/lit/ - Literature

It's just not Judaism.

>>23487662
But that is a good thing.

>>23487659

>>23488321
It was just a joke, the Dalai Lama is based.

>>23488395
Did you actually watch the vid? He let his intrusive thoughts take over.
>"Suck my tongue."
Guarantee if anyone did that to one of your little ones, nieces, nephews, brothers, sisters, you'd be outraged.

>>23487659
Nothing, Wagner, under divine inspiration, brought it to the West in the music drama of Tristan und Isolde, and his philosophical emendations to Schopenhauer's (predominantly Theravada) system.

>For it is a matter of demonstrating a path of salvation recognised by none of the philosophers, particularly not by Sch., the pathway to complete pacification of the Will through love, and that no abstract love of mankind, but the love which actually blossoms from the soil of sexual love, i.e. from the affection between man and woman. It is conclusive, that I am able to use for this (as philosopher, not as poet, since as such I have my own) the terminology which Sch. himself supplies me. The exposition leads very deep and far, for it embraces a preciser explanation of the state in which we become able to apprehend Ideas, as also of that of Genius (Genialitaf), which I no longer conceive as a state of disengagement of the intellect from the will, but rather as an enhancement of the intellect of the individual to a cognitive organ of the race itself (Erkenntnissorgan der Gattung), thus of the Will as Thing-in-itself; whence alone, moreover, is to be explained that strange enthusiastic joyfulness and rapture in the supreme moments of genial cognition which Sch. seems hardly to know, as he can find it [i.e. that mode of cognition] only in repose and in the silencing of the individual passions. Quite analogously to this conception, I then arrive with greatest certainty at proving in Love a possibility of attaining to that exaltation above the instinct of the individual will where, after complete subjection of this latter, the racial will comes to full consciousness of itself; which upon this height is necessarily tantamount to complete pacification. All this will be made clear even to the inexperienced, if my statement succeeds; whilst the result cannot but be very significant, and entirely and satisfactorily fill the gaps in Schopenhauer's system.

After playing the third act of Siegfried, Wagner stated:
>The kiss of love is the first intimation of death, the cessation of individuality, that is why a person is so terrified by it.

This is core Vajrayana philosophy, for those that are initiated.

>>23488410
Wagners Protestantism boils down in the end to mushy and sappy sentimentalism about love while Tibetan Buddhism is generally a path of gnosis.

>>23488699
Wrong, you have misunderstood the deeply systematic nature of Wagner's philosophical investigations, likely due to your own insecure reaction to the heartfelt proclamations of love. You should know, the only truly reliable source for Wagner's ideas is his own writings, which you clearly have not read. If I had only read Reasons Not to Worry: How to be Stoic in chaotic times, which is the equivalent of the junk information you have probably picked up about Wagner, then I would not consider myself an expert on Stoic thought.

>>23488405
I've done that and my niece loved it

>>23488405
He's an old man with limited english skills. I remember a tibetan dude explaining that he was trying to translate a tibetan phrase that has an innocent playful connotation

>>23489677
Even so, I'm pretty sure vinaya rules do not permit you to make any kind of bodily contact with others. Even a handshake would be an offense. Of course since he's vajrayani, the word "vinaya" basically never came up when that scandal happened.

>>23487659
Probably life rejecting isolationist nonsense

>>23487659
>Some Vajrayāna rituals traditionally included the use of certain taboo substances, such as blood, semen, alcohol and urine, as ritual offerings and sacraments. Tantric feasts and initiations sometimes employed substances like human flesh as noted by Kahha's Yogaratnamala.
>Vajrayāna rituals also include sexual yoga, union with a physical consort as part of advanced practices. Some tantras go further, the Hevajra tantra states "You should kill living beings, speak lying words, take what is not given, consort with the women of others".
>In India, there is evidence to show that women participated in tantric practice alongside men and were also teachers, adepts and authors of tantric texts.

Guru said id get enlightened if he creampied my wife but I dont feel any different!

>>23489992
Many such cases.

>>23489710
Monks who practice Vajrayana still follow vinaya

>>23489992
That only works once

>>23489710
Mahayana and Vajrayana allow non-Monks to become enlightened. Vajrayana branch specifically allows non-monks(gurus/yogis) and they also form their own branch/lineage.

The confusion is that Theravada is strictly a monastic order, the lay are cattles that cannot help themselves. Mahayana opens the path for lays but is still a monastic order. Vajrayana opens up the door for individualized breakthroughs, which opens the door for few non-monastic meditators/gurus/yogis/etc but is still largely a monastic order.

People tie the non-monastics practices with monastic practice and conflate the two, the two are separate paths.

>>23491327
>Mahayana and Vajrayana allow non-Monks to become enlightened
Enlightenment is not a question of who allows you to do it, it's a question of whether you can genuinely do it. Theravada takes the entirely comprehensible stance that laymen can technically be enlightened (as there are instances in the suttas) but, because of all the duties and distractions inherent to lay life, as a practical matter it's extremely rare. It seems to me that the Mahayana teaching that laymen are just as if not more capable of enlightenment as monks, that a Vimalakirti can run circles around the historical arahants, is basically just a big cope with no basis in practical reality. I recognize that Mahayana wouldn't be nearly the historical phenomenon it was if it didn't concede that as a selling point, but it goes without saying that we should prize truth over popularity.

>>23487659
Just the fact that Buddhists haven't invented anything interesting in centuries.

>>23491848
Enlightenment in Mahayana still requires extensive practice, you can see this readings texts on the paths and stages. It takes three asamkhya kalpas to achieve Buddhahood. Because of this, Mahayana was still a very monastic tradition in India and Tibet. When Mahayana sutras depict laymen like Vimalakirti having greater wisdom and accomplishment than monastic arhats, it's really just to criticize clinging to monasticism as inherently superior or necessary.

>>23491848
>Theravada takes the entirely comprehensible stance that laymen can technically be enlightened
Theravada also has Bodhisattvas, but has practically zero value in Theravada. So its irrelevant. For the principle Theravada, all the common folks can do is die and hope for a better rebirth, even then they know its more of a delusion.
>It seems to me that the Mahayana teaching that laymen are just as if not more capable of enlightenment as monks
No only lay who are specially tuned to the Buddhist/selfless way but aren't robed. 99.99% of lays dont practice anything and can only hope for better path, particularly some hope a boddhisattva can guide them to pureland and there would be some path towards enlightenment there.

>>23487659
It's buddhism instead of outright shaivism.

>>23487659
>so what exactly are your problems with Vajrayana Buddhism
If you meet the Buddha on the road: kill him.

>>23487659
It's not Dzogchen

Mahayana texts are generally intended for people with little capacity for understanding, or for people who do not have much ethical capacity.

One of the recurring themes, for example, is the idea of "the end of the law", in which people would not even be able to follow the precepts. Thus, the texts offer easier and more available practices for these people.

The hearers' vehicle would be more suited to those who have wisdom inclinations, greater personal abilities, etc.

This is why Mahayanists often have lay people teaching them, as is the case with the Vimalakirti Sutra and the Perfect Wisdom Sutra.
Including lay people who can't stop being awful, full of lust and hatred, in order to kill Buddhism from the inside.

>>23493403
>people with little capacity for understanding, or for people who do not have much ethical capacity.
Read Tsongkhapa

>>23488321
>>23489836
May I introduce you to the real Vajrayana king, Kukai?

>>23493403
nobody cares what a monk thinks about their personal life. if he thinks anything, he's not monking hard enough anyway.

>>23489992
Feelings, according to this sutta, are not self: https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN22_59.html

>>23491327
Vajrayana sounds pretty based

>>23489677
COPE

>>23489677
This, it was literally a misunderstanding.

>>23489677
>that he was trying to translate a tibetan phrase that has an innocent playful connotation
He was only translating a phrase, he wuz a good boi and dindu nuffin, that's why he leaned his head forward towards the boy until he was mere inches away and then stuck out his tongue, and then repeated the instruction when the boy got scared and hesitated.

>>23488410
I am very interested in Wagner and religion. I've read his work on Religion and Art, The Tristan Chord, and other essays by Bryan Magee. Are there any other recommendations you, or others, could provide?

>>23488410
only npcs listen to german bourgeois

>>23488410
Where did Wagner learn about Buddhism?

>>23491848
Wait until you discover what enlightenment really is

>>23498093
Magee is a useful introduction, but he's very basic and you have to move beyond him. I recommend:

Baudelaire's Richard Wagner and Tannhauser in Paris, Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, Untimely Meditations, Mallarme's Divagations, Dahlhaus's Richard Wagner's Music Dramas, Borchmeyer's Richard Wagner: Theory and Theatre, Joyce and Wagner: A Study of Influence, Athena Sings, The Quest for the Gesamtkunstwerk, Evil Genius: Constructing Wagner as Moral Pariah, Death-Devoted Heart and Modern Culture by Roger Scruton (I don't really like his books on the Ring and Parsifal, but they're there if you're interested), Wagner's Ring and the Germanic Tradition, The New Wagnerian. Also if you can speak German there's more writings by Dieter Borchmeyer and other German academics like Joachim Kaiser untranslated. Also the performance-lectures of Jeffrey Swann and Stefan Mickisch. I haven't been able to find many translations of the latter's recorded lectures, but there's videos of his Ring lectures on youtube that has subs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkAATgUHVI8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL25ZMYFEcU

There are countless more, since Wagner is one of the most written about individuals in history, but these are some of the ones I've read and found valuable.

>>23499858
Thank you, sincerely. This is helpful and substantive. I appreciate your contribution.

As someone who deeply appreciates Wagner's work and vision and is currently struggling with my own faith these sources are of great use.

>>23497530
This is so silly and sad. You should focus your attention on the real powerful pedophiles/hebephiles/ephebophiles like Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell and their ring (including as powerful or well-known people as Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew, besides plausibly many others in politics, Hollywood, and big corporations).

All I see here is an old man from a different culture being playful. Nothing bad or traumatizing happened to kid, it was a clear joke. I don’t know, maybe it’s just that I easily see my own (late) grandpa easily doing something like that as a joke when I was a child. Your own mind is in the gutter for interpreting it like that.

Regardless, the Dalai Lama is not necessarily even the most sophisticated or highest-level exemplar of Tibetan Buddhism. The Dalai Lama simply represents the Gelugpa or Yellow Hat monastery of Tibetan Buddhism. The situation of Tibetan Buddhism is actually in some ways rather more complex and decentralized than something like, say, the structure of the Roman Catholic Church/Vatican.

There are other schools like the “Black Hat” Tibetan Buddhists, or Karma Kagyu school, who moreover have monasteries and adherents spread out throughout many adjacent countries like Mongolia, India, Nepal, Bhutan, even some in Russia, and their head is the Gyalwa Karmapa, not the Dalai Lama. Then you also have the Nyingma and Sakya schools as the other major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. (Although they all more or less interact respectfully with each other; simply sometimes having different practices or interpretations of philosophy). Besides that, there is a wealth of historical Tibetan Buddhist literature and philosophy from figures like Marpa, Milarepa, Naropa and Tilopa and Gampopa, or even going back to those supposedly written or inspired by Padmasambhava and his consort Yeshe Tsogyal, and that silly little controversy has no bearing on them. The Dalai Lama is a drop in the ocean of Tibetan Buddhism and he’s more like the most publicized and palatable face of it to the West, he may not even necessarily get deeper into the esotericism of Tibetan Buddhism like other lamas or Tibetan meditation masters might, and it also admittedly may be true, that from his fame and mingling with the West, he has become somewhat corrupted into being a pseudo-political figure, aiding the CIA’s/US’s soft propaganda and culture war against the Chinese, besides mingling once with groups like NXIVM and other corrupt organizations because of the lure of fame and money in the West. I can admit this, but I don’t see him being a pedophile just from that silly short playful video; nor do I necessarily even view him as consciously malevolent or corrupted, it’s just that perhaps he’s gotten a little seduced by the Western form of “Mara”.

>>23487659
It provides you all the mental discipline necessary to bring you to the cusp of the western occult tradition that non evil people desperately need to find, then tells them to sit around and do nothing useful instead of tsking up the mantle of heaven.

>>23501233
The bodhisattva path isn't "doing nothing"

>>23487659
It's made up nonsense

>>23500834
I am delighted I could help you anon! If anything can preserve our faith, it is the living tradition of classical music:

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

>The only really effective apologia for Christianity comes down to two arguments, namely the saints the Church has produced and the art which has grown in her womb.
- Pope Benedict XVI

>Religion has assumed flesh and blood in a way quite different from these dogmatic forms—music, that is the direct product of Christianity, as is the saint, like Saint Francis of Assisi, who compensates for the whole church as well as for the whole world.
- Wagner

>>23501184
Good, informed response. This also captures well my thoughts, and frequent disappointments with, the Dalai Lama. Unfortunately in my area the only Buddhist schools that are active are some sort of Zen/Chan, an "online only" Therevada of some stripe, which seems to meet via Zoom to discuss pop psychology books, and FPMT, the popular Gelugpa group here in the US. My own experience with FPMT has been positive, but the Dalai Lama does not inspire me the same way he seems to do so for so many others.
>>23488395
This is one conversation I wish I could have heard. Assuming they even engaged in serious conversation.
>>23501426
If I may ask: what faith do you profess?

>>23501184
The Dalai Lama himself says he's just a man with no special powers or knowledge, so I guess one should just regard him as a scholar of his tradition and accept that he's as flawed as any other dude. Dunno how that works with him supposedly being a bodhisattva in the Tibetan lore.

>>23487659
Why do people only care about Tibetan Vajrayana? What about Shingon or Tendai/Tiantai?

>>23493619
Everything I read about his version of Buddhism makes it sound like monotheism or classical theism of some sort, which I'm not against but sounds weird to me coming from Buddhists. Even from their website:
http://www.shingon.org/deities/jusanbutsu/dainichi.html
>Mahâvairocana Buddha is the overall main deity of worship, and is the fundamental buddha in Shingon Buddhism.
>The Mandalas indicate that all things emerge from and are nourished by the life force of Mahâvairocana, who maintains the powerful creation and operation of the universe. A main teaching of Shingon Buddhism is that we human beings also have the buddha nature and the life force of Mahâvairocana.

>>23501606
Because it's much more accessible in the west

>>23501606
The Adibuddha is just your own mindstream. Read this.

>>23501606
Tibetan Buddhism is accessible because of the diasporic communities post-1951. Tiantai, Tendai, and Shingon are less so because of their relatively small immigrant communities.

I'm a Shingon practitioner and I've got my BA in religious studies. I'm working on a huge reading list for Buddhism that is modeled off of the philosophy project. Hopefully it'll be presentable in a month or two.

>>23501860
Yes, that’s what Tibetan Buddhism says, but its not clear if Shingon agrees

>>23487659
> so what exactly are your problems with Vajrayana Buddhism
That it’s wrong about the Atman purportedly not existing or being a fiction, although this is also an issue with almost all types of Buddhism. Some Vajrayana teachings get sort of close to it though and contain a grain of truth despite what they get wrong.

>>23501994
Make sure to post in this thread!

>>23501994
Have you read any of the available Tibetan classics from Tsongkhapa?

Idk if its too technical but Shingon should technically have the same baseline core as Tsongkhapa's readings.

>>23502785
If you're interested in Shingon, the following will be of interest.
Avatamsaka Sutra; Vairocanabhisambodhi Sutra, Two Esoteric Sutras, Shingon Texts, and Esoteric Texts from the BDK English Tripitaka; Kukai: Major Works; Tantric Buddhism in East Asia by Payne; Language in the Buddhist Tantra of Japan: Indic Roots of Mantra by Payne; and Shingon: Japanese Esoteric Buddhism by Yamasaki.

>>23502987
I know less about Tibetan Buddhism. I'm more versed in Sino-Japanese esoteric Buddhism because I speak Mandarin and have a handle of Classical Chinese. I see that Tsongkhapa is keen on deity yoga, which is central to Shingon.

>>23502260
What is even the real distinction between Atman and Buddha Nature anyway?

>>23488321
This is so funny

>>23503631
Buddha nature is emptiness

Is it true that you are redeemed simply by saying om mani padle hum?

>>23488321

SUK

>>23504039
There's no redemption in buddhism

>>23504367
There is in tibetan buddhism

>>23504496
No

>>23504687
>The gist of the Mahayanic teachings was as follows: [...] (7) A doctrine that salvation can be gained by having faith in a Buddha, and calling on his name;
from The Religion of Tibet by Sir Charles Bell, 1931

>>23505274
This is wrong. In all schools of buddhism liberation can only come from within by cultivating insight. The only way Buddhas can actually benefit beings is by teaching them the path.

>>23505308
Yeah... Im gonna go with the actual tibetologist who was a close friend of the 13th dalai lama instead of some guy on 4chan

>>23505345
Does he cite any primary sources to support his claim?

>>23487659
if you don't believe that Jesus Christ is God then you are wrong.

>>23505386
Authentic thermas revealed to him while practicing yoga of dreams

>>23505274
I feel wary of Tibetology that old. It's inevitably mired in language that derives from a Christian worldview, whether the person is Christian or not. If it's anything like my field, Sinology, resources are more 'western' the older they are. Additionally, his books seem to not be cited that often, especially in contemporary scholarship.

>>23487659
Dzogchen seemed interesting at first but the rest of what they do involves literal demons so no thanks

>>23506138
>the rest of what they do involves literal demons
No it doesn't, apart from subjugating them to guard the Dharma

>>23505308
>In all schools of buddhism liberation can only come from within by cultivating insight
In the original teachings, yes, and in some surviving schools like Zen and Theravada, yes, but not "all" schools, not by a long shot.

>>23506447
It's true of all schools. It even applies to pure land, because birth in Sukhavati is not liberation, you still have to practice the path on your own.

>>23505308
>The only way Buddhas can actually benefit beings is by teaching them the path.
I remember reading that at least for some interpretations of Jodo Shinshu you have to believe entirely in the "other power" of the buddha Amitabha, and the pure land is the same as nirvana.

>>23506739
Yeah, Jodo Shin relies on Other Power. It's a complete giving up of personal act towards enlightenment because of their interpretation of the Latter Day of Dharma. Juzu Nembutsu is my favorite of the Jodo schools. They recite nembutsu for the whole world's benefit, not their own personal. Jack shit English resources on them, though.

