Buddhism: Beyond the basics

[Anonymous No.11931222]

Why does venturing beyond the basis of Buddhist knowledge seems so unnecessary to me? I've read several books now and had Buddhism factor into the basis of my world view, yet when it comes to learning more about the history or philosophical debates in it, there seems to be no point. All that does seem relevant is contained in the canonical texts and in guides for practical use like meditation. Do any of you feel the same? Rather than branching out into the history and development, I think I'll read much more of the suttas and try to know it from within. What do you think? What are your favorite topics of study in Buddhism?

>inb4 0 replies

[Anonymous No.11931297]

What boggles my mind is how many people can be "into" Buddhism without actually seeking the mystic experiences required to properly fulfil its path.

Sure, you can sit down and read the Pali Canon and later exegesis and modern scholarship and Lion's Roar articles all you want, but so long as you're not gradually cultivating your life so as to better embody samadhi, loving-kindness, non-violence, insight into the three perceptions of existence, and so on, you might as well just be crying out "Dear Buddha, please make me enlightened, also I'd like a gf. Amen." for all the good it's doing you.

"Buddhism" is really just a very intimate relationship with your thoughts, your perceptions, your attitudes, your biases, your desires, your fears, and so on. The sutras, the meditation practices, etc. can all certainly help with this, but without an attitude of wanting to actively cultivate your mind and your behaviours, you're going to get virtually nowhere, even if intellectually you're an expert.

So, OP, if you want to understand Buddhism on a deeper level, then do just that, understand it on a deeper level. Try and find some practices that suit your aesthetic sensibilities, and stick with them (and I mean REALLY stick with them) until you start noticing a shift in your attitude towards life. Keep in mind, it can sometimes be grueling work, and you will have to confront the many dark parts of yourself you'd rather forget about, but then again the Buddha wasn't teaching "how to be happy with my gf and the lads and my video games and my job", he was teaching a path to radical, unconditioned ontological realisation. You're quite literally trying to destroy death, after all.

[Anonymous No.11931377]

>>11931297
I think you're right, anon. The trap that a lot of educated people interested in Buddhism fall into is the fear of embracing wholeheartedly what cannot be proven scientifically, so while they do continue to meditate and try to act virtuous and so on, they do so in pursuit of 'accidental enlightenment', where they wait for some sort of sign before actively working to better themselves. Another huge issue is the amount of unreliable people on the internet who will claim they have experienced 'enlightenment' and yet only speak in incredibly vague terms that tell nothing of their background knowledge nor their methods used to get there. For instance, I tried a podcast recently called Buddha at the Gas Pump, and the sheer frustration I felt from all the people talking -around- their enlightenment rather than about it was enough to offset my interest for several months. In fact, I feel that it might be best to ditch exploring over the internet for a while and explore sanghas until I find one that seems reasonable. Despite what our intuition tells us, I think a strictly academic interest here is the wrong way to go.

[Anonymous No.11931445]

>>11931222
>>11931297
>>11931377
We Westerners (save a few right-wing fringes in Catholic countries) have a Protestantism deeply woven into us. More specifically, a non-theistic variant of Progressive (Protestant) Christianity deriving itself from the Puritans of England and early America. American world-dominance and cultural hegemony has spread this Puritanism throughout the West.

The crux of Protestantism, what truly separates it from Catholicism (and Orthodoxy) is that it seeks to maximize virtue, to be as efficient as possible at accumulating the good-boy-points necessary to get into heaven. This desire for religious-efficiency weaves itself into everything about Protestantism. Why is Saint Veneration bad? Because it's inefficient. Why is it okay to do goofy stuff like replacing the wine at communion with grape juice, or even just outright not doing communion? Because it's inefficient. Why is Faith all that's needed? It's more efficient than works.

So when you say that all you really need is to hold the right mindset and do meditation occasionally, that's true in the most bare bones sense, but it's not true in how Buddhists (and namely the Buddha himself) actually see and practice Buddhism because that desire to make religion efficient is absent. This desire to create a universal way of achieving religious achievement (which, when it comes down to it in Protestantism, is ultimately about the signalling of virtue) stems from Christian and, ultimately, Platonic, thought going back to the Church's interaction with the Germanic people and Platonic realism, but that's another point.

[Anonymous No.11931463]

>>11931445
A big point that the Buddha made is that YOU CAN'T DO THAT with Buddhism. What works for person A might not work for person B, so there by necessity needs to be a variety of ways to help people reach enlightenment. There is certainly a "Buddhism 101 That Everyone Can Do", but eventually you need to take off the training wheels and move on from it. This desire to create a linear path that everyone can follow is inherent to the Protestant mindset and is why you see people doing goofy shit like getting "into" Buddhism but then protesting about how Monasticism and celibacy are outdated patriarchal/colonial/imperialist/whatever concepts that need to be done away with so Buddhism can "Progress".

It's people taking their Protestant mindset and applying it to other religions. To them, Buddhism is just a skin to be draped over their non-theistic Progressive Christianity.

