/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19799811]

Buddhism is a scientific religion

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19799822]

Not even “scientism” is a scientific religion.

But if you believed that, here >>>/sci/

[Anonymous No.19799823]

>>19799811
It's not. It's a phenomenological religion.

[Anonymous No.19799827]

>>19799811
Yep. Look up Pribham-Bohm theory. The world could have skipped Christianity. We could have gone from animism/paganism to buddhism/taoism to quantum mechanics.

We would have lost nothing of value.

[Anonymous No.19799831]

>>19799823
Abstractly describing scientific principles is worthy of respect
>>19799822
You are a cancer on the earth

[Anonymous No.19799834]

>>19799822
Women cannot attain enlightenment or understand science

[Anonymous No.19799839]

>>19799811
No, it's just an atheistic religion.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19799846]

>>19799834
That which is lit need no further illumination

[Anonymous No.19799850]

>2022

[Anonymous No.19799871]

>>19799846
You lit frfr no cap?

[Anonymous No.19799879]

>>19799846
You are pathetic and nobody will miss you when you die

[Anonymous No.19799899]

>>19799811
This is disrespectful to both science and religion

[Anonymous No.19799917]

>>19799899
Retard

[Anonymous No.19799923]

Since this is a literature board, here's a book
>This book tells the story of the Scientific Buddha, "born" in Europe in the 1800s but commonly confused with the Buddha born in India 2,500 years ago. The Scientific Buddha was sent into battle against Christian missionaries, who were proclaiming across Asia that Buddhism was a form of superstition. He proved the missionaries wrong, teaching a dharma that was in harmony with modern science. And his influence continues. Today his teaching of "mindfulness" is heralded as the cure for all manner of maladies, from depression to high blood pressure.
>In this potent critique, a well-known chronicler of the West's encounter with Buddhism demonstrates how the Scientific Buddha's teachings deviate in crucial ways from those of the far older Buddha of ancient India. Donald Lopez shows that the Western focus on the Scientific Buddha threatens to bleach Buddhism of its vibrancy, complexity, and power, even as the superficial focus on "mindfulness" turns Buddhism into merely the latest self-help movement. The Scientific Buddha has served his purpose, Lopez argues. It is now time for him to pass into nirvana. This is not to say, however, that the teachings of the ancient Buddha must be dismissed as mere cultural artifacts. They continue to present a potent challenge, even to our modern world.

[Anonymous No.19799929]

>>19799923
Ignoring the self help buddha, it is enjoyable to read parallels between the buddhism of 2500 years ago and modern science. You can do this by simply reading buddhist texts. Sure reciting buddhas name endlessly until you die sounds like it couldnt possibly be related, but you are just not paying enough attention.

[Anonymous No.19799934]

>>19799834
Most women and men cannot attain enlightenment or understand it. Or science. Most people will never achieve enlightenment including me or you. The goal of life is to tap into its sparks when the dark makes it too hard to see.

[Anonymous No.19799939]

>>19799811
Yeah, especially when compared to Advaita Vedanta

[Anonymous No.19799940]

>>19799823
>It's not. It's a phenomenological religion.
Phenomenology is the proper foundation to all true sciences.

[Anonymous No.19799961]

>>19799839
>buddhism
>atheistic

[Anonymous No.19800043]

>>19799827
A pity that Almighty God chose to insert Himself into humanity's narrative to fuck up the plans that the human race had in its own mind.

[Anonymous No.19800059]

>>19800043
Christianity is a pathetic flailing protest from the ego.

[Anonymous No.19800095]

>>19799961
Yes

[Anonymous No.19800118]

>>19799839
This is like saying Neoplatonism is atheistic because the One is higher than the Being.

[࿇ C Œ M G E N V S ࿇ !KNDY/Ar.iI No.19800140]

BUDDHISM IS A DEMONISTIC CULT THAT IS AS SCIENTIFIC AS ZIONISM CHRISTIAN.

[Anonymous No.19800161]

>>19799811
Refuted by Seraphim Rose

[Anonymous No.19800165]

[Anonymous No.19800296]

>>19800165
Those quotes are taken out of context. The Urga Sutta demonizes women, and that was common place to discipline monks into not craving intimacy. That imagine is dumb because the person who made it is dumb, and the girl in that image is dumb because she's clearly materialistic profligate herself who isn't certain for about her beliefs. She craves validation instead of attempting to earn it for herself. That's what a lot of people do when they see religion. Religion is suppose to be exclusive. Enlightenment is suppose to be hard. Universal salvation is self evidently impossible otherwise it would have happened already.

