/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13999322]

Anyone acquainted with Buddhism know where to start? I’ve searched all over but can’t seem to find a definitive guideline as to what order I’m supposed to read what cannon in. I don’t know where to start for that matter. There’s talk of the path, dharma, etc. but where does all of it originate from? Thanks /lit/.

[Anonymous No.13999393]

Here, OP.

Offtopic: requesting something similar but for Hinduism.

[Anonymous No.13999624]

>>13999393
im working on it, it should be done before 2020

[Anonymous No.13999633]

>>13999322
it's called suicide

[Anonymous No.13999967]

the buddhist texts are 99% worthless. there isn't a clear guide of the path. its a jumbled religion with all the problems of christianity.

[Anonymous No.14000205]

>>13999322
Do any of my Buddhistbros here spend any time pondering the Devas? Wondering what their appearances and society must be like? I find it very fascinating to imagine their existence. I happen to believe in that supernatural dimension of Buddhism, even though many Westerners into Buddhism today ignore them. I don't think Siddhartha Gautama was merely a superstitious human mired in the primitive beliefs of his day - I believe he legitimately perceived higher beings after he developed the spiritual ability to do so. Hence why a man otherwise so grounded, sober and practical as him should still admit the existence of many realities we'd otherwise consider "imaginative". And I myself, too, have basic experience in viewing what I consider to be the astral plane, which resembles of a kind of thin, light-colored mist around me. Extrapolating from this, I can imagine that higher dimensions exist, but are only perceptible by those who've opened the faculties corresponding to them.

[Anonymous No.14000226]

>>13999322
Daoism is like Buddhism, except less gay

[Anonymous No.14000258]

>>14000226
B-b-but it's like THE SAME THING!?!?? Don't you realize how they totally align? Also, you have to accept that only Buddhism is true and that everything else is wrong-view
>t. /lit/ Buddhists

[Anonymous No.14000264]

>>14000205
What we call ‘astral projection’ is very likely what the Buddha used to call the “mind-made body” which one can use to to fly through the air, move through walls and dive into the earth. It can be considered a type of siddhi.
I also wonder what it’s like for the devas and brahmas. Perhaps a past life recollection could yield memories from a birth in one of those realms.

[Anonymous No.14000290]

>>13999322
This is what you want. The original scripture of Buddhism it the Pali Canon, the triple baskets--three collections in the Pali language of what the Buddha said and did. Everything that comes after goes off of it. Theravada Buddhism is the only one of the 17 schools after the Buddha's passing that survives to this day, so it's purer to what the Buddha taught than Mahayana Buddhism, which is what the majority of Buddhists today are. It's similar to Catholicism. Original Buddhism emphasizes meditation and liberation in this lifetime, whereas Mahayana Buddhism emphasizes depictions of the Buddha and a pantheon of deities which the Buddha did not want.

The collector, commentator and translator Bhikku Bodhi is from Brooklyn but committed to the life of a monk in adulthood. I've met him, he is based in the Chaung Yen Monastery in New York.

For the purposes of learning about Buddhism as an English reader you won't find a better book of the Pali Canon than In the Buddha's Words by Bhikku Bodhi, it explains what the Pali Canon is, and translates highlights from it. The actual text is very redundant so it's an ideal way to digest the pure Buddhist scripture.

(The Dhammapada, a very short read and the Buddhist equivalent of the Bhagavad Gita (Hinduism) or the 4 Gospels (Christianity) is very short and simply excerpts from the Pali Canon.)

[Anonymous No.14000423]

>>14000290
Reminder that while the Nikayas do contain (historically speaking) the purest/earliest Buddhist teachings, the Theravada is not as pure. Much of Theravada relies on commentarial texts and Abhidhamma which unfortunately tends to skew the teachings towards realism, ignoring the suttas on emptiness or revising them in translation so that they appear to support realism.
OP, after reading the Pali Suttas, I recommend following it up with some Madhyamaka texts. You will not find any conflicts with the suttas, as long as you go solely to them (suttas) for authority and not the Abhidhamma+commentaries.

[Anonymous No.14000504]

Has anyone here read Marco Pallis's the Way and the Mountain about Tibetan Buddhism? Pallis translated a lot of Guenon's stuff and was one of the first westerners to be initiated into a Tibetan Buddhist monasteryI believe.

[Anonymous No.14001281]

>>14000504
you're not supposed to mention Guénon in Buddhist-threads because he tends to incite certain posters in them into a frothing rage because of how he didn't care much about Buddhism and promoted *gasp* Advaita instead!

