/lit/ - Literature

Feeling rather discouraged that as a layperson I can actually achieve any kind of peace of mind or lasting happiness. It just seems like a losing battle where you're constantly using sensuality to cope with stuff you can't remove yourself from as a layperson (work and family being the main ones).

>>22794926
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFzaTO5Nvc0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2YqlHhGxnQ

I find myself constantly thinking about emptiness and constantly observing my thoughts. That's good, isn't it? Several times throughout the day, I'll feel an emotion or think a thought and go
>this is like a cloud passing over the sky, my thoughts/emotions are not me
I'm not behaving any different but it feels like this is becoming an integral part of my thought process.

>>22794962
Yeah, this is exactly I mean. Whether you're a layperson or not the practice is still sense restraint but it's much harder (borderline impossible) to restrain the senses as a modern layperson because of the degree to which the sensual baits pervade the world and the burdens of householder life which cause you to seek out those baits to cope with them. The one feeds into the other.

It's basically not possible to have a family, a wife, kids, etc. and try and also strive for any kind of spiritual attainment.

>>22795028
The positive to being a layperson is that you can be a good influence on others.

Like a billboard of virtue.

Everyone you interact with on a daily basis gets to witness your virtue if you follow the path closely.

This can have a ripple effect where the attitudes of everyone you know and they know can change for the better.

You can help reduce the suffering in others lives.

Thich Nhat Hanh's books I think are pretty good for someone living a lay life.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9074.Thich_Nhat_Hanh

Peace is Every Step
The Art of Communicating
The Art of Living
How to Love

>>22795360
The positive to being a layperson is that you can be a good influence on others.

Like a billboard of virtue.

Everyone you interact with on a daily basis gets to witness your virtue if you follow the path closely.

This can have a ripple effect where the attitudes of everyone you know and they know can change for the better.

You can help reduce the suffering in others lives.

Thich Nhat Hanh's books I think are pretty good for someone living a lay life.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9074.Thich_Nhat_Hanh
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=thich+nhat+hanh

Peace is Every Step
The Art of Communicating
The Art of Living
How to Love

>>22795360
If you're a layperson, metta might be more important than for one who spends a lot of time in solitude.

Essential Food

Nothing can survive without food. Everything we consume acts either to heal us or to poison us. We tend to think of nourishment only as what we take in through our mouths, but what we consume with our eyes, our ears, our noses, our tongues, and our bodies is also food. The conversations going on around us, and those we participate in, are also food. Are we consuming and creating the kind of food that is healthy for us and helps us grow?

When we say something that nourishes us and uplifts the people around us, we are feeding love and compassion. When we speak and act in a way that causes tension and anger, we are nourishing violence and suffering.

We often ingest toxic communication from those around us and from what we watch and read. Are we ingesting things that grow our understanding and compassion? If so, that’s good food. Often, we ingest communication that makes us feel bad or insecure about ourselves or judgmental and superior to others. We can think about our communication in terms of nourishment and consumption. The Internet is an item of consumption, full of nutrients that are both healing and toxic. It’s so easy to ingest a lot in just a few minutes online. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use the Internet, but you should be conscious of what you are reading and watching.

When you work with your computer for three or four hours, you are totally lost. It’s like eating french fries. You shouldn’t eat french fries all day, and you shouldn’t be on the computer all day. A few french fries, a few hours, are probably all most of us need.
What you read and write can help you heal, so be thoughtful about what you consume. When you type a comment that is full of understanding and compassion, you are nourishing yourself during the time you write that message. Even if it’s short, everything you’re writing down can nourish you and the person to whom you are writing.

Nourishing and healing communication is the food of our relationships. Sometimes one cruel utterance can make the other person suffer for many years, and we will suffer for many years too. In a state of anger or fear, we may say something that can be poisonous and destructive. If we swallow poison, it can stay within us for a long time, slowly killing our relationship. We may not even know what we said or did that started to poison the relationship. But we have the antidote: mindful compassion and loving communication. Love, respect, and friendship all need food to survive. With mindfulness we can produce thoughts, speech, and actions that will feed our relationships and help them grow and thrive.

>>22795641
Not him but I don't like theravada precisely because of this "oh if you're a layman just hope for a better rebirth and fuck off while the bhikkus do the real work" mentality

>>22795691
Layperson doesn't mean a miserable existence.
Plenty of laypeople are "happy".

Laypeople have struggles.
Monks have struggles.

The key is not running away from pain or chasing after pleasure.

>>22795716
The important thing is liberation and theravada teaches that laypeople will not be liberated in this lifetime

>>22795641
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWowi-fAGGY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_4aRznxXkI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhiHCU2CpB0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-fhz8z6i0s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCfVKcCiesg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUfE6w-XP8Q

>>22795762
And I honestly think the Theravada are right and people who say otherwise are deluding themselves.

I mean even this anon had to put happy in quotes when referring to laypeople. Monks are far happier because of their lifestyle, because they don't have to worry about work, money, family, socializing, material possessions or any of that stuff. There's a reason why the bulk of the pali canon is addressing monks and why anyone who listens to the Buddha and presumably attains right view, immediately takes up the bowl and robe.

>>22795762
Laypeople can reach stream-entry with enough sense restraint.

>>22795628
>You can help reduce the suffering in others lives.
Except you literally can't, because the suffering is self-induced due to delusion. No one can take away someone else's suffering, not even the Buddha. What you're talking about is pain or unpleasant experience, but neither of those are in themselves suffering, and taking them away doesn't necessarily lead to less suffering (I'd argue it has the opposite effect).

>>22795806
The amount of sense restraint necessary would require the layperson to live like a monk anyway, so its kind of meaningless to say that a layperson can attain stream-entry. The thing that makes them a layperson (engaging with the sensual domain) is exactly the opposite of what's minimally required for stream-entry (sense restraint)

>>22795800
I've heard arguments from the other side that laylife while exercising sense restraint can be superior to monk life (because of limited food, manual labor, politics, strict routine, increased change of getting sick, etc)

There are pros and cons to each.

Depending on the place, monks will have to interact with lay people and so can actually struggle with solitude which ends up limiting them on the path.

A layperson who is single and works a simple job with minimal contact or who has the money to live without working can be in a better situation from spending less time around people.

I've heard this from Nyanamoli of Hillside Hermitage. Someone who isn't a part of monastery but spends a lot of time in solitude and practicing sense restraint will be better off than a monk who is always interacting with other monks and around laypeople.

Solitude is a big factor.

Even if you work, if you spend the whole time off of work by yourself without any stimulating sources of entertainment or people, then you can be better off than a monk in some places.

>>22795800
The solution? Vajrayana
Use the poisons of daily life as opportunities to grow on the path

You don't suffer because you're a layperson.

You suffer because you don't want to be a layperson.

Because you DESIRE to not be a layperson.

And that is why you suffer.

>>22794910
>Read Nikayas in reverse: KN(start with Dhammapada)->AN->SN->MN->DN
KN alone is like 1500 pages

>>22796071
Unless you wanna start off reading longer stories then it makes more sense to start with the shorter suttas.

There is a fifth noble truth.
OP is a fag.

>>22795800

My main concern with monkhood would be boredom. I wish monks were allowed to cultivate food and have self-sufficient monasteries, but that is not the Theravada way.

>>22795841
>Someone who isn't a part of monastery but spends a lot of time in solitude and practicing sense restraint will be better off than a monk who is always interacting with other monks and around laypeople.
While this is obviously true, it's also a bit of a strawman. The point is that a layperson would have a much harder time achieving that necessary solitude and sense restraint than the monk, because of his environment and the necessities of the household life. Yes, you could live alone, not have a family dependent on you, not engage with modern technology/entertainment, practice celibacy, work a simple job with minimal contact with others or have enough money not to work, etc. but at that point are you really a "layperson" in the practical sense? You are essentially living like a monk and the necessities and constraints of regular household life (sometimes your wife or kid gets sick, sometimes you lose your job, sometimes there's a deadline at work or you don't get along with your boss, etc.) don't apply.

Increasingly, I'm starting to realize that Buddhism has nothing to offer to ordinary people living in the household except to tell them that they should live like monks. Which is just as well. You can't have it both ways.

If you're a layperson you should practice Dzogchen instead of feeling hopeless because you're not a Theravadin monk

>>22796348
What's the benefit of that practice? Isn't just delusion?

>>22796376
>What's the benefit of that practice?
The attainment of complete Buddhahood in one life
>Isn't just delusion?
It cuts right to root of delusion

>>22796388
I really don't see how a person can attain stream-entry let alone Buddhahood while living as a layperson. It seems delusional to think to otherwise.

>>22795641
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/SublimeAttitudes/Section0001.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/SublimeDeterminations/Section0001.html
https://www.dhammasukha.org/metta-barebones-booklet
https://sourcepointglobaloutreach.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Heart-of-Dharma-Collection-Book.pdf
https://www.namchak.org/community/blog/what-are-the-four-immeasurables/
https://brahmaviharas.net/
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nyanaponika/wheel006.html
https://buddhist-spirituality.org/dhamma-resources/websites

>>22796348
Or Mahamudra. Still not sure whether I should seek a teacher from Kagyu or Nyingma
>>22796399
That's because you hold theravada to be the only "orthodox" view

>>22796399
b-b-but im layperson!
shut and train pussy

>>22798160
No it just seems self-evident based on what is written in the pali canon. Anytime training is mentioned, it begins with the development of sense restraint. It also just makes sense logically, if you are trying to achieve a state of freedom from craving after worldly things, you can't at the same time engage with those worldly things and still expect to achieve that freedom. It's like trying to fix a leaky boat without plugging the holes first.

>>22794910
Buddhist texts about dealing with kundalini symptoms? How to detach from ecstasy and energy, oversensitivity?

>>22798381
In Vajrayana, worldly things are used as stepping stones towards enlightenment. This is why it's the best path for laymen

>>22795858
>the solution, vajrayana
Retarded solution mate, using the poisons as daily life opportunities doesn't require all the insane tantric commitments and Mahayana stuff. Whilst there is some good stuff within vajrayana, I would never recommend vajrayana to a person just "getting into Buddhism"
If you're not ready for tantric commitments, vows to "secrecy," aspects of deity worship, entering into the cult of a lama, sexualized metaphysics, then no vajrayana is not something to just recommend lightly, it could possibly cause mental and physical issues especially
Do not recommend tantrism in a Buddhism thread, vajrayana is derived from tantric shaivism, etc. "Tantric buddhism" is for those who seek it out actively, not for a beginner who has been groomed into it, go very slowly into these subjects and don't rush if you do get interested in vajrayana now I advise, go very slowly into it, don't rush anything (rec. To that anon)

Skip vajrayana, Zen/Chan Buddhism doesn't include all the tantric rituals which could probably cause psychological effects on westerners because of culture shocks and so on.

Vajrayana is like a full blown religion, it's like you are recommending Christianity in a Buddhism thread. And knowing how vajrayana works in the West, when someone merely looks into "vajrayana" they go straight to the highest tantric empowerments, whilst still being relatively ignorant about it. I am not insulting that path at all, but the very recommendation of that path betrays the secrecy and anti-popularism inherent to tantra.

>>22798403
Vajrayana at the highest level is pretty much hindu tantra under a Buddhist veil, Shiva- Wisdom, Shakti- Method, although the Tibetans for some reason invert the masculine/feminine symbolism of the sun and moon, which is a universal thing, you are working with energy in your body, tummo, subtle winds, drops, sexual initiations, visualisation etc. This is not something I would haphazardly suggest someone who is interested in Buddhism to look into.

Vajrayana is Hindu tantra and taoist alchemy grafted onto Buddhism. Albeit you could just look into Mahayana Buddhism without the vajrayana (tantric) emphasis.

>>22798403
>>22798413
There is mahamudra and dzogchen but guess what, mahamudra and dzogchen is not a beginners first intro in the vajrayana tradition as westerners seem to think, it is usually the most advanced part revealed after already being immersed in all the other anuttarayogatantra stuff, Mahayoga , anuyoga. Etc. As they call it, only very rarely is someone just born qualified for mahamudra or dzogchen and merely has to listen to pith instructions to intuit their rigpa, usually they leave mahamudra for older people, after their desire has waned and all these teachers within the tradition will be fully immersed in the alchemical Taoist, hindu tantric elements I am talking about.

Best would be Zen/Chan Buddhism or Therevada Buddhism, it depends what path you are after and your disposition, a "wet" path or a "dry" path.

>>22798392
In all religions, worldly things are "used."

Get to the point you are shilling hindu tantra and Taoist alchemy in a Buddhism thread. What that actually entails you are not saying as you shouldn't, but don't go steering Buddhists who are interested in a "dry" intellectual inquiry, paired with what is probably a modern materialist conditioning, into the world of Tibetan mythology with all the spirits and energies.

>>22798445
So as I said in my first post, you are indeed a hyperprotestant larper who thinks theravada is the only right view.

>>22798459
Where does the buddha say that one must have had an open central channel and have had sex with a woman to attain final nirvana? Or that enlightenment is in the drops of the subtle body? No insult to vajrayana bros, tantric shaivite bros, or Taoist alchemist bros. Also I meant no insult by the mention of Tibetan "mythology" but yeah yeah deities and dharmapalas play a role in your meditations, and also there are ideas about black magic, and white magic, spirit harm and stuff of that nature in the tradition.
>>22798459
No I am not a hyperprotestant larper I just think we materialists should err on the side of caution when it comes to immersing ourselves in these Eastern traditions which involve deities and the spirit world, its best to just reflect on Buddhas "emptiness" and dispassion, Mahayana sutras are fine in my opinion, but the vajrayanic hindu tantra approach whilst it is in no way inferior to the dry approach, the wet approach is something different and deserves to be included in a thread on its own topic.

>>22795691
What gets me with that mentality is that it's obvious that monks can only sustain their lifestyle thanks to the work and donations by laypeople. But if those people follow the precepts and get reborn with good karma in the next life they're gonna be monks too. But now who is gonna be the layperson sustaining them? The whole thing is a pyramid that relies on always having more laypeople suffering for the sake of fewer monks.

>>22798504
When I say it is best, I mean no comparison, but I think buddha was more or less into the "dry path" of intellectual inquiry, jnanamarga instead of the tantric path which takes a more wholistic approach.
Anyway peace to you brother, no matter what your practice is, if you are a yogi of the vajrayana tradition accomplished or not, I mean in no way to somehow diminish your path, honestly I need to practice self-restraint and simply not reply with these comments. Or at least make the replies shorter and more succinct. Sorry if I have offended you in anyway, best wishes to you and your family, and your spiritual path.

>>22798504
>we materialists
Your problem is that you're trying to insert contemporary western physicalism into a religion that involves supernatural elements. The Buddha explicitly rejected materialism, and if you don't believe in rebirth, then there is no reason to not kill yourself right now

>>22798459
>only one right view.
Absolutely not. As I said, vajrayana is a valid path, as with the "dry" and "wet" paths being valid, it is about the object of attainment which results from the path, and I do believe there are multiple paths up to the mountain peak.
All I am saying is, it is probably best for the buddhist who is interested in the original buddha figure, to exercise caution or at least a more critical discernment when it comes to these evidently much later traditions, which have come down to us which were influenced by all sorts of extraneous non-buddhist traditions, like tantric shaivism, Taoist alchemy and even Tibetan shamanism, after all I believe there is a Tibetan tradition which actively denies any affiliation with Buddha, and Buddhism, bön shamanism which I believe derives its origin from an earlier figure not the Buddha, but something like Samantabhadra, or some sort of figure they term "primordial buddha" but is pretty much identical in the sorts of practices and methods and philosophy as vajrayana.
As I said I think vajrayana is a wonderful spiritual path, but it is not necessarily sutric Buddhism.

>>22798514
No offense, I understood your position as being overly focused on theravada but now I understand why.
The Pali canon constitutes the oldest teachings and probably those that are closest to what the historical Siddhartha Gautama taught, but they still include supernatural claims that are incompatible with materialism. I think people get very fixated on whether or not certain sutras were spoken by the historical Buddha or not, but the value of any given text comes from whether or not it produces understanding and clears away delusion. In that regard, the value of tantra is that it is mean to be "expedient". I didn't say that one path was better than the other either; simply that laymen interested in rapid progress might be less frustrated by committing to Vajrayana since it does not require monastic austerity, that's all

>>22798536
>but the value of any given text comes from whether or not it produces understanding and clears away delusion. In that regard, the value of tantra is that it is mean to be "expedient".
no, that's a dogma made precisely to introduce things which are created by hindus and never taught by the buddha.
People who can't stop changing the teaching do not trust one bit the buddha and the suttas, so why the fuck do they want to be buddhist? All their claims are compatible with hinduism, so why can't they stay hindus and why are they obsessed with passing as buddhist?