[Anonymous No.19800529]

>>19800165
There is a sutta in the Nikaya in which the Buddha says that his teaching was going to last 1000 years, but due to women being accepted as monks, it would only last 500 years.
No less than 500 after the Buddha’s parinibbana we begin to see the appearance of the fake and gay Mahayana “sutras”, with its feminine spirituality of “compassion” and virtue signaling. Hmm…

[Anonymous No.19800533]

>>19799811
>pic rel
Boobaism is my religion

[Anonymous No.19800566]

>>19800165
The Bodhisattvabhūmi says not being born ever again as a woman is one of the spiritual achievements of bodhisattvas, so the attitude continues past the canonical sources

[Anonymous No.19800576]

>>19800566
i love how atheists seethe over this.

[Anonymous No.19800585]

>>19799923
McMahan's Buddhist Modernism touches on this too. Even if Buddhism is very obviously not literal "science" in the western modern sense, it was able to fight off Christian missionaries with that argument, a challenge Christians struggle with to this day regardless of Buddhism—you can't have modern science and biblical myth.

[Anonymous No.19800592]

>>19800576
If they were consistent feminists they'd have to agree with the text—surely women suffer more than men, and to overcome suffering would mean to overcome such conditions. But instead it is the height of attachment.

[Anonymous No.19800621]

>>19800592
>However, the Buddha's disciple Śāriputra, a Sravaka,[9] does not believe that a woman can attain buddhahood.[10][11][note 2] In response, the nāga maiden offers a pearl to the Buddha, symbolizing her life and ego, and he accepts it.[13] She then instantly transforms into a perfected male bodhisattva, and then attains complete enlightenment.[13][14][15]
>perfected male bodhisattva
Despite this revisionist Wikipedia edit’s best efforts to reframe this sutra as a pro-feminist sutra, it remains that no woman can attain buddhahood. She has to become a man first.
This reminds me of Plato’s Timaeus, whereby he relates that pure souls are first created male, but as they further sink into animality, they first incarnate as a woman, then as a wild beast.

[Anonymous No.19800665]

>>19800566
>The Bodhisattvabhūmi says not being born ever again as a woman is one of the spiritual achievements of bodhisattvas
Mostly because women have a hard time joining the monastic order and practicing the Path, due to cultural reasons. It is considered an inferior birth because of this specifically, and not because women are in any way considered incapable of attaining Buddahood - see Buddha-nature. In a society where women are no longer disadvantaged in this manner, bring born a woman would no longer be an impediment.

[Anonymous No.19800703]

Buddhist exceptionalism frames the science-religion dialogue from the Buddhist side as well. Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, in his Mind and Life Institute Dialogues with scientists and philosophers, often says that there is a a Buddhist science and that Buddhism is more than a religion. It is a science of the mind.

As historians know, the Dalai Lama is repeating a move that goes back to the nineteenth century. 8 Christian missionaries in Asia had proclaimed the superiority of Christianity because it possessed science and advanced technology. European colonizers had given the same reason for the superiority of European civilization altogether. But Asian Buddhist intellectuals and reformers figured out how to turn the argument around. They countered that Buddhism is the truly scientific religion. These innovative Buddhists downplayed ritual, devotion, and beliefs and practices that Europeans thought were superstitious. They declared that Buddhism has no creator God (even though it has an elaborate array of celestial deities and acknowledges local gods and spirits); that Buddhism relies on reason and personal insight, not faith (even though it has many objects of faith and devotion); and that the Buddha was a human being, not divine (even though he is believed to have a supramundane nature). Indeed, these Buddhists argued, Buddhism is not so much a religion as a science of the mind.

Historians call this modern reformulation of Buddhism 'Buddhist modernism'. It minimizes the metaphysical and ritual elements of traditional Asian Buddhism, while emphasizing scientific rationality together with personal meditative experience. Buddhist modernism presents itself as if it were Buddhism's original and essential core. But, in fact, it's historically recent.