[Anonymous No.14001286]

>>14000205
that's when you get into hinduism

[Anonymous No.14001387]

>>14001286
or you could pray to Amitābha Buddha like millions of Asians do every day

[Anonymous No.14001469]

>>14001387
i thought you wanted texts that had pondered on that aspect

[Anonymous No.14001481]

As far as things to read on this matter have you considered the basic foundational materials of the religion? A high rated English translation may be the choice to make to find the material spelled out thoroughly to get acquainted with it. I would say it's obvious, yeah, but it's so obvious it could be what fixes it. The top solution hiding in plain sight. lol

[Anonymous No.14001595]

>>14001469
I'm not the poster you replied to but the impartial 3rd observer

[Anonymous No.14001681]

>>13999322
The books recommended already are what you need. Stopping by to emphasize the utility of meditation to development. It's partly about reflecting upon words, and the other part is development through meditation. Get a daily practice going, and work with diligence.

[Anonymous No.14001702]

This board seems to favor Theravada over Mahayana. Do you guys think esotericism is pseud-tier or something?

[Anonymous No.14001736]

>>14001702

I don't know anything about Buddhism but I'm still baffled as to how you reach this conclusion of yours. Maybe I just haven't been paying attention to certain threads.

[Anonymous No.14001766]

>>14001702
The people who have a genuine interest in Buddhism on /lit/ and who post in related threads tend to diverge into roughly 4 camps with some exceptions

1) people who fell for the 'Theravada is original Buddhism' meme or who were raised in Theravada countries
2) people who developed an interest in Mahayana but fell short at the 'Madhyamaka is original Buddhism' meme, a more recent one that is pushed by the nakedly partisan David Kalupaha, among others (why is Nagarjuna the only major Mahayana thinker to appear on the Buddhism chart? hmmm)
3) people who for whatever reason read a wide range of Mahayana/Vajrayana philosophy perhaps out of intellectual interest or as a serious practitioner
4) people who were attracted to the aesthetic and meditation of Zen Buddhism and who are more casual and who typically care less about muh X school is reel buddhism!!!, this group sometimes intersects with group 3

[Anonymous No.14001922]

>>14001766

5) People who overdosed on psychedelics and feel like either Buddhism or Hinduism will help them to understand that transcendent life changing experience

[Anonymous No.14001951]

>>14001702
>Do you guys think esotericism is pseud-tier or something?
Kind of. Siddharta Gautama declared his teachings as non-esoteric.

[Anonymous No.14002367]

>>13999624
You've been working on it for like 2 years now. How long does it take to copypaste a bunch of pictures of books in paint?

[Anonymous No.14002388]

>>14001951
citation?
im curious

[Anonymous No.14002406]

>>14001702
Madhyamika and Zen is talked a lot in this board though

[Anonymous No.14002484]

>>14001702
The opposite seems true to me.

[Anonymous No.14002505]

>>14002388
Not him, but hopefully this sutta helps.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.063.than.html

[Anonymous No.14002825]

Just today, I got permanently banned from the Buddhism subreddit because the moderator kept warning me that I am not allowed to say that the EBTs are more representative of the Buddha than the later texts of all three sects and questioning whether Mahayana sutras were even spoken by the Buddha would be considered “sectarian.”

He or she said “there is not evidence at all that the EBTs were spoken by the Buddha” - or something to this effect - and said that me saying so is the equivalent of saying “my texts, teachers, sect, etc. is better than yours” - and thus sectarian.

In situations like this, I often “don’t even know where to begin.”

[Anonymous No.14002840]

read pragmatic dharma

[Anonymous No.14002879]

http://www.nippapanca.org/

[Anonymous No.14003154]

>>14001766
which interpretation of Buddhism do you suppose is the correct one?

[Anonymous No.14003361]

>>14002825
good riddance

[Anonymous No.14004227]

>>14002879
Nah amigo, I skimmed this last thread, and I don't think he has anything helpful for me to learn. If I recall, in one section he undermines the validity of meditative experience.

[Anonymous No.14004436]

Take the Vairocanapill

[Anonymous No.14004632]

By the time you have read enough from all these Buddhist sects to determine which one was right, you'd be dead. I don't see the purpose.

