Intro to Buddhism

[Anonymous No.15588564]

I'm making this thread to create a "Intro to Buddhism" pasta (that doesn't require you to read dozens of books) since I haven't seen any good one even though there are some good lists of resources circulating. I have to mention I'm not a practicing Buddhist, although I agree with most of their ideas.

>1) Background
If you want to learn what Buddhism is, you also need to know what it is not. It is often associated with rebirth, karma, the wheel of existence (samsara) and other such terms, but these also exist in Hinduism and in most other Indian religions of the time. So how is it different? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Arama%E1%B9%87a Read this article on wikipedia to get a good high level view. Especially the table in the "#Comparison_of_philosophies" section.
I also want to connect Eastern Philosophy with Greek Philosophy, connections is how the brain works anyway and it doesn’t really understand a new concept unless it finds a previously known concept to “stick” it near. To begin with, there's a good correspondence between the Buddha and Heraclitus: both saw change/impermanence as fundamental. For Heraclitus, this was probably neutral, and so he didn't do much about it(that we know), but the Buddha saw it as something negative (since we become attached to impermanent things and this causes suffering), and therefore had to create a practice/religion to deal with this problem. Read more about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impermanence here. I’ve seen people say Buddhism is close to Plato or other Ancient Greek philosophies but this is misjudgement and is based only on superficial similarities. In fact, Buddhism is diametrically opposed to Platonism. Plato’s work can be largely seen as an attack to Heraclitus’ chaotic philosophy. The sophists that Plato attacks are basically following/applying Heraclitus’ philosophy: if change is fundamental, then there is nothing stable to grasp, then there is no truth to speak of, and therefore you end up with these people who don’t try to search for truth but just use rhetoric to gain power instead. This is what Plato seeks to prevent. Another indicator is Pyrrho the skeptic. His skepticism(which is the epistemology of the sophists, who have given up on truth) is a result of coming into contact with Buddhists (in India via Alexander’s conquests). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Similarities_between_Pyrrhonism_and_Buddhism.. On the other hand, Plato (and Parmenides even more) maps well to Vedic thought.

[Anonymous No.15588565]

>2) Starting with Buddhism
This is a very high quality and easy SEP article that you should read to get a good overview: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buddha/..
There is no other way to start with Buddhism except by reading the Pali Canon/Tipitaka. This is like the Bible of Buddhism, but not exactly, since Mahayanas for example consider it suboptimal compared to their teachings. It’s also huge, but you don’t need to read all of it. It repeats itself often and is pleb-friendly/easy to understand. See pic: Vinaya Pitaka is monastic rules and the Abhidhamma is some kind of scholastic compendium of the texts. We ignore these, Sutta Pittaka is what we want. You will mostly encounter Sutras from the first 4 selections, but Khuddaka Nikaya has the “Suttanippata” which is very good but also the “Dhammapada” which is a cute and famous text. What you want to do is get a “selections from the Pali Canon” type of book. Two such popular books I can recommend are: “John Holder - Early Buddhist Discourses” and “Bhikkhu Bodhi - In the Buddha’s Words”. Maybe you can google around to find important Sutras but I haven’t tried this. Anyway just keep reading until you are bored/it becomes repetitive. You can come back anytime you want. Read the “Buddhism” article on wiki and reread the Buddha SEP article I linked. Also this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prat%C4%ABtyasamutp%C4%81da which is probably the most important concept of Buddhism.

