/lit/ - Literature

>>5205168
To clarify

I was thinking about how I often feel a kind of need to engage with the world and other people, and fit in somewhere. You know, to make something of life, to take an interest. But then I was thinking while looking around a parking lot, the Buddha left all this behind, he determined that there's nothing in this dimension worth being or seeking, that it's better to go extinct. It really hit me - that kind of rejection of life's value, that preference for extinction, that extreme degree of detachment.

>>5205168
The whole importance of Gautama Buddha wasn't that he achieved enlightment. According to Buddhism, many others did before him. The point is that Gautama was the first one to spread the word instead of keeping it for himself. He's not here, because people die and in his days there wasn't any Tibetan/Bon loophole to allow for Dalai Lama-style reincarnations, but he left his teachings, which are far more important. Buddhism focuses on people becoming their own Buddha rather than having a Buddha "to help us". People don't need a savior, they have to save themselves.

Buddha's goal was also not to "personally escape", otherwise more than half of his life wouldn't have consisted of him travelling and spreading his teachings. He could have just died. His prime motivation to find enlightment in the first place was to help others, plus true enlightment does away with selfishness as there's no "self".

>By making extinction or nirvana the great goal of life, the Buddha negated all positive value to life.
Nirvana isn't death and it isn't the extinction of life. It's the extinction of craving and suffering. It is perfectly possible to achieve Nirvana and keep on living a peaceful life with positive values. Even if one does not achieve Nirvana, Buddha's doctrine asks people to live life with positive values in order to avoid needless craving and suffering.

TL;DR read more buddhism.

>>5205168

>dualism
>buddhism

pick one

>>5205168

>mfw when /lit/ talks about 'buddhism' w/o mentioning any specific school/tradition/yana

>>5205222
>Nirvana isn't death and it isn't the extinction of life. It's the extinction of craving and suffering. It is perfectly possible to achieve Nirvana and keep on living a peaceful life with positive values. Even if one does not achieve Nirvana, Buddha's doctrine asks people to live life with positive values in order to avoid needless craving and suffering.

the buddha's highest teaching in the samyutta-nikaya, which respected scholar monk yin shun of modern times considered the original nikaya from the first council after the nirvana of the buddha, is total detachment from all phenomena. it is not a guide to working, having a family, living a normal life. it is a manual for total detachment. the nikayan pure detachment teachings are actually higher than mahayana concepts. tibetan buddhism has things that the historical buddha represented in the nikayas as an austere totally detached ascetic would not recognize as his own teaching or way of life.

and anyway you miss my point, which is that by making nirvana, cessation of rebirths, cessation of life in bodies, as beings, as people, whatever way it's conceived, the highest goal, it makes life as such, the here and now everyday chore-filled time wasted humdrum reality, something to be disgusted by (the buddha used the word nibbida which has the sense of a kind of refined, yogic disgust with everything), detached from, liberated from. this is so undeniable in the texts. the whole thrust of the teaching is towards nirvana, cessation of the factors which lead to rebirth. you say that the buddha didn't have knowledge of how to be reborn? you fool, what do you think the paticca-nirodha series is all about if not the mechanism of rebirth and the mechanism of nirvana? stupid fool, not seeing what's right there. by conceiving of life as samsara, with mara luring you into kharmic involvement with desires, in other words keeping the wheel of dependent origination rolling, it makes this life, the every day, the job and family, something detestable, to be transcended by attaining this life nirvana and final nirvana at death. forever gone - disappeared. not coming back. do you see my point? this world, which we become so engaged in, reading the news, worrying about things, was rejected by the buddha, transcended, left behind. he did not want to be here, did not care to interact with anyone anymore. not a human or animal, of the billions of kinds on earth. he did not want to see another day, or night, or sun or moon or star. do you see the point? he rejected it. like kurt cobain age 27 saying fuck it. nirvana. it was shocking. that he rejected this life. like dave grohl said, it felt weird living another day knowing kurt chose not to live another.

also i have 1000 books on buddhism. u?

>>5205357
my point is that buddhism is actually kind of like if the taliban were all on a soy diet and smoking hashish

but modern fags try to make it into a california save the world kind of thing

The only illusion is the illusion of separation from the source. those stuck in samsara and those living behind the veil of maya fail to notice this.