>>23506447
zen is not s surviving school

240616 The Karma of Meditation \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu \ \ Dhamma Talk
https://youtu.be/yExF3-hqL44

240617 Training for Dispassion \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu \ \ Dhamma Talk
https://youtu.be/4gQ6JTI83Sc

>>23488410
>the cessation of individuality
How is this different from the will to die for a greater cause, to die for one's family or such acts of selflessness? It seems like the cessation of individuality through love is a subset of a more general phenomenon.

>>23487659

https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN20_7.html

Staying near Sāvatthī. “Monks, there once was a time when the Dasārahas had a large drum called ‘Summoner.’ Whenever Summoner was split, the Dasārahas inserted another peg in it, until the time came when Summoner’s original wooden body had disappeared and only a conglomeration of pegs remained. [The Commentary notes that the drum originally could be heard for twelve leagues, but in its final condition couldn’t be heard even from behind a curtain.]

“In the same way, in the course of the future there will be monks who won’t listen when discourses that are words of the Tathāgata—deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent, connected with emptiness—are being recited. They won’t lend ear, won’t set their hearts on knowing them, won’t regard these teachings as worth grasping or mastering. But they will listen when discourses that are literary works—the works of poets, elegant in sound, elegant in rhetoric, the work of outsiders, words of disciples—are recited. They will lend ear and set their hearts on knowing them. They will regard these teachings as worth grasping & mastering.

“In this way the disappearance of the discourses that are words of the Tathāgata—deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent, connected with emptiness—will come about.

“Thus you should train yourselves: ‘We will listen when discourses that are words of the Tathāgata—deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent, connected with emptiness—are being recited. We will lend ear, will set our hearts on knowing them, will regard these teachings as worth grasping & mastering.’ That’s how you should train yourselves.”

>>23487659
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/BuddhistRomanticism/Section0005.html

1) Of all the various sources of the Buddha’s teachings, the Pāli suttas—together with the Pāli Vinaya, or monastic rules—seem by far to be the closest record we have of the Buddha’s teachings.

1) No evidence contemporary with the Buddha contradicts anything found in the Pāli Canon.

2) Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna texts presuppose the teachings found in the Pāli Canon, but the Pāli Canon doesn’t presuppose the teachings found in them.

3) Where the Pāli Canon can be compared with fragments of other early canons, we find that many elements included in those other canons were often kept out of the Pāli Canon and placed instead in the commentaries that grew up around it. This suggests that the people who maintained the Pāli Canon, beginning at least at some point in time, tried to be scrupulous in drawing a clear line between what they had received from tradition and what was novel in their day and age.

So it seems reasonable to take the Pāli Canon as the best available primary source for learning what the Buddha taught.

>>23506065
It's not a scholalry book for one. It's part of a popular series about Tibet. Kind of ridiculous on your part though to suggest that this guy who spoke Tibetan, lived for some time in Tibet and Sikkim, and who was a friend of the dalai lama and the king of Bhutan somehow didnt knew the fundamentals of the religion practised his area of expertise.

>>23507875
Mark, Mathhew, Luke and the letters of Paul are the best primary sources we have on the life of the historical Jesus, but only a Christian would say they're actually reliable. I don't see why anyone should take a selection of materials written down many centuries after the life of Siddhartha Gautama to be reliable either. The very text quoted in the preceding posts seems more like a sectarian polemic aimed at rival Buddhist groups by the scholars of the Pali tradition than an authentic ancient saying.

>>23507892
It is incorrect to summarize Mahayana Buddhism as praying to Buddha for salvation. That does exist as a practice but akin to summarizing Christianity as "attending Mass once a year on Christmas," it would be something only the least engaged adherents, or those with a minimal understanding and practice, are doing, and by itself is just a reminder of what you are supposed to be doing.
>>23508104
It's an external critique to be sure, and only carries weight for the Theravadin, the historian, the philologist. Mahayana itself is aware its additional sutra collections and commentaries were not preached with the nikaya or agama discourses, and many of these are treated as divine revelation anyway. So the Theravadin can agree they were not earthly or bodily teachings from Siddartha, the historian that they were composed at a later date, the philologist that they are Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan etc. original works, but this says nothing regarding their value as Mahayana or Vajrayana religious and philosophical literature, only that they are not "original Buddhism as the historical Buddha taught his original disciples," which again, is not something actually disputed by the Mahayanists, as they have different legitimating criteria than Theravadins.

1) It's outdated in relation to the contemporary world.
The central element of Vajrayana Buddhism - an element that is present from the lowest tantra to the simple loftiness of Dzogchen, which could exist without it - is the creation and completion practice. The creation stage involves visualizing yourself as an omnipotent deity at the centre of a mandala who command Buddhas and bodhisattavas placed in every geographical direction, the mandala being the spiritual equivalent of a typical medieval feudal kingdom, that is, the ruler at the centre, vassals at all sides, guardians at the margins.
The practitioner visualizes and then LARPs as the ruler of a mandalas which symbolizes the whole world; in other words, the practitioner imagines himself to be the absolute god.
This model originates in the medieval Hindu political milieu and was sold to the manifold rules as a way to become a god and have absolute power. Later, this model entered Tibet in the dark ages after the fall and helped found the feudal system which in the end led to the Gelug theocracy.
For the social history of Tantric Buddhism see both books by Ronald Davidson.
2) Vajrayana, and tantra in general, is as much about power as about enlightenment.
The tantric promise of godhood, power, led to its popularity among the rulers of medieval India who helped spread its influence on the subcontinent.
The Vajrayana initiations, wherein the initiate is given a regal symbol each step, mirrored the secular coronation ceremony.
The sexual element - the consumption of menstrual blood and female sexual liquids - originally was a way to achieve the power of the goddess. Only later, under the influence of learned religious teachers, it acquires soteriological dimensions.
For he history of the sexual element, mainly in Hindu tantra with some forays into Buddhist proper, read Gordon White The Kiss Of The Yogini.
And the most protected element of tantra was mantra, not sex, because the knowledge of the mantra gives access to the power of the absolute godhead: you imagine yourself as the central god, you repeat the mantra that is the essence of the central god, you become the god and gain all of the god's powers. Hence, the syllables of the mantras were often hidden in cryptographic fashion in the tantras (Chakrasamvara tantra, for example).
3) Abuse of power by the authoritative guru
Vajrayana places extreme emphasis on the figure of the teacher. Some Kagyu text outright equates the teacher with the Buddha and that, in case every other method fails, worship of the teacher would always lead to enlightenment. The guru is to be always obeyed because he's living proof of buddhahood.
The results of such an education are visible in the Vajrayana teachers beginning with Chogyam Trungpa (alcoholism, physical abuse, sexual abuse).

>>23508578
This particular issue is pertinent to women who can end up being a tantric consort for the teacher and then discarded once their function is exhausted due to the nature of the relationship - that of an instrument for the male to achieve certain exalted states of consciousness.
Some tantras (Chakrasamvara, translated by Gray) and some teachers (Dhyargey (?) commentary on Kalachakra) recommend using 12 year old girls.
There was a book, written by a woman academic, about the sexual misconduct of Vajrayana teachers, but I can't remember its name.
For a batshit /pol/tier feminist criticism of Vajrayana, read Trimondi The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama.
4) An inherent paradox in the philosophical structure of the school
Vajrayana follows the tathagatagarbha doctrine - everyone is a buddha deep down - and states about the essential purity and emptiness and clarity of the world, but in order to understand your essential buddhahood, which is what you are at every time and in every action, you must find a an authoritative teacher, follow him to a T, and perform complex visual exercises and repeat mantras ad nauseam.
Dzogchen and Mahamudra bypass these issues by the virtue of the practice, yet their structure is still autocratic, with the democratic and essentially anarchic insight being granted by an authoritative figure by a submissive pupil, in the old times to the submissive pupil who managed to propitiate the guru by gifts.
5) The sexual elements
The oldest strata of the Buddhist teaching says you can't achieve enlightenment if you have sex, in any shape or form. If you are caught engaged in any sexual activity whatsoever, you must be expunged from the sangha. The only exception was rape by females.
Vajrayana didn't and doesn't shun sex because, according to tantras, sexual activity properly conducted leads to the same involution of the mind-body complex that happens as death and thus can facilitate the realization of one's true nature: a practical conclusion to the everything is already enlightened doctrine.
The problem here is twofold:
a) is the original Buddhism philosophically right, or is Vajrayana the correct version?
b) the issue of vows
It must be said that second introduction of Buddhism by Atisha had the motive of restoring a somewhat "pure" Buddhism into a country fallen into degeneracy due to tantra, that is, monks breaking vows.
Snellgrove’s Indo-Tibetan Buddhism is a very old book, but the author takes a critical attitude toward Vajrayana, so if you’re interested in an old and critical view of Vajrayana, you should read it.

>>23508583
6) That normies regard Vajrayana as somehow pure, spiritual, not unlike Christianity.
The popularity of Vajrayana is due to an erroneus view ignited by coal of theosophy and fed by the oil of New-Age: the view that Tibet is a pure land of mysticism and spirituality. For a foreigner Vajrayana feels exotic, a breath of fresh air compared to Christianity said foreigner is surrounded with, but the more you study the more you realize that Vajrayana is as backward as Islam and Catholicism. It's a faith of the feudal age living somehow in the contemporary world, it's only plus being that, unlike Christianity and Islam, some of its practices actually deliver some results.
My personal opinion is that some practices of Vajrayana, like Dzogchen and Mahamudra meditations, maybe even the sexual element, work, but you don’t need to swallow the whole initiation, guru worship, deity worship, mantra muttering, propaganda in order to get results. If you do mahamudra regularly, you’re as likely to reach enlightenment as a monk going through the whole rigmarole. In fact, if to look retrospectively at the history of Vajrayana Buddhism, from the kriya tantras to the mahamudra and dzogchen, it seems to me like a history of trying different methods and then as of refinement of methods - the tantras move from complex visualizations towards sexual practices focusing on physiological effects and end in awareness exercises.

>>23507710
Because love is a profoundly instinctive activation that you can't control, meanwhile there's nothing to necessitate something of equivalent effect happening to you while working, or sacrificing yourself, for something of importance. You're confusing Vajrayana with the more typical do-good-acts method of snuffing out the flame.

>>23508595
>>Because love is a profoundly instinctive activation that you can't control,
according to hedonistic monkeys. love can be cultivated, that's the whole point of the ascetics

>>23508591
>My personal opinion is that some practices of Vajrayana, like Dzogchen and Mahamudra meditations, maybe even the sexual element, work, but you don’t need to swallow the whole initiation, guru worship, deity worship, mantra muttering, propaganda in order to get results. If you do mahamudra regularly, you’re as likely to reach enlightenment as a monk going through the whole rigmarole. In fact, if to look retrospectively at the history of Vajrayana Buddhism, from the kriya tantras to the mahamudra and dzogchen, it seems to me like a history of trying different methods and then as of refinement of methods - the tantras move from complex visualizations towards sexual practices focusing on physiological effects and end in awareness exercises.
It's strictly impossible to get enlightened with vajrayana because they dont have access to the buddha's insight ie dependent origination.

>>23487659
>vajrajana
This

Its like "social" "justice". Only reason to put unpopular retarded thing like "socialism", next to a respected and time honored pillar of civilization like "justice", is in order to rehabilitate or boost the perception of the shitty thing.

Vag raygun Buddhism is the same.

>>23508633
How do they not have this insight?

>>23508104
Best to go with what's the most trustworthy - the oldest accounts.

>>23508624
The point IS that you can't force a powerful instinctive effect coming from good actions into your dna. You can suppress or indulge instincts, but you can't choose what should or shouldn't be a fundamental, instinctive, aspect of human nature. Do you understand what instinct is you moron? You are so unbelievably stupid. Maybe read a bit about Vajrayana to understand what you're even arguing against?

>>23508633
Of course they do
https://www.lotsawahouse.org/tibetan-masters/khenchen-ngawang-palzang/tendrel

>>23502208
Have you actually read Kobō Daishi? We have a basic identity with Mahāvairocana.
>>23501606
Tiantai is not Vajrayana. Tendai incorporates mikkyō but that lineage comes from Kobō Daishi and what Ennin transmitted. Not present in Chinese tiantai.

>>23503477
I don't recommend reading most of these to start out. First familiarize yourself with Mahayana doctrine and then proceed in this order:

>Kūkai: Major Works
>Shingon: Theory and Practice
>The Weaving of Mantra

Then proceed straight to Huayan. Kūkai held the Huayan school in very high regard, even higher than Tendai.

>>23504039
From the conventional perspective a single recitation of a mantra has incredible, even uncountably many merits. There's constant talk of this in the exoteric sutras; "saying this mantra once is more effective than offering the Buddha a shining gem for every grain of sand in the Ganges" and such. From an esoteric perspective a mantra is the very essence of a bodhisattva or Buddha and by reciting it single-mindedly we become united with it.

>>23507875
I can't speak for the Tibetan schools but in Shingon our lineage is traced to Mahāvairocana Buddha (Dainichi Nyorai), not Shakyamuni Buddha (Shaka Nyorai). Mahāvairocana -> Vajrasattva -> Nagarjuna -> Indo-Chinese Masters -> Huiguo -> Kūkai (Kobō Daishi).

>>23508595
I'm not reading the Wagner wall of text but the reason "snuffing out individuality through the greater good" is not the same as supreme awakening through the Lightning Vehicle is because (1) dying does not cause clinging to self to end and (2) unity with Mahāvairocana is not annihilation but something completely beyond both existence and non-existence. Dying for others is certainly a virtuous act.


Anyway. If anyone here is actually interested in Vajrayana, you CANNOT PRACTICE ALONE. You need initiation, there is no way around this. Luckily things are easier than they are a hundred years ago, and with a little bit of digging you can find teachers quite easily to give you the transmission for certain practices. It varies by tradition, but most Tibetan lineages can even give transmission online (I myself have an empowerment from the Sakya lineage for a Chenrenzig sadhana that I got through Zoom.)

For Shingon it's harder. The real esoteric stuff needs in-person teaching in Japan. There are two kanjo (initiations) every year on Mt. Koya for lay people, but to become an ajari (master) you'll need to ordain and do 100 days of intensive practice. You can find local temples to get oral transmission of mantras, though; plus instruction in ajikan and moon disk meditation. My temple does monthly goma (fire sacrifice) rites too. We live stream them and I'd link it, but I know better than to disrespect my temple than to post it here. If someone genuinely has an affinity for our tradition then they'll find something.

Namu daishi henjo kongo.

>>23508927
>I'm not reading the Wagner wall of text but the reason "snuffing out individuality through the greater good" is not the same as supreme awakening through the Lightning Vehicle is because (1) dying does not cause clinging to self to end and (2) unity with Mahāvairocana is not annihilation but something completely beyond both existence and non-existence. Dying for others is certainly a virtuous act.
I'm failing to understand what your point is in replying with this.

it's called VAJrayana because it's for PUSSIES

>Intro to Buddhism (Suffering/stress[Dukkha] and the cessation/release of it [Nibbana])
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/BuddhasTeachings/Section0003.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Refuge/Contents.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/NobleStrategy/Section0000.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/KarmaOfQuestions/Section0000.html

>Meditation (To attain a pleasure removed from sensuality [jhana] & to gain insight into how stress/suffering arises so that one can be released from it [nibbana])
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/WithEachAndEveryBreath/Section0003.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/RightMindfulness/Contents.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/MindfulBody/Contents.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/MeditatorsTools/Section0000.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/mp3_collections_index.html

>Kamma/Karma & Rebirth (Intents/Actions [skillful/unskillful] lead to certain results)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/KarmaQ&A/Section0009.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/TruthOfRebirth/Section0003.html

>The Four Noble Truths
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/FourNobleTruths/Section0003.html
1 - Dukkha (suffering/stress)
2 - the Origination [of dukkha] (craving)
3 - the Cessation [of dukkha] (nibbana)
4 - the Path [to the cessation of dukkha] (eightfold path)

>[1] Aging, Illness, Death (There is Suffering)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Undaunted/Contents.html

>[2] Dependent Origination (The Origination of suffering [craving])
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/ShapeOfSuffering/Contents.html
1 - Ignorance (of the four noble truths)
2 - Fabrication (the process of intentionally shaping states of body and mind)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Discernment/Section0003.html
3 - Consciousness (at the six senses)
4 - Name-and-Form (mental and physical phenomena)
5 - Six Senses (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind)
6 - Contact (at the six senses)
7 - Feeling (based on contact at the six senses)
8 --- CRAVING (for sensuality, becoming, non-becoming)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Desires/Section0003.html
9 - Clinging (to sensuality, views, habits/practices, self)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/BurdenOffMind/Section0003.html
10 - Becoming (on the level of sensuality, form, formlessness)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/ParadoxOfBecoming/Section0005.html
11 - Birth (the assumption of an identity on any three levels of Becoming)
12 - Aging-and-Death (of that identity, with the suffering that it entails)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/BeyondCoping/Contents.html

>[3] Nibbana/Nirvana (Unbinding — The Cessation of suffering)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/MindLikeFire/Section0007.html
>Stream-entry (1st stage of awakening)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/IntoTheStream/Contents.html

>>23508993
>[4] The Noble Eightfold Path (The Path to the cessation of suffering)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/OnThePath/Section0000.html
- Right View - Seeing experience in terms of the noble truths
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/SkillInQuestions/Contents.html
- Right Resolve - Being resolved on abandoning thoughts of sensuality, ill will, and harm
- Right Speech - Refraining from lying, harsh speech, divisive speech, idle chatter
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/NobleConversation/Contents.html
- Right Action - Refraining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, recreational drugs
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Non-violence/Contents.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Merit/Contents.html
- Right Livelihood - Living in a way that minimizes harm to yourself and others
- Right Effort - Abandoning unskillful qualities and developing skillful qualities
- Right Mindfulness - Being aware and keeping skillful qualities in mind
- Right Concentration - Being secluded from sensuality and unskillful qualities which leads to a state of absorption [jhana]

>Ten Perfections (How to practice in daily life)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/TenPerfections/Section0004.html

>Brahmaviharas (goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, equanimity)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/SublimeAttitudes/Section0003.html

>Recognizing the Dhamma
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/RecognizingTheDhamma/Contents.html

>The Wings to Awakening (The Buddha's Summary of his teachings)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Wings/Section0000.html

>Biography of the Buddha
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/NobleWarrior/Section0003.html

------------

>tl;dr: just give me a few books
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/BuddhasTeachings/Section0003.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/WithEachAndEveryBreath/Section0003.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/ShapeOfSuffering/Contents.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/OnThePath/Section0000.html

>>23508978
The vajra is a phallic symbol

>>23508927
Fair. I was going off of the assumption that the reader is already familiar with Mahayana. I sometimes attend the Seattle temple. Also, if you don't mind, what's your experience with practicing Shingon and acquiring empowerments in Sakya?

