/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2776131]

I've seen you talk about these two a lot here so I'll try my question:

I've read Kant's theory of knowledge and I have Schopenhauer's masterpiece in my hands now. I'm about to read it but I see that there an appendix talking about Kant's philosophy.

Do I need to read Schopenhauer book's 1st or is it ok to read the appendix now, i.e. having really vague notions on Schopenhauer's thought?

I hope you can help.

[Anonymous No.2776150]

>>2776131
I've skimmed through kant's theory of knowledge. It seems more like he just came to the same conclusions as the buddhists did roughly 2000 years before. I think both kant/schopenhauer are directly influenced by buddhist ideas and claimed it as their own.

[Anonymous No.2776158]

>>2776150
i donk know about Kant, but yeah, Schopenhauer was close to both buddhism and hinduism, being vaguely influenced by the former.

anyway... any idea about the appendix thing?

[Anonymous No.2776261]

>>2776158
It is a big secret in the western circle. However it is very apparent when you see it. Western colonialism of India -> Meets/Buddhists-Jains-Hindu philosophy. It is apparent in early Greece, it is apparent in Hume/Kant/Schopenhauer. Only Schopenhauer openly discussed it. Hume inspired Kant inspired Schopenhauer who dug up the secret those 2 kept. Hume's bundle theory = Buddhist anatta. Kant's theory of knowledge = Buddhist perception theory. Schopenhaur's will = buddhist desire/etc. Connect the lines and you can see that all three of them base their understanding on Buddhist ideas. They dont completely grasp Buddhism, but they take bits and pieces of it and try to present it in the western world as their own. There are plenty more examples from other philosophers too.

Just read up on hume/kant/schopenhauer as all of them are connected to the same source

[Anonymous No.2776278]

>>2776261
mmm that makes perfect sense... actually too perfect.

any reference or citation? also, mind naming any of those "plenty more examples from other philosophers"?

im beggining to believe the west and its whole tradition is a really weak thing, or at least really far from what we are told.

[Anonymous No.2776293]

>>2776278
clever people thinking about people thinking coming up with similar ideas independently of each-other doesn't seem that impossible.

[Anonymous No.2776305]

>i pronounce kant as if I were saying cunt
>mfw i've no face

[Anonymous No.2776313]

>>2776131
>Kant's theory of knowledge

What book is that? The first critique?

[Anonymous No.2776315]

>>2776278
lets see, I dont have any meaningful list, but from the top of my head.

Derrida's deconstructionism = buddhist madhyamaka's
Godel = buddhist indra's net
Hegel = buddhist emptiness

>>2776293
None of the european thinkers came up with those independently. All of them are inspired by another. Hume->Kant->Schopenhauer. Buddhism wasnt an unknown thing in Europe by any means. The theosophy has made buddhist ideas more available to europeans via translations.

[Anonymous No.2776355]

>>2776278
As for citations, there arent many research done on this subject mainly because people like to play believe that Europeans were the progenitors of those ideas. Any such connections must be made intuitively.


>B->C-D->E
Western ideas are scattered throughout because they dont fully grasp buddhism.

>A->Z
Buddhist ideas are all part of a whole system
that includes all of those and other parts of the unknown alphabets.

Due to often incomplete/misunderstandings of the whole system Buddhism is labeled many things in the past and it is still being labeled incorrectly by many today such as nihilism/idealism/realist/etc. Most got some parts of it correct but not all of them at the same time. This led to couple of philosophers saying Buddhism is flawed. Although they kept some buddhist ideas to themselves, they denounced what they perceived to be buddhist system.

[Anonymous No.2776361]

>>2776315
interdasting.jpg

>mfw I found pic related a couple of days ago and I'm about to read it.

Looks like the west, if it might be ahead in a technical aspect, is really fucked up in everything else. shit, we are pathetic.

[Anonymous No.2776362]

Can someone explain Kant's trascendental idealism to me in the easiest way possible?

[Anonymous No.2776403]

>>2776355

But what about the fact that buddhist texts are shit, and I would much rather read the same ideas written in a western style, simply because the writing style is better.

[Anonymous No.2776416]

>>2776403
Didnt you get that he said the the western philosophers didnt understand it? so it wont be "the same ideas" in a different stule. it will be something like if i paint a picasso and i say that it is the same thing only in another style.

>amercan detected.

