/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.16334074]

Do Buddhists do anything as a religion other than read and meditate?
It seems like that is just a component of something that could be larger.
For example there is a lot more to Christianity other than reading the bible and prayer even though that's a big part

[Anonymous No.16334079]

<ahem> shankara

[Anonymous No.16334081]

>>16334074
>read and meditate
the point of Buddhism is to shed your life of all it's distractions. Asceticism and minimalism is the natural end point.

[Anonymous No.16334084]

Yes, they do.
I hope this helped.

[Anonymous No.16334093]

If you only knew how far meditating and reading can actually take you...

[Anonymous No.16334096]

>Do Christians do anything other than believe in Jesus?
This is how dumb you sound.

[Anonymous No.16334097]

>>16334074
Sand paintings and martial arts too *Buddha Chop*

[Anonymous No.16334109]

>>16334096
try harder

[Anonymous No.16335346]

>>16334074
They do, but they shouldn't.

[Anonymous No.16335351]

>>16334074
What do Christians do besides pray and go to church?

[Anonymous No.16335365]

>>16334074
They believe in reincarnation.

[Anonymous No.16335392]

>>16335351
Create advanced civilizations

[Anonymous No.16335411]

>>16335351
fuck children

[Anonymous No.16335597]

>>16335392
you mean
>steal the glory from pre-existing pagan civilizations

[Anonymous No.16335610]

>>16335597
How do you "steal" from what was "pre-existing" aka "no longer existing"
Sounds like basically an awesome endeavor

[Anonymous No.16335638]

>>16335610
>How do you "steal" from what was "pre-existing" aka "no longer existing"
you do it very jewishly, subvert the plebeians and convert the patricians

[Anonymous No.16335712]

>>16334074
No, buddhism is a passive religion.

[Anonymous No.16335941]

>>16335392
you mean dwell on utter disgusts until daddy moslems translate greeks for you?

[Anonymous No.16336074]

Yes, plenty. Generally, anything Christian monks did (with the sole exception of brewing alcohol, and even then) Buddhist monks did. Buddhism is just a raft to convey Dharma, so the raft can be changed as needed. This is most emphasized in Mahayana Buddhism. In this sense, there can totally be multiple "Buddhisms". Zen, Chan, Shingon, whatever. As long as it gets you to Dharma, you can change it as you please. This means Buddhism is great at syncreticism, which is why Japanese Buddhists worship Kongoshu, who is Vajrapani, who is Hercules.

So really, if you want to know what "Buddhists" do other than read and meditate, you need to be a lot more specific.

[Anonymous No.16336115]

>>16334074
Most Buddhists don't meditate. They do pujas to gain favours from deities or appease hungry ghosts, this kind of thing.

[Anonymous No.16336120]

>>16334074
>For example there is a lot more to Christianity
Actually there isn't. You don't need to pray or read anything, you just need to believe.
Christcuckery is the lowest common denominator religion

[Anonymous No.16336166]

>>16334096
>>Do Christians do anything other than believe in Jesus?
Christians (catholics) put Christs teachings to work in the world though.

>It has around 18,000 clinics, 16,000 homes for the elderly and those with special needs, and 5,500 hospitals,
>In 2016, the church supported 43,800 secondary schools, and 95,200 primary schools
> According to the census of the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education, the total number of Catholic universities and higher education institutions around the world is 1,358

Why dont Buddhists do anything but pray and support parasitical monks with junk food?

[Anonymous No.16336187]

>>16336166
They do, they just don't do it outside of Buddhist countries. Historically, and to this day in Japan and China, a lot of hospitals and schools were founded by Buddhists.

[Anonymous No.16336375]

>>16335638
surely christianity subverted the decadent state religion of rome

[Anonymous No.16336433]

>>16336375
Subverted it with something infinitely more decadent.

[Anonymous No.16336479]

>>16336433
with the rise of a proper religion, theology, universities, actual temples, theocratic monarchy...?