It takes suffering and meditation to achieve liberation.

>>5205437

>source
lelbudhdy

>>5205357

"not grasping", "not craving", "not clinging" etc (all the usual words scholars use in translations)...do not have the same connotations as the words you're using - "detesting", being "disgusted" (detachment is maybe okay...though even that has more coronations than necessary). once you realize that "not clinging" doesn't mean or imply "disgust", your objection starts to make little sense.

>>5205449
the pre-existent source.

>>5205395
That's what ALL religion is like if you actually take it seriously. Even Judaism, practiced in its most extreme forms, is intensely radical. Let's not even get started on Christianity and its radicalism. Islam's radicalism is already on common display.

Most people are too pleb to follow a religion seriously.

>>5205452
sorry, but you are incorrect. the buddha taught pure detachment for the sake of attaining nirvana as cessation of rebirth after death.

>>5205452
i guess you're not familiar with the word nibbida as used in the pali nikayas? they dont teach nibbida in your californian yoga center for women

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” - Buddha

>>5205529
From Buddhism For Plebs Kalama Sutta

a great way to know that someone doesnt know shit about buddhism is when they qoute that particular little saying. out of the massive jungle of tripitaka, the longest collection of books in the world, anon just happens to pick the one every other pleb does LOL ayyy lmao

>>5205168
Isnt that the Nietzche's argument?

>>5205452
This is sort of the secular apologist approach to Buddhism that's popular in the West.

>non-attachment is like not getting mad when someone honks at you in traffic hehe

>>5205567
read that in this voice

>>5205548
You have a serious need to feel superior in your Buddhist understanding don't you? With a hate for the world, or a disgust as you put it, and an arrogance regarding your readings. I can't help you, and I don't care to.

>>5205584
>You want to touch my students? I'll touch you.
>Take that hippie!
>Fascist!

>>5205585
But he is sort of right. Buddhism isn't some hippy shit. If we all were to strictly follow the teachings of Gautama humanity would die out within a century.

>>5205594
I don't care less about Buddhism. I'm commenting on his arrogance and need for superiority and how that contrasts to Buddhist practice. Hate isn't a Buddhist teaching, and though he's likely got a lot more education on the subject than anyone else here on /lit/, he's not practicing Buddhism, he's practicing a superiority complex.

>>5205585
u jus mad cus i calld u on that buddhism 4 dummies kallama sutta quote nigga

>>5205626
Really, I could care less about this entire conversation and everyone in it. I like that quote, and I don't need your approval, as much as you might think I care. My view of Buddhism is my own, and I disagree with yours, but I have no interest in talking to you about it because your education on it is motivated by a need for supremacy.

>>5205631
Yet you keep posting.

>>5205635
I am suffering from a physical agony due to a wound. I'm surfing 4chan to keep my mind off the pain. I'm posting to you, because it is giving me something to do while I have no ability to concentrate on things that are more important. Yet, you're having fun being a troll. Fine. I'm benefiting by witnessing your complete and utter idiocy and failure as a human being.

>>5205599
the buddha said, i do not teach for the purification of virtue, but for the attainment of nirvana.

there is a distinction, virtue for virtue's sake does not necessarily lead to nirvana. good action is still action. pure detachment means inclining towards total non-action. the buddha would not have ran soup kitchens, but he would help ill monks. the difference is where his compassion lies, in the monks near nirvana already by the propensity of their past actions, just in need of a little push over the edge, or for homeless alcoholics who drove their lives off track themselves?

buddhism is inherently elitist.

>>5205168
Read some Shinran.

>>5205648
I don't care what the Buddha said. He's no authority. He says himself not to listen to him, or all of the scholars that would inevitably rise up regarding him. Your interpretation of Buddhist texts is not interesting to me because they're yours, not mine. There is no authority when it comes to nirvana or Buddhism. I do what I do knowing it's what is best for me. You are the type who would tell me what I should do, which is probably only what is best for you. I have no interest in learning your interpretation of a text that says itself to learn it on your own. You may imagine yourself as an authority on ancient Buddhist texts, but that's not getting you anywhere near understanding them, it's just filling your head with your own personal egotism. If you understood Buddhism, you wouldn't take the role of a teacher to people who have no interest in your stupid ramblings or your lessons on what is true Buddhism.