[Anonymous No.2776454]

>>2776403
Thats just like you're opinion mang. Buddhist texts are indeed hard to read from the western pov, but as I've said before, the western pov is taking 1 part at a time and trying to rationalize its inherent truth. This is not how the buddhist system works. Buddhist system is a collection of system that are all connected. Ofcourse there are some different interpretation of it that which should not be confused with each other's traditions. If you want to make buddhist system clear to you, you have to stick to a school/system. Each buddhist schools have different way of explaining the collection of system. To mix them together causes contradictions/confusions. This is what the early westerners had faced and what the current westerners are trying/should be looking at. Once the full system is done, you go to another system, then another. There are only 3 main systems. Tibetan/Chan(zen)/Theravada. And in each of those systems contains a collection of systems. You only mix them if you understand those completely or enough to see the non-contradictory nature of it. The reason for this is because Buddhist traditions are based on non-essence based reality, where as Western science/philosophy/religion are based on essence based reality. This is not to say the Buddhist are unaware of how the essence based reality works, they dealt with earlier essence based philosophy in india and there still is an essence based tradition called jain/hinduism.

[Anonymous No.2776471]

>>2776454
mmm you sound like you know what youre talking about.

how can i know thats not just bullshit?

[Anonymous No.2776473]

>>2776471
Relate it to your own experience first, then test it yourself to see if its true or not, etc - scientific method ala kalama sutta

[Anonymous No.2776488]

>>2776473
Hey, I've heard that greek shit like pyurri or stoicism might be close to Buddhism... how come? they stole their ideas as well?

[Anonymous No.2776490]

>>2776488
*pyrro

[Anonymous No.2776497]

>>2776488
*pyrrho

[Anonymous No.2776508]

>>2776488
Stole is a hard word. More like transmission of ideas, but the original was "lost". It is very logical/probable to think that Pyrrho got his ideas from Buddhism. Since he traveled with Alexander the great to the India to study. Buddhist "religion" and thus philosophy was flourishing in northern India when they came. So the idea of him learning buddhist values/nirvana/ascetics lifestyle isnt very farfetched at all.

Take this as a brief hypothesis. He could very well have developed his own ideas, but given that the circumstances point in favor of him learning from the Buddhists, Buddhist influences are more logical/probable than not.

[Anonymous No.2776519]

>>2776508
>>2776454

I wish you would continue dumping your knowledge through the night, seeing as I'm far too stupid and lazy to produce my own ideas (I even study philosophy that I'm too intellectually inferior to comprehend), but I find it really interesting. The link to eastern thought might indeed be much more relevant than we have previously thought.

Seems like the west still lives under the spell of linear thinking, excessive rationality and a pretty limited and self-centered conception of reality and our part in it.

[Anonymous No.2776530]

>>2776519
Ask away any question, my knowledge "dump" is restricted by your questions.

[Anonymous No.2776544]

>>2776530
mmm. whats the relation / difference between hinduism and buddhism?

[Anonymous No.2776559]

>>2776530
another one, what is the relation of them to: 1) the physical body and its "needs" 2) dead.

[Anonymous No.2776571]

>>2776559
*death

fuck, my typing sucks today srry.

[Anonymous No.2776602]

>>2776544
Complicated. And this needs to be explained in a wider context.

The current Hinduism was formed after Buddhism thats for sure. Here's a brief history, ill explain in parts.

In the beginning(this is my limit here on this) there was Vedas. Vedas influenced a number of traditions in India. Some positively, some negatively. This what stood for a thousand years(or close to that). At the dawn of 1000BCE the sharmanic(ascetic) traditions began spreading. This was the dawn of Jainism. They were the ones to dedicate themselves to meditation/ascetics for all their life. They formulated a number of theories about the nature of reality, one of the most fundamental was karma(cause-effect)/liberation(moksha/nirvana)/nonviolence/reincarnation. Which is fundamentally a natural law like gravity. Centuries later, some vedic traditions(there are many different traditions that spread) seems to have adopted those and applied the divine backdrop to it. Karma = divine judgement/Reincarnation = soul/etc. Fast forward 6th century BCE, one of the most prominent Jain teacher was teaching at this time. His teachings influential as was himself. Fast forward few decades, Gotama was born to a king of a local region. Gotama then learned from jain other gurus that sought out individual liberation. Once Gotama became enlightened, he started teaching his system of enlightenment. Karma = Non divine, and part of the natural law/Nirvana/Rebirth(different from reincarnation) and ....

