/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11928708]

Hey guys, any books on how the "doctrine of no-self" is a bastardization of authentic Buddhist realization perpetuated Jewish hegemons hellbent on turning Buddhism into another wishy washy secular nihilist humanist death cult?

[Anonymous No.11928718]

>>11928708
It's literally been a core Buddhist teaching since Gotama

[Anonymous No.11928746]

>>11928708
Its interesting because it was basically not even questionable that Anatta was the doctrine of every branch of widely accepted Buddhism but once Buddhism came to the West, suddenly all kinds of sects loosely affiliating themselves with Yogacara and other schools started claiming it was actually not the teachings of Buddhism and suddenly now a large number of /pol/ users are interested and Buddhism must be really secretly Vedanta. Its odd how things like that work, I'm not a suspicious man or one to speculate about human deceit so i'll leave more guileful and subtle thinkers to ponder what could possibly be going on.

[Anonymous No.11928816]

>>11928708
Muh joos fucking autistic incel poltard.

[Anonymous No.11928827]

>>11928816
its a catch-all for the powers that be relax there fren

[Anonymous No.11928860]

>>11928708
Read Hinduism and Buddhism by Coomaraswamy, it details exactly how it was misunderstood and how that misconception arose, he could read both Pali and Sanskrit and knew what he was talking about

[Anonymous No.11928887]

>>11928718
So was Buddha-nature which is the complementary teaching to it and resolves the nihilism of Anatta (as understood by Theravada and California Buddhists). But during the 2nd council when the proto-Theravada minority who wanted to change things (Sthavira) broke away from the proto-Mahayana majority who wanted to keep the teachings the same (Mahasamghika), the chain of orthodox and legitimate teaching beginning with Buddha was (partially) lost by the Sthavira, but it was in the areas that really mattered.

[Anonymous No.11928889]

>>11928708
>>11928718
>>11928746
>>11928860
>>11928887
Pick up your Bibles.

[Anonymous No.11928894]

>>11928887
based Mahayana poster

[Anonymous No.11928915]

>>11928889
If there actually is a hell I hope all Ironic Christian posters get their asses filled by satan's cum.

[Anonymous No.11928963]

>>11928746
I wonder if Sam Harris droning on about Buddhism in his smug scientism-infused monotone had anything to do with it. Also, you are ignoring the fact that a core teaching of many branches of the largest Buddhist denomination on the planet is almost the opposite of anatta. It seems like you are claiming to speak for thousands of years of Buddhist thinkers using your modern framework without actually knowing their position.

[Anonymous No.11929840]

>>11928889
anyone have the inverse version of this? the one that says "i think my local yogi summarised it best" etc.

[Anonymous No.11930016]

>>11928887
>Buddha-nature which is the complementary teaching to it and resolves the nihilism of Anatta
It does, for armchair buddhists like you. No sane buddhist at any level of enlightenment would say Shunyata leads to nihilism. Buddha-nature was invented to make buddhism more appealing for pseuds like you.
Also nice story you made up based on sole fact that Mahayana is indeed older than we thought.

[Anonymous No.11930236]

>wishy washy secular nihilist humanist death cult

[Anonymous No.11930328]

>>11930016
Sunyata and Anatta as understood by Theravada isn't a corruption of Bud-

http://www.chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com/en/index.php/Anatta,_Anatman,_No-Self,_Soulessness_and_other_Nihilistic_bullshit_your_local_retarded_''buddhist''_will_tell_you_about.

[Anonymous No.11930468]

>>11930328
>
http://www.chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com
ok bud

[Anonymous No.11930560]

evola doctrine of awakening and coomaraswamy Hinduism And Buddhism

[Anonymous No.11930565]

>>11928963
californian buddhism is an important branch of the religion

[Anonymous No.11930585]

>>11930468
>Can't refute anything in it

ok bud

[Anonymous No.11930592]

>>11930565
proof?

[Anonymous No.11930876]

>>11930585
Why is it to important for you to have an eternal Self?

[Anonymous No.11930893]

>>11928827
Then why not call it by its name. The WHITE, MIDDLE-UPPER CLASS, CISHETERONORMATIVE patriarchy.

[Anonymous No.11931002]

>>11930876
It's not about me, I'm not even OP. it's about what Buddha actually taught and whether or not his teaching was distorted and significantly misunderstood. If that was the case then anyone who wished for the well-being of others would be inclined to see those mistakes rectified so that more people had access to the whole truth as opposed to a partial slice of it. I don't maintain any illusions that me or others are going to change history or the direction of modern Buddhism by posting on 4chan but there is decent evidence for what the people in this thread are talking about and so I'm going to call out the facts and not let bullshit slide. It's not even that me and others are trying to change anything, it's more of a response to sanctimonious faggots posturing about how anatta is the crown jewel of philosophical and religous insights while ignoring that a large portion of the great vehicle implicitly reject the interpretation of anatta you guys shill for. /Lit only started to become widely well-read in eastern roughly 2 or 3 years ago, before that nobody cared enough to refute you guys but now it's just that enough people know what they are talking about to an extent that the misrepresentation of things will get exposed as such.

