Greco-Buddhism & Indo-Greek appreciation thread

>There is a centuries, perhaps millennia, old Shinto cult of Hercules and there are people who think that Japan isn't the literal Empire of Memes

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>when aesthetics meets enlightenment

>>1810934
>>1811027
Were these originally painted like Greek sculptures were?

What else do we know about the Indo Greek left overs?

Some small outposts survived very late after even the roman empire fell but we dont know much about them.

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>golden ratio mustachio

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Does anyone know if there's literature from this time on buddhist philosophy in greek language?

I'd be extremely curious to see how they'd translate terms from buddhism and how that fits together with platonism, for instance

Does anyone know why Herakles, of all people, was the main icon from Greek culture that's presented next to the Buddha?

>Greco-Buddhism will never be the dominant religion of the whole western world
Kill my non-self

>>1811065
Who else would they show? Zeus wouldn't make sense. The gods don't behave as particularly enlightened beings. Herakles is the most significant man to overcome his human limitations in Greek mythology. The Buddha was a human, too, unlike the Greek gods.

>>1811065
I think he's actually called vajrapani. He's a Buddhist deity. They only borrowed the iconography.

>>1811065
>>1811110
This. He is shown to protect the Buddha.

>>1811038
Have you ever seen indian and bhuddist art?
If you think those colored greek statues were jarring then oh boy

>>1811062
There is Milinda Panha
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milinda_Panha

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These are all Kushan, not Greek.

I think it's safe to say Indo-Greeks would have been/were more receptive to Mahayana traditions.
>>1811101
It probably would have devolved into a corrupted bureaucracy or an autocracy driven by the perpetual desire for power and control like all institutionalized religions do and did happen in "Buddhist" kingdoms, but yeah probably more open to different ideas and probably less prudish than Jesusists.

Mahayana Buddhism would have thrived in Greco-Rome

>I can keep my gods?
>AND achieve spiritual salvation?
>Huzzah!

>>1812621
Amazing.

Is there any major commentary by Greek philosophers on Buddhism? What did the Epicureanists or Stoics think?

How absurd to believe you need to devote special effort to achieve dissolution. It's what awaits every man in a quite a short time. Go on, sufferers, the instrument of your liberation is pretty cheap: blow your brains out. There's no rebirth waiting for you.

It's not death that's hard, but life. Buddhism is interesting for its ascetic practices, that, contrary to common intuition, aid life, for it is through effort, discomfort, and hardening that a satisfied, confident creature is formed. The hardness of life, the obstacles to overcome, an integral part of it, prerequisite to greatness. Go and off yourselves, pitiful anti-natalists. Leave the world to those that don't curse their presence in it.

>>1813980
Buddhism isn't about hating life, it's about recognizing that unfulfilled desires causes suffering, so the solution is to not have desires.

>>1812621
>irrelevant ruler dicksucking: the treatise.

>>1814124
Not him, but suffering is a part of life. While they don't necessarily hate all life, they certainly do hate a component of it. Seeking an end to your own suffering, desire, and being sounds to me a lot like being against big chunks of the human condition, which considering the end point seems to be either a state of ceaseless becoming or an end to all becoming doesn't seem too far off from my own outsider perspective.

>>1813980
jesus christ how can you talk so much and still not say anything

are you an english lit major or something?

I fucking hate this board

hint: buddism is a social system that enforces eugenic practices which reinforces the nuclear family. full stop. that's all it is.

stop writing strings of topical words with no referents.

fuck this board hurts my brain

>>1814206
>hint: buddism is a social system that enforces eugenic practices which reinforces the nuclear family. full stop. that's all it is.

Yeah of course, all that theology and philosophy is nothing.

You somehow manage to be even more of a fedora tipper than him.

>>1814185
>>1814124
Note, I mean being as in as a unique entity. I don't think Buddhists seek suicide or oblivion or anything like that.