[Anonymous No.16336494]

>>16336479
>rome didn't have religion, theology, education, temples, or monarchy before christianity
jesus christ you actually believe this shit don't you lmfao the absolute STATE of LARPers.

[Anonymous No.16336506]

>>16334096
No the accurate parallel would be:
>Do Christians do anything other than pray in church?
I agree with your sentiment though.

[Anonymous No.16336520]

>>16336479
>proper religion
No true scotsman.
>theology
You think the greeks and romans weren't doing this? It's just an offshoot of philosophy, kinda retarded that they're considered different fields nowadays. The greeks had sophisticated ideas of monotheism long before anybody else. The Jews claim they had it first but that's an unverifiable "muh 4000 y/o oral tradition".
>actual temples
decadence
>theocratic monarchy
decadence

[Anonymous No.16336521]

>>16336494
state religion is not religion, rome didn't even have theology proper like greeks and christians, education in rome was abhorrent, didn't even have mathematics, even art in rome was worse, uglier and more mundane than the greek one

[Anonymous No.16336555]

>>16336520
what a superficial understanding of antiquity you have, holy shit. also, did i say anything about greeks? the greeks developed their philosophy from egyptian theology. theology is the foundation of sacred sciences and philosophy started with an initiate into the egyptian mysteries (pythagoras, some others say orpheus was the first philosopher, anyhow he studied under egyptian priests too). you really think philosophy is older than religious sciences and theopoesis? have you read anything about philosophy lol
> The greeks had sophisticated ideas of monotheism
yes, with Plato. But the egyptians did have ideas like Principle of principles.

>actual temples and theocratic monarchy are decadency
you are really retarded. both of these things were the rule in egyptian and greek world (the latter being influenced by the former which is the craddle of science (real science tied to religion).

[Anonymous No.16336556]

>>16336521
Oh, you don't have any clue what you're talking about and want book recs, why didn't you just say so. Religions of Rome, Vol I and II, Archaic Roman Religion, and Greek Religion. All three are on libgen. Come back if you have any questions.

[Anonymous No.16336565]

>>16336555
This has nothing to do with defending the fact that Christianity was more decadent than the state of the Roman Empire before its spread.
And you seem to agree with me that Christianity did not invent theology, even the subset of ideas it claims as its own, so why even bring it up as if that makes it better than pre-Christian thought?

[Anonymous No.16336566]

>>16336555
>it's the pyramid texts guy
okay schizo

[Anonymous No.16336573]

>>16334097
stop posting this thot

[Anonymous No.16336574]

>>16336556
ah you are the same person i have discussed these things with before and ignored my posts showing how rome lacked what egyptians and christians had and what platonism attempted to restore back: religion, theology and metaphysics, and thus real science and art.
rome had great poets and ethical advisers, but it is this, they were a people with a mentality inclined to the social, urban aspect of a civilization.

[Anonymous No.16336617]

>>16336565
How not? With Christianity a coherent and proper civilization arises. It is with it that we can come back to the ancient egypt model of civilization (of which you probably have absolutely no knowledge and ignore how fundamental this civilization was to the intellectual greek world).
>you seem to agree with me that Christianity did not invent theology
When did I say anything about Christianity inventing theology? Platonism restored its due proeminence, beginning with Pythagoras, but being with Plato established and maintained by the later platonists.
>even the subset of ideas it claims as its own
who is saying theology is an exclusively christian thing?

[Anonymous No.16336637]

>>16334074
yes...noble eightfold path

[Anonymous No.16336725]

>>16336574
If your argument is "They didn't have Plato ergo..." then that's an incredibly dumb stance to take, akin to the types who say that only Christians can be "religious". Just because they didn't agree with you doesn't mean they didn't have theology. Do the Chinese not have a theology because they disagree with Plato (which actually means, they disagree with YOU)? You might as well just say "everyone who disagrees with me is wrong", because you're not really concerned with their beliefs, you're just arbitrarily defining "correct" as "what you believe".