[Anonymous No.11931003]

>>11930876
Because anything incompatible with advaita vedanta seems invalid to him
>>11930585
refute my blog

[Anonymous No.11931014]

>>11931002
Giving everything eastern a Guenon spin is not refutation

[Anonymous No.11931024]

>>11930893
Because Jews aren't white

[Anonymous No.11931068]

>>11931014
Guenon has nothing to do with this, he wrote very little on this topic. It was by no means limited to the Traditionalists, but a number of scholars in academia have written on this too. Using him as a boogeyman to explain why people are now calling out your bullshit solves nothing.

[Anonymous No.11931629]

>>11931014
Guenon has absolutely nothing to do with this, you're deranged

without a Self that detaches from that which is not-self, buddhism is rendered incoherent

[Anonymous No.11932347]

>>11928915
please daddy!

[Anonymous No.11932764]

>>11931629
>without a Self that detaches from that which is not-self, buddhism is rendered incoherent
typical guenonfag's unsubstantiated assertion

[Anonymous No.11932864]

>>11932764
there's nothing unsubstantiated about it, what is performing the detachment if there is no self, nothing, to speak of?

and lmao, guenon dude, this has nothing to do with guenon, he loathed buddhism

[Anonymous No.11933079]

>>11928887
Namo Amitabha Buddha.

[Anonymous No.11933898]

>>11932864
>>11932764

The notorious Guénonfag reporting in, I'm here to correct the record on His most enlightened René-Jean-Marie-Joseph (pbuh). Guénon did not loathe Buddhism, but in his early writing period his perception of it was influenced by the writings of certain Hindus such as Śaṅkarācārya among others who btfo 6th-7th century Indian Buddhism in his writings, this led Guénon to see it as a degeneration of primordial wisdom (this is still a fair description of most Theravāda though) because he had not at that time in his life studied the Mahāyāna in depth. However, as he became close with Coomaraswamy and Pallis they wrote to him about it and sent him texts that made him change his mind to the point where he considered (certain schools of) the Mahāyāna to be authentic representatives of the sanātana dharma. The Buddhism that Śaṅkarācārya critiqued was itself a degenerate and nonsensical form of Buddhism that bared little resemblance to what the Buddha actually taught; as just one example he points out the ridiculousness of doctrines like kṣaṇikatva and how it's mutually incompatible with other major Buddhist doctrines; but this was never taught by the Buddha and arose from much later thinkers like Dharmakīrti and people associated with him. There would have been much less about the Buddha's original teachings that Śaṅkarācārya would have disagreed with, especially in the form preserved by the (orthodox) Mahāsāṃghika tradition.

As Guénon himself notes in the chapter on Buddhism in his revised edition of 'Introduction générale à l'étude des doctrines hindoues', Śaṅkarācārya may have already been aware that the Buddhism of his time was not what the Buddha actually taught because when refuting their views he always refers to them as 'the Buddhists' but never criticizes the Buddha himself. I myself find it very ironic that English-speaking Buddhists on 4chan have attached themselves so dearly to the flawed interpretation of anattā forwarded largely by the Theravāda, with the most amusing part being how their egos reveal themselves in a fantastical display of rage when someone challenges their views. Clearly, they must not have paid attention to the following lesson the Buddha offers in the Saṃyutta Nikāya "Bhikkhus, there are these four knots. What four? The bodily knot of covetousness, the bodily knot of ill will, the bodily knot of distorted grasp of rules and vows, the bodily knot of adherence to dogmatic assertion of truth" (45.174). And yes, by the way, i DO have a tattoo of Guénon's iconic 1925 studio photo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid.

PS: Isreal did 9/11, Michelle Obama is a tranny and the Sandy Hook shooting was a fake psyop carried out in hopes of enacting gun-control.

[Anonymous No.11934238]

>>11930016
>Also nice story you made up based on sole fact that Mahayana is indeed older than we thought.

I did not make that up, it's considered a fairly mainstream view among scholars who study the early history of Buddhism.

>Scholars have generally agreed that the matter of dispute was indeed a matter of vinaya, and have noted that the account of the Mahāsāṃghikas is bolstered by the vinaya texts themselves, as vinayas associated with the Sthaviras do contain more rules than those of the Mahāsāṃghika vinaya.[7] Modern scholarship therefore generally agrees that the Mahāsāṃghika vinaya is the oldest.[7]
>Scholars such as Master Yin Shun, Choong Moon Keat, and Bhikkhu Sujato have argued that the Samyutta / Samyukta (of the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya) represents the earliest collection among the Nikayas / Agamas, and this may well imply that it is also the oldest organising principle too.
>There are also fewer stories in general in the Vinaya of the subsidiary school, the Mahāsāṃghika-Lokottaravāda, and many of them give the appearance of badly connected obvious interpolations, whereas in the structure of the Sthavira recensions the stories are integrated into the whole scheme. In the formulations of some of the pratimoksha rules also, the phrasing (though generally identical in meaning to the other recensions) often appears to represent a clearer but less streamlined version, which suggests it might be older.
>This is particularly noticeable in the Bhiksuni-Vinaya, which has not been as well preserved as the Bhiksu-Vinaya in general in all the recensions. Yet the formulation of certain rules which seem very confused in the other recensions (e.g. Bhikkhuni Sanghadisesa three = six in the Ma-L) seems to better represent what would be expected of a root formulation which could lead to the variety of confused formulations we see (presumably later) in the other recensions. The formulation of this rule (as an example) also reflects a semi-parallel formulation to a closely related rule for Bhiksus which is found in a more similar form in all the Vinayas (Pc64 in Pali).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mah%C4%81s%C4%81%E1%B9%83ghika#Early_features