[Anonymous No.19800709]

Nyanaponika asserted that in the light of Bare Attention, the seemingly uniform act of perception will, with increasing clarity, appear as a sequence of numerous and differentiated single phases, following each other in quick succession. This basic observation, he continued, will prove to be a truly scientific observation. But how do we know that everyday active perception is really made up of a sequence of single phases as opposed to being a continuous flow that gets turned into a sequence of short-lived phases as a result of practicing bare attention while sitting still or deliberately walking very slowly (as one does in the practice of modern Theravada insight meditation)? Does bare attention reveal the antecedent truth of no-self? Or does it change experience, so that experience comes to conform to the no-self norm ... Is bare attention more like a light that reveals things or a mold that shapes them?

My point isn't that Buddhists can't come up with answers to these questions. Rather, it's that simply appealing to the experience of bare attention won't answer them. The answers must come from the Buddhist mind-doctrine, that is, from Buddhist philosophy, which is not just descriptive but also inherently normative (it makes value judgments) and soteriological (it is concerned with salvation and liberation). In other words, it's not the case that the experience of bare attention independently establishes the descriptive truth of the Buddhist mind-doctrine; rather, the Buddhist mind-doctrine is needed to give meaning to the experience of bare attention. Buddhist meditation and Buddhist doctrines go together and mutually reinforce each other. Furthermore, Buddhism contains many different theories of the mind, conceptions of liberation or salvation, and meditation practices. So, there is no one Buddhist answer to these questions.

[Anonymous No.19800716]

In general terms, the issue is how to evaluate Buddhist descriptive and explanatory assertions about the mind in relation to Buddhist normative assertions. Likening Buddhist meditation to a scientific method glosses over this complicated issue.

Buddhist exceptionalists typically conflate the descriptive and normative aspects of Buddhist doctrines and meditation practices. For example, Sam Harris writes: a person can embrace the Buddha's teaching, and even become a genuine Buddhist contemplative (and, one must presume, a buddha) without believing anything on insufficient evidence. He thinks Buddhism is like science: One starts with the hypothesis that using attention in the prescribed way (meditation), and engaging in or avoiding certain behaviors (ethics), will bear the promised result (wisdom and psychological well-being). Harris makes it sound as if there is empirical, scientific evidence for the Buddha's normative teaching, including the ideal norm of buddhahood and the possibility of its attainment.

I disagree. The concepts of nirvana and awakening (bodhi ) aren't scientific concepts; they're soteriological ones. They aren't psychological constructs whose validity can be established through measurement. In other words, they aren't operationalizable. This doesn't detract from their importance. On the contrary, many important concepts aren't operationalizable. Take aesthetic concepts, such as beauty, perfection, the sublime, or wabi-sabi (the Japanese aesthetic of transience and imperfection). There is no way to establish what is beautiful or sublime or displays wabi-sabi on the basis of measurement. Aesthetic concepts are always subject to multiple interpretations, and their meaning is constituted by the artistic practices, theories, and communities in which they figure.

Soteriological concepts are like aesthetic concepts in this respect. They're always subject to multiple interpretations, and their meaning is constituted by the communities of practice and thought in which they figure. It's a conceptual mistake to think that belief in the validity of Buddhist soteriological ideas is based on having sufficient scientific evidence for them. They aren't the kind of ideas that can be directly established by science. If you embrace the Buddha's teaching, it's not because you have scientific evidence of its truth. Rather, you embrace a certain vision of the world that tells you how to lead a meaningful life. The Buddha's teaching has been interpreted in many ways throughout history, including today. You may strive to reinterpret it so that it doesn't contradict science, but science can't directly confirm or disconfirm it

[Anonymous No.19800730]

Harris openly espouses Buddhist exceptionalism, though in his case the label Eastern exceptionalism may be more apt: Several Eastern traditions are exceptionally empirical and exceptionally wise, and therefore merit the exceptionalism claimed by their adherents. By Eastern traditions he means Buddhism and certain modern variants of the Hindu tradition of Advaita Vedanta. (He lumps them all together, despite their many differences.) But he singles out Buddhism. He says that it isn't primarily a faith-based religion; its central teachings are entirely empirical; it possesses a literature on the nature of the mind that has no peer in Western religion or Western science; and unlike Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, its teachings are not considered by their adherents to be the product of infallible revelation, but rather are empirical instructions.

In my view, these generalizations are simplistic and tendentious. Harris is working with the popular but limited concept of faith as belief without sufficient evidence. But the proper meaning of faith is trust or confidence in someone or something. Christian faith is trust or confidence in the teachings of Jesus Christ, and trust or confidence in the possibility of salvation. Buddhist faith is trust or confidence in the teachings of the Buddha, and trust or confidence in the possibility of awakening and liberation.

