How can Western philosophy expect to compete with Buddhism?

buddhism is lame (there is no self) lol what a load of bs theres definitely a me if i pinch myself i feel pain, thats me, my body, my brain

>>2175476
How can Buddhism possibly compete with Capitalism?

>>2175477
ignorant

>>2175479
nice argument. admit it, youre full of shit, trying to be unique and interesting by following muh eastern philosophies

Stoicism > Buddhism.

Zeno and CICERO, not siddhartha and TILOPA, ok? Praise λόγος

>>2175481
nihilism is better according to me aka literally who
praise naught
bless
xoxo

>>2175481
>λόγος

you trust λόγος to tell you it is λόγος?

>>2175483
I trust Nature!

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>>2175477
>there is no self

>>2175485
wow what a nigger

by creating its own conceptual world where it will be the god-controlling definer of everything within that world

You're all plebs, Vedantic philosophy is where it's at

>>2175478
Buddhism won't suddenly self destruct someday leaving hundreds of millions destitute and left with garbage landfills spreading out to their back yards and a trashed environment.

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In a most fitting way. That is, by fighting it from within.

https://vividness.live/2011/07/05/the-king-of-siam-invents-western-buddhism/
https://vividness.live/2011/06/24/protestant-buddhism/

https://speculativenonbuddhism.com/about/
https://speculativenonbuddhism.com/why-non-buddhism/
https://speculativenonbuddhism.com/categories/

>>2175488
true, but you cant get at vedanta without passing trough the corrective notions of buddhism and jainism

>>2175489
o I am laffin

>>2175476
It can't. Buddhism is a philosophy that was so accurate in accounting human sorrows that it became a religion. Think about it. Do you consider Islam or Christianity a philosophy? We call them theism at best. All the other religion rely on reproduction, on indoctrination and conversion to spread and maintain itself.

Buddhism made me less stressed out, then I realized I both need and enjoy my stress.

>>2175477
Is your body "you"? Even though you're constantly having to replenish yourself with food and water and constantly having to excrete parts of yourself as urine and shit?

Is your brain your self? What if you drink alcohol or hit your head and lose a few brain cells? Did you just become an entirely new person?

Or what if you learn something new? What "you" is the real "you"? When you were a child? A teenager? An adult? What about when you die? Where do "you" go?

The answer is: there was no real "you" in the first place.

>>2175476
German Idealism > Everything else

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>>2175476
>8922506
>>2175496
FUCKING NORMALFAGS

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>tfw you find out your prof dedicates his life to sabotaging your race and insulting your culture and finding another person knowledgeable enough to figure out what he's doing is next to impossible.

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I didn't know that could be done. Thanks Mod.

>>2175481
>Zeno
>Zenō
>Zen'ō (禅王)

>>2175481
This. Stoicism is Buddhism without the weeb shit. Sadly buddiboos would rather make fools of themselves instead of practice a philosophy they can actually understand.

>>2175700
>weeb shit

Buddhism comes from India

it can't. there is nothing is western philosophy that comes close to the profundity of codependent arising, "emptiness", the four noble truths, non duality, the bodhisattva vow, etc.

once you understand these things you understand everything. you also overcome your suffering and can help others do the same. nothing in western philosophy has that effect.

>>2175700
No it isn't. They aren't even close other than a vague notion of "lol don't become a hedonist bro".

Buddhism has no real analog in Western thought. Stoicism is closer to Taoism than anything.

>>2175721
Where did the West go so wrong? Socrates? Plato? Aristotle? Caesar? Jesus?

>>2175750
>closer to Taoism
How so? I know Stoicism is pro nature and naturalness, but does it ever deal ineffability and codependence the way Taoism has from its beginnings? Pluse, which Taoism, exactly?

>>2175760
Taoism postulates a transcendent "flow" by which the universe operates. Understanding your own nature so you can join with this flow properly is the key to happiness (and a bunch of other Chinese mystical stuff).

Stoicism, likewise, postulates that nature will continue to move on without you and that happiness is achieved by going with the "flow" of nature when it comes to matters that are outside of your control; understanding when to go with this "flow" of nature is dependent upon understanding yourself.

Meanwhile Buddhism is a means of freeing yourself from self destructive practices, beliefs, thoughts, and habits.

Some of the habits that Buddhism would have you destroy are perfectly acceptable under the Stoic worldview. Stoics say that there's nothing wrong with sex with pleasure provided you do it wisely and in a manner that isn't destructive and is ultimately conducive with your nature as a human with sexual needs, but the Buddhists would say that the fact that human sexual needs are ultimately nothing but a source of dukkha.

And of course Taoists would say that men shouldn't ejaculate as it causes chi imbalances which will stop you from becoming an immortal, but that's neither here nor there so sex for pleasure was probably a bad example now that I think about it.

>>2175477
Buddhist asserts non-self. Nagarjuna goes to lengths to distinguish between self, not-self, and not-not-self. He indicates that the Buddhist position is the middle way, not-self, between the two extremes of self and not-not-self.

It doesn't deny persons nor conventional selves at all, merely that there are substantially existing selves. At the time and place this was controversial, but this concept in of itself isn't even worth a pause nowadays.

Hume indicated the same thing, 'the' self is a fiction and in reality there are bundles of properties, which are analogous to the much earlier Buddhist idea of aggregates of properties.

The Buddha parts ways with Hume however when Hume declares that this fact doesn't have any utility for the individual, people still went on experiencing their world as if they were a substantially existing self that resided somewhere behind their eyes.

The Buddha asserted rather that through meditation one could modulate one's experience and eventually remove the experience of being a substantially existing self, rather than what one actually was, a dynamic process of aggregates. He furthermore asserted that this experience greatly diminished mental agony.

It is analogous to conceptually understanding that one is viewing an optical illusion, and that merely knowing that it is an optical illusion doesn't necessarily remove the illusion, but that through a special kind of training one could actually overcome the illusion as such.

There is a contemporary problem when people are trying to learn Buddhism, where Buddhism basically saddles them with conceptual views of self to refute that most people simply don't hold anymore. Making a lot of the analytical view deconstruction that Buddhism does completely superfluous.

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>>2175789
That's kind of a pretty reductive view of Taoism and doesn't address the more metaphysical side of it which, again, was part of it from its inception. That there's a well defined "yourself" to understand and which has or hasn't control at times is also a big difference to look into, since it's a huge part of what makes western thought. And of course there's the whole wuwei thing.

>And of course Taoists would say that men shouldn't ejaculate as it causes chi imbalances which will stop you from becoming an immortal
Yet Zhuangzi and Yang Zhu would laugh at attempts to lengthen one's lifespan in that manner. The ultimate ideal of Taoism is closer to a disappearance as in Buddhism, but rather than as an escape, it's seen as a dissolution or integration into the cosmos; does Stoicism have a parallel for that?

>>2175490
David Chapman is a fucking idiot who bans people from his little blog that know more than he does. He talks about "reinventing Tantra", but when you point out that he fails to understand at times even the basic thrust of this or that, he links some disclaimer saying he knows little about Tantra and might be wrong.

He rarely has anything intelligent to say yet he goes on about reforming and reinventing Buddhism. How about he takes some time off writing shit fluff books (Vampires and Buddhism...) and take a couple of uni courses.


I shit you not, one time he claimed in a comment that he sided more with Dolpopa over Tsongkapa. I pointed out that it appeared he didn't understand Tsongkapa and that it seemed he was confusing Tsongkapa for the views of Patsub Nyimadrak. I challenged him to write out a few of Tsongkapa's positions unambiguously, just a few sentences on them so we can agree we are talking about the same person/same things.