And tantras are not expedient because mindfulness is faster, again as per the buddha.

>>22798536
>I think people get very fixated on whether or not certain sutras were spoken by the historical Buddha or not
If you're a Buddhist you have faith that this Buddha guy achieved enlightenment and set forth a path towards achieving it. But why do you trust anyone who came after? Some guy hundreds or thousands of years later suddenly shows up saying he has a faster path to enlightenment, if I trust him I now have faith in yet another guy. At some point the chances you're getting tricked by people who don't know anything is huge. So why not just stick to believing the original claims?

>>22798527
>Your problem is that you're trying to insert contemporary western physicalism
It is more like this, I am infact vary wary of the spiritual world which is why I am not one to take lightly the invocation of deities, and so forth, which I believe can have psychological effects. I also believe since most of us western Buddhists come from a background a hard shell of materialism, to be thrown into this spiritual world of vajrayana can lead to very negative results, please understand. I am not trying to dismiss you and your view, but rather I think we need to exercise caution when recommending ordinary westerners who are beginning with Buddhism and therefore probably holding still that western materialistic view, into these very strange spiritual worlds involving "supernatural elements" as you call them.
You see I think supernatural and natural is a false dichotomy, and that we must have lots of care when approaching this idea of a "supernatural" because ambiguity can be something very intimidating and even fearful for the human mind, this can lead to those negative consequences I mention,

I do not think the buddha told us all to get involved in any sort of looming "unknown" spiritual world or the belief in these "external entities or spiritual forces" actively controlling us and having influence on us. Buddha did not like deity worship, idol worship, predicated upon the seperation between subject and object, causality etc. Also I do not think the buddha talked about tantric powers and so on.

>>22798559
Buddha was not an astrologer, he came with the view of anatta and that's it.

Anatta and the buddha is one thing, but then adding to that, if you eat human faces you are doing the Buddha intention and therefore you are on the expedient path of the Buddha's, is interpolation and draws no boundaries, if you can't say buddha said this and this, but that other stuff was introduced later and depended on time and place and also extraneous traditions, then where can you draw the line?
Also you are talking to two anons.

>>22798559
>>22798566
Mindfulness and Zen is best and most compatible with western secularism, which is what I would recommend to people not Vajrayana (Even if I see the merits in it and personally respect the tradition)
This is not something I would recommend to someone haphazardly or without much care.

>>22798527
>your problem is you're trying to insert
Listen, I was in your position one day, but you have to have a very very clear and self-evident view if you have such a strong ideological opposition to Western "materialism"

You have seen materialism is not the whole truth, but you are not giving us any clear alternative what you're doing is simply confusing people and trying to destabilize the fabric of their day to day reality. For that you are causing suffering to others.

Imagine someone took you seriously, they are just ordinary people, maybe they have some emotional issues, then they hear you scream "western materialism is Fucking fake and bullshit" no further elaboration, then they just doubt their reality and they become confused, and if they take you absolutely seriously they may even end up in a mental hospital because they don't know what's real any more and they are totally lost, they have lost their sense of purpose in life, they can't love their family as they did, they think it's all fake, because of you in your megalomania trying to tell people to doubt their "so called reality based in contemporary western materialism" oh that we should believe some other bullshit concocted in the deluded mind of a western vajrayanist trying to make people feel unsure about their reality.

This is why you can fuck yourself, I say that in the kindest way possible, when I was about 17 to around 19 I read a bit of books critiquing modernity and "western materialism" etc. And I had that sort of ideological reaction, so I tried to tell my parents and siblings materialism is bullshit etc. Only thankgod they just ignored me and didn't take me seriously.

Unless you can produce a totally clear alternative since you are so reactive in an ideological way to "western materialism" then you can just shut the fuck up.

I ended up learning that clinging to any "ideological view" is bullshit and that gave me more peace so I don't need to explain my view.

>>22798596
>Imagine someone took you seriously, they are just ordinary people, maybe they have some emotional issues, then they hear you scream "western materialism is Fucking fake and bullshit" no further elaboration, then they just doubt their reality and they become confused, and if they take you absolutely seriously they may even end up in a mental hospital because they don't know what's real any more and they are totally lost, they have lost their sense of purpose in life, they can't love their family as they did, they think it's all fake, because of you in your megalomania trying to tell people to doubt their "so called reality based in contemporary western materialism" oh that we should believe some other bullshit concocted in the deluded mind of a western vajrayanist trying to make people feel unsure about their reality.
The most nefarious thing about your little argument here is that you're trying to target the sort of people who have little emotional issue maybe, so they turn to mindfulness practice, Buddhist stuff, for more peace of mind, so they are maybe just maybe even more willing to be the unlucky bastard to take you completely seriously because you are offering such a delicious sounding snake oil, vajrayana wow, psychic power, wow, real magic wow, etc. thankfully we real Buddhist can tell you to GO FUCK YOURSELF and you should be ashamed of yourself, because you are trying to fuck with people's heads and rope them into the delusion of "muh spiritual worlds" and fuck knows what else you have supposedly strung together so far.
Buddhism is supposed to bring people more clarity and surety about their reality not make them doubt their reality in favour of some western fuckwits interpretation of a lamas wetdream. Not to say anything of that lamas own intentions, who knows he was probably a good guy.

>>22795831
>Except you literally can't, because the suffering is self-induced due to delusion.
You show them the way through your actions.

>Another buddhism thread where western vajrayanists try to mindrape people with their dubious 'anti-materialist" takes on Tibetan Buddhism
You love to see it

>>22798530
Vajrayana is not some fusion of Mahayana, Shaiva tantra, Tibetan shamanism, and Taoist alchemy, it's an entirely Buddhist system. You know nothing about Vajrayana.

>>22796314
Accepting the feeling of boredom and not trying to run away from it is a part of the practice.

How do you expect to become enlightened when you keep running away from unpleasant feelings?

Boredom leads to insight.

>>22796327
>Buddhism has nothing to offer to ordinary people living in the household

Follow the eightfold path and you'll see that's wrong.

What's the alternative? Indulging in fleeting external sensual pleasures that just leave you craving more and never being satisfied and at peace?

>>22796399
Many cases of laypeople attaining stream-entry.

>>22798635
Wisdom - Shiva - Yang
Method - Shakti - Yin

Emptiness - Shiva - Yang
Compassion - Shakti - Yin

Tummo - Kundalini - Neikung - Circulating light - Microcosmic Orbit

All that one needs to know, I don't need to read that book you posted about.

Buddha nowhere in the pali cannon talks about a central channel, tsa, loong etc. Etc. Nor does buddha advise his listeners to do Vase-Breathing or meditate on chakras, nor does he talk about visualising deities with implements and skull cups, weapons in union etc.

All that comes from hindu tantra mostly, as for Taoist analogy, there's no need to go into it, hindu tantra is enough of a correlative, sahaja aka mahamudra etc. All terms taken from Shiva tantras, it is hindu tantra with a Buddhist spin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67xygyOcnSo&list=ULcxqQ59vzyTk

>>22798387
Don't be averse. Let them be.

>>22798665
By the way, let me reiterate because I apprehended in your reply a "reaction" I am in no way insulting vajrayana or saying it is somehow illegitimate because it is a mix of hindu tantra, Mahayana Buddhism etc. Etc. As I said it is a perfectly legitimate and good spiritual path, and I wish you well on it. The idea that simply because something is later or the result of influence, or a "copy" or fusion of something, does mean it is bad, unoriginality and bad are not synonymous when it comes to teaching, that actually shows that it derives from a pure source.

>>22798505
>enlightened monks end cycle of rebirth
>laypeople become monks in next life
>new laypeople replace old ones

>there's no point in being a buddhist as a layperson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)

>>22798699
I agree that's a bullshit take, in all your activities it is about being yourself not balancing made up identities, if only we could all see it so simply...

>>22798680
Are there infinite beings that can be reborn as humans? Because if there are not, some guy is gonna get stuck being the last one on Earth (or whatever planet comes after since Buddhism is always talking about eons) after everyone else already got enlightened. But even if there aren't, monks better hope they are always less in number than lay people trying to not spread Buddhism too much, otherwise they will have to actually work instead of relying on laypeople.

>>22798721
>*But even if there aren't, monks better hope they are always less in number than lay people, trying to not spread Buddhism too much, otherwise they will have to actually work instead of relying on laypeople.
missed a comma there

>>22798552
>>22798558
"The original claims" are not theravada

>>22798596
>>22798620
You sound really unstable already so vajrayana probably isn't for you yeah

>>22798791
Not a reply. Also I am already an accomplished in vajarayana ;)

This might be Original on /lit/, but has anyone heard of the Vedic Indian Poetry?

>>22798804
Ah, I found what I was looking for.
The 'Kannada Poetry' of India.
It seems to me to be a purely <essential> form of writing!

>>22798804
vedic poetry begins with the rigveda and they have a whole field about prosody
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit_prosody

I have read _What The Buddha Taught_ by Walpola Rahula. Assuming what he teaches is real buddhism, it has several inconsistencies which makes it invalid. I'm sure he didn't get everything right so real buddhism may be better (I hope so) or worse, I'll keep studying to discover it. Don't ask me what I think is inconsistent for I won't answer yet, I'll write an article about it; when I finish it, I'll share it

So you should train like this: ‘I won’t get into arguments.’ That’s how you should train. When there’s an argument, you can expect there’ll be lots of talking. When there’s lots of talking, people become restless. Being restless, they lose restraint. And without restraint the mind is far from immersion. Moggallāna, I don’t praise all kinds of closeness. Nor do I criticize all kinds of closeness. I don’t praise closeness with laypeople and renunciates. I do praise closeness with those lodgings that are quiet and still, far from the madding crowd, remote from human settlements, and fit for retreat.”

When he said this, Venerable Moggallāna asked the Buddha, “Sir, how do you briefly define a mendicant who is freed through the ending of craving, who has reached the ultimate end, the ultimate sanctuary from the yoke, the ultimate spiritual life, the ultimate goal, and is best among gods and humans?”

“Take a mendicant who has heard: ‘Nothing is worth insisting on.’ When a mendicant has heard that nothing is worth insisting on, they directly know all things. Directly knowing all things, they completely understand all things. Completely understanding all things, when they experience any kind of feeling—pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral—they meditate observing impermanence, dispassion, cessation, and letting go in those feelings. Meditating in this way, they don’t grasp at anything in the world. Not grasping, they’re not anxious. Not being anxious, they personally become extinguished.

>>22798721
Yes, there are infinite sentient beings

>>22798552
>>22798558
Vajrayana denies the existence of an atman just like every other school of Buddhism. It accepts the four Noble Truths. It accepts dependent origination. It denies a creator god. How is Abby of that compatible with Hinduism?

>>22799197
it accepts dharmakaya and sunyata and the two truth dogma, and rejects the rising of karma and rejects the full enlightenment of the arahants, all of which are not buddhist and compatible with the hindu liberation which is the limitless uncreated nondual awareness.

>>22799265
>limitless uncreated nondual awareness.
What would this be in theravadin vocabulary? The ninth jhana?
Is mahayana enlightenment incomplete from a theravadin point of view?

“Then, Sāriputta, you should train yourselves: ‘There will be no I-making or mine-making conceit-obsession with regard to this conscious body. There will be no I-making or mine-making conceit-obsession with regard to all external themes [topics of concentration]. We will enter & remain in the awareness-release & discernment-release where there is no I-making or my-making conceit-obsession for one entering & remaining in it.’ That’s how you should train yourselves. When there is in a monk no I-making or my-making conceit-obsession with regard to this conscious body, no I-making or my-making conceit-obsession with regard to all external themes, and when he enters & remains in the awareness-release & discernment-release where there is no I-making or my-making conceit-obsession for one entering & remaining in it, he is called a monk who has cut through craving, has ripped off the fetter, and—from rightly breaking through conceit—has put an end to suffering & stress.

“And it was in reference to this that I said, in Udaka’s Questions in the Pārāyana [Sn5:13]:

“The abandoning

both of sensual desires,

& of unhappiness,

the dispelling of sloth,

the warding off of anxieties,

equanimity-&-mindfulness purified,

with inspection of mental qualities

swift in the forefront:

That I call the gnosis of emancipation,1

the breaking open

of ignorance.”

>>22799265
>dharmakaya
That's just the realization of the emptiness of mind.
>sunyata
I have no idea why Theravadins get hung up on emptiness. It just means an absence of inherent existence, and is basically another word for dependent origination.
>two truth dogma
The two truths are inseparable, the ultimate is just realizing the empty nature of the conventional. The ultimate cannot exist without the conventional.
>rejects the rising of karma
I have no idea where you got this, karma is as fundamental to Vajrayana as any other Buddhist school.
> rejects the full enlightenment of the arahants
Even Sravakayana schools accept that arhats still have a slight knowledge obscuration that buddhas have completely purified.
>hindu liberation which is the limitless uncreated nondual awareness
What do you think this means? Non-duality in Vajrayana simply means that appearances are not separate from your mind, it is not the ontological position of the Hindus.

https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/NobleStrategy/Section0013.html

Emptiness is a mode of perception, a way of looking at experience. It adds nothing to and takes nothing away from the raw data of physical and mental events. You look at events in the mind and the senses with no thought of whether there’s anything lying behind them.

This mode is called emptiness because it’s empty of the presuppositions we usually add to experience to make sense of it: the stories and world-views we fashion to explain who we are and to define the world we live in. Although these stories and views have their uses, the Buddha found that some of the more abstract questions they raise—of our true identity and the reality of the world outside—pull attention away from a direct experience of how events influence one another in the immediate present. So they get in the way when we try to understand and solve the problem of suffering.

Say for instance, that you’re meditating, and a feeling of anger toward your mother appears. Immediately, the mind’s reaction is to identify the anger as “my” anger, or to say that “I’m” angry. It then elaborates on the feeling, either working it into the story of your relationship to your mother, or to your general views about when and where anger toward one’s mother can be justified.

The problem with all this, from the Buddha’s perspective, is that these stories and views entail a lot of suffering. The more you get involved in them, the more you get distracted from seeing the actual cause of the suffering: the labels of “I” and “mine” that set the whole process in motion. As a result, you can’t find the way to unravel that cause and bring the suffering to an end.

If, however, you can adopt the emptiness mode—by not acting on or reacting to the anger, but simply watching it as a series of events, in and of themselves—you can see that the anger is empty of anything worth identifying with or possessing. As you master the emptiness mode more consistently, you see that this truth holds not only for such gross emotions as anger, but also for even the subtlest events in the realm of experience. This is the sense in which all things are empty. When you see this, you realize that labels of “I” and “mine” are inappropriate, unnecessary, and cause nothing but stress and pain. You can then drop them. When you drop them totally, you discover a mode of experience that lies deeper still, one that’s totally free.

>>22799619
>ontological
Could you explain the difference between hinduist ontological nondualism and buddhist phenomenological nondualism
This isn't a loaded question I'm just wondering

Buddhologists of /lit/, help me remember, what were those Mahayana terms for realist vs. nihilist interpretations of nirvana? One accused the other of being crypto-vedanta I think. I think sunnyata is related but I swear there was another pair of terms like this in addition. I think it was Tibetan but I can't remember.

>>22799997
Shentong and rangtong. Shentong is crypto-advaita based on a misunderstanding of both Nagarjuna and Yogacara, and rangtong is a strawman made up by shentongpas that no one actually believes.

>>22800065
Amazing, thank you very much. It was driving me insane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAU0S-zqFzU

Om ah hum vajra guru padma siddhi hum

>>22800441
For some reason people think Gelug Prasangika and Jonang Shentong are the only two interpretations of Madhyamaka, when there's really a third option. There's the Trodral (spros bral, freedom from proliferation) tradition, which is actually most in line with the Indian commentaries and is the standard view of the Sakya and Nyingma schools. If you want to understand this, you should read Gorampa's Distinguishing the Views and The Madman's Middle Way by Gendun Chophel. Here's an article that gives an overview of Gorampa's view.
https://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ret/pdf/ret_22_05.pdf

>>22801207
The gaudapada karika makes the same point of the negation of the four existences, and that "emptiness" cannot withstand analysis as a "perfected nature" but that it is part of phenomena too and therefore subject to analysis aswell.
Once "Neti Neti" is understood you enter that view which is "freedom of proliferation" aswell, whilst this type of madhyamaka is pretty much identical to advaita Vedanta, I wonder why there were no madhyamaka investigations of the three states (waking, dreaming, dreamless sleep) this seems to be unique to advaita Vedanta, I do think there is one type of applicable inquiry, which is "neti neti" "nothing can be negated or affirmed"

But I have come to the conclusion that mere intellectual inquiry cannot hammer this nail in the mindstream well from the beginning, there is a necessity to be fully developed in other aspects so that the fundamental truth can be intuited, but not any more nor less at any time.