Faith is central to Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism. In the Abhidharma the systematic presentation of the Buddhist doctrine faith is listed as a wholesome or virtuous mental factor and as one of the five spiritual faculties. Faith has four main objects: karma and rebirth; the Buddha's teaching that existence is conditioned, impermanent, and fundamentally unsatisfactory; the three jewels of the Buddha, his teaching, and the Buddhist community; and the Buddhist path, including the prospect of liberation from suffering and the experience of nirvana.

These central teachings aren't empirical; they're normative and soteriological. They're based on value judgments that aren't subject to independent empirical test, and they evaluate the world according to the desired goal of liberation. Although it's unquestionably true that Buddhism possesses a vast and sophisticated philosophical and contemplative literature on the mind, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam also possess sophisticated philosophical and contemplative writings about the mind. These writings build on the rich and intricate heritage of Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic thought. The Buddhist texts aren't less metaphysical than the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic ones. Buddhist literature about the mind is filled with metaphysical viewpoints that modern people find doubtful. Finally, although the teachings of Buddhism aren't considered to be the product of divine revelation, the cognition of a buddha is traditionally considered to be omniscient and infallible, and hence his or her teaching is incontrovertible.

[Anonymous No.19800738]

Reminder that Buddhists believed in the flat earth until Christian missionaries arrived and set the record straight unironically.

[Anonymous No.19800742]

Buddhist theories of the mind are based on textual traditions that purport to record the remembered word of the Buddha, on religious and philosophical interpretations of those texts, and on Buddhist practices of mental cultivation. The theories aren't formulated as scientific hypotheses and they aren't scientifically testable. Buddhist insights into the mind aren't scientific discoveries. They haven't resulted from an open-ended empirical inquiry free from the claims of tradition and the force of doctrinal and sectarian rhetoric. They're stated in the language of Buddhist metaphysics, not in an independent conceptual framework to which Buddhist and non-Buddhist thinkers can agree. Buddhist meditative texts are saturated with religious imagery and language. Buddhist meditation isn't controlled experimentation. It guides people to have certain kinds of experiences and to interpret them in ways that conform to and confirm Buddhist doctrine. The claims that people make from having these experiences aren't subject to independent peer review; they're subject to assessment within the agreed-upon and unquestioned framework of the Buddhist soteriological path.

Wallace writes that, within Buddhist mind science, critiques by anyone other than professional contemplatives are taken no more seriously than critiques of scientific theories by nonscientists. This statement gives the lie to his claim to be scientific. Imagine a psychoanalyst who says, critiques by anyone other than professional psychoanalysts are taken no more seriously than critiques of scientific theories by nonscientists. Psychoanalysis and certain forms of Buddhist meditation both focus intensively on the dynamics of the psyche. To be a psychoanalyst you must undergo a lengthy analysis (at least three years) with an experienced psychoanalyst; to be a professional contemplative you must undergo a lengthy training under the instruction of an experienced contemplative (including at least one three-year meditation retreat in some Tibetan Buddhist traditions). None of this makes psychoanalysis or Buddhist meditation immune from outside critique. (Indeed, for millennia Buddhist philosophers themselves have debated about what it's possible to know through meditation.) Saying that such critiques shouldn't be taken seriously encourages a blinkered attitude that is highly prone to confirmation bias (the tendency to interpret ambiguous information or evidence as confirming one's antecedent beliefs). If you think that Buddhist meditation is somehow different from psychoanalysis in this respect that it provides a special window onto the mind immune from outside criticism then you're in the grip of Buddhist exceptionalism.

[Anonymous No.19800768]

>>19800742
>they're subject to assessment within the agreed-upon and unquestioned framework of the Buddhist soteriological path.
...Just like the agreed-upon and unquestioned framework of scientific "rationality"?

