/lit/ - Literature

I'd like to join a monastery like the one that Alyosha was part of in The Brothers Karamazov.

>>6856245

Because I don't desire power.

theres no winners when ur at war with yourself tbh

>>6856262
Upvoted!

>>6856256
Yes you do

because I don't hate myself THAT much

>>6856349

So YOU are telling ME what I don't and do desire. Sorry anon, I got a brain that does it's own thinking, I don't need you.

And the very fact that you have the balls to tell another human being what they do/don't desire shows how fucking nutty you are. Humble the fuck up anon, it's not too late.

>>6856367
Your brain tells you very little about what it's doing, and what it does tell you is more of a fill-in-the-blank exercise than an structured, journalistic overview

Read some Nietzsche and you'll get the drift

>>6856459
>Read some Nietzsche and you'll get the drift
>mfw

>>6856472
You have a very good collection of gifs, do you mind if I save them?

>>6856245
>Why aren't you an ascetic?

I enjoy my desires elegantly and skillfully.

>>6856506

If you desire it.

>>6856542

Desires are natural and can never be completely ended as long as you have a normally functioning body. Ascetics have desires too, they just sublimate their desires for things like sex for other desires (union with God, states of meditative bliss).

Management and moderation of desires is a better way to achieve eudaimonia than total self denial

>>6856459

>I read Nietzsche now I KNOW that I can't know anything and I don't have the ability to know anything
>proceeds to try to get you to know something that they know

Your own lack of self-awareness was almost enough to convince me of your reprehensible philosophy but logic is impartial; it crushes luminaries and loons with the same fist.

>>6856809

.....So they desire to end desire?

>>6856245
Because I want children

ascetic bliss = lack of craving, not desire.

>>6857005
THE DESIRE IS NEVERENDING

YOU MUST BECOME A HEDONIST THERE IS NO TIME TO LOSE

>>6856245
Because that's a lie.

>>6857005
Yes, basically. The Buddha already had to come face to face with this issue. For the Buddha, you basically accept that desire (for the ending of desire) until you've conquered all other cravings, and then you can work on the more subtle mental desire for ending of desire. However, in my opinion, it is ultimately impossible to end all cravings/aversions because the source of desire is embodied cognition and our physical bodies. The Buddha taught that through deep meditative states one could quiet these physical drives, but ultimately, its a losing battle against millions of years of mammalian evolution pushing upon your feeble frontal lobe. In the end you can attempt sublimation and repression, but it is often unhealthy to not express any of our desires.

The Buddhists and other ascetics also make a false dichotomy between earthly pleasures and heavenly or unearthly bliss (union with god, jhanic/meditative states). However, this is a mistake. Pleasures which come from material/earthly things like sex, a massage, music, drugs, are not of a completely different kind from those which come from mental forces such as meditation, contemplation, reading religious texts, etc. They use the same pathways in the brain that lead to relaxation and pleasure. They also often require some form of external stimulus or aid as well. Ultimately we all seek to change our consciousness, and just because some choose not to use things like sexuality or drugs, does not mean they are inherently superior. It also does not mean that one category is inherently separate from the other, all these means to pleasure or mental relaxation are similar to each other and to separate some of them off and call them worldly or unskillful is based on irrational arguments.

Why are you separating your self from your desires? Power is things being with your control, under your influence, but 'you' are your will. Self-control that ends any external control surely is not power. Imposing your will on others is far greater than imposing one will upon another in yourself.

>>6858195
>They use the same pathways in the brain that lead to relaxation and pleasure.
according to who ?

>>6858195
>They also often require some form of external stimulus or aid as well.
yes, and the goal of buddhism is to reach the unconditionned ''experience''/state whatever is nibbana.

the supranatural jhana[s?] remove completely the desires, while the jhanas before the supranatural one[s?] only diminish desires

>>6858739
>Power is things being with your control, under your influence, but 'you' are your will.
hardly. what do you control really, whatever the other stimuli ?

if you love chocolate, can you stop eating it for months or year ?

if you do not like spiders at all, can you stop being afraid of them ?

how many persons have you influenced efficiently ? for how long ?

>>6858783
>according to who ?