[Anonymous No.11931488]

>>11931445
>but that's another point.
Come on m8, it's not like you're doing anything else today, you might as well elaborate on this a bit

[Anonymous No.11931526]

>>11931488
FUCK you got me good m8.

The bit on the Church is that the Catholic Church is an inherently esoteric, hierarchical, closed-doors organization. This was necessary for survival in Rome, where the early Church was vehemently anti-Roman; as time went on, a hierarchy was needed among the decentralized masses of Christians to ensure orthodoxy and orthopraxy. This is important because Rome at this time operates on a model similar to the US when it comes to culture and religion: You can do ~whatever~ you want as long as you let anyone join and don't tell anyone else they're wrong. Christianity disagreed with both, advocating the obvious religious exclusivity and advocated a great cultural leveling ("Homer is banned because there's pagan gods in it") to further ensure religious exclusivity. Finally, Christian business had to be conducted behind closed-doors because of the cultural and legal stigma against Christianity.

When Christian dominance became assured, it affected the Italians greatly. Because there was no way for the laity to penetrate the Church administration to address grievances or "get in on the gravy" the Italians adopted a very close-knit kinship based social model that emphasizes a pseudo-Stoic "don't rock the boat" mentality. You can't keep the priest from siphoning money out of the pot to live luxuriously, but you can ensure he gets as little money as possible from you and your kin. You cannot keep church sanctioned merchant-oligopolies from ripping you off, but you can buy and sell on a clan based black market.

This system on steroids in Sicily leads to the mafia and organized crime much, much later.

[Anonymous No.11931534]

Buddhism may be interesting, but will ultimately only lead you to Hell.

[Anonymous No.11931549]

>>11931534
Is that Hell, CA or Hell, MI?

[Anonymous No.11931553]

>>11931534
Christianity may be interesting, but will ultimately only lead you to Naraka.

[Anonymous No.11931559]

>>11931549
Hell, Norway.

[Anonymous No.11931563]

>>11931526
The Germanics took a different route. Germanic society was based on a relatively egalitarian tribal model of free-men (and women) cooperating together for mutual benefit. There wasn't really much hierarchy; there were free-men of varying amounts of wealth, and a king and his best men. All political and economic decisions were made in the open so everyone could reap the gains of cooperation and contribute what they could. Any real disagreements were either settled by a duel, payments as necessary, or a disgruntled party leaving to join a different group. The Catholic Church's presence grated on the Germanic mindset IMMENSELY. Back-room politics, deeply entrenched byzantine hierarchies, and forcing people to be part of a group that didn't benefit them was odious to their mindset. When Protestantism came along, it allowed the Germanics to bring religion into the light. It also allowed Germanic kings to gain control of the religious sphere, something that ultimately sat better with the Germanic mind that some guy in Rome running religious matters.

[Anonymous No.11931568]

>>11931445
>>11931463
It's interesting that you mention the Protestant idea of accumulation, because there is a slight equivalent to Buddhism with kamma, but unlike Protestantism it's not the deciding factor, since true growth comes from the tireless enhancement of the seven factors of enlightenment. This is why you can right off the bat disregard 99.9% of people who claim liberation on the net. Kamma is tremendously important, but if it's not practiced in accordance with the eightfold path, you may not be growing at all. Since it is accrued naturally by following a framework, you gain merit for your good deeds, but simultaneously avoid selfishness by eliminating that seed of desire within you. It's a really clean system when you look at it.

[Anonymous No.11931577]

>>11931445
>The crux of Protestantism, what truly separates it from Catholicism (and Orthodoxy) is that it seeks to maximize virtue, to be as efficient as possible at accumulating the good-boy-points necessary to get into heaven
Calvinism truly was a mistake that will destroy Western Civilization in the end.
>>11931553
I'd rather take Naraka with God than Nirvana without God

[Anonymous No.11931596]

>>11931445
>Puritans of England and early America
>non-theistic variant of Progressive Christianity

[Anonymous No.11931617]

>>11931563
This desire for efficiency draws from the desire for open political and economic action. It is rooted in an assumption that the only reason to do something "in the dark" is because you are looking to fuck over other members of the group. It's "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" writ large. It's an almost axiomatic component of Germanic society. The fact that innocent until proven guilty is even needed in Germanic jurisprudence is proof of that; to the Germanic mindset, the inherent human desire for privacy is an indication of guilt.

The efficiency comes in in that this idea is actually a really fucking good one when working in small groups because it allows a very intimate type of collectivism in which each member attempts to benefit themselves (through maximizing efficiency); but they can only benefit themselves in a way that benefits EVERYONE because everyone else will stab them to death if they fuck the group over by back-room collaboration. In essence, being a greedy self-centered piece of shit benefits people other than just you because the only way you can benefit yourself is by helping everyone else. "Cheaters never prosper" is a Germanic belief that derives from this.

The notion that a Puritan's salvation depends on their saving others derives from this: You're not just a bad person if you engage in back-door dealings, but you're a bad person if you let such things go unpunished. Enforcement of social codes and norms is necessary to ensure that no one actually does start doing these back-door deals because the moment they do it suddenly becomes beneficial to you to do the same. This system is very fragile to an in-group preference spiral because, as I said, the moment everyone else starts conspiring you lose out big time if you aren't also.