[Anonymous No.15588567]

>3) Moving on to Mahayana
Mahayanists have an expanded corpus of texts that the Theravadins do not accept (they stay with the Pali Canon). It is actually slightly of a mystery how/why they came to be. The arguments that Theravadins are closer to the original texts are wrong because there is simply no “text” itself without interpretation. The Theravadins in fact have their own interpretation and the Abhidhamma. What is closer to truth I cannot say and leave it to your judgement. But these essentially Protestant arguments should be stopped. Anyway, I think Mahayana started because the Pali Canon is targeted towards the run-of-the-mill person, but capable seekers can go beyond this and make use of better tools.
We have two choices here. There is the excellent book “Paul Williams - Mahayana Buddhism - The Doctrinal Foundations” that gives us an overview of Mahayana history/philosophy. It is academic-grade though, and while this is a good thing, sometimes it can get tiring. For this reason, we are lucky to have some high quality wiki articles that we can read instead. These often cite that book btw.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayana
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9A%C5%ABnyat%C4%81
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhyamaka
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogachara
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism (not Buddhism specifically but helps)
Things diverge at this point and it depends on your interests where you want to continue. You have a good overview and conceptual basis to go anywhere you’d like. The Mahayana Sutras are a good place to continue (see pic, Zen is covered as well, thanks anon). Madhyamaka texts like Nagarjuna’s are hard but for the philosophically inclined they might be the best I have recommended until now. SEP has many good technical articles on this, such as https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nagarjuna/.. Also https://www.iep.utm.edu/b-madhya/.. Zen is covered in pic again. There is also Vajrayana and a rich Japanese tradition but I’m not really familiar and I chose not to cover here. You can probably judge on your own by this point.

[Anonymous No.15588859]

You should include something that includes the story of Siddhartha Gautama's + Buddha's life. Maybe some background in Hindu philosophy is also useful to contextualise some of the key concepts in Buddhism (eg, atman vs anatman).
Otherwise, looks pretty good.
Also, i think https://encyclopediaofbuddhism.org is a good resource.

[Anonymous No.15588872]

>>15588859
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buddha/
i posted this which kinda covers what you said, also the buddhism wiki article
also the pali selection texts have small intros (including about buddha's life) plus the sutras (such as ariyapariyesana sutra) which talk about the buddhas enlightenment for example

i'd love to hear some recs about background in hindu philosophy, i thought https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Arama%E1%B9%87a this would suffice

here's the cap so you can share this easily

[Anonymous No.15588892]

>>15588567
no offense brah, but you seem to have a preference for zen based on your selected reading list and the translations you selected.

The go-to for introductions is basically the Norton World Anthology of Buddhism. It's a fairly inexpensive book and contains complete texts and important sections/chapters from EVERYTHING important. starting from the beginning. Just check the table of contents if you don't believe me.

[Anonymous No.15588978]

>>15588892
my bias is madhyamaka i'd say. where do you see me having a preference for zen? i only have it on section (3) on 1 wiki article or 1 chapter of the book i mention, plus a list of important books in that booklist for anyone looking to go deeper.

i think i've read some specific chapters someone scanned from your book but can't remember if it was this one or something else. if that was it, it's indeed good but i haven't read and rn i can't even find a pdf anywhere so i can't rec it.

[Anonymous No.15589251]

>>15588892
I'm not OP, and I'm gonna have to disagree. Recommending an encyclopedia as an intro is a poor idea.

I'd recommend What the Buddha Taught, Red Pine's Heart Sutra translation+commentary. Starting with Theravada explains the basics in really simple terms, and then the transition to Mahayana brings in the Big Brain ideas, which is great even if you go back to Theravada.

[Anonymous No.15589286]

This 'blog has some good insights into Buddhism and its relationship to the modern West.

http://www.nippapanca.org/buddhism-and-scientism.html

http://www.nippapanca.org/buddhism-and-scientism.html

[Anonymous No.15589338]

>>15588564
The previous Buddhism guide completely omits Yogachara and its most important texts because it's creator arbitrarily decided that 'it doesn't agree with the Pali Canon', despite that Yogachara is highly influential and studied in most Mahayana and Vajrayana schools, so it would probably be a good idea to give a brief list of some of the most important Yogachara works like those of Asanga, Vasubandhu etc

[Anonymous No.15590117]

Include Ken Wheeler

[Anonymous No.15590139]

>>15590117
Why are "gurus" always fat fucks?