>>22794910
What does Buddhism have to do with a LITERATURE board. Fuck off you thai forest faggots

yeah the buddha said that after unpacking, the theory of intellectuals always falls on the eternalism or annihilism side.
The buddha never talked about the neti neti and ''the four extremes'' and ''both existent and nonexistent, or neither existent nor nonexistent''

>>22801259
>Once "Neti Neti" is understood you enter that view which is "freedom of proliferation" aswell, whilst this type of madhyamaka is pretty much identical to advaita Vedanta, I wonder why there were no madhyamaka investigations of the three states (waking, dreaming, dreamless sleep) this seems to be unique to advaita Vedanta, I do think there is one type of applicable inquiry, which is "neti neti" "nothing can be negated or affirmed"
maybe in https://www.routledge.com/Genealogies-of-Mahayana-Buddhism-Emptiness-Power-and-the-question-of/Walser/p/book/9781138955561
it's on libgen too

the author mentions a bit of dreamless sleep

>>22801685
>''both existent and nonexistent, or neither existent nor nonexistent''
The tetralemma is everywhere in the pali canon, retard

>>22801743
To be honest I am convinced nondualism was already there in the Vedas, the commentators like Gaudapada and Shankara claim that is the case and their commentary shows as much

In the earliest Upanishads who knows, maybe they were pre-Buddhist, there are devices used either implicitly or explicitly like the four padas of the Atman, the quarters being the waking (gross) external and internal, dreaming (subtle) internal, deep sleep (unmanifest) neither external nor internal, (turiya beyond the three) consciousness without subject or object beyond the knower, knowing and knowledge, which shows to me at least that the Indians had a systematic understanding of nondualism from pre-buddhist times,

There are also devices such as the omkara which convey the nonduality of the name and the named, and these further reinforce the points

In chogyam trungpas collected works v5 he notes when talking about how padmasambhava killed 500 hindu dualist pandits who would try to convert nondualistic Buddhist monastics in India sometimes successfully
>Of course, you might criticize this approach, saying that we all should have high regard for the sacred writings of Hinduism, especially the mystical teachings of Hinduism such as the Vedanta. And actually, the vedantic writings themselves do not quite express things dualistically; they are not quite in the dualistic style of spirituality. But the heretics that Padmasambhava was dealing with were believers in the literal truth of dualism. They misunderstood the real depth of the mystic teachings and believed in an external god and an internal ego. Strangely enough, believing in this kind of separateness can bring about very powerful psychic powers. Miracles of all kinds can be performed, and some technical and intellectual understanding of the teachings can be developed.

I believe there is an argument for both Buddhism and advaita Vedanta to have the same nondual "object"

>>22801794
The way chogyam describes padmasmbhava causing the destruction of the dualist hindu pandits is interesting aswell
>In relation to these heretics, Padmasambhava acted as an organic agent, an agent of the natural action of the elements. If you mistreat the fire in your fireplace, your house will catch fire. If you don’t pay enough attention while cutting your carrots, you might cut your finger. It is this mindlessness and mistreatment of the natural situation that is the heretical quality. Rather than regarding existing situations of nonduality as they are, you try to interpret them a bit so that they help to maintain your existence. For example, believing in God is a way of making sure that you exist. Singing a song of praise to God makes you happier, because you are singing the song about him. Since there is a good audience, a good recipient, therefore God exists. That kind of approach is heretical from the Buddhist point of view.
>At that time, the great Buddhist monasteries in a certain part of India were being challenged by Hindu pandits. The Hindu pandits were coming to the monasteries and teaching, and the monks were rapidly turning into Hindus. It was a tremendous catastrophe. So Padmasambhava was asked to come. Those who invited him said, “We can’t seem to match those Hindu pandits intellectually, so please save us by performing some magic for us. Maybe that is the only solution.”
Padmasambhava came to live in one of the monasteries. One day, he produced an earthquake by pointing his trident in the direction of the Hindu pandits. There were landslides, and five hundred Hindu pandits were destroyed.

>>22801800
>This is very uncompassionate or outrageous, but Padmasambhava in this case is representing the nature of reality rather than acting as a black magician or white magician.
>It seems that we cannot be instructed how to perform acts such as the destruction of the pandits. Although the teachings have been handed down through generations and generations without interruption or perversion, so that even now we possess the complete teachings of Padmasambhava, none of those teachings talk about how to kill heretics. There are no such teachings. But the teachings do talk about how to work with practice and your attitude toward it organically. You do that, and the perverters of the teachings destroy themselves. That seems to be the basic message here. That seems to be the aspect of Padmasambhava called “Lion’s Roar,” or Senge Dradrok.

Genealogies of Mahāyāna Buddhism offers a solution to a problem that some have called the holy grail of Buddhist studies: the problem of the “origins” of Mahāyāna Buddhism. In a work that contributes both to a general theory of religion and power for religious studies as well as to the problem of the origin of a Buddhist movement, Walser argues that that it is the neglect of political and social power in the scholarly imagination of the history of Buddhism that has made the origins of Mahāyāna an intractable problem. Walser challenges commonly-held assumptions about Mahāyāna Buddhism, offering a fascinating new take on its genealogy that traces its doctrines of emptiness and mind-only from the present day back to the time before Mahāyāna was “Mahāyāna.” In situating such concepts in their political and social contexts across diverse regimes of power in Tibet, China and India, the book shows that what was at stake in the Mahāyāna championing of the doctrine of emptiness was the articulation and dissemination of court authority across the rural landscapes of Asia.


Part I: Genealogies of Mahāyāna

Introduction: On Origins and Genealogies

Mahāyāna in Retrospect: From My House to the Dalai Lama (looking back from 2017 – 1930)

Assessing the Essence

Tibet as Buddhist: Tracing the Lines of Power

Emptiness and the Analytic of Power

Inculcating Dispositions to Authority: the Kālacakra

Mahāyāna in the Republic, Mahāyāna in the Empire: Tracing “Religion” from Republican China to the Early Qing Dynasty (1920’s – 1723)

Religion vs. Superstition in 20th Century East Asia

The Fin de Siècle Turning Point

The Qing Imperium and the Usefulness of Mahāyāna

The Yonghegong Temple in Beijing and the Political Work of Monuments

Emperor Qianlong: the Tantric Initiate and the Tantric State

Tantra, Emptiness and the Reincarnate Emperor/Lama, or why it’s never too late to have a venerable past.

Yongzheng Emperor and the Great Ming Debate

The Image of Emptiness across the Landscape of Power (China: 11th Cent. B.C.E – 15th Cent. C.E.)

The Ancestor Image

The Image of Emptiness: Di, Space and the Celestial Pole

The Image of the Earth and control of the cults

Exorcism and the State: When possession is nine-tenths

Religion in the Service of Taxation

Buddhist Exorcism and the Heart of Mahāyāna

Conclusion

Buddha Veda: an Indian Genealogy of Emptiness (20th century – 6th century CE.)

Emptiness and Power in Orissa: From Mahima Dharma Sampradāya to Jagannātha of Puri

Buddhism and Brahmanism in Maitrīpa (ca. 1010-1097 CE)

Bhāviveka’s 6th Century Mahāyāna

Bhāviveka, Mahāyāna and Yogācāra

Bhāviveka, Mahāyāna and Brahmanism

Preliminary Conclusion

Part II: The Genealogy of the Perfection of Wisdom

What did the text of the Perfection of Wisdom look like?

>The Versions

>The Quest for the Ur-Sūtra

>The Core Pericope

>The Ending

>Subhūti’s Non-Apprehension

>The Mindlessness Section

>The Message of the Original Perfection of Wisdom

>>Mahāyāna

>>Bodhisattvas

>>What’s missing?

Mahāyāna Sūtra as Palimpsest: Discerning Traces of the Tripiṭaka

>Beyond "origin" as mere event

>Heteroglossia and Textual Rationale

>Intertextuality and Adaptation in Buddhist Literature

>The Non-Apprehension section and its Intertexts

>>Sermon on Selflessness?

>>Nominalism?

>>Cessation of Cognition

>>Selflessness… but differently

>>The Perfected as Untraceable

>>Fearlessness

>>Abhidharma echoes

>>Conclusion: The Perfection of Wisdom

Palimpsest Part Two: Brahmanical Writings on the Tripiṭaka

>The Importance of Incoherence

>The Context of Abhidharma Literature?

>The Context of Other Schools?

>The Context of Luminous Thought and Varieties of Unaware Thought

>The Context of Acitta Neither Existing nor Not Existing as Anti-Brahmanical Dependent Origination

>The Context of Absence of Mental Construction (avikalpa)

>Nirvikapla

>Brahmanical Intertexts and their Implications

Placing Early Mahāyāna

>Placing the Perfection of Wisdom in the Early Mahāyāna Suite

>Mañjuśrī’s Inquiry Concerning the Office of the Bodhisattva

>Placing the Early Perfection of Wisdom

>Mistaken Sounds

>Subhūti’s Araṇavihāra: Preaching or Penetration?

>Emptiness, Brahmin Nuns, Tulkus and the Power of Possession

>Putting it together

>Conclusion

On Sites and Stakes: Meditation on Emptiness and Imperial Aspirations

>Shifting Contexts, Shifting Interpretations

>The Uṇṇābhabrāhmaṇasutta and the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upanișad on cosmic foundations

>The Horse Sacrifice

>Piling the Fire Altar and Legitimation Regress

>Buddhist Brahmins

>On Power and Reproduction

>Sovereign Echoes: on Manhood and Celibacy; On thrones and Crowns

>Buddhist Brahmodya as court debates

>The Mahāyāna Genealogy from The Vedas to the Sutras to Tantra to Zen

>>22801838
>>22801836
>>22801807
>>22801800
>>22801794
>>22801780
>>22801743
>>22801259
>ladidadida
Filtered by the Gospel of Jesus Christ

>waste time
>regret
>"acknowledge" having wasted time
>waste more time
>regret more

>>22801919

>>22801919
based philosemite

in 1h

>DISENCHANTMENT or NIBIDA what is the point of all this?
https://youtu.be/U0AdAzxjGpg

MAN GIVES UP EVERYTHING

In 2015, aged 47 an English businessman gave up everything and travelled Asia to find true happiness. Now a Buddhist Monk, living a simple life in Thailand, India and Sri Lanka, he shares the continuing story.

Please SUBSCRIBE and be HAPPY too.

englishbuddhistmonk@gmail.com

Phra Dan (Bhante Dhammarakkhita, Bhikkhu) is a Theravada Buddhist Monk who lived in India from 2020, Thailand and now Sri Lanka. Born in Sussex, England in 1967. Educated by French Catholic Monks. A successful businessman in Estate Agency and Financial Services during the 1980's and 90's. Married, now divorced with 3 adult son's. 2000 marked change and travel including South Africa returning to the UK in 2003 to continue different work and business activities until 2012. Gradually materialistic values turned to renunciation, simplicity and meditation, living nomadically in an old Ford Transit van full time for 3 years. Van life and meditation led to Buddhism and a Thai Forest Tradition, Theravada Buddhist Monastery in the UK. During 2015 travelling the Buddhist Holy Sites of India, deep faith reinforced desire for Ordination. In 2020 after 5 years of intensive meditation practice between Thai Forest Monasteries in Thailand and England he was Ordained in India where he lived for 3 years until returning to Thailand in 2023 and now Sri Lanka.

Sabe Satta Sukhi Hontu

>>22801685
>''the four extremes'' and ''both existent and nonexistent, or neither existent nor nonexistent''
He did
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.015.than.htm

>>22802191
no, he did this
>"'Everything exists': That is one extreme. 'Everything doesn't exist': That is a second extreme. Avoiding these two extremes,

there's no catuskoti in buddhism.
Even when the buddha talks about the cosmos and all the stupid wrong views the ascetics and brahmins made up, he sticks to dichotomies, except for ''the Realized One still exists" where he rejects any combination

>And how has a mendicant eliminated idiosyncratic interpretations of the truth? Different ascetics and brahmins have different idiosyncratic interpretations of the truth. For example: the cosmos is eternal, or not eternal, or finite, or infinite; the soul and the body are the same thing, or they are different things; after death, a Realized One still exists, or no longer exists, or both still exists and no longer exists, or neither still exists nor no longer exists. A mendicant has dispelled, eliminated, thrown out, rejected, let go of, given up, and relinquished all these. That’s how a mendicant has eliminated idiosyncratic interpretations of the truth.

>>22802237
If existence and non-existence are extremes to be avoided, then so is both existence and non-existence, and neither existence nor non-existence.

>>22802237
The third and fourth parts of the tetralemma refer to beliefs people actually held. Jains believed in existence and non-existence, and sophists who thought knowledge was impossible asserted neither existence nor non-existence.

Reminder that Theravada is the descendant of one of the 18 early buddhist schools, the Vibhajyavadins, it's not a preservation of pre-sectarian buddhism. How do you know they had the right interpretation of the sutras?

>>22802276
Theravada is the only pure crystal-like form of buddhism Mahayanism and Vajrayanism is a farcical imitation of the buddhas pristine unadulterated wisdom.
It does not even deserve the name of "buddhism" stop pretending to be a legitimate school of buddhism

>>22802276
Are the suttas really that difficult to interpret?


“It is possible, brahmin. Suppose a deft horse trainer were to obtain a fine thoroughbred. First of all he’d make it get used to wearing the bit. In the same way, when the Realized One gets a person for training they first guide them like this: ‘Come, mendicant, be ethical and restrained in the monastic code, conducting yourself well and seeking alms in suitable places. Seeing danger in the slightest fault, keep the rules you’ve undertaken.’

When they have ethical conduct, the Realized One guides them further: ‘Come, mendicant, guard your sense doors. When you see a sight with your eyes, don’t get caught up in the features and details. If the faculty of sight were left unrestrained, bad unskillful qualities of covetousness and displeasure would become overwhelming. For this reason, practice restraint, protect the faculty of sight, and achieve restraint over it. When you hear a sound with your ears … When you smell an odor with your nose … When you taste a flavor with your tongue … When you feel a touch with your body … When you know an idea with your mind, don’t get caught up in the features and details. If the faculty of mind were left unrestrained, bad unskillful qualities of covetousness and displeasure would become overwhelming. For this reason, practice restraint, protect the faculty of mind, and achieve its restraint.’

When they guard their sense doors, the Realized One guides them further: ‘Come, mendicant, eat in moderation. Reflect rationally on the food that you eat: ‘Not for fun, indulgence, adornment, or decoration, but only to sustain this body, to avoid harm, and to support spiritual practice. In this way, I shall put an end to old discomfort and not give rise to new discomfort, and I will live blamelessly and at ease.’

When they eat in moderation, the Realized One guides them further: ‘Come, mendicant, be committed to wakefulness. Practice walking and sitting meditation by day, purifying your mind from obstacles. In the evening, continue to practice walking and sitting meditation. In the middle of the night, lie down in the lion’s posture—on the right side, placing one foot on top of the other—mindful and aware, and focused on the time of getting up. In the last part of the night, get up and continue to practice walking and sitting meditation, purifying your mind from obstacles.’

When they are committed to wakefulness, the Realized One guides them further: ‘Come, mendicant, have mindfulness and situational awareness. Act with situational awareness when going out and coming back; when looking ahead and aside; when bending and extending the limbs; when bearing the outer robe, bowl and robes; when eating, drinking, chewing, and tasting; when urinating and defecating; when walking, standing, sitting, sleeping, waking, speaking, and keeping silent.’

>>22802348
based buddha always on our side

>>22802348
Difficult enough that they spawned 18 schools
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Buddhist_schools

Anyone read Our Pristine Mind? Seems a bit pedestrian but I am looking for a practical intro to Dzogchen/Mahamudra and was told it might fit.

I have read plenty of general books on vajrayana that describe it from a high level, but I haven't read anything yet that goes into detail.

>>22802629
I think those schools arose as a consequence of people trying to still adhere to their former views because they couldn't face the reality of what Buddhism requires of them. The suttas (with the exception of the poetry ones) are generally pretty clear in their instructions. It's when talking about Right View that things get murky (which is why its often framed in the negative--Right View via listing out Wrong Views) but the idea is that if you just follow the instructions, the training, you'll attain Right View on your own.

yeah people prefer eternalism over pretty much any explanation, and then buddhism is inherently difficult to accept and to practice.