>>1814214
he wrote 3 run on sentences in a single paragraph. that's quite a feat, even for /his/

further, half of his words literally have no referents. his statement is a mess.

the meaning that buddhism has, like all religions/philosophies, takes place in a cultural context, which statements such as "satisfaction" or "fulfillment" fail to address unless you're a father talking to his 12 year old son.

fuck off. this board is fucking awful

>>1814185
Just because suffering is a part of life does not mean you should tolerate its existence. Whether its integral to the human condition or not is irrelevant because it fucking sucks. Wanting to be "human" over being free is pretty fucking spooky.

>>1814241
>Wanting to be "human" over being free is pretty fucking spooky.

Think you ought to desire being free over being human is just as spooky. Further, if being free of my suffering means giving up what makes existence worth living, I'd rather suffer.

Suffering sucks, but it's also necessary to do many things worth doing, to become great, and to experience the sublime things life has to offer.

As much as I hate to say it, if you truly don't want to suffer, why not just lay down and die? You'll never suffer again. You don't because you acknowledge that life and the human condition it entails are worth something, and suffering is a vital component of that.

>>1814241
>>1814246
An existence free of suffering is the highest expression of the dharmic spirit. Conjugation with your interpersonal struggles to emerge with a greater exponential truth is the ultimate product of dialectical struggle. Buddhism brings an intransigent and higher philosophical value to the lives of its practitioners by revealing the true nature of suffering :^)

>>1814246
>Think you ought to desire being free over being human is just as spooky.
No, because freedom equates to happiness (in the eudaimonia sense) and that's the only rational thing one can aim for.
> Further, if being free of my suffering means giving up what makes existence worth living, I'd rather suffer.
That's a false dichotomy. Buddhism isn't about making yourself into some unfeeling robot. Suffering is the enemy to contentment and happiness, not a part of it.
>As much as I hate to say it, if you truly don't want to suffer, why not just lay down and die? You'll never suffer again.
Because my instinctual sense of self-preservation is too great and I have an entire lifetime to try to become free. Suffering sucks but I can endure it. I just recognize thinking "enduring it" is all you can and should do is irrational.

>>1814258
>No, because freedom equates to happiness (in the eudaimonia sense) and that's the only rational thing one can aim for.

Happiness is not necessarily in your best interests. Someone rigging up your brain with a switch to excite its pleasure centers would bring you unbridled happiness, and destroy you.

>Buddhism isn't about making yourself into some unfeeling robot.

It's asking me to give up desire, suffering, and becoming. Those are three large hunks of the human condition gone.

>I just recognize thinking "enduring it" is all you can and should do is irrational.

Attempting to shed your humanity in the futile attempt at escaping what is an inevitable component of human existence rather than either enduring it or embracing it to make you greater is considerably more irrational. Find me a single living man who has escaped suffering and I'll spin on a dime.

Also don't reference Stirner to support this nonsense. He'd have found Buddhism to be more foolish rot that gets in the way of pursuing actual voluntary egoism by attempting to subvert your egoism in pursuit of a "higher" purpose. God damn do I wish people would actually read the Ego and Its Own before calling things "spooky." Lazy fucks.

>>1814258
what you just wrote was incredibly sophomoric. you should be a little more humble. even basic bitch religious/philosophical scholars are capable of drafting up a schema in which suffering necessarily has value