[Anonymous No.15590234]

>>15590139
It is the logical conclusion when you realized you are not your body

[Anonymous No.15590243]

>>15590139
they did not lose attachment of their anus to the comfy chairs.

[Anonymous No.15590388]

>>15588859
Buddha's life is included in the Pali canon, which reminds me

OP, what is the single best source containing the Buddha's life within the Pali canon?

[Anonymous No.15590586]

>>15590388
Details about the Buddha's life are dispersed into many Sutras. I have a few in mind which talk about his life in length:
Ariyapariyesana Sutta
Maha-Saccaka Sutta

[Anonymous No.15590739]

>>15590586
this is what i hate about western buddhists, they're scatterbrained and poor analyzers like women, and they dont know shit about the religion beyond the superficial. like, even if the pali canon is a shitstorm of a collection, why is it so hard to figure out which life of buddha is the single most important and why. the way the gospel of john is quoted from twice as much as the other gospels combined.

[Anonymous No.15590805]

>>15590739
Probably because the Pali canon is like 50 books long, dude.

If you're looking for a neat little discrete package that contains everything you'll ever need and has an entirely closed hermeneutics, just walk away from Buddhism right now and go back to Abrahamism and pull the covers over your head, because you're in for a very upsetting time.

[Anonymous No.15590877]

>>15590805
As if the homosexuality and suicide as religion that is buddhism can be deemed better than western religions, you little faggot.

[Anonymous No.15591373]

>>15590739
>>15590877
cringe
i even mentioned in OP i'm not a buddhist, so that ad hominem is v bad
what do you want me to respond with? i told you the truth, there is no single sutra that contains all details about the buddha, his life doesn't even matter at all, only his teachings matter
but you're a low iq simpleton, pic rel

[Anonymous No.15591620]

>>15590877
I'm not sure I follow, both homosexuality and suicide are forbidden in Buddhism.

[Anonymous No.15591733]

>>15591620
Buddhist culture has always broadly accepted homosexuality, and suicide is considered an acceptable route. It's quite an opposite route from historical Christianity or Islam.

[Anonymous No.15591921]

>>15591733
>Buddhist culture has always broadly accepted homosexuality, and suicide is considered an acceptable route.
Imagine being this uncultured.

[Anonymous No.15592133]

>>15588564
you should make a megaupload full of ebooks from zlibrary and include the URL

also IMO you should include a link to a catalogue of the tripitaka (which has links to translations in english of a huge amount of texts)

like this one:
https://buddha-kanon.de/list-of-taisho-tripitaka-titles/

[Anonymous No.15592155]

>>15590877
>>15591733
Look at all these based Western Christian countries cracking down on the gays.

[Anonymous No.15592274]

Palifags trying to dissuade people from reading Mahayana texts are spiritual protestants and likely imparting their culture's concept of religion (relying on the purported age of a text/tradition to qualify it as truthful). For Mahayana to have a broad understanding you should read both Yogacara and Madhyamaka texts. Ignore Tibetan doxographies until you are familiar with what they are fighting over. Read the Samdhinirmocana sutra. It's short and covers the main points of Yogacara. If you want to keep going read the Mahayanasamgraha. For Madhyamaka obviously there is Nagarjuna and his Indian commentators over the centuries, which go on to influence the Tibetan/Vajrayana perspective, in turn primarily upholding the "prasangika" or non-syllogistic approach to emptiness. All Mahayana simply put stems from a reaction to the Abhidharmikas (that is to say, palifags who believe in the existence of irreducible dharmas as the components of all reality). Since the Buddha did not teach this, it's truth claims are no better than the Mahayana explications of "esoteric readings" of texts, filling in the gaps and silences of the historical Buddha. In that sense Mahayana is not unlike Neoplatonism (and indeed there is too a kind of absolutism in that all are one, in the sense that they are empty of essence and have the potential for buddhahood). In short, when palifags claim they are OG they are totally ignoring their own commentarial literature, likely because the ex-protestants advocating for it simply haven't bothered to look into Theravada and and are cafeteria-izing it in their ignorance of the commentarial tradition in Pali

[Anonymous No.15592430]

>>15592274
agreed
i wanted to write more about the protestant-tier sola scriptura arguments but i decided to keep it short

[Anonymous No.15592995]

>>15592155
Note I also included Islam, which has it right, retard.

