the buddha: >hey guys I figured out how to overcome all suffering:

>>1845770
Because muh christianity is bad and evil

>>1845770
I dont know, I mean your straw man sounds terrible

>>1845770
>Implying you are right

It's always upper class white people living off of a trust fund too in a ritzy apartment.

File: 1420714623127.jpg (8KB, 251x240px) Image search: [Google]

8KB, 251x240px

>>1845770
This is some real bad bait right here

everything is nothing because everything is impermanent.
if all you want is nothing you are perpetually happy.

ignorance is an empty illusion.
those who try to overcome ignorance are deluded, those who don't overcome ignorance will remain ignorant.

File: cnt.jpg (56KB, 640x640px) Image search: [Google]

56KB, 640x640px

>>1845770
It's because the last few decades in the West proved that the Buddha was right.

For a while the common western idea was that we are unhappy because we lack things. We want wealth, freedom, entertainment etc. Well, a lot of people got most of their desires statisfied in a very short period of time. We don't have to worry about hunger anymore, we are safe, we don't get our freedom interfered with, we can get almost any kind of entertainment we want with a click etc.

However, we are not happier then before, in fact, unhappiness and depression rate is the highest in decades.

So a lot of people realize that just as the Buddha said, happiness/statisfaction doesn't come from external things but from your mindset and ethics.

>>1845770
>dude oversimplification on purpose becus im too lazy to do any research on my own so ill get /his/ to spoonfeed me lmao

>>1845831
>oversimplified

he's still right tho

>>1845842
not really

>>1845823
>unhappiness and depression rate is the highest in decades
This could be a consequence of a number of things, but the most important thing to remember that exploration of mental health only came into full swing in the past few decades.

>>1845861
Still, this is the experience of a lot of people: they seemingly got everything they wanted and are still not happy and they don't know why.

>>1845974

>Still, this is the experience of a lot of people: they seemingly got everything they wanted
>in the West
>in the past 30 years

Are you retarded? The past 30 years or so in the West has been all about getting shit taken away from you: your job security, decent wages, the ability to save for the future. If anything it proves OP's meme strawman version of Buddhism correct.

File: mfi3.gif (27KB, 686x478px) Image search: [Google]

27KB, 686x478px

>>1846011
This might be the public perception, but it's mostly false.

>decent wages
It actually they increased, pic related.

>job security
There was always some unemployment and it had been decreasing since the '80s.
http://origins.osu.edu/article/down-and-out-again-america-s-long-struggle-mass-unemployment/page/0/0

>saving for the future
True, although I think it's less about the ability to save and more about consuming more. Savings are usually higher when the economy is worse, they increased greatly for example during the two economic crashes.
http://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2009/mar/saving-rate/

Meanwhile, the quality of life improved undoubtedly. Safety increased by a lot and technology made a lot of things much more convenient, including work and getting the entertainment you are most interested in via the internet.

>>1845770
Buddhism
>dude everything is shit
>kill yourself
>turns out things only get worse if you kill yourself
>become enlightened so that you can finally kill yourself for good

>>1845770
>buddha
Yeah, he deffinitely never had kids. Imagine if everyone followed his teachings from a young age. Humans would stop existing.

>>1846057

>median income

Just proves there's more income inequality. Show me mean increases.

File: 8493_544799192210252_2082294364_n[1].jpg (94KB, 500x781px) Image search: [Google]

94KB, 500x781px

>>1846057
>pic related.
That pic proves that wages have remained more or less stagnant for the past 30 years, with the continuing rise in 'median' income the result of a few families at the top being substantially wealthier.

Meanwhile costs in housing, healthcare, gasoline, and food continue to skyrocket.

>There was always some unemployment and it had been decreasing since the '80s.
And jobs which used to provide pensions and benefits are being replaced by menial service sector jobs whose wages are meager and benefits non-existent.
>Meanwhile, the quality of life improved undoubtedly.
If you measure quality of life by the amount of junk surrounding you. The past few decades have seen improvements particularly thanks to the proliferation of information processors but almost all of the gains have gone to a wealthy few, while every where else in their lives people are feeling squeezed.

>>1845823
I'd say the unhappiness was always a result of being subject to seeing others around you enjoy things that you can't enjoy (expensive toys, more land, exotic trips, attractive sex partners, etc). This has always existed to some extent in every culture, in every time period, around the world. Even though modern capitalist systems have opened up the door for a wide variety of products and access to powerful tools (vehicles, phones, etc) are more within reach then ever for the majority, there still exits class divides that result in some having more than others. People become depressed by constantly seeing others having more than them, especially if they view those people as not contributing to society in more ways than they do. Why should they be given more if their value to society is the same or even less?

In contrast, if you look at tribal systems of resource sharing you still see some with more than others, but the reasons behind it are easier to swallow for the rest of the tribe. Those who are stronger, are born into the "royalty", have natural beauty, or develop skills superior to others. But in most cases, they aren't usually getting much more than the rest in the tribe, just maybe some nice trinkets or choice cuts of meat. Not anything like what we see in our world today.