>>23508927
>Tendai incorporates mikkyō but that lineage comes from Kobō Daishi and what Ennin transmitted. Not present in Chinese tiantai.
I see, this sounds interesting, I thought tiantai and tendai were basically the same. I'm gonna look more into that.

>We have a basic identity with Mahāvairocana.
>>23501860
>The Adibuddha is just your own mindstream.
I'm gonna read the material you guys are recommending, but I still think the website is pretty clear here:
>>23501606
Plus the SEP article:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kukai/#EsoVieBudFouEmbTruDha
The way Dainichi is described there is very similar to what some western theists describe their God, even if not identical.

>>23507875
>3) Where the Pāli Canon can be compared with fragments of other early canons, we find that many elements included in those other canons were often kept out of the Pāli Canon and placed instead in the commentaries that grew up around it. This suggests that the people who maintained the Pāli Canon, beginning at least at some point in time, tried to be scrupulous in drawing a clear line between what they had received from tradition and what was novel in their day and age.
Or it suggests that the people maintaining the Pali canon removed things they either didn't understand or didn't agree with?

>>23508927
> We have a basic identity with Mahāvairocana.
Can you expand on what exactly this identity entails? And is Mahavairocana just a metaphor for everything being empty of self-nature or is it something beyond that?

>>23508993
>>23508999
Based Thanissaro enjoyer

I don’t have any problem with vajrayana buddhism but it’s hard to imagine a more foreign and ‘exotic’ religious system. Vajrayanist amerigroids are in a similar state to romans who turned to christianity or other eastern cults.

>>23508583
>propitiate the guru by gifts
fuck it's over for poorfags

>>23512118
This is true of any overly-sectarian practice. The guy going on about Shingon for instance, is he merely knowledgeable on the subject or does he actually participitate in the religion in person? And if he does, is everything in Japanese or has it been adapted to Western culture? Shingon is itself just Indian esoteric Buddhism routed through China to Japan. It would be the same with the different branches of Zen, or of Tibetan Buddhism, the Theravadin nationalities, etc. The Romans had a framework for adopting gods and incorporating them but for many Westerners today they think in terms of Christianity, of total conversion and the exclusion of all other possibilities. But Buddhism especially does not work like this, which is why it is so different between AND within historically Buddhist countries.

>>23512154
>But Buddhism especially does not work like this, which is why it is so different between AND within historically Buddhist countries.
that's buddhism outside the sangha, whatever that is. the sangha is not supposed to incur a schism to begin with, turns out it did, and the buddha never said it's okay to introduce other doctrines into his teaching, or learn some other teachings as a prerequisite to his, and his teaching doesn't need any additives anyway.

>>23512166
>the buddha didn't teach x
already addressed >>23508165, tl;dr your appeal to authority is useless unless we are making some sort of museological inquiry into Buddhism, but I'm not even if you are

>>23512118
It's really not when you actually study it. It's very technical and practical in a way that can appeal to westerners if they can get past the external aesthetics.

>>23512118
No different from the Chinese and Tibetans accepting Buddhism from the Indians, and the Japanese taking Buddhism from the Chinese

>>23512154
>Shingon is itself just Indian esoteric Buddhism routed through China to Japan. It would be the same with the different branches of Zen, or of Tibetan Buddhism, the Theravadin nationalities, etc.
What's your point? What do you think buddhism adapted to western culture would look like? How do you think you decide what is actually Dharma and what is cultural?

>>23512118
If you have a limited understanding of Buddhism, you'd say that. Vajrayana is pretty much a direct sequential evolution of the original Buddhism. It was transplanted directly from Indian monastic order directly by various Indian Buddhist Abbots.

>>23512515
>What's your point? What do you think buddhism adapted to western culture would look like?
Kūkai adapted. So in merely copying him, as a non-Japanese, it doesn't demonstrate to non-Japanese that you have an understanding of the material. One of the issues he had with the Japanese Buddhism of his day was that the ritual incantations had been transliterated/translated oddly into Chinese from Sanskrit. Japanese Buddhism was highly dependent on Chinese borrowings. Spells are supposed to be said correctly no matter which culture we are dealing with. But if these were transliterated to preserve sound, the meaning is lost, and if the meaning were preserved in translation then the sound is lost. And this applies broadly to anything being imported and modified. So merely copying is apeish and demonstrates little depth, and he thus went to the source for clarification and then made it accessible to Japanese Buddhists. He did not produce a wholesale copy of what was taught to him but accomodated it to the Japanese. So Westerners who declare themselves Gelugpas or Shingonese or whatever, learned as they may or may not be, if they cannot make it native are just following some explicitly exotic system.

>>23507735
Recognized

Whether or not you dislike Vajrayana is a question of whether or not you'd care if you saw how horribly disgusted Siddhartha Gautama would be if he saw what was being done in his name. In my mind the Buddha was just a man, a great man but a man nonetheless. I don't believe in supernatural views like those concerned with rebirth and the existence of deity or deity-like beings (i.e. Chenrezig, Tara, etc.). For me what I find useful are the Buddha's teachings for this life practice in the Pali suttas. Instructions on meditation, no self, and the workings of the mind. Since I'm essentially agnostic on issues of Buddhist cosmology which are fundamental to the aim of the path (which is to escape samsara), I can't call myself a Buddhist. I just like Buddhism. This means I am also not attached to early Buddhism and the orthodoxy of the EBTs. Even if I find them more useful or compelling for this life practice. So I am interested in Vajrayana because it has cool aesthetics, and cool ideas. But I would never go as far as to fool myself into thinking that Vajrayana is not a meaningfully significant departure from the teachings of the Buddha. And this is to an extent delegitimizing in my mind, even if I am not entirely attached to early Buddhism.

>>23513034
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an04/an04.036.than.html
>"No, brahman, I am not a human being."

>>23513044
That presupposes Buddhism, and anon said he is not a Buddhist, just someone who finds some Buddhist ideas good. I wish more "secular Buddhists" would outright state they're not Buddhists and just like some of the ideas.

>>23513044
I understand but frankly he's being pedantic here. He is claiming he is not a human being on the basis of having destroyed the fetters which will allow him to escape rebirth. Okay, so he has become enlightened and now he is something else entirely? Whatever, he is still a biological human. I don't entertain supernatural claims, even if they supposedly come from the man's own mouth. Whether or not every sutta is an authentic reproduction of the exact words he spoke is impossible to establish anyways. But I'm not suggesting that he didn't believe this, or that he didn't believe and preach supernatural things like rebirth, the existence of devas, etc. I'm simply saying that I don't have any reason to believe these things myself.

>>23513062
Agreed. I am not a Buddhist and secular Buddhism is not Buddhism. There is no Buddhism without rebirth. The logical conclusion of the four noble truths absent rebirth would be to put a bullet through your skull. I find many things about Buddhism attractive, but I can't fully buy into it. I wouldn't try to change it for my own sake. I just dabble with what I find interesting and enjoy.

>>23487659
I don't really have any, let them believe what they wish. However, I do think that it pollutes what is at its barest a sensible lifestyle teaching with a lot unverifiable nonsense. But even if it wasn't, I am not attracted to that lifestyle teaching anyway.

>>23513071
>Whatever, he is still a biological human.
We nowadays understand species usually as
>members of a species can breed with other members of the same species
or something like that. Buddha had a human mother, he had kids with his human wife, and he probably had human DNA, therefore he was human, right? That is not how the ancients saw it. They lived in a world where gods and fantastical beings could interbreed with humans and generate offspring. In that sense, Buddha and others saying he is not human, they actually mean it. He is indeed something else entirely, and a lot of myths developed based on that like the hilarious 32 signs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_characteristics_of_the_Buddha#The_32_Signs_of_a_Great_Man
He apparently had webbed feet, a sheathed dick, golden skin and more. Now again, if you aren't a Buddhist, this means nothing. Even Buddhists don't all agree on all aspects of this. But for most Buddhists, Buddha was indeed not a human.

>>23513095
The need to deify the great teachers in our history is a frustrating obstacle to simply basking in their profundity and wisdom. I understand perfectly why these strange traditions developed as they did, I just have no use for them myself. In the same vein, I enjoy the gospels and the sermon on the mount but I don't believe in the divinity of Jesus. I don't find that things lose their meaning when they aren't divinely ordained. I find great meaning in the wisdom of many world historical traditions without having to actually "believe" in any of them. But I do find myself grasping for that belief sometimes, it would be nice. A comfort. But I could never trick myself into it. I'm sure many people here feel the same way. I did a minor in religious studies in university. I've always had a fascination with religious traditions. I just never had true faith in anything. Especially not the tradition I was born into... Judaism :( (Apologies in advance for the blogpost)

>>23513071
>he is still a biological human.
>I don't entertain supernatural claims
The buddha also said he never taught a single word of dharma. You need to think more closely about the sense in which these things were said. Just as there are no truly independent, self-existent gods, ghosts, demons, etc., so too are there no men.

>>23513226
Whether 'men' or anything exists on a fundamental level or whether everything is emptiness is another issue entirely. I'm open to that view. But on the of conventional reality there clearly are men. It is not clear to me that there are gods, ghosts, or demons. Nor is it clear to me that anything is 'reborn' in the absence of some eternal self or soul to transmigrate. The idea that the five aggregates simply find another physical body because they are still clinging to reality is unconvincing. If there is no-self, then there is no meaningful continuity between lives. Yet somehow karma is attached to the 'same' midstream of aggregates despite the fact that they are totally impermanent and always changing.

>>23513265
>If there is no-self, then there is no meaningful continuity between lives.
Does no-self negate continuity within one life?

>>23513283
I don't believe in continuity in one life. "I" am clearly not the same self I was 5 or 10 years ago. I am not even the same self as I was yesterday. But I don't see how that realization connects to or suggests anything about the existence of past or future lives.

>>23513265
If a dog shits and no one cleans it up, it attracts flies. That's how it works. The flies slurp up the shit and then lay eggs. There didn't have to be an eternal dog for its actions to have consequences, or for life in general to continue despite the expiration of individuated lives.

>>23513422
This doesn't explain the continuity of aggregates between lives such that an "individual" can escape samsara. There is no way to explain it.

>>23513451
There's no such individual among the aggregates or outside of them.

>>23513366
A continuity isn't the same as a persistent substance. There is no substantial self but there is a continuity, otherwise your past actions would not affect your present and future condition.

>>23513557
>>23513504
My difficulty is how there can be continuity between lives. This simply can't be explained, not even the Buddha or the most learned Theravadins will suggest to you that they can 'prove' how this works. Dependent origination doesn't prove rebirth. It has to be taken on faith, or experiential blah blah you get it im sure.

>>23513616
>how there can be continuity between lives
as i said there's life in general—and this is evidently cyclical—and then there's individuated life, which is not lasting
buddhism is not trying to provide a scientific account of our experiences; the closest modern ideas might be the law of conservation of matter, or relativity, that there's nothing independently or spontaneously arisen ex nihilo and nothing static either only aasumptions about where it probably appears

>>23513616
Cause and effect are homogeneous. Mind and matter are heterogeneous. Every moment of mind must be preceded by another moment of mind.

>>23513637
None of that suggests there is any reason to believe that whatever animates this consciousness I currently experience won't cease to exist when this body dies but will rather somehow seek out a new body. And if I am expected to believe that this new body can be an ant, or a god, or an alien in another world system...

>>23513644
mind is an emergent property that we don't fully understand. Our lack of understanding is not a reason to adopt an unsubstantiated framework. There was no mind on this planet 5 billion years ago. Where did it come from in the first place if it must always be preceded by itself?

>>23513650
>whatever animates this consciousness I currently experience won't cease to exist when this body dies but will rather somehow seek out a new body
What is this animating agent that empowers consciousness to seek bodies? The Indians already believed in reincarnation and things of that sort, as did many others. What Buddhists have argued is that this wouldn't even be possible with a permanent ego-substance, because it wouldn't be able to experience changes or be acted upon in the first place. So there is no problem in new births occuring without this somehow eternal and migratory entity possessing other entities. But we could just as well say the other entities have no such eternity themselves. So you don't literally become an ant anyway.
The Greek neoplatonists, who were contemporaries of the Buddhists, but on the other side of the world, had no problem with adopting popular religious customs and beliefs as metaphors to express philosophy, and Buddhists clearly did the same, or the religion could not have spread from Afghanistan to Japan. (And in the West, Christianity absorbed neoplatonism and swapped the Greek myths for Christian ones, as these had become popular). In Japan the Buddhists argued the gods the Japanese already believed in were manifestations of the Buddha or of Buddhist saints/bodhisattvas, but the philosophical core was unaffected. Jesuit missionaries to Japan initially tried to argue that the Christian God was the real Dainichi, the supreme Buddha. Eventually they figured out Buddhism was incompatible and switched to calling the Japanese gods and Buddhas demons, and the Japanese expelled the Christian missionaries and mass-executed converts. Christianity and other systems like it are less flexible and require you to uphold more doctrines as literal while for Buddhism expediency is prioritized. So it becomes easier to spread but harder to explain, because it values contradictions as a way of refuting conceptualizing in general. Christianity can be explained very easily but the conceptions themselves are completely faith based. All of it is true or none of it, whereas with Buddhism there is a more progressive sense of stages of getting until you un-get.

>>23513691
I am perfectly happy to say that I don't know what the animating agent is. I don't understand how consciousness emerges. Not to mention that 'intelligence' or some level of consciosness seems to exist at different levels in different beings, in organs, tissue, even single cells. There is more going on here than I can grasp. I don't know if those answers will ever be accessible. But it doesn't suit me to try to grasp on to one or another view, without substantial justification for that view. As you said, the Buddha was born, raised, and taught in a cultural/philosophical environment that accepted some sort of reincarnation cycle as a given fact of existence. That doesn't mean that it is a given fact.

>>23513708
>That doesn't mean that it is a given fact.
The principle that cause and effect operates based on our actions, and these actions can either increase or decrease our delusions, attachments, hatreds, jealousies, ignorances, cravings, etc. Some rebirths are essentially presented as tropes—do this and you get that. In the literature there is a class of beings called preta, "hungry ghosts." It's almost obvious what the message is, if you are too greedy you cannot be satisfied, that will be your destination, and when you get there, stuck as someone who is starving but can't eat, it will be harder to turn back than it is now, all you will know is pain and anxiety, never a moment of quiet unless you bump into a monk. The ghosts don't have to be real—they are to most traditional people all over the world buddhist or not, they believe in these kinds of supernatural beings. But if that's not part of your umwelt then so what? You don't need to learn not to believe in something you don't believe in. Different prescription needed. I think the Buddha would have a very hard time if he were alive today preaching in Seattle or Brooklyn, and would find all the corporate hipster mindfulness people vain and obnoxious, and try to humble them like the brahmins in the sutta pitaka. But there have never been more conceited people than the modern secular ones, who scoff at religion as a stupid poor people cope and then spend all their money on drugs and therapists and companion animals.

>>23513756
I don't disagree with you or the gist of your message. I don't feel i need to believe in anything, or be attatched to any views. It is the case that the existence of rebirth is fundamental to the path. If life is suffering which we are meant to esacpe, but there is no rebirth, then suicide is the rational choice. Despite the fact that I feel that life and clinging to impermanence is suffering I still don't want to kill myself. So I focus on 'this life' practice. I focus on reducing suffering in this life, agnostic as to whether there is or isn't a future one. That is really all I can say for myself. I'm not being judgmental about other's views and beliefs.

>>23513775
I don't agree with the suicide angle. For that to make sense you'd need to view life as some kind of consumer good that you dispose of if it gets dirty, and everyone has different tolerances of this, from Palestinians having babies during rocket fire blowing up their tents to opioid addicts in Cleveland dying in their cars surrounded by endless food. I don't think it's a general principle that nihilism is the answer to not having a rationalized explanation for everything, and moreoever that's hardly the reason people are willing to die, because they couldn't some some scholastic philosophical quandry.

>>23513817
If nirvana is the cessation of suffering, and the cessation of all existence, experience, etc. Then how is it any different from a standard materialist secular view of death/suicide? I think you have a point obviously, as indicated by my suggesting that despite my own suffering and identification with suffering I don't crave death or seek to kill myself.

>>23513826
>If nirvana is the cessation of suffering, and the cessation of all existence, experience, etc.
I am partial to the general Mahayana view that samsara is nirvana viewed by poor eyesight so again I don't see suicide as a logical necessity here

>>23513866
>Mahayana view that samsara is nirvana viewed by poor eyesight
Interesting. If you could point me toward some resources and/or texts that expand upon this I would be interested. I've encountered the idea before in my studies of Mahayana and Tibetan Buddhism years ago at university but have since forgotten much of that. I was always partial to the pali canon and an originalist conception of 'early Buddhism' because of my own intellectual tendencies I guess. But I am maximally open minded at the moment about everything.

You say that you don't see suicide as a logical necessity. I agree. But I wasn't really suggesting it was necessary. Simply that in accordance with a materialist understanding of death and a Buddhist outlook on life as impermanent and consisting wholly of suffering it would be a rational option.

>>23513903
>accordance with a materialist understanding of death and a Buddhist outlook
yeah but there's no accord to begin with...
There's no materialist buddhist because buddhism is the opposite of materialism.

>>23514027
Maybe I was being unclear. I'm not suggesting that there is a materialist buddhist outlook. I'm suggesting that a hypothetical materialist person who also happened to accept the Buddhist outlook on life and suffering might consider suicide rational.

>>23513691
>What is this animating agent that empowers consciousness to seek bodies?
the dependent origination says

"Thus, monks, ignorance is the supporting condition for kamma formations, kamma formations are the supporting condition for consciousness, consciousness is the supporting condition for mentality-materiality, mentality-materiality is the supporting condition for the sixfold sense base, the sixfold sense base is the supporting condition for contact, contact is the supporting condition for feeling, feeling is the supporting condition for craving, craving is the supporting condition for clinging, clinging is the supporting condition for existence, existence is the supporting condition for birth, birth is the supporting condition for suffering, suffering is the supporting condition for faith, faith is the supporting condition for joy, joy is the supporting condition for rapture, rapture is the supporting condition for tranquillity, tranquillity is the supporting condition for happiness, happiness is the supporting condition for concentration, concentration is the supporting condition for the knowledge and vision of things as they really are, the knowledge and vision of things as they really are is the supporting condition for disenchantment, disenchantment is the supporting condition for dispassion, dispassion is the supporting condition for emancipation, and emancipation is the supporting condition for the knowledge of the destruction (of the cankers).

