/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20207242]

>the only truly eternal thing is Nirvana which is unconditioned
>but also it's just no-consciousness bliss and nothing besides for the rest of eternity
Am I the only one who finds this wholly unsatisfying?
Why does cessation of suffering, that Buddha achieved require disappearing from reality forever, when Paranirvana exists and thus enables continued existence without suffering? Also why is such a limited thing attainable yet unconditioned? Why is there not more unconditioned wisdom to pursue that deals with questions outside of suffering that would be applicable only to a lower understanding and can, by my understanding of Buddhist doctrine, be dealt away with by some practice and a thorough amount of knowledge? In some sense, it feels like Nirvana tries to be impersonal to certain aspects of higher existence while at the same time positing itself as the ultimate one.

[Anonymous No.20207267]

>>20207242
Nirvana is literally just oblivion, the Buddhist goal is suicide hampered by the belief that physical death itself cannot achieve that. If the doctrine of rebirth was rejected, the Buddhist course of action is simply to kill yourself immediately.

[Anonymous No.20207292]

>>20207267
Nirvana is liberation of suffering and rebirth, which doesn't make sense with an annihilationist reality, in which case no philosophy does. My question is, why is this Nirvana achieved by some sort of permanent inaction (that for some reason Arhats can't leave) in the face of a universe of movement and why is considered eternal compared to other wisdom?

[Anonymous No.20207310]

>>20207292
You are describing annihilation. Lack of suffering, lack of rebirth(life), inaction - what is this but death? It is only spoken around with mental gymnastics because openly acknowledging this as such is a bad look.

[Anonymous No.20207329]

>>20207242
>i wouldn't be satisfied by no longer being unsatisfied
ngmi
Also read the Vimalakirti Sutra

[Anonymous No.20207338]

>>20207267
The Buddha claimed to have attained nirvana while still alive though. He lived for 40 years after reaching it, and didn't kill himself even though he knew he wouldn't reincarnate.
Suicide relies on the fallacy of self; that's why it's rejected.

[Anonymous No.20207342]

>>20207310
>lack of suffering = annihilation
I don't know about you but I find it pretty easy to live without suffering.
The idea of needing to be born again after death seems unneeded if you consider the existence of that which is absolute and does not rise or cease can be found and discerned (I believe is the right word) enables the rest of existence. It's not an exclusively Buddhist concept.

[Anonymous No.20207373]

>>20207338
>It's not suicide because you don't exist
>>20207342
Massively oversimplifying it, the condition of nirvana as described is exactly opposite to living existence. Which is inherently qualified as being defined by suffering, by the way, and even the existence in heavenly realms is considered unsatisfactory in Buddhist teaching. The goal is undeniably the cessation of being, eliminating the possibility of experiencing suffering, which is just cosmic suicide in a more complicated fantasy setting that does not allow conventional suicide.

[Anonymous No.20207391]

>>20207373
>The goal is undeniably the cessation [of ignorance of the stainless and ineffable non-discursiveness] of being, eliminating the possibility of experiencing suffering
ftfy

[Anonymous No.20207406]

>>20207329
It's not about satisfaction, but refrainment. You reach Nirvana by attaining wisdom, are you eternally stunted in wisdom attained after Nirvana? The Buddha hadn't attained every wisdom known to man when he was enlightened, just one that led to the ceasing of all suffering and all understanding needed to do it. To claim this is all the wisdom there is would be to claim the world revolves inherently around suffering's cessation, which would bring up an absurd question about the nature of undiscovered reality especially since Buddha claimed knowledge of said reality is irrelevant to Nirvana.

Even if I no longer feel unsatisfied, why would I not rationally choose to explore truth beyond the flowing inaction of Nirvana? At the very least, I could observe the process of attaining Nirvana's stillness and leaving it, back and forth (if asked why: well, if avoidance of suffering is important, one would want to obtain this wisdom to make sure as to whether Buddha's teachings were absolute rather than trusting them blindly, as he had not truly attained Nirvana while he was still teaching, only Parinirvana; just as life rose from a sea of ignorance's disturbance, if it can potentially rise from Nirvana or what we might see as nearing Nirvana, it should be examined and ascertained appropriately). Personally I find the idea of "no-action because nothing to ignorantly act on therefore no doing anything ever again" a bit absurd, with the reliance on waiting for death to truly succeed from Paranirvana into Nirvana just rubbing me the wrong way.

[Anonymous No.20207408]

>>20207391
These are meaningless word games intended to obscure the true purpose of Buddhist doctrine. No one even understands what that phrase there is supposed to mean, and it serves no point what so ever other than to obfuscate. I do not necessarily even view cosmic suicide as a bad goal, but I am annoyed at the absurd dishonesty of Buddhists, and how many of them seem to have been genuinely deluded into thinking it is other than it is.