they should really rename this board /basicbitch/

>>1814268
I like you. we really need posting ids like /int/ or /pol/

>>1814268
>Happiness is not necessarily in your best interests. Someone rigging up your brain with a switch to excite its pleasure centers would bring you unbridled happiness, and destroy you.
I'm not talking about hedonistic pleasure. But even if your example if there were no downsides to it, they're be no reason to reject it. In actuality there probably would be significant downsides to it.
>It's asking me to give up desire, suffering, and becoming. Those are three large hunks of the human condition gone.
I'm not sure what you mean by becoming, but even if they're important parts of the human condition it is all irrelevant. A person should strive for what is best for them, not for whatever is most "human".
>Attempting to shed your humanity in the futile attempt at escaping what is an inevitable component of human existence rather than either enduring it or embracing it to make you greater is considerably more irrational.
You keep using words like "greater" and "humanity" that have no intrinsic value and just subjective meaning. A rational person should strive for what makes them happy, not whatever makes them "great" or "human".
>Find me a single living man who has escaped suffering and I'll spin on a dime.
Well, the different Buddhist sects have their own lists, but who knows if they're truthful. But it does seem like Buddhist teachings and mediation cause a person to become more happy and more capable of dealing with stress.
>He'd have found Buddhism to be more foolish rot that gets in the way of pursuing actual voluntary egoism by attempting to subvert your egoism in pursuit of a "higher" purpose.
Again, you're fundamentally misunderstanding Buddhism. If you're following it for some obscure and meaningless higher purpose, then you're not actually following it. The goal is liberation, not to obey some meaningless rules because "dah buddha said so". You're the one implying one should embrace suffering for a higher purpose.

>>1814275
>even basic bitch religious/philosophical scholars are capable of drafting up a schema in which suffering necessarily has value
People are capable of rationalizing anything. It's easier pretending suffering is essential rather than trying your best to eliminate it.

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If the authentic human life is a contending with suffering instead of a flight from suffering, then Buddhism would just be a justification for suicide and not what it actually is: not a turning away from life, but a going beyond.

The Buddhist Praxis is the cultivation of the self to the degree this self can eventually be relied on to determine its own happiness, without the danger of this process being hijacked by the samsaric complexes of the ego that exist to fundamentally constrain the being in a mode that relates to the world only in terms of its continued survival and validation.

The Buddha implored his followers to go from "strength to higher strength", not retreat into vacuous navel gazing. It is to have the strength to recognize everything that it means to be human is of the character of becoming and yet to still go beyond this, without taking the path of annihilationism. It's an incommunicable strength but no less real for it.

>>1814314
pain is a basic biological component of life systems. it's a fucking negative feedback loop to prevent death, and any self sustaining system has negative feedback loops, you retard

you can't eliminate feedback systems unless you break math and physics. so good luck with that, retard

>>1814505
Pain isn't suffering. Even if it was it's very easy to eliminate it, that's the whole idea behind analgesics.

>>1814529
people are sometimes born without pain nerve endings. these people claw their eyes out and chew their lips off in infancy and end up dying

suffering is psychic pain, which is LITERALLY handled and processes by the same area of the brain (synesthesia, look it up) and maintains the human ability to comprehend the world.

if people never suffered, they wouldn't be capable of learning on a very basic level

>>1812313
>>1811110
>>1811108
Cool! Thanks. Are there any works on it?

>>1814314
>It's easier pretending suffering is essential rather than trying your best to eliminate it.

Reducing suffering can be a worthwhile goal, but even from a psychological standpoint it's more effective to teach people healthy means of handling their suffering. Attempting to eliminate it is however utterly futile as long as we remain sapient and autonomous.

>>1814642
>but even from a psychological standpoint it's more effective to teach people healthy means of handling their suffering.
willing to change people is the best way to make them suffer and to suffer yourself

>>1814246
>to desire being free over being human
According to Buddhism human birth is precious because it offers the most possibilities for Awakening. Hence truly being human means to pursue those possibilities as much as you can. Otherwise people's lives are closer to the denizens of the other 5 realms.
>necessary to do many things worth doing, to become great, and to experience the sublime things life has to offer.
In a way, yes. People set on the Buddhist path specifically because they feel suffering. The Buddha became Enlightened because of this question of suffering, and that's the greatest thing any being can hope to do. Nobody has a problem with this fact, and the idea isn't crying about suffering and rejecting its existence. On the other hand claiming that physical and mental pain, dejection, rejection, hatred, separation from loved ones and pleasant experiences and the like are good because we experience them is the height of idiocy.
>if you truly don't want to suffer, why not just lay down and die? You'll never suffer again.
If suffering was confined to a single lifetime the Buddha would have killed himself and this whole religion-philosophy would never exist.

