/lit/ - Literature

>>22817864
All religions are somewhat life denying anon
Why wouldn't they be? There is no permanence to life

>>22817864
A little bit of Buddhism benefits everyone. Just telling you not to get freaked out by life bc eventually you die.
What you're thinking is if everyone aimed to be a monk or bodhisattva we'd all fall apart, which is true; but the monks and bodhisattva only exist so someone is keeping the idea alive, for when the regular people living life need to be reminded of it. The point is not for everyone to become a monk. Buddhism is in service to life.

What do you mean by 'practice Buddhism'

>>22817889
Either part of the lay community or part of buddhist monasticism

>>22817864
>buddhism is ultimately life denying
You'd be correct. Tibetian Buddhism is outright hostile to life.
http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/Index.htm
>>22817879
>Just telling you not to get freaked out by life bc eventually you die.
In other words: be complacent
>if everyone aimed to be a monk or bodhisattva we'd all fall apart
Because monasticism is inherently parasitic.
>monks and bodhisattva only exist
To be parasites.

>>22817864
how many buddhist monks are pederasts?

>>22817864
Theravada Buddhism is life denying because it's basically "become a monk and renounce everything, or your life is useless and you'll be reborn trillions more times"
Madhyamaka philosophy however is extremely existentially relieving

>>22817864
>life denying,

What does this mean?
How do you feel about that?

>the entire world would be rendered culturally sterile.

In what way?
How do you know?
Does it matter? Why?

>>22817864
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.

>>22817864
>>22818408
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.

>>22817864
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/BuddhasTeachings/Section0000.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Refuge/Contents.html

>>22817864
Industrial society is life denying. Any of its coping mechanisms are bound to be too.

>>22817864
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. "

>>22818453
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.

>>22818408
>>22818411
>>22818433
>>22818453
>>22818456
>spams you with wall of text
why are (((they))) like this

I just assume I've been sold a totally false bill of goods on Buddhism my entire life. Its true believers are all dirt-poor Asians, I doubt I can even comprehend what it really means to them.

>>22818487
Why are (((you))) like that?

>>22817864
Monks are welfare queens, fuck em

You are so retarded that you have converted interpretations of reality into console wars. Your own intellect is life denying

>>22817864
You are life denying at heart or else you wouldn’t be seeking life affirming

>>22819513
bro really thinks this was smart and deep
I bet you're a chesterton fan aren't you?

>>22817864
You are correct. It is also hilariously ego-centric, despite professing to be opposite.

>>22817879
Wrong, dilettante.

>>22817879
>but the monks and bodhisattva only exist so someone is keeping the idea alive, for when the regular people living life need to be reminded of it.
huh no