[Anonymous No.20207411]

>no novel where an Arhant in Parinirvana gets trapped into endless attempts at torture by a IHNMAIMS style AI to prevent him from reaching Nirvana

>>20207408
I don't mean to be rude but you really don't read much and especially very little Buddhist text if you find that hard to understand. This isn't Emperors New Clothes, you might have a low iq.

[Anonymous No.20207424]

>>20207411
It is not that it is hard to understand, it is that it is not really intended to be meaningful. Like many organised ideological systems, Buddhism is filled to the brim with jargon and self-referential bullshit intended to filter out anyone who may be hostile to the underlying belief system and invoke the impression of intelligence.

[Anonymous No.20207428]

>“To those in whom the will has turned and denied itself, this very real world of ours, with its suns and galaxies, is – nothing.” Schopenhaur

Anons, stop being so dense. Nirvana is the far shore and until you arrive there, you cannot understand it. Embrace that language and reason have limits or your NGMI.

[Anonymous No.20207443]

>>20207428
Nirvana is described quite often, it isn't supposed to be some super secret spiritual realm where birds sing classical music and you have 3000 IQ.
>Embrace that language and reason have limits or your NGMI.
False, as time went on, my understanding has evolved and has never stopped and I'm not seeing it stopping any time soon. Even if we can't imagine something, we can imagine a representation of it, like we do with everything we don't understand, and will either slowly or through sudden bursts raise ourselves into being fully aware of it's truths.

[Anonymous No.20207451]

>>20207428
I am sure no one can really understand death until they reach it. That is a common observation.

[Anonymous No.20207465]

>>20207451
Maybe death is unimaginable because it isn't really a single unified concept. Rather just another transformation mixed with some forgetting. Kamma after death heavily influences death and I would go far enough to say that it is entirely determined by Kamma, with very little being parallel between any two people's death's.

[Anonymous No.20207497]

>>20207465
>Rather just another transformation mixed with some forgetting.
I agree.
The Lankavatara Sutra argues the storehouse consciousness is involved in producing the seeds for the next life based on one's accumulated habit-energy.
A good example is a dream in which you cannot access memory about your personhood in waking life. Has anyone here ever had a dream in which they've adopted entirely different personhoods?

[Anonymous No.20207521]

>>20207443
Characteristics of Nirvana are described, and usually in negative ways.

>Free of clinging
>Free of suffering, impermanence, and self
>No More Becoming/Birth


Hell, the Buddha won't even answer questions about his existence after death to avoid stating something about it. It is not "super secret", but like mystics in the west discussing their own experiences (Eckhart and Wittgenstein come to mind), it can only be described as ineffable or with negative statements.

[Anonymous No.20207528]

>>20207497
>Has anyone here ever had a dream in which they've adopted entirely different personhoods?
Literally almost all dreams? Actually in most dreams there is no me to have a personality, even in the "dreamer".

[Anonymous No.20207532]

>>20207242

>Modern philosophical schools of Buddhism are all more or less influenced by a spirit of sophistic nihilism. They deal with Nirvāṇa as they deal with every other dogma, with heaven and hell: they deny its objective reality, placing it altogether in the abstract. They dissolve every proposition into a thesis and its anti-thesis and deny both. Thus they say Nirvāṇa is no annihilation, but they also deny its positive objective reality.

>According to them the soul enjoys in Nirvāṇa neither existence nor non-existence, it is neither eternal nor non-eternal, neither annihilated nor non-annihilated. Nirvāṇa is to them a state of which nothing can be said, to which no attributes can be given; it is altogether an abstract, devoid alike of all positive and negative qualities.

>What shall we say of such empty useless speculations, such sickly, dead words, whose fruitless sophistry offers to that natural yearning of the human heart after an eternal rest nothing better than a philosophical myth? It is but natural that a religion which started with moral and intellectual bankruptcy should end in moral and intellectual suicide.

- Ernst Johann Eitel

[Anonymous No.20207552]

>>20207532
>Christian
Absolutely Dukkha. If Buddhism doesn't satisfy, Christianity doesn't even enter the discussion.
>the post
Half the criticisms are wrong and based on old-timey translations which were disproven. Nirvana is eternal, because it is unconditioned, the soul stuff is straight up wrong and so on. The issue at hand is not even entertained.

[Anonymous No.20207570]

Nope, the absolute is beyond even nirvana. Nirvana can only exist dependant on samsara. Without samsara there is no nirvana.

Nirvana never was or is the "end goal".

[Anonymous No.20207576]

>>20207570
That's a nice story but what's your source and/or explanation?