The core claim of Buddhism is simple: there is a higher, stable and permanent happiness that can be obtained. Why then settle for endless series of happinesses that are smaller, unstable, impermanent and accompanied by much greater masses of unhappiness? The idea is not to become an emotionless blank slate or a robot or something.
What you also don't seem to realize is that suffering is not simply an experience of human life. Any existence whatsoever is suffering. The term suffering, whose original is dukkha, does not simply mean feeling bad. But I'm sure a person like you who (rightly) shows indignation at people misusing Stirner's terms due to their lack of reading in Stirner has done substantial reading in Buddhism and is actually quite aware of what specific terms and concepts in it mean.

>>1813003
>need humanity

>>1814505
Pain is a type of suffering (dukkha as feeling). When you are in pain, ie. you feel pain, you respond to it in a certain way. For 99,9999999999% of beings that can feel pain, that response crates mental anguish, aversion (or sometimes even affection) towards pain, and the craving for the end (or sometimes the continuation) of pain, among other things. This happens in a mere moment. These then condition your subsequent mental states and the responses you will give to new situations and the like. The influx of negative emotions will continue. In this way dukkha as feeling is connected and sometimes causes the other kinds of suffering.
The alternative to this is the case that a person feels pain and just stops there, in the stage of feeling something. The feelings do not go on to engender emotions and mental formations. Dukkha as feeling stays, but is unable to cause more suffering of other kinds for you.
A practical way of testing this is to focus on the anger and pain that arise next time you accidentally hit your pinky toe and observe how you experience the event of hitting that finger. And the next time it happens let go of the anger, observe but don't grasp at the painful feeling thinking how painful it is, don't let out exclamations of pain and just calmly keep on breathing as usual, and observe how you experience the event of hitting that finger.

>>1814642
>even from a psychological standpoint it's more effective to teach people healthy means of handling their suffering
Which is literally what Buddhism is about. It's thanks to the methods of dealing with suffering that are learned and perfected that you end up by eliminating suffering; you don't start by pulling at the roots. And Buddhist methods for doing this, applied even to total amateurs, are quite effective as many studies show. As for whether the ultimate goal is possible or not, we have the Buddha's and quite a few of the arahants' words against yours.

>>1814505
>hurr durr math and FISIKS
General systems theory is not math or physics. General systems theory is general systems theory.

>>1810964
People keep saying that but this is explained by the fact that "Hercules" of the Gandhara is simply borrowing the likeliness of Greek Hercules as the greek artists knew him to be the closest equivalent of the Bodhisattva Vajrapani. In terms of roles/power set. Vajrapani occupied the role of power/wrathful/guardian of Buddha. Also kills Hindu gods for fun.

Hanshan Deqing was a famous Chinese Buddhist monk from the Ming dynasty, who lived about 400 years ago. He was known as a great reformer of Buddhism during that dynasty, and he advocated both Pure Land and Chan together. Perhaps most significantly, he wrote a nice autobiography all about his own cultivation, which became very popular thereafter. The following excerpts come from the translation by Richard Cheung.

First, we have a short account of developing samadhi through concentration on sounds. These events are from when he was 30 years old, when he was living alone in a hut as a hermit.

>Hoping to master this technique (i.e. concentration on sound), I went to a wooden bridge every day and tried to listen to the water without thinking about it or anything else. At first, all I could hear was noise. My mind kept thinking. But after a little practice, my mind began to settle down. Then, one day, when my thoughts had ceased to surge like the water, I became so immersed in the sound that I actually forgot myself. The noise and my existence were gone. Serenity enveloped my mind. After that, whenever I heard a sound that previously would have annoyed me, all I had to do was concentrate on that sound without mentally grasping it, and I would be lulled into the same serene state.