[Anonymous No.19800776]

>>19799811
damn buddha has a nice pair of boobas

[Anonymous No.19800813]

>>19799811
>>19799839
No. It's simply compatible with a lot of science because Gautama used a systematic approach to find answers. He also refused to answer some questions which he found nonsensical to think about like "what am I" or "is the world eternal or is it not eternal?" and so on, but he referenced aeons and held a complex cosmology of different realms and demons and so on.
The connection between modern science and Buddhism largely came from figures like Anagarika Dharmapala, using it as a tactic against heavy Christian missionary work aimed at weakening Buddhism and interpreted the suttas for a modern world, connecting it with evolution for example. Dharmapala was important in spreading Theravada in the west and I think he was a very intelligent monk, but it along with many other factors made a loose foundation for some silly atheistic neo-Buddhism to arise where its proclaimers are not really interested in the suttas at all unlike Dharmapala leading to many misinterpretations such as "killing the ego" in the western interpretation by many, and what not I presume.
Just because a handful of monks spread the teachings this way and to counter Christian missionaries doesn't mean it is so, these were monks, not Gautama Buddha. Besides this tactic opened the door for dharma to reach people heavily inclined and trapped within pure scientism, and we still see this clearly today, they are obsessed with their empirical system.
But throughout all this the suttas still stand on their own.
Here is the connection between Gautama Buddha's Dhamma and the scientific method, both are systematic and the knowledge has to be gained by personal experience. While rituals for example have their place Buddha still taught not to depend on them to see the dhamma. Buddha had nothing to say on quantum mechanics for example as he was never asked about it obviously. And systems are still different.

[Anonymous No.19800827]

>words words words
Yes western atheist writers reacting to a lowbrow literalist prole Christianity believe in a caricature of Buddhism, however, Buddhism does avoid the obvious defect of believing that an astral tyrant can both make and unmake you according to his will because a zombie said so to some peasants two thousand years ago

[Almonde No.19800873]

I think Buddhist Nirvana is easy to explain.
It is Total Contentment and Pristine Peace in a state of Expansive Awareness.
Contentment is the mental state of no unfulfilled desires. Peace is an absence of mental disturbance.
Now the expansive state itself is tricky to realize. There are a few of its traits to help describe it though. 1.) Blissful 2.) Spacious 3.) Radiant. 4.) Vivid 5.) Expansive.
1). Consciousness is innately blissful to some degree.
2.) The blissful awareness can be made to occupy a vast space, sky-like.
3.) It is radiant, or shines forth. It perpetually moves onward, once one is aware of this power.
4.) It can be made more vivid. You can magnify the awareness of bliss itself, I would describe it as a "softer" and "lusher" bliss.
5.) It can be made more expansive. I would describe this as a "thicker" and "deeper" experience of awareness, as there are now many intertwined layers to it. For example, the first degree of expansions, there are now two layers of self-aware space, both within each other..

And that's all Nirvana is or can be due to limit of human faculty.

[Anonymous No.19800884]

>>19800827
>buddhoid
>calling anyone an atheist
Time to get inside your Amazon cuckbox

[Anonymous No.19800889]

>I FUCKING LOVE EMPTINESS/SUNYATA

[Anonymous No.19800893]

>>19800884
corporatism and western media isn't Buddhism anon, this is like hand picking those cringey tik tok pastors and calling it christianity

[Anonymous No.19800896]

>>19800884
dancing_rainbow_christers.webm

[Anonymous No.19800903]

>>19800889
Emptiness is form, so yeah kind of. Do you not affirm life?

[Anonymous No.19800973]

>>19800709
A lot of schools would argue that Buddhism makes value judgements about what can be experienced, so in this case your observation that bare attention is not sufficient to make an ontological claim about the mind, whether it's a continuum or a sequence, Buddhists (especially Madhyamaka) will argue that because bare attention can only experience it as an anatman seqence that is precisely the framework with which we must work towards salvation.
Of course, there are traditions that make more absolute balue judgements about the world, like Yogacara, but the afromentioned Madhyamaka will limit itself to conventional reality, that which is experienced, and will leave ultimate reality, the way the world might actually be, undiscussed.

[Anonymous No.19801622]

>>19800043
I absolutely and sincerely cannot fathom how anyone can believe in abrahamism. I never could, even as a child.

[Anonymous No.19801749]

buddhism is scientific religion the same as marxism is scientific socialism

[Anonymous No.19801766]

>>19801622
2000 years of judeophilia will do that to any normie or woman

[Anonymous No.19801775]

>>19801766
I loathe Jews from every fiber of my being

[Anonymous No.19801808]

>>19800576
No atheist seethes over religion, they’re just above it. They’ll debate you and get frustrated with the nonsensical arguments you people throw up (vomit) but we’ve severed ourselves from this ancient drivel. Oh, an in some cases, snatched bits and pieces for our own use. Wisdom is wisdom, but Buddhist, christian, muslim, etc. seething goes in the bin.