This is the first time I've ever had a discussion with you, but if as you say multiple people are bringing up the same criticisms of you, have you considered that it's because of a gaping flaw in your beliefs and actions that multiple people are picking up on? Likewise, if you have been demonstrated to have not read any literature on this topic, and have been called out on it by multiple people for it, surely it would be a better idea to actually familiarize yourself with the subject, if just to see why they're calling you out?

[Anonymous No.16336746]

>>16336617
>thread about buddhism
>has to turn it into a discussion of his weird schizo ayyy lmao pyramid shit
could you fuck off?

[Anonymous No.16336762]

>>16334074
Most buddhists don't even meditate, in Buddhist countries people practice their religion by donating to monks, praying to their local gods, calling monks for funerals and so on. The idea for the lay person is to get good karma by doing good deeds every life so that you may get closer to enlightenment in a future life. The Buddha himself needed eons of lives full of good deeds in order to finally reincarnate as the Buddha. This idea that Buddhism is all about meditating to reach enlightenment now and everyone should meditate is more of a Zen thing.

[Anonymous No.16336783]

Practicing monks do a lot of labor to maintain the state of the monastery. They will spend most of their time meditating and studying the religion, but doing other things is not a waste of time thanks to the khammatic system. Also most Buddhists are obviously not monks but I can tell that's what you had in mind

[Anonymous No.16336794]

>>16336725
>If your argument is "They didn't have Plato ergo..."
When I say Platonism I refer to pythagoreans and the orphics too. This is common knowledge to anyone who studies greek theology. All I ask is a couple of roman theological works. Give me some and prove to me they were engaged with religion.

>Do the Chinese not have a theology because they disagree with Plato.
I don't know why you are bringing Plato as the only possible form of theology when I cited Plato and platonism as the best example of what theology was in the ancient greek world. The Chinese had a coherent civilization with the axis of the sacred. They based, like all traditional civlizations, their sciences on divine principles exposed in sacred works. We have many texts from them on their theological systems.

>if as you say multiple people are bringing up the same criticisms of you, have you considered that it's because of a gaping flaw in your beliefs.
I am aware that most people in this board recently have the superficiality on certain matters characteristic of commoners. They listen to what they have heard their entire life by people in the same condition without any rigorous study and think that what they received is factual. This is especially striking about Christianity.
I supposed you were the same person because that person with whom I confused you had the same narrow mentality about religion, theology, ancient greece, egypt and christianity and never replied satisfactorily only with Dumézil's books.

I'm waiting for an actual response from you to everything I raised in this thread so far.

[Anonymous No.16336812]

>>16336794
How can people not hate Christians and Christianity?

[Anonymous No.16336832]

>>16336794
>an actual response
I already gave you one, see >>16336556. You are ignorant and clueless, and it shows. I have provided you with a way to remedy that. Other people have, as you readily admit, attempted to do so in the past. Chances are, you will continue to blindly stumble around, thinking the shadows on the wall are reality, and getting upset when people in the future call you out on the foolish and uninformed opinions that you hold.

You want an "argument"? There is evidence to support the claim that the Romans had theology. I have cited my sources.

[Anonymous No.16336833]

>>16334074
why does he have a smith chart behind him? it bothers me every time i see this picture. I guess its supposed to look sublime because normalfags can't into electricity, but it's about as materialistic as you can get.

[Anonymous No.16336958]

>>16336832
I asked you to cite theological works on the roman religion from romans themselves. Can you do this? I do intend to read Dumézil's book in the future, but it seems you yourself haven't read it. Why can you not give me theological works from the romans? Doesn't Dumézil say anything about this?

>thinking the shadows on the wall are reality
Oh yes, the romans certainly wrote on the nature of reality, right? Give me a few works of theirs on it.

>>16336812
Not even talking specifically about Christianity, I showed how Platonism and egyptians had it on part with christians. You simply don't have anything to say.