[Anonymous No.15593254]

>>15590388
>The Life of the Buddha: According to the Pali Canon
>Composed entirely of texts from the Pali canon, this unique biography presents the oldest authentic record of the Buddha’s life and revolutionary philosophy. The ancient texts are rendered here in a language marked by lucidity and dignity. A framework of narrators and voices connect the canonical texts. Vivid recollections of his personal attendant Ananda and other disciples bring the reader into the Buddha’s presence, where his example offers profound inspiration and guidance on the path to freedom

[Anonymous No.15593573]

God bless you anon, I'm going to make it some day.

Do you think you'll ever approach a definitive version some day, or will you always be working on it?

[Anonymous No.15593691]

Can someone explain the analogy to "spiritual protestant" and which Buddhist sect maps to what?

[Anonymous No.15593919]

>>15592155
>No Tibet
>No Japan
>No Thailand
>No Myanmar
>No Nepal
>>15590877
yup looks like what you said probably doesnt check out
also on the note of suicide, the Buddhists consider it a privilege to be reborn as human and thus suicide is pretty egregious because you're throwing away the unique gift that would otherwise be able to lead you to nirvana

[Anonymous No.15593976]

>>15593919
>doing it for free against obvious baits

[Anonymous No.15594052]

yeah ima just read this lotus sutra i have lying around, it has an aesthetic name and cover

[Anonymous No.15594439]

>>15590117
I read a criticism that he seemed to come off as “sinister” and that’s exactly what I feel when I watch him. His arrogance and autism wouldn’t be enough to make me discount him, but I definitely get the feeling that there’s something not right about him.

Even if he is a meme he’s best to avoid.

>>15588567
The Freedom Place Podcast has some good “mindset” and ontological / epistemological discussion about some aspects of Vajrayana, by a realized Dzogchen master, who’s American so there’s less necessity for cultural translation. Not a replacement for actually working with a teacher in real life, but decent discussion of interesting topics.

[Anonymous No.15594611]

>>15593691
Regarding "spiritual protestantism" this can be bound to two distinct influences on context of contemporary western Buddhism: 1.) the major contact between Buddhism and Western countries was 19th century British imperialism (with smaller but significant German, Russian, and French contributions). Buddhism was thus researched and translated into English by first movers who came from Protestant cultures. They specificially combed the texts looking for things they wanted to see, such as lists of doctrines and authoritative texts and helped mold the idea that Buddhism was a "rational" religion opposed to superstition and traditional ideas of worship (this has some truth but is far from accurate). They effectively cherry picked what they wanted to be Buddhism much in the same way a colonial government would do archaeological work in a ruled territory to serve its interests or a Protestant reformer would textually judaize Christianity on the basis of the Bible to clean out the pagan or polytheistic elements (saints, ornamentation, excessive festivals, hiearchies) that had crept in. This led to so-called Buddhist Modernism in which Buddhism is transfigured into a kind of humanistic philosophy based on very old canonical books rather than a pan-Asian religion about ending the cycle of rebirth due to consequences of actions by following the teachings of suprahuman beings on hoe to overcome suffering. 2.) We are posting on an English speaking forum frequented by apostates from their parents' Christianity, and the English-speaking world is protestantized. Even the Catholics are protestantized, accepting the general worldview of the majority that sees religion as a personal affair that one has to be able to rigorously justify by appealing to demystified quasi-rational arguments lest they look like an idiot. One can no longer have an experience, epiphany or insight through faith and contemplation, it has to be tractible from a reproducible, universalized manual. This applies to Orthobros, Tradcaths, Vikangz, Guenonislamists, the Internet Vedantists etc, all of whom will rattle off their sacred texts and how they speak to practical matters which concern them, such as suppression of sexual degeneracy, tolerance of racism/anti-semitism, muscular views on authority and hierarchies, etc. Religion becomes neither above the phenomenological world nor permeating through it, but an expedient way to package one's pre-existing views into a fast food combo. America's hundreds of protestant denominations bear witness to this process of radical differentiation without higher meaning.