His response? To delete my comments and IP block me from his blog.

Not to mention he is heavily affiliated with Aro gTér, a fraudulent Dzogchen "lineage" made up by a couple of British hoaxers that have gone as far as to try to forge old texts that they have "translated" that they claim predict their lineage.

Dude is a fucking idiot, a liar, and a perfect example of why the pragmatic dharma movement is a disgrace. Not a good example of "fighting it from within", and certainly not representative of Western philosophy or intellectual rigor.

>>2175760

after Heraclitus

>>2175700
>Stoicism is Buddhism

Uh, there are some rough parallels, but Stoicism is really not much like Buddhism, and certainly not its essence like you seem to be suggesting.

>>2175789

>Buddhists would say that the fact that human sexual needs are ultimately nothing but a source of dukkha.

that's not true. desire isn't the problem, grasping (trishna) is.

>>2175882

>There is a contemporary problem when people are trying to learn Buddhism, where Buddhism basically saddles them with conceptual views of self to refute that most people simply don't hold anymore. Making a lot of the analytical view deconstruction that Buddhism does completely superfluous.

explain?

>>2175954
Not him, but

>"You" are just a collection of atoms; there is no singular "you" that isn't just a collective of organs which are a collective of tissue which are a collection of cells which are a collection of molecules which are a collection of atoms which are a collection of quarks so there is no real you

Most people get that, making much of the deconstruction of the self that was necessary for ancient people unnecessary for us.

>>2175760
>Pluse, which Taoism, exactly?

If you are going to go there, then which Buddhism exactly is Stoicism? You admit that Stoicism is pro nature and naturalism, but "nature" and "harmony" are only found in East-Asian forms of Buddhism. They had their genesis in pre-Buddhist thought that they merely explained in Buddhistic language.

In most of Buddhism, the natural world includes karma and rebirth, which are blind, cruel processes utterly indifferent to the individual. You go against the stream of the natural world in this respect, and in some very meaningful sense then nibbana is otherworldly and so "anti-nature/naturalness".

Even in traditions like Chagchen and Ati Dzogpa Chenpo, which are Indo-Tibetan traditions that talk about "the natural state", they are talking about the true condition of this otherworldliness sans the detritus inherent to nature/the natural world (samsara).

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>>2175914
>He talks about "reinventing Tantra", but when you point out that he fails to understand at times even the basic thrust of this or that, he links some disclaimer saying he knows little about Tantra and might be wrong.

>>2175960
>Most people get that
No they don't. They have a purely superficial understanding of it and don't really consider the implications. Most people haven't integrated scientific knowledge like that. And when it comes to the psyche, it's even worse.

>>2175966
>If you are going to go there, then which Buddhism exactly is Stoicism?
I'm not claiming that, that was a different Anon. I'm only interested in the supposed parallels. Of course Buddhism is hugely diverse, even more so than Taoism due to larger popularity and geographic distribution. I'm not disputing that at all. I'm just saying Taoism is still closer to Buddhism than to Stoicism.

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>>2175476

It's already beaten it.

>>2175987
Doesn't matter whether they get it at first glance or not, the point is that the language and the understanding DOES exist and CAN be accessed which makes the concept easier to understand. Peasants 2500 years ago did not have access to such language or to people who did understand such things.

>>2175960

>was necessary for ancient people unnecessary for us

as if, it's more necessary for us than for them. the cult of the ego is strongest now than it ever has been in human history. a large part of the economy is based on it (hollywood etc), and the "selfie" a primary mode of communication.

>>2175936
Sorry to be that guy but Trishna can be uncontroversially translated as desire. In Buddhism, Trishna or the Pali Tanha means desire/grasping and doctrinally there really isn't a difference.

I suspect you may be trying to distinguish desire with clinging, but the word for clinging is Upadana. Clinging is considered the direct result of desire in most of the early Nikayana forms of Buddhism.

Backing up a bit however, there is a distinction between Tanha/Trishna and Chanda. This distinction is extremely ambiguous in the earliest texts though and sometimes includes anxieties and lust and so dukka. However a less ambiguous distinction is emphasized quite a bit in the later commentarial literature and even more so in contemporary times.

Chanda is now often touted as like a non-pathological will or impulse, and could be considered a type of desire separate from the chain of suffering. Desiring to practice, desiring others be well, desiring one attains, or looking forward to eating the meal one is preparing without any exaggerated hopes etc.

Whether or not this modern distinction is coherent or maintains doctrinal integrity is for others to decide.

>>2175999
>the point is that the language and the understanding DOES exist and CAN be accessed which makes the concept easier to understand
That it can doesn't mean that it IS accessed. Just because they have a passing understandment of scientific language doesn't make it so they will grasp things better than through a more alien Buddhist language, because both of them barely mean anything to them to begin with.

>>2175976
It is a get out of jail free card that he uses to shield himself from criticism and then goes on repeating the same errors afterwards. He uses in a way that is intentionally dishonest as far as I can tell.

He often writes with an air of authority and certainly doesn't discourage his idiotic fanbase from taking on his unfounded views.

It is a project that inherently lacks any humility or concern for rigor or intellectual honesty. It is akin to saying I am going to reinvent Catholicism, then providing some cheap disclaimer saying I could be wrong, then proceeding to go on and on pretending I know my shit after skimming a few books in the bible. 'But it is okay because disclaimer and I promise that one day I'll make the time to read the remainder of the books in there!'

>>2176011
>a type of desire separate from the chain of suffering. Desiring to practice, desiring others be well, desiring one attains, or looking forward to eating the meal one is preparing without any exaggerated hopes etc.
>Whether or not this modern distinction is coherent or maintains doctrinal integrity is for others to decide.

Clusters of habit are clusters of habit, imho. Kabbalah hammers this point pretty thoroughly. They're absolutely different systems, but breaking klipot is breaking klipot. People are quick to throw offerings of grain and cake and nectar into the fires of sadhana. Few are willing to offer the concept of sadhana itself to the fires of Understanding.

>>2175987
Fair enough, I agree that Taoism is closer to Buddhism than Stoicism. My major point was that the gap between Buddhism and Stoicism is much larger than some others here seem to think.

>>2176029
I tend to agree, and so do various non-nikayana traditions of Buddhism as far as I can tell. This seems to be a theme in common Mahayana and is pretty explicitly found in uncommon Mahayana (Vajrayana/Tantrayana/Dzogchen).

>>2176011

i must disagree with that. the overcomng of desire is impossible. it is part of the condition fo our existence. buddha never stop desiring. nirvana is not "the place of no desire"; it is "the place beyond concepts". perhaps this is all semantics, but i think experiencing desire is fine so long as there is no attachement.

in his translation of nagarjuna, a zen monk called nishijima pretty much says the same thing.

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>>2176025
The only contact I've had with this guy was the page he has on kangling construction which was referenced in a more "authentic" document than 'buddhism for vampires'.

I was unaware he disrespected the Tantras. Never looked beyond his pointers for the trumpet.

I may be flying more or less solo but I hold zero illusion my dumb ass can make something BETTER as a reinvention. I can barely read Sanskrit. I may have self constructed patches or personal elaborations in parallel but only a truly lost person can think the transmission lines can just be overturned.

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>>2176029
>>2176055
Huh? Come again?

>>2176060
As you probably know, the view you just laid out, as well as plenty of Zen, is pretty heterodox to Indian Buddhism.

Zennists always have the strangest takes on Nagarjuna in their efforts to appropriate him as one of their own.