[Anonymous No.2776614]

>>2776530

I think the split between a focus on wholeness/interconnectedness and singularity/linearity in eastern and western thinking, respectively, is interesting (arrest me if I'm being too bold in my assumptions) - would you mind shedding a light on why this might be? When we're at it, I'll just go ahead and make a complete fool of myself by aksing if this "western rationality" might lead to delegitimization of some kinds of holistic thought, i.e. people dropping acid and shrooms that are completely reoriented in how they perceive the world afterwards, but are shrugged off as stupid and uneducated brats (haven't done it myself, but there seems to be a lot of reports regarding wholeness/interconnectedness of consciousness/reality/perception - could this say something about Kant's epistemological categories for instance? i.e. how they fundamentally limit our view on what is real and what we are - are those psychedelic experiences telling us something crucial about our perception/understanding of reality, or should they be discarded completely?)

I think I'm asking if western thought is too focused on and trapped in it's own conception of the self, a conception that might be inherently flawed. We could look to Hume's attempt at refuting the traditional notion of substance, for instance - we could also look to those on the complete opposite scale that tries to refute Hume by saying that things cannot be explained in isolation, only relation, but still operates with this notion of a "self" in the traditional sense

I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore, everything turned out inconsistent and probably unintelligible - hopefully you can decode some meaning from it

[Anonymous No.2776636]

Great. Im amazed. I found this on Pyrrho and the Indian philosophers. http://www.josephwaligore.com/greek-philosophy/indian-influence-on-hellenistic-philosophy/

Also, I've always wondered something: how do they teach this way of facing life to their children? Cause for a western it it something that is "found" after a regular education. But how can they "give it" to someone "from the beginnig"?

Sorry for the shitstorm of questions.

[Anonymous No.2776643]

>>2776602 p2 (post limit)
The unique thing different from Jainism at first was no-soul. Where as Jainism/Vedas affirmed the existence of soul, Buddhist denied this affirmation. They also denied the affirmation of eternal essences and eternal God. What is also different from Jain is the methodology. Where as Jains practice complete ahimsa/meditation/asceticism, Buddha asked us to take a more rational/middle way approach. Ahimsa when doable, meditation within reasons, asceticism given circumstances. Anyway, this led to widespread appreciation for Buddhism amongst the nobles who werent too keep on full asceticism/meditation/ahimsa and not too happy with vedic religion. As well as the widespread amongst rural populations due to how doable it is to them. Centuries past, Vedic tradition was losing grounds to Buddhist, Jains were slowly receding(their numbers werent that big to begin with, but were influential) due to Buddhists methodology as well. Vedic brahmans could not contain this issue any longer, so few brahmans with the goal of claiming vedic superiority learned the buddhist ways and tried to dispute buddhist on their own terms(Shankara). It was somewhat successful. However Shankara himself was accused of being a Buddhist in disguise because his ideas was so influenced by buddhism that many vedic brahmans couldnt tell buddhism/shankara apart. Couple of centuries past, this is the time of muslim invasion.

[Anonymous No.2776705]

>>2776643 p3
Actually I might have gotten some dates wrong with the muslim invasion, ignore the couple of centuries past part.

Before the muslim invasion, shankara's adherence were debating buddhists and sometimes defeating, sometimes winning. They were however gaining some grounds. Once the muslim invasion was in full effect, many of the buddhists/jains communities/structures were destroyed/killed due to "idoltary" and buddhist/jain's own ahimsa principles. Once muslims established their own religion, buddhism saw no gain and only lost more and more. Those who survived the initial assault began moving to Tibet. Those who remained in india decided to move away from the muslim are and into southern india where hinduism was rooted firmly. The reason I saw hinduism now is because they reunited under the banner against the buddhist "attacks" on their beliefs. Buddhist were prone to attack all views, including their own. Once the leftover buddhists were in hindu territory they were slowly absorbed by them. You can now see Buddha as a hindu avatar. The similar thing of course happened in reverse as well, Buddhist absorbed hindu gods in their cosmology to lessen then radical nature of buddhist way. Now after a couple of centuries, there are virtually no buddhists left in India. Whats left is a foreign religion called Islam and Hinduism which took the mantle as the official religion of the region. They then slowly tried to co-exist with one another. "let bygones be bygones"

[Anonymous No.2776744]

>>2776705 p4
Skip past several centuries, this is now the modern time. Hindus gasping at Buddhist for integrating hindu gods, Buddhists gasping at hindus for integrating Buddha as their avatar. The successors that dont know each other's history then cause misunderstanding/confusions to non-native cultures(europeans). Anyway thats the brief history/evolution of it from my pov(slighly buddhist bias, but mostly accurate as far as Ive read so far).

>>2776559
Relation between death and living? Living embodies experiencing things, perceiving things, conceptualizing things, being aware of things, and finally being able to understand all those things. Being dead = not being able to experience, not being able to conceptualize, not being aware, not being able to understand things, and not able to perceive things. I'm bit confused by the question itself, maybe you can clarify this for me.