==

16. "Now these four kinds of clinging have what as their source, what as their origin, from what are they born and produced? These four kinds of clinging have craving as their source, craving as their origin, they are born and produced from craving.[10] Craving has what as its source...? Craving has feeling as its source... Feeling has what as its source...? Feeling has contact as its source... Contact has what as its source...? Contact has the sixfold base as its source... The sixfold base has what as its source...? The sixfold base has mentality-materiality as its source... Mentality-materiality has what as its source...? Mentality-materiality has consciousness as its source... Consciousness has what as its source...? Consciousness has formations as its source... Formations have what as their source...? Formations have ignorance as their source, ignorance as their origin; they are born and produced from ignorance.

17. "Bhikkhus, when ignorance is abandoned and true knowledge has arisen in a bhikkhu, then with the fading away of ignorance and the arising of true knowledge he no longer clings to sensual pleasures, no longer clings to views, no longer clings to rules and observances, no longer clings to a doctrine of self.[11] When he does not cling, he is not agitated. When he is not agitated, he personally attains Nibbana. He understands: 'Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more coming to any state of being.'"[12] [68]

BUBS Retreat - Session 5 - Buddhanusati
https://youtu.be/JawihqNNKZg

“Now this, monks, is the noble truth of stress: Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair are stressful; association with the unbeloved is stressful, separation from the loved is stressful, not getting what is wanted is stressful. In short, the five clinging aggregates are stressful.

“And this, monks, is the noble truth of the origination of stress: the craving that makes for further becoming, accompanied by passion and delight, relishing now here and now there, i.e., craving for sensuality, craving for becoming, craving for non-becoming.

“And this, monks, is the noble truth of the cessation of stress: the remainderless fading and cessation, renunciation, relinquishment, release, and letting go of that very craving.

“And this, monks, is the noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of stress: precisely this noble eightfold path: right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.”
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/OnThePath/Section0000.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUngLgGRJpo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT2gNmmQKjY

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.

“Suppose there was a bronze cup of beverage that had a nice colour, aroma, and flavour. But it was mixed with poison. Then along comes a man struggling in the oppressive heat, weary, thirsty, and parched. They’d say to him: ‘Here, mister, this bronze cup of beverage has a nice colour, aroma, and flavour. Drink it if you like. If you drink it, its nice colour, aroma, and flavour will refresh you. But drinking it will result in death or deadly pain.’
Then that man might think: ‘I could quench my thirst with water, whey, or broth. But I shouldn’t drink that beverage, for it would be for my lasting harm and suffering.’ He’d reject that beverage. After appraisal, he wouldn’t drink it, and it wouldn’t result in death or deadly pain.”

>>23514715

>>23491327
>the lay are cattles that cannot help themselves

Many lay people in the suttas became stream-enterers.

The buddha's teachings are for everyone.

The question is: Are you following what the Buddha actually taught or not?

>>23487659
their practitioners can't stop sexually abusing their followers

>>23487659
https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/10k182p/why_did_trungpa_rinpoche_keep_having_sex_with/

https://www.google.com/search?q=tibetan%7Cvajrayana+scandal%7Cabuse

>>23511651
Mahāvairocana is identical to emptiness, yes -- he is the Dharmakaya or the Dharma-body of all Buddhas. The universe is a process of Mahāvairocana preaching, and what he preaches is himself, and this preaching is synonymous with mantra.
>>23512154
I do participate in person. I am studying Japanese and Classical Chinese, for deeper study both of these languages will be absolutely necessary for me to continue my development. My teacher speaks English, but the important parts of the liturgy are in Sanskrit or phonetic Sino-Japanese. When I received a Tibetan empowerment, the important parts were in Tibetan, save for the sadhana itself which was translated into English. I found that experience quite jarring to be honest. Per Kūkai, we give a special significance to Sanskrit.

>>23512166
"The Buddha" i.e. a Western projection of what they wanted the Buddha to be like, picking and choosing the suttas/sutras they liked and ignoring the ones they found superstitious. Manjushri originally preached the Shivaite mantras so we have access to Hinduism, Mahāvairocana originally preached the Diamond Vehicle and we derive our lineage from him, and Shakyamuni Buddha was an emanation of Mahāvairocana preaching expedient means specifically tailored to ancient Indians. There are thousands of dharma gates fit to individual needs of each man who endeavors to practice. Some of us are attuned to the Diamond Vehicle and aspire to Buddhahood in this very body. Others may be more suited to Pure Land teachings and the easy, effortless means to unsurpassed enlightenment. Yet others may prefer the small vehicle and ordain as an ascetic.

>>23512674
On the contrary Kūkai was not opposed to zomitsu and integrated it into his system. It was even his practice of these folkloric mystic rites that spurred his interest in Vajrayana, traditionally it is said it brought on a vision from Manjushri who told him where to study it. What spurred his pilgrimage to China was his reading of the Mahāvairocana Sutra which he found opaque, especially the mantras, which were written in a script he was unfamiliar with. He went to China and studied Sanskrit, bringing back to Japan not only the proper interpretation of the Mahāvairocana Sutra but also the Siddham alphabet. Pronunciation is important, but Kūkai was not super concerned with Sino-Japanese pronunciation. In Shingon we still write in Siddham and Kūkai himself wrote extensively on the esoteric meaning of each letter and syllable.

It has yet to be seen what his lineage will look like as it becomes popular in the West. Hopefully we can learn from the failings of Tibetan Buddhism as they adapted to the West, as they tried a lot of different things, and some didn't work. Some lamas decided to incarnate as Westerners but it seems even these Western tulkus agree that it seemed to have failed.

>>23513034
Atheist cope.

If anyone is interested in learning Shingon as dharma friends you can add me on Discord: woundtheology

>>23514773
I sent you a friend request.

I'm exploring another branch of Buddhism but I know a high quality server with Shingon and Tendai practioners.

My limited understanding of the three main Buddhist sect's is the following:

Theravada is the original teaching of the Buddha and is based on monastic practice and separation from the causes of duhkha. It is the safest, but longest path to Buddhahood.

Mahayana is an additional exposition on the Buddha's teachings with the goal to accelerate the attainment of Buddhahood. This is achieved first by creating rituals that laymen can practice to plant karmic seeds which will direct future rebirths towards conditions conducive for enlightenment. And for practitioners it offers esoteric wisdom and understanding as a shortcut to Buddhahood.

Vajrayana is, in theory, an even faster shortcut to Buddhahood than Mahayana. The idea is that, when properly practiced and instructed, the various rituals, tantra and esoteric exercises - which are intended to be passed directly from teacher to student - can directly achieve altered states which bring instant experiential understanding and eventually result in enlightenment in as little as a single lifetime.
The issue is that when it is not correctly practiced, or is misunderstood - or when the "guru" is themself not enlightened - the practices are instead extremely harmful as they bring about further attachment, delusion, and negative karma, resulting in delayed progress towards Buddhahood.

For example, practices involving sex or indulgences in sensory experiences are intended to be interrogated to find the emptiness behind the experience (a simple explanation for the purpose of the example). But if it is not understood, or the practitioner is not prepared, they will instead simply be indulging for the sake of impermanent pleasure, the result is further duhkha rather than enlightenment.

>>23488410
Wagner said:
>The sublime example of renunciation and unruffled meekness, which the Buddha set, did not suffice his fervid followers; his last great doctrine, of the unity of all things living, was only to be made accessible to his disciples through a mythic explanation of the world whose wealth of imagery and allegoric comprehensiveness was taken bodily from the storehouse of Brahminic teachings, so astounding in their proofs of fertility and culture of mind. Here too, in all the course of time and progress of their transformation, true Art could never be invoked to paint and clarify these myths and allegories; Philosophy supplied her place, coming to the succour of the religious dogmas with the greatest refinements of intellectual exposition.
>It was otherwise with the Christian religion. Its founder was not wise, but divine; his teaching was the deed of free-willed suffering. To believe in him, meant to emulate him; to hope for redemption, to strive for union with him.

>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.

>>23515033
> his last great doctrine, of the unity of all things living
??? to what Buddhist doctrine is this referring?

>>23515038
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/RecognizingTheDhamma/Contents.html

There are scandals involving monks and teachers from all traditions.
But the Vajrayana seems to have more, and especially these days.
Is the Vajrayana somehow corrupt or suspicious?
I think there is corruption, and it needs to be rooted out.
There is corruption in many traditions, but some is more serious than others.
And some traditions seem to have more of an issue with sexual abuse than others.
Vajrayana, like the Catholic Church, is one of them.

Personally I find Tibetan material and modern Tibetan Buddhism a bit sketchy. The structure of having guru worship, vows of secrecy, and sexual practices just screams potential for abuse.

Secondly most Tibetans are dedicated to the Madhyamika doctrines which are really nihilism, the main pushback figure of Dolpopa was persecuted and silenced for opposing the mainstream view.

Thirdly most of the Tibetan Buddhists in the West I've seen are hard-core woke lefties and the Tibetan leadership either encourages this or OK with it so long as Western money keeps flowing to them.

>>23515249
>There are scandals involving monks and teachers from all traditions.
if there are some in theravada it's not about sex

>>23514773
>It has yet to be seen what his lineage will look like as it becomes popular in the West. Hopefully we can learn from the failings of Tibetan Buddhism as they adapted to the West, as they tried a lot of different things, and some didn't work. Some lamas decided to incarnate as Westerners but it seems even these Western tulkus agree that it seemed to have failed.
The lama/guru setup is aggressively incompatible with western society. It looks and sounds exactly like a cult to the uninitiated, and even to the initiated it ends up behaving like one, as this poster >>23515249 notes. We don't expect our "holy men" to be charismatics demanding oaths of loyalty, we expect them to officiate rites bonding communities and in some cases to adjudicate disputes between members. Even in pagan Rome and Greece, you had delineation between the mystery cults and the more public religion. The latter is what survived Christianization and became what we still expect religion to do. Anything else is by definition occult. People definitely should not go directly into the occult form of a religion and it should not be offered to casuals or new arrivals. Reading the literature is fine, I do not suggest MORE secrecy solves the problem, rather the transmission should be more scrupulous, and a general version of the religion should be promoted with specialization largely reserved for people of good internal standing by people of good internal standing. You would need a combination of monks and priests, like we used to have in Christianity before it atrophied, but the priests should be able to have being a priest as the family business like almost everyone does outside of Christianity, and they can adopt heirs if they want or produce their own—celibacy is for monks. Otherwise you just have a group of randomly selected individuals who like Buddhism, not a generative culture.

>>23515422
I'll not dwelve into celibacy question, but yes the priesthood should be strict to ONLY those who have a clear inclination to the spiritual matters, which is an actual thing if you observe personality. In a healthy society where people followed their vocations this would occur naturally. We could say it is a matter of caste.

Many are ordained nowadays, but how many of them actually have the vocation to be priests? Are of the priesthood caste? and such. With a good priesthood the rest would be restored.

>>23515422
The guru disciple relationship isn't supposed to turn you into a submissive servant, it's supposed to lead to liberation. The guru has more serious commitments to the student than the student does to the guru. If the guru breaks his vows, they cannot be repaired, and any commitments the student had with him are rendered void. Many people have a completely mistaken idea of the guru disciple relationship, based on an exaggerated focus on "crazy wisdom" and promotion of the stories of Tilopa and Naropa and Marpa and Milarepa, which are in no way the standard in the history of Tibetan Buddhism.

>>23515249
There are far more morally upright, legitimate lamas that no one knows about than famous scandalous lamas.

what's with the sodomy in some buddhist traditions?

i was reading about the 'dainichi' term used by the first jesuits then found:
>He was, however, horrified by the widespread homosexuality among them and attacked this practice as well as Buddhist doctrines (Drummond 1971:39).

>On his journey to Kyoto, Francis and his companions stopped at one Zen monastery where the bonzes were happy to receive and converse with him. The superior welcomed them and served them some fruit. At the end of a long day's journey, the travelers were no doubt tired and hungry. Xavier had learned that the bonzes were educating many boys in the monastery, however, and that they committed "unnatural sins" with them. "In a loud voice he reproached them for committing such ugly and shameful sins without remorse, and for letting it be secretly known that there was no future existence in another life, though they openly ordered the people to have feasts celebrated for their dead from their own desire for gain." (Schurhammer 1982:vol. 4,143-144) However well they understood his speech, the message of his "blazing eyes and burning cheeks" left no mistakes. The bonzes were generally stupefied by Francis' unexpected lecture, and some broke out in laughter. Francis turned on his heel and left, with his companions following. "'We continued our journey,' says Fernandez briefly." (Yeo 1932:252)

from: http://www.theropps.com/papers/Winter1997/FrancisXavier.htm

in the wiki we have:
>Several writers have noted the strong historical tradition of open bisexuality and homosexuality among male Buddhist institutions in Japan.[74] When the Tendai priest Genshin harshly criticised homosexuality as immoral, others mistook his criticism as having been because the acolyte wasn't one's own.

and

>About Buddhism and homosexuality in China, scholar A. L. De Silva writes, "Generally the attitude has been one of tolerance. Matteo Ricci, the Jesuit missionary who lived in China for 27 years from 1583, expressed horror at the open and tolerant attitude that the Chinese took to homosexuality and naturally enough saw this as proof of the degeneracy of Chinese society."[

>>23515550
To be fair, the Catholic priesthood today, even according to the Jesuit pappa himself, is full of faggots. It's a kind of decadence and apparently one that crosses cultures. When those missions went to Japan, Buddhism had been there for a thousand years and been subjected to all manner of political intrigues and distortions and instabilities.
>>23515503
>Many people have a completely mistaken idea of the guru disciple relationship
I don't think it's going to stick here. It's highly specific to the conditions in its native Himalaya region, and very alien to how we do religion. We are of course, wrong about many things, but like I said we've been doing church/temple plus local priest since before Christ. It goes back to Egypt and was all over the Mediterranean. We mostly relegated shamans and sorcerors to hermitages, and that cannot and should not be offered as general religion

>>23514773
>Mahāvairocana is identical to emptiness, yes -- he is the Dharmakaya or the Dharma-body of all Buddhas. The universe is a process of Mahāvairocana preaching, and what he preaches is himself, and this preaching is synonymous with mantra.
This is really interesting and again I have to say that this is very similar to some forms of western theism. For example, if you take Pseudo-Dionysius's mystical theology, the way he talks about God would be very familiar to a Buddhist:
>nor does It belong to the category of non-existence or to that of existence
Among other things. Then you take the Thomist account where the Son is an image of the Father, and is the divine Logos, that is, the rational principle of the universe, through which all existence is made. So the idea o the supreme "being" (being called "being" out of convenience, because it is not) preaching himself, and through that process creating all things, is in a way very Christian.

>>23515028
We don't have access to the original teachings of the Buddha. Theravada claims to be it, but that is similar to all protestant denominations claiming to be the original teachings of Jesus while disagreeing with each other. This systematizing where you have Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana also falls apart when you look at East Asian Buddhism where a Theravada monk might be praying to Amitabha while talking about Yogacara philosophy for example, things are way messier in practice where the different traditions mix way more than this division in 3 different schools makes it look like.

>>23514773
>>23515727
It should be prefaced that in Tibetan Vajrayana, the dominant position is that its not talking about a reified Buddha nature but a positive "potential" of emptiness. There are some minor positions in Tibetan vajrayana that take it close to theism/Hinduism by trying to establish a grounds of being/Buddha nature as a necessity for emptiness to be.

>>23515888
Even shentong does not believe in a universal ground like Brahman. The argument with shentong is over the inherent existence of Buddha qualities.

>>23515963
There are strong and weak positions in shentong. Gelug tradition suppressed the strongest of the variants for a very good reason. They didnt want nonsensical Brahmanism being taught

>>23515970
Dolpopa doesn't propose a universal ground of being. Strong shentong is the mind inherently possesses all Buddha qualities but they are obscured, it's basically an Atman. Weak shentong is the mind is inherently pure, all afflictions are adventitious. This is actually perfectly compatible with madhyamaka emptiness.

>>23515727
Shingon anon here. I 'officially' converted to Buddhism when I was 13, but didn't take it very seriously (I was more into the new agey stuff then, now it makes me sick to my stomach.) After I got a little bit older I deepened my mystical and occult practices and spent a decade in the Western Esoteric Tradition. Slowly became disaffected with the state of occultism as it is today and moved towards neoplatonism and Christian esotericism (Ps. Denys especially as you mention); ended up studying negative theology and Catholic mysticism for a couple years. Never took the full plunge past doing the rosary daily for a while, because I have deep theological disagreements with Catholicism and really with Christianity as a whole. Then I got a new job and my coworker was a Buddhist (Zen); while he trained me we talked about it and later, out of curiosity I looked up local temples and found I apparently live in one of the best places in the US to study Shingon, which I wasn't familiar with. Started studying it immediately and realized it was what I had been looking for all those years -- the deep tradition and lineage, the beautiful liturgy, the philosophically rigorous discourse, the just-occult-enough rites (a friend of mine is an ajari in Japan and has talked about, among other things, placating samurai ghosts at ruined castles at the request of the provincial government.) I still have a deep respect for neoplatonism and Christian mysticism; I like to say that it made me remember I was a Buddhist.

>>23515028
Theravada isn't "the original teaching," it's just as "new" as Mahayana. It happens to have slightly older scriptures and a more conservative outlook, but it's just another sect that developed over the years and has substantial differences with what the "historical Buddha" (from a source-critical, archaeologically-informed perspective) taught. Indologists aren't even sure that non-self was taught by the historical Buddha. Theravada does not teach a path to Buddhahood by their own admission -- they hold that the next Buddha will only arise after the teachings have faded.

Mahayana is probably just as old as Theravada -- we know this because some of the oldest Buddhist epigraphs we have mention Amitabha, meaning that these practices are probably far older than we realize. Mahayana is a path to Buddhahood, but it is just as long as Theravada because Mahayanists forgo enlightenment in order to save sentient beings.

Vajrayana is, source-critically, the youngest of the traditions but might have roots in pre-Buddhist esotericism. In Tibetan Vajrayana, it is understood as a subset of the Mahayana practices, In Shingon, we do make a separation between the Vajrayana and the Mahayana. It is the "Lightning Vehicle", and it leads to Buddhahood "in this very body." It is, comparatively, the easiest and fastest vehicle because of this, but you are correct -- you need a teacher and a lineage (not necessarily a guru as in the Tibetan tradition).