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>>2176060
>buddha never stop desiring. nirvana is not "the place of no desire"; it is "the place beyond concepts"
OM GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA

I'd still gently argue in favor of habit busting. This appears to be the trajectory of the Buddha's awakening, if not precisely his teachings as per the Pali canon. Break normativity or excess with asceticism. Break them both with the middle way.

I mean I can intellectualize on this all day but my fundamental position appears to be that of Rinzai.

>>2176066
>I may be flying more or less solo but I hold zero illusion my dumb ass can make something BETTER as a reinvention.

I'm with you there. In principle maybe reinvention is possible, but certainly not as a task for a single person, let alone a single generation of people.

People that are so quick to push for such things tend to lack real familiarity with the depth and scope of these traditions. These are mountains of traditions that can't be easily dug up and rearranged.

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>>2176069
Non pathological impulse (>>2176011) in my humble and ignorant opinion must be conquered as deeply as more willed habit clusters. This concept is balanced against the 'middle way', you don't wanna go ascetic so hard you outright die before say stream entry, but again this verges on semantics.

It's the karmic cluster which keeps the momentum of """you""" spinning on Samsara's wheel. Breaking these up allows one Liberation.

Kabbalah has a much similar process, conquering the Klipot or Qlippoth, which are the accretion shells of habituation, where God is unconditioned, emergent, spontaneous, and nonarisen. By placing our habits on the fires of contemplative understanding, they sorta break open, and those sparks are Gnosis.

>>2176060
The Brahmana Sutta seems to pretty clearly say that the path is one with an end, and that the path and the aim is one of abandoning desire. He makes clear that even the desire to end desire or to attain this or that also cease, so a complete end to desire is had.

I would be interested in any pali suttas that clearly say that after the Tathagata continued to experienced desire.

>>2176080

yeah it was a pretty weird translation that filtered him through Dogen. still, had some interesting points that i found helpful.

it's not really heterodox to mahayana, especially if you consider nonduality and the figure of vimalakirti.

>>2176089

i agree. my point is just that the middle way doesn't necessitate the total eradication of desire. and that it can't, or else it wouldn't be the middle way.

>>2176066
>>2176098
>I may be flying more or less solo but I hold zero illusion my dumb ass can make something BETTER as a reinvention.
Isn't the attittude itself that is the problem? Why the desire to be a revolutionary? Why not contribute? If you see an error in the doctrine then it must either have already been addressed or it's actually a fair point; if the doctrine is already throughly corrupt then one fair point can shatter it down of itself; if people won't listen, are you going to play Lucifer and take half of heaven with you? I mean "inventing" in itself is a pretty ignorant romantic concept; "reinvent" is just a step beyond.

>>2176104
But then does the breaking of the habit not become a habit in itself? Does desire not to desire not become desire?

>>2176109

The Mahaparinibbana Sutta.

>25. And the Blessed One sat down on the seat prepared for him and said to the Venerable Ananda: "Please bring me some water, Ananda. I am thirsty and want to drink."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.16.1-6.vaji.html

>>2176111
I'd suggest transmutation of desire rather than eradication.

If I understand correctly, the conquering of these ten desires is spoken of as "freedom from the bonds of..." this or that desire. We are Liberated from these constraints rather than annihilating them.

To be crude; we're not to conquer desire to not not piss our pants. Our bodily functions serve a valid purpose.

But we should test our boundaries and *understand* the limitations of our sense desires.

So instead of holding it till we piss ourselves, or just letting it go at first impulse, we figure out how long we can hold it before it becomes painful or discomforting.

Then we understand the boundaries of our excretory habits.

>>2176134
What error is there? I'm sorta serious here, I'm no Khenpo or Geshe here.

Also, there is such a thing as a noble impulse, and this is why:
>mindfulness
>nonextremes
>nondualism
>reintegration of ground
In short, the middle way, is so integral. If not it spirals into the excess of certain Vedic protocols or the corrosive aescesis of folks like the Jains.

>>2176139
^This.
But to think Buddha didn't test the limits of his thirst is foolish.

>>2176139
Feels like there's an important and simple metaphor there too:
>Settled desire is purified desire.
Which us takes us back to the old Zen slogan:
>Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.
>During enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.
>After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.

>>2176152

he did test the limits but then realised testing limits was useless, hence the abandonment of asceticism and the adoption of the middle way. this was symbolised by his receiving and eating of the rice pudding from the woman.

i think some other verses from the Mahaparinibbana Sutta make clear the correct attitude:

>"Mindful should you dwell, bhikkhus, clearly comprehending; thus I exhort you."

>"And how, bhikkhus, does a bhikkhu have clear comprehension? When he remains fully aware of his coming and going, his looking forward and his looking away, his bending and stretching, his wearing of his robe and carrying of his bowl, his eating and drinking, masticating and savoring, his defecating and urinating, his walking, standing, sitting, lying down, going to sleep or keeping awake, his speaking or being silent, then is he said to have clear comprehension.

...

>21. And soon after the Blessed One had eaten the meal provided by Cunda the metalworker, a dire sickness fell upon him, even dysentery, and he suffered sharp and deadly pains. But the Blessed One endured them mindfully, clearly comprehending and unperturbed.

so having desires and having pain are not a problem! to be ignorant of then, to not be mindful of them, to cling to them, that is the problem. there is not exhortation to eradicate these things. being mindful of them IS the eradication of their power.

>>2176161

>Settled desire is purified desire.
so yes, after all that, i agree wholeheartedly.

(there's also a version that goes: before i studied zen i saw a mountain as a mountain. when i started studying zen i saw a mountain as more than a mountain. when i finished studying zen i saw a mountain as a mountain.)

>>2176139
This seems like a pretty clear case of equivocation. The Nikayana doctrines don't suggest that an arahant can't recognize when the the body is needs sustenance, hydration, or rest. Arahants still feel physical sensations, including pain, none of that necessarily entails trishna in the relevant sense.

I'm looking at the original pali right now to make sure.

Do you have a better example? Because this is an incredible stretch imo. If that was your whole point, then you are simply defining desire in a way totally different than the early Indian texts do, and then holding that against the Indian doctrine. This is something East-Asian traditions do, and it started because they initially had among the worst translations ever recovered.

Just take a look at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn51/sn51.015.than.html

""Brahman, the holy life is lived under the Blessed One with the aim of abandoning desire."

"Is there a path, is there a practice, for the abandoning of that desire?"

"Yes, there is a path, there is a practice, for the abandoning of that desire.""

>>2176211
>>2176197

There's some interesting ideas in Buddhism, but lets be honest, it's not a philosophy. It's a religion.

>>2176255
Yes and?

>>2175495
>muh ship of Theseus

Just because the body maintains itself doesn't mean it's becoming something entirely different from what it was.

>>2176275
Buddhism doesn't say there is no such thing as a self, it says that what you call your self is actually not an unchanging essence, its a collection of ever-changing inter-connected factors, including your thoughts, memories, mental states, emotions, and body parts.

Its not no-self, its not-self.

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>>2176266
>Le Monkey

>>2176111
>it's not really heterodox to mahayana, especially if you consider nonduality

Non-duality and non-dual are two different terms. Non-duality isn't that common to Buddhist discourse at all and was mistakenly over-hyped by Western scholars.

What exactly about advaita should be considered that renders the above "not really heterodox to mahayana"?

The common Mahayana doctrine suggests that desire is a symptom rather than the cause of dukka and samsara. With the cause being an ignorance, but not merely a passive misunderstanding, but an active misengagement with reality (per Nagarjuna).