>>2776636
sec reading

[Anonymous No.2776825]

>>2776614
Hmm. Depends on how you look at it. To some degree, very early buddhists got into the western mindset. Their influenced were stopped by the second most influential person in Buddhism, Nagarjuna. To this day, there is no successful criticism against Nagarjuna's methods. Why? Because all of the views are already refuted by him, including his own views. He left nothing standing in the way. I think the way western linearity works is based on practicality. Practical truth/application or relative truth in buddhism was not considered to be useless. Theres a Zen saying that goes like this. "Mountains are mountains. Mountains are not mountains. Mountains are mountains." The practical application/truth is ever present in Buddhism. To deny the western linearity is to deny eastern thought itself. What is instead said of western thought is incomplete nature of western information(no one denies this). So maybe one day the western philosophy will be complete. Some important aspects of the Buddhist systems are already incorporated. Its only a matter of time before most of it is incorporated. Abandonment of gods is very likely and very much a much needed change in the coming centuries and onward. Gods are the cultural baggage of the pasts, and should stay that way. Its served its purpose(when it was integrating to native lands), now must bid farewell.

[Anonymous No.2776837]

>>2776636
Very interesting read

[Anonymous No.2776846]

>>2776636
The guy seems to be saying the same things as I was, but with more detail and more facts. Seems like hes done this research for 30 years before publishing his book

[Anonymous No.2776848]

>>2776602
>>2776705
>>2776744
>>2776825

Thanks you, based god, for these interesting reads.

Would you mind sharing some thoughts around the concept of identity (does this conception differ in eastern and western though systems?) - what is it comprised of, although this might be a hard question.

Is the identity of a human being completely different from the identity of, let's say, a city (I realize that identity is a fundamentally human notion, but you might see where I'm going).

I like to think that identity has several aspects, like aesthetic identity, historical identity, a profile (something external that's forced upon the subject/object in question or something internal, like: "what do I want to be?", "what do we want to be?" - and if there is a match or mismatch between thought and action). Could you analyze different aspects of identity in itself, or would that be inherently flawed? If one could talk of different kinds of identity (aesthetic, historical etc), how would I go about investigating these, and how do they relate to the overall/"sum of all parts"-identity of the thing in question?

[Anonymous No.2776904]

Nice thread, gentlemen.

Pyrrho was indeed openly inspired and even probably directly taught by Indian "gymnosophists", probably Sadhu's of some kind.

[Anonymous No.2776906]

>>2776825
This is so cool. Thank you.

[Anonymous No.2776917]

>>2776848
Hmm. Its quite complicated as the idea of identity is the back bone of our understanding. The most basic understanding is that there is a static identity that is either in the body somewhere, or outside the plane of existence. If there were no such identity, then who experiences it? Most agreed that there is a identity that is either in the body/different plane of existence. To the religious, they named it soul. To the non-religious they were adopted the default position of unknown. If they said that there are no such thing as a soul, they would be marked as a fool because they have nothing back it up. This was dualism. This identity was the basis of almost all the main philosophical/religious movement that we see today in the west. Another form of identity was instead of there being a separate identity in each of us/plane of existence, all of our identities are part of a bigger identity. Using this idea, we can they try to assume that the big identity is part of other big identity which then goes on infinitely and another view is that the big soul is the only soul that exists. This was called the monism. Most westerners adopted dualism as the default one for many centuries, and most easterners adopted monism for better part of their philosophical culture. The buddhist idea came as a shock for most dualist/monist at first because they had already assumed that denial of identity was an untenable position. This was present in early greeks and sometime later in...

[Anonymous No.2776940]

What about Parmenides and Heraclitus though, who did seem to have any contact with the East? They seem like a more logical basis for thought in the West. Of course, the east had influence but i'm skeptical to say it all came from there and the west did shit.

[Anonymous No.2776944]

>>2776825
Could you explain reincarnation to me please? I used to think (possibly naively?) that it was some kind of soul returning to a different animal. But the more I read about it, the more it seems to suggest that, for humans anyway, learning the teachings of someone causes you to adopt part of their mentality. The more you devote yourself to the teachings of one person the more of their beliefs you adopt and understand, and the more like them you become. If you spent your life (somehow from birth) following in the footsteps of one person, you could almost embody that person; if a group of people followed in the footsteps of that person, between them they could embody all of the thoughts of that one person... I don't know how many things I'm mixing up here, if you could untangle it slightly I would be really grateful.