>>22802276
>>22802629
hyperprotestant larpers on this board (who don't practice buddhism anyway) don't care about this, they just use theravada as a substitute for an identity

>>22802925
>needing to use an anachronical semitic explanation to shit on theravada
lmao

>>22802971
I'm not shitting on theravada, I'm calling out /lit/ larpers who take up theravada for the epic trad indo aryan aesthetic
You'll never see an actual theravadin behave like you people do. You're embarrassing

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn20/sn20.007.than.html
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an01/an01.049.than.html
Emptiness and Buddha Nature in the Pali Canon

>>22802971
If you think only the suttas are authoritative and that they're the only buddhist sources you should read, then you are taking an anachronistic semitic approach to buddhism

>>22794910
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Refuge/Contents.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/KarmaOfQuestions/Section0000.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/KarmaQ&A/Section0000.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/FourNobleTruths/Contents.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/OnThePath/Section0000.html

The Buddha is the authoritative spokesperson for Buddhism.

>>22804607
Weird take, given how nobody in buddhism gives a shit about Semitic people. Why are you talking about those people?

>>22805237
Sola scriptura is a protestant idea, it has no precedent in Buddhism before British colonialism

Listen to the Buddha.

>This discourse incorporates the teaching on the four nutriments (see SN 12.63-64) into the pattern for dependent co-arising, placing them in the position usually occupied by clinging: after craving and before becoming. Putting nutriment in this position highlights one of the connotations of the Pali word for clinging, upadana, which can also mean "sustenance." It also highlights one of the connotations of the Pali word for craving, tanha, which can also mean "thirst."

"Monks, there are these four nutriments for the maintenance of beings who have come into being or for the support of those in search of a place to be born. Which four? Physical food, gross or refined; contact as the second; intellectual intention the third; and consciousness the fourth. These are the four nutriments for the maintenance of beings who have come into being or for the support of those in search of a place to be born.

"Now, these four nutriments have what as their cause, what as their origination, what as their source, what as that which brings them into play? These four nutriments have craving as their cause, craving as their origination, craving as their source, craving as that which brings them into play.

"And this craving has what as its cause, what as its origination, what as its source, what as that which brings it into play?... Feeling...

"And this feeling has what as its cause...? ...Contact...

"And this contact has what as its cause...? ...The six sense media...

"And these six sense media have what as their cause...? ...Name-&-form...

"And this name-&-form has what as its cause...? ...Consciousness...

"And this consciousness has what as its cause...? ...Fabrication...

"And this fabrication has what as its cause, what as its origination, what as its source, what as that which brings it into play? Fabrication has ignorance as its cause, ignorance as its origination, ignorance as its source, ignorance as that which brings it into play.

"Thus, from ignorance as a requisite condition come fabrications.

"From fabrications as a requisite condition comes consciousness.

"From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-&-form.

"From name-&-form as a requisite condition come the six sense media.

"From the six sense media as a requisite condition comes contact.

"From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling.

"From feeling as a requisite condition comes craving.

"From craving as a requisite condition comes clinging/sustenance.

"From clinging/sustenance as a requisite condition comes becoming.

"From becoming as a requisite condition comes birth.

"From birth as a requisite condition, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair come into play. Such is the origination of this entire mass of stress & suffering.

Right speech, means avoiding four types of harmful speech:

>lies (words spoken with the intent of misrepresenting the truth);
>divisive speech (spoken with the intent of creating rifts between people);
>harsh speech (spoken with the intent of hurting another person’s feelings); and
>idle chatter (spoken with no purposeful intent at all).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoFeCQaflJ0

>>22802110
all we had to do was follow the eightfold path, anon(da)

>>22802110
I WARNED YOU ABOUT SAMSARA, BRO!

>>22798530
who cares? their methods work faster. we as western practitioners have the advantage that we dont need to dogmatically believe everything just because some guy named Gautama said. He himself said to come and see for yourself, dont just believe his word. By showing this typically dogmatic and arbitrary attachment to an historical figure you are limiting yourself without reason, closing doors without reason, something that the essence of the dharma would advise against, even though this or that dharma guild will say otherwise

>>22798530
>>Absolutely not. As I said, vajrayana is a valid path,
not that's only a dogma

>>22806105
the buddha never said to learn wrong views before engaging in his teaching, like jainism or brahminism, let alone teachings which are created centuries after his death and contradicts on purpose everything he said

What the buddha said is that his teaching should be tried and at least reflected upon for people who aren't ready to practice it.

>>22798445

you, as a dharma practitioner, should know that you are, as of now in this comments, projecting sentiments of rejection which have no base in reality. You, as theravada, should prudentially aknowledge the validity of vajrayana and mahayana, because of your ignorance on the matter.

>>22806124
>You, as theravada, should prudentially aknowledge the validity of vajrayana and mahayana, because of your ignorance on the matter.
That's the point, they don't need to. What theravadans should focus on is stream entry since it's when the buddha's disciples are '' independent of others with regard to the Teacher's message.''

>>22806117
but the reason why what he said not to engage this or that is not the sheer fact that he as Buddha said it, but because the methods of buddhism are objectively superior to those other schools. If they weren't, you would not pursue them. If he said the same thing, but the method was extreme ascetism, would you believe his words like you do now? No. Then, you believe the buddhas words not because he is the buddha but because his words have reasons beheind them. But these reasons are not private property of the buddha in a way that every good reason to do something must be tracked onto him to gain validity. Then, these reasons that give validity to buddhas words can give validity to many other people's words without need to track them to the original buddha message. Then, since good reasons are "public property", then it means that the aknowledged introductions imported in mahayana and vajrayana could possibly enrich the path and not enpoverish it.

As westener engaging dharma it doesnt mean we have to abbandon our precious critical and philosophical thinking. One of the best advantges of our thinking is that we need no authority to validate our views, only the authority of truth itself.

>>22801444
fuck off if you dont like just dont read the thread

>>22806150
yeah sticking to methods which works does matter, but that's after trying honestly the teaching, practicing his teaching, not right off the bat bastardizing it, especially changing the goal because eternalism or useless entertainment like rituals are more appealing.

>>22806165
i have tried vajrayana, and the rituals have a logic in the sense that you symbolize abstract concepts with concrete actions, so that you integrate them into experience. So when you visualize yourself as a god with certain qualities, you are "feeling" the qualities that in reflection you are just abstractly thinking, not integrated in actual experience.

For example, there's a visualization about a lighting sphere that cleans of disturbing emotions, since i have attached so much "feeling" to the the abstract concepts it represents, mainly wisdom and compassion, through having visualized it a lot of times during meditation i can "summon" the sphere in my mind when i fill disturbed and it willhave an effect. After attaining familiarity with actually experiencing the concepts of compassion and wisdom through the ball you "dissolve" the visualization and you have obtained the advancement and you no longer need the ball.

>>22806184
when i feel disturbed*

>>22806165
Dream yoga is also interesting, because the dream wordl is a very propitious site to practice, since everything is a projection of your mind during dreaming. When you completed dream yoga, you can introduce the same certainty that everything is just a projection of your mind to daily life when awake. For example, in lucid dream you can dream thate someone is murdering you, but you cannot actually die or really be hurt, so you dont have to fear; just like in real life, because i you fear orsuffer is because of clinging, but when you no longer cling you know that even a murderer cannot really hurt you because you are void. And by the way you obtained the 8 hours of consciousness you were missing before learning to lucid dream.

Mahayanists should read the suttas for real, not for posturing. If they can do that, they will greatly reduce their bullshit.

>>22806117
Vajrayana accepts dependent origination and the four noble truths, it is right view

>>22806184
To visualise there needs to be an intuition of shunyata, in otherwords a-thinking thinking, you do not visualise discursively you simply see what the lama is describing, anyway, the essential point is the four empowerments, and the understanding about the three kayas which are all symbolically there during the rituals, you simply require recognition of the kayas afterwards

The main and most important part of the vajarayana empower is the the four empowerments, ranking in importance from the fourth to the first. I don't think the visualisations of rotating around the mandala, receiving different implements is the "empowerment" Though it definitely is part of transmitting the empowerment.

>>22806184
>>22806460
By the way I could be wrong I don't know what empowerment you are practised, was it a higher tantric empowerment? Anuttarayogatantra, etc. Its all different.

By the way you can read primary source vajrayana books which talk about the experiences which were intended and the philosophy operative during the initiation

>>22806124
As I said I am not rejecting Vajrayana, nor am I even a thereveda Buddhist, I am just settling the case, Buddhist tantra is a completely different method, it involves a major emphasis on "kundalini yoga" derived from indian tantras, of course systematized and under an authentically buddhist view, it is closer to shiva and shakti tantras, and of course shiva-shakti and yab-yum are not unrelated, union of emptiness and compassion, because of the highly esoteric nature of vajrayana, potential dangers and risks of buddhist tantra, I would never recommend it to just anyone, of course it is essentially Buddhist though, but I will not recommend Buddhist tantra to a person interested in Buddha and buddhism alone, who is not prepared for it, I have no way of gauging qualifications online so why should I invite people to do Buddhist tantra, especially when it seems that everyone here is only interested in mindfulness and stuff like this? This is what I would consider a violation of vajrayana principles to even seriously recommend vajryana in such a way, it's supposed to be esoteric, you're not even supposed to outwardly identify yourself as a tantric practitioner. Let alone debate and advertise the path.

The mere fact that someone is actively trying to proselytise, show off and advertise vajrayana as it is done here shows a lack of principle

All I can say is vajrayana is something very serious and it shouldn't be recommended lightly, I will happily champion Theravada over vajrayana here even if I do not belong to the Theravada tradition.

Honestly though, if you read https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/shakti-and-shakta/d/doc210206.html
I think the shakta/vajrayana view is opposed to Theravada style which tends more to the renunciate "mayavada" style.

It is a different style all together it is "wet path" not a dry path,
Even though it can produce realization all the same, where in the original suttas does the buddha talk about having sex with women, drinking alcohol etc. This whole thing is coming out of agamic/tantric India

Theravada is a royal spirituality for the highest calibre of spiritual men, vajrayana is for degenerates who cannot renounce this world.

>>22806514
I believe ultimately that
Because of this reason
>Even though it can produce realization all the same, where in the original suttas does the buddha talk about having sex with women, drinking alcohol etc. This whole thing is coming out of agamic/tantric India
Vajrayana is not as close to the Buddha's original teaching as Thervada. Full stop, it is very hard to refute, you can only argue now that it is a matter of historical contingency and therefore a moot point. But I think the facts matter, the buddha showed a path of total renunciation, of total detachment, this agamic/tantric sexual liberation is something not in line with the Buddha's suttas which talk about rejecting sex and women, alcohol etc.

In vajrayna they celebrate "tsok" "ganachakra" monthly where they drink alcohol etc. And where in earlier times they probably would have had orgies too, in more Indian style (just look at Indian temple art and you will see the real nature of tantra)
How can you say that thus is inline with Buddha
It may be a hard for you to accept but vajrayana is closer to agamic/tantric tradition which doesn't seem to come from the buddha, than the pali cannon.

Sorry bro.

>>22806542
>539. The common view among tantrikas is that erotic images should adorn the highest panels on the pilasters of the outer wall of the temple. These panels of erotic sculptures must be placed in such a way as to amaze the general public.

Where did buddha say such a thing, that we should like pornographic sex depictions? Only if a buddha is in nirvana is he beyond the world of samsara so these things do not even do anything they appear as mirage,
But where did buddha say that you will reach nirvana by having sex and drinking alcohol? This is a perversion meant only for specially qualified people

>>22806184
What school of vajrayana were you initiated into?
I want initiation but since I'm going to move to a very isolated country soon, I fear I won't find a dharma teacher there and am thus looking for online opportunities

>>22806514
>>22806542
This is what happens when you get lost in concepts

Just wanted to ask you all since you have more experience with the Buddhist texts: what's a good direction to learn more about it after having my mind blown by Enter the Void?

I've considered myself Buddhist for the past year and a half because of that movie (which I was obviously chemically blasted while watching), but I'm not sure my philosophy aligns well with the religious elements. I'm primarily utilitarian and believe both pain and desire are needed to form more perfect reunion in nirvana, like an orgasm for one who's never had one or death for one who's been continually tortured. Of course want and pain should not be unbounded, but they should not be discouraged in and of themselves in my opinion.

How well does my belief fit the original works or later canons? Thank you frens

>>22806640
Pretty much completely contrary to the views of Buddhism.

>>22806645
For me, it feels like an interpretation of the truths that underlie Buddhist/nondualist Hinduism, but with different value interpretations, so I don't really know where I belong religiously

M mm
>>22806460
>I don't think the visualisations of rotating around the mandala, receiving different implements is the "empowerment"
That's the vase empowerment, it purified your nadis

>>22806105
>their methods work faster
how?

>>22806787
By focusing on going as fast as possible at the expense of "safety"

>>22806640
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/BuddhasTeachings/Section0003.html

>i believe both pain and desire are needed

I agree.

The "pain" of enduring unpleasant feelings.
The "desire" to be liberated.

>>22806858
How and in what way is it unsafe?

Meditation is easily on the top 3 things you can do in your life, why don't more people practice it? They don't know how? They don't want their lives to improve? They are unable? I don't know but it is like not working out or eating unhealthy. I understand dukka grabbed them hard but don't they want to stop suffering or, at least, ameliorate it? I have no doubt why mental illnesses are so common

>>22806909
meditation has been popular in the wet ever since the judeo christian took over.

Then there are various meditations and it's easy to get lost in them and even worse to think to have it all figure it out, because people love to conclude that they went all the way to the end of the path as soon as they stumble upon the first exotic perceptions. Typical of atheists with their drugs and the gurus with their tantras.

And meditation are inherently difficult desu.

>>22806919
>>meditation has been popular in the wet
has *never* been popular in the west

>>22806858
The buddha's method is the fastest and he says the only output is either full enlightenment or non-returner. Nothing dangerous with this.
“Now, if anyone would develop these four establishings of mindfulness 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 establishings of mindfulness 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 establishings of mindfulness 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.

>One should not act out of one’s emotions.
>Instead become AWARE of them while they’re enduring.
>everything you think is a problem is actually a symptom of the problem.
>Suffering is the symptom of Dukkha, which is the problem.
>The practice of the Dhamma is not supposed to only help you deal with things that bother you, it’s supposed to uproot your liability to be bothered in the first place.
>the goal for your practice is to learn how not to be affected by things to begin with.
>You suffer because you resist the idea of discomfort
>You are bothered because you resist the idea of being bothered.
>craving (taṇhā) in regard to how you feel is the cause of dukkha.
How then do you not crave against the pain?
How do you stop craving for pleasure?
>By enduring the pain and not acting out of it.
>By keeping the precepts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_precepts)) and seeing the danger in the slightest chance of breaking them.
>That’s how you will gradually stop blaming the world and others for your suffering and instead see your craving as the direct and only cause for your dukkha.

The Buddha spoke and people became enlightened.

Doesn't get much faster than that.

That's why you should listen to the Buddha and read the suttas.

>>22806514
>vajrayana is for degenerates who cannot renounce this world.
Vajrayana is practiced by Tibetan monks, and has primarily been preserved in monasteries. Tibetan monks have the same vows Theravadins do.

>>22806929
Vajrayana is the Buddha's method. Just faster than Hinayana

>>22807075
There is no Buddha alive in this era.
Austerity used to be a fast track during his time, but the world has changed. Expedient means are needed for laymen now.

>>22807124
>Expedient means are needed for laymen now.
Like what?

>>22807153
Vajrayana

>>22807264
And what do they do that's assumed to be "needed"?

>>22807827
Expedient means to liberation

>>22807827
What makes Vajrayana effective is that it utilizes the body in practice. In Vajrayana anatomy, the mind functions through the air element, vayu, moving through the channels of the body. Mind and vayu are inseparable. Through utilizing methods to control and direct vayu in the body, you can very easily enter into meditative states that require great effort using sutra methods. Through combining these practices with the understanding of the example wisdom introduced during empowerment, you practice the union of shamatha and vipashyana.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm6fzy3evno

>>22808063
Sounds not that different to Thannisaro's breath meditation instructions

https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/WithEachAndEveryBreath/Section0004.html#focusingonthebreath

>6. Think of the breath energy coursing through the whole body with every in-and-out breath.
>Think of all the breath energies connecting with one another and flowing in harmony.

I admire Buddhism but I don't buy their beliefs completely. Buddhism, the idea of letting go of everything being empty is admirable and somewhat applicable.

https://youtu.be/Rm6fzy3evno

>>22808063
This is such a general sweeping statement
When you mention vajrayana you have to mention the specifics, what vajrayana? Are you talking about heruka, chamrasamvara, vajrayogini etc. Which tantra? Is it a "nondual tantra" is it a father tantra, mother tantra? Etc.