>>23501233
>cusp of the western occult tradition that non evil people desperately need to find
Care to point me in the right direction?

>>23514757
That fucking dog story holy shit.

>>23514757
Its nonsense. They confuse lay gurus with monastic vinaya again and again. If you're with a lay guru, expect sex/alcohol/etc especially with vajrayana since they disrobed specifically because they didnt want to stick to monastic vows.

Has anyone here read the manga series Land of the Lustrous/Houseki no Kuni? What were your thoughts on its approach to Buddhist concepts?

>>23516243
>since they disrobed
Or they were never a monk to begin with

>>23514773
>Atheist cope.

Heh... tips. That's all you've got chud? What god do you believe in anyways? Emptiness isn't a god.

>>23515754
Yes, well put. It also is worth noting that in Vajrayana, they have a conception of Buddhism being split into “three vehicles” (but which are ultimately one in the Vajrayana), and it’s a slightly different conception from what you might think.

Hinayana — the Small Vehicle
Mahayana — the Great Vehicle
Vajrayana — the Vajra Vehicle (the Thunderbolt Vehicle, the Diamond Vehicle)

First, the Vajrayana teaches that the Hinayana and Mahayana are necessary preliminaries and stages on the Vajrayana path. In other words, to be an accomplished Vajrayana practitioner, you need to have already internalized and reached the standards of the fully accomplished Hinayana and Mahayana practitioner. In other words, you must be a fully accomplished “Hinayanist” and a fully accomplished “Mahayanist”, which includes practices and teachings in Vajrayana specifically meant to emulate this (for instance, a lot of simple bare-bones sitting meditation practice, which is the very foundation of the Buddhist path, as well as much of their metaphysics, ontology, and philosophy generally being taken from Mahayana Buddhism, the backbone of Vajrayana, along with taking the Mahayana teachings on the Bodhisattva path and various Bodhisattvas and Buddhas, etc.)

Furthermore, the intelligent Vajrayanists also say that these labels are NOT meant to refer to exactly clear-cut different Buddhist sects (what we would call Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana as outside observers). It’s meant to refer to different stages of spiritual development on the Buddhist path. In other words, a nominal “Theravada Buddhist” (considered part of that sect or culture by the world) could have reached a “Mahayana” level of realization, according to this framework of the Vajrayanists, and a nominal “Mahayana Buddhist” could in fact also have reached the level of ”Tantric” or “Vajrayana” realization working within their path, according to the Vajrayana. This is for instance what they did with Nagarjuna, regarded as one of the most important Mahayana philosophers: the Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhists retroactively also took him as a siddha of their lineage and claimed he possessed the complete Vajrayana enlightenment and was a philosophical forebear of theirs. Likewise, modern Vajrayanists have very respectfully and instructively interacted with other sects such as the Zen Buddhists, and have claimed in some of their writings that the highest and best, most accomplished Chan and Zen practitioners have indeed reached the “Vajrayana” or “Tantric level of insight”, simply in a somewhat different external outer culture and conditioning.

The especial difference is that the Vajrayana Buddhists claim they have these teachings of the highest insights and most rapid level of development on the Buddhist path, even more explicitly codified and centralized in their teachings.

>>23516754
The main difference between Theravada/Mahayana and Vajrayana is simple. Tantra. The practice of tantra is already available in Mahayana/Theravada it just wasnt realized yet. Thats what the "secret" is. Vajrayana is sometimes also known as Mantrayana. Commonly it means repeating sutras over and over and meditating over it. People confuse Vajrayana as "religious" and "mantra" specific tradition of the Buddhism, but everyone who has their own tradition of Buddhism knows this is absolutely wrong. Mantra is the core of every Buddhist tradition. The question is why did vajrayana get the nickname "mantrayana" what exactly did it mean that set it apart from other Buddhist tradition? The answer is "thinking." Mantra comes from the word mana - mind and tra - tool. Aka "think." What is happening when buddhist repeat the sutras over and over again, what is happening when we meditate and walk the path of buddha? That answer is transformation of the mind and the body. That is the essence of tantra.

It roots of tantra was already there in older Buddhist tradition, but it just wasn't brought to attention. That is the "highest teaching." When you understand that its all about transformation of the mind and the body, then you understand the different types of tantric practices. Whether that is blood sacrifices/drinking, intense sex, going under group hypnosis with rituals, etc. The various tantric masters of Hindu, secular and monastics understood this concept and utilize tantric practices that suit their way of life.

>>23517112
>blood sacrifices/drinking, intense sex, going under group hypnosis with rituals
None of these are practices in Buddhist tantra

There's no Buddhist tantra in the first place. Tantras are purely Hindu.

17th century Italian Jesuit missionary Ippolito Desideri who learned Tibetan in Tibet and preached to buddhists:

>Desideri starts from Nagarjuna's assertion: "For him to whom emptiness is clear, everything becomes clear. For him to whom emptiness is not clear, Nothing becomes clear." Having therefore stated that all things will not be real without the correct definition of emptiness, he works in this direction, summarizing in this way: "since all phenomena are empty of existence of themselves, because they are interdependent, it follows that "interdependence" is the meaning of "emptiness." ... The missionary fully accepts the first part of this reasoning, that is, that all things are contingent and strictly produced by causes and therefore without their own nature; this appears indisputable to him. He therefore focuses his efforts on showing that this conceptual construction lacks coherence if no "Primary Cause" is introduced to start the whole process, an absolutely independent entity. He begins immediately and confidently to contrast the two positions: If we look carefully, the whole system of truth and non-truth lies in these two opinions, and that is:

>1. The Madhyamika maintain that not even an absolute independent entity exists;
>2. We believe in this existence of an absolute independent entity. We must therefore carefully examine which of our two opinions is correct and which is wrong

>Desideri skillfully appropriates Tibetan Buddhist terminology and specific method of argument but as Robert Goss has correctly said, he "is not just literally translating Christian concepts into a Tibetan cultural milieu; rather, he is modifying a préexistent doctrinal language and scholastic method that is hermeneutically significant to his Buddhist readers, so as to convey new meanings. Desideri creates an interpretative medium, a rhetoric, for Buddhist-Christian communication ad thus for polemical engagement of these two forms of scholasticism."

>In contrast to his interlocutors, the courageous explorer proposes an "Existent being beyond the sphere of existing things" and supports this with a substantial series of profound arguments starting with the consideration that the "dependent" in itself requires the independent, continuing with the necessity of a primary cause in order not to retract the principle of causality, and again with the contention of the eternity and infinity of the chain of causality (infinite regress) which would not permit the manifestation of the world in which we live. Last, he focuses on the fact that if nothing exists by its own nature, then neither does the whole sphere of existing things, but then this must depend on an "other" without which it could not have manifested itself in any way, and this in turn leads inevitably to a contradiction without the introduction of a supreme Being outside of interdependence (existing of itself and not by cause)

Friday Night Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm | 21 June 2024
https://youtu.be/cz-Szbh1rQg

Why not follow the earliest teachings that are consistent, make sense, and are more likely to be true?

Why follow a crappy inconsistent netflix remake of Buddhism with a 1/10 rating?

BUDDHISM started (historically) with the BUDDHA

So why not listen to the earliest accounts of what the BUDDHA said?

Why not start there?

https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/

https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/NobleWarrior/Section0003.html

Some people have questioned the historical reliability of the Canon’s accounts—usually on subjective grounds—but we have yet to encounter any solid evidence that the canonical sources we have cited are not trustworthy. There is no archeological or textual evidence to contradict any of the Canon’s accounts.

>>23518012
Why follow a historical just-a-guy-buddha when you can follow eternal cosmic-super-buddha?

>>23517329
>Robert Goss has correctly said, he "is not just literally translating Christian concepts into a Tibetan cultural milieu; rather, he is modifying a préexistent doctrinal language and scholastic method that is hermeneutically significant to his Buddhist readers, so as to convey new meanings
But if we read on he's just going to do standard Christian theology anyway, not actually integrate Buddhism; his goal was to destroy it and then conquer the country, same as Jesuits in Japan who were suppressed by the government once it put two and two together about countries these guys were from
>the courageous explorer proposes an "Existent being beyond the sphere of existing things" and supports this with a substantial series of profound arguments starting with the consideration that the "dependent" in itself requires the independent
That's called Hinduism and was surely hilarious to the Tibetan monks, that this guy came all the way from who knows where to attempt to convince them of something refuted very very early in the monastic curriculum. They must have pitied him to some extent. What's funny is we have this exact argument here all the time in Buddhist or Christian threads and nobody is convinced then either. It's not as if Buddhists hadn't heard of the idea that there was a great and powerful creator god who is eternal and beyond creations.

>>23517297
Why did you post before reading the next sentence for context? Couldn't help yourself?

>>23518090
>attempt to convince them of something refuted very very early in the monastic curriculum
It never was refuted though. In the Buddhist corpus there are only arguments against a primitive Zeus- or demiurge-like conception of Isvara, but there is no real argument against either the Classical Theist’s conception of God or the Upanishadic/Vedantic Brahman.

>>23518012
>Why not follow the earliest teachings
nta but:
>>23516139
Reading the suttas to become a proper Buddhist sounds like something made up by a Protestant culture that came from Luther, it doesn't sound like anything any historical Buddhist community has done. In fact, most Buddhist in the world, including Theravada ones, have never read much and usually just make offerings and pray with no meditation. You're supposed to talk to monks and Buddhist communities before reading suttas.

>>23518404
Dumb. Madhymaka and the subsequent buddhist stance removes all possibilities of uncaused cause, grounds of beings, etc.

>>23518423
>never read much and usually just make offerings and pray with no meditation.
So how do you get into the supernatural aspect of Buddhism then? The whole reincarnation, becoming Buddha, not reincarnating anymore etc?

>>23518423
In theravada, the lays arent truly considered to be on the path. The path was functionaly limited to monastics. In all 3 buddhist sects, reading scriptures was done by the monastics and all 3, reading and reciting scriptures was a key component. In all 3, the lays recite the least amount due to lay lifestyle and such usually only memorize/recite handful of sutras. while the monks memorize/recite hundreds of different sutras throughout their monastic life.

>>23518430
> Dumb. Madhymaka and the subsequent buddhist stance removes all possibilities of uncaused cause, grounds of beings, etc.
That’s simply not true, that’s just a false talking point that isn’t supported by anything. There is no single one “master argument” in Madhyamaka that refutes svabhava as a general principle or idea, but Madhyamaka texts only argue against specific instances or examples of svabhava that their opponents are portrayed as holding to, but none of these arguments against specific instances of svabhava, (either singularly or in unison) directly refute the view of the Classical Theist or Vedantist.

IT'S UP
>Question & Answer #98: from Buddhist Protection Chants to Jungian Archetypes

https://youtu.be/-71pY-cZiv8

Questions include: how Buddhist protection chants work; the deadline for questions; my father’s occult autobiography; my father being irritated by sermons; sick monks eating in the afternoon; going LIVE on Q&A #100; why Buddhas can’t be murdered; archaic and authentic suttas; laymen using Pali names; The Never Ending Story; was the Grinch an arahant; my favorite teachers; the trolley problem; the origin of dependent origination; does the self survive or not; combining words in Pali grammar; the bardo realm; a sutta comparing Brahmins to dogs; B.R Ambedkar's views on karma; my favorite Jataka; “short tudongs”; walking to Bodh Gaya; monks wearing shoes; karma vs. brain chemistry; Nibbana or death; the Buddha rediscovering an ancient path; trying to be good vs. trying to be enlightened; did the Buddha have a unibrow; ethics in the Patimokkha; the meaning of Vicikiccha; “personality view”; Nibbana as God; an empty seat symbolizing the Buddha; being a BOSS; PAWGs; overcoming porn addiction; getting the most out of a meditation retreat; the Buddha’s hesitation to teach Dhamma; accepting Nibbana as real; and Jungian archetypes as memories from past lives.

>>23518439
This:
>>23518440
>The path was functionaly limited to monastics.
Exactly. I don't think anyone here is a monastic. So if you think the Pali canon is the original teachings and you should read it, well, become a monk! Lay followers reading scriptures to convert is not really a common Buddhist thing. Traditions other than Theravada have other paths for lay followers, but those usually don't involve reading scriptures either.

>>23518450
>none of these arguments against specific instances of svabhava, (either singularly or in unison) directly refute the view of the Classical Theist or Vedantist.
How many permutations of an atman or a brahma or an isvara need to be refuted? Changing some of the wording around doesn't radically alter the idea, you have an independent existence you are arguing for which is outside of experience despite somehow causing it, whether that is "primitive Zeus," a demiurge, Deus, or Brahman imagining the world as his natural expression of illusions. Christian missionaries did not introduce anything unique in terms of arguments for immortal god and immortal soul to the Buddhists, who could catechismically cite counter-arguments and be done with them. Christians had no anti-Christian opponent they argued with for a thousand years like the Hindus, where you become a baroque logician making increasingly obscure arguments to prove a circle is square in order to impress people—Christianity killed and burned all its opposition (except for their parent religion, which were tolerated as a persecuted minority). In India this had to be kept up with, and was kept up with, though eventually the Buddhists died out owing to a variety of factors. Christians largely argued among themselves and came up with retarded "proofs" like "since I can think God exists, he does," which any knowledgeable Buddhist might respond to by inquiring whether rabbits have horns or what this priest has against a barren woman's son

>>23518450
Nope. Its a general/universal refutation of svabhava and uses specific examples.

>>23518554
>Its a general/universal refutation of svabhava
As scholars of Buddhism like Jan Westerhoff and Mark Siderits point out, that is just simply not true:

>>It is interesting to note that despite the fact that arguing for the non-existence of svabhāva and the establishment of the theory of universal emptiness is the central concern of Nāgārjuna’s philosophy we do not find a “master argument” to accomplish this (see Siderits 2000: 228 and 2003: 147). Of course we do find systematic lists of the core Madhyamaka arguments, in particular in the later scholastic developments of this school but none of them is regarded as the single argument that settles the matter once and for all.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nagarjuna/

What you said is demonstrably untrue. Moreover, if there was one master argument that refuted svabhava then you would just post it, but you won’t because there is no such argument.

>>23518852
If entities are neither self-produced nor produced by another, what use is there for a prime entity-substance producing them? Since there are endless arguments by the dudes standing in the river about where things come from, why engage in endless disputes with them?

>>23518440
>>23518475
Many laypeople became stream-enterers from listening to the Buddha.

>>23518069
Because one has historical evidence and the other doesn't.

>>23518852
This is a different talking point because the problem of madhyamaka was that it was easily misunderstood by people and Buddhists themselves had to clarify it towards others and inside the buddhist schools.

And the fact is made clear by the sentence that comes after your quote.

>The reason for this comes directly from the comprehensive rejection of svabhāva.
And the reason it comes up again and again is because others try to establish grounds of being and madhyamaka arguments follows suits to de-establish those groundings

>>23518973
And also >>23518538

Its just people coming with more and more permutations of svabhava either because they weren't able to realize what madhyamaka's dependent origination = emptiness argument is through introduction to buddhism being fresh/new or lack of comprehension or to not even deal with the argument but rather to advance their own ideology.

>>23518538
>How many permutations of an atman or a brahma or an isvara need to be refuted?
The Vedantic doctrine of the Atman-Brahman is entirely distinct from the Nyaya conception of Isvara that Buddhists engaged with, it’s just factually incorrect to say that one is a permutation of the other.

Of course, you don’t “have to” refute anything, but some online Buddhists like to put on a charade and falsely pretend that the view of Classical Theism and Vedanta was refuted by Madhyamaka, but it actually wasn’t. If you actually wanted to substantiate and have people take seriously the notion that these doctrines were refuted by Madhyamaka, then you would have to give actual examples of the arguments refuting those things, and in which texts, instead of merely pointing to the arguments against the Nyaya Isvara. If you can’t cite these arguments, then you should stop lying by saying that Madhyamaka refutes these things so that people won’t continue to point out that you are mistake or telling lies. It makes Buddhists look much worse to tell a lie and then get exposed for that lie instead of simply not telling the lie in the first place (plus, it violates basic Buddhist precepts to lie like that).

Buddhists clearly have some fundamental insecurity over this, it is almost as though many of them believe that in order for their worldview and Buddhist beliefs to remain intact that they have to maintain (despite an absence of evidence) that every other worldview has been refuted. This is a rather unhealthy and insecure way to regard one’s worldview, someone who is secure and confident in their worldview would believe in it regardless of any arguments against any alternative viewpoints. This insecurity leads to many Buddhists telling lies, in violation of their own Buddhist vows, such as that Madhyamaka refuted things which it actually doesn’t, because these lies help them feel more secure about their worldview. You don’t see this same insecurity with a lot of other religious people, the only other example I can think of is Jay Dyer and his fanboys, who entertain similarly laughable delusions about everything else being refuted.

>Changing some of the wording around doesn't radically alter the idea
They are quite different, in the Classical Theist and Vedantist view the Absolute is not conditioned by other things and is more or less immutable (either in totality or in essence). And if you take the Buddhist arguments against the Nyaya Isvara it’s quite easy to show how they fail to refute or often fail to even apply accurately to the Vedantic Brahman or the Classical Theist conceptions of God.

>Christians had no anti-Christian opponent they argued with for a thousand years like the Hindus,
So the many pre-modern texts of Christians arguing with and debating pagans, atheists, Jews and Muslim are all just fabrications? lol

>>23518973
>This is a different talking point
No, they mean exactly what I said, there is no one single master argument that refutes the notion of svabhava directly, but every single argument involves a specific example of it with all these added details that are different from the details of other examples, and the Madhyamaka arguments hinge on these changing details without ever refuting the concept itself in a direct or decisive manner that could be validly applied to any/all specific examples of svabhava. Again, if there was such an argument you would drop the charade and just post it.

>>23518964
One problem with this, from what I would consider a non-sectarian perspective is that in the Buddhism of the nikayas (what hyperprotestants refer to as the Pali Canon when it is just a fraction of it) there are all sorts of supernatural events which have no historical grounding, like teleporting to the brahmā dimension to debate with gods, or having different gods and demons attend your sermons, etc. Moreoever the Buddha recounts past lives and mentions previous Buddhas, so even if there was a historical person who spoke these discourses he was not teaching something entirely empirical or archaeological that you can corroborate in terms of evidence or historical record. And the early Buddhist schools did not reject any of this as spurious but on the contrary preserved it (though it is a liability to modernists and some sectarians).

>>23519015
>nyaya
>le intelligent designed universe is proof of powerful god

>advaita
>well sure maybe reality is empty/illusion but illusion is grounded on ishvara's dream, how else?