>Every day I cooked rice and ate it with wild vegetables and porridge. Then, after the meal, I’d take a nice walk. But one day, while I was walking, I happened to stop and stand still, and in that blissful moment, I entered samadhi. Soon I ceased to be aware of anything except a great brightness, round and full, clean and still like a huge round mirror. Mountains, rivers, and the great earth, itself, appeared in the mirror. When I regained consciousness, I returned to the hut and noticed that the rice cooker was covered with dust. How long had I been in samadhi? I couldn’t guess.

>>1814529
>pain isn't suffering
>

>>1815705
pain is physical
suffering is mental

>>1815714
pain is suffering
suffering/pain can be mental or physical

>>1815211
>As for whether the ultimate goal is possible or not, we have the Buddha's and quite a few of the arahants' words against yours.
>As to whether the resurrection happened, we have Jesus' and the apostle's words against yours.

It's a religious claim without verification. Modern science shows that you can't outright eliminate suffering as it's a vital component of the psychological and neurological processes that drive us.

>>1815164
>But I'm sure a person like you who (rightly) shows indignation at people misusing Stirner's terms due to their lack of reading in Stirner has done substantial reading in Buddhism and is actually quite aware of what specific terms and concepts in it mean.

In my defense, I'm not arguing for anything by misusing the terms of Buddhism, I'm arguing against this guy's position with the information available to me. Just as Socrates didn't run off to read about realpolitik when Thraxymacus tried to define justice.

>>1815722
no. it is like saying being tired is physical, when it is mostly mental

>>1815961
nobody says outright elimination is ok
in fact, dukkha is the condition to seek the path. everybody is born an hedonist, the question is whether you want to stop being so

Without reincarnation Buddhism leads to suicide.

There is no good reason to believe in reincarnation, thus Buddhism is suicidal.

Provide evidence of rebirth.

>>1815961
>Modern science shows that you can't outright eliminate suffering
[citation required]
>muh drive
Yes, suffering drives people, and I addressed this already. But not only is that not the only thing that drives people, it also doesn't mean you can't get rid of it eventually, for yourself. How this works is elaborated at great length in Buddhist sources and it's all given from a psychological point of view. The logical implication of your claim would be, for example, that one cannot be of help to suffering people unless he actually feels their suffering as well.

>religious claim without verification
>compares Buddha and arahants with Jesus and apostles
Jesus claimed he was of divine origin, was given divine powers, and was chosen by the supreme divine power to carry out his will. His apostles merely believed him and also somehow got magic powers apparently. Jesus' claims are about magic and also about getting to place of infinite life and pleasure after death. There is no way to verify his claims and in fact you shouldn't want to verify them anyway, you must have faith.
The Buddha on the other hand simply worked very hard and discovered a method of taming the mind available to all and taught it to anybody who asked. Many followed his methods and attained results including the same as him, and many still follow his methods today and get results as well. No scientific field of study takes anything in Christianity seriously, and for good reason; meanwhile the Buddhist teachings and methods are studied scientifically due to their psychological depth and, more importantly, because they produce results.
You clearly know nothing substantial about either religion.

>>1816227
>[citation needed]

The whole corpus of human psychology and neurology. Get reading.

>it also doesn't mean you can't get rid of it eventually

Prove two things: that you can do this and that it would be in any way desirable.

>The Buddha on the other hand simply worked very hard and discovered a method of taming the mind available to all and taught it to anybody who asked. Many followed his methods and attained results including the same as him

Of which there is still no verification.

>meanwhile the Buddhist teachings and methods are studied scientifically due to their psychological depth and, more importantly, because they produce results.

Of which the elimination of suffering (this is the key issue here, Stoicism also gets studied by psychologists, and in fact was part of the basis of cognitive behavioural therapy; Buddhism can easily be a broken clock that was right twice a day) is not one of.