>>1846081

good

>>1846081
Exactly, that's why you have Theravada where the goal for the avarage joe is not to achieve Nirvana (that's only for monks) but to live a relatively happy but normal (job, wife, kids) life and get a better one upon rebirth.

>>1846913
Shit, isn't confucianism the same thing? "Live a normal life as possible"

>>1846923
I don't know much about Confucianism, but iirc living a "normal life" (respecting hierarchies and traditions) is kind of part of the practice.

Theravada says that if you want to achieve nirvana in this life you will probably need to become a monk and withdraw from society. But you can still advance towards it (and possibly achieve it in a later life) while still participating in society, you can just practice more basic forms of meditation (they are big on mindfullness), accept some core ideas and practice Buddhist ethics (basically, don't be a cunt).

>>1845770

If you want the non-retarded version of how it's helpful to free yourself from attachments, just take a decent dose of MXE or DXM. Most people aren't good at making this effect happen through willpower alone, but the drugs make the effect unmistakable. You can feel pain without it bothering you like it normally would from accidentally banging your leg on some furniture for example. And if you have OCD, you can notice the normal excessive verbal thinking no longer feels like it's actually coming from "you'" and noticing that is the same as seeing it end so you can realize what it's like to just hear the outside world without your constant inner story telling blocking it out. Also you no longer identify with your own body or personal history so it becomes absurd to think about feeling bad over its inevitable future death. Basically I'm pretty sure this and all other big ideas of philosophy are legitimate but easily misunderstood and that it's better to force people to understand them through application of the relevant analagous psychoactive compound.

File: 1476874613600.png (396KB, 495x303px) Image search: [Google]

396KB, 495x303px

>>1847183
>, just take a decent dose of MXE or DXM

degenerate crap.
if the cause is external to myself then it's shit, a crutch, and can't offer authentic release.

>>1847207

>the cause is external to myself then it's shit, a crutch

So you don't ever eat food external to yourself? And none of your income originates external to yourself? And you also don't breathe air external to yourself? Such a ridiculously brainlet tier argument, you should feel bad desu.

>>1845770
Because it's exotic, has an agreeable message and, overall, it feed somebody's spiritual needs in a age where there is an overall "weaker" need of God in the Abhramitic or Vedic-Zoroastrian sense.

What most people fail to realize is that Buddhism is very much nihilistic, requiring rigid ascetism; and that the more accommodating "proper" forms of it are not very different from the Orthodox or Catholic Church.

>>1845810
This sounds good to me but I know you and the post below it are both OP.

>>1847223

>food, money

are practical things, not spiritual.
they have nothing to do with the topic at hand, "and can't offer authentic release." as I already said.

>air

top kek, ya air is just like DXM, everyone needs it to survive properly.

also dissociatives are the most low-brow drugs, make you an idiot-vegetable, in the short run and long run.

File: 1475269622326.jpg (37KB, 673x586px) Image search: [Google]

37KB, 673x586px

>>1847223
>freedom yourself from attachments using drugs
>muh temporary delirium is basically nirvana

kek

>>1847316

1) Define "authentic," define "release," and produce an actual argument for why being "external" is a bad thing.

2) Dissociatives are the proper psychoactive substance analogue for the concept of detachment. It has nothing to do with quality / enjoyment of the drug.

>>1847342

I never said it was nirvana. I said it will produce a very real sense of detachment for those who think the idea is just an abstract matter of deciding not to want things.

>>1846089
>>1846089
Anon are you retarded?

The mean is constantly increasing BECAUSE OF economic inequality

If the top 1% earn more than the bottom 99%, then mean incomes are massively skewed toward that 1% (to be generalistic, 1:99 is just an prettier number than something like 3:97)

Retard

>>1847345

1. if it's not internally self-generated then you can't rely on it for general on-demand release from attachments. A person on opiates will feel good temporarily, but it becomes a crutch that he has to depend on, and re-use to get the same effect. Which undermines the whole point of authentic release from attachments. Dissociatives are no different.

2. dissociatives ruin your functionality in the short-run, and DXM fucks up your serotonin levels; it's just self-deception, a hallucination, and its effects wear off quickly, so they are pointless crap and also unhealthy.

3. a retarded opiate/benzo user will tell me the same thing about how he has no attachments and feels liberated while high!!!...oh wow!!! awesome, but the effects wear off, and come with a cost.

So your recommendation is just hippie shit that didn't work in the 60s and will never work "spiritually" or for "personal growth"; you're delusional.

>>1847183

Buddhism is about freedom from attachments while sober, not while fucken high on drugs.

>you can feel pain without it bothering you like it normally would from accidentally banging your leg on some furniture

and drunk person will not be bothered either even if they fall face first on cement. Has nothing to do with this thread.