As such your original assertion that "desire is fine so long as there is no attachment" actually fundamentally contradicts common Mahayana doctrine, because desire can't arise at all without that misengagement which is the root of samsara.

In uncommon Mahayana the issue is a lot more complicated, but they certainly don't, even in chagchen, suggest that desire is fine, rather they talk of cautious employment of the method, and the the risk of actively engaging in the poisons for the sake of transmuting their power like that of an antidote made from snake's poison to counter a snake bite. That is mind you, in the more liberal, raw traditions of tantra. In the monasticised gelug, you have figures like the Dalai Lama explicitly saying that one has to completely overcome desire before one can engage in sexual practices, something like other tantric traditions find, and I agree, fundamentally incoherent.

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>>2176283
Three Cheers for the Five Aggregates!

>>2176111
>my point is just that the middle way doesn't necessitate the total eradication of desire. and that it can't, or else it wouldn't be the middle way.

I don't follow. From your other comments you seem to have a strong east-asian influence, which is just axiomatically different in many core ways to Indian rooted Buddhism.

However, even with that in mind I don't know why you think that necessarily follows from the doctrine of the middle-way.

>>2176288

samsara is nirvana
nirvana is samsara

didn't you read nagarjuna? it's all in your head bro

>>2176266
>Yes and?

How about not starting a thread comparing it to Western philosophy next time, and instead compare to Christianity.

>>2176288
>you have figures like the Dalai Lama explicitly saying that one has to completely overcome desire before one can engage in sexual practices, something like other tantric traditions find, and I agree, fundamentally incoherent.
I really feel like this is an artifact of the stratification of methods of accomplishment.

A yogini is as fine as a tulpa is as fine as a Godform.

How are you going to control prana duly if you have zero exposure its motions in the act in the first place. This makes my samaya...uncomfortable, but at least I already have an understanding how Bodhicitta drops, though not quite in those exact terms.

In the absence of Guruji I'm uncertain as to what the sign will be when it's deemed time put the Great Seal on completion but I trust Vajrayogini to to show the way.

>>2176247
I'm sorry but I can't agree. The issue of pain was never in question, because the Pali texts are extremely clear in distinguishing between physical and mental agony, with the path being about the cessation of mental agony.

However as to your claim of Buddhas having desire, you picked a passage that in no way suggests the term is being used in the sense you think it is. Hence the issue of equivocation. You are using a different definition of desire.

I glanced at the original pali and Taṇhā isn't used in the passage you cite. He isn't saying he desires in the way that is remotely meaningful to Buddhist doctrine.

Just in English, In the case of the Brahman sutta, it is extremely clear and evidently about the doctrine and path, it isn't ambiguous in English. The two passages in the test you are citing that your thesis seems to rest on are in fact ambiguous and we have reason to take in context rather than make them out to be sweeping doctrinal statements about the path.

>>2176320
>Pali texts are extremely clear in distinguishing between physical and mental agony, with the path being about the cessation of mental agony.
I'm glad to see I didn't hallucinate this.

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>>2176152
The problem is that those virtues become fixed themselves, so "nonextremity" become one extreme, or "nonduality" becomes one of a duo, etc. It's not that they aren't good things, but that good and bad are born from each other. So as long as there's a way there will be those that stray. So long as there's something to attain problems will continue to arise. I preffer Taoism to Buddhism because the latter presupposes there is a Way that is common and certain to all people; its attittude is not all that different from modern science: it's very effective yes, but it is concerned with "externalities" (even if they are psychic phenomena), with bringing a sort of reliance. Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, of course. I'm not trying to badmouth Buddhism here. But the problem is reliance on things. Getting attached to the Way. Escape the world, redemption for world, hoping for conclusivity in a life that is not over, hoping for uniformity from a world that uses all of itself in all its things and so can't really repeat. I'm halfly rambling here. I think in the end the best approach to philosophy and religion is the medical one: to try to fix things as they arise and not to aim for the perennial. Putting things or people above you to depend on is sort of ethically bankrupt, y'know? Maybe you don't have to depend on them; walking together is not so bad.

>>2176323
So what do you think of Evola's interpretation of early Buddhism as a path to the unconditioned born of a superhuman dignity?

>>2176301
Nagarjuna says that samsara is nirvana properly understood, it doesn't mean that they are equivalent or that these distinctions are "mere" concepts or "mere" thoughts. Hence kamma and rebirth. As Tsongkapa says in no uncertain terms, there is a difference between the inferred nirvana as a logical consequence of sunyata and the actual nirvana as the fruit of the path.

So no, in a very real sense according to Nagarjuna, it is well beyond merely being just in your head.

>>2176329
>but that good and bad are born from each other
To be clear, in no terms do I intend to argue AGAINST the (non)emergent and undifferentiated void of ground.

>So long as there's something to attain problems will continue to arise.
[insert argument of fundamental Buddhahood here]

> I'm not trying to badmouth Buddhism here.
I used to, loudly and often, until I put on my bigboy pants and oathed up. Every single one of my objections were semantic.

>But the problem is reliance on things.
I agree here, see again my self identification with Rinzai.

>Escape the world
You're not Liberated TO anywhere. The Bodhisattva leaves and returns while remaining seated.

>redemption for world
I dunno, call me a romantic.

>hoping for conclusivity in a life that is not over
But I already got that from Saivism.

>uniformity
The only things uniform are beyond form. Void. Vacuum. Sahaja.

>to try to fix things as they arise and not to aim for the perennial.
I sorta agree here.

>Putting things or people above you to depend on is sort of ethically bankrupt, y'know
>>2176301
>it's all in your head bro

>walking together is not so bad.
^^^

>>2176310
>A yogini is as fine as a tulpa is as fine as a Godform.

Most masters don't seem to suggest this, they talk about how each are appropriate for different capacities. There are different pros and risks of each.

>How are you going to control prana duly if you have zero exposure its motions in the act in the first place.

Well you indirectly influence the motions through entirely different means, hence the differences between the upper doors vs lower entrances approach to gtummo practice.

Not that it matters, Tibetan doctrine is pretty clear that the nitty gritty form of karmamudra is mostly a path for people 16-22, afterwhich the elements of the body begin to weaken making total success practice much more difficult. Older tantrics most typically will engage in yoga of passion rather than karmamudra and as supplement to their main practice rather than being their main practice.

Because suffering is not always caused by desire or attachment, stupid. Book of Job, son. Sometimes shit happens.

>>2176372
>Most masters don't seem to suggest this
I was mostly speaking to the effects of orthodox stratifications on scholastic outfits like the Gelug.

>Not that it matters
Indeed, I'm just throwing cents from my perspective.

>>2176334
>unconditioned
Yes.

>superhuman
No.

I'm distrustful of Evola. If I had to pick a thinker in that strain I liked the most, Evola would be a candidate, but I still distrust the dude.

>>2176350
>Every single one of my objections were semantic.
Out of curiosity, what were they?

>You're not Liberated TO anywhere.
It's not a physical thing. I think first to be liberated you have to consider yourself liberated, or at least liberate-able. Formulas and doctrines work because they are self-imposed, they're a sort of game of self-checking that one agrees to, then they become effective.

Your way's as legitimate as anyone's, Ape-san. Man, who cares about the lineages and the generations!

>I already got that from Saivism.
I'm listening?

>>2176388
Superhuman was my term, not his. He merely stressed the will of a "noble soul" striving after the unconditioned due to disgust with samsaric existence.

>>2176387
>I was mostly speaking to the effects of orthodox stratifications on scholastic outfits like the Gelug.