Secondly "vajrayana anatomy" is specific to the specific tantra, the visualisation will differ by tantra, in general though the main element is a "central channel" sushumna hollow tune running from the crown to anywhere between the navel and perineum, that is not to mention the
Other energy channels, which are said to be to the left and right, some which have their exit at the tip of the penis etc. It is sex-specific, next there are the enumeration of chakras, usually crown, forehead, throat, heart, and navel-genital which they consider one chakra, though it all differs, next they talk about seed syllables, and visualisations in a speciifc chakra for example, when the mind is fixed in shunyata and the seed syllables is visualised, "desire" is stirred they say and this is part of the practice. The main requirement is an empowerment into the deity mandala, and then the lama would traditionally guide you through the sadhana and help you out, the traditional function of the lama relationship is easily missed, because people will take these initiations online and just be on their way, the main practice of vajrayana is guru yoga at first, you take commitments, tantric vows, bodhisattva vows, etc.

I seriously don't like the attitude of people here saying, do vajrayana it is the "fastest" way to enlightenment since when was "fast" good? And there are dangers involved whenever you involve psychobiological energies, especially if you are involved in some strenuous physical activity like common yoga in the West, or gymnastics, hatha yoga and these practices is supposed to be extremely controlled and it is meant for the yogi who has already "opened" the sushumna or "awakened the kundalini" if you don't like my use of kundalini, and somehow think this is not what we are talking about, just read lama yeshes bliss of inner fire you will see how he himself is willing to acknowledge that this is "kundalini" practice, milarepa I believe calls it chandali, or whoever started the tummo practice in Tibetan?
Also an absolute requirement is to not be a drug user because it can be dangerous when you mess with such practice and drugs in combination in a haphazard way, I'm not saying that the great accomplished yogis never took a drug or something after and showed that they were unaffected, I remember a story like this in some tantra involving datura, the yogis don't feel affected. Anyway, the attitude about "fastest" makes people think oh its a "shortcut" the big shortcut in western society is "drugs" this is why the western druggies will be attracted to vajrayana which is just an accident waiting to happen.


When you talk about vajrayana what do you mean, lower/middle/high tantra?

>>22808181
No it's completely different, simple breath-awareness meditation is a pretty much universal practice
Vajrayana diverges in ways I explicate here
>>22808654
It is taken out of the tantric/agamic milleu in India, unless you want to say tantra/agama tradition in India came from the buddha (just hearsay) then there is no way to link let's say "historically" the buddha and tantric/agamic indian tradition, the latter comes out of shiva-shakti, which is not related to earlier shankya purusha/prakriti cosmology

Infact in vajrayana they have a practice about the dissolution in death, which pretty much follows the sankyha/tantra enumeration of the tattvas from gross to increasingly subtle

Mahamudra/sahaja etc. Etc. The Tibetan vajrayana tradition is Buddhist "tantrism" the origin of tantrism cannot be said to reside in the Buddha figure, so long as you don't by buddha mean the same thing as Tao, God, Allah, Buddhanature, Shiva,

Now we have to elaborate, the tantra was never theistic thats not my point, it was always a non-theistic tradition

I will admit that the generic buddhist understanding of theism vs. Non-theism is limited

I hope what I have written provides you with some insight.

>>22808654
Here is an image

>>22808665
>Which is not "unrelated" to the sankyha, purusha prakriti "dualism"

>>22808665
> mean the same thing as Tao, God, Allah, Buddhanature, Shiva,
My point is if you don't draw a distinction, you can't draw a distinction anywhere you can say, advaita Vedanta is from buddha, Kashmir shaivism is from buddha, Christian orthodox hesychasm is from buddha
Etc. If any practice can be used then, the tradition has no boundaries, this is something meant for people who in a higher sense can see the initiatic unity of traditions, not an opportunity for syncretism/implying new age thought

The typic religious mentality is incompatible with vajrayana

>>22808063
All this stuff you take about comes from where?
Brahmanism, Samkhya, Tantra/Agama

Buddha nowhere in the suttas says Mind is Vayu, bruh

>>22806603
Opposite actually, I'm tired of vajrayananiggers coming here and larping as if they are following original buddha, this can only be an expression of religous sentimentalism and not just acknowledging their debt to non-buddhist indian agamic/tantric tradition.
And then recommending other people here who are simply interested in Buddha/mindfulness, kundalini yoga and all this, the Chan/Zen and even Pure Land approach is a much purer form of Buddhism, in these traditions they don't have the invented deities, all the elaborate tantric devices from medieval India, and they achieve an extremely profound result, shingon follows the tantric method too by the way, but Zen etc. It's all crystal clear Buddha approach

The only reason to have tantra, is to forget and move past the tantra eventually, and understand that it was all provisional, abandoning means and ends, accepting that neither will lead to enlightenment, and not to continue a religious sentimental attachment to the external tradition and pretend as if the means and end will achieve enlightenment, Zen/Etc. Etc. They make this much clearer than vajrayana which try's to entrap you in lifelong lamaist cults

Cope and seethe.

>>22808747
Especially in the West today, vajrayana is sus and fucking dodgy, it's best to just get in get out, not larp as a vajrayanist like so many glownigger weaterners turned "Buddhist scholars" who publish book after book, holding respectable seats at progressive prestigous western universities who fund their "research" circlejerking over spreading the mission of the dalai lama and the "Dharma" this shit is just as much political as it is spiritual, this is why it is ultimately problematic

This site does well to cover the sus shit
https://extibetanbuddhist.com/the-guru-cult-of-tibetan-buddhism-by-ex-tibetan-buddhist/
And raises concerns for me

>>22808759
The concern is about not so much "vajrayana" which I think is perfectly traditional in essence

But it is "vajrayana in the West" which concerns me

A good tip for spotting the sort of vajrayananiggers I am talking about

They will act as if practicing vajrayana is warring against Yahweh and Jesus Christ or "semetic" traditions, and they will constantly compare this tradition to "Semites" constantly acting as if there is some real dualistic opposition between Vajrayana and Christianity for example, when they miss the point that Guru Yoga is pretty much devotion to Christ with simultaneous awareness of your own theomorphic nature

The vajrayaniniggers will be extremely angry and adverse to what they see as "Semitic" western culture, they will also view tantric deities in an external way, in a "neopagan" way and they will larp as if they are revitalising ancient European "pagan" pantheons and practices, all whilst larping that their opposition to the "Semitic" west rests on their "affiliation" with "nondualism" and therefore being opposed to all dualism, such people are satanic/adharmic larpers

Vajrayaniggers will pretend that nagarjuna solved philosophy, and at the same time they will not even see that there is a common thread or apophatic way linking many traditions, Buddhism, nondual Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Taoism etc.
So why is nagarjuna such a profound individual to them? Because they are merely reading their own delusion into him if they read at all, or are just copying what other Buddhists (who may actually understand) say around them
Vajrayananiggers will also have strong ideological/political opinions

Total vajrayananigger death.

Of course if you are a normal person and not one of these types of people who were somehow radicalised online into practising the vajrayana then you have nothing to worry about

The dualists will destroy themselves

>>22808820
I feel as if there is a common thread linking the Nazi Hare Krishnas with these Vajrayana larpers
All whilst ironically alot of the different ISCKON and American Vajrayana institutes were mostly founded by secular progressive Jews and so forth

>>22808751
You are the most pathetic faggot on /lit/ after Gardner

>>22808829
>I can still fap because I’m not attached to fapping!
might as well do anything you want at that point lmao

>>22808831
This is where the danger comes in, megalomaniac vajrayanists will literally rape children and act as if it is a nondualistic ritual because they see absolutely no distinction between "good and bad"

Why is cooming so important to vajrayanists ?

>>22808769
>>But it is "vajrayana in the West" which concerns me
Lol Vajaryana is a cancer in the east, since inception. They abuse children in their monasteries while claiming it's for the sake of the kids' enlightenment lol. Exactly like the priests in Christianity.

>>22808876
It's not good to be general
There are genuine good vajrayana lamas and Christian priests out there I'm sure, but of course there are also bad
For comedy's sake I will agree with you, but it's never good to keep a "black and white" mentality.

>>22807109
>>Vajrayana is the Buddha's method.
False according to the buddha, he says his method takes one week at the slowest and mindfulness is more powerful than any brahmin tantra.

>>22808896
Even if this were true, there's no need for any vajrayana teaching as it's wrong view to begin with.

Also since you like them, explain why they cling to cooming? why can't they let go of cooming?

>>22808876
In general though I will say, it's good to remain very wary and sceptical when it comes to these "worldly spiritual organisations" established in our modern times, in ancient times it would've also been dodgy but people today are more corrupt, I believe that the Hindu traditions view of a "Kali yuga" or there being different cyclical conditions is pretty accurate

>>22808900
The goal of vajrayana is to totally sublimate sex compulsion, such that there is no clinging to the cooming, and the accomplished lamas even claim to send their seminal essence up their spine to their brain where it is stored, and the more they store the more power they have supposedly

Vajrayanists are like atheists: they love to claim they are free thinkers and have a ''precious critical and philosophical thinking'' to analyse and discriminate (as if they had innately the wisdom to separate falsehood from truth lol) and yet all they do is craving for orgasms like all normies have been doing for thousands of years, and they frown upon any teaching frowning upon orgasms lol

So much much for free thinkers being liberated from dogmatic social constructs LMAO.

>>22808979
>yet all they do is craving for orgasms like all normies
actually false the goal is no craving and an endless regenerative orgasm, that is actual enlightenment

>>22808747
Nobody is talking about kundalini except you. You're having meltdowns over nothing you autistic faggot

Anyone know any good books on Nyingma?

Atheist turns to Vajrayana to pass as spiritual lol. It's embarrassing how normies all end up rehashing hedonism.

https://youtu.be/Uhty3X3_uM8

Monk, educator and The Dalai Lama's personal physician Dr. Barry Kerzin discusses how to find meaning and joy in uncertainty, while utilizing practical tools for stress reduction, avoiding burnout and self-compassion.

For more information on Dr. Kerzin and the Human Values Institute in Japan, please visit humanvaluesinstitute.org/about/dr-barry-kerzin.

For more information on the Altruism in Medicine Institute in the US, please visit altruismmedicine.org.

Dr. Barry Kerzin is medical doctor, Buddhist monk, Adjunct Professor at the Univ. of Pittsburgh, Adjunct Prof. at Hong Kong Univ. and Honorary Prof. at the Mongolian National Univ. of Medical Sciences. He is the Founder and Chairman of the Human Values Institute (HVI) in Japan and the Founder and CEO of Altruism in Medicine Institute (AIMI) in the US. For 34 years, he has been providing free medical care to the poor and up to high lamas, including HH the Dalai Lama.

With HVI, he has held symposia on ethical leadership for Japanese C-Suite and HR leaders, as well as similar programs at Google Japan, Mitsubishi Jisho and others. Barry presented Embedding Altruistic Algorithms into Artificial Generalizable Intelligence at Deep Mind Google in London in 2019 and again in March 2023. His brain has been studied at Princeton University and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has given 4 TEDx talks, and authored four books.

Moderated by Craig Law-smith.

>>22809603
I'm not sure whether to go with Kagyu (six yogas and Mahamudra) or with Nyingma (dzogchen), I have a cursory understanding of both but are there criteria that can be used to determine which path is better for a particular person?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bRoAvIfbhs

>>22808905
Buddy I think you just want to orgasm. Why isn't one of the highest spiritual paths just gooning akimbo to hyper porn until you've burnt your desire circuits out? Do I HAVE to engage in unwholesome desires "wholesomely" in order to sublimate them? Or can I sublimate them from the outside, as it were? Why isn't placing your hand on a hot stove until you don't identify with the pain anymore part of the path? I can't see it all this sex magic stuff as anything other than an addiction reflex. Just extremely subtilized carnality. Wanting to engage your ontological fix guilt-free.

>>22809963
It's literally a tantric vow to not cum. Tantric sex isn't sexy, it's very technical and formalized. Both parties have to do elaborate visualizations and breathing exercises while in union. It serves a very specific purpose, and it's not really about "sublimating desire," its purpose is to manipulate vayu and bindu in the body. Also, the "great bliss" talked about in tantra isn't a constant orgasm, it is complete freedom from affliction. It is a bliss achieved through eliminating suffering, not sexual excitement.

>>22809963
>gooning is the same as what I am talking about
That's not true, now I will tell you why
Now I am not sure I completely understand what gooning is as I missed that trend, but I will tell you why porn addiction and what I am talking about is different

So the knight who is after the grail requires an authentic active virile qualification, to even desire a woman is for the man to be compromized with regards to his spiritual virility, disqualifying him from the possesion of the woman, the spirit is passive via the masculine, ie. The woman, in fact to have that desire, or that compromised spiritual virility, means one is turned into a woman, gooders are engaging in a merely passive activity where they are simply dealing with titanic forces and elemental beings, leaving themselves to decay and rot, we are not the same.

all people are born women: the only gift men receive is the physical male body, but their mind is still longing for women. All men dream of satisfying hundreds of women for free. It's literally what they live for.

>>22806940

>>22810261
We were “designed” by natural selection to do certain things that helped our ancestors get their genes into the next generation—things like eating, having sex, earning the esteem of other people, and outdoing rivals. So if you ask the question “What kinds of perceptions and thoughts and feelings guide us through life each day?” the answer isn’t “The kinds of thoughts and feelings and perceptions that give us an accurate picture of reality.” At the most basic level the answer is “The kinds of thoughts and feelings and perceptions that helped our ancestors get genes into the next generation.” Our brains are designed to, among other things, delude us.

If you were designing organisms to be good at spreading their genes, how would you get them to pursue the goals that further this cause? At least three basic principles of design would make sense:

1.Achieving these goals should bring pleasure, since animals, including humans, tend to pursue things that bring pleasure.
2.The pleasure shouldn’t last forever. After all, if the pleasure didn’t subside, we’d never seek it again; our first meal would be our last, because hunger would never return. So too with sex: a single act of intercourse, and then a lifetime of lying there basking in the afterglow. That’s no way to get lots of genes into the next generation!
3.The animal’s brain should focus more on (1), the fact that pleasure will accompany the reaching of a goal, than on (2), the fact that the pleasure will dissipate shortly thereafter. After all, if you focus on (1), you’ll pursue things like food and sex and social status with unalloyed gusto, whereas if you focus on (2), you could start feeling ambivalence. You might start asking what the point is of so fiercely pursuing pleasure if the pleasure will wear off shortly after you get it and leave you hungering for more.

As the Buddha said, pleasure is fleeting and this leaves us recurrently dissatisfied. And the reason is that pleasure is designed by natural selection to evaporate so that the ensuing dissatisfaction will get us to pursue more pleasure. Natural selection doesn’t “want” us to be happy, after all; it just “wants” us to be productive, in its narrow sense of productive. And the way to make us productive is to make the anticipation of pleasure very strong but the pleasure itself not very long-lasting.

>>22810407
Scientists can watch this logic play out at the biochemical level by observing dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is correlated with pleasure and the anticipation of pleasure. They took monkeys and monitored dopamine-generating neurons as drops of sweet juice fell onto the monkeys’ tongues. Dopamine was released right after the juice touched the tongue. But then the monkeys were trained to expect drops of juice after a light turned on. As the trials proceeded, more and more of the dopamine came when the light turned on, and less and less came after the juice hit the tongue.

As time passed, there was more in the way of anticipating the pleasure that would come from the sweetness, yet less in the way of pleasure actually coming from the sweetness. If you encounter a new kind of pleasure—if, say, you’ve somehow gone your whole life without eating a powdered-sugar doughnut, and somebody hands you one and suggests you try it—you’ll get a big blast of dopamine after the taste of the doughnut sinks in. But later, once you’re a confirmed powdered-sugar-doughnut eater, the lion’s share of the dopamine spike comes before you actually bite into the doughnut, as you’re staring longingly at it; the amount that comes after the bite is much less than the amount you got after that first, blissful bite into a powdered-sugar doughnut. The pre-bite dopamine blast you’re now getting is the promise of more bliss, and the post-bite drop in dopamine is, in a way, the breaking of the promise—or, at least, it’s a kind of biochemical acknowledgment that there was some overpromising. To the extent that you bought the promise—anticipated greater pleasure than would be delivered by the consumption itself—you have been, if not deluded in the strong sense of that term, at least misled.

Natural selection's job is to build machines that spread genes, and if that means programming some measure of illusion into the machines, then illusion there will be.

>>22810261
> All men dream of satisfying hundreds of women
homosexuals, asexuals, etc.