[Anonymous No.16336959]

>>16336812
most people aren't leftists

[Anonymous No.16336966]

>>16334081
wrong

[Anonymous No.16336984]

>>16336959
Christianity is of the left.

[Anonymous No.16337069]

>>16334079
he got called out for using that bot again yesterday so he deactivated it again temporarily, try again in a few days or a week in random threads and I bet it'll work

[Anonymous No.16337177]

>>16336959
>>16336984
>christianity is literally this modern conception of political position!
nuke this board

[Anonymous No.16337348]

>>16336984
nope,the left hate Christianity

[Anonymous No.16337627]

>>16335597
>Muh basking in reflected glory from times past.
>That glory is muh BIRTHRIGHT damnit!!!
>It is muh identity!
>I'm better than anyone else who isn't an Elite Raceman without having to do anything at all!
Imagine lacking values so much you have to cling to the illusion of actually having them.

[Anonymous No.16337672]

>>16335597
I'm reminded of the descants of African-American slaves who visit Africa to "re-connect with their forgotten culture." When they arrive they find out that they have few experiences in common with Africans, don't feel a sense of connection at all, and usually are very disillusioned.
Ultimately what you know from these "great" pagan civilizations is mere stories, interpreted with a child's comic-book mentality. I imagine that the actual reality if it, if you could magically time-travel to experience, would be dramatically different than you expect.
>We wuz pagan kangz

[Anonymous No.16337691]

>>16336794
>I am aware that most people in this board recently have the superficiality on certain matters characteristic of commoners.
Imagine being such a neckbeard that you refer to other people as "commoners."
Another temporarily embarrassed aristocrat, LMAO.

[Anonymous No.16337704]

>>16334074
there are some ceremonies and stuff too but for the most part buddhism is just reading and meditating and teaching
>t. worked in a buddhist monastery

[Anonymous No.16337733]

As ever, the truth lies in the synthesis of east and west
http://www.darkbuddhism.com/

[Anonymous No.16337758]

>>16337733
>darkbuddhism
>By Morgan D. Rosenberg
>Rosenberg

[Anonymous No.16337765]

>>16337672
post chin

[Anonymous No.16337778]

>>16334074
Budhism is like Protestantism in that regard except for the preaching.

[Anonymous No.16337792]

>>16334074
Buddhism is like Protestantism in that regard except for the preaching.

[Anonymous No.16337800]

>>16337069
It's not a bot, it's a dude. There WAS a bot a few months ago, but that bot had a different copypasta.

>>16337672
Not really. Europeans were offering blood sacrifice to Gods up until the 1600s, they just called the Gods saints and angels. Hell, the vast majority of Europeans only started giving a shit about the Bible around the time of the Protestant Reformation, most Europeans, laymen and clergymen, were far more interested in the lives of angels, saints, heroes, demons, church fathers, popes, etc than they were in Jesus, who for them was this abstract figure that was only really interacted with at Mass.

You're doing the whole reddit "le iliad was just le ancient comic books XD" thing, but ironically, what with the entire idea of "canon" being totally foreign to the Classical world, Christian saints are far closer to capeshit than the Classics ever were.

[Anonymous No.16337915]

>>16337800
> were far more interested in the lives of angels, saints, heroes, demons, church fathers, popes, etc than they were in Jesus
where did you get that from?
Angles were holy and powerful beings of God
Saints were holy men who lived their lives like Christ
Heroes were military leaders of great deeds who did it for God and their country
Demons were evil beings that hate God and can posses your body and mind if you let them in
Church fathers were mostly known only to the church and they helped greatly with defining dogmsa and fighting against heresies
Popes were the heads of the church as vicars of christ
Seems pretty God/Christ centered to anyone with an honest heart.

[Anonymous No.16337938]

>>16337915
Obviously the philosophers and theologians thought these things, but the average peasant didn't. If you went back in time, your interactions would be mostly with average people who didn't think about the intricacies of their religion, and just did what they were told (ignore "hurf durf timetravelers meet important people because the're a curiosity").