[Anonymous No.19802022]

>>19800621
it's not like it matters for the general practising laymen, a Buddha is a single oasis in a giant desert. A woman can even become an Arhat so I don't see why people let the gender of a Buddha needing to be male bother them so much.

[Anonymous No.19802400]

>>19800738
>Buddhists believed in the flat earth until Christian missionaries arrived
holy based.....

[Anonymous No.19802584]

>>19802400
>holy based.....

[Anonymous No.19802910]

>>19802584
>>holy based.....

[Anonymous No.19803138]

>>19799811
It’s metaphysical stoicism, but shit

[Anonymous No.19803231]

>>19799940
no, existentialism is

[Anonymous No.19803567]

>>19802910
>>>holy based.....

[Anonymous No.19803644]

>>19799811
It's so gross how retarded westoids feel the need to impose their status symbols on foreign things they like. no, buddhism doesn't need your 'good' labels and is in fact sullied by them.

[Anonymous No.19803652]

Yeah, so scientific that the scientific output of Buddhist countries is close to nil.

[Anonymous No.19803656]

>>19801808
I'm irreligious but don't be ridiculous. You're seething right now with lies. Atheists are the biggest retards around and don't know enough to engage in real discourse. All they have is dumb memes and self-righteousness.

[Anonymous No.19803667]

>>19803656
>>19801808
Also, pretending you've 'severed' yourself from the past is what makes you retarded. You are so ignorant and arrogant you have no idea where your thoughts and ideas come from or what they actually mean.

[Anonymous No.19803673]

>>19800140
Christianity is zionist, sorry tripfag

[Anonymous No.19803707]

>>19803652
1400-1950 is 'The Decline and Fall of European Christianity' by the way

[Anonymous No.19803763]

>>19803667
>You are so ignorant and arrogant you have no idea where your thoughts and ideas come from or what they actually mean.
The religion that you roleplay as believing in on the internet was invented in the 1970s.

[Anonymous No.19803865]

Buddhism
Level 1
Laugh at the Jains

[Anonymous No.19803876]

>>19803865
Level 2
Call the Ajivikas smelly

[Anonymous No.19803985]

>>19799834
It's harder (more rare) for them to attain enlightenment but not impossible.
Read Waking from the Dream by Detong Choyin.

[Anonymous No.19804253]

>>19800665
"If if if women werent women then they wouldnt be women"

Lmfao this is sad

[Anonymous No.19804304]

>>19800742
>>19800730
>>19800716
>>19800709
>>19800703
This is way too much to read

It's not science, but like a primitive form, like parts from which science came. Can you not respect being in the generally correct direction when you weren't initially pointed that way?

[Anonymous No.19804334]

>>19803656>>19801808

atheism is hedonism and virtue signaling, and they still seethe at religions because their only feat was to kill the christian society 200 years ago and now they have no enemy, so they fall back on their self proclaim glorious days where they killed the evil christian goyim

[Anonymous No.19804341]

>>19804304
This is a crucial understanding that many don’t have here, namely being able to understand ancient authors in their proper context, which I think requires maturity, sympathy and above room temperature IQ. Every time I see posts to effect of ‘hurr durr Plato/Aristotle/Ancient Philosopher was dumb because he didn’t have the same Reddit tier knowledge of pop science as I do’ I know the person lacks all of these qualities.

[Anonymous No.19804509]

>>19799811

[Anonymous No.19804657]

>>19804509
Saved, very good image, as well it also follows the microcosm/macrocosm principle that forces us to use the phrase "building blocks" so often.

[Anonymous No.19804688]

>prince in castle, killing, fucking and reading
>hmmm the world kinda sussy, impostor among us?
>Goes under tree
>presses red button, emergency meeting! Mara is the impostor!
>defeats Mara
>Mara ejection animation

[Anonymous No.19805049]

>>19803652
>japan
>china
>singapure
>korea
>taiwan

some of the most advanced countries in the world and the most advanced in asia are all buddhist

[Anonymous No.19805268]

>>19800813
>>19799811
Reincarnation is compatible with science?

[Anonymous No.19805280]

>>19805049
>Japan
Most people "follow" Shintoism in the sense that they ring a bell at the local shrine every new year
>China
state-enforced atheism
>Korea
most people there are irreligious, Christian and then Buddhist.
Seriously following a religion which espouses ego death and divorcing yourself from the world isn't conducive to building materially wealthy societies

[Anonymous No.19805297]

>>19805280
I don't understand how Japanese people don't believe in their kamis exist but are so superstitious to the point of mockery.