Sorry, but you've done very little to actually sell Buddhism. It sounds like a religion for people who can't handle life. Go read some Nietzsche and become human, pansy.

>>1816116
>reincarnation
Oh boy. At least make an effort to learn what the thing you're talking about is concerned with. Buddhism speaks of rebirth, not reincarnation, because there is no soul or anything else that jumps from body to body.
As for evidence:
From Womb to Womb (Francis Story)
Rebirth and the Western Buddhist (Martin Willson)
Scientific Acceptability of Rebirth (Dr. Granville Dharmawardena)
among others.
Please provide evidence of annihilation after death, or of infinite life after death. inb4 >extraordinary claims; from a historical point of view belief in annihilation after death is the extraordinary claim and it remains so today for the majority of people on Earth.

>>1816227
>The logical implication of your claim would be, for example, that one cannot be of help to suffering people unless he actually feels their suffering as well.

Also, do you think doctors don't feel a sense of suffering from their patients? That's one of the core components of human compassion, is shared suffering.

Speaking of suffering helping to train people to alleviate suffering, did you know the guy who trained Hippocrates was involved in medicine primarily due to being terminally ill? He used his suffering to achieve something worth doing rather than trying to meditate it away.

While I'm at it, early you complaining about "greater" and "human" being without inherent worth and entirely subjective, I'll point out that "suffering" is likewise a term without inherent worth that's entirely subjective. So fuck yourself, you fucking hypocritical piece of shit.

>>1816255
>The whole corpus of human psychology and neurology. Get reading.
What a great answer! Can you give me any actual citations that support your retarded claim? Otherwise I'll just point you to the whole corpus of Buddhist teachings and demand that you get reading as well.
Are you a psychologist or psychiatrist yourself, by the way? You must be, or in any case you must be a reasonable expert on the topic since you read the entire works in existence on psychology and neurology. I'm not one myself, but there are many in my family and I personally know many as well. Out of curiosity I'd like to run your specific arguments with them, if you can be bothered to write them down.
>Prove two things: that you can do this
How do I prove this though? What counts as proof for you?
>and that it would be in any way desirable.
Prove to me that this would NOT be in any way desirable. If your mental image of a man who has gotten rid of suffering is of a man turning into a vegetable because he doesn't care about anything because he doesn't feel suffering then you're completely wrong. If at the very least the Buddha's awakening was true, then it's certainly a very desirable thing because it produced the most brilliant mind mankind has ever known and drove him to teach what he learned non-stop for 45 years, without asking for riches or power. And if you suppose in this case that it wasn't true, nothing changes because in that case the quest to reach that goal still produced the same results.

>>1816255
>Of which the elimination of suffering (this is the key issue here, Stoicism also gets studied by psychologists, and in fact was part of the basis of cognitive behavioural therapy; Buddhism can easily be a broken clock that was right twice a day) is not one of.
Stoicism and Buddhism are both very similar; they both believe suffering comes from how you think about things and from unfulfilled desires. They both believe that ending suffering comes from changing the way you perceive things and from not desiring things you cannot control.
>>1816274
>While I'm at it, early you complaining about "greater" and "human" being without inherent worth and entirely subjective, I'll point out that "suffering" is likewise a term without inherent worth that's entirely subjective.
I said that, not the person you're quoting. And the term "suffering" is pretty concrete; it's only subjective in that people perceive it differently, but everyone experiences it and no one likes it.
>So fuck yourself, you fucking hypocritical piece of shit.
There's no need to resort to insults. We're both just trying to find the truth and sharing our opinions and beliefs about what we think is the best way to live.
>>1816318
The same goes for you anon. Being hostile and insulting doesn't make anyone change their mind, neither does it make your point more valid; if anything it does the opposite.

>>1816318
>Can you give me any actual citations that support your retarded claim?