To the average peasant, the sky and forests and whole world was full of beings that could help and hinder you, and that could be propitiated by sacrifice and worship.

[Anonymous No.16337973]

>>16337691
that is a COMMON characteristic among these people which is the majority and that is why this neglect of knowledge is COMMON. you are just another one of them.

[Anonymous No.16337977]

>>16337938
>average people who didn't think about the intricacies of their religion, and just did what they were told
because they didn't have to read plato, aristotle, augustine and thomas aquinas to understand who god/christ was through the church teachings.
>To the average peasant, the sky and forests and whole world was full of beings that could help and hinder you, and that could be propitiated by sacrifice and worship.
They believed in angles and saints as good beings and demons and those who got involved with them as bad beings. That''s it.
Sacrifices are essential for being a christian.

[Anonymous No.16338009]

>>16337938
this has always been the same in human history, knowledge was restricted to a few selected ones, an intellectual elite. why do you think the pythagoreans hid their doctrines and to be admitted in the sect you should prove yourself worth of it. why was socrates condemned to death? why did dionysius persecute and almost imprisoned plato? only divine men follow the divine path of knowledge

[Anonymous No.16338036]

>>16337977
>>16338009
The educated men of Western Europe were not reading Plato until into the 1500s.

In any event, the point still stands: There is a chain of history between the Classical World and today, and pretending that (obvious contrivances about time travel aside) there is some significant gap that can never be bridged is foolish. The largest differences would be linguistic and economic (this is a gross summary of the difference between a wage slave and a peasant, but that's something different than "number of gods").

[Anonymous No.16338056]

>>16334074
Cull uppity muslim terrorists.

[Anonymous No.16338079]

>>16334074
What do the laypeople of any religion do? You are perhaps looking at this from a textual perspective so that is all you are seeing.

[Anonymous No.16338099]

>>16338036
>The educated men of Western Europe were not reading Plato until into the 1500s.
No translations and no copious amount of commentaries written in the first half of the first millenium of the common era?

>There is a chain of history between the Classical World and today, and pretending that there is some significant gap that can never be bridged is foolish.
Many lines of transmissions died in the process, we lost a lot and it only becomes worse.

[Anonymous No.16338234]

>>16338099
>No translations and no copious amount of commentaries written in the first half of the first millenium of the common era?
I think if someone is referring to the 'educated men of Western Europe' he likely means late antiquity has passed, otherwise he would simply refer to the Roman empire. What are you yourself hinting at, Plotinus, Proclus, Iamblichus?

[Anonymous No.16338290]

>>16338099
I was referring specifically to the Medieval period, as that is who I was talking about earlier.

And yes, I would agree. I would also argue that even though many of those are gone, the root that they come from, and the greater "rope" made up of those strands, continues on.

[Anonymous No.16338314]

Given the direction this thread has gone, I recommend pic related. The introduction has some interesting discussion on the Indo-Greeks and the little archaelogical evidence we have of them directly practicing Buddhism, such as a Buddhist reliquary being inscribed in Greek (to say nothing of the coinage, which is more political than devotional, or the statuary, which is inferred). Had the Hellenistic world not collapsed, one wonders what sort of philosophical and religious exhanges could have occurred between these isolated colonists and their cousins in the Mediterranean.

[Anonymous No.16338330]

>>16338314
I find indo-hellenic culture and their relationship to Buddhism fascinating. I think some of the first statues of the Buddha ever produced were carved by the indo-greeks.

[Anonymous No.16338397]

>>16338330
Prior to the Greeks Buddha was generally represented symbolically. If the legends of China's conversion are to be believed, one of their emperors had been impressed by a statue, and without the Greeks there would not have been a Buddhist statuary tradition for the Chinese to appreciate centuries later. (Obviously the real story is a bit more complicated and involves Buddhism straddling the Silk Road during a golden age of sorts for central Asia under the post-Hellenistic Kushans. I think someone already mentioned in the thread the Heracles->Japanese temple guardian connection as well.

