skepticism will fuck up your brain and health, be careful.

>>19053240
What do you mean?
Even then it's better than being a larper.

>>19053248
Doubt is a disease anon. I have been suffering a lot. It's like some creature stuck in between.

>>19053266
I'm already plagued by doubt, I want to be able to go all the way and truly suspend judgment. It should be liberating.

>>19048209
This, it's pretty easy to do

>>19053277
So we're in same position then. Read Outlines of Skepticism. But I am not sure if it will cure you in the age where we're bombarded with junk knowledge/images and there is little mystery left in the world. We have to keep in mind that ancients lived in completely different time where there was no media, internet, free books, science was still primitive etc.

I have been developing the dogma of Pessimism from few years now but still doubt about post death and question mark before birth fucks me up. And if I seriously consider the consequences, then things are only pointing towards an hero.

>>19053313
>in the age where we're bombarded with junk knowledge
This is the problem, isn't it? The whole world runs on memes. If you're not part of a meme clique, you're a brainlet. It's true both here and in real life, you need to pick a side, pick a dogma, pick an ideology. It's so tiresome. And when you say none of that shit can really be ascertained, that all things can be made to make sense when described by a sufficiently eloquent proponent, you're called some flavor of NPC or lazy.
>Pessimism
What drew you to that?
Do you hold any beliefs towards post-death/pre-birth?
I would assume that if there is something after death, no religion has touched upon it, but I wouldn't know how to justify this rigorously.

>>19053369
>This is the problem, isn't it? The whole world runs on memes. If you're not part of a meme clique, you're a brainlet. It's true both here and in real life, you need to pick a side, pick a dogma, pick an ideology. It's so tiresome. And when you say none of that shit can really be ascertained, that all things can be made to make sense when described by a sufficiently eloquent proponent, you're called some flavor of NPC or lazy.
You're absolutely right. And it is almost impossible to live as a Skeptic and also being a family man. You need a lot of distance.

>What drew you to that?
I would say that every life circumstances are like this it's just that a philosopher like Cioran pointed out something I was ignoring. He was also plagued by doubt but futility and suffering were also his greater concerns. Let me quote him it's has more depth into it than any petty story I could tell you about my life

>The skepticism which fails to contribute to the ruin of our health is merely an intellectual exercise.

-Cioran, All Gall is Divided

>>19053690
You have kids? Yeah I can understand how difficult that would be. Thankfully I have no responsibilities.
I haven't really engaged with Cioran or any of the pessimists. I acknowledge the problem of suffering, but I'm not sure what answer to give to it, past a simple rejection of the world's meaningfulness. At the same time, is the rejection of everything wholesale truly warranted? How do you justify it personally?
From what I've seen, Cioran loathed existence itself. I suppose I haven't suffered enough to empathize with the sentiment; I'd be more inclined to feel apathy rather than hatred, I've always felt more detached from the world than in reaction towards it. The world in its blandness leaves me mostly indifferent, and a lot of my doubt comes from the inability to reconcile this apathy with any ideologies or statements on reality I've stumbled upon so far.

>>19053731
No, I don't have kids but I do live in a traditional community where even street dogs push their noses into your ass.

If you have certain apathy and distance towards the world then please don't read any pessimists. Skepticism becomes viscous when it get mixed up with pessimism. You're comfortable in your lifestyle so keep pursuing it and simply read Outlines of Skepticism to be done with the bullshit for once and all.

>>19053792
Do you feel coerced to adopt a certain lifestyle or do you do your own thing regardless?
>please don't read any pessimists.
Frankly, reading philosophy in general has already done enough damage. But is deliberately avoiding certain thinkers sticking your head in the sand?
Yes, I suspect Outlines will at least give me a rational basis for skepticism to complement pure intuition, that'll allow me to stop obsessing and suffering from doubt. Hopefully.

>>19048086
The buddhism westerners know about is revisionist bullshit that leftists wanted to spread as the generic eastern philosophy because Vedic philosophy , lifestyle and social organisation was very based foe their asses to bear.

>>19053836
>Do you feel coerced to adopt a certain lifestyle or do you do your own thing regardless?
I am pretty fucked at this point so it doesn't matter what kind of lifestyle I live. But I would have preferred running away and building a solitary lifestyle with little to no possession or attachments. Our "relationships"/possessions are our chains which make us prisoners to this life and builds up all sorts of other delusions which increase our lust for life and contempt for death. But this comes down to you and what you're comfortable with. If you're comfortable with a family then go it.
>Frankly, reading philosophy in general has already done enough damage. But is deliberately avoiding certain thinkers sticking your head in the sand?
You're right about damage. But who the fuck cares about sticking head in the sand? It's your life and you have to deal with it and you have to fight these mental demons imposed on us by us, Schopenhauer said that wise people in every era knew that pursuit of happiness is bullshit but minimizing the source of your suffering as much as you can is the right way to approach. Stop caring about these metal demons. It is insufferable to live meta consciously all the time and one would end up losing their mind.
>I suspect Outlines will at least give me a rational basis for skepticism to complement pure intuition, that'll allow me to stop obsessing and suffering from doubt. Hopefully.
Yeah it is one of the razor sharp tool in philosophy. It is also a thin rope.

>>19053849
based and truthpilled

>>19053900
>I am pretty fucked
That bad?
>Our "relationships"/possessions are our chains which make us prisoners to this life
Completely agree. Thankfully I'm capable of having relationships with people and remaining distant from it all, but it is quite easy to get sucked into that delusional torpor that makes you dull and unprepared.
>who the fuck cares about sticking head in the sand?
I guess it's the implicit value put on truth that makes me say this. Hiding from information that could be valuable, knowledge that could be true, and living in delusion.
Although maybe we all live in delusion.
>live meta consciously
Yeah, fuck that. Questioning the truth of reality constantly and wondering what the right existential course of action is is an absolute curse.

>>19053941
>That bad?
I think so, kek. Sorry anon I don't want to share the details.
>I guess it's the implicit value put on truth that makes me say this. Hiding from information that could be valuable, knowledge that could be true, and living in delusion.
>Although maybe we all live in delusion.
This is exactly where Skepticism will help you. And it's cool that you can have relationships and still maintain your distance. I think this is the best approach and with this mindset you will be Abel to digest those ideas.

So long anon.

>>19053997
Alright, thanks anon. I wish you well.

>>19048086
I had suspicions that anyone spamming this board about Eastern nonsense was a LARPer. Seems I was right. Grow up

>>19054014
>Grow up
Yes. This means growing out of abrahamic nonsense too. Everyone on this board is a larper.