[Anonymous No.11931626]

>>11931445
>to be as efficient as possible
I would say it would be a quest to find, at least with Calvinism, not what is efficient, but what is sufficient. Saint Veneration, aside from being pagan and idolatrous, is not sufficient to get into heaven. Taking Communion, aside from being a symbolic act only, is not necessary because it is not sufficient to get into heaven. Why is Faith all that is needed? Because Faith alone is sufficient.
This mindset of what is sufficient exists in Buddhism, particularly in Mahayana Buddhism in East Asia. The whole Pure Land tradition was deeply concerned with what is sufficient, what is the quickest path to salvation for those who are not fortunate enough to ordain and undergo such an undertaking. Guess what they arrived at? Faith in the Amida Buddha's vow.
It's not lazy, it's compassionate. It seeks to help the less fortunate, and indeed all those with ears to hear.

[Anonymous No.11931638]

>>11931617
>>11931563
>>11931526
Very interesting anon, may I ask how you developed these ideas? This is not something I've ever considered before

[Anonymous No.11931667]

>>11931626
The desire for efficiency is what leads to that search for sufficiency.

>>11931617
A long time ago, Plato came up with Platonic Realism. tl;dr, Plato's forms, you have a soul inside of you; you're a meat-mecha piloted by an immortal ghost. When Christianity took over in Rome, it gobbled up all of Greco-Roman philosophy that it could utilize. Plato's The Good was conflated with Yahwe; this saved Christians a lot of trouble with having to extrapolate philosophy from the Bible because most of their work was done for them, they just had to do some stitching together of things. This belief in the meat-mecha piloting ghost lead to Gnosticism, and early Christian heresy. Plato didn't view the material world as bad, just as inferior to the world of the spirit. The pleasures of the meat-mecha were nothing compared to the pleasures of the ghost. The Gnostics took that a bit further and believed the meat-mecha to be evil, sinful, bad.

And then, this idea of the meat-mecha piloted by a ghost was given to the Germanics, with their desire to seek efficiency in all things. This idea of people as being fundamentally pure, good beings piloting meat-mechas continues to the modern day. It's a metaphor you see frequently in cartoons, where a person's brain is a smaller version of themselves piloting their body. This belief is the fundamental backdrop to modern ideas of gender and sexuality. In fact, I'd say this Substance Metaphysics is the key defining point of Western Civilization (as much as I personally disagree with it and dislike it).

[Anonymous No.11931671]

>>11931577
Nirvana means not needing a fake daddy as an adult.

[Anonymous No.11931693]

>>11931222

you should read: Clearing the path - Nanavira Thera

[Anonymous No.11931696]

>>11931671
Yeah, it means not existing at all

[Anonymous No.11931713]

>>11931696
that's absolutely false. Insofar as the world in which we experience is a reflection of emptiness, an enlightened being exists in the world, just not in our conventional meaning of existing in a physical form.

[Anonymous No.11931743]

>>11931667
Then you are misconstruing Buddhism is a way in saying that the desire for efficiency is absent, if efficiency is what leads to sufficiency.
There are hundreds of millions of Buddhists who say the nembutsu as their practice. In fact the nembutsu is set up as a universal way to achieve enlightenment and developed independently of Christianity, which you say is unique to Christianity in general and Protestantism in particular.

[Anonymous No.11931789]

>>11931743
I'm pretty sure the nembutsu isn't designed to achieve enlightenment in this lifetime; rather it takes you to the Pure Land where you can practice the dharma freely without worries of work / food / shelter and so on. Basically just a quasi-Heaven in Buddhist filtering.

[Anonymous No.11931805]

>>11931789
It isn't quasi-Heaven, it developed independently. It is usually depicted as a rebirth after death, but for some monks like Shinran you become reborn at the moment of pure faith (信心).

[Anonymous No.11931881]

>>11931577
We're all God, anon.

I am he, as you are he, as you are me
And we are all together

[Anonymous No.11931927]

>>11931743
I'm pretty sure he was referring to Christianity, not Buddhsim there.

[Anonymous No.11931986]

>>11931927
>>11931445
>it's not true in how Buddhists (and namely the Buddha himself) actually see and practice Buddhism because that desire to make religion efficient is absent. This desire to create a universal way of achieving religious achievement (which, when it comes down to it in Protestantism, is ultimately about the signalling of virtue) stems from Christian and, ultimately, Platonic, thought
I don't want to come off as rude, but I feel like he is unfairly giving Protestantism the hard rub (pretty much just calling it virtue signalling) for very ambiguous reasons. To do so he presupposes that similar thought and processes do not exist in Buddhism (which he implicitly links to Catholicism in the beginning of the post) which is not true, even by his own ideas of the desires of Protestantism.

[Anonymous No.11932826]

ITT: reading but no practice

[Anonymous No.11933886]

>>11932826
ITP: no practice and no reading