>A separate stance has been taken by Stanislaw Schayer, a Polish scholar, who argued in the 1930s that the Nikayas preserve elements of an archaic form of Buddhism which is close to Brahmanical beliefs,[8][19][49][50] and survived in the Mahayana tradition.[51][52] Contrary to popular opinion, the Theravada and Mahayana traditions may be "divergent, but equally reliable records of a pre-canonical Buddhism which is now lost forever."[51] The Mahayana tradition may have preserved a very old, "pre-Canonical" tradition, which was largely, but not completely, left out of the Theravada-canon.[52]

https://encyclopediaofbuddhism.org/wiki/Pre-sectarian_Buddhism

[Anonymous No.11934261]

>>11934238
Mahayana buddhism does not teach the existence of a Self at all, you really don't know what you're talking about and are making an autistic assumption about the tathaghatagarbha and budda nature, guenonfag

[Anonymous No.11934348]

>>11934261
Explain what you mean by 'Self' and how tathagatagarbha differs from it in your view instead of posturing then. The nature of this disagreement is that you misunderstand what I and other people are talking about when we say Self, you sound like someone who has a poor understanding of what Vedanta means by Self. Early Mahayana texts in many cases provide a description of tathaghatagarbha which is 95+% identical with the descriptions of Atma in Vedanta texts, the parallels are overwhelming and obvious to anyone who doesn't have a personal stake in the debate. I could provide a half-dozen posts worth of identical descriptions of them both from early Mahayana and Vedanta texts to prove my point, but it would save time if you just elaborated on how you perceive them to be different so I can see where the misunderstanding is and respond to that specifically.

[Anonymous No.11934712]

>>11928963
What branches preach for a self? Half of the early Buddhist schools have some scholastic tradition which attempt to integrate hindi ideas of self into it. Madhyamaka and its offsprings, (Ch'an/Zen, Tibetan) even Pure Land dont present a self. The purpose of no-self is to only help intimate an abstract series of negations to metaphysical statements. Emptiness is realized through attacking all conceptions that one grasps or averts. No-self is about attacking one of the most core things we identity with. There is no deeper abstract self and the meditation is meant to help reveal it.

[Anonymous No.11934815]

>>11934348
Not the anon you address but may I ask you then what you consider the Self? Read the Mulamadhyamakakarika and see how the conception of the Self is incorrect. The conception of soul is absurd as a metaphysical idea.

[Anonymous No.11935399]

bump

[Anonymous No.11935644]

>>11934712
>There is no deeper abstract self and the meditation is meant to help reveal it.
reveal it to whom?

[Anonymous No.11935658]

>>11934348
There are no branches of mainline Mahayana or Theravada that subscribe to the idea of the impersonal universal hypostasized Self of the Atma-Brahman, there is absolutely nothing like this in Buddhism, every single commentary on the Prajnaparamita sutras that is not explicitly some insane peasant/chimeric bastardization of the religion at the end of the dialectic discussion of the principles in the sutra, negates the self and negates every ground whether it be epistemological or ontological. The confusion comes in because the mahaparinirvana sutras and many of the Yogacara sutras make mention of consciousness and a shared Buddha Nature that's eternal and all encompassing. This is however a misinterpretation of soteriological ideas of Buddhist terminiology, the Western and unorthodox breakaway sects latch onto the initial lesson which is of course equal access to release from suffering and the wheel of rebirth, this is imperishable and is exactly the core of every essence you'll find encased in some logical device used, a skillful means to relieve the practitioner of other more ephemeral and obvious attachments. You are a Vedantist and a Tradfag most likely, some kind of intellectualizing monist who is inserting your own hopes for an undying apeiron or Buddha element that underlies and binds all spiritual presence in reality. There is nothing of the sort in Buddhism, the only really disgusting attachment to form you'll find is the obsession with the sutras, statues, fleeting Buddha realms and mantric/supplicating offerings to attain to higher levels of release. Go ahead and cite what you will
>>11935644
that is the point nigger

[Anonymous No.11935703]

>>11935658
Wrong, see the below series of posts, the concepts are identical but you are desperately clinging to any explanation that seems to explain otherwise.