Dumb. You cant escape from shit

>>23518880
>If entities are neither self-produced nor produced by another, what use is there for a prime entity-substance producing them?
This is question-begging, a known fallacy.

>>23519046
>You cant escape from shit
There is absolutely nothing to “escape from” in the first place, none of the Madhyamaka arguments refute or present the slightest difficulty for the Vedantist’s or Classical Theist’s position. Sorry to burst your bubble.

>>23519058
No, both are subject to the question of how an uncaused interact with caused. Its literally covered. Further its also covered the idea that we exists specifically because of lack of svabhava, its what allows the dynamics of life.

You should read the Nagarjuna's notes.

Lurker here. Could someone just summarize the Buddhist argument against an unmoved mover/God/Brahman? Seems like both sides of the debate keep talking about it without bringing up the argument directly.
Why does interdependence refute an unmoved mover? Isn't the idea that all things rely on other things for their existence, that nothing exists in itself, an argument that classical theists make?

>>23519015
>it’s just factually incorrect to say that one is a permutation of the other.
>if you take the Buddhist arguments against the Nyaya Isvara it’s quite easy to show how they fail to refute or often fail to even apply accurately to the Vedantic Brahman or the Classical Theist conceptions of God.
I don't agree with you. I don't need a specific argument from Nagarjuna against Shankara's atman or some Shaivist isvara or the Procline Zeus to feel they are generally refuted by the arguments against permanence, self-substance, eternal entities, etc. I am not personally convinced of Jeet-sus Pantokrator so I don't need a specifically Buddhist argument against your specific permutation of the atman. You take a narrow view of Madhyamaka and a broad view of "theism" to defend yourself, is this not dishonesty or insecurity on your part?
>>23519015
>So the many pre-modern texts of Christians arguing with and debating pagans, atheists, Jews and Muslim are all just fabrications? lol
You failed to finish even reading my sentence. After Christianity ceased to have pagan debate opponents c.400-600 it went another thousand years just talking to itself (hence stupid shit like filioque for instance that does not even mean anything but involves geopolitics between Romes I and II). And any debate with Islam was just itself a heresy of Christianity from the Christian perspective, and Christians very poorly understood Islam during that period anyway. They got wrecked btw when they went to Japan and debated the Buddhists there, as I noted earlier. Christianity is very poor at intellectually defending itself after Aquinas. Requires gunpowder and liturgical language-only discourse

>>23518404
Madhyamaka refuted any type of uncaused cause you could think of. Buddhists knew about the Upanishads. Shantarakshita explicitly refutes Shankara.

>>23518012
Have you actually studied tibetan buddhism to determine that it doesn't make sense? It's actually the most systematic presentation of buddhism there is.

>>23519083
>Isn't the idea that all things rely on other things for their existence, that nothing exists in itself, an argument that classical theists make?
If they do, they don't understand the consequences of saying so, or have excluded God from said consequences by declaring he is not a thing. And this is where the debate will fall apart, because the theist has washed his hands of explanation in terms of ideas both parties can entertain at this point. This is not unique to theistic philosophers, but it is an extreme weakness for people unconvinced by faith or divine revelation.

>>23519083
Classical theists argue that god is the underlying principle behind all things. Not everything depends on everything else. If you take the logical extremes of everything depending on everything else, then there leaves no room for God which is necessarily the first uncaused cause.

>>23519049
I am not going to write a book for you. Both of those positions are argued against, so is "God did it" separate from them or not? If so, why? Is god neither the same as entities nor other than them? How is that the case if so? He is not the substance they arise from, nor independent of them? You see how broad this gets in terms of possible "God did it" varieties of arguments. I don't expect you to write a book either. How many lifetimes would it take to cover them all?

>>23519083
Nagarjuna's and Buddhist argument can be brought in 2 ideas

Emptiness/Dependent origination

The argument is because all things are conditioned down to the atomic level, there is no core essence that which any thing sits upon for existence. Thus all things are dependent on others all the time. Further analysis of causality from the same Nagarjuna's work also argue that causality itself is also subject to this very dependent origination/emptiness.

>>23519150
>>23519147
What is the Buddhist explanation for why the world/samsara exists at all?
It seems like the theist side takes the existence of an originating principle/prime mover as a given and the buddhist side takes the fact that all things are interdependent as a given. Obviously an argument made by one side to the other won't work since they don't accept the same axioms. But obviously all this, the world, illusions, whatever you want to call it, is here now and being experienced, and if one makes the claim that it is all interdependent and nothing can bring itself into being, how does one explain why it is there at all? Simply saying that it is all illusory/interdependent doesn't answer this question, as if nothing truly exists, none of this would be here in any form whatsoever.

>>23519182
All things being interdependent is a natural phenomena that applies to all phenomena to us today. Its not just a buddhist thing, the buddhist may have articulated it and formalized it but its just a universal truth at this point. You cannot even think about a concept, let alone a real thing that which is not dependent on others. Its an impossible thing.

That is the subtle baseline that everyone would accept in a truthful fashion. The problem is people then don't think about what this really means. When everything is dependent on others, what gives each things its core independent/efficacy/causal power? We nominally assume just everything has individual core efficacy/essence/etc and even apply this confusion to the notion of cause and effect. That is the idea that Buddhist attack.

If you nominally assume everything has core efficacy, and cause-effect are distinct, with one coming before the other, then you get into an argument about "what is the first first"? As if it has an essence onto itself.

>>23519204
That doesn't answer my question, though.

>>23519182
You can experience things without them being absolutely real and independent realities unto themselves. In the Buddhist view for them to be established as such they would need a permanent unchanging essence of some sort such that they remain stable and unvarnished. But we never find this anywhere (if we did, how would permanent objects appear to come about and pass away), and due to ignorance reify these objects of experience, and the subject who experiences, and then cling and suffer accordingly and so transmigrate through life. It should be kept in mind at all times that Buddhism is soteriological and not attempting to give a scientific or purely empirical accounting of things. Similarly there are thresholds at which rationalizing fails to explain further, and we cross over into mysticism or yoga (the non-aerobic version), c.p. Kant's critique of pure reason. But whereas western philosophy lost track of its purpose, Buddhist philosophy, as traditionally taught, never pretends otherwise, and does not assert to be irreligious, except in cases of poor Western transmission. There does not need to be a "reason" for the universe in order for us to achieve peace, which is taught to be without beginning or end, not ex nihilo, not the result of creation, it simply is. And that might be unsatisfying to some, but to others it is equally unsatisfying to set up God as the answer to the end of reason.

>>23519015
>They are quite different, in the Classical Theist and Vedantist view the Absolute is not conditioned by other things and is more or less immutable (either in totality or in essence).
That's exactly what buddhists refute, what are you talking about?

>>23519216
The question maybe seen as unconducive to enlightenment according to Buddha, but from my understanding, this is rooted in the notion that things must have an inherent/sufficient/necessary cause, which must be inherent. Aka >>23519204
The question itself is rooted in the essentialist view of the world in which existence has inherent meaning.

>>23518957
Listening to the Buddha in person is not the same as reading books

>>23519241
Also thats not to say theres no explanation/meaning to samsara/existence. Nominally its there because dependent origination with regards to ignorance, birth, death, karma, etc. But those are conventional explanations.

>>23519238
He is looking for a line by line refutation of Shankara which no one has bothered to produce because it's covered by arguments against the Vedas, against Isvara, against atman, etc., and to really argue at that level of turgid scholasticism you'd need to master both systems, but there's no incentive to really do this. Even if you did, he would insist you had misunderstood Shankara. Especially for western people interested in Buddhism, who are usually atheists to begin with, this is a waste of energy.

>>23519267
I'll add to this.

1) Shankara came after majority of the Buddhist establishment had been in decline/been destroyed/etc. So specific Buddhist text talking about Shankara and his arguments would be hard to find. But the generic argument of Shankara argument is already refuted even in this thread.

2) Since no one's clarified what Shakara's argument is, I'll take a shot. The Advaita Shankara argument accepts the Buddhist baseline >>23519204 the phenomenal world/self is self/dependent/etc and ultimately an illusion and then posit his God as real. He adds in this illusion/appearance must be work of an almighty God, that dualism about self-others is just an illusion being its just real Atman/God at the end, further he uses the necessary cause to justify the existence of God because universe itself cannot just be, etc.

The problem specifically is that he falls into the same trap of invoking a necessary cause with a self caused/uncaused cause, aka the Brahman that he thinks Buddhist refuse to answer for the existence of the universe/samsara. First if the problems of necessary cause applies to the universe, then it must also apply to God. But here he says it doesn't because its the necessary non-dualistic/ultimate power. Which is supposed to be the show stopper. There is no first cause in Buddhism not because they refused to elaborate, but because it doesn't make sense with regards to a relational/empty reality. There's no so separate first cause and then later effect. Its all a dependent rising for explaining our existence/universe/samsara. It doesn't require any uncaused cause. Thats an important part.

>>23519241
>The question maybe seen as unconducive to enlightenment according to Buddha
And that's the thing. If this question cannot be answered, but Buddhist metaphysics depends on its doctrine of dependent arising and emptiness, how is any rational person meant to be convinced of the truth of buddhism without a literal divine witness? You are asking me to accept these doctrines on the basis of faith.

>>23519381
>There is no first cause in Buddhism not because they refused to elaborate, but because it doesn't make sense with regards to a relational/empty reality. There's no so separate first cause and then later effect. Its all a dependent rising for explaining our existence/universe/samsara. It doesn't require any uncaused cause. Thats an important part.
If all things are dependent, from where or what did they arise?
Why is there anything at all besides Nirvana/sunyata/emptiness?
If things can arise mysteriously from nothing and emptiness, and these things are interdependent and empty in themselves, could samsara not arise from Nirvana again after one has been liberated?
Please don't take my questions as gotchas or attempts to provoke you. I am genuinely trying to understand.

>>23519398
>anon discovers buddhism is a religion
if the literature is unconvincing, and the exercises are unconvincing, then that's as far as it goes

>>23519423
I find the concepts within Buddhism and Hinduism very fascinating and tantalizing and they somewhat correlate with what I can perceive for myself, but I find it frustrating that, though it seems as if one could rationally approach these concepts, one must accept them dogmatically in order for the rest of the system to make sense. Intuitively it seems that there should be a system which can be built without presuppositions or axioms, using pure phenomenological experience alone and building on it rationally, but it escapes me whenever I reach for it.

>>23519419
1) Things are all dependent on each other, it means everything depends on each other. Everything we analyze is as such.
2) Buddhism's arguing that causality is multifaceted and multidirectional. So there is no single cause (which relates back to all things not having inherent existence that is self existing and all things being dependent originated) for which things arise from that we can point to. If you accept that things have multiple causes and things dont have self-existence cause. The answer isn't even "other things" (or self-caused or uncaused) in proper but its multicaused and multidirectional.
3) Emptiness is another aspect of relational nature of all things. Emptiness is because of relational reality. Why are things there? Things are as such because they are conditioned/change and relational/empty aspect allows the transformation. The more nuanced aspect is it cannot be any other way.
4) Things dont arise from nothing. Emptiness isn't a thing that gives birth to others, its more the other way around. Emptiness is aspect of our relational existence. And likewise Nirvana is the aspect of Samsara, not the other way around.
These probably wont answer fully as you need to understand Buddhism more to get these answers proper but its a baseline

>>23519039
There's a sutta in the Digha Nikaya that is an invocation of the four heavenly kings meant to be recited for protection
https://suttacentral.net/dn32/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=plain&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin

>>23519445
Buddhism is that if you really get it. It builds upon individual phenomenological experiences and then allows others to learn from the experience/guide them along the path of what others have found to be true.

You dont necessarily have to take in all of that. If you just go to the minimal axiomatic state of Buddhism(for a philosophically minded person), you get relational, empty aspect of things, things changing. Thats basically dependent origination/no self and impermanence. 3 marks of existence is the Buddhist word proper, the third being suffering of beings thats more a religious/personal dimension, which one could qualify as axiom if they wish or ignore it for now. But its still an important axiom for personal development.

>>23519398
More that Buddha was unconcerned about teaching those to his direct disciples. Later Buddhists ofcourse expanded on it for various reasons

>>23519481
>Emptiness is aspect of our relational existence. And likewise Nirvana is the aspect of Samsara, not the other way around.
I should clarify this. Emptiness and Nirvana doesn't have a positive qualification which allows for things to be as such. That positive aspect is reserved for the other side of the coin Dependent Origination/Samsara.

>>23519419
>If all things are dependent, from where or what did they arise?
Nowhere, anything which arises in dependence in actuality does not arise
>If things can arise mysteriously from nothing and emptiness
Nothing ever arose from self, other, both, or neither.
Consider the manufacturing of a car. At which point does the car arise? Where is the car? Is the car the same as or different from its parts? Can you find a car in the car apart from the imputation of "car" upon a collection of parts?

>>23519535
>anything which arises in dependence in actuality does not arise
So what is this we are experiencing? Why is there something (samsara, maya, illusion, whatever) rather than absolute nothing? If all this did not actually arise, what is it that requires liberation and why is it not liberated already?
In the example of the car, what began the process which resulted in the car? If the idea of a car is just an illusion or whatever, what am I driving down the road and how did it get there? Just because you can play sophistic games with the definition of "car" doesn't mean that there isn't in fact some thing at hand, even if I refer to it one way now but would have referred to its parts differently before its assembly.

>>23519182
>What is the Buddhist explanation for why the world/samsara exists at all?
According to the Shingon anon and the Shingon material in this thread:
>The universe is a process of Mahāvairocana preaching, and what he preaches is himself, and this preaching is synonymous with mantra.

>>23519204
>You cannot even think about a concept, let alone a real thing that which is not dependent on others. Its an impossible thing.
Nirvana.

>>23519569
>>The universe is a process of Mahāvairocana preaching, and what he preaches is himself, and this preaching is synonymous with mantra
But somehow the theist and Advaitin positions are incorrect despite affirming much the same things?

>>23519574
It turns out that there is not a universal Buddhist position on this issue and Buddhists have different ideas about it. Soon enough some anon who is a Buddhist from a different sect is gonna affirm something else, maybe some Yogacara "everything is mind" stuff, or whatever.

>>23519574
In some traditions of Buddhism, its basically as close to theism as possible, while still maintaining a Buddhism name. Look up Pureland. But its not all or general Buddhism.

>>23519583
Amitabha didn't create the universe

Does Buddhism depend on free will?

>>23520054
the eightfold path requires that you exercise your will to perform good actions and avoid bad ones, as well as cultivating good intentions, so I guess yeah

>>23520061
How do Buddhists know that they have free will?

>>23520069
>>23520061
>>23520054
Intentionality is the word.

The notion of Free Will and Determinism are both flawed. First requires a ghost in a shell that generates uncaused causes, and everyone being a ghost in the body that generates their own uncaused causes. Second is just as flawed as it depends on an uncaused cause of the classical theism kind and there are even more flaws to this than it sounds.

>>23520094
The reason I ask is because I have come to a strange conclusion based on my own experiences and I'm curious about how a Buddhist would view it.
To me, there seems to be an obvious, immediately perceptible, at-hand divide between awareness and phenomena. What is most truly "I" is a simple awareness which passively perceives/is filled by experience. All experiences seem to be external and passively filling the awareness. This includes moving my own body (which seems to occur on "autopilot"), the experience of emotion and my own thoughts (which seem almost like clouds drifting across the sky in terms of their relation to the awareness), and even the experience of identity and sense of self, which say "I" and "me" but are also separate from awareness.
I am forced to conclude that I cannot prove "I" am even really thinking, exerting my will, or being intentional (intentiating?) at all, as I cannot prove I am actually doing these things rather than passively experiencing them, as if I had been tied to a chair and forced to watch a movie, albeit one with incredible detail, down to the actor's own thoughts and senses of self. Given this conclusion (and it feels funny to use that word now) I am somewhat agnostic concerning free will and reason; until I can prove thoughts are indeed thoughts, intentions are indeed intentions, I am left with the notion that some simple awareness, similar to one of Leibniz' monads, was filled with phenomena one day, inexplicably, and these phenomena simply happen to be the experiences of being the person I know as me.
Obviously, I act as if intent and thought exist in order to function in the world, but I have lived with this condition for over a year without being able to come up with a solution that explains my experiences while also allowing for thought to truly exist.

>>23520147
>What is most truly "I" is a simple awareness which passively perceives/is filled by experience. All experiences seem to be external and passively filling the awareness.
This is just orthodox vedantism. I have to wonder if you're trying a new angle here to argue in Buddhism threads or is it just that "me brahman everything else fake" sounds too much like one of those dissociative disorders. The subject in many versions of Buddhism would not be a passive recipient of objects of experience but co-dependent on them so long as he is not liberated past a subject-object experienced view of reality, since there is no self or subject found outside of experience. To take your depersonalization as something more than it is would be like someone with bad eyesight being asked to read a sign.

>>23520187
>The subject in many versions of Buddhism would not be a passive recipient of objects of experience but co-dependent on them
It could easily be argued that the awareness I'm referring to isn't separate from phenomena and that it plain doesn't exist when it is empty, yes. Though if this is the case and the phenomena which make up one's experience simply "are," the question of whether thought/intention truly exist or not is still unanswered.
>so long as he is not liberated past a subject-object experienced view of reality, since there is no self or subject found outside of experience
Can you explain what a "liberated" subject would be if it is outside a subject-object dichotomy?

And this isn't an attempt to secretly BTFO buddhatards epic style or whatever, I'm genuinely trying to make sense of my experience and thought the dharmic systems might have some insight (though my suspicion is that the altered states of consciousness, experiences of liberation/insight, etc are more accessible to normal, unaware, non practicing people than is commonly believed, though through rather oblique pathways compared to the standard meditations and mantras).

>>23519071
> No, both are subject to the question of how an uncaused interact with caused. Its literally covered.
That’s easy to answer. In Classical Theism there is a creation and ongoing sustenance of the caused real phenomena, according to God’s foreknowledge of those phenomena that is already present within the divine intellect, and in Advaita Vedanta the caused phenomena is brought about and sustained as part of the illusory display by Brahman in a way that is automatic and effortless; in both systems this happens through a power or ability that is inherent to the Absolute. For someone to pretend to be mystified about something that is actually a basic part of doctrine and which can be answered quite easily is not a serious argument against anything.