I am right there with you on this. I thought since you were moving to talking about your own path that when you stated the equivalence a physical dakini and a sprulpa you had already expanded the scope a bit.

Nonetheless, if you are older than 22, most likely the soteriological power of Vajrayogini will be through the two-stages and then in completion during the bardo visions rather than during a karmamudra sessions this life.


As you know the tantras really stress a guru, and assert only one in a million of the most serious adepts can go it alone, having done most of the work in previous lives, suggesting the people in question are authentic Tulkus. Garchen Rinpoche and Namkai Norbu are both excellent and easily accessible as root gurus, and most areas have a local Khenpo you can find. I am much more of a Dzogchen than a Chagchen person myself, but I know a local Kagyu Khenpo (heart student of Garchen) that has helped a bunch.

>>2176402
>stated the equivalence a physical dakini and a sprulpa you had already expanded the scope a bit.
I've worked both, but not in a Buddhist sensibility, and come to a more or less undifferentated conclusion. That may be due to being at the cusp between 22 and great adulthood, so for the purposes of the thread I'll defer to the wisdom of the Masters.

Now that my guru's awol after brief contact I've looked into it and my local Dharma Center hosts a Kagyu guru, I may well explain my situation (at least the broad strokes) for some further solidarity with the Sangha.

>>2176415
>>2176402
Also to be clear the reason why I'm hedging around use of consorts is that frankly I do aim higher into the Tantras.

I could probably self initiate up into Chakrasamvara but Hevajra's going to either require serious changes in my life circumstances, OR use of a consort for self-initiation to Samarasa and the inscription of the Mantra.

>>2176396
>It's not a physical thing. I think first to be liberated you have to consider yourself liberated, or at least liberate-able.

According to virtually all tantric doctrine it absolutely is a physical thing. Buddhahood resides in the body and the path is an entirely physical process involving the subtle anatomy of the body. The difference in methods you find in various tantric traditions expresses the extent they actually trust and have faith in this doctrine.

>Your way's as legitimate as anyone's

Very interesting and hopeful view.

>>2175789
> Stoics say that there's nothing wrong with sex with pleasure provided...

You clearly aren't a stoic. A stoic would tell you that there is no such thing as a sexual 'need', and as such, anything but sex for procreation is hedonism.

>>2176396
>I'm listening?
Certain Saivist mantras, when learned correctly, impart assurance of mukti. This life is the end of the line (provided you apply the instruction).

>Out of curiosity, what were they?
They sounded like Rinzai; why would I need the Buddha's after-the-fact instruction when I could model his route to enlightenment via experimentation and dedication. This was a supremely idiotic position to hold as a nondualist. In some sense I was parroting Abhinava's objections which were compiled well before the schools of Vajrayana crystalized into coherence.

>>2176432
>Your way's as legitimate as anyone's, Ape-san. Man, who cares about the lineages and the generations!
>Very interesting and hopeful view.
^That.

>>2176415
>>2176426

Do tell them at least briefly a bit of your background. Most Kagyu are traditional in the sense of pushing preliminaries first, but some consider the extent of the preliminaries needed in light of past practice.

They pretty much universally embrace a chagchen approach, which in some important ways fundamentally differs from the gelug view on chagchen. Most branches of living Kagyu entail a chagchen that isn't predicated on sexual yoga as a root requirement.

I became very seriously engaged in self-initiated tantra and the power of consorts, in my very early 20s and it eventually lead me, after some very powerful experiences and visions, to appreciate the utter rigor of some traditions of Buddhism quite a bit.

I since have taken to Longchenpa's position on sexual yoga. I had an experience of total bliss that temporary collapsed constructed perceptions and then embraced Dzogchen since it is far more direct and efficient once a sampling like that has been had.

>>2176500
>Most Kagyu are traditional in the sense of pushing preliminaries first, but some consider the extent of the preliminaries needed in light of past practice.
What makes me apprehensive is the meaning of my recent distance empowerment via Karma Kagyu. Not that I doubt authenticity but I don't want to be construed as disingenuous. I took the route available to me.

And the 'pointing out' wasn't too bad either.

>>2176500
>I since have taken to Longchenpa's position on sexual yoga. I had an experience of total bliss that temporary collapsed constructed perceptions and then embraced Dzogchen since it is far more direct and efficient once a sampling like that has been had.
Care to expand on this?

>>2176523
>but I don't want to be construed as disingenuous.

A decade or so ago maybe, but now most Kagyus are entirely on board with many of the big wigs giving empowerments like this. There is an element of controversy still among some if it is live or whether it can be received through a non-live recording.

In the Dzogchen Community distance isn't the issue if it is a live stream, as it is a matter of a syncing up of intentions. However some members of Kagyu think empowerments don't require a live stream at all, others will.

If it wasn't live and there is disagreement from the khenpo, ask for the necessary empowerments. You won't be considered disingenuous either way, you will be viewed as someone eager for teachings. They would be concerned if you proceeded to list off a long list of empowerments you received from a variety of different people yet still are working on your preliminaries, as those people often come across as merely shopping for "blessings" and as insincere and uncommitted to actually practicing.

>>2175476
Having ambition?

>>2176523
>Care to expand on this?

Longchenpa's position is that sexual yoga is for practitioners of lower capacity, usually having hidden attachments to sexual bliss and the promise of ecstasy and usually have a lessor zeal for rigorously practicing the path as a primary priority.

He still gives exhaustive teachings on it and points out that it can serve as a stepping stone into Dzogchen practice through exactly the sort of experience I am talking about. Basically it would be translated as something like "total bliss that glimpses a sampling of primordial gnosis" and is when you successfully force the winds into the central channel coupled with the upward movement of liquid (ojas) but not the skill to trap them there.

So the heartdrop wind moves and the clear light mind is uncovered for a brief duration, and though it doesn't directly apprehend sunyata in this case, the "innate bliss" of the clear light (which isn't necessarily present when the clear light mind is uncovered generally, but in particular state it is) is activated. It lasted for about a minute and it felt like I was reverse-ejaculating up into my brain and that even the subtlest stress of existence itself closed up, like utter relief from ultra-subtle stress that were blindspots my whole life and had never been noticed were constant were suddenly patched up. My only thought afterwards was "heaven", and there was a kind of non-conceptual, non-perceptual one of a kind spaciousness that I had never experienced before (despite having ample "spacious" experiences on psychedelics and in meditation).

In short it is a kind of very direct self-initiated pointing out. From there in Dzogchen we recall and apply knowledge of that perfect condition and seek to rest, in a non-deliberate way, in that state using a variety of approaches. You practicing cutting through, dissolving even mindfulness, and instantly, totally relax back into the state.

>>2176650
Cont.

However of course that isn't the end of the path, it isn't even the beginning of the Dzogchen path, rather it is merely practicing the basis for the path. The path of Dzogchen is in thodgal visions and involves going through self-emerging, non-visualized visions that actualize in stages and result from being in that perfect condition for extended periods of time.

Once you reach the third of the four visions stages, you have reached the real first bhumi of the bodhisattva stages, which usually takes 7-10 years of retreat. 7 years is amazingly fast though.

What?

>>2175882
>There is a contemporary problem when people are trying to learn Buddhism, where Buddhism basically saddles them with conceptual views of self to refute that most people simply don't hold anymore. Making a lot of the analytical view deconstruction that Buddhism does completely superfluous.
Its basically covering all the basis people have brought up in the past. Its not necessary to read all the commentaries/philosophical aspects but it will give clarity to those with confusion regarding certain wording or implications of things.