Fuck yourself. This is basic fucking psychology here, you're on the level of a YEC right now.

>Otherwise I'll just point you to the whole corpus of Buddhist teachings and demand that you get reading as well.

>Otherwise I'll just point you to the whole corpus of Buddhist teachings and demand that you get reading as well.

Sure, I'll slot it in right after Thomas Aquinas and the other nonsense.

>Out of curiosity I'd like to run your specific arguments with them, if you can be bothered to write them down.

You can't eliminate human suffering without eliminating their drive to do anything else. Go relay that to them.

>If at the very least the Buddha's awakening was true

PROVE
IT

Otherwise you're no different from them fucking Christians that claim accepting Jesus will give me eternal paradise.

>nothing changes because in that case the quest to reach that goal still produced the same results.

No it fucking hasn't. There is not a single living person without suffering on this planet (who isn't a fucking vegetable).

>>1816354


>I said that, not the person you're quoting. And the term "suffering" is pretty concrete; it's only subjective in that people perceive it differently, but everyone experiences it and no one likes it.

Whether suffering is an evil or not is subjective. Nietzsche disagreed, the stoics disagreed.

>>1816255
I was actually typing a long reply, but then I saw
>Go read some Nietzsche and become human, pansy.
kek, it was only a matter of time since le überman made his appearance. I'm not even going to bother. May you always retain your ability to "handle life" no matter the conditions, and may you always remain the strong man that you are.

>>1816274
http://info-buddhism.com/Empathy-Compassion-Neuroscience-Ricard-Altruism.html
Ricard has especially written at some length on this subject because he was a scientist himself and frequently collaborates with neuro guys.
>While I'm at it, early you complaining about "greater" and "human" being without inherent worth and entirely subjective,
That wasn't me though.

>>1816374
Whether it's evil or unnecessary is debatable, but no one denies that it's unpleasant and undesirable. And the Stoics did not disagree, while they believed pain and suffering was an undesirable indifferent because it was irrelevant to virtue, the entire idea behind their philosophy and the reason to be virtuous was to attain Eudaimonia which can be described as being happy and content in all instances; that's obviously not possible if things still cause you suffering and stress.

>>1816354
Thanks for pointing the insult out, using words like "retarded" has become a habit for me while writing online even though I don't mean it to come out that harshly.

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>mfw I see the thread is taken over by atheist neckbeards debating each other in what is suffering
but the statues are still pretty, right?
>>1812621
This seems to have been written in Sanskrit, but I'll read it once I have the time.

More discourses between greek and indian philosophers out there?

The thing that Buddhists ITT aren't getting is that they're first off still taking the claims of the Buddha on faith. There's no reason to believe he escaped suffering, and there's no reason to believe that Buddhist practices confer anything more than the standard benefits of meditation, introspection, and mental exercise. So in this regard, they're no different from Christians offering eternal paradise in the afterlife (who I should mention also like to tout psychological benefits to their beliefs).

The second thing they're not getting is that suffering is not an evil. Suffering is a core component of our reason to do anything, you pursue actions in this world due to a variety of countless minor sufferings. You eat because you're hungry, you love because you're lonely, you seek greatness because you feel small, and so on and so forth. You can escape suffering, and it's been done: it involved hooking animals up to machines that excited the pleasure centers of their brain and the result was the same every time: absolute destruction.

>>1816392
>the entire idea behind their philosophy and the reason to be virtuous was to attain Eudaimonia

Actually no. The Stoics never used the term Eudaimonia; that was Plato's thing. They believed that a virtuous life could bring one contentment, but that feature was ultimately irrelevant to the pursuit of virtue.

>>1816958
I haven't been involved in this thread, but, I do believe a key point of Buddhism is that your first point should never be the case for simple things as one SHOULD be meditating and practicing the "Right Xs" and feeling benefit from them. There is no faith necessary (I'm ignoring shit like hells and stuff because that's another issue).

