/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19103448]

What is the most beautiful book on Buddhism you've read? I've finished the Dhammapada and found some of the aphorisms very moving. I'm looking for either primary sources or secondary lit/commentaries.

[Anonymous No.19103477]

>>19103448
Atisha's Lamp For the Path To Enlightenment

[Anonymous No.19103485]

>>19103448
>>19103477
Also, Tokme Zangpo's Thirty Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva

[Anonymous No.19103488]

>>19103448
The bible

[Anonymous No.19103491]

>>19103477
>>19103485
I haven't engaged with Tibetan Buddhism past the Book of the Dead and the Six Yogas of Naropa, I want to learn more about it but the esoteric part being only available through gurus is annoying. Thanks for the recs

[Anonymous No.19103502]

>>19103448
The Diamond sutra, especially its well known passage on the transience of reality
>>19103488
This is why everyone hates you

[Anonymous No.19103549]

>>19103502
I've read the Diamond sutra, it's true that some part of it were quite beautiful.

[Anonymous No.19103616]

>>19103448
Suzuki's "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind"

[Anonymous No.19103627]

>>19103448
THE ZEN TEACHING OF HUANG PO

[Anonymous No.19103660]

>>19103627
>
Your true nature is not lost in moments of delusion, nor is it gained at the moment of enlightenment. It was never born and can never die. It shines through the whole universe, filling emptiness, one with emptiness. It is without time or space, and has no passions, actions, ignorance, or knowledge. In it there are no things, no people, and no Buddhas; it contains not the smallest hairbreadth of anything that exists objectively; it depends on nothing and is attached to nothing. It is all -pervading, radiant beauty: absolute reality, self-existent and uncreated. How then can you doubt that the Buddha has no mouth to speak with and nothing to teach, or that the truth is learned without learning, for who is there to learn? It is a jewel beyond all price. -- Huang-Po

I love that quote. But his student Lin Chi resonates better with me, overall. He seemed a bit more humorous and dangerous.

[Anonymous No.19103679]

>>19103660

“Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.”
― Shunryu Suzuki

[Anonymous No.19103713]

>>19103616
I read this and by the time I finished the book I had learned nothing about what Zen is but I felt pretty good

[Anonymous No.19104628]

bump

[Anonymous No.19104704]

Start with the Jeets

[Anonymous No.19104711]

>>19103448
>I'm looking for either primary sources or secondary lit/commentaries.

Moralizing Proselytism for Dummies
The Absence of Soul: Reflections on Being an NPC
The Isvara Delusion: Why Religion Ruins Everything
A Sourcebook of Sophistic Relativism
The Extinction of Consciousness is not Nihilism Because it Never Existed to Begin With: Parsing Mahayana Dialectics

[Anonymous No.19104743]

>>19104704
Do you know any good books on Tiantai/Tendai? There are none on that chart.

[Anonymous No.19104833]

>>19104743
I think you'd need to start with the Lotus Sutra. BDK has English translations of Tiantai works from the Taisho (i.e. Japanese/Chinese) canon

[Anonymous No.19104843]

>>19104833
I understand the Lotus Sutra is the foundational text but I'm looking at more Tiantai-specific works that can give me insight into that branch in particular, I'll look at what BDK has, thanks.

[Anonymous No.19104866]

>>19103448
Primary sources:
Asvagosha - The Life of the Buddha
Asvagosha - Hansome Nanda
R. Gethin - Sayings of the Buddha
J. J. Holder - Early Buddhist Discourses
Secondary sources:
R. Gethin - The Foundations of Buddhism

[Anonymous No.19105085]

I have a bunch of books on Zen but I don't know where to start and which are good:
>Intro to Zen Buddhism and Manual of Zen Buddhism by DT Suzuki
>Become what you are by Watts
>Blue Cliff Record
>The Essential Dogen Writings
>The Gateless Gate
>Record of Linji
>Way of Zen by Watts
>Wisdom of Insecurity by Watts
>Treasury of the True Dhrama Eye
>Zen Training Methods and Philosophy by Sekida
Any advice?