For the lays, its probably not necessary to go deep into the implications as lays generally do not have the capacity nor the time to ponder over such nuances. Therefore its best for beginners to not dive into the philosophical aspect but rather the core aspects. The 4nobletruth/8foldpath/etc..

Similarly the religious aspects are remnants of the past meant to cover the basis in the time where religion was a stronghold in the area.

>>2177241
I agree that there is an unintended utility there, but I think it is very slim however and is accomplished in a roundabout way that on the whole causes more confusion than it alleviates. Not merely in the abstract either, but also with practitioners convincing themselves they implicitly hold to wrong-views yet out of sight to them merely on the basis of their emphasis in the texts.

This same utility can be accomplished with far more direct and efficient approaches that wholly dispense with the negatives outlined above, like directly conversing with a lappon that recognizes the issue with what has been termed "buddhist baggage" or reading philosophical reconstructions. Though I am happy to learn some of this stuff as I have an active academic interest in Buddhology independent of my study and application as an individual practitioner, after having rather extensive discussions on this with a lappon, it seems that a substantial portion of it is completely unhelpful to even a monastic practitioner, let alone a hobbyist householder with limited time and interest.

Practice and study are hard enough as is and a very thorough understanding takes rigor, so ideally there really shouldn't be this superfluous area of learned knowledge that in no way has any meaningful, direct application in the path and study of a modern person that isn't aiming to be a historian or Buddhist scholar.

>>2177241
>but rather the core aspects. The 4nobletruth/8foldpath/etc..

The further problem is that right away with the examples given we are already major facing choices in how and what to apply and practice that can't be meaningfully engaged with without a strong background in the material.

There are fundamental and critical distinctions between traditions regarding the 2nd and 4th noble truth. Some of which are mutually exclusive and serve as the core feature of everything about an approach as outlined by this or that tradition.

Likewise with the presentation and emphasis on the 8 fold path, there are substantially different approaches that are fundamental to the approach and application of these things.

Unless you have a solid background, then you cannot be informed enough to make the choice yourself and someone else therefore is doing it for you, while the process of attaining that background presently entails wading through a mountain of unnecessary information.

I know of plenty lay practitioners that have read many books, have a multi-year relationship with a main teacher, and practice relatively seriously for a lay householder yet still get essential features about their chosen tradition and its corresponding methods dead wrong, how much less capable they are in intelligently stitching together a larger picture of their happened-upon tradition in relation to the constellation of other traditions and differences between them, which ironically is the critical bit necessary to make a truly informed choice about which tradition is best to begin with.

Put simply, it seems to take way too long to begin to be able to formulate the right questions on this matter, let alone begin answering them in any robust fashion. No wonder most of us have such a shallow understanding!

>>2177564
Buddhism is too big for most people, so they tackle the area where they can. Each tradition seems to take a slight different angle on where to start and which parts to focus on, those divergent are probably subject to local culture/time period.

I personally think a modern neutral stance would be returning to the basics, then branching on to where you can learn most from (depending on the type of teacher available to you).

On an interesting note, I wonder how the future of AI Buddhist teaching avatar would work. Remember the Instructor from the Matrix? I reckon something like that.

>>2177611
I think it is very easy to understate the differences on where they start and which parts are focused on, and to overstate their compatibility with one another and some innate convergence towards the same or similar ends.

Some do have overlap, while others are in no uncertain terms mutually exclusive on very key issues to practice and what the goal is even conceived as.

A very straightforward example being the Nikayana Prajnaptivada tradition, it fundamentally rejects that the path can be cultivated through meditation at all, and rather that the entirety of the path was through karma and the acquisition of great wisdom bestowed solely through merit. Therefore returning to the basis as it pertains to this tradition would look very different.

Second to that, my earlier point suggested that returning to the basics really can't ever be neutral, even if we try, because it necessarily entails recourse to some critical non-neutral axioms, even if implicitly, which condition some of the most basic of definitions and practices.

Especially when you considering the limiting factor of time as one slowly works through these issues from wherever they happened to have started at, there are some real practical issues that make this problem difficult to resolve.

This leads many to a pragmatic approach which when scaled up has been an utter disaster on many levels and has likely harmed the long-term integrity of the dharma teachings and practices in the West. Unless that gets sorted any AI Buddhist teaching in the future will be nothing short of some shitty psychotherapy.

>>2177670
>This leads many to a pragmatic approach which when scaled up has been an utter disaster on many levels and has likely harmed the long-term integrity of the dharma teachings and practices in the West.
Why contain it? It's not like Buddhism was somehow going to go untouched when it came into contact with half the planet. Of course things were going to get messy. Keep practicing what you think is the right way and let the larger things develop and sort themselves out. So long as people aren't blowing buildings thanks to it then whatever collective project hasn't been compromised beyond saving.

>>2178600
As mentioned earlier in the thread, a revolution of the Dharma teaching isn't in my hands, your hands, or even the hands of a single generation.

Essentially, call council or go home.

>>2178627
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Buddhist_council

6th council happend about 60 years ago. Dharma is still good and fine.

>>2178641
>Dharma with Socrato-Abrahamism: 'I am growing stronger.'

>>2178641
>Dharma is still good and fine.
That's also sorta my point as well.

>>2178657
That already happened at the Greek Bactrian Complex and that probably gave us Mahayana and Mantrayana.

>>2178600
>let the larger things develop and sort themselves out

The problem is that currently they are not sorting themselves out. The generation interested in maintaining doctrinal integrity and going through a traditional process with a traditional sangha is dying. I am not sure how many sanghas you have been to, but generally open seats are largely not being replaced with younger people.

Those younger people are gravitating towards this promise of a secular Buddhism through the pragmatic dharma movement which caters to the lowest common denominator by promising easy answers and no-frills techniques that lacks any systematization to bring people to mastery in even core techniques. It promotes a surface-level understanding and practice. The closest touchstone it has to a tradition is the highly synthetic neo-burmese tradition which in no uncertain terms is heretical and basically rejects the general thrust of the Pali suttas in favor of techniques invented this century and based on the least authentic translations of the Satipatthana Sutta. It isn't surprising that it produced people like Daniel Ingram and Kenneth Folk that are self proclaimed Arahants and teach entirely heretical models that have utterly poisoned the discussion.

>hasn't been compromised beyond saving

You must not be very familiar with the present state of Hindu Tantra, it doesn't take tanks it takes a gradual erosion of doctrinal integrity and a watering down of all lineages. When the critical element is drowned out by topical voices, there seems to be a downward trend to oblivion.

>>2178627
>>2178641

Councils haven't meant anything since the 2nd council. No competent scholar thinks Sthavira nikaya was Theravada anymore. We know Sthavira modified the Vinaya, that later Theravada tried to write themselves earlier into history, and that Moggaliputta Tissa led a politically charged movement to ban other sects from participating in the councils. Honest Theravada-aligned scholars have recognized this and have used it to argue that early texts talking about "Hinayana" could not have possibly been talking about Theravada because Theravada was so comparably late on the scene.

As far as Theravada Tripitaka we have a scrap from the 9th century, a handful of damages pages from the 15th century, with the bulk of the earliest extant sources being from the 18th century. While we have Dharmaguptaka texts from the second century with the oldest extant text being a Mahayana text, the Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra dated to ~75 CE. We really need to stop pretending that Theravada inherently represents some sort of authority on the Buddha's teachings or that it is reliably closer to his teachings, when only a fraction of their Tripitaka, and a generic one at that that doesn't explicitly support the nuances of Theravada doctrine compared to say the early sarvastivadans can reliably considered as plausibly stemming from the historical figure.