[Anonymous No.20207605]

>>20207408
>I don't like what Buddhists say they believe Buddhism is because I believe it is what I believe it is and any attempts to explain otherwise are evidence of their dishonesty
consider reading even a single text on the subject

[Anonymous No.20207608]

>>20207552
>Nirvana is eternal, because it is unconditioned
Something that is eternal de facto cannot have a beginning according to what the meaning of eternal is, the only way one can logically "attain" an eternal and unconditioned state is only if one *was* that all along, i.e. if it was our own self or atman.

[Anonymous No.20207618]

>>20207576
Insight gained during deep meditation. The only source that matters.

Nirvana and samsara are the same thing. There can not be one without the other. Neither can exist independantly, only in relation to to the other thus making neither of them the absolute reality.

[Anonymous No.20207630]

>>20207608
Conditioned things are impermanent, Nirvana is not conditioned.

[Anonymous No.20207636]

>>20207406
I don't know where to start with this post since it seems like you have a very idiosyncratic reading, but I will say your assumption that there is "an undiscovered reality" beyond absolute reality (nirvana) is obviously incompatible with the theories of immanence Buddhism holds, and especially the Mahayana schools, which do not interpret life as a period of waiting for the release of death (this is a Christian notion you might be importing into Buddhism), but view life as an adventitious duration of time with which to liberate others from the ignorance which leads to suffering/perturbance. This does not require one to die forever or to disappear to another reality. Again I would recommend the Vimalakirti Sutra as it is a decently non-technical introduction to elements of Buddhist philosophy and religion.

[Anonymous No.20207640]

>>20207242
>Life is suffering
I get more good than bad, plus I'm not depressed and enjoy life.
>No you don't
Yes I do
>No
Yes
>Well it's a different type of suffering that you're not aware of
Not an issue then really
>No
Yes
>but you're suffering
No
>Yes
Ad infinitum. There isn't a single Buddhist that wouldnt be better off in therapy, regardless of the rich boy rantings of disaffected royalty.

[Anonymous No.20207648]

>>20207640
>There isn't a single Buddhist that wouldnt be better off in therapy
based and pharma-pilled, disregard all classical wisdom literature and acquire more monthly bills

[Anonymous No.20207649]

>>20207640
>Happiness is fleeting and temporary
So is suffering
>No
Yes
Etc

[Anonymous No.20207655]

>>20207640
>be happy
>get old
>dementia
>misery
>die miserable
wooooow

[Anonymous No.20207656]

>>20207648
That you immediately equate therapy with xanax tells me you're irredeemably American.
>Classical wisdom
Fuck off weeb.

[Anonymous No.20207660]

>>20207655
Buddhists also grow old and develop dementia because they have to keep pretending its not a suicide cult.

[Anonymous No.20207667]

>>20207656
therapy is a bugman subscription service and there is nothing wrong with being widely read; Buddhism was a contemporary of Platonism

[Anonymous No.20207681]

>>20207528
I've repeated Buddhist sutras and Hindu chants in my dreams, and I have had powerful nondual like experiences from both. However, it's led to an issue where I can't decide between Mahayana or Vedanta anymore. To be honest, I just think the nondual experience takes primacy and focusing too much on differences regarding ontology tends to take one astray. Sri Ramana Maharshi or Nisargadatta Maharaj may have been equally as enlightened as Kusan Sunim or Kodo Sawaki, but they just had different ways to describe the nondual experience with minor to moderate differences in ontological descriptions.
I repeated this verse from Diamond Sutra in my dreams numerous times, "Since the possession of attributes is an illusion, Subhuti, and no possession of attributes is no illusion, then by means of attributes that are no attributes, the Tathagata can indeed be seen." I also repeated Om and Tat Tvam Asi a few times in my dreams. With the former, I felt time freeze and a sense of both being and not being there whereas the latter had Om constantly reverberate as I was engulfed by a sense of bliss.
Seung Sahn claimed repeating sutras or dharanis in dreams can lead to powerful experiences of the sublime or absolute. I won't dismiss the fact it could just be aberrations of my perceptual mechanisms.
I should get back to doing Shikantaza regularly but may look into different meditational practices.

[Anonymous No.20207707]

>>20207667
Yes and platonism is equally retarded and incorrect.
>bugman bugman bugman
Congratulations you have memed yourself schizo.

[Anonymous No.20207738]

>>20207630
>Nirvana is not conditioned.
I understand, the point is that a truly unconditioned thing admits of no addition or diminution, something else cannot "enter into" or "join" or "attain" it, something can only be identical with it from from the very beginning and at all times, even if this is temporarily obscured for whatever reason.