[Anonymous No.19105137]

>>19103448
Buddhism is a hilarious con, nihilism with a new age look. Even Ayn Rand is more logically consistent and puts these hucksters to shame.

[Anonymous No.19105153]

>>19105137
t. Randian trying to shill his retarded philosophy without being too obvious because he knows he will be made fun of for liking such horse shit

[Anonymous No.19105162]

>>19105085
My advice is to start with the Jeets. Zen is a later school which means it arose from Buddhists debating each other over how to do Buddhism. It is worthwhile to start with the earliest materials and make your way there otherwise most of the decisions made about what to say and how to say it will have gone over your head and you're left with a text where you'll probably "get" about a quarter of what's going on.

[Anonymous No.19105166]

>>19105137
>muh logic and materialism
kek. Get back in your dusty coffin, Ayn

[Anonymous No.19105176]

>>19105162
I did start with the basic texts.

[Anonymous No.19105188]

>>19105137
>nihilism with a new age look
Buddhism older than nihilism. The entire western notion of nihilism is related to the fallout from atheism, which had been banned for so long no one had really thought about a godless metaphysics and so reflexively replaced God with "nothing matters." The malformed Buddhism peddled by "new age" types is usually just Christianity in an exotic skin, since it became silly to be a theist but atheism was taken to be nihilism, and who wants to be a nihilist really?

[Anonymous No.19105195]

>>19105153
>his
Rand was a chick, you dumb nigger. My point is that even Rand btfos your precious new age nihilist schlock.

[Anonymous No.19105202]

>>19105176
Probably DT Suzuki then. He did an English translation of the Lankavatara so he was knowledgable of both Zen and its antecedents

[Anonymous No.19105212]

>>19105195
I said RANDIAN, not RAND, you piece of fucking nigger shit. That means YOU, and since you post on 4chan, I assume you are either a man or a woman (male).

[Anonymous No.19105222]

>>19103488
Based. Buddhism is cringe
>broo everything is like empty, you don’t even exist or have a soul, and everything is suffering... you somehow reincarnate despite not having a substantial self...
Retard-tier religion

[Anonymous No.19105227]

>>19105188
>Buddhism older than nihilism
Don't get so caught up in semantics, my pedantic friend. Buddhism is nothing more than a whiny baby philosophy that attracts fey creatures such as yourself. It is a philosophy driven by fear and hypersensitivity, nothing more than a justification for your shortcomings (not to mention, mental illness)

>The malformed Buddhism peddled by "new age" types is usually just Christianity in an exotic skin
I'll wait for you to explain this idiocy, but I know you can't lmao

[Anonymous No.19105236]

>>19105212
ok ambiguous pronoun user aka midwit. thanks for showing everyone what a Buddhist looks like lol. you're a real fuckin dummy, you know that

[Anonymous No.19105246]

>>19105227
>driven by fear and hypersensitivity, nothing more than a justification for your shortcomings (not to mention, mental illness)
Your intense fear of nihilism is obvious from all the mental constructs you throw up to block the bad thoughts. Imagine believing in God or whatever just so you can pat yourself on the back for evading nihilism

[Anonymous No.19105250]

>>19105166
>muh logic
Imagine denying the most basic, invariant and universal laws in reality because some nihilistic streetshitter rambled off some ‘wisdom’ 2500 years ago

[Anonymous No.19105253]

>>19105202
Thanks.
>>19105246
Don't feed the trolls/abrahamists, if you don't respond they'll fuck off by themselves.

[Anonymous No.19105260]

>>19105236
>ok ambiguous pronoun user aka midwit. thanks for showing everyone what a Buddhist looks like lol. you're a real fuckin dummy, you know that

[Anonymous No.19105261]

>>19105246
>if you’re n-not a nihilistic loser like m-me you’re just afraid!
Cringe

[Anonymous No.19105270]

The tide is turning on /lit/, orthomeme threads are getting spammed, atheism threads are getting much more frequent, so christians are damage controlling hard and becoming much more aggressive

[Anonymous No.19105274]

>>19105261
>calls other people afraid
>me, no I'm not afraid at all *gulps* I just happen to assume everyone who disagrees with me is

[Anonymous No.19105288]

>>19105274
calls other people afraid
>me, no I'm not afraid at all *gulps* I just happen to assume everyone who disagrees with me is

[Anonymous No.19105289]

>>19105270
I think we've nearly reached the final form of this the last few days where they just spam "forensic evidence" claiming kosher bread can bleed.