>>22810244
No reason you can't engage in these practices surfing said hyper porn, if that feels intrinsically unwholesome to you as a wrong thing that can never be done for the right reasons then what about the domain of sexuality itself. Even if pornography is still a profane attenuated mode of sexuality I don't see why it doesn't qualify as another poison to overcome. In fact I think the easy availability of porn and shit food is exerting an extreme buddhic selection pressure and I'm sure that's by design. Im not telling you to goon in the Buddhism thread. I'm saying where do you draw the line between what you need to renounce and what you need to learn to live with. How much evil are you obligated to digest? I think this whole active passive masculine feminine sun and moon tomberg evola guenon eliade stuff that gets pushed a lot these days is a compromise with the sexual force. It's noble, but to a point. I think it's possible to gnash your teeth in a cave for 40 metaphorical days until it's finally uprooted. You don't need to engage in sexuality particularly to be free of them universally, but you do need to engage in it to the point that you can extrapolate the rest. but I'm just shit posting. What do I know

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGhzmw54gEs

>>22811397
>>22806017

>>22810653
>I'm saying where do you draw the line between what you need to renounce and what you need to learn to live with.
I don't, anything I do I do without any reference, there is no renouncing of anything, what happens is just the determinism of karma

The truth is masturbating or not masturbating is not going to get you closer to buddhahood, good actions will not get you closer to buddhahood, that doesn't mean you shouldn't do them

In terms of health and energy, even though the buddha is a tireless reservoir, wasting energy cooming is simply pointless. Because there is no "self" and no fear there is simply no desire,

I absolutely agree with porn and all this stuff being a good poison to overcome so long as you're qualified, there is a real danger for those who are not qualified to be feminised in the deeper sense, that simply means for their "spiritual virility" to be compromised and for them to get lost to transmigration,
Non-retrogression requires the attitude of accepting that anything you do (or do not do) will lead you no closer to buddha.

You are right you don't need to draw the line anywhere but whether you truly understand that, depends on whether you are simply larping with a titanic prevaricating pride, faking the qualification of virility,

The truth is the lower centers are a source of boundless power when all that is understood, chastity is antitanic, simply repeatedly cooming with lust for the image you are viewing is simply being seduced by the transcendent power (orgasm) and losing your spiritual virility.

I think you don't understand it, because evola, tomberg, sun, moon etc. Masculine, passive is something very real, of course the primordial state is not dyadic and this whole activity is not about separation

It simply makes no difference so there is nothing to renounce, though the vivifying possession of the feminine is sort of taking back your power

so are people here actual Buddhist or "secularist" Buddhists

>>22810416

Gays are a mid-point between a vagina and a man. They don't put women on pedestal but want to be serviced free of charge by hundreds of men, exactly like women. Gays will suffer tremendously because to get the female life they actually have to be females. Being half man half woman is a guaranteed failure.

Natural Asexuality is a myth, especially in women.

>>22810653
>>22811946
>>You are right you don't need to draw the line anywhere but whether you truly understand that, depends on whether you are simply larping with a titanic prevaricating pride, faking the qualification of virility,

The line is drawn at the 5 precepts, it's not hard to understand.

>>22806017
>NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO you can't be ironic and make a joke about everyone in the room

>>22812500
>Do not take a liking to poison just because there is an antidote

>>22812522
Why do you want to be ironic and make a joke?

Q: You mentioned before that a person cannot get the Right view without first abandoning the value of sensuality. What did you mean by that?

Nyanamoli: One must understand that abstaining from sensual acts does not automatically mean one is abandoning sensuality. A person might be perfectly celibate and restrained, but internally he still might be valuing the pleasures of the senses. He still might not be seeing them as bad, unwholesome and very dangerous. For as long as that is the case, he lacks the necessary basis for the Right view to arise. No matter how physically restrained he is.

Nm: It’s the gratuitous dependence on experiencing the pleasure of the senses. It’s the value of safety, comfort, contentment, that for an untrained mind is rooted in the pleasures of satisfying one’s sensual cravings. When you can satisfy your desires you feel safe. Desires towards sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches. It’s the value of peace that a drug addict would get after taking drugs.

If you wish to free yourself from that dependence, then you will have to be willing to accept, in a universal manner, that for the rest of your life
>the safety, peace and joy that you get on account of sense pleasures is dangerous and not worth depending on.
You need to see that safety based upon one’s senses is not actually safe.

The only reason you’re not seeing sense desires as a problem of addiction is because you are refusing to give them up.
>All you need to do is SAY “NO” to sensual cravings that manifest in your day-to-day life
and then very quickly you will feel how deeply addicted you are. You’re never going to see how addicted to cigarettes, alcohol or heroin you are until you try to quit. That’s when you will feel the weight of it. So the necessary step for giving up an addiction is to stop giving in to it even while you still want to. By restraining yourself physically, your dependence will become more apparent. Then
>you will have to be willing to ACCEPT and ENDURE the inevitable pains of withdrawal. For as long as it takes.

>>22813017
You have to understand why you are addicted to sensuality. It’s not because of the nature of the human body, or “hormones” or something. No.
>It’s because you are finding gratification and safety in the satisfaction of your desires.
>It’s because not satisfying your desires and enduring their pressure makes you feel unpleasant and unsafe.
>It’s because not satisfying your desires hurts.
That’s all.

So, in other words, the value of sensuality is that it provides you with pleasure from the pain of itself.

>*** THE VALUE OF SENSUALITY IS THAT IT PROVIDES YOU WITH PLEASURE FROM THE PAIN OF ITSELF ***

Sensuality touches you with pain, but at the same time, it offers you a solution for that same pain. It’s just like racketeering: “Okay, if you pay me, I’ll make your problems go away, problems that I put on you so that you will pay me”. So you get extorted by your own sensuality, your own desires. Sensual desires hurt, and giving in to them will remove that hurt and reward you with more pleasure. It’s a win-win. Or so it seems, until you realize that the true win is to not be pressured by the desires in the first place. The win is not having to pay the racketeering thugs for your safety; the win is to not have the thugs pressure you at all.

>The more you give in to the pressure of sensuality, the more you will have to give in since its nature can never be changed.
The Nature of sensuality is that it hurts, burns, and pressures you.

–“Magandiya, suppose that there was a leper covered with sores and infections, picking the scabs off the openings of his wounds with his nails, cauterizing his body over a pit of glowing embers. A doctor cures him and he's now happy and free. Then suppose two strong men were to grab and drag him to a pit of glowing embers. What do you think? Wouldn’t he twist his body this way and that?
–“Yes, Master Gotama. The fire is painful to the touch, very hot & scorching.”
–“Now what do you think, Magandiya? Is the fire painful to the touch, very hot & scorching, only now, or was it also that way before?”
–“Both now & before it is painful to the touch, very hot & scorching, master Gotama. It’s just that when the man was a leper covered with sores and infections, picking the scabs off the openings of his wounds with his nails, his faculties were impaired, which was why, even though the fire was painful to the touch, he had the skewed perception of ‘pleasant’.”
–“In the same way, Magandiya,
>sensual pleasures in the past were painful to the touch, very hot & scorching;
>sensual pleasures in the future will be painful to the touch, very hot & scorching;
>sensual pleasures at present are painful to the touch, very hot & scorching;
but when beings are not free from the passion for sensual pleasures—devoured by sensual craving, burning with sensual fever—their faculties are impaired, which is why, even though sensual pleasures are painful to the touch, they have the skewed perception of ‘pleasant’.”
—MN 75

>>22813023
>The reason why addictions in general are hard to give up is because you’re not just giving them up. You’re actually giving up the entire world that you lived through them.
Hence, even the idea of sense restraint and saying “no” to one’s desires almost immediately results in fear. Whether it’s drugs, sex, food, music, video games, tv, movies, internet browsing, doesn’t matter. The reason they’re pleasant is because you get to experience the whole world on the basis of that substance or that pleasure. Heroin is not pleasant in itself, but experiencing the world through heroin is where that addictive pleasure comes from.

Everybody wants peace. Everybody wants non-disturbance. And sensual pleasures offer you that peace. They tempt you with a perfect satisfaction and freedom from disturbance… disturbance that they put on you.

That’s why withdrawal from sense pleasures, in general, has to be painful at first. You are withdrawing from the only peace and safety you know. That’s why, more often than not, such withdrawal will feel like dying

And all of this is even more true if you try to abandon sexual desires, which are far more deeply rooted than any substance you can be addicted to. You will need to have a pretty strong determination in order to abandon it. Such determination can be found and developed by
>contemplating the danger that is hidden in every sensual desire,
regardless of how small or insignificant it might appear.
Allowing yourself to feel the peril of it that is universally present in every sensual desire. Even if you don’t want to practice the Dhamma for full awakening.
>Sensuality is always unwholesome, because sensuality is always dangerous.
That’s what the Buddha advised to everyone who wanted to practice his teaching. He said that
>whatever action or practice leads to DISPASSION, DISENCHANTMENT, ABANDONING, RENUNCIATION, a person should value it and do it. That action is good.
Whatever action leads to passion, attachment, indulgence, a person should abandon it. That action is bad.

“These qualities lead to DISPASSION, not to passion;
to being UNFETTERED, not to being fettered;
to SHEDDING, not to accumulating;
to MODESTY, not to self-aggrandizement;
to CONTENTMENT, not to discontent;
to SECLUSION, not to entanglement;
to aroused PERSISTENCE, not to laziness;
to being UNBURDENSOME, not to being burdensome’:
You may categorically hold, ‘This is the Dhamma, this is the Vinaya, this is the Teacher’s instruction.’”
—AN 8:53

So, ask yourself, which practice leads to dispassion? Practice of celibacy or non-celibacy? Sense restraint or non-sense restraint? Behaviour of addiction or non-addiction? Well, the answer is pretty straightforward.

>>22812522
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/NobleStrategy/Section0008.html

INTENT: This is where the practice of right speech intersects with the training of the mind.
>Before you speak, you focus on WHY you want to speak.
This helps get you in touch with all the machinations taking place in the committee of voices running your mind. If you see any unskillful motives lurking behind the committee’s decisions, you veto them. As a result, you become more AWARE of yourself, more HONEST with yourself, more firm with yourself. You also save yourself from saying things that you’ll later regret. In this way you strengthen qualities of mind that will be helpful in meditation, at the same time avoiding any potentially painful memories that would get in the way of being attentive to the present moment when the time comes to meditate.

In positive terms,
>right speech means speaking in ways that are trustworthy, harmonious, comforting, and worth taking to heart.
When you make a practice of these positive forms of right speech, your words become a gift to others. In response, other people will start listening more to what you say, and will be more likely to respond in kind. This gives you a sense of the power of your actions:
>the way you act in the present moment does shape the world of your experience.
You don’t need to be a victim of past events.

For many of us, the most difficult part of practicing right speech lies in how we express our sense of humor. Especially here in America,
>we’re used to getting laughs with exaggeration, sarcasm, group stereotypes, and pure silliness—all classic examples of wrong speech.
If people get used to these sorts of careless humor, they stop listening carefully to what we say. In this way, we cheapen our own discourse. Actually, there’s enough irony in the state of the world that we don’t need to exaggerate or be sarcastic. The greatest humorists are the ones who simply make us look directly at the way things are.

Expressing our humor in ways that are truthful, useful, and wise may require thought and effort, but when we master this sort of wit we find that the effort is well spent. We’ve sharpened our own minds and have improved our verbal environment. In this way, even our jokes become part of our practice: an opportunity to develop positive qualities of mind and to offer something of intelligent value to the people around us.

So pay close attention to what you say—and to why you say it. When you do, you’ll discover that an open mouth doesn’t have to be a mistake.

>>22813017
Nyanamoli is self flagellating and obsessed with austerity

>>22813153
And?

>>22813251
It's a retarded mentality, reminiscent of christian guilt tripping and fear mongering. Worthless and counterproductive, theravadins have a tendency of fixating obsessively on a legalistic reading of the suttas and ending up laughably rigid

>>22813305
Wrong speech.

If you don't follow the path you become awakened.

>>22813305
Wrong speech.

see
>>22806017
>>22813103

If you don't follow the path you won't become awakened.

https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Refuge/Section0008.html#heading_id_4

What the Buddha’s awakening means for us:

1) The role that kamma plays in the awakening is empowering. It means that
>what each of us does, says, and thinks does matter—
this, in opposition to the sense of futility that can come from reading, say, world history, geology, or astronomy, and realizing the fleeting nature of the entire human enterprise. The awakening lets us see that
>the choices we make in each moment of our lives are real, and that they produce real consequences.
The fact that we are empowered also means that
>we are responsible for our experiences.
We are not strangers in a strange land. We have formed and are continuing to form the world we experience. This helps us to face the events we encounter in life with greater equanimity, for we know that we had a hand in creating them. At the same time, we can avoid any debilitating sense of guilt because with each new choice we can always make a fresh start.

2) The awakening also tells us that
>good and bad are not mere social conventions but are built into the structure of experience.
We may be free to design our lives, but not to change the underlying rules that determine what good and bad actions are, and how the process of kamma works itself out. Thus cultural relativism—even though it may have paved the way for many of us to leave our earlier religious orientations and enter the Buddhist fold—has no place once we are within that fold. There are certain ways of acting that are inherently unskillful, and we are fools if we insist on our right to follow them.

3) As the Buddha says at one point in describing his awakening,
>“Ignorance was destroyed; knowledge arose; darkness was destroyed; light arose—as happens in one who is heedful, ardent, and resolute.”
In other words, he gained liberating knowledge through qualities that we can all develop: heedfulness, ardency, resolution. If we are willing to face the implications of this fact, we realize that
>the Buddha’s awakening is a challenge to our entire set of values.
The fact that the Unconditioned can be attained forces us to re-evaluate any other goals we may set for ourselves, any worlds we may want to create in our lives. On an obvious level, it points out the spiritual poverty of a life devoted to wealth, status, or sensual pursuits; but it also forces us to take a hard look at other more “worthwhile” goals that our culture and its sub-cultures tend to exalt, such as
>social acceptance, meaningful relationships, stewardship of the planet, etc. These, too, will inevitably lead to suffering.
>The interdependence of all things cannot be, for any truly sensitive mind, a source of security or comfort.
If the Unconditioned is available, and it’s the only trustworthy happiness around, the most sensible course is to invest our efforts and whatever mental and spiritual resources we have in its direction.

>>22813417
4) Even for those who are not ready to make that kind of investment, the awakening assures us that
>happiness comes from developing qualities within ourselves that we can be proud of, such as kindness, sensitivity, equanimity, mindfulness, conviction, determination, and discernment.
Again, this is a very different message from the one we pick up from the world telling us that in order to gain happiness we have to develop qualities we can’t take any genuine pride in: aggressiveness, self-aggrandizement, dishonesty, etc. Just this much can give an entirely new orientation to our lives and our ideas of what is worthwhile investment of our time and efforts.

The news of the Buddha’s awakening sets the standards for judging the culture we were brought up in, and not the other way around. This is not a question of choosing Asian culture over American. The Buddha’s awakening challenged many of the presuppositions of Indian culture in his day; and even in so-called Buddhist countries,
>the true practice of the Buddha’s teachings is always counter-cultural.
It’s a question of evaluating our normal concerns—conditioned by time, space, and the limitations of aging, illness, and death—against the possibility of a timeless, spaceless, limitless happiness.
>All cultures are tied up in the limited, conditioned side of things, while the Buddha’s awakening points beyond all cultures.
It offers the challenge of the Deathless that his contemporaries found liberating and that we, if we are willing to accept the challenge, may find liberating ourselves.

>>22813305
>on a legalistic reading of the suttas and ending up laughably rigid
on the contrary, it's the jains who are too rigid
and there is no legalism in buddhism

>>22813305
also stop cramming jews in buddhist threads, it's fucking appalling

>>22813153
>>22813305
>>22813444
Who do you follow?

>>22813444
Where?

>>22813411
>Wrong think.
Fuck off

>>22813251
>>22813411
>>22813425
>>22813444
>>22813475
You retards are the reason why people say things like "Buddhism is life denying/nihilistic"
Buddhism isn't, but you are. Stop latching onto Buddhism to validate your hatred of life

>>22813496
>>22813505

What good does speaking like that do for you?

>>22813505
>you r-
Why use that word?

>you are the reason...
How did you come to this conclusion?

>You are ___...
>Your ___....
Why do you make these assumptions?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy-34Sx-N38

>>22795686

> [ 7 - CONTEMPLATION OF ANGER ]

Right contemplation is learning how to think without greed, hatred and delusion underlying your thoughts.

Try and CONTEMPLATE the phenomenon of anger, the phenomenon of ill will. You don’t have to be angry when you want to do this meditation—just bring it to mind, remember when you were angry. You can ask yourself,
>“What is common to all of those experiences of anger or irritation? What is their nature?”
You can answer these questions in many ways, and it’s not always crucial to answer them in the same way, because your investigation will lead you to different aspects of that phenomenon. But just keep pressing with the questions while the phenomenon is enduring.