[Anonymous No.19805377]

>>19805280
>divorcing yourself from the world isn't conducive to building materially wealthy societies
You know all those Buddhist temples full of solid gold statues? Well there used to be more of them. They had no problem accumulating material wealth, unlike the europoor sea rats who had cross the globe for spice and tea to sell to fat nobles.

[Anonymous No.19805456]

>>19799811
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
dude holy shit
>>19799822
post tits

[Anonymous No.19805520]

>>19799839

This

[Anonymous No.19805536]

>>19803652
Not biased at all I bet.

[Anonymous No.19806048]

>>19805280
not really, all those shinot shrines are actually a mix of shinot with buddhism, like the shugendo
china still practices buddhism and taoism
and most people in italy are irreligious, but that doesn't make italy a non christian country
the same can be said about korea

[Anonymous No.19806055]

>>19805268
I think you'd be surprised.

[Anonymous No.19806107]

>>19799961
bro that's just a metaphor

[Anonymous No.19806130]

>>19805049
Buddhism is the West might be a boutique hipster religion-thats-not-a-religion, but in the East it's not remotely trendy. Buddhism in practice is the provincial Asian granny who prays to Buddha that her daughter will produce another grandson for her, who believes that she acquires merit for each time she repeats the nembutsu that can be exchanged for riches in Buddhist heaven. In other words, the popularity of Buddhism in these places doesn't contribute to their advanced status as nations.

[Anonymous No.19806139]

>>19806130
Who gives a fuck about a nation

[Anonymous No.19806192]

>>19806139
presumably the guy who I was responding to

[Anonymous No.19806241]

>>19804334
Christians did the same to others. Don't act so victimised like the jews.

[Anonymous No.19806266]

>>19806192
So what youre just going to frame an argument as if something like that matters in order to "btfo" some jackass? Cheap as hell bro.

[Anonymous No.19806778]

>>19805536
The Japanese board of trade came to similar conclusions about the productive output of western europe re inventions and discoveries

[Anonymous No.19807682]

>>19805280
>following a religion which espouses ego death
...you really haven't read a single sutta have you and are just talking out of your ass

[Anonymous No.19808675]

>>19806130
foolish grandma doesn't even understand that the nembutsu is uttered in gratitude for already being saved as opposed to being just another form of self power and credit accumulation baka

[Anonymous No.19809461]

Since we're on the topic of Nembutsu Grandma:

Once there lived an elderly lady who was wholeheartedly devoted to nembutsu (the invocation of Amida Buddha’s name). She would recite “Namu-Amidabutsu” from morning to night whether she was seated or standing. She never neglected to visit the temple and never missed any sermon. Out of respect for her virtue, everyone called her “Nembutsu Grandmother.”
When she died, however, contrary to everyone’s expectations she was dragged to the Black Gate of Hell. Weeping, she begged Enma, the Judge of Hell, “When I was living, I never neglected to recite the Buddha’s name, and so I was called ‘Nembutsu Grandmother.’ Since I have come with a cartful of nembutsu tablets, please let me go to Paradise.”
Enma told the devils of Hell to check the nembutsu tablets which the woman had brought with her. The devils checked them one by one, but they found them to be empty nembutsu such as “Ah, my grandchild is pissing, Namu-Amidabutsu. Oh, the fire is burning, Namu-Amidabutsu. Oh, it’s dangerous, Namu-Amidabutsu. It’s hot, it’s hot, Namu-Amidabutsu,” and so on. The copious nembutsu tablets which she brought with her in the cart all turned out to be empty and she was on the point of being sent to Hell. Just then, a banging sound was heard at the bottom of the cart. Curiously, the devils took it out. It seemed to be a nembutsu with something in it so they closely examined it through a magnifying glass. To their great surprise, they found that it was a nembutsu recited by the woman when she was still a young girl.
One summer day, when she was young, she was walking across the wide field on her way to the temple as usual. Suddenly, the sky was filled with dark clouds, and a great evening storm came. Lightning crossed the sky in rapid succession and thunder pealed menacingly. She was afraid of thunder, and she could not stand it. So she cried out, “Nammai-da, Nammai-da,” with all her heart and with all her might as she hurried along. Suddenly, with a deafening sound, a thunderbolt struck the ground right in front of her. “Namu-Amidabutsu!” she cried desperately at the top of her voice. Then she lost consciousness.