I completely agree with your point on suffering.

Also, I believe a better parallel to Stoicism would be Taoism: There is a universal force/way/whatever to nature and adjusting your attitude is the best way to be happy.

>>1816958
I don't know if they ever used the term, but they never believed virtue was the end in itself. They believed the happy (Eudaimonic) life was one lived in accordance to nature and one did that through living virtuously. Epictetus wrote extensively on how one can improve his life through virtue and improved thinking, not that one should serve virtue like some idol.

>>1816958
>>The second thing they're not getting is that suffering is not an evil.
it is once you want to be happy

>>1816958
Claims of the Buddha should be tested by yourself first and foremost. Saying "this is bullshit" or "this work 100%" at start of discussion are both based on faith.

There is no reason to believe Buddha even existed at first glance. There is no reason to believe he was nothing more than a hippie on drugs. What reason is there can be either found in direct archaelogical evidence to support his existence and his lifestyle and the contemporary records to back up that claim. The reasons to believe he escaped suffering should only come your understanding of the teachings he left behind for the others. Have they any merit? Does it make sense with what Buddha is saying? Are the general claims verifiable? etc. There's a limit to where you stop being skeptic forever, this limit is based on trust in method and results of earlier results. The limit is also where you are personally required to cross when you get through certain phases in meditation. Once a man meditates enough with certain principle, they will experience change in their mind. This is what supposedly unlocks core understanding of buddhist claims like ending of suffering/etc. Whether or not he escaped the "samsara" can either be ignored or say its not possible and abandon the buddhist path.

I'm curious, did any of them recognize their old shared Indo-European roots back then? Or was the distance in time too great for them to find common elements?

>all the people ITT thinking the Buddha was trying to eliminate the actual physical sensation of pain from life
>muh archaeological evidence for the Buddha he was probably just a hippie lmao
>being this autistic and having 0 insight into the dynamics of desire, suffering, and the general unease and dissatisfaction found in life
>thinking a religion that has survived two and a half thousand years can be summed up by: dude life sucks just kill yourself lmao

You're all fucking pleb retards. Stop embarrassing yourselves you cretins.

There are quite a few parallels between Diogenes and Dogen I would say.

>>1817773
Of course not

Within 200 years you have people coming up with wildly different origin stories for their people

File: acb7d27857db62abc49c42408fd21ce7.jpg (58KB, 564x752px) Image search: [Google]

58KB, 564x752px

>>1817773
Some greek historian (sorry for not being able to give source) that thought highly of indian culture thought it was Dionysos that taught the indigenous people of Indus valley how to cultivate land and about art & science.

Though this doesn't really point to common roots as such, it does indicate there was a lot of syncreticism (as there always is) where the two cultures met. The Greek conquerors also built some temples for native gods. Wish I could tell you more, I'm only beginning to get into this.

Again a call for someone who knows about discourses between greek and indian philosophers? Even comments the Indians made on greeks or wise versa? I know Alexander was very impressed with the "gymnosophists", being yogis of india. On the other hand astrology in India was heavily influenced by what the greeks had figured out - the first written record of astrology in sanskrit is literally "saying of the greeks".

>>1820127
>wise versa
well fuck me, lapsus linguae in effect

>>1820127
There's a Pali sutra called Milinda Panha which uses the old greek dialogue discourse style to answer Buddhist questions layed out by one of the Bactrian kings.

>>1817387
I hope you do realize that right now, you sound pretty much exactly like the Christians that insist if you look honestly for Christ, you'll find him in your heart.

>>1814185
I dont think thats how to interpret "Samsara", which is often translated as suffering, but it is said a buddha still feels joy and pain. Samsara has connotations of a vicious circle. A buddha feels pain and lets it go right through. An unenlightened person lets it fester inside, creates a feedback loop by locking himself in negative tought patterns, seeking escape recklessly, or "unskillfully" as they would say.