[Anonymous No.15594630]

>>15594611
buddha has awoken. anybody after reading your comment will want to go to bed.

[Anonymous No.15594645]

>>15594611
You think Guenon falls prey to this too? Is mysticism the only way to avoid this rationalization and spiritual materialism?

[Anonymous No.15594689]

>>15594611
>suppression of sexual degeneracy, tolerance of racism/anti-semitism, muscular views on authority and hierarchies, etc.
holy based...

[Anonymous No.15594786]

>>15594645
Have not read Guenon in some time; I am more speaking with regard to those who adopt foreign religious views and attempt to naturalize them into their reflexive protestant concepts while writing off whatever they deem to be too superstitious. For Guenon himself, we can infer his interest in initiation and lineages transmitting some sort of perennial gnosis moves him away from the a la carte sola scriptura of Protestantism that typifies many of the "new" religious movements of our postmodern world. Guenon's project is different, but the great irony is his turn to Islam, the purest monotheism, which has expelled all polytheistic or pantheistic trappings which animated the world with spirit, and judges people in accordance with whether they follow the book or not.

[Anonymous No.15594825]

>>15594689
Almost every proselytizer here will claim their version of theology is based and redpilled. Get your Laws of Manu or Havamal or E. Michael Jones books ready

[Anonymous No.15596246]

worthwhile thread; bump

[Anonymous No.15596343]

>>15588564
This reading list is almost identical to the one i put together earlier this year. Nice to see i'm on the right track.

[Anonymous No.15596548]

>>15594825
>Laws of Manu
>Havamal
>E. Michael Jones

holy based...

[Anonymous No.15596589]

>>15594611
Good post.

[Anonymous No.15597271]

>>15593573
please answer

[Anonymous No.15597864]

>>15594611
checked and well-said

[s10241875 No.15598224]

>>15588564
Good start. Good luck, pasta poster!
Buddhism is immense, and I believe that you can enter from any end, choosing what is closer and further to expand knowledge. So there is no “right” or “wrong start”.

>>15594611
I do not quite agree, but this is a quality post!

All people have some kind of learned culture that affects their position. Well, let's say if we were from the Papuan tribe of cannibals, but we would be primarily interested in the opportunity to "eat Buddhism." So yes - we are people of a certain culture. But the second side of the coin is that there is no pure Buddhism per se. Whatever we take, we will see people of different cultures (present or disappeared) who brought something of their own to Buddhism, changed it for themselves and changed themselves.
So I'm not really worried about this.

[Anonymous No.15598400]

>>15598224
Agree that culture informs reception of ideas and one's position on them. In China for instance, Buddhism was first read through Taoist vocabulary and at the same time many elites saw it as a western "barbarian" import, this view being particular to the middle kingdom's self-consciousness. It is not that we need to overcome our protestantized context in order to access a pure Buddhism; it is that protestantized context which makes us concerned with obtaining a pure Buddhism and drives the typical internet Buddhist to gravitate towards the Sri Lankan interpretation, which he has assured himself is free of catholicized problems like sainthood, veneration of icons, apotheosis/henosis etc. His personal reading of the original scripture and rejection of what is identified as a posteriori additions to what is canonical is a construction of the pure. He assumes the Pali Canon is word of God, something he is primed to seek out and privilege without further scrutiny

[s10241875 No.15598523]

>>15598400
Yes. Therefore, I believe that you need to use your native culture to achieve Buddhist goals. So some kind of Protestant "troubles" to Buddhism is even good - it opens up new horizons.