>Further its also covered the idea that we exists specifically because of lack of svabhava, its what allows the dynamics of life
This does nothing to refute the general notion of svabhava or God having svabhava. The only argument involved in that like of thinking is saying basically “if normal mundane objects had their own svabhava then their total independence from one another would make the mundane causation of one object/thing by another impossible because their svabhava would mean they cannot be caused or dependent on another”. But all this argument does is suggest (but not even prove) that normal worldly objects in our experience do not have svabhava but it demonstrates nothing about God or the Absolute having svabhava or about svabhava as a general category. Furthermore, according to the way that Buddhists define svabhava, no major Hindu or Christian thinkers ever thought that mundane objects have svabhava to continue since almost all Hindus and Christians would regard them as existentially dependent (and hence lacking svabhava) on God. So, it’s just foolish to hold that up as supposedly refuting or demonstrating something against non-Buddhists, since basically nobody whether Hindu, Christian, Muslims etc ever taught to begin with that everyday objects are uncaused and don’t rely on anything. There’s no logic there which actually explains why only sunyata makes this possible since one can instead say that a source of everything which itself has svabhava is what makes possible all phenomena.

>>23520200
>almost all Hindus and Christians would regard them as existentially dependent
Do most Hindus and Christians accept that all phenomena only exist through mental imputation, that there is nothing on the side of the object which establishes its existence?

>>23519091
>to feel
We weren’t talking in the first place about what you need to feel personally convinced, but we were talking about what is the minimum step needed if you want to continue to attempt to maintain the charade the Madhyamaka refuted the other views in question. Because it’s inevitable that if people post about these debates and arguments that it will then turn to the details, your only two options that you can use in attempt to maintain the false narrative is to either present the actual argument (for which there is none) or you continue to claim that and then having a copy-and-pasted response that you post each time as an excuse to not present any actual argument (it’s been refuted already but for the life of me I cant explain how or why, trust bro). Either option makes Buddhists look unserious so it’s better to just not make the false claim in the first place

>>23519117
>Madhyamaka refuted any type of uncaused cause you could think of.
That is a completely delusional and laughable cope anon.

>Buddhists knew about the Upanishads. Shantarakshita explicitly refutes Shankara.
Shantarakshita had no idea what he was talking about, his arguments don’t refute anything. Shantarakshita mistakenly thinks that the Advaitist Atman undergoes a real transformation into both the subject and object and then Shantaraksita says “hurr durr, but how can le Atman be unchanging then!?!?” but this is a complete strawman fallacy since in the actual Advaita doctrine there is no real transformation or modification that happens to the Atman, the seeming objects of consciousness are only an illusory appearance and not a real transformation of consciousness/Atman. There is even an article published in a Buddhist journal that makes this exact point and which says that Shantaraksita failed to refuted the Advaita or non-dual Upanishadic view. Because many Buddhists live in an intellectual bubble they have no idea when many of these arguments are flat-out wrong or fallacious because they never bother to check anything outside their bubble.

> We present Śāntarakṣita’s and Kamalaśīla’s views of a self and also explain the Advaita Vedānta theory based on the texts of Śaṅkara. It is concluded in the article that Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla failed to consider the most likely Advaitin replies to their objections, especially the reply that cognitions of objects are illusory rather than real modifications, since the critique assumed that they were real modifications.
https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/iijbs/vol21/iss1/3/?fr=operanews

The conclusion of the paper is:
>It cannot be said that Santaraksita and Kamalasila have conclusively refuted the Advaita theory of a self, since they fail to consider the most likely Advaitin replies to their objections.

>>23520147
Buddhist see consciousness as a process/system that which discerns things and creates an impression of it with our mind. If we look at an apple, we see an apple. But where is it actually "seen"? In the mind. There's an impression we create, in that impression we give it properties and a static identity/self. When you're in "autopilot" buddhist would prob say its just recursive discernment process. The feeling of an extra "I" is just a discernment error at that point. So in the case of "I" looking at an apple being impressed in the mind, the its not just the "I" thats an impression like an Apple, but an "I" that which is the impression of the recursive function of the discernment function of the mind. Sometimes the impression is even given form like a small body or in other context, a white orb/soul that which is trapped. A ghost/impression of the body that which can travel between bodies/fly/survive death/etc.

>>23520199
>it plain doesn't exist when it is empty
emptiness is not non-existence, it is arguing against a true inner existence to conventional phenomena that they are sometimes imputed to have in a variety of non-Buddhist (and sometimes Buddhist systems)
>Can you explain what a "liberated" subject would be if it is outside a subject-object dichotomy?
short answer is the Heart Sutra, long answer is the Prajñaparamita Sutra in a hundred thousand lines
you'd benefit from reading some material rather than trying to deal with abbreviated summaries posted on /lit/ or wherever, lots of the literature and its historical commentaries available in English and with proper translation (on its own terms and not in terms of Christian concepts, or theosophist/neognostic ones)

>>23520222
> Do most Hindus and Christians accept that all phenomena only exist through mental imputation, that there is nothing on the side of the object which establishes its existence?
That’s a question about whether objects and phenomena in general are prajnaptisat or dravyasat, and this isn’t the same thing as whether something has svabhava. Everyone agrees that Nagarjuna argued against objects having svahabava, although it’s ambiguous as to whether or not he intended to argue that there is nothing that is dravyasat. David Burton argues in his book ‘Emptiness Appraised’ that although Nagarjuna never states it explicitly that the natural implication of Nagarjuna’s works especially considered in their Abhidharma context is that Nagarjuna was arguing or disagreeing with anything being dravyasat, and that furthermore this denial of anything being dravyasat leads to actual metaphysical nihilism and is completely untenable philosophically. Hindus and Christians don’t believe that the mundane worldly objects that are dependent on God themselves have svabhava, although Hindus and Christians don’t think that all phenomena are merely conceptually-constructed or prajnaptisat, since despite being dependent on God the presence of trees etc in the world is independent of any one mind’s conceptual construction.

>>23520200
Nominal world is made up of things that depend on others. A chair depends on the wood, a shape, a function, etc. A person depends on its body, its name, a personality, memories, families, etc. All worldly things depends on other worldly things. Thats all that there is. There is no super special unworldly God essence thats necessary. Further it adds nothing to worldly existence.

I'll give you lot of things to in your liberal use of the words and meanings for your sake, but "nobody whether Hindu, Christian, Muslims etc ever taught to begin with that everyday objects are uncaused and don’t rely on anything" is wrong. Every major religion relies upon a type of Free Will an uncaused cause that which generate their own actions that which isn't causally dependent. Otherwise you'd just get a world in which no one is at fault from their respective religious doctrinal stand and the essential doctrines would hold no meaning with personal responsibility/good/bad/evil/reward/punishment/heaven/hell/etc.

>source of everything can be god instead of emptiness/dependent origination
If everything in the world is relational to God not to each others/empty, then how can phenomena be? Phenomena is a dependent on others in the world. That which our eyes see, that which we touch, that which interact with each other, that which is compounded of each other, and so on. If everything is dependent on each other, then where is the function of the God? There is no such thing.

>>23520228
Arguing someone else is insincere for not agreeing with you for no reason that "God did it" is the height of unseriousness.
You have no intention of proving the Vedas, you are evidently embarassed by "primitive Zeus," the bolt thrower of mount olympus who is chief of the gods and men, are you in fact an atheist pretending to believe in no one's God to avoid nihilism? This god whose presence is to have no presence, whose awareness is of nothing in particular, who does not create, who does not act, who does not do, why should he even exist to someone who has already done away with isvara, brahma, atman? I can reject Orthdox Christianity and Catholic at the same time by rejecting the divinity of Jesus and the covenants with Israel, I don't need to hear what Southern Baptists need to say about them.

>>23520248
>in the actual Advaita doctrine there is no real transformation or modification that happens to the Atman, the seeming objects of consciousness are only an illusory appearance and not a real transformation of consciousness/Atman
So what's the point of the atman? What does it add to evolving consciousness? The Vedas say it has to be there?

>>23519238
> That's exactly what buddhists refute,
Not really, the actual details of their arguments involve talking about Isvara having a multitude of parts and changing and being influenced by the world and things like that, but these arguments don’t apply to the non-dual Vedantist model in which there is no moving parts, no multitude, no influence of the world on Brahman etc. This is also largely true of the more Neoplatonic Christian models but they just have to do a bit more explaining to make it cohere with the trinity although it’s still possible to do so.

>>23520279
>Everyone agrees that Nagarjuna argued against objects having svahabava
No, he argued against phenomenas, all of it. He didn't leave special carve outs. Emptiness isn't a nihilistic point because it was never about emptiness as a thing but an aspect of relational nature of phenomena. In fact, its the only tenable position. The other is to advance some nonsense about there being intrinsic essence, whether god or soul or combination, giving rise to notion of change/aspects/properties to the phenomena. This quickly leads to problem of compound things, causality, etc as nagarjuana and Buddhism rightfully attacks in substansive manner

>>23520299
>buddhists can't refute calling an inert primordial ground "God"
well that's nearly crypto-buddhism anyway, you seem to be atheist toward any actually worshipped or characterized gods yourself

>>23520306
But if all things are ultimately empty, and dependent on other things to exist, why are there things at all? Does Nagarjuna discuss this?

>>23520319
There are things because of relational nature and empty nature of reality. Things come to be in relation to others in conjoined fashion. Functionally speaking. In a metaphysical sense, there being things is simply because there not being things isn't an established position. Its a proposed one as a hypothetical alternative, but its never been shown how there couldnt be anything. The state of there being things coming and going has no beginning as far as time scale goes.

Hindus try to say well, nominally it may not be able to stretch it to a first beginning, but a really really really long time ago, brahman woke up and created it, aint a answer. Thats just a cope heuristic borne out of false understanding of causality paired a book given authority. Nor is the notion that well its all illusion without any reality to our world and only brahman exists isnt an answer either. To everyone in this world, and to buddhists, the reality is the only real reality. Denial of our reality by upholding a false heuristics is a nihilism in practice.

>>23520281
> Every major religion relies upon a type of Free Will an uncaused cause that which generate their own actions that which isn't causally dependent.
That free will assigned to living beings is still existentially dependent on God, it’s just as much created by God as everything else about the living being is, so it therefore would lack svabhava by virtue of being created and sustained by God. So, that’s not actually an example of a major non-Buddhist school/thinker assigning svabhava to a mundane worldly object.

> everything in the world is relational to God not to each others/empty, then how can phenomena be?
Through God creating them! Duh!

>If everything is dependent on each other, then where is the function of the God?
The function of God is to make this series possible in the first place, thus obviating the vicious infinite regress.

>>23520288
> Arguing someone else is insincere for not agreeing with you for no reason that "God did it" is the height of unseriousness.
That was never the argument, now you are just moving the goalpost, I accept this as your concession. The original goalpost, by the way, was whether the Madhyamaka had any arguments that refuted Classical Theism/Vedanta (they don’t). When pressed to back up your false statement, you gave a copy and pasted excuse to not back it up, and then moved the goalpost in your final response as part of an amusing attempt to save face.

>>23520292
> So what's the point of the atman?
It’s the Absolute Itself and is completely free, non-dual, partless, undifferentiated and unconditioned. The very notion of “points” and “purposes” presupposes duality or multiplicity, and so it’s simply a category error to ask about the “point” of a non-dual Absolute that is without duality, if you actually understand the premise it becomes a nonsensical or foolish question.

>What does it add to evolving consciousness?
It provides the inner light that reveals itself as well as all sensations and thoughts, thereby allowing them to be encountered or known in experience.

>>23520341
>God makes it possible
So when I drive a car, God is doing it? When I shit my pants God is shitting my pants? The relation between me and my friends are just God doing it? There's no real relationship? If apple falls down on the ground God did it and not gravity? When a child is born through sex, through sperm going through eggs, its God? Logic is God? Coherency is God?

Seems like you're advocating a nihilism in which nothing matters, nothing can happen, nothing exists, no causality, no relations to each other, nothing makes sense through context, its all God. Not only is this a nihilistic idea its also completely incomprehensible and incongruent with reality on every basis, as all bases are supposed to be covered by God. Something so absurd and something that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, according to it, its all due to God. Advaita is a half baked idea that makes no sense when examined.

>>23520279
The svabhava that Madhyamaka criticizes is the idea that phenomena possess some inherent characteristic which establishes its existence, not the idea that somehow objects exist without causes. That's already refuted in the Hinayana tenet systems. The point of Madhyamaka is that when you analyze an object, you cannot find that object within that object, there is only an imputation upon parts.

>>23520364
At the base of it its just the same argument as "Jesus did it/God did it". No one takes these argument seriously as there's no coherent sense. In scientific terms, its an infallible and an absurd claim, thus not worthy of investigation or object of inquiry.

The question is, why does this retard keep shitting up every Buddhist thread with nonsense like this?

>>23520345
There's a few people ITT and I have maintained that AV is generically refuted by the rejection of atman, brahmā, isvara, the Vedas and so on; I have not argued there is a literal document where Madhyamika Buddhists argue against your specific permutation of the eternal atman and its relationship with the eternal God. I think the Tibetan Ju Mipham may have glossed on it in a commentary on either Chandrakirti or Shantaraksita but I don't feel like consulting the commentaries, and you would insist they were wrong anyway. The root texts those commentaries are on do not specifically deal with AV anyway, and I would agree most if not probably all preserved historical Buddhist literature available in English has nothing to say about it, but like I've said multiple times, it would be needlessly laborious in our own context to produce a refutation of the nth version of the atman for 1. a mostly atheist audience or 2. a committed vedanist who will throw out anything you tell him in between his recitation sessions. Moreover, your belief in a God that does nothing is pretty irreligious and easily mistaken for atheism. If Zeus is too silly to be real, Brahman is too absent. Zeus has vajra, Brahman has, what, the atman, that thing we are not able to demonstrate? Not a good look.

>>23520363
>if you actually understand the premise it becomes a nonsensical or foolish question
indeed if the principle of an absolute were understood it would not be something so coarse as an individual self, let alone the self of some other external being to ourselves

>>23520385
He doesn't realize western Buddhists are all either atheists or half-pagans/heretics of monotheism uninterested in indo-thomist arguments for a generic God then squared with the Vedas. It's "Christ is King" for the Jeet-sus crowd.

>>23520306
> No, he argued against phenomenas, all of it. He didn't leave special carve outs.
So you think he argued against the conventional existence of phenomena from consciousness to trees? From what I know that is a highly fringe interpretation of Madhyamaka that most Buddhist schools consider wrong and nihilistic. Most Tibetan schools consider it nihilistic and “over-negation” to deny that objects have conventional existence. Tsongkhapa says that view is just as dangerous and as wrong as ‘eternalism’.

>Emptiness isn't a nihilistic point because it was never about emptiness as a thing but an aspect of relational nature of phenomena.
If there are no actually existing things, no actual existence then that’s literally the definition of metaphysical nihilism.

>In fact, its the only tenable position.
It’s as far from tenable as you can get, it’s on its face absurd and is contradicted by our experience. There is also an untenable vicious regress involved.

>This quickly leads to problem of compound things, causality, etc as nagarjuana and Buddhism rightfully attacks in substansive manner
all sophistry and fart-sniffing

>>23520313
> well that's nearly crypto-buddhism anyway
It predates the life of Buddha and is already found before Buddha in the early Upanishads which talk about Brahman being an unchanging and non-dual ground and origin of all phenomena.

>>23520424
>So you think he argued against the conventional existence of phenomena from consciousness to trees?
No he gave the trees supports and consciousness its support. Thats the emptiness aspect of it. When I said he argued against all phenomenas, I mean his argument covered all phenomenas being dependent originated and empty. Not that all phenomenas are empty and has been negated conventionally or ultimately(there is no ultimate).

>>23520405
> indeed if the principle of an absolute were understood it would not be something so coarse as an individual self
The Self in Advaita is non-individual (individuality refers not to singularity but rather to being distinct from other individuals).

>>23520385
> why does this retard keep shitting up every Buddhist thread with nonsense like this?
I am actually a high-level Bodhisattva engaged in crazy-wisdom prasangika refutation of “Buddhist” doctrines by pulling on threads and showing how none of it actually leads anything. In merely showing how the beliefs of the “Buddhists” in this threads involves absurdities I’m freeing them from their conceptual dogmas and hangups that prevent them from realizing the spontaneous and natural perfection inherent in everything. Enlightenment is here and now right in front of their faces but they are so bewitched by scholastic formulations of nihilism that they don’t realize the boundless treasure of the freedom that is already present.

>>23520429
Cool story bro, but a non-duality between atman and brahman makes no sense since there's no atman anyway, so there is no need to identify it with a deified form of absolute reality. That's just bashing together concepts, that's the nth permutation of the atman; if it is genuinely as antique as you claim I'd be impressed for it to never have been mentioned by any brahmans who were debated or converted over the centuries, as opposed to the Shankarist atman promoted in the middle ages well after the maturation (or calcification perhaps) of most Buddhist schools. But of course, this was covered in refutation of pre-Shankara atmans, (atmen?) and if you redefine it to mean absolute reality and not the self that's largely your preference and not anything admissible logically or empirically if we don't affirm an atman in the first place. You might need some sort of... two tiered truth doctrine, where experience gets tied to consciousness, and non-experience to something without consciousness... you're not planning to be 90% buddhist I hope, that would be a really boring argument

>>23520439
So we've learned god doesn't do anything and we don't have an individual self either... Hmmmm....You are the theist in this debate?

On to the main topic, what exactly is wrong with Vajrayana's approach?

>>23520364
> So when I drive a car, God is doing it?
No, “making possible X” and “doing X” are not the same thing. In Christian classical theism for example they say that God makes possible and permits loving beings to have the freedom to choose a certain range of actions, although this still involve this ability-to-choose being created by God and hence not totally independent.

>Seems like you're advocating a nihilism in which nothing matters, nothing can happen, nothing exists, no causality, no relations to each other, nothing makes sense through context, its all God.
1) All of those only need to have conventional existence in order to be meaningful, there is no need for any of them to have absolute existence.
2) Since Brahman exists they’re not really saying “nothing exists”

>Not only is this a nihilistic idea its also completely incomprehensible and incongruent with reality on every basis,
That statement is true of Buddhism but not Vedanta, Vedanta isn’t a metaphysical nihilism since the infinite boundless fullness of Brahman exists, it’s perfectly comprehensible since it removes the regress present in Buddhism, and its not incongruent with experienced life since experience doesn’t say that phenomenon have absolutely real existence, only that they are experienced.

>>23487659
I know little about it, but from I have seen it has the best art of any Buddhist tradition.