>>11934712
>What branches preach for a self?
Scholars generally identify the concept of tathagatagarbha and its iterations as originating from texts associated with the Mahasamghika, through them it passed into Mahayana writ large and it is accorded a greater or lesser degree of importance in Mahayana according to the school and its sub-schools etc. By 'self' I don't mean the person, personality, ego, soul or mind, I am referring to the Atma of Advaita Vedanta specifically which is in it's essence the same concept as tathagatagarbha. Once you get pass labels like self, being, soul etc you see it's an almost identical understanding. That answers your question of which branch teaches the 'self' I am speaking of, as for their sameness I will answer that below.

>>11934815
>may I ask you then what you consider the Self?
Advaita Vedanta is essentially a massive commentary and elaboration on how the Mukhya Upanidshads (seen as infallible and revealed texts) teach of the true nature of Atma and its sameness with Brahman. Atma is sometimes misunderstood when it's referred to as the self, when in actuality the terms self, witness, god, the highest reality, awareness and consciousness can all more or less refer equally to it. Advaita and Buddhism have a history of interacting with each other in India, although a nearly complete statement of Advaita doctrine is already found in the lengthy pre-Buddhist Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads in addition to a few other pre-Buddhist ones.

[Anonymous No.11935708]

>>11935703

The Atma of Vedanta, is taught by Advaita (and described in the Upanishads) as the only thing which is real, that it's beyond description and thought, that it's awareness/consciousness which is eternal, without origin, birthless, infinite (space and time not even existing in it in a real sense), neither existent nor non-existent, beyond being and non-being, non-dual, without variation and differentiation, pure, spotless, unchanging, at peace/rest. It is the eternal conscious awareness which is devoid of active thought but omniscient and omnipresent in its awareness of its own infinite, unchanging and eternal nature (which is the only thing that does """not exist"""). This Atma (which is the same thing as Brahman/God) is already present inside (figuratively) the (ilusionary) being, observing it; this is not the witness in a visual sense but as Brihadarayaka says ‘He is the unseen Seer, the unheard Hearer, the unthought Thinker, the ununderstood Understander’. All of the universe is seen as unreal, only existing conditionally as illusion (unexisting in a real sense) within the pure awareness of Atma/Brahman. Atma is no more localized in a living being than a rock, all of manifestation from matter, empty space to the non-Atma aspects of the being (mind, memory, emotions, cognition, etc) are all equally non-existent (in absolute sense) and illusionary. The Atma is the witness which observes the rope (itself) falsely appearing illusion-like as a snake (variation/universe/etc). This is strictly unreal, but the reality of the conscious witness is the necessary precondition for unreality to be falsely witnessed.

Once final liberation is reached (figuratively but it's not a non pre-existing reality produced by action but the pre-existing and eternal reality no longer obscured by ignorance); Brahman is really just remaining in it's own non-dual nature as it always has and will, although to ignorant observers it appears that eventually the body of the human dies when to the Atma nothing changes (final attainment of it's own nature already reached), the death of the body is equivalent to the river merging into the sea it is the same as (and was never really separate from) but without losing awareness, this is possible because there are not separate Atmas but only the one Atma falsely appearing as multiple just as the same moon is reflected in many puddles; liberation is when this is no longer obscured. Liberation is pure undifferentiated awareness.

[Anonymous No.11935712]

>>11935708
>Charles Muller comments that the tathagatagarbha is the mind's original pure nature and has neither a point of origination nor a point of cessation: 'tathagatagarbha expresses the already perfect aspect of the original nature of the mind that is clear and pure without arising or cessation.'[9]
Advaita says literally the exact same thing about Atma/Brahman, it is without origination or cessation, that it is perfect, clear, and pure without change or manifestation/dissolution (in an absolute sense).

>overview of the tathagatagarbha sutras
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tath%C4%81gatagarbha_s%C5%ABtras


>The Srimaladevi Si?hanada Sutra teaches the reality of an ultimate, immaculate consciousness within each living being, which is the Buddhic "Dharmakaya" (essence of Truth), which is yet temporarily sheathed in obscuring defilement. This Dharmakaya, when viewed as intrinsically free from spiritual ignorance, is said to constitute eternity, bliss, the self, and purity in their perfect state.
Advaita also teaches of the ultimate immaculate consciousness within everything, which is truth but temporarily sheathed in ignorance/maya. The second sentence is nearly identical with one of the traditional descriptions of Brahman as sat chit ananda (truth, consciousness, bliss).

>The scripture, which was extremely influential by way of clarification of the Tathagatagarbha view of Sunyata, insists that the ultimately correct understanding of emptiness is that the Tathagatagarbha is empty of all knowledge that is not liberation, whereas, in contrast, the qualities which characterise a Buddha are not empty of inconceivable virtues. An alternative title offered by the Buddha for this sutra expresses this idea of an ultimate meaning to the emptiness doctrine: "The True Revelation of the Buddha's Intention when Teaching Emptiness."
Basically repeating and confirming what me and the other people in this thread have been saying about how Mahayana reconciles Sunyata and Tathagatagarbha and considers them related.