Let’s say the Japanese (with their characteristic autism) when they met Protestants and immediately began to think:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Buddhism

And ask yourself: “So what did Jesus really teach? That is, Buddha, for sure, is always confusing." It did not grow into some kind of broad religious movement, but it was incredibly successful in terms of studying the history and doctrine of Buddhism.
The same Taishō Tripiṭaka is a purely Protestant, in spirit, project, but its use for study is simply gigantic.

So look in your culture for those traits that will help you advance along the Eightfold Path.

[Anonymous No.15599615]

I read the bhaghavad gita and enjoyed the premise. I'm pretty interested to read about hinduism/buddhism and unlike many others I see many aspects of it being astoundingly similar to abrahanism. Anytime I click on a buddhist/hindu thread though there's always a fight going on and I get lost with the long name recs. what should i read?

[Anonymous No.15599637]

>>15590117
where is that from? doesn't seem like it's written by him, he always says he's not interested in politics.

[Anonymous No.15599650]

>>15594786
>but the great irony is his turn to Islam, the purest monotheism, which has expelled all polytheistic or pantheistic trappings which animated the world with spirit, and judges people in accordance with whether they follow the book or not.

Sufism literally inverts this on it's head though.

[Anonymous No.15599722]

>>15588564
>all this shit
>no mention of the samatha and vipassana techniques
/lit/ once again proving itself more interested in winning philology pissing contests than in any actual philosophy qua philosophy

[Anonymous No.15599743]

>>15599615
>what should I read?
this

https://realization.org/p/ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita.html

[Anonymous No.15599758]

>>15599722
>meditation techniques
>philosophy

[Anonymous No.15599838]

>>15599743
>https://realization.org/p/ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita.html
thanks anon

[Anonymous No.15600352]

>>15593976

[Anonymous No.15600384]

bump

[Anonymous No.15600408]

>>15599758
THE PUREST PHENOMENOLOGY

[Anonymous No.15600500]

Essential reading for all Buddhists:
>The Shadow of the Dalai Lama: Sex, Magic, and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism
http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/Contents.htm
https://archive.org/details/THESHADOWOFTHEDALAILAMA/page/n3/mode/2up

[Anonymous No.15600562]

>>15599722
It's a meta-guide. The reader will find the info inside I'm just giving them a map. Also I mentioned I'm not a Buddhist so I'm biased towards the philosophy rather than the practice.

>>15597271
IDK but I even if I'm new and I have a lot to learn these basics will be the same so probably no.

[Anonymous No.15600639]

>>15600562
my man, you seem to be lacking a solid concept of philosophy. i recommend checking out meta-philosophy and picking out your favorite school of thought, because researching what ancient people wrote and trying to deduce what their opinions were is not it. you're biased towards anthropology, not philosophy.

[Anonymous No.15600786]

>>15600639
elaborate

[Anonymous No.15600988]

>>15600786
the meta-guide is a pedagogical tool for learning what? comparative religion, it looks like. is this really what attracts you to philosophy? this historical stuff is so dull and tiresome to me, this isn't what i like about it.

[Anonymous No.15601593]

>>15600988
There really is no quick guide to Buddhism. Are you supposed to read the Long Discourses and the Middle Discourses from the Pali Canon? That's three thousand pages. And then if you branch into Mahayana there's the Lankavatara, the Heart, the Lotus Sutras, to name the most "popular" ones. Really if you need somewhere to start it's wikipedia.

[Anonymous No.15601649]

>>15598523
The Taishō Tripiṭaka is interesting because we are more or less relying on Japan to translate the Chinese Buddhist canon for us. China has little interest interest in this and the days of their interest in Buddhist scholarship are seemingly long gone.

[Anonymous No.15601658]

>>15599722
Not sure if there is any benefit for a layman to plunge straight into meditation. It ends with ego-death, and Buddha himself was worried that a poor reception of emptiness would inspire nihilism and amoral behavior