One of the most obvious things is that
>ANGER is UNPLEASANT.
Every single time you experience it, it’s unpleasant. Then you can ask a second question:
>“Can I be angry without that little sting of displeasure in it? Is there any anger that is truly enjoyable and pleasant?”
There might be a secondary experience of pleasure through getting back at someone who upset you, but that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the very first, originally enduring, phenomenon of anger. Is that pleasant or unpleasant?
>It’s always unpleasant,
there’s not a single exception. It always burns.

Let’s put it like this: somebody does something that upsets you, that irritates you. You’re irritated, you got angry because you’re upset for whatever reason. Then, say, on some other occasion, you’re in a good mood and somebody does the same thing to you but now you really did not experience that sting of discomfort and you’re not angry. You might even laugh it off. You realize then that
>ANGER is not directly determined by what has been done to you—it’s really determined by whether you’re EXPERIENCING DISCOMFORT on account of it or not. It’s determined by your STATE OF MIND

>Every time you were angry, irritated, annoyed, means to some degree you were upset.
It doesn’t matter how subtle that upset was, it’s still the upset which means
>there was a degree of discomfort, displeasure, unpleasant feeling—every single time.
And every single time that you get upset in the future, that will be the same basis. Then you realize that what you get angry with in the present, what you’ve been getting angry with in the past, or what you will be getting angry with in the future, is your
>being LIABLE to FEEL DISCOMFORT on the emotional level.
>Experiencing unpleasant feelings is what makes you angry.
Not other people or objects.

>>22813718
>Whenever there is ANGER, it is rooted in DISCOMFORT.
What is common to every single discomfort?
What kind of mental attitude is always in the background?

It’s not wanted. That’s the attitude. It is resisted. You don’t want it to be there. You feel entitled to not having it there. That’s why when people get upset they aim and blame the circumstances that were upsetting. But in reality those are irrelevant.
>It’s the discomfort that is felt, that’s where the problem always is.
So even when people aim at changing the circumstances, they do so only to remove the displeasure that’s within them. But this can never remove your liability to future displeasure touching you and you getting angry. This can only manage the symptoms of anger, but never uproot it.

>Unpleasant feelings arise on their own.
If we were to have control over what feeling arises in us, we would never experience displeasure of any kind. Since we do, it means
>the domain of feelings is not something we can control. It’s something we are subjected to.

But why is that a problem? Because you don’t want it? But why don’t you want it? Because it’s a problem. Thus,
>you create your own vicious circle of not wanting discomfort that is only a problem because you don’t want it.

So,
>would you be able to maintain the attitude of trying to get rid of displeasure if you’re not holding on to a view that you can get rid of that displeasure?
>If you completely realized that the domain of feeling is inaccessible to you, would you still be acting as if you have access to it? As if you can control it?

As we just clarified and discovered, you wouldn’t be trying to get rid of the unpleasant feeling unless there is an implicit assumption that you can get rid of it. But
>when you look at the unpleasant feeling, you realize it has ARISEN ON ITS OWN, fully formed, independent of you, and you’ve no say in it.
You endure it when it’s there. You are free from it when it goes. All you can do is secondarily complain about it, try to get rid of it, prevent it, or affect the circumstances that have indirectly propped it up. So,
>why do you then still hold on to the attitude of not wanting it, of trying to get rid of it, craving for it not to be, when it’s obvious you have no say in it?

It’s because of your other underlying attitude that is even more fundamental than the attitude of craving for getting rid of the unpleasant feeling—and that attitude is the attitude of IGNORANCE, the attitude of ignoring the nature of the feeling, pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. That’s why ignorance is the most fundamental existential error for which every single being is responsible.

>>22813724
Not contemplating that Nature long enough—that’s how you maintain the fully gratuitous attitude of resisting or indulging feelings, depending on whether they were unpleasant or pleasant.
>Any attitude toward feelings implies the assumption that you can control those feelings, either through prolonging them or getting rid of them. But you realize that, whether you’re trying to prolong them or get rid of them, that is secondary to the presently enduring feeling that has arisen on its own and that you are subjected to.
If you stop ignoring that, these wrong attitudes will have to eventually fade.

That’s why
>ignorance cannot be undone accidentally.
You cannot accidentally stumble upon the answer to the universe that will solve and prevent you from suffering ever again, because it’s not a mistake, it’s an attitude that you maintain through your ACTIONS.

You can stop resisting unpleasant feeling, for example, not by deciding to not resist the unpleasant feeling, but by fully overriding it with the UNDERSTANDING that,
>whether you resist or not makes no difference.
Resistance is futile. That’s how resisting fades. Ceasing to ignore the obvious futility of your resistance to your present emotional states is how you stop resisting them.

Imagine you’re trying to break through a door. You will keep trying for as long as there is hope that you can do it. But then suddenly you hear the possibility that maybe there’s no need to be breaking through this door—there’s no need to get rid of it. And then you understand that, truly, there is no need; and not just that, you understand that
>you can’t break through even if you wanted to.
There’s no door, actually—it’s a fully cemented, concrete metal block, painted as a door inviting you to come and break it.

That’s basically what
>feelings are. A trap.
They present themselves as if they’re for you, which is why you naturally assume the ownership and control over them. But that’s wrong.
>They are not for you, you are for them.
You are the one who is subjected to them and has to ENDURE them. Feelings deceive you into a gratuitous sense of ownership. Hence the psychological dependence people have on feeling good and avoiding feeling bad. It helps them maintain the ILLUSION OF OWNERSHIP. If things were solely unpleasant and hurtful it would be easier to give them up. You wouldn’t want to own them, would you?

So,
>feelings present themselves as if they’re controllable, and that’s why you just fall into that trap of trying to control them, which is why you suffer.
As the Buddha himself said, you don’t suffer because there is displeasure present, or because misfortune happens to you, and so on—you SUFFER because there is CRAVING in regard to that unpleasant feeling. Thus,
>presence of CRAVING means presence of SUFFERING.
Absence of it means there is no suffering present either, regardless of what feeling chooses to arise on its own.

>>22813728
What one usually does when there is an unpleasant feeling is to make effort towards chasing an experience that will replace the pain with the pleasant feeling. But that’s a separate experience now—you haven’t dealt with the original unpleasant feeling. You just covered it up. It ceased on its own and now you’re experiencing some other pleasure on account of your desperate actions of chasing it. But even that feeling of that pleasure has arisen on its own. In other words, it’s not a guarantee that the actions towards the world will always result in the same type of feeling, and that’s enough to then reveal the nature of its independence. That’s why the Buddha said
>the puthujjana doesn’t know any other escape from the arisen unpleasant feeling except sensuality, as in replacing it with another experience of pleasant feeling, on account of his inability to deal with the fundamental nature of being affected by feeling of any kind in the first place.

“Being contacted by that same painful feeling, a man harbours aversion towards it. When he harbours aversion towards painful feeling, the underlying tendency to aversion towards painful feeling lies behind this. Being contacted by painful feeling, he seeks delight in sensual pleasure. For what reason? Because
>the uninstructed worldling does not know of any escape from painful feeling other than sensual pleasure.
When he seeks delight in sensual pleasure, the underlying tendency to lust for pleasant feeling lies behind this. He does not understand as it really is the ORIGIN and the PASSING AWAY, the GRATIFICATION, the DANGER, and the ESCAPE in the case of these feelings. When he does not understand these things, the underlying tendency to ignorance in regard to neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling lies behind this…”
—SN 36:6

>If you cease to be affected by an unpleasant feeling, if you cease to be pressured by the pleasant feeling, why then would you need to replace it with any other feeling or act towards getting more of it?
You wouldn’t. That’s why somebody who’s free from aversion becomes free from sensuality as well—hand-in-hand.
>Freedom from sensuality is freedom from aversion.
That’s pretty much the state of anāgāmi.

>The practice then is about ceasing to ignore the fundamental nature of the presently enduring feeling, whatever that feeling is—pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.
With the guidance of the Suttas and Dhamma talks, which give you pointers to where and what to look for—you must be making that effort to look for it. Not looking for it means automatically ignoring it.

When you have been making an effort in contemplating correctly, and you are touched by an unpleasant feeling, you will be able to discern the choice of attitude you have—either to try and control, manipulate, deal with the world, or simply
>remove the attitude of resistance in regard to anything you feel.
And only one of these choices will result in freedom from suffering.

Denying our default hedonistic programming is good because it doesn't lead to true happiness.

>>22810407
>>22810412
>pleasure is fleeting and this leaves us recurrently dissatisfied. And the reason is that pleasure is designed by natural selection to evaporate so that the ensuing dissatisfaction will get us to pursue more pleasure. Natural selection doesn’t “want” us to be happy
>Natural selection's job is to build machines that spread genes, and if that means programming some measure of illusion into the machines, then illusion there will be.

Take the red pill - follow the path.
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/FourNobleTruths/Contents.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/OnThePath/Section0000.html

Today I experienced language (English) as just sounds which never happened to me before, of course I was able to understand it but it was more than words, it was many-faced. I feel I am nearer to understanding reality, I will keep training my meditation

>buddhist chantards
what a condradiction in terms.
you break half of the precepts of noble eightfold path just by lurking here.

So how does being a buddhist chantard actually work? Do you spend the week spreading hate and vitriol online then meditate for forgiveness at the weekends?

>>22813785
mad

>>22813675
>>22813687
Stop acting enlightened. It's embarrassing and makes your vacuous posturing more obvious

>>22798527
There is no self to be reincarnated.

That is a Vipasanna idea. Atman does not exist as such.

Reincarnation is continual.

>>22813785
>you break half of the precepts of noble eightfold path just by lurking here.
For example?

>>22813829
>Stop acting
Why do you assume there is "acting?"
Why do you want it to "stop?"
Do you feel an unpleasant feeling?

>It's embarrassing
So, you feel embarrassed?
Where do you feel it?
Can you endure that feeling?
What happens if you observe it for awhile?

>>22813955
You're not clever or enlightened no matter how hard you pretend to be

>>22813956
Why do you say that?

>>22813956
How do you know?

https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/NobleStrategy/Section0014.html

So, instead of answering “no” to the question of whether or not there is a self—interconnected or separate, eternal or not—the Buddha felt that the question was misguided to begin with. Why? No matter how you define the line between “self” and “other,”
>the notion of self involves an element of self-identification and clinging, and thus suffering and stress.
This holds as much for an interconnected self, which recognizes no “other,” as it does for a separate self: If you identify with all of nature, you’re pained by every felled tree. It also holds for an entirely “other” universe, in which the sense of alienation and futility would become so debilitating as to make the quest for happiness—your own or that of others—impossible. For these reasons,
>the Buddha advised paying no attention to such questions as “Do I exist?” or “Don’t I exist?” for however you answer them, they lead to suffering and stress.

To avoid the suffering implicit in questions of “self” and “other,” he offered an alternative way of dividing up experience: the four noble truths of stress(dukkha), its cause, its cessation, and the path to its cessation. These truths aren’t assertions; they’re categories of experience. Rather than viewing these categories as pertaining to self or other, he said, we should recognize them simply for what they are, in and of themselves, as they’re directly experienced, and then perform the duty appropriate to each. Stress should be comprehended, its cause abandoned, its cessation realized, and the path to its cessation developed.

These duties form the context in which the anattā doctrine is best understood. If you develop the path of virtue, concentration, and discernment to a state of calm well-being and use that calm state to look at experience in terms of the noble truths, the questions that occur to the mind are not “Is there a self? What is my self?” but rather
>“Does holding onto this particular phenomenon cause stress and suffering?
Is it really me, myself, or mine? If it’s stressful but not really me or mine, why hold on?” These last questions merit straightforward answers, as they then help you to comprehend stress and to chip away at the attachment and clinging—the residual sense of self-identification—that cause stress, until ultimately all traces of self-identification are gone and all that’s left is limitless freedom.

In this sense,
>the anattā teaching is not a doctrine of no-self, but a not-self strategy for shedding suffering by letting go of its cause, leading to the highest, undying happiness.
At that point, questions of self, no-self, and not-self fall aside. Once there’s the experience of such total freedom, where would there be any concern about what’s experiencing it, or about whether or not it’s a self?

>>22813970
>>22813978
Because arahants aren't disingenuously passive aggressive

>>22813996
But why are you saying what you're saying to begin with?

Stream-enterers are enlightened too.

What is passive aggression?

>>22813879
right speech
right action
right effort
right concentration
right intention

>>22814015
Those aren't precepts :)

>>22814015
>>22814036
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_precepts

I undertake [to observe] the rule of abstinence from taking life
I undertake [to observe] the rule of abstinence from taking what is not given
I undertake [to observe] the rule of abstinence from unchastity
I undertake [to observe] the rule of abstinence from false speech
I undertake [to observe] the rule of abstinence from intoxicants which cause a careless frame of mind
I undertake [to observe] the rule of abstinence from taking food at the wrong time
I undertake [to observe] the rule of abstinence from dancing, music, visiting shows, flowers, make-up, the wearing of ornaments and decorations
I undertake [to observe] the rule of abstinence from a tall, high sleeping place.[6]

>>22814005
>ummm what does anything mean? heh gotcha
Pseud larper

I am familiar with stoicism and understand the necessity to stop seeing myself and the world around me as separate. I want to read something buddhist for recommendations on how to meditate, how to notice things in my mind, and other stuff. But I am not ready to get on board with the mystical/magical parts (reincarnation, etc). What should I read?

>>22815852
The 5 precept and mindfulness are the beginning of the buddhist path, so https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/soma/wayof.html or jsut videos of monks doing ''guided meditation'' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwCfjVxsZXA

After that it's about meditation per se, ie jhanas, and then mixing all this with insight to get enlightened.

Where can I meet an arahant in today's world? Is there even any arahant living on earth now? And more importantly, how do I make sure a person is an arahant? How do I know whether he is an arahant or not, if I cannot access what is passing through his mind? If I cannot know, how did the monks who wrote the suttas know anyone attained arahanthood?

>>22814806
Try to understand why you speak and the effect it has not only on others but yourself.

>>22816547
Yeah I'm hoping you'll drop the "equanimous monk on 4chan" act eventually

>>22816289
there has been enlightened people for a long time
And the way to test somebody for arahant hood is typically probing his mind.

for testing a buddha
https://www.suttas.com/mn-47-vimamsaka-sutta-the-inquirer.html

for testing an arahant

“Here, Bhāradvāja, a bhikkhu may be living in dependence on some village or town. Then a householder or a householder’s son goes to him and investigates him in regard to three kinds of states: in regard to states based on greed, in regard to states based on hate, and in regard to states based on delusion: ‘Are there in this venerable one any states based on greed such that, with his mind obsessed by those states, while not knowing he might say, “I know,” or while not seeing he might say, “I see,” or he might urge others to act in a way that would lead to their harm and suffering for a long time?’ As he investigates him he comes to know: ‘There are no such states based on greed in this venerable one. The bodily behaviour and the verbal behaviour of this venerable one are not those of one affected by greed. And the Dhamma that this venerable one teaches is profound, hard to see and hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning, subtle, to be experienced by the wise. This Dhamma cannot easily be taught by one affected by greed.’

“When he has investigated him and has seen that he is purified from states based on greed, he next investigates him in regard to states based on hate: ‘Are there in this venerable one any states based on hate such that, with his mind obsessed by those states…he might urge others to act in a way that would lead to their harm and suffering for a long time?’ As he investigates him, he comes to know: ‘There are no such states based on hate in this venerable one. The bodily behaviour and the verbal behaviour of this venerable one are not those of one affected by hate. And the Dhamma that this venerable one teaches is profound…to be experienced by the wise. This Dhamma cannot easily be taught by one affected by hate.’

“When he has investigated him and has seen that he is purified from states based on hate, he next investigates him in regard to states based on delusion: ‘Are there in this venerable one any states based on delusion such that, with his mind obsessed by those states…he might urge others to act in a way that would lead to their harm and suffering for a long time?’ As he investigates him, he comes to know: ‘There are no such states based on delusion in this venerable one. The bodily behaviour and the verbal behaviour of this venerable one are not those of one affected by delusion. And the Dhamma that this venerable one teaches is profound…to be experienced by the wise. This Dhamma cannot easily be taught by one affected by delusion.’

>>22816580
“When he has investigated him and has seen that he is purified from states based on delusion, then he places faith in him; filled with faith he visits him and pays respect to him; having paid respect to him, he gives ear; when he gives ear, he hears the Dhamma; having heard the Dhamma, he memorises it and examines the meaning of the teachings he has memorised; when he examines their meaning, he gains a reflective acceptance of those teachings; when he has gained a reflective acceptance of those teachings, zeal springs up; when zeal has sprung up, he applies his will; having applied his will, he scrutinises; having scrutinised, he strives; resolutely striving, he realises with the body the supreme truth and sees it by penetrating it with wisdom. In this way, Bhāradvāja, there is the discovery of truth; in this way one discovers truth; in this way we describe the discovery of truth. But as yet there is no final arrival at truth.”