>Srimaladevi Si?hanada Sutra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Ar%C4%ABm%C4%81l%C4%81dev%C4%AB_Si%E1%B9%83han%C4%81da_S%C5%ABtra

[Anonymous No.11935717]

>>11935712
>According to Dharmak?ema's extended version of the ( Mahayana Mahaparinirva?a Sutra) sutra, this "true Self" is eternal, unchanging, blissful, pure, inviolate and deathless:
Upanishads and Vedanta say the exact same thing about Atma

>(from the Sutra) if the non-eternal is made away with [in Nirvana], what there remains must be the Eternal; if there is no more any sorrow, what there remains must be Bliss; if there is no more any non-Self, what exists there must be the Self; if there is no longer anything that is impure, what there is must be the Pure.[27]
Advaita teach the same idea about the non-real being removed so that there is only the eternal Real, which is Bliss, Self and Pure.

>Williams also comments: One thing anyway is clear. The Mahaparinirvana Sutra teaches a really existing, permanent element (Tibetan: yang dag khams) in sentient beings. It is this element which enables sentient beings to become Buddhas. It is beyond egoistic self-grasping – indeed the very opposite of self-grasping – but it otherwise fulfils several of the requirements of a Self in the Indian tradition. Whether this is called the Real, True, Transcendental Self or not is as such immaterial, but what is historically interesting is that this sutra in particular (although joined by some other Tathagatagarbha sutras) is prepared to use the word ‘Self’ (atman) for this element. However one looks at it, the Mahaparinirvana Sutra is quite self-consciously modifying or criticizing the not-Self traditions of Buddhism ...[29]
No comment needed, this is one of the most influential Sutras in East-Asian Buddhism btw

>Mahayana Mahaparinirva?a Sutra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mah%C4%81y%C4%81na_Mah%C4%81parinirv%C4%81%E1%B9%87a_S%C5%ABtra#Buddhadh%C4%81tu

[Anonymous No.11935719]

>>11935717
>The sutra is most insistent that the Tathagatagarbha and the self (Atman) are real and that to deny their existence is to lapse into a state of dangerous spiritual imbalance. Thus, to seek out the Tathagatagarbha — which is equated with the true Self — is deemed of great value. The Buddha teaches the bodhisattva Mañjusri that practicing the spiritual life is meaningful only because there is a 'self principle' (the Tathagatagarbha or 'atma-dhatu' - 'essence of Self') with which the quest can be rewarded. He states:[4]
>(from the Sutra) Mañjusri, people churn milk because they understand that butter is present therein. Why do people not churn water ? Because that substance is not present there. Likewise, Mañjusri, people maintain moral discipline (sila) and engage in the holy life (brahmacarya) because of the existence of the Tathagata-garbha.
100% in agreement with Advaita here, needs no explanation, the same arguments are used in Vedanta texts

>A?gulimaliya Sutra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%E1%B9%85gulim%C4%81l%C4%ABya_S%C5%ABtra

[Anonymous No.11935722]

>>11935719

>The La?kavatara Sutra draws upon the concepts and doctrines of Yogacara and Buddha-nature.[1] The most important doctrine issuing from the La?kavatara Sutra is that of the primacy of consciousness (Skt. vijñana) and the teaching of consciousness as the only reality.
Vedanta agrees and the pre-Buddhist Aitareya Upanishad similarly describes the only reality of Atma/Brahman as conciousness

>In the sutra, the Buddha asserts that all the objects of the world, and the names and forms of experience, are merely manifestations of the mind:
100% the exact same thing as the Upanishads and Advaita Vedanta

>(from the Sutra) On the contrary my teaching is based upon the recognition that the objective world, like a vision, is a manifestation of the mind itself; it teaches the cessation of ignorance, desire, deed and causality; it teaches the cessation of suffering that arises from the discrimination of the triple world.[2]
Advaita completely agrees that the objective world is a mirage-like vision (non)-existing only as a manifestation in the mind, that knowledge of the Self/truth is the end of ignorance, desire, deed and causality, and that suffering ends from discrimination of the non-real from the real, as the Isha Upanishad says "To the seer, all things have verily become the Self (Atma): what delusion, what sorrow, can there be for him who beholds that oneness?"