>>23520471
Scripturally and doctrinally it's just Mahayana but the guru/lama approach to esoteric/occult/initatory religion essentially does not work in the West, it attracts gullible people to abusive people in too many cases, nobody can cite an example that has domiciled well (perhaps they are quiet, good for them).

>>23520366
> The svabhava that Madhyamaka criticizes is the idea that phenomena possess some inherent characteristic which establishes its existence
The Dalai Lama disagrees with you and instead says that emptiness means that things lack independent existence (not merely being uncaused but also not relying on other things for their functions/properties):

>He (Dalai Lama) clarified that references to emptiness do not mean nothingness, rather that things lack independent existence. They don’t exist in and of themselves. Things are not solid and substantial the way they appear to be, they exist in dependence on other factors. Emptiness means dependently arisen; lacking independent existence. His Holiness mentioned the main forms of reasoning used to establish selflessness—diamond slivers, refutation of the four extreme types of production and the reasoning establishing the lack of being one or many. However, dependent arising is regarded as the king of reasonings because it looks at emptiness from the point of view of cause, nature and result.
https://www.dalailama.com/news/2018/second-day-of-chandrakirtis-entering-into-the-middle-way

> there is only an imputation upon parts.
The parts are directly experienced and not imputed though, so that reasoning does nothing to support the notion that the parts don’t exist.

>>23520479
If you are in the region, visit the Rubin Museum in New York before it closes in October. Across the river, the better financially endowed Newark Museum has a smaller collection but is not closing.

>>23488321
I'm anti-Buddhist, but the reaction to this was unjustified and solely from mindbroken Westerners.
>Do X, do y, do [this absurd thing]
Obviously it's a joke, but Westards (especially Americans) are obsessed with sexualising and nonceifying every little thing
>Verification not required.

>>23520454
> Cool story bro, but a non-duality between atman and brahman makes no sense since there's no atman anyw-ACK!

>>23520525
>anyway as i was saying we know the atman is brahman because the Vedas say so

>>23520546
That’s just stating matter-of-factly what the doctrine is, which is not a fallacy or an argument against something, just like how Buddhist accept doctrines about supernatural things and what happens after death based on Buddha’s Magic Insight (scripture), and that is equally not a fallacy. Engaging in question begging as part of an attempt at either proving something true or arguing against something, as you just did earlier, is engaging in a fallacy however.

>>23520471
Vajrayana rejects the buddha's teaching so everything it says is wrong

>>23520558
If I don't accept your premise why do I care about whatever hot air follows it? That's not begging the question, it's you being dogmatic and me ignoring it accordingly. If you told me airplanes were built by birds and then said because of that they both have wings I wouldn't be taking you seriously then either.

>>23520569
>If I don't accept your premise why do I care about whatever hot air follows it?
This may come as news to you, but the world doesn’t revolve around your ego, the question was never about what you should personally care or not care about, but I only engaged with people who maintained that Madhyamaka refutes the position of Advaita and/or Classical Theism and I asked them to back up that statement, and as this thread showed it actually doesn’t. You couldn’t back up your initial assertion with any arguments so you’ve just resorted to goalpost-shifting and question-begging ever since then, thus conceding to me and confirming that I was right. The Buddhists aren’t sending their best.

>>23519381
>Buddhist baseline
just to be clear this baseline is not buddhist, it's mahayanist

>>23520580
>You couldn’t back up your initial assertion with any arguments
>>23520394
>like I've said multiple times, it would be needlessly laborious in our own context to produce a refutation of the nth version of the atman for 1. a mostly atheist audience or 2. a committed vedanist who will throw out anything you tell him in between his recitation sessions
Take it or leave it (looks like you skipped that post anyway). You redefined the atman as non-dual with absolute reality and not a personal or individual self. The Mahayanists agree there is an absolute reality but it has nothing to do with atman, brahman, or the Vedas, they are not considered soteriologically efficacious to reaching such an absolute but delusions about permanence, existence, etc. You're 90% in agreement with me on theism where you actually believe in a god with attributes and actions being retarded so it's a dumb debate around "my scripture says God doesn't do anything so you are wrong that he can't be real."

>>23520580
for centuries brahmins have been arguing among themselves whether their shitty vedas are better than their shitty mahayana, and buddhists don't give a shit about any of those.

>>23520424
Things exist conventionally at the level of no analysis, as soon as you start analyzing it conventional truth falls apart. Conventional truth is like a dream, an illusion, a hallucination, a mirage, an echo, a city of gandharvas, a reflection, or an apparition.

madhyamika was a disaster for the buddhist tradition. look at all these nihilists using it as atheistic religion

>>23520625
In the pre-Mahayana, pre-sectarian literature, the Buddha, the guy you would seem to think is not a proponent of "atheistic religion," teleported himself to heaven to call Brahmā a dumb retard who only thinks he's God but is just in samsara. That's atheism to anyone who seriously believes in a creator God, to say God exists but isn't eternal, immortal, uncreated, etc.

>>23520483
You really think no western vajrayana practicioner has a healthy relationship with their guru?

>>23520634
Even if they do, it's the least compatible form of religion with western norms (church with priest) and has a substantially damaged reputation (sex cult leader). Generally it should not be available except as a sort of "advanced" tier of Mahayana for people who are already in good standing.

>>23520631
*tips fedora*

>>23520645
2007 called and wants its memes back.

You are now aware that there's buddhism in Cuba

Documental: Albores del budismo en Cuba (English subtitled version)
https://youtu.be/dKl07tXxl3g

>>23520631
in what pre-sectarian literature? because there are passages in the nikayas that say the brahama world is destined for the virtuous, although positioning the there is a degree above. in some texts the dhamma is identified with the Self etc

>"The chariots decay, not so the Dhamma" (Dh 151)

>>23520725
Merit leads to birth in deva realms, but that's worse than human birth

>>23520750
how can the cure be worse than the disease? makes no sense

>>23519129
Obviously there's something wrong with it considering >>23514757

>What is the Buddhist explanation for why the world/samsara exists at all?

>The four imponderables (acinteyya) are identified in the Acintita Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya 4.77, as follows:[8]
- The Buddha-range of the Buddhas [i.e., the range of powers a Buddha develops as a result of becoming a Buddha];
- The jhana-range of one absorbed in jhana [i.e., the range of powers that one may obtain while absorbed in jhana];
- The [precise working out of the] results of kamma (Karma in Sanskrit);
- Speculation about [the origin, etc., of] the cosmos is an imponderable that is not to be speculated about (SN 56.41 develops this speculation as the ten indeterminate).

>Pondering over the four acinteyya is a hindrance to the attainment of liberation.
Sacca-samyutta, "The Four Noble Truths", Samyutta Nikaya 56:

Therefore, o monks, do not brood over [any of these views] Such brooding, O monks, is senseless, has nothing to do with genuine pure conduct (s. ādibrahmacariyaka-sīla), does not lead to aversion, detachment, extinction, nor to peace, to full comprehension, enlightenment and Nibbāna, etc.[17]

And the Aggi-Vacchagotta Sutta, "Discourse to Vatsagotra on the [Simile of] Fire," Majjhima Nikaya 72:

Vaccha, [any of these views] is a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. It is accompanied by suffering, distress, despair, & fever, and it does not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation; to calm, direct knowledge, full Awakening, Unbinding.

The Buddha further warns that

>Whoever speculates about these things would go mad & experience vexation.

The Sabbasava Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 2[15]) also mentions 16 questions which are seen as "unwise reflection" and lead to attachment to views relating to a self.

What am I?
How am I?
Am I?
Am I not?
Did I exist in the past?
Did I not exist in the past?
What was I in the past?
How was I in the past?
Having been what, did I become what in the past?
Shall I exist in future?
Shall I not exist in future?
What shall I be in future?
How shall I be in future?
Having been what, shall I become what in future?
Whence came this person?
Whither will he go?

The Buddha states that it is unwise to be attached to both views of having and perceiving a self and views about not having a self. Any view which sees the self as "permanent, stable, everlasting, unchanging, remaining the same for ever and ever" is "becoming enmeshed in views, a jungle of views, a wilderness of views; scuffling in views, the agitation (struggle) of views, the fetter of views."

The Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta, MN 63[9] and 72[10] contains a list of ten unanswered questions about certain views (ditthi):

The world is eternal.
The world is not eternal.
The world is (spatially) infinite.
The world is not (spatially) infinite.
The being imbued with a life force is identical with the body.
The being imbued with a life force is not identical with the body.
The Tathagata (a perfectly enlightened being) exists after death.
The Tathagata does not exist after death.
The Tathagata both exists and does not exist after death.
The Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist after death.

In the Aggi-Vacchagotta Sutta,[6] "Discourse to Vatsagotra on the [Simile of] Fire," Majjhima Nikaya 72,[web 3] the Buddha is questioned by Vatsagotra on the "ten indeterminate question:"[5] avyākrta[4]

Is the cosmos eternal, non-eternal, finite, infinite?
Are the soul and the body (jīvam & sarīram) similar or different?
After death, a Tathagata exists, does not exist, both exists and does not exist, neither exists nor does not exist?
The Buddha refuses to answer the questions, avoiding getting entangled in debate, but answers with a simile:[5]

"And suppose someone were to ask you, 'This fire that has gone out in front of you, in which direction from here has it gone? East? West? North? Or south?' Thus asked, how would you reply?"
"That doesn't apply, Master Gotama. Any fire burning dependent on a sustenance of grass and timber, being unnourished — from having consumed that sustenance and not being offered any other — is classified simply as 'out' (unbound)."
"Even so, Vaccha, any physical form by which one describing the Tathagata would describe him: That the Tathagata has abandoned, its root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future arising. Freed from the classification of form, Vaccha, the Tathagata is deep, boundless, hard to fathom, like the sea. 'Reappears' doesn't apply. 'Does not reappear' doesn't apply. 'Both does & does not reappear' doesn't apply. 'Neither reappears nor does not reappear' doesn't apply.

https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Discernment/Section0003.html

the Buddha’s strategy for finding true happiness is to focus discernment on the processes of intentional action, to determine whether they are skillful—conducive to long-lasting happiness—or not. Part of this strategy, especially at the highest stages of the practice, is to regard discernment itself as an intentional action. This helps you gauge when to foster it and when to abandon it for a higher purpose: total release.

The Buddha taught that discernment begins by seeking out knowledgeable contemplatives—people who have trained their minds to gain personal experience of the highest happiness—and asking them,
>“What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?”

To do this demonstrates discernment in four important ways:
• It shows that you know enough to ask the advice of people more experienced than you.
• You realize that happiness comes from your own actions.
• You realize that long-term is better than short-term.
• Above all, you realize that the search for long-term happiness is the most worthy use of your discernment—the search for true happiness is a noble pursuit—and that you need discernment to do it right.

As the question makes clear, “doing it right” means searching for a happiness that lasts. The Buddha discovered in the course of his awakening that two kinds of happiness meet these qualifications: one that’s created by your intentional actions, and one that’s totally uncreated. His terms for these two types of experience are fabricated (sankhata) and unfabricated (asankhata). These two terms are central to his teachings in general, and to his instructions on happiness in particular, so it’s important to understand them.

>>23521374
The term “fabrication” refers both to intentional actions—mental or physical—as well as to the mental or physical conditions they shape. All experience at the senses—the five physical senses and the mind taken as a sixth sense—is fabricated through past and present intentional actions in thought, word, or deed.
>Past actions provide the raw material for present experience.
From this raw material,
>your present intentions—sometimes consciously, sometimes subconsciously—select and shape what you actually experience in the present.
These present intentions also add to the range of raw material from which you will select and shape experiences in the future.

>Because no intentions are constant or permanent, they can’t create a constant or permanent happiness.
The best they can create, when they’re trained to be skillful, is a happiness that’s relatively long-lasting and harmless.

>The only happiness not subject to change is unfabricated happiness, a happiness that does not depend on intentional actions for its existence.
>Nibbana (nirvana) is the most famous term for this happiness.
It literally means “unbinding” or “freeing.” But the Buddha describes this happiness metaphorically with other terms as well. These include: peace, the deathless, exquisite, bliss, rest, the wonderful, the marvelous, security, the unafflicted, purity, the island, shelter, harbor, refuge, the ultimate.

Even though intentional actions cannot create this happiness, they can be trained to a heightened level of skill where they allow all fabrications—even themselves—to fall still, revealing the unfabricated dimension that they’ve been hiding all along. A traditional metaphor for this process is the desire to go to a park. The desire doesn’t cause the park to be, but it’s what gets you there. Once you’ve arrived, the desire is no longer needed and so falls away on its own.

The most skillful use of discernment, of course, is to pursue unfabricated happiness. But this doesn’t mean that fabricated happiness has no value on the path. The Buddha gave detailed instructions on how to use discernment in pursuing long-term happiness of both sorts.
>The skills needed for long-term fabricated happiness he taught under the term, “acts of merit”
because they produce happiness while causing no one any harm.
>These acts include generosity, virtue, and the development of universal goodwill.
The pursuit of merit gives preliminary training to discernment in many of the more difficult skills needed to succeed in the pursuit of nibbana.

>>23521388
Acts of merit also exercise your discernment. To begin with, they show you the value and importance of your own actions: that
>you have the ability to choose how you act, and that your actions have consequences in bringing about pleasure or pain.
You see for yourself that
>when you choose to do acts of merit, you gain a more long-lasting happiness
than the pleasure that would come from choosing to act in opposite ways: being stingy, acting harmfully, and acting from ill will. Although some of these results take time to appear, others appear in the immediate present. For instance, you see that, when dealing with another person, if you bring an attitude of goodwill to the situation, you experience a very different situation than if you had approached that person with hostility.
>You’re shaping your experiences right in the here and now.

Seeing this leads to an attitude that the Buddha calls heedfulness (appamada): the realization that, given the power of all your actions,
>you have to be careful in how you choose to act right now, all the time.
This, he says, is the attitude underlying all skillful action. You see the need to use discernment in motivating yourself
(1) to act skillfully even in cases where you don’t feel like it, and
(2) to avoid unskillful actions even when you feel like doing them

As you develop discernment by acting on this attitude of heedfulness, you foster two aspects of a healthy sense of self that are necessary all along the path:
>the ability to delay present gratification for the sake of a more reliable happiness in the future
>a sense of confidence—and competence—that you can withstand any unskillful urges that used to get in the way of acting in your own true best interest.

Heedfulness helps you see the need to be careful even on this immediate level, for
>a moment of desire or dislike can lead you to see things in ways that will impel you to act unskillfully now and on into the future.
Heedfulness also teaches you that
>if you want an unending happiness, you can’t depend on happiness created by fabrication.
You have to dig deeper, to something unfabricated, if you want to find a happiness that’s truly reliable.
When you reflect further that all levels of being are subject to the vagaries of action, heedfulness grows stronger, into a sense of urgency (samvega) that gives rise to the factors of the path to the unfabricated, leading beyond levels of being of every sort.

As for the healthy sense of self developed in the pursuit of merit, both aspects are useful in the pursuit of nibbana.
>(1) You need to be able to deny yourself certain pleasures in the present for the sake of the ultimate pleasure of nibbana.
(2) Because the pursuit of nibbana requires overcoming desires that lead in other directions, the sense of your own competence in overcoming unskillful desires while pursuing merit gives a boost to your confidence that you, too, can follow the path all the way to nibbana.

>>23521407
This is why the next stage of discernment is devoted to
>developing dispassion for all fabrications.

This stage is so important that Ven. Sariputta once singled it out as the best first answer when an intelligent newcomer asks:
“What does the Buddha teach?”
>the Buddha teaches the subduing of passion and desire for fabrications

Notice that, from this point of view,
>the Buddha’s central teaching deals with a skill.
Subduing these mental states is something you learn to do. Everything else in the Buddha’s teachings is aimed at showing you how to do this well. Because the central teaching is a skill, the logical next question focuses on motivation: Why develop this skill? And the answer is that, if you don’t, you suffer when fabrications change.
>If you do develop the skill, then even though fabrications change, their change won’t cause you to suffer.
Other passages make the point that
>the subduing of passion and desire for fabrications not only avoids suffering, but also leads to the highest happiness, which—because it’s unfabricated—is not subject to change.

All of these passages are based on two pairs of premises about the nature of experience.
>fabrications—both the processes of fabrication and the fabricated experiences that result—inevitably change, and that all experienced change is a sign of fabrication.
>an unfabricated, unchanging happiness is possible, and that lack of change is a sign of the unfabricated.

These two pairs underlie the entire program for developing discernment in pursuit of nibbana. And they’re fairly radical.
>If every change you experience comes from fabrication, then you’re fabricating your experience in ways you don’t even realize.
This gives some idea of how difficult it is to reach the unfabricated, for it will involve sensitizing yourself to many of the deeply hidden processes of your own mind. Yet this very premise is what makes the experience of a deathless happiness possible, for
> if change comes from within, then the end of change can come from within as well.
>If suffering comes from what you do, then you can end it by changing what you do.
The path is within your power. Without these premises, the idea of a path to the end of suffering and stress wouldn’t make sense. This is why these premises are basic to the path.

The Buddha’s program for developing your discernment follows two simultaneous tracks.
>learning to sensitize yourself to the extent that you are already fabricating your experience.
>using fabrications to develop the qualities of mind that foster dispassion for all fabrications
—including, ultimately, the fabrications underlying those qualities of mind and the qualities themselves.

>>23521322
>>23521329
>>23521334
>stop asking questions goy only focus on what we tell you is important

>>23522222
The answer will not free you from suffering

>>23522344
I don't expect it to.

>>23522361
Appropriate attention. Once you have listened to the Dhamma, you have to think about it. This is the role of appropriate attention, which is the ability to frame your questions rightly. Applying appropriate attention to the Dhamma means asking questions about the Dhamma that focus on how to see things in terms of the four noble truths and to develop the duties appropriate to each. Applying appropriate attention also means
>avoiding any questions that would pull you away from actually practicing the path.

The Canon contains long lists of these distracting questions, which cover many common philosophical and religious issues about the nature or existence of your true self, or the nature or origin of the world.
>The Buddha compared an interest in these questions to a man who, shot by an arrow, refuses to have it removed until he has learned who made the arrow, who shot it, and so forth.
The man would die before finding an answer to his questions.
To develop appropriate attention is to focus on removing the arrow as quickly as possible. This is an important exercise in
>focusing your discernment on detecting what really matters and ignoring issues that would get in the way.

>>23522405
Sorry, but I don't think I'm compatible with Buddhism. Maybe in another life, if reincarnation turns out to be true.