Neuroscience, look up the relaxation response, and the effect meditation has on serotonin and other brain chemicals

>yes, and the goal of buddhism is to reach the unconditionned ''experience''/state whatever is nibbana.
>the supranatural jhana[s?] remove completely the desires, while the jhanas before the supranatural one[s?] only diminish desires

Actually the "formless states" (they are not really referred to as jhanas in the Canon, btw, technically only the four jhanas are real jhanas) do not completely remove desires. Subtle clinging is only said to be removed by complete liberation, nibbana.

However this is the Buddhist narrative. Realistically, I do not see how one could completely end desires because they arise from physical mental and bodily processes. You would have to chemically and physically operate on someone and change their brains radically to end all cravings.

Basically, if you hold to the modern understanding of the brain as understood by science, nirvana as defined by the canon is pretty much impossible.

>>6856245
Power is when you crush your opponents skull you hippy

>>6856256
oh shit

Surely the desire for food and water is impossible to overcome without death and regardless of how enlightened one can get they can never overcome all desires?

>>6858977
>You would have to chemically and physically operate on someone and change their brains radically to end all cravings.
indeed, it would be interesting to see what biologists can retrieve from those who are near nibbana

>>6859101
>Surely the desire for food and water is impossible to overcome without death
well you can be ok to die

>>6856245

Im preparing to join the Foreign Legion after I finish philosophy in uni.

Depending on how things work and if they get accept me, I could either continue there, make/ record some films around the world or become a monk or an ascetic in a monastery.

>>6856256

I'd say even desiring anything is power and the desire of power

maybe.

>>6859339
power is a madness. desire is craving/wanting/synonyms. I don't think they are the same at all. However the powerful believes he can get everything and therefore he isn't perturbed by desires. Unless there is a case where he can not get it, and then it consumes him.

>>6859326
Yeh but this means either Buddha didn't eat or drink or he was a bullshitter

>>6856245
Because then I couldn't 420bl@zef@ggot$

>>6859334
prepare to get raped if you actually manage to get in (which you won't)

>>6859749
I believe that the orthodox view is that he didn't feel the physical cravings of thirst and hunger, but knew when to eat and drink to keep his body living.

He also was said to feel no physical pain

Again, this is ridiculous

>>6860565
most ascetic monks blaze it all day to reach a higher plane of existance
Look at the sufis

>>6858195
Tantrayana blows all of these criticisms out of the water.

>>6861134
The vast majority of sufi tariqats, none of which could be described as ascetic monks, demand complete abstinence of intoxicants.

>>6858977
To me, "desire" is the shadow of true purpose. Eating to live is different from eating to satiate hunger, because it's more in touch with the true purpose of the action. Go back far enough along the chain, and everything happens for the same purpose.

One mistake a lot of people seem to make is thinking that going back will either lead you nowhere or lead you to a void; that repeatably asking "why?" will lead to the conclusion that everything happens for no reason.

>>6861153
Except it doesn't. Tantra seeks to use pleasure to conquer pleasure in (very rare) rituals like maithuna (sexual union) . But the end goal is still the same, the elimination of desire and aversion.

And most tantra is not of that nature anyways, its stuff like deity yoga and rituals like chod and mantra recitation.

>>6861268
Interestingly enough, the Buddhist goal is completely against this purpose of life processes, which is to continue and replicate life. The Buddhist goal is ultimately to end the replication of life, to escape samsaric rebirth.

>>6861455
Except it does.

Tantra is the ability to channel forces (even those considered impure) into furthering enlightenment for all sentient beings.

>And most tantra is not of that nature anyways
What are you on about?

>its stuff like deity yoga and rituals like chod and mantra recitation.
Yes, those are elements of practice for some. Different initiations allow different practice, however. It's up to the guru and practitioner.

>>6856245
Compared to most people I am fairly ascetic, I think. I live a humble NEET life and don't want/need much at all.

>>6861487
Not a NEET (impossible to be so) but feel the same. Saged, tbh.

>>6861472
Then I guess I disagree with it. Life is inevitable, so any position against it is necessarily wrong.

>>6861480
And what is that enlightenment? Complete cessation of cravings. nibbana - blowing out. Tantra's goal is the same, the means differ. I was attacking the goal of Buddhism as impossible.