question to participating anons,

for those who resonate with this emphasis on the pure detachment teaching of the nikayas, as opposed to the more worldly level stuff, do you think it would be worth starting a new sect - distinct from buddhism?

the reasoning being that, as soon as one tries to restore buddhism to its original, ascetic, austere roots, one is met by this overwhelming opposition of lay buddhists and modernized monks who have their own take on it all. it's tiring to go through the same arguments.

when i go into buddhism mode in my thinking, it's like a time warp back into ancient india, in the middle of an alternative culture that celebrated disciplined ascetics, yogis, monks as great men (mahapurisas). buddhism was part of the shramanic culture, non-theistic ascetic philosopher yogis who over and above all other things sought a perfect detachment and liberation from all reality. think of jainism with the concept of kaivalya or the isolated eternal state of the pure atman, or the higher levels of the jhanic dimensions in early buddhism, such as the 'dimension of nothingness'. all the buddha's early yogic training and later life teaching has the flavor of perfect, pure, unadulterated detachment. buddhism codified much of the shramanic culture's general ways of thinking, for example by turning a vague 'way of being' into the codified 'ariyo atthangiko maggo" aryan eightfold way. the buddha should be seen as one who attained the highest detachment. it's no common thing, he would not have babbled foolishly err and uhmming all over the place, talking about the weather. he was detached, aloof, impersonal, a presence not a person. he would not walk and start whistling an old song, there is no mention of him laughing in the entire texts.

>>5205719
Now you want to be the leader of a sect, don't you? Kool-Aid next?

>>5205726
depends what kind of artificial flavoring kool-aid uses.

aspartame is interesting since it is related to nmda receptors, aspartate, but i get some heart palpitations from too much of it combined with caffeine

>>5205719
Why do you need others to follow you? Why not do this all on your own? What's the purpose of starting a sect? Do you want to teach them, to be a leader, to lord over others, to deify yourself? Why not just call yourself the new Satya Sai Baba, a reincarnated diety, and get your egotistical show on the road?

>>5205744
ask the buddha the same question, tard

>>5205763
I'm the guy who said already that he doesn't give a shit about the Buddha or what he says.

>>5205763
You can't answer me, can you? Because deep down you know that all you really want is to be a demigod with followers of your new sect and your personal interpretation so you don't have to:

>go through the same arguments

Obviously, you've already been trying to establish yourself as a leader. Would you like to proclaim your deism here on 4chan?

>>5205768
my purpose is this: being interested in buddhism, involved in the study of its history and ideas and ways of living, having participated in innumerable discussions and debates regarding its interpretation, or its applicability in the modern world, or even its validity as a way of living and thinking, having formed my own views through my research and my own experience, finding that they are in conflict with others, particularly those of mainstream modern buddhism, i feel a necessity to make my interpretations known to others for their benefit, just as i have benefited from reading other authors or gurus or whatever. every little bit adds up in the puzzle, so being exposed to my intense version of buddhism will help everyone even if they remain in conflict with me on the matter. i like the idea of someone shaking things up in buddhism, pulling down the cobwebs. i'm putting the aryan back in aryan way. for too long jews have infested buddhism, softening its ancient ascetic fundamentalism, and i'm tired of it. the lazy east asian monks don't get off the hook either.

personally i'm of purely british heritage.

>>5205782
do you recognize my posts from past threads or is this your first exposure? if so, learn a little more about me first. i'm very reclusive, exposure and publicity is not my thing.

>>5205803
>i feel a necessity to make my interpretations known to others for their benefit

Go fuck yourself. Eat shit. And die. I'm sure you haven't been successful in your efforts yet, because you're a megalomaniacal, egotistical, self-absorbed, oxymoron of a Buddhist who just wants followers and to be a revered deity, like any leader in spirituality that nobody needs and is entirely incompetent with an ambition to be an alpha male in an area of spirituality that is definitively against that entire ego-enterprise.

when people - males - who are involved in spiritual culture happen to meet each other, there is an unspoken recognition of each others level of discipline and realization. it does not work on the internet because it involves the brain perceiving a very subtle something in the presence of the other. i am someone who... if we met... you would take my views very seriously.