[Anonymous No.16338429]

>>16338234
>>16338290
Not only them but to the entire period between ~100 to ~500AD. This period flourished with platonic texts, commentaries and productions heavily inspired by platonism both from pagans and christians. The middle ages still echoed this influence by Plato (or platonism) but not as fervent as the period before maybe because of the rediscovery of Aristotle. I wonder what happened during these times and why the platonic dialogues were scarce and fragmented even though platonism was alive in certain groups of medieval theologians.

[Anonymous No.16338539]

>>16338429
Well from 400-700 you have Germans take over their portion of Rome and the Arabs seize the other. The world conversant in Greek begins to shrink. Latin translations become lost or ignored as Latin becomes the language of clerical administration in the West. In the surviving Eastern Roman Empire there will soon be iconoclasm and wars of religion much earlier than in northern Europe. Less room for the Ideas.

[Anonymous No.16338572]

>>16338079
did you not read the post?

reading and meditation seems like that is just a component of something that could be larger.
For example there is a lot more to Christianity other than reading the bible and prayer even though that's a big part

[Anonymous No.16338576]

>>16334081
The point is to detach, leaving the wheel. Asceticism is simply a very good way to do so.

[Anonymous No.16338582]

>>16336166
Buddhists put compassion into being as well, but they tend to not be great believers in organizations

[Anonymous No.16338617]

>>16338572
What, you don't think there are Buddhist temples and charities?

[Anonymous No.16338655]

>>16338539
Ah yes, the transition from Greek to Latin and the establishment of the latter was certainly the main factor for decreasing the fever of greek writings, so much so that many eastern fathers, who wrote in greek too, were never popular in the west.

[Anonymous No.16338764]

>>16338617
so you don't know?ok then

[Anonymous No.16338956]

>>16338764
What is the 'more to Christianity' you are thinking of that Buddhism doesn't have? Buddhism is over 2000 years old and practiced across Asia and in diaspora communities and among converts in non-Asian countries. It has multiple schools and sects, competing canons of texts, pantheons of saints, aforementioned temples and charities, pilgrimage sites, art, music, philosophy, etc.

[Anonymous No.16339224]

>>16338956
in terms of practice is all they do meditate and read scripture?

[Anonymous No.16340336]

there isn't
because they are gnostic frauds

[Anonymous No.16340628]

>>16340336
how do you know the proper way to act?

[Anonymous No.16341112]

christian rejects need to stop attempting to turn buddhism into a religion for the masses. even in japan buddhism never was the most popular

[Anonymous No.16341129]

>>16341112
Based elitist poster. It's called the noble eightfold path for a reason

[Anonymous No.16341427]

>>16340336
Buddhism is about as far from Gnosticism as you can get.

>>16339224
The term "meditation" is so broad that it can, truthfully, be used to encompass literally everything Buddhists do (even reading scripture). One popular form of meditation in the Theravada tradition is to watch a coroner dissect a body. Another form, popular across all of the sangha, is observation of the breath. Begging for alms - and giving alms - are also both meditation. Worshiping deities for material benefit is meditation (related to compassion, charity, and good deeds, which are CRITICALLY necessary for enlightenment and the cultivation of merit). So, in a sense, it's fair to say that all that Buddhists do is indeed meditation.

In practice, however, the answer is "no", because what you mean by "meditation" is "sit on their ass and do something vaguely 'spiritual' or some such". Buddhists do more than that.

[Anonymous No.16341607]

Yes. Asian countries have the highest IQs and the lowest obesity rates.

[Anonymous No.16341792]

Fun fact: Buddhists do not believe people have free will. You might not have known that.

himalayanart.org if you like this kind of artwork.

[Anonymous No.16341833]

>>16341607
And the smallest dicks.

[Anonymous No.16342342]

>>16341792
>Fun fact: Buddhists do not believe people have free will. You might not have known that.
source?