[Anonymous No.19809483]

>>19809461
The last nembutsu was the only real nembutsu that she ever uttered. The rest of her nembutsu were all empty. But, thanks to this one real nembutsu, Enma permitted the elderly lady to go to Paradise.
During my early Zen training, our jikijitsu would both scold and encourage us, “How is your zazen? You look miserable, sitting like kneaded cow-dung. As long as you sit like that, you will never be able to pass even the first barrier to enlightenment. Imitate ‘Nembutsu Grandmother’ and practice saying, ‘Mu,’ with your hara [lower abdomen] filled with energy!” Such violent words of denunciation and encouragement would rain down on us.
This story of the elderly lady devoted to nembutsu was told to us many times. And I find in her nembutsu a very interesting analogy to zazen. Like empty nembutsu, empty zazen will be of no use no matter how long, how often, or for how many days we may sit during sesshin. It is far better to sit earnestly even for five minutes.

Source: Introduction to ZEN TRAINING: A Physical Approach to Meditation and Mind-Body Training by Omori Sogen

reccing the book hard, though maybe it's not the best first book if you have no context for these things

[Anonymous No.19809511]

>>19799811
Ball is a square circle

[Anonymous No.19809519]

>>19809483
What is an empty nembutsu? What’s the difference between an empty and a true one? First time I’m hearing about this.

[Anonymous No.19809523]

>>19809483
Yeah but how do you Mu correctly, or sit correctly, or whatever
What is the "lightning" impulse, how do we reproduce it

[Anonymous No.19809524]

>>19809519
For that matter what is a nembutsu

[Anonymous No.19809666]

>>19809519
That's what the whole story is about. I think it's an illustration of what constitutes genuine practice. In the case of "empty nembutsu" the woman is stuck in a dualistic thinking of gain and loss, and she isn't truly one with her actions, but in her youth she had that one nembutsu that she produced without thinking, with all her body and soul.
This is about all I can say, maybe if you ask me again in ten years I'll be able to tell more.

>>19809523
Plenty of resources on how to sit.
https://youtu.be/LL2XUTeoUsM
Here's one I like. If you have a Zendo, Zen Center or anything like that near you, then I'd encourage you to go there, I think it helps to receive advice in person.

Mu refers to a very famous koan btw, but your questions all boil down to practice, basically.

>>19809524
(the invocation of Amida Buddha’s name). She would recite “Namu-Amidabutsu”

it's literally just that
https://tricycle.org/magazine/nembutsu-pure-land-chant/
here's an article on it if you're still curious. it's not a practice I've done so I can't tell you much more

Pic is from The Posture of Meditation by Will Johnson.

[Anonymous No.19809717]

>>19809666
Can I go to my local buddhist temple or will they be racist because I'm not yellow with sideways eyes

[Anonymous No.19809727]

>>19809666
Thanks for the reply

[Anonymous No.19809740]

>>19805297
See that's the thing: they do believe that the Kami exist. It's just that the Japanese operate off of a totally different conception of "religion" than Westerners do, so when they say that they're "not religious", they really mean that they're just "not Abrahamic".

>>19809717
Totally acceptable. You'll need to go talk to a Monk if you want to actually, y'know, talk with a monk. They won't rush out to greet your or whatever.

[Anonymous No.19809753]

>>19809740
Do I walk up to a monk that is like walking around and chillin? Do I not talk to the ones that are meditating?

[Anonymous No.19809766]

>>19809740
Shinto is basically a kind of pantheism so yes quite opposed to the Abrahamic view. The Meiji state attempted to formalize it and divorce it from Buddhism (and Confucianism) as the national religion

[Anonymous No.19809823]

>>19809753
Lookup visiting hours on the website. The dudes who are down to talk will be very clear and receptive if you approach.

[Anonymous No.19809840]

>>19809823
Thanks. Is there a preacher or whatever or is it just a bunch of dudes that contemplate and then go home?

[Anonymous No.19809865]

>>19809840
It's not really contemplation, but the focus is usually on the meditation itself. There may or may not be a resident "master" and they may or may not give a speech after practice. The window for asking questions may be more or less formalized depending on the place. It's best to go and see for yourself.

[Anonymous No.19809947]

>>19809865
Thanks, my ego is eating me alive and if I don't somehow resolve this I'm going to die from it

[Anonymous No.19809997]

>>19809947
I hope you find your peace, good luck.

[Anonymous No.19811126]

>>19806778
Source?