>What are you on about?
Most Buddhist tantra, as practiced today, does not really make sure of conventionally impure forces. As I mentioned, the most commonly practiced tantric meditation is mantra recitation and deity visualization. Very few practitioners do stuff like rituals which use alcohol or sexual yoga (which is what you are referring to).

Also, Vajrayana Buddhists still are against pleasure for its own sake. For them, its only because it can be sublimated as skillful means for escaping this world that they accept (certain) practices and then only extremely rarely and for the most advanced practitioners - we are talking post Geshe degree or decades of practice.

>>6861588
>does not really make use of

my bad

>>6861520
>Saged
hhehe

>>6861588
>Tantra's goal is the same, the means differ.
No, it's not. Mahayana goals differ in practice and motivation from, say Hinayana.

The motivation and method of tantra come together in a unique way - method and wisdom, that other schools lack.

>Most Buddhist tantra, as practiced today, does not really make sure of conventionally impure forces.

That's fully your opinion. I'm not going to comment further aside from the fact that my own practice, which certainly isn't out of the norm, would refute this.

>the most commonly practiced tantric meditation is mantra recitation and deity visualization.

Fairly correct, however the tsog /tsok offering and ritual would also be added to the list, in which meat and alcohol are indeed used for practitioners of certain initiation.

I am fully aware of the rarity of some of the geshe and on rituals, but that doesn't negate the idea that Vajrayana takes desire with a wholly different outlook than most other schools of religious thought.

>>6856995
read Plato

>>6856245
Because I manage my desires. I can abstain from the ones I deem dangerous and pursue with appropriate detachment the ones I think add value.

>>6856254
Are there actually legitimate full time monks still? It's the ultimate literary livestyle and I won't to be one.

>>6861637
What do you consider to be appropriate detachment?

>>6861669
>and I won't to be one.

Well, you sound like you would fail at being a monk.

>>6861637
but what you deem dangerous and what you deem valuable are really controled by your desires, not the other way around. unless you deny your self and detach from desire altogether there is no way to have that proper, objective judgment.

>>6861746
Enough detachment not to spiral into long-term misery if the desire is not fulfilled. Experiencing reatively brief ups and downs is fine unless you do destructive things as a result.

>>6861669
Plenty. And it's hard fucking work.

>>6861790
And? I make the conscious decision to have desires other than detachment and "wisdom" because the fully ascetic lifestyle isn't... something I desire. Reasonable people deny their basic desires all the time in favor of goals they deem more worthwhile, but becoming a full time ascetic would add little to their lives under the vaue systems, influenced by their desires, that they subscribe to.

How can anyone claim to be ascetic for any reason other than a desire for special understanding? How can anyone credibly claim to desire understanding and wisdom for their own sake when they relate to concrete matters and are worded in a language used to communicate with other people?

>>6858195
I feel what you're saying, but I have to point out that at least in Buddhist stuff that I've read, the English translations often use the words "skillful" and "unskillful" instead of "good" or "bad" or "virtue" or "sin", which to me is an interesting point.

It's not like doing drugs is "bad", but is it necessarily skillful in attaining nibbana? It's not like meditating is good, but is is skillful in attaining nibbana?

>>6861610
>No, it's not. Mahayana goals differ in practice and motivation from, say Hinayana.

The only difference between them is that the Mahayana Bodhisattva ideal wants to work towards getting everyone to the goal, nibbana. While the Theravada does not emphasize that. They may differ on a few other details but they still want to achieve a cessation of desire. That is the core of Buddhism, its in the noble truths.

>That's fully your opinion. I'm not going to comment further aside from the fact that my own practice, which certainly isn't out of the norm, would refute this.

Perhaps this is the case but as I've stated, the 'impure' forces are still being seen as impure. The attitude is still a negative one, seeing things like sexuality as mostly negative and to be conquered and stopped (through the use of themselves). Its the Will turning on itself. Tantra may embrace them, but in embracing them, it still judges them in a negative way. Perhaps the early Shaivite practitioners of tantra did not do this because of their monistic philosophy, but Buddhists do because their goal in life is ultimately to end all cravings.

>but that doesn't negate the idea that Vajrayana takes desire with a wholly different outlook than most other schools of religious thought.

You are correct, but this attitude is one of using desire as skillful means, to destroy desire. It still does not affirm it.