[Anonymous No.2776949]

>>2776940
>didn't had contact

I hate mistyping.

[Anonymous No.2776961]

>>2776940

Not the enlightened anon, but Parmenides and Heraclitus both seem to have some aspects of it, at least, Parmenides through his conception of reality as absolute stasis and Heraclitus through his notion of reality as an absolute, ever-changing fluxus - both points look like they represent some kind of "everything and nothing" (which I think have been a point, or at least a mantra for chanting in eastern religious and philosophical practice) kind of wholeness, but on each pole of the spectrum.

I might be completely in the wrong though, so we'll have to wait for an eduacted answer.

[Anonymous No.2776966]

>>2776917
European philosophy as well. This was shown through the Ship of Theseus paradox. Heraclitus got some parts of the answer right when he said "you can never step foot in the same river twice". And I believe other philosophers over time might have solved it, but their ideas didnt ring as logical/rational to many others. What Heraclitus was missing was that in attempting to solve the paradox, he never thought put it to the test on his own self. Buddhist applied the process of change to every phenomena. Be it person, dog, chair, earth, tree, etc. All things change and are always changing. It is only by conventional means do we say there is an identity to things. Once examine closer, there are no identities, no essences found anywhere. What is left is a process. Through the functionality of the process can we call the the ship of Theseus the same thing over time/change and through the connected process. If you destroy the ship completely, and put a new one, then it is not the same ship(conventionally) because the process "starts" off from a different strands. A well known Buddhist monk demonstrated this to a Greek king in "Milinda Panha". Google it.

How this related to human identity is that human identity is very similar. The function needs to be the same and the process needs to be continual. What holds the process together in the human/sentient being is something called karma.

>>2776944
I'll go for brief explanation with this current line of thought.

[Anonymous No.2777018]

>>2776966
As you may recall, karma is buddhism is a naturalistic law of the existence, its not a judgement based, its not a moral system, its just how things work. Now when I say karma, think of it as process/thread-based, think of karma like a rope thats created from bunch/multiple smaller threads etc. Buddhist have couple different interpretations of karma, mostly because the rules of the karma are nonlinear and mostly unknowable without a clear perception. What can be said is there are some correlations within karma process. Have good intentions, nurture those good intentions with more good intentions, and reap good karma. Sometimes karma is explained as a seed. Plant a good karmic seed(intention) and reap good karmic results. Seeds dont magically become trees, they need to be nurtured. Anyway, karmic threads(yes multiple different intentions-effects) or processes create the stickyness that we use to distinguish between ourselves and others. So we now know how the buddhist thought of the identity and how itself together. Buddhist also have this no-self theory. The no-self theory is that ultimately the identity is empty and thus has no inherent existence other than through conventional existence. Identity in buddhist sense is process based and also can be viewed as part based too(similar to hume bundle theory). What emptiness refers to is the emptiness of all phenomena. How can things be empty? Think of it this way...

[Anonymous No.2777019]

This is really some interesting stuff in this thread.
Could you recommend me some books for various schools of though on Indian/Buddhism philosophies?
I've never read any Indian/Buddhism philosophy but from your description, it sounds very interesting.

[Anonymous No.2777048]

>>2777018
What makes up things? Chair for example is made up from the trees, the trees from sunlight/water/seed, etc. The Chair's existence depends on the tree it was cut from, and the tree to sunlight/water/seed, etc. This phenomena is called dependent-origination. Dependent origination means exactly what it sounds like. Thing's existence depend on another's existence. But this is a bit of problem with this. If the chair's existence is dependent on the tree, does that mean the tree has a chair inside of it? Does it mean that the chair can come into existence by itself? Or from nothing? We can rule out all those prospects because those are invalid explanations. What is happening is that through the inherent lack of non-essence of the chair can the tree produce the non-essence chair. But that also makes the tree non-essence because it too is part of the non-essence chain of existence. Buddhist call this non-essence emptiness. For if not for emptiness of essences, there would be no existence. Again, if the chair did have an essence, the chair would either have to come into existence by itself, from nothin or the tree would have to have the chair essence inside of it. If you think the tree has essence of chair inside of it, then you'd have to say the sunlight/seed/water all has the essence of tree inside of it as well. This leads to an absurd notion. So again, since there is no essence, and the only logical answer to the chair's existence is through the process called dependent-

[Anonymous No.2777058]

>>2777048
origination. Hmm now that i think about it, I'm maybe drawing too much information, I hope its not confusing you(re-read section by section a few more times if you're confused). Anyway, Buddhist identity = process based, non-essence based(emptiness/sunyata), dependent-origination based.