>>5205809
>learn a little more about me first

Fuck you. You're not worth learning about. You're completely worthless and won't benefit anyone at all with your self-glorification, not even yourself; you have already been failing, haven't changed your ways, and are still trying to establish your ego-supremacy over others who you would like to teach, with errors.

>>5205818
thank you, your opposition is inspiring.

>>5205829
Now you have magic powers, huh? You're funny. At least I'm getting a laugh.

>>5205830
>>5205835
pls continue

>>5205838
Are you struck dumb or something? Can't speak?

>>5205829
>i am someone who... if we met... you would take my views very seriously

This is comedy gold. Unfortunately, it also is a factual representation of how these spiritual guru types and their followers think. Teaching non-ego, practicing megalomania.

>suppose, monks, there was a great tree. and a man came along bringing a shovel and a basket. he cut down the tree, dug it up, pulled out the roots, even the fine rootlets and root-fibre. then he cut the tree into pieces, split the pieces, and reduced them to thin slivers. then he dried the slivers in the wind and sun, burned them in a fire, and collected the ashes.
then winnowed the ashes in a strong wind. that great tree would be cut off at the root, made like a palm stump, obliterated so that it is no more subject to future arising. "so too, monks, when one dwells contemplating danger in phenomena of clinging, craving ceases... thus is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering.

this translation is from samyutta-nikaya. now tell me the buddha wasn't pointing towards pure detachment, total nirvana. just try.

i cannot even think of a more vivid, extreme example. the commentaries explain the sutta in its deeper meaning as being symbolic of the monk meditating. the man who cuts down the tree is the monk who destroys his fascination with life and the five aggregates that make up his being, reducing the tree to slivers and then burning them and scattering the ashes refers to the process of meditating and seeing all phenomena as empty, detaching from them completely until nothing is left. that is nirvana.

>>5205851
come at me bro

let's see how u feel near me

mebbe ill... zuk ya dik

>>5205168
>. But where is Buddha to help us? He lived, left a teaching, and attained final extinction. He left us behind.

And that should be enough. The buddha cannot walk the path for you.

>>5205872
Your power is amazing. I can feel it through my computer. It's like vibes from outer space that are screaming: I am a worthless piece of shit so I must become a god, to get the qt gf.

>>5205869
What you assume is that I disagree with the Buddha when I disagree with your stupid arrogance and desires to be a teacher as if someone needed you. Your efforts to argue your points with others, as you've stated, have been futile. Your efforts to argue with anyone will be futile because they aren't your words or your teachings, and you teach with your arrogance displayed in every once of your being. It's completely apparent, and anyone with a self-esteem is going to see that. If you find followers, they'll be like little abused housewives and you'll be the abusive husband bullying them into believing your made-up interpretations of Buddhism.

>>5205869
Have you even achieved nirvana yet, or are you just making assumptions?

>>5205882
i don't like girls. (or boys.) i'm not in it for the genitals.

>>5205906
i'm on, warm milk
and laxatives

cherry, flavored
antacids

>>5205882
also i never said anything about magic powers, although i am four years from thirty so who knows amirite.

but it's more a thing of, like recognizing a cool person, laid back and detached, not so nervous and foolish. that kind of thing. it has to do with the degree of meditative discipline, experience, past breakthroughs, breakdowns, the whole thing.

if you lack life experience, that's probably why you don't know what i'm talking about here. otherwise i'd consider this common knowledge - every man assesses his role in relation to others, and in the spiritual culture among yogis this involves certain qualities which 'i' manifest.

>>5205929
I'm bored now. You're wasting your life being an egotist. Lose it.

>>5205938
pls anon, merge into the herd of humble cows like the rest of us, dont thinkkkkkk ur god

this thread lmao

>>5206274

>>5205168

you're forgetting that boddhisattvas, those who achieve enlightenment, are supposed to help others achieve it too, for we are all one

>>5205938
>>5205744
>>5205726

i'd like to remind you of the great right that we are fortunate to have in this country, if you're american, the right to start or be part of any religion of our personal choosing and the right to think and practice that religion however we choose to as long as it does not transgress laws of the particular place of practice. it is entirely within my rights to start my own sect of buddhism. you don't need to register your own religion with any government agency unless you are involved in business and money with it. which i'm not. so it's entirely conceptual, abstract.