Moving forward, a council sponsored by the Burmese government that supports a heretical tradition (relative to traditional Theravada doctrine) that rejects the general thrust of its own source texts, the pali suttas, means nothing at all. The further shame is that the few Thai sects that are struggling to push towards reclaiming the doctrinal integrity of the Theravada are in the extreme minority, both among themselves and in the face of the neo-burmese craze.

>>2179801
What would you have people do?

>>2179913
First and foremost people need to push back against so called pragmatic movements and bring in a younger generation encouraged to go all the way with their practice and study within a more traditional setting. We have to say no to the erasure of lineages, the erasure of concrete goals, and the overly reductionist, mechanical view of techniques. No to reformers who are second-rate thinkers and third-rate practitioners (looking at you Stephen Batchelor) no to novices, fools, and charlatans who self-declare themselves authorities and enlightened while totally redefining critical terms into oblivion (Ingram et al).

Unintuitively, it may be in best to reject perennialism and even encourage a soft sectarianism to foster rigor, debate, and allegiance to the integrity of lineages. We need critical Buddhism to constantly keep topical Buddhism in check, else it will degenerate into new-agism, incoherent mysticism, or a feel-good relaxation-centric psychotherapy with no end-goals. Buddhism must maintain its Apollonian reach towards the other shore.

We have some people pursuing careers in Buddhology, but we have very few of the younger generation seeking to attain a high level of mastery in their practice. It is telling that even among the older generation, to date we still only have a single Western-born lappon and the number of standout monk-scholars or practitioners can be counted on two hands.

The closest we have had to a mastery of high level techniques was the Olds couple, one of which is now deceased. What came of their 9 year retreat? They deluded themselves into thinking they had passed beyond the second thodgal vision, despite clear admonishments by Chagdud Rinpoche, and then they stole secret materials and fled...

>>2180353
When you have self-proclaimed pragmatic Theravadan students who have the audacity to claim mastery of the jhanas while maintaining that a mastered first jhana still entails sound, and no one is calling him out on a forum populated by "serious" Buddhist students, despite this blatantly contradicting some of the earliest Pali suttas in the Theravadan Tripitaka, something is seriously wrong.

We are flushing all the rigor and standards from our practice and study down the toilet and then we are surprised when the latest 'pragmatic' trend is to redefine an arahant as someone who still suffers, has first-world anxieties, lies, gets attached, gets angry, lusts, and can't remain in samadhi.

>>2180376
>else it will degenerate into new-agism, incoherent mysticism, or a feel-good relaxation-centric psychotherapy with no end-goals.

This is the observable state of most Buddhism in the West. Mostly because people have no idea what they're doing nor do they care. This goes back to my earlier, controversial yet misunderstood post "stoicism is Buddhism without the weeb shit." If 90% of westerners are just looking for an ethical code which teaches non-attachment they'd be better off buying the enchiridion and saving themselves the trouble of practicing "oh so exotic" watered down Buddhismx

>>2175495
Really made me think.

>>2179901
>While we have Dharmaguptaka texts from the second century with the oldest extant text being a Mahayana text, the Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra dated to ~75 CE. We really need to stop pretending that Theravada inherently represents some sort of authority on the Buddha's teachings or that it is reliably closer to his teachings, when only a fraction of their Tripitaka, and a generic one at that that doesn't explicitly support the nuances of Theravada doctrine compared to say the early sarvastivadans can reliably considered as plausibly stemming from the historical figure.
I was just reading on that exact thing a few days back.

My point is (again) that revision shouldn't be a project for a handful of the bored in the West.

>>2180353
>>2180376
That can be tackled pretty well under the header of 'fighting spiritual materialism'.

>>2180412
>That can be tackled pretty well under the header of 'fighting spiritual materialism'.

In principle I agree, in practice however I have seen this banner raised exactly in defense of these pragmatic revisionist movements. It is too easy it seems for some to think they are 'cutting through spiritual materialism' through the erasure of lineages, goals, precise methods, rigorous study etc.

>My point is (again) that revision shouldn't be a project for a handful of the bored in the West.

Well said.

>>2180404
You make a really good point. Buddhism might be better off too.

>>2180457
>I have seen this banner raised exactly in defense of these pragmatic revisionist movements
I'm new to this praxis; I've encountered relatively little that's objectionable under that banner, but at this point I'm applying lessons from the greater Western occult community and paying attention to precious few commentators.

*
You got any good leads on Buddhist text criticism for rank amateurs, because from your comments it looks like we've come across some of the same sources (writing into history, etc.) and further explorations would be appreciated.

Anything that even approaches Strong's Concordance for the canon?

>>2178641
>Dharma is still good and fine
Actually the Dharma disagrees, the Dharma was only valid and "good and fine" for 500 years after the Buddhas death.

>>2175481

Came here to say this.

It is fine but highly overrated

>>2180495
The Dharma is unconditioned and nonarisen. It rests in serene purity no matter how skewed temporal instruction may become.

>>2180502
>φύσις ain't ελεύθερος
>The πρᾶξις gotta be littered with the αἷμα of the ξένοι

>>2175476
Everything I know about Buddhism comes from this song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqps4anhz0Q

Isn't fixation on rigorous praxis contrary to the democratizing project of the West? I'm not sure if my understandment of the sangha is correct, but isn't it impossible to establish such a type of religious community on the space of the West, which is not only incapable of treating its own religious establishment as legitimate, let alone foreign ones--don't you need a topos at all before establishing a religious class? Isn't a "watered down" Buddhism the only possible "Western Buddhism" as it can only approach the lays*?

*Let's not even get into how conceptualizing a "higher class" is impossible in the current West and so it's difficult to appeal to them in specific.

On another note: These criticism seem to come only from the Vajrayana point of view (though still valid). Is this imagined on my part part? What do the other branches have to say?

>>2180612
>contrary to the democratizing project of the West
Neoliberal, pls.

>isn't it impossible to establish such a type of religious community on the space of the West
Not really. The Tibetans are doing fine here. To a lesser extent Theravada, but the whole Ajahn Brahm thing's gone sorta sideways. You get multiple retreat communities but they tend to obviously be limited.

>incapable of treating its own religious establishment as legitimate
...why?

>don't you need a topos at all before establishing a religious class
I'm not exactly sure what the implication is?

>These criticism seem to come only from the Vajrayana point of view (though still valid).
Why are the Dharma Centers such a successful project? H.H. is shipping in degree holders from the monasteries and while you've got some small outfits in the midwest the coasts have really strong tantrik movements of both the Buddhist and Hindi classes; hell it's they're the only place to find certain lineages in the US.

>>2180624
>Neoliberal, pls.
I'm not holding any stances here, it's simply a fact that the west holds democracy as a value.

>...why?
For... a huge number of reasons?

>I'm not exactly sure what the implication is?
I'm saying that to succesfully establish practices in the "West" you first need there to be a "West" which people can agree on.

>Why are the Dharma Centers such a successful project?
I'm not sure this is an answer? I'm asking for a second opinion.

>>2180641
>it's simply a fact that the west holds democracy as a value.
If the srs discussions following weren't explicit indicators I was havin' a giggle.

>For... a huge number of reasons?
Such as? I mean, it's not like a householder tradition is alien here.