[Anonymous No.19105303]

>>19105288
anti-Buddhists are so NPC they can't even remember the dialog lines they rendered two posts ago

[Anonymous No.19105310]

>>19105289
The last throes are painful but board quality will probably improve over the following months

[Anonymous No.19105340]

>>19105246
wow, you're so superior and brave for not being able to perceive the supernatural. that's not autistic at all. retard.

>>19105260
>no response
thanks for making my point for me

>>19105253
Yes, don't engage in dialogue because your flimsy pseudophilosophy won't hold up under scrutiny

[Anonymous No.19105364]

>>19105340
>calls other people autistic retards
>so there's a big choo choo train in the sky that goes choo choo and makes all the other trains go choo choo around the track but the big choo choo drives itself and honks at us to worship it

[Anonymous No.19105374]

>>19105364
>still humoring his tantrum

[Anonymous No.19105397]

>>19105364
>this is your brain on Buddhism
Don’t you have some yogi sitting in his own shit to worship?

[Anonymous No.19105421]

>>19105397
Where does thomas the tank theology contradict your implict thomism? But yes this is the designated shitting thread, so if you're not going to be mindful of a body shitting, buzz off.

[Anonymous No.19105431]

>>19105421
>can’t even deny his coprophilia

[Anonymous No.19105476]

>>19105421
Based

[Anonymous No.19105518]

>>19105250
>emotions over logic is exclusively a buddhist idéa
Reason is the slave of the passions, anon. Read a book, and learn to look into yourself once in a while - not just outside. You will lose sense of your soul and humanity this way

[Anonymous No.19105536]

>>19105364
wow, you sound so enlightened bro. kys (especially because that ends your suffering amirite)

[Anonymous No.19105546]

>>19105518
Emotions are subject-dependent, reason is universal and the truth. In denying reason Buddhism exposes itself as a form of glorified self-help that can’t even account for basic universal laws

[Anonymous No.19105556]

OP if you liked the Dhammapada, you could look into the Udana. It's a bunch of sutras that tell a story and all end with the Buddha reciting a short poem. It has the story of the blind men and the elephant that you hear about sometimes.
I also like the Theragatha and Therigatha, which are poems written from the perspective of enlightened monks and nuns.

[Anonymous No.19105644]

>>19105546
>reason is universal and the truth
Gibberish. Reason is a faculty that produces good enough outcomes to keep you alive based on incoming mental traffic.

[Anonymous No.19105770]

>>19105556
Thank you

[Anonymous No.19106019]

>>19105644
Laws of logic, mathematics and other things in the domain of reason hold regardless of whether human minds exist to conceptualize them. They are a necessary reality.

[Anonymous No.19106068]

>>19106019
>hold regardless of whether human minds exist to conceptualize them
How do you know? There is nothing to "hold true" without a mind to conceptualize it.

[Anonymous No.19106088]

>>19106068
>There is nothing to "hold true" without a mind to conceptualize it.
Retarded. Would the law of non-contradiction cease to be true without human minds to conceptualize it? Ultimately logic is grounded in the mind of God

[Anonymous No.19106102]

>>19106088
>Would the law of non-contradiction cease
Without a mind to conceptualize it, there is no law. You're being obtuse however and don't want to understand, instead you assume there's always the "mind of God" as a convenient out.

[Anonymous No.19106265]

>>19106088
>Ultimately logic is grounded in the mind of God
Sure thing thomist the tank, here comes the choo choo

[Anonymous No.19106289]

>>19106265
lmao are you the christer poster too? I like your posts

[Anonymous No.19106358]

>>19106289
Somebody has to do border patrol around here!

[Anonymous No.19106367]

>>19106358
Keep being based my friend.

[Anonymous No.19106387]

>>19106367
We'll meet again in the next miraclefag thread.