>>22815852
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/WithEachAndEveryBreath/Contents.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/RightMindfulness/Contents.html

>>22816554
Why do you hope that?

>>22815852
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/FourNobleTruths/Contents.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/OnThePath/Section0000.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zerG3watL0k

>>22816604
Because your endless seething is annoying. Now what follows is
>why do you assume I am seething? :))
>why are you annoyed? :))
Fuck off retard

I generally do not get on these threads due to blatant sectarianism, but would like to ask what followers of the three Roots think of The Platform Sutra. I started reading it yesterday and its incredible I many ways, both for its historical significance in showing the split between Northern and Southern schools of Chan, and its similarity to other reductionist sutras like the Diamond Cutter. It describes a sort of unison between the concepts of Enlightenment as both a gradual and sudden process.

>>22817035
The whole mahayanist drama over the gradual and sudden process stems from their misunderstanding of enlightenment.
It's because they fail to understand the path is conditioned, which does NOT mean tailored to some disciple.
They don't understand how a conditioned path leads to the unconditioned. They don't understand how samadhi mixes with wisdom because they reject that stream enterers and so on are actually enlightened.

>>22817035
You're not going to get any worthwhile discussion on Buddhism here, it's all larpers who wish to project their western sensibilities on Buddhism and endlessly argue about which sect is better, like this guy
>>22817051
Stream enterers are not enlightened

>>22817051
>They don't understand how a conditioned path leads to the unconditioned.
Explain how it does

Does anyone know some good dharma talks by Tibetan teachers?

>>22817311
If you'll give me a second I will look up a ffew. Be back in a few minutes.

>>22817311
>>22817311
Here you are, friend.
https://www.youtube.com/@dawnmountain
Dawn Mountain is run in Houston, Texas, by rather experienced people who served under the Karmapa, if I recall correctly. I'm no expert in Tibetan Buddhism, but I haven't found anything they said to be wrong in any capacity in relation to the Dharma. They offer free streaming every Sunday, I believe, as well as Zoom and other methods of communication, so it is possible to get in contact with a teacher.
https://www.youtube.com/@GarchenBuddhistInstituteAZ
This is run by an ethnic Tibetan group related to Gelug, but accepting of many other methods of awakening as well.
That should be a good start for you, as there are hundreds of hours of talks between the two channels. My apologies for not having more to offer, I am a Chan/Pure Land practitioner, though I admire Tibetan practices as far as I have studied them.

>>22817369
Why would you go and look up something for another anon lol literal online cuckoldry

>>22817354
>>22817369
Thank you anon, I appreciate the help. These seem like good resources as I'm looking for an introductory basis to form a solid foundation for further practice
>Chan/Pure Land
What does your practice consist of? If I may ask, what made you gravitate towards this particular school?

>>22817377
Every day we give of ourselves in service of the Dharma, Amitoufo.
>>22817380
It was no problem anon, I often listen to these two to get more exposure to other schools of thought, and I do the same with Therevadan teachers as well. What drew me to Pure Land/Chan practice is the understanding that with my mental and spiritual capacity being quite small due to mental illness and immorality in the past I cannot by my own efforts achieve Buddhahood in this life. This isn't something set in stone mind you, but rather an acknowledgment of my current limitations. Whereas others may use only self power to achieve Awakening, people like me of lower capacities require the help of Amitabha to lift us up to our inner nature. My practice largely consists of various practices from all of the extant branches of Chinese Buddhism. I start by waking up and saying Amitabha's name, then do a quick three minute session of chanting whatever I feel inspired to chant that day, whether it is Guan Yin Pusa's mantra or the Shorter Amitabha Sutra. Sometimes I will set aside time for honest meditation in the form of Silent Illumination, but many days I don't feel mentally well enough to do even that, so I simply do nianfo. Some days I try to space out my activities with visualizing the Western Pure Land in various ways, largely taken from the Visualization Sutra.

>>22795028
they are literally you anon

>>22817657
Explain how

>>22817396
I understand. Is your view that Amitabha's Pure Land exists as a separate loka, or do you view it in a more metaphorical context? Or both? I remember watching one of Sheng Yen's videos where he explained that attainment of the Pure Land was essentially being able to view all realms of Samsara as Pure Lands, which is curious to me.
Is there an introductory PL sutra you could recommend if I wanted to familiarize myself with this view? Not any particular branch like Jodo and whatnot, but PL teachings as a whole (which are incorporated into many branches of Mahayana and even Vajrayana iirc)

>>22815852
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/TruthOfRebirth/Contents.html

" it turns out that, when we examine these truths, we find that rebirth does play a prominent role in the understanding of stress that forms the first noble truth; in the understanding of the causes of stress—craving and clinging—that form the second noble truth; and in the transcendent right view that guides the path of practice to the end of stress, the fourth noble truth. It also plays a prominent role in the mundane level of right view that provides the context for understanding the meaning and purpose of the four noble truths.

>skillful actions always lead in the direction of happiness and well-being; unskillful actions always lead in the direction of suffering and harm.

To develop skillful qualities, people need to see the dangers of unskillful behavior and the advantages of skillful behavior. Because actions can sometimes take many lifetimes to yield their results, a complete and convincing case that unskillful actions should always be avoided, and skillful ones always developed, requires the perspective that comes only from seeing the results of actions over many lifetimes.

“I say categorically, Ānanda, that good bodily conduct, good verbal conduct, & good mental conduct should be done.”

>when you assume both the efficacy of action and its effect on rebirth, you are more likely to behave skillfully.
To assume otherwise makes it easy to find excuses for lying, killing, or stealing when faced with poverty or death. And from there it’s easy to extend the excuses to cover times when it’s simply more convenient to lie, etc., than to not. But
>if you assume that your actions have results, and those results will reverberate through many lifetimes, it’s easier to stick to your principles not to lie, kill, or steal even under severe duress.
And even though you may not know whether these assumptions are true, you cannot plan an action without implicitly wagering on the issue.

It’s like having money: Regardless of what you do with it—spending it, investing it, or just stashing it away—you’re making an implicit wager on how to get the best use of it now and into the future. Your investment strategy can’t stop with, “I don’t know.” If you have any wisdom at all, you have to consider future possibilities and take your chances with what seems to be the safest and most productive use of the resources you’ve got.

So it is with all of our actions. Given that we have to wager one way or another all the time on how to find happiness, the Buddha stated that
>it’s a safer wager to assume that actions bear results that can affect not only this lifetime but also lifetimes after this than it is to assume the opposite. "

>>22817720
those who hold to mundane right view and act on it—he said this:

“With regard to this, an observant person considers thus: ‘If there is the next world, then this venerable person—with the breakup of the body, after death—will reappear in a good destination, a heavenly world. Even if we didn’t speak of the next world, and there weren’t the true statement of those venerable contemplatives & brahmans, this venerable person is still praised in the here-&-now by the observant as a person of good habits & right view: one who holds to a doctrine of existence.’ If there really is a next world, then this venerable person has made a good throw twice, in that he is praised by the observant here-&-now; and in that—with the breakup of the body, after death—he will reappear in a good destination, a heavenly world. Thus this safe-bet teaching, when well grasped & adopted by him, covers both sides, and leaves behind the possibility of the unskillful.” — MN 60

These arguments don’t prove the efficacy of action or the truth of rebirth, but they do show that
>it is a safer, more reasonable, and more honorable policy to assume the truth of these teachings than it would be to assume otherwise.
The Buddha didn’t press these arguments beyond that point. In other words, he left it to his listeners to decide whether they wanted to recognize that
>action is an investment that, like all investments, incurs risks.
And he left it to them to decide how they wanted to calculate the risks and potentials that action might involve now and into the future.

>>22817028
see
>>22806940
>>22813718
>>22813724
>>22813728
>>22813733

>>22817028
>>why do you assume I am seething? :))
>>why are you annoyed? :))

Good questions. Now try to answer them.

>>22817766
>>22817788
see
>>22813956

>>22817369
Garchen Rinpoche is Drikung Kagyu

>>22817675
My apologies for the late reply, I was out working for a bit, I'm back home now. Gimme a sec and I'll give my response.

>>22818302
Generally there are three or even four positions that one can hold on the Pure Land, and depending upon what one needs at the time, one can take any of them for their practice. I myself currently view it in both a literal and metaphorical sense. Sheng Yen has great insight, and he draws specifically from the Vimalakirti Sutra for that observation. In the opening chapters Shakyamuni is questioned by one of the arhats as to why his Pure Land seems so impure, and then he places his toe on the ground and everything becomes pure and pristine, which is basically implying that the pure mind creates the Pure Land. A third position posited by Sannghas like Fo Guang Shan and CTTBUSA often look to creating the Pure Land on earth.
For sutras I would recommend BDK's translation of the Three Pure Land Sutras, and read them all, though I would start with the Amitabha Sutra first, then the Infinite Life, then the Visualization Sutra.
A free download can be found here:
https://www.bdkamerica.org/product/the-three-pure-land-sutras/
As well as a lot of other Sutras and commentaries.
>>22817957
Really? I often took him for a Gelukpa for his veneration of the Dalai Lama, but I suppose there's a lot of intersection and mutual venerations between traditions.

>>22817028
How does annoyance feel? Pleasant? Unpleasant? Neutral?
Where is the feeling located?
Where did it come from?
Can it be controlled?
What happens to it when observed?

>>22817877
What's a person like who is clever or enlightened?

>>22818353
To speak in the words of Huineng: It is your mind which is moving.

>>22818362
Which way? How do you know?

>>22818369
When did I ever say anything about moving or knowing?

>>22818381
Just now.

>>22818343
One more word of advice: Read "Pure Land: History, Tradition, and Practice" by Charles B. Jones, and his other work on Chinese Pure Land Buddhism. It should clear up misconceptions you may have on the practice of Pure Land. One thing I found out early in my practice was that in the Chinese traditions, Pure Land is seen as a Dharma Door rather than a specific independent school in itself, as in comparison to the Japanese schools which, while having quite a bit of overlap, are largely viewed externally as independent schools of thought.

>>22818392
If you have any other questions let me know. I'm no scholar or Dharma Master, but I do know quite a bit of general knowledge on the subject.

>>22817675
Amitabhas pure land exists, and amitabha buddha exists, it is real and not a metaphor, only by entrusting oneself completely to amitabha buddha thereby giving up self-power methods of the hinayana, mahayana and vajrayana which may have worked in an earlier Dharma age can one truly become a buddha by the new paradigm of other-power, explained by monk shinran
Infact I believe other-power was the intent of the buddha from the beginning, other-power is Zen, it is nonduality.

>>22819029
Self-power paradigms are dualistic and ineffective for the foolish.

>>22818389
The Noetic Function of the Intellect:
>From the traditional perspective modern or profane science cannot create in vacuo a psychol-ogy that facilitates the integration of the tripartite structure of the human microcosm: Spirit/ Intellect, soul, and body.
>It is only at the level of the transpersonal or the Absolute itself-what is above and higher and simultaneously at the center, both transcendent and immanent-that an authentic integration can be established.
Some might be curious and even challenge the definition of the Intellect as equivalent to the Spirit, but we need to stress that the Intellect in this context is not the discursive faculty of reason but what subsumes this lower faculty and transmutes it into a transcendent faculty. This spiritual organ, also known as the ·'Eye of the Heart" is illuminated by Hehaka Sapa or Black Elk (1863-1950), a remarkable sage of the Lakota Sioux:

>I am blind and do not see the things of this world; but when the Light comes from Above, it enlightens my heart and I can see, for the Eye of my heart (Chante lsta) sees everything. The heart is a sanctuary at the center of which there is a little space, wherein the Great Spirit dwells, and this is the Eye (lsta). This is the Eye of the Great Spirit by which He sees all things and through which we see Him. If the heart is not pure, the Great Spirit cannot be seen, and if you should die in this ignorance, your soul cannot return immediately to the Great Spirit, but it must be purified by wandering about in the world. In order to know the center of the heart where the Great Spirit dwells you must be pure and good, and live in the manner that the Great Spirit has taught us. The man who is thus pure contains the Universe in the pocket of his heart (Chante Ognaka)n

>We can even see the faculty of the Intellect present within the anti-intellectual tradition of Zen, however hidden it may be to the superficial observer; consider the following mondo or Zen dialogue between Yakusan (Chinese: Yao Shan) and a visiting monk:

>Once Master Yakusan was sitting in deep meditation, when a monk came up to him and asked: "Solidly seated as a rock, what are you thinking?"
Master answered: "Thinking of something which is absolutely unthinkable Uu-shiryo), 'not-to-be-thought-of'."
The monk: "How can one think of anything which is absolutely unthinkable'"
Master: "By the a-thinking thinking (h-i-shiryo), 'thinking-which-is-non-thinking '. "

>>22819065

>The Bodhisattva of Compassion,
having gone beyond wisdom to Truth,
saw with perfect clarity
that the five components of worldly experience— form, sensation, perception, volition, and consciousness— do not exist. Thus he was freed from anguish and suffering.
>He said: O Seeker, form does not differ from emptiness.
>Emptiness does not differ from form.
Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.
It is the same with sensation, perception, volition, and consciousness.
>All appearances are emptiness—
neither born nor unborn, neither pure nor impure,
>neither arising nor passing away.
There is only emptiness.
No form, sensation, perception, volition, or consciousness.
No eyes, ears, nose, or tongue.
No body. No mind.
No sights, sounds, smells, or tastes.
No feelings. No thoughts.
>No realm of the inner eye.
>No realm of pure consciousness.
>There is neither ignorance nor the absence of ignorance.
>There is neither old age and death,
nor the absence of old age and death.
>There is no suffering, no beginning, no middle, no end.
>There is no path, no knowledge, no attainment.
>There is nothing to attain.
>The Bodhisattva abides in the Absolute, unfettered by mind.
>No mind, no fear.
>The imagined world is seen through. Nirvana.

>>22819091
>When you impose stillness to stop activity, stillness becomes an activity.
>When you prefer one thing to another, you cannot abide in One.
>Believing appearances are real, you cannot see their Source.
>Seeing appearances are void, you see both Source and show.
>The more you talk and think, the further astray you wander.
>Stop thinking and talking and All becomes known.
>Not abiding in One, you are bound by both action and stillness.
>Returning to Source, one finds refuge.
>Pursuing appearances pulls you further away.
>At the moment of enlightenment, neither appearances nor emptiness are known.
>Changes transpiring in an imaginary world are visible only to ignorance.
>Do not seek Truth. Just stop having opinions.
>>22818361
>distinguishing a sage from a fool, is the cause of confusion

>>22819029
Non-duality is recognizing that all phenomena of samsara and nirvana are just expressions of the potentiality of your own basis and are primordially liberated. There is no liberation other than self-liberation.

>>22819133
In non-duality there is no recognition and not even the recognition of no recognition, there is no liberation or bondage, there is no reflection or deliberation, all that is just like the clouds covering the everbright sun, kings, commoners, - just fragments of an evening dream, that sun which is self-effulgent and never dimmed, day or night, there is no attainment of a nirvana equal to samsara, there is not even such a thing as samsara-nirvana, there is no discrimination or non-discrimination between samsara and nirvana, there is no inseperability or seperability of the two in one, there is one without second. Imposing stillness on activity becomes an activity.

>>22819133
yeah and non-duality is wrong view

>>22819638
Explain how

To any guy who will make the next thread: please link old thread in the next general in the future. Thank you.

>>22819638
If you are christian read wolfram smith's Christian nondualism
Read the Athanasian crews it follows nondualism, jesus christ and amida are very similar as salvific gods, the only point of dispute is in the individual Christians own oneness with jesus christ and the Trinity, many christians maintain an absolute dualism, but usually in all cases this will simply be a "fused but not confused' meister eckhart situation, neither seperation nor union is esoterically a nondual statement, dispute is something not engaged in purposefully regardless.
If you are coming from a different background then you have to specify why you are so against nondualism, the view honestly goes "beyond nondualism" in the sense that there is a nondualism to be correlated with dualism. So we are not talking about something nihilistic or something which grasps at a permanent entity where there isn't one.

>>22819638
Do you ever experience anything outside of your mind? You only experience reality through your sense consciousnesses, everything you experience is non-dual with your mind. Buddhist non-duality is not the Hindu ontological position that says everything is really one substance.

>>22820470
>Buddhist non-duality is not the Hindu ontological position that says everything is really one substance.
the Sarvabuddhasamāyoga-tantra speaks about a universal all-pervading Self