[Anonymous No.14004941]

>>14004632
Roll the dice, get lucky? You've got something to focus on while you try to find the right one anyway: developing insight

[Anonymous No.14006401]

>>14001922
they might be able to but it's better if they not cause of the risk of wrong views

[Anonymous No.14006765]

>>14002367
The thing though is that without any context it's just a bunch of foreign-sounding gibberish, especially once you move past the stuff that everyone's already heard about. So I sort of have to provide some context and descriptions of each book like pic related does, also it's a very large chart with some 80-90 books and translations of primary texts featured. It will be worth the wait.

[Anonymous No.14006935]

>>13999322
Just go to any of the online sutta sites and start reading, the chronology of texts is iffy as it is with anything old, you also have three different schools, the most common being Mahayana, though the two big ones are the Mahayana and the Theravada, the texts themselves are split into three major groupings, these are not the real names but nonetheless, one is dedicated to what you can consider "religious texts" whatever idea that conjures up in your mind will probably be correct, I'm talking about the stories, parables, mythology, etc. the other two are monastic rules and regulations and I can't for the life of me remember the third. I'll reply to this with a better update, clarifying some of this once I get back to my desk.

Tl;dr - start here: https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/dn1

If you don't have time and only want to read ONE book, find this: Gathering the Meanings: The Arthavinishchaya Sutra & its Commentary

As usual with /lit/ charts, you have well meaning anons who find books and post them as recommendations, without really having read them or being well versed on the subject, you'll get meme books like from Shambhala or something or other, very random choices, this book is a translation of a sutta (this one: https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/arv1)) summarizing all of the concepts of Buddhism, the teachings AND a commentary on said teachings, not a contemporary so none of that self-help garbage. Enjoy.

[Anonymous No.14007315]

https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/

[Anonymous No.14007320]

what's with the hindu claim that the art/figure depiction of gautama buddha actually comes from hinduism which was is actually a representation of their own gautama buddha (a separate person)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unHZeSQ0Lqg

[Anonymous No.14007808]

In meditation it seems the individual is made to perceive thoughts as arising spontaneously in consciousness, and trained to observe them passively, wthout identification. But when we think actively, thoughts aren't random perturbations in awareness, the individual is in control of them as if he was able to bring them into being. Its not a mere sensation upon which attention is directed but something that involves active participation and intention. Is there any buddhist text that deals with this question?

[Anonymous No.14007873]

>>14006765
retroactive thanks and godspeed

[Anonymous No.14007883]

>>14004227
>>14002879
i read his dhamma and irrationality essay and thought it was very good, but im largely clueless about buddhism

[Anonymous No.14007999]

>>14007320
Doesn't Buddhist iconography derive mostly from Greek sculpture?

[Anonymous No.14008250]

>>14007883
>>14004227
I read this same essay, and I take back what I said. I read the essay on the Three Characteristics first, and I'm kind of questioning my reading comprehension now, because I got the opposite take from this one. If I read it right, it's comforting to hear that one's intellectual understanding on the Dhamma, and philosophical views, don't really factor into attaining enlightenment.

[Anonymous No.14008394]

>>14000290
Bodhi's translation is based on Nanamoli's translation from the 50s and are imho inferior. Best translation of Suttas I've found are Nanavira Thera's, but he only translated fragments.

Best book about buddhism would be Nanavira Thera's Clearing the path. He explains Dhamma through his personal experience of dependant origination after he atained stream entry. Most enlightning book I've ever read. First part is quite dense and hard to understand and I would suggest starting with letters. Or you could watch vids on yt chanel - hillside hermitage.

[Anonymous No.14008891]

>>14007999
that's even more retarded
at least the hindu attempt can be seen as an attempt to save face after their claim of buddha being an avatar failed

[Anonymous No.14008971]

>>14007320
I have never heard that before. The name Gautama was a fairly common name before Buddha though and there are multiple Gautamas who are mentioned and who take part in the discussions in the pre-Buddhist Upanishads. Some of the symbolism concerning the appearance and related symbols/iconography of the Buddha comes from older Hindu symbolism, there have been various books and academic studies on this that one can read. What he is talking about may be related to some of this but I can't really tell.
>>14007999
Buddhist art didn't begin depict Buddha as a human in any way until after contact with the Greco-Indians/Bactrians and once they did began to depict him in human form it was in a very hellenistic style of art.

[Anonymous No.14009776]

>>14008971
gautama is a last name
people from that line of families still have it

[Anonymous No.14009938]

>>14000290
>Theravada Buddhism is the only one of the 17 schools after the Buddha's passing that survives to this day
Hilariously you've got this completely backwards.

[Anonymous No.14009941]

>>14009938
He posts that every thread and has consistently been told he's wrong.