>>2777019
I wish I could recommend you a good book that gives a clear understanding of buddhism and their different structures, but unfortunately I dont have any. Most of my understandings are from the influences of a single book that maybe bit hard to read for you(jay garfield's "the fundamental verses of the middle way"), this definitely wont help you early on in your quest to understand buddhism. But if you want I can sum up some different schools of buddhism and some different schools of indian philosophy for you.

[Anonymous No.2777069]

>>2777058
How many schools of though are there for indian/buddism?
Do they have the same type of following as in the west where people pick sides or do they all flow together?
Kind of stupid, but what was Buddha's contribution...(i have almost zero knowledge on this subject).
Just keep sending more information, im learning so much in this thread.

[Anonymous No.2777086]

>>2777019
Actually on second thought, I remembered something else that made me think of some books.

One of the book I saw in this thread was "The shape of Ancient thought" this covers the influence between east/west, not sure how accurate it is but we can say that its fairly accurate. If you want to learn buddhist from bottom up, read the "what the buddha taught" by rahula walpola for a definitive and universal buddhist introduction. After that expand onto heart sutra for a brief glimpse of mahayana. If you want buddhist ethics/rational take on it, read shantideva's "the way/guide of bodhisattva." After those 3, if you want to learn more, read up on the foundations of mahayana "founder"' Nagarjuna's in jay garfield's translation of "the fundamental verses of the middle way." If you need a clearer info, read up the works of Dharmakirti and Chandrakirti both of them present an even more commentaries, explanations, based on Nagarjuna's works. You can stop here now and see how it all fits because after this, you will more than likely have to face the Tibetan buddhist volumes of buddhist texts. Anyway, if you decide to stop, take some time and try to systematize what you have learned so far. After this you can read up on Yogacara(zen/chan) and see a different perspective. What I can say is if Tibetan version is seemingly based on empty, the Zen/Chan is a different interpretation that uses positive assertions. Read all of them carefully, especially vasubandhu's works since...

[Anonymous No.2777121]

>>2777086
he is the progenitor of yogacara (zen/chan). Vasubandhu > Zen/Chan's version or later work if you want the good understanding of Nagarjuna. If you see contradictions and get stuck, try asking some other knowledgeable buddhists(monks or scholars or some internet superhero).

>>2777069
There are around 18 original schools, of those 3 living ones alive right now. Theravada-Mahayana (alive in east asia)- Vajrayana(alive in tibetan/singon(japan)). All three's base their understandings on the original 18. Not many know the difference well enough to understand all of them. Most see each other as contradictions, but they dont understand the historical context in which each of their traditions evolved. In the west the most popular buddhism seems to be zen/tibetan. Zen because it seems more practical/nontheistic/atheistic. Tibetan because it seems to be a spiritual path with intellectualism in it. Many intellectuals are attracted to Tibetan/Zen and many are now learning the differences and the similarities in teaching methods. Buddhist contribution to science? Mostly through western philosophers. I would say. The direct buddhist influences cant be pointed out because to the west buddhism = religion, hence if you take up a religious position, you make a fool out of yourself. But as stated earlier in this thread, numerous influential philosophers are influenced by buddhism be it knowingly or unknowingly either through primary or secondary sources or through both.

[Anonymous No.2777126]

>>2776961
>>2776940
I have yet to look into their lives, but given that influential contemporaries are seemingly influenced by buddhist ideas, it is likely those ideas got tossed around to other contemporaries. Maybe through different pieces

[Anonymous No.2777152]

>>2777121
what books would you recommend for those 3 Buddhist schools of though.
I myself was interested in Zen when i was a teenager but I personally attained inner peace before I got the chance to read a book on the subject.
Though this whole thread has gotten me interested in Buddhism.

[Anonymous No.2777164]

>>2776944
Oh right, I forgot to get to your part.

Reincarnation = Re-incarnate. Buddhist say no soul(if you've read the earlier you should be familiar). So reincarnation does not work with rebirth. What works is rebirth. Rebirth = Re-birth. Birth process is undeniable to everyone. The "re" just means theres some connection between life->death without any soul(eternal/surviving death/timeless/on a different plane/etc) being present. When you're alive you have your own intentions-forming a process that changes and dies off once the intentions are negated, etc. And you're right(from my pov) when you said humans influencing each other and shaping each other's thoughts/mentality. If you get a good grasp of Buddhism, you'll the distinction between "you" and "me" are conventional, the nature of reality suggests that all beings are connected. BUT dont take this as a affirmation that there is an oversoul or monism. This is the conclusion many miss when they learn Buddhism. Once they learn the distinction between you/me are conventional they take the conventional truth (we are connected) as as ultimate truth. Remember Buddhism is about both ultimate(emptiness)/conventional(dependent-origination), not one in favor of another. So on the conventional rebirth process, what happens when a person dies is not told by the Buddha because most werent ready to hear the truth. But if you understand the karma process and the no-self process, emptiness, dependent-origination, cause-effect, you ...