>(from the Sutra) There are four things by the fulfilling of which an earnest disciple may gain self-realisation of Noble Wisdom and become a Bodhisattva-Mahasattva: First, he must have a clear understanding that all things are only manifestations of the mind itself; second, he must discard the notion of birth, abiding and disappearance; third, he must clearly understand the egolessness of both things and persons...
In the exact same way, Advaita teaches that 1) one must understand that manifestion is unreal and only in mind, 2) that there is no birth, time, disappearance etc and 3) that the individual ego and personhood are as unreal as all of manifestation

>La?kavatara Sutra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La%E1%B9%85k%C4%81vat%C4%81ra_S%C5%ABtra

[Anonymous No.11935726]

>>11935722

>The East Asian view of the text is that it expresses the universe as seen by a Buddha (the Dharmadhatu), who sees all phenomena as empty and thus infinitely interpenetrating, from the point of view of enlightenment.[18] This interpenetration is described in the Avatamsaka as the perception "that the fields full of assemblies, the beings and aeons which are as many as all the dust particles, are all present in every particle of dust."
In the exact same way, the illusionary existence (and ultimate non-existence) of manifesto means the real Atma underlying everything is equally contained everywhere (which is really only in itself) and this Atma is equal to all other Atma and can be considered infinitely interpenetrating

>Paul Williams notes that the (Avatamsaka) sutra speaks of both Yogacara and Madhyamaka doctrines, stating that all things are empty of inherent existence and also of a "pure untainted awareness or consciousness (amalacitta) as the ground of all phenomena".[21]
Pure untainted awareness or consciousness as the ground of all phenomena (while this unawareness itself being beyond them and the only real thing, with phenomena being actually unreal) is one of the most fundamental premieses of Advaita and here once again they agree 100%.

>Avatamsaka Sutra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatamsaka_Sutra

[Anonymous No.11935727]

>>11935726

In case as a last resort you want to claim they are different because they assign different names to things and that because of this the end-product is different, and that the realizated man of Vedanta is different from someone in Mahayana, Vedanta itself specifically teaches that at the absolute/final stage, ones goes beyond all distinctions and labels to a state of unconditioned and distinctionless bliss/awareness, without thought about non-dualism or vedanta itself; the end-product is the same. From the chapter 6 of the Advaita Bodha Deepika (the lamp of non-dual knowledge), which is but restating ideas expressed in the Upanishads and Shankara's commentaries (notice the identical notions to what's in tathagatagarbha texts)

>Disciple:What is this sense of differentiation?
>Master.: It consists in ideas like: “I am the witness of this; all that is seen is only insentient and illusory; here is the world; these are the individuals; this one is the disciple and the other, the master; this is Isvara, and so on.” This must go by a practice of non-duality. This practice is to remain non-dual, solid Being Knowledge-Bliss, untainted and free from thoughts of reality or unreality, ignorance or its illusory effects, and internal or external differentiation. This is accomplished by a constant practice of modeless samadhi. Here remains the experience of Brahman only. After leaving the sense of differentiation far behind, the attachment to non-duality must later be given up.
>Disciple: How is this to be done?
>Even this state must finally pass into untellable and unthinkable Reality absolutely free from modes and even non-duality. The Bliss of Liberation is only this and nothing more. When the mind is cleared of all latent impurities, it remains untainted, crystal-clear so that it cannot be said to exist or not to exist and it becomes one with Reality, transcending speech and thought. This unmoded, untainted fixity of the mind is known as Realisation or Liberation while alive.

[Anonymous No.11935732]

>spending hundreds of hours if not thousands pouring over ancient texts only to become even more delusional
Some 'enlightenment' you got there

[Anonymous No.11935738]

>>11935658
b-b-but Sam Harris s-said there was no self, neuroscience proves it!

[Anonymous No.11935743]

>>11935732
I do this for entertainment

[Anonymous No.11935778]

>implying hindu self and buddhist no-self isn't different ways to look at the same thing

[Anonymous No.11935868]

>>11928887
>>11928708
Nihilism concerns the distinct absence of meaning.

Meaning is a differentiation between values.

The principle of Buddhism is that the singular nature of all things is universal and nondifferentiated.

[Anonymous No.11935937]

>>11928708
So basically theosophy? You might want to check guenon's diss to it

[Anonymous No.11935943]

>>11935644
Buddhism doesnt mean to say that a conventional self isnt something we intimate. The phenomenon of a psycho-physical continuum is something that we take to be a whole under abstraction. The idea of the soul additionally is absurd and you can see that through chapter 18 (and all other chapters) in the mulamadhyamakakarika. The self is not a coherent idea with the phenomena that we encounter. Through the use of catuskoti, there is a dismantling of all metaphysical ideas that are typically held in the West. The first chapter will show discuss the interaction with a soul and causality, inevitably showing their incapability.

[Anonymous No.11936012]

>>11930565
This doesn't speak well of Buddhism if it's true. It's most likely false though.

[Anonymous No.11936017]

>>11928708
What is that "self" of which Buddhism teaches that there is none?

[Anonymous No.11936063]

>>11935738
post you linked to doesn't deny that

[Anonymous No.11936064]

test

[Anonymous No.11936739]

>>11935943
Yes, Buddhism is absent of conventional notions of self and Nagarjuna criticizes it but tathagatagarbha is essentially the same concept as the Atma of Vedanta. You can keep repeating how the 'self' is nonsense and not taught by Buddhism, we don't disagree and nobody ever claimed that in the first place, only that the tathagatagarbha is basically identical to Atma, which it is not the 'self' you are criticizing.