[Anonymous No.20207739]

>>20207636
It is not so much beyond Nirvana as much as using what Nirvana allows us, by believing Buddha's words, to be applied elsewhere. The only way for this not to apply as I can see is for Nirvana to work by "stripping away all vestiges of existence" in an absolutely impermanent Universe and rely on not an "extreme state" that should by purely logical means be inescapable while remaining uninterruptible, which I don't believe is the case.
I know of the Buddha nature of remaining in the delusion to enlighten others into Buddhahood but that wasn't exactly what I was referring to (though I do find this explanation of Buddha very contrived because it forces a restriction into the attainment of liberation), I'm talking about how after death Arhats are supposed to undergo something unimaginable that represents a transition into Nirvana (not sure what text this is but it should be the Pali). Buddha was teaching things that are practical and immediately testable but his teachings about Nirvana are, due to him not having undergone said death's transformation been based on induction, being something that is for both the the reader unverifiable and for the writer not sourced properly.

[Anonymous No.20207748]

>>20207428
Schopenhauer with access to third hand translations of incompelte sutras understood Buddhism better than retards on this board who can read every single Buddhist texts with tons of commentaries and explanations with just one click.

[Anonymous No.20207751]

>>20207707
So you are a true believer in what, psychoanalysis?

[Anonymous No.20207756]

>>20207738
If something was truly unchangable, it could not "interact" with anything as it wouldn't be able to know anything to act upon it, it could not have anything done to it, nor could it do anything as it would imply it has something in flux as an aspect of itself, which would really just necessitate infinite regression. You can't separate action and object and then claim objects are unchanging because you separated it's action from it.

[Anonymous No.20207771]

>>20207739
>Buddha was teaching things that are practical and immediately testable but his teachings about Nirvana are, due to him not having undergone said death's transformation been based on induction, being something that is for both the the reader unverifiable and for the writer not sourced properly.
Well it IS a religion, despite some modernist writers attempting to present Buddhism as totally empirical. Mahayana also considers the arhat path to be incomplete, which is somewhat fitting given the asterisk around parinirvana

[Anonymous No.20207774]

>>20207751
Aristotilean nominalism you pleb.

[Anonymous No.20207775]

>>20207681
You don't have to believe or decide anything. Practice both in your free time, observe and discern until you find truth from said practice. Buddha said to thoroughly test his teachings instead of blindly believing them. Practice right thought until you have something reasonable for pitting the two ideas in your mind against each other. Truth will supersede every possibility.

[Anonymous No.20207781]

>>20207774
Aristotle was a platonist, take your meds therapeutie

[Anonymous No.20207841]

Is there a Hermetic answer to the question of Nirvana?

[Anonymous No.20207865]

>>20207841
They both seek the same thing, Buddhism is just so extreme about bracketing out discussions of what is realized upon realization that people confuse it for nihilism. It can even be used for nihilism by atheistic Californians or ancient Stoics or Zen or Taoist monks who just want to achieve nondual states and don't care about anything higher than that. Hermeticism is more explicit about the trying to describe what happens upon realization but it constantly lapses into mythology as a result, just like with Buddhism you can even spend your whole life memorizing symbols and subdeities of the hermetic "system."

Two different approaches to the same thing, both falling into their own respective pitfalls at times. The answer as it has always been is to actually attain nondual states and see for yourself.

[Anonymous No.20207891]

>>20207865
>Hermeticism is more explicit about the trying to describe what happens upon realization
What text?

[Anonymous No.20207915]

>>20207242
>Am I the only one who finds this wholly unsatisfying?
No.

[Anonymous No.20207952]

>>20207891
Start with Ficino or read the Corpus Hermeticum, or Yates on it, as long as you don't turn it into a gnostic version of a video game lore wiki. Or read Versluis or Faivre on theosophy as an introduction to Bohme. Versluis' anthology Wisdom's Book is a nice introduction.

It's always hard to recommend these things because of the aforementioned pitfalls. Look at the Christian threads where people are arguing about the toll houses like it's an argument about how many powers Superman has in the comics. Missing the forest for the trees. Better to gain an understanding of the method before trying to autistically memorize the symbols.

[Anonymous No.20207977]

>be a religion centered on spiritual and material asceticism
>practitioners still flex on each other with gigantic golden statues

[Anonymous No.20208003]

>>20207977
I think the idea is "if we're going to make art it might as well be towards a superior ideal instead of something less meaningful"

[Anonymous No.20208137]

>>20207977
>>20208003
Buddhist statuary began in the Hellenstic influenced regions of historical India; colossal statuary is the logical conclusion if you can build it

[Anonymous No.20208156]

>>20207242
Imagine you were reincarnated into an worm. Would you find that unsatisfying? As a human yes, as a worm you might find worm life satisfying. But worm life includes suffering as well. Nirvana is the exit from the cycle of rebirth and suffering. Trying to understand what that actually entails is like a worm trying to understand what life as a human entails.

As a human you may find the idea of Nirvana unsatisfying, but it's outside the realm of comprehension