[Anonymous No.2777191]

>>2777164
should see the nature of rebirth. If all intentions form karmic threads, and during death there are karmic threads, the rebirth should not be that difficult to see. All causes have effect. Intention causes have unknown effects. How various buddhist school goes about varies from tradition to tradition. We dont need to know this if we are to understand the buddhist system. This is known only when you're enlightened when your perception/understanding/thoughts become clear as the crystal water.

>>2777152
Book for Zen? I dont read Zen books. Heart sutra/Lankavatara sutra/bunch of koans will make you understand the gist of Zen even if your mind may not be conditioned/sharpened enough. Zen is the anti-intellectual/conceptual path, and thus you must abandon the book's notion of Zen if you want to understand its nature(influence from tao is very present here "tao that can be named is not the tao").

See >>2777086 for books on "tibetan"

Theravada is mostly Theravadan Tripitaka (XBOX HUEG Texts). Just Read up dhammapada and consult other specialist buddhist

[Anonymous No.2777210]

>>2777191
No I meant books to get into the Buddhist-verse (i have no description for it), not Zen in particular but all of Buddhism.
Or if you can, books on different spectrum of Buddhism. Anything will be great.

[Anonymous No.2777233]

>>2777210
Never found a satisfactory book on different spectrum of Buddhism because most didnt go into historical context. Try this one(can read online).

http://books.google.com/books?id=s1PZAMD13SMC

From the looks of it it goes into details/history of each different schools of Buddhism. This book maybe of more help to you than myself.

[Anonymous No.2777242]

>>2777210
Read up from many sources (intuition/books/classes/teachers/discussions/wiki)

[Anonymous No.2777255]

>>2777242
Thank you very much.
I saved this whole discussion/thread for further reading.
You should really write a book or an article about all this.
thanks again.

[Anonymous No.2777266]

I, as the other anon, saved the entire thread for further reference. If I'm lucky, it's still up when I wake up tomorrow - if not, thanks to everyone, and especially our wise Buddhist master for a great and informative thread.

Turns out that /lit/ isn't a complete shit board after all, and this is a positive achievement!

[Anonymous No.2777285]

>>2777255
>>2777266
Hah. I doubt I can write anything. Given my horrible spelling/grammar work. I am glad that you guys are have learned stuff. However just one caution, do note that my understanding stems from my own imperfection. And ofcourse a Buddhist wouldnt be a Buddhist without meditation. Walking/Sitting/Eating/Not-thinking/compassion/awareness/etc. All types of meditations can be utilized to further your understanding of buddhism. Books/Teachers can only tell you so far, your mind must naturally link all those together in a reasonable/logical manner else it becomes an untenable system. Also take it easy and uh filename.jpg

[Anonymous No.2777327]

>mfw an interesting thread on lit for once

[Anonymous No.2777328]

Awesome thread, great job.

Its rare threads like these that keep me coming to this website.

[Anonymous No.2777498]

here i cap it for convinience
hope it works
first time doing this

[Anonymous No.2777522]

>>>Buddhist system is a collection of system that are all connected

Why should I care about this vapid truism?

[Anonymous No.2777524]

I'M A BUDDHIST
SON OF A BITCH WESTERNER
WESTERNER IS PIG
DO YOU WANT PHILOSOPHY?
DO YOU WANT INTERCONNECTEDNESS?
WESTERNER IS PIG DISGUSTING
IMMANUEL KANT IS A THIEF
FUCKING WEST

[Anonymous No.2777530]

>>2777522
No one is forcing you lol. This is only for those that are interested

[Anonymous No.2777650]

New to thread here.

Very interesting stuff, it created a nice context to the whole of eastern thinking, as far as we can get in a 4chan thread.

I still remain skeptical on whether western thinkers took ideas from eastern philosophy, not much because I trust their integrity or I doubt that they have heard of it, but simply because I find it more likely that they get to similar thoughts on their own. This is something that, to me, seems more natural than if they have come up with completely different ways of thinking. The core to life is the same, we eat, we have sex, we die, we see the sun coming up and coming down everyday. I share the belief that the reason we disagree with each other is simply because we are not using the same words with the same meaning, but even remote societies like american natives will draw conclusions that, with the right eyes, will scare anyone for how similar they are to what we already know on buddhism or western thinking.