[Anonymous No.11936832]

>>11935658
>This is however a misinterpretation of soteriological ideas of Buddhist terminiology, the Western and unorthodox breakaway sects latch onto the initial lesson which is of course equal access to release from suffering and the wheel of rebirth, this is imperishable and is exactly the core of every essence you'll find encased in some logical device used, a skillful means to relieve the practitioner of other more ephemeral and obvious attachments.

You are either talking out of your ass or lying, a number of Mahayana sutras explicitly reject this interpretation. I get that this is upsetting that something you had a distaste for turns out was present in certain areas of Mahayana thought all along, but outright lying won't help.

[Anonymous No.11937490]

>>11936012
>It's most likely false though

It's false, aside from helping to resolve issues of chronology through carbon-dating, linguistics and archaeology, western academics and western talking heads/intellectuals have contributed virtually nothing of importance to the understanding of Buddhism or any other eastern philosophy/religions.

[Anonymous No.11937661]

honestly seems to be a semantical issue at this point

buddhism teaches witness consciousness, or some kind of Subject that simultaneously undergoes the movement as its identity with it

[Anonymous No.11937806]

>>11937661
The disagreement is basically semantically, which people familiar with Hindu philosophy and many outside observers generally agree with. IMO the controversy comes from Buddhists who recoil at having their ideas being compared with Hinduism. In many books about Buddhism the authors emphasize how Buddhism was the logical truth which taught liberation and that the Hindu thinkers of the time were just priests carrying out pointless rituals. When people read these books they assimilate these (wrong) ideas and it can be very hard to let them go later on because they become closely linked to their understanding of Buddhism and its relation with Hinduism. Buddhism's perception of itself as a rejection of Hinduism becomes wrongly linked in their mind to the validity and truth of Buddhism itself, with the result being that when one points out the similarities between the two religions they feel threatened as though you were attacking the validity of Buddhism which is not true.

[Anonymous No.11937815]

>retards think they can solve a 2000 year old problem that was the cause of the first Buddhist schism and endless theological shitposting in a single thread

[Anonymous No.11937830]

>>11936832
>number of Mahayana sutras
Most Mahayana sutras are apocryphal fan-fiction.

[Anonymous No.11937887]

>>11937830
>Most Mahayana sutras are apocryphal fan-fiction.

Wrong kiddo, see >>11934238 and >>11928887, Mahayana contains ideas which were a part of pre-sectarian Buddhism, which were left out of the Theravada when their ancestors split from away from the larger Sangha at the 2nd council. Theravada is basically Protestantism. Scholars largely agree that the evidence points towards the proto-Mahayana Mahasamghika ideas and texts as being older and closer to the source than the proto-Theravada Sthavira. Academics who compare the very earliest Buddhist texts have generally noted the picture that emerges is one that aligns more with the Mahasamghika. The early Indian Mahayana sutras are the flowering of this understanding taught by the Buddha and the later Chinese et al ones are further elaborations of these concepts.

[Anonymous No.11937965]

Nagarjuna was right. Even Gautama was wrong and everyone after Nagarjuna and his commentators were wrong.

[Anonymous No.11938391]

>>11937965
Nagarjuna was a shitty irrationalist pseud posing as someone rational who took half of his ideas from earlier sramanics and hindu texts, the Chinese biographies of him mention that he took ideas from tirthikas, The Bhagavad-Gita preempted some of his main ideas by 300-400 years - "Of the transient there is no endurance, and of the eternal there is no cessation" (2:16). Nagarjuna takes these earlier ideas and confused them with his faulty understanding of sunyata. The image of Pratityasamutpada as understood by Madhyamaka and elaborated by Nagarjuna is completely nonsensical and ends up with a weird quasi-Gnosticism but with no higher deity and instead only an eternal and bad demiurge comprised of causality (with not even a remotely logical or convincing explanation for why that's the case).

[Anonymous No.11938487]

>>11938391
How is it Gnostic at all? All he says is that conventional reality is all there is.

Are you denying his thought about the impossibility of substances in a transient world? What's your point?

[Anonymous No.11939963]

>>11936739
Please read the second half of that post. The MMK is a dismantling of all positive metaphysical and ontological statements. Atman is a first principle argument. You can maybe find that argument in Cittamatra but I find their assertions very untenable. Also, Nagarjuna criticizes the idea of an ultimate self, not the conventional one. You are wrong, he is critical of Atman and Brahman. Read the cited chapters in the previous posts and see it being pulled down.

[Anonymous No.11939975]

>>11939963
Additionally, the only time the conventional self is criticized is when it is seen with svabhava or existing ultimately, not when it is seen merely as conventional.

[Anonymous No.11939991]

just read the Dhammapada, it's really quite good. The Conference of the Birds is more or less the same thing, too.

[Anonymous No.11940102]

>>11939963

>Please read the second half of that post. The MMK is a dismantling of all positive metaphysical and ontological statements.

