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/lit/ - Literature

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17664187 No.17664187 [Reply] [Original]

What is the Buddhist version of collected religious writings, similar to the Bible or Qur'an? Also, are there any translations I should get/avoid?

>> No.17664215

>>17664187
Dunno brugh but pretty sure if you're getting into eastern shit you have to get the bhagavad gita, upanishads, i ching, tao te ching, and confucius in general

>> No.17664242
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17664242

>>17664187
Here you go, anon. Wishing you freedom from suffering. Samasta loka sukhino bhavantu.

>> No.17664243

>>17664187
Buddhism is a waste of time but if you really want to get into it, the "collected" writings are the Pali canon. The most important ones are the Samyutta nikaya and Majjhima nikaya as well as the Dhammapada and Sutta nipata
Then for the Mahayana stuff you have all the sutras, the most important ones are the Heart, Lotus, Lankavatara, Diamond

>> No.17664246

zen buddhism has koans compilations, you can start with Gerry Shishin Wick's translations

>> No.17664257

>>17664187
Buddhism is death cult

>> No.17664266

>>17664242
Thanks anon.
>>17664215
I just finished tao te ching which got me curious about other eastern philosophies and religions.

>> No.17664284

>>17664257
>meditate until you die

Ahhh peace

>> No.17664292

>>17664257
>>17664284
nooooo you can't say that, why don't you hate life, don't you see sooffering exists?

>> No.17664298

Just get What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula and be done with it

>> No.17664309

>>17664298
Yeah this guy is probably right. No need to read all the other stuff unless you actually want to become a buddhist which won't happen if you're mentally well

>> No.17664335

>>17664242
>>17664266
3/4 of those books are about mahayana and commentaries on abidharmas

>> No.17664379

>>17664335
What do you recommend? I was going to finish up books like The Analects and I ching first before moving to Buddhism.

>> No.17664565

>>17664187
>What is the Buddhist version of collected religious writings, similar to the Bible or Qur'an?
This is called Tripitaka / Tipitaka.
There are three main versions.
Lankan: Tipitaka or Pali Canon. The composition and editions may vary slightly from country to country.
Chinese Tripitaka. The most famous version of the yazadawa in Japan in the early 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taish%C5%8D_Tripi%E1%B9%ADaka
Tibetan Kangyur and a collection of "comments" Tengyur.
There are other collections, but they have been preserved fragmentarily, nevertheless, there are also significant works there.

>Also, are there any translations I should get/avoid?
Simple answer: No.
As far as I know, even the shortest Sri Lankan Tipitaka has not been fully translated into any of the European languages (I think you are interested in English first of all), not to mention the volumes of comments without which it is problematic to understand many things.
I am not even talking about the Chinese and Tibetan canons: they are much longer and more complicated.
I don’t think that someone will actually do the translation, let alone make it successfully.

The good (and bad) news is that Buddhism has a tradition of repetition. That is, almost the entire work can consist of quotations from other sutras and even internal repetitions. So if you read 5 out of 100 sutras on some topic, then most likely there will be nothing new in content in the rest.

So people are usually limited to a small set of pieces that are important to their school.

I would recommend that you first briefly study Theravada, then Mahayana, then Vajrayana. Then you can find the most interesting school and further study it more closely. You can also use a picture >>17664242

>> No.17664641

>>17664379
He has no idea what he's talking about and is butthurt because Buddhism doesn't work like Christianity.

Read What the Buddha Taught, then read the Heart Sutra (Red Pine's translation + commentary).

>> No.17664676

>>17664641
Not the guy you're replying to, do you have any suggestions on the more heterodox sects of vajrayana? I'm not interested in becoming a buddhist because the stuff on the self is suffering makes no sense to me, but some strands of vajrayana seem like they deviate from this and have some interesting takes

>> No.17664679

>>17664676
>the self is suffering
meant the self and* suffering, sorry

>> No.17664691

>>17664676
This, I should have mentioned in the OP that I am not considering becoming a Buddhist at all, but I am still interested in it's teachings.

>> No.17664728

>>17664691
Typical dumb modernist approach to religion. You will nothing from books but the most superficial representation of the tradition. Worse, you will be more deluded than you were before you read these books because you will imagine you now know something of Buddhism, which you do not.

You faggots learned nothing from Guenon. You need a teacher who belongs to an authentic tradition.

>> No.17664738
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17664738

>>17664728
>if you don't convert to my religion you'll learn nothing
Then I guess I'll learn nothing, fuck your dogmatic shit.

>> No.17664773

>>17664676
>but some strands of vajrayana seem like they deviate from this and have some interesting takes
Then read anything by the brahmins like this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Principal_Upanishads

Half of the gurus in Vajrayana are saying emptiness is ontological, ie emptiness is empty, ie like the brahmins, the other half of the gurus is saying it's just epistemological. And they are both wrong fro the POV of buddhism, exactly what you like.

>> No.17664791

>>17664773
Doesn't any school of vajrayana add anything to brahminic views? Dzogchen looks like it has some interesting interpretations especially of phenomenology and reality, can it all be found in hinduism?

>> No.17665184

>>17664728
Seethe.

>> No.17666128

>>17664728
>You faggots learned nothing from Guenon
No one has ever learned something from Guenon, or Evola for that matter.

>> No.17666814
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17666814

>>17664242
is this chart a good way to learn more about Buddhism or is it for more the more advanced?

>> No.17666828

>>17666814
It's overkill, just do as >>17664641 says
That chart is if you want to acquire enough autistic knowledge about buddhism that you'll be able to debate about it on /lit/

>> No.17666970

>>17664187
For Theravada: The Pali Canon

For Mahayana: The Chinese Canon (Taishō edition is the standard modern version)

For Tibetan Buddhism: The Tibetan Canon (although it is not particularly systematised)

Each of these canons is far longer than the Bible and basically nobody reads them all. For Theravada you can start with selected texts from the canon. The Dhammapada is probably the most popular and there are multiple books of selected translations from the Nikayas (dialogues of the Buddha), e.g. "In The Buddha's Words" by Bhikku Bodhi and "Sayings Of The Buddha" by Rupert Gethin. For Mahayana the Heart Sūtra is the most popular but is very short. The Diamond and Lotus Sūtras are also popular. A good start is "Buddhist Wisdom: The Diamond and Heart Sutra" by Edward Conze.

I don't know so much about Tibetan texts.

>>17664215
That's a very orientalist take. There is no homogenous mass of "eastern philosophy" the schools of buddhism don't reference the I Ching or Bhagavad Gita.