I had a friend who used to say we are on the line of a circle and our thoughts grow as roots towards the center of the circle, that is, no matter where you are or how much the root twists and turns, we ultimately reach for the same thing.(Because we are the same thing if you want to go further!)

cont

[Anonymous No.2777653]

>>2777650 cont

Someone asked for books on Zen. And it's indeed a funny request as Zen it's not much of a way to think but a way to live. Not only that, the theorization of life takes us away from life, giving an explanation to Zen is not to understand Zen. For someone who never heard about it, it seems like a good excuse not to explain anything, or to keep all the wisdom to themselves in a selfish way. But that's only because we are curious about the word Zen in itself, but we are not willing to sacrifice ourselves to get it. And it's the flow of life, without thinking, without defining it that is what revolves the concept of Zen, if we can even call it "concept". For all of our western ignorance, I recommend the reading of the book The Spirit of Zen by Alan Watts, which is very short and simple, written when he was very young, but still a great introduction to the context that generated the Zen life. He will explain to you better than anyone why you can't explain Zen.

To keep it within the subject of the thread and if you allow me to make a fun analogy, Zen masters are more like Diogenes. It was not about writing stuff, it was about doing it, it was about living it. Also Socrates, who is not too Zen, but do compare that while he asked philosophical questions to the people at the square, so that they could be caught off guard and put life in perspective, the role of the koan in the east is somewhat similar, but taken to the extreme. The koan is a question, an issue, without a logical practical solution, something that the monks would use as tools to "click" with life. It is extreme because it's not a mere question to make you think, it is so hard to think of it, you "don't think", you live. And it was also not that much vapid, it was something they would work on over and over, under a disciplined life.

[Anonymous No.2777655]

>>2777653

Also, on Alan Watts, there is a series of videos and audiotracks of his lectures here http://deoxy.org/watts.htm and it's not the first time I recommend him here today, because I think he is clear, knowledgeable and extremely accessful for us westerns. In one of the talks he concerns the difference between the linear and the cyclic visions of the two halves of the world, though I don't remember which one was that. There are extensive talks on the Tao as well, I highly recommend those.

[Anonymous No.2777746]

i can't be fucked reading all this right now, but what's the website that archives all of /lit/'s threads?

[Anonymous No.2777753]

>>2777746
fuuka.warosu.org/lit/ ?

[Anonymous No.2777782]

>>2777655
>>2777653
>>2777650

Awesome
As the caption guy and the guy who asked for books on Zen.
Thanks a lot.

[Anonymous No.2778032]

WOW. I am now masturbating over the extensive wealth of knowledge dropped ITT

[Anonymous No.2778105]

>bumping
so this thread can still be there when i wake up in 4 hours

[Anonymous No.2778118]

OP here.

soniamproud.jpeg

Thanks to the guy who answered all the stuff. An unexpected good thread.

I just wanna share with you guys a nice text cited in the article cited in >>2776636, which is not accesible
outside JSTOR. Enjoy:

4sharedcom/office/oO6Zyk7o/4182084

[Anonymous No.2778129]

>>2776305

That's the right way you idiot.

[Anonymous No.2778132]

>>2778118

Downloading. Thanks!

[Anonymous No.2778144]

>>2778129

You kant, amirite?

[Anonymous No.2778160]

>>2778118

Does anyone care to load this to a site that doesn't require registration to enable downloading?

[Anonymous No.2778275]

http://chanarchive.org/request_votes

[Benny Profane !!muO1YE/mn/J No.2778279]

>>2778275

No need:

http://fuuka.warosu.org/lit/

[Anonymous No.2778291]

>>2778279
mite b secure

[Anonymous No.2778325]

>>2778160
No one?

[Anonymous No.2778333]

>>2778325


I'll do it.

sec

[Anonymous No.2778337]

>>2778325
>>2778333

mediafirecom/view/?4fc2c4497cmdy95

[Anonymous No.2778422]

>>2778337

Thanks, man. Much appreciated.

[Anonymous No.2779763]

So is this archived?

[Anonymous No.2780653]

>>2779763
idk

[Anonymous No.2780662]

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/liberal_arts/philosophy/kant.htm

The Kant Song on The Transcendental Deduction of Pure Concepts of Understanding

Explained.

[Anonymous No.2780671]

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/liberal_arts/philosophy/kant.htm

The Kant Song on The Transcendental Deduction of Pure Concepts of Understanding

Explained.