I never implied that Nagarjuna meant there was any sort of self. Just that the understanding in the Tathagatabargha sutras aligns with the Vedantic Atma - see the 5 or 6 part series of posts above where the exact language and metaphysics are compared. Nagarjuna did not reference Tathagatagarbha in his works and many scholars think he was unaware of it and/or it was formalized after him. The understanding of sunyata in some of them is fundamentally different from his. It is these which agree with the Atma of Advaita and not Nagarjuna.

>Atman is a first principle argument
Advaita similarly accepts the negation of all phenomena but posits that that which remains after all negation is the pure awareness which is the Absolute and without which there would be no basis for the conditional and so on, the Mahayana Tathagatagarbha sutras make very similar arguments/points and differ in their understanding of sunyata with Nagarjuna in this way, one of them literally describes their ideas as 'what the Buddha actually meant when teaching sunyata'.

[Anonymous No.11940186]

I am ignorant and unread on these topics so I can't contribute at all but I just wanted to say I am really enjoying this thread and eagerly awaiting more commentary from the posters here. keep on keeping on

[Anonymous No.11940260]

>>11940186
Me again, I have to ask, where the fuck does someone even make an entry into indian religion and philosophy/sanat ana dharma? It's such a vast and deep subject. My only background is listening to an audiobook of the Gita and watching videos from Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya on the Dharma Nation channel on youtube

[Anonymous No.11940312]

>>11940102
I accept your comparison of Tathagatagarbha to Atma in the being similar, if not identical, in some instances. However, the negation of all phenomena to assert a pure awareness as an Absolute seems to be something I can't follow. Especially since it is supposed to be an unveiling of the unconditioned underneath the conditioned.

The tradition is so large and in constant conversation with the Indian schools, how could a flavor of Buddhism not integrate their ideas? Okay, so if we concede that historically there is a conception of atman hidden inside Buddhism which I mention in my first post. What is your point about it? If it is merely to make note at how there is a conversation between these ideas then congrats, but if it's to say that it is popular or even truthful, then you have a long way to go.

[Anonymous No.11941445]

bump

[Anonymous No.11942246]

>>11940312
>The tradition is so large and in constant conversation with the Indian schools, how could a flavor of Buddhism not integrate their ideas?

Buddhism itself stems from the same pre-Buddhist Hindu texts as most of Hindu philosophy. One can already find a rough outline of Buddhism in the pre-Buddhist Upanishads. Of course there was sramanic influence too but these sramanics were themselves influenced by, working within the intellectual climate of and borrowing terminology from the Vedic texts. This is not to disparage Buddhism or to say Buddha took everything from Hinduism, but the connection is very clear. It's not as though Buddha's ideas were a self-contained and completely original system which suddenly arose and then only later became influenced by Hindu ideas. The question which remains is whether things like tathagatagarbha were part of Buddha's actual teachings or were added later.

[Anonymous No.11942265]

>>11940312
>>11942246

>but if it's to say that it is popular or even truthful, then you have a long way to go.

You are framing that question in a way that seems to implicitly assumes Nagarjuna's interpretation of Sunyata is correct and the most orthodox and that all of Mahayana regards it that way. This is not the case, his is certainly highly-regarded within Tibetian Buddhism, but there are still schools of Tibetian buddhism which hold a different intepretation, and then you have Chinese Buddhism which in many cases is predicated upon a different understanding as well despite some areas of it drawing upon him. There is really no particular reason to think his is the most correct interpretation other than if you happen to agree with it personally, there is no historical or situational evidence (in other words other than his texts) linking him to the Buddha suggesting he was the person most accurately interpreting Buddha's idea. In fact there is evidence one could interpret as suggesting the opposite.

Scholars have generally agreed that the concept of tathagatagarbha comes from the Mahasamghika school and specifically the first ever text mentioning it is regarded as being theirs. As noted in above posts numerous scholars have examined the earliest texts and various contextual clues and concluded that the evidence suggests the Mahasamghika were more orthodox and had an older and more authentic recording of Buddha's teaching than the Sthaviras. So right out of the gate you have the concept of tathagatagarbha being linked to a group which is among the earliest if not the earliest identifiable group which were arguably more orthodox than an opposing group. Mahayanists themselves traditionally regard that their teachings came from Buddha and were passed down orally for hundreds of years alongside the other texts. The Vedas were orally transmitted for much longer than this timeframe and so it's entirely possible this is true. Nagarjuna is usually identified as living in south or western India and the Mahayana were active all through the south, east and north. It's possible that despite being Mahayana like the Mahasamghika that he could have not come into contact with Mahasamghika teachings about tathagatagarbha which had already existed long before him which were only transmitted orally. I'm not claiming that I know for a fact that any of this is how it actually went down, but presenting Nagarjuna's interpretation as the only legitimate Mahayana understanding of sunyata and related subjects is incorrect and ultimately just reflects your own preconceived notions about what's correct. No one is in any position (based on the evidence) to say whether any one interpretation is more orthodox or correct than any other.

[Anonymous No.11943271]

>>11935658
>that is the point nigger

Unless you can elaborate why what they said about meditation proves your argument it remains a groundless claim on your behalf