>>5206339
sometimes helping is difficult, even helping other monks. there is a sutta where mahakasyapa says to the buddha that the monks under his command are unruly, difficult to deal with, not compliant with his directions, and so on. so he says forget about them for now.

in other words, keep in mind the very mundane, practical, ugly side of "helping people". it's often an intrusive holier than thou AA cult meeting vibe. sometimes just standing back and embodying detachment says more than a speech on compassion. it's my compassion to be a walking sign to nirvana, for you to feel my aloofness. not in a cold, sociopathic way, but meditatively nirvanized.

>>5206453

>>5206470
>it's my compassion to be a walking sign to nirvana

You are a wonderfully funny idiot to observe. Have you attained nirvana, or are you just full of shit?

>>5206503
sometimes you get into a band when they first start out, even though they or the main songwriter doesn't reach their peak moment until 20 years later

good morning, friends

glad to see the thread is still alive, now i don't have to start a new one for the day's thoughts

the main topic still interests me, so let me reiterate it for today's reader base:

my point is that 1) the buddha believed in the cycle of births and deaths 2) that, without attaining nirvana, there is rebirth, another life to live 3) that one should live the holy life precisely for the purpose of putting a stop to rebirth, to attain nirvana, to never get born again, to never live another life and that 4) this view of the world of everyday humdrum experience negates all positive value from it, except inasmuch as all hope is not lost, and release (liberation) is possible.

this conclusion would seem very obvious to any scholars of the recent past, those who admitted they labored over the texts again and again trying to reach some other conclusion than "nirvana is extinction", which was the most obvious one. whatever way we conceive of nirvana, matters little, since it is universally agreed that when an arahant or buddha died physical death, they attain final nirvana, and never return to this world again. ever!

my conclusion, which is really just an accurate view of the mode of thinking in the early texts, poses a problem for modern lay buddhists - the type who think the buddha only included rebirth because it was a cultural belief, the types who think buddhism can be a secular thing, practiced in offices and schools, by women and children, or that one can be a "good buddhist" while having a job, wife, family, etc. for these people, i remind them, the buddha spoke of this life as samsara, as something to detach from, that it is not worth engaging in, not worth being fascinated by, that it is worth detaching from completely.

pure detachment - this is the teaching of the buddhas.

prove me wrong

>>5208840
gentlemen, please read the sutta in the provided picture. it is not my translation, but i rendered it lower case for superior reading enjoyment.

in my reading, the negative conclusion of this teaching is inevitable - the fire goes out. this sutta is about nirvana without even using the word. i hold that this teaching is incompatible with living a life engaged with the world, it only permits a reclusive, monastic life inclined to withdrawal of active energies within, as it were, in repose and quiescence.

lay buddhists who marry and have kids make me sick. what do you think that is if not desire and attachment in full force? drop that shit. be hardcore like jorge.

>>5209350
I haven't read much by buddhists, or about buddhism, but I have a problem with "pure detachment is teaching of the buddha" I think its more along the intention is the remove the notion of the induvidual being seperate/distinct an outsider looking upon the totality of life. The other problem i have is with the "extinction being the logical conclusion""
So long as 99% of the human population lives are under suffering/fear then the systems of interaction between people and nature will be fear and suffering. Even if you become a total recluse and contemplate detachment along the Buddhist lines, your life/thoughts/habits are pure reaction to the world and whatever beliefs and assumptions conditioned into you (the past). Also you think and continue to contemplate being a aesthetic(detachement/ seperating) your present thoughts condition you
So long you haven't experienced nirvana(ended suffering) to reinforce the notion your differentness to the rest of the world/life.
But the whole thing about life experience/perception after nirvana is that it is wholly distinct and incomparable to how we live now(suffering) and also it lived completely in the NOW. So moment to moment the induvidual throws all their energy intelligence/love into what they are doing (without anticipation of the future//benefit/rewards etc.. or reacting through past conditioning/knowledge/habit)
A small population of humans all living without maya, would live a longer, healthier and intensely more beautiful/meaningful lives than whatever has been experienced so far under fear/suffering

>>5208840
at least i can appreciate that you didn't put an annoying trip