>I'm saying that to succesfully establish practices in the "West" you first need there to be a "West" which people can agree on.
I'd actually agree with this to a certain extent. It feels like the internal perspective, from all my yt lectures, is less about a "Western" penetration and more a letting seeds sprout where they may and wither where they may. More of the DC project has to do with Gelug and wider Vajrayana eschatological beliefs than most people realize. They're trying to keep Kalachakra from dying. The concept is less "Let's send missionaries West" and more "holy shit this teaching might die we gotta git gud".

But back to your original question (I think), Vajrayana need not be predicated on the Tibetan schools though it's arguably the most robust expression thereof.

If your 'why' revolves around theocracy and monastic life, then again, the Tibetan model need not be the only one, and even therein householders aren't exactly uncommon. A DC *will* send in someone to give you this or that empowerment without you needing to spend seven years in the monastery.

On the surface all this looks like Mother Church but in reality you wind up with two parallel streams of initiation (to tantra and to the monastery) rather than a braided stream. This winds up demonstrated via exchanges with Bon (Chod, Kurukulla, some offering protocols) where you get cross lineage(s) between monastic elaboration and public practice.

>>2180624
>Not really. The Tibetans are doing fine here. To a lesser extent Theravada

You obviously aren't attending a local Sangha/Dojo, Western Buddhism is already seeing a massive decline as the boomer generation die off.

>>2180684
Mine just expanded to a larger building.

I can only speak from my understanding and perception. I've never seen more people doing some form of approved Work as I have in the last, I dunno, hard to date, maybe 2009?

That said, a sinking tide lowers all boats in general. We're looking at a very secular series of generations.

>>2180678
>Such as?
Because scientific materialism gets "results". Because the Church has progressively lost power. Because the whole notion of God is intrinsically linked with politics in the West and that is dabased too. Because the idea of a personal God with a plan doesn't make sense due to recent history. That's of course the very basics of it. There's terminological issues that someone has already overstated above. Science is king. That's why you get more Buddhologists than monks.

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>>2180703
Fundamental/Conservative Christian Churches are exploding in popularity among the younger generations while Liberal and Modernist Churches wither and die.

Why? because counterculture is dead, it became the main culture, kids are rebelling against Generation X by being conservative.

Maybe if Western Buddhism didn't spend the last 50 years downplaying the fact its (was?) a religion centred around tradition and community.

>>2180743
I live in what would be considered Bible Belt territory by most. I'm not seeing any sort of explosion of anything recently.

>Maybe if Western Buddhism didn't spend the last 50 years downplaying the fact its (was?) a religion centred around tradition and community.
It did? What lineages are doing this?

>>2180730
>Because scientific materialism gets "results".
For what?

>Because the idea of a personal God with a plan doesn't make sense due to recent history.
Not sure what this has to do with a series of sects that have no personal creator with The Plan™.

>Science is king. That's why you get more Buddhologists than monks.
Don't really view Buddhism as particularly hostile to the modern scientific program as evidenced by H. H. continuing dialogue with Science®.

>>2180612
To an extinct your right, in that religions far from the sources they come from, are less understood and syncretic with local customs. Take for example Christianity in Africa or China.

The issue is that Buddhism in the West is more of an "in name only" practice by those drawn to new age, drug culture or an edgy teenager phase. They have no interest in the actual religion beyond nominal attractions to the aesthetics and what little they know of the teachings. I'm not accusing all these types people of being insincere either, just too many of them.

>>2180759
>For what?
For pretty much anything? The relay system we're talking through didn't came around due to Buddhism did it? (This is the typical argument.)

>Not sure what this has to do with a series of sects that have no personal creator with The Plan™.
Because the general idea of religion in the West is still based on Christianity. Buddhism is different but it's still a "religion"; if that's a dirty word and the people talking about it don't have something against it, then it's a "philosophy". It's always made to fill categories which are already existing in the West and which aren't really accurate because they are Western and not universal.

>Don't really view Buddhism as particularly hostile to the modern scientific program
It generally isn't, it's just subordinate. That's why you get watered down Buddhism, which is just taking what might contradict the tacit mainstream to make it receptable.

>>2180759
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/04/liberal-churches-are-dying-but-conservative-churches-are-thriving/

>It did? What lineages are doing this?
Zen, Soka Gakkai, whatever the fuck "White Plum" is", Trungpa's lineage etc.

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>>2180767
>Buddhism in the West is more of an "in name only" practice by those drawn to new age, drug culture or an edgy teenager phase
I've never seen any approach, even "in name only", among those classes of individual.

t. MPA in museums, OTO initiate, spent psychonaut, and former edgy teenager.

The only other person I know well that remotely fits those descriptors with an interest in Buddhism to the point of learning the language and performing sadhana is a lawyer and OTO friend.

At that point I agree Western practitioners will never be Tibetan or Indic or whatever. It ain't your culture. On the other hand, I'd like to see some [citations] in the religious source texts that people on different continents shouldn't being practice if so inclined.

I've actually dealt with an in installations curator (young wealthy white girl) who was getting pretty offended that a (non esoteric) convert friend of mine wanted to present some artifacts from the archive as living instruments of ritual as opposed to art. She shut up pretty quick when I asked her to provide some form of scriptural source for a white convert not being allowed to present artifacts.

The hilarious part is that it's HER that runs the shitty watered down health-yoga class, while my friend keeps his more or less honest Aspiration to his damn self.

Anyway.

>>2180814
>https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/04/liberal-churches-are-dying-but-conservative-churches-are-thriving/
Flipping through this it dawns on me that my perspective may be due to just not having liberal churches nearby.

>93 percent of clergy members and 83 percent of worshipers from growing churches agreed with the statement “Jesus rose from the dead with a real flesh-and-blood body leaving behind an empty tomb.” This compared with 67 percent of worshipers and 56 percent of clergy members from declining churches.
>67/56
I know I funpost a lot about Christism but holy shit that's awful and have no idea how half these 'liberal' congregations can pretend at Christianity.

>>2180805
I think I grok your position a bit more but would be reluctant to call Buddhist acceptance of rigorous observation as a doctrinal point a 'watering down'. If H. H., a man as steeped in traditional Tibetan culture as mortally possible can admit allegory while holding what would largely be called a "conservative" perspective on many many topics, I think we can to.

I feel like the terminology problem works both ways.

>This is the typical argument
So I take it the rulership of scientific materialism, for you, is restricted even further to only admit technological production? What do we make of the results of neuroscience studies into the states of monks and practitioners from Christianity through Kabbalah and Buddhism? This hedges toward spiritual materialism but if you're gonna go down that path at least own it, roight?

>>2180829
Since were both going by anecdotal I can tell I've seen their type and know their type. As for actual statistics we have no way of knowing.

>On the other hand, I'd like to see some [citations] in the religious source texts that people on different continents shouldn't being practice if so inclined.

I never said they shouldn't. I said people should approach Buddhism (or any religion) with a sincere heart.

>>2180480
>Anything that even approaches Strong's Concordance for the canon?

Not in English no.

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>>2180859
I think you might have understood me backwards there or viceversa. I'm saying the unrigorous approach is the watered down one, to be clear.

>If H. H., a man as steeped in traditional Tibetan culture as mortally possible can admit allegory while holding what would largely be called a "conservative" perspective on many many topics, I think we can to.
Of course you can, but that it can't be done won't make it so the majority will do it. It won't spread on its own through the efforts of individuals. And don't forget it was a priest that came up with the big bang. It's not like science is absolutely incompatible with Christendom--in fact it was born from it. That did not stop it from being delegitimized during the second half of the 20th century. So it's more to do with how people perceive what they think is religious belief and if they're willing to pursue it than what the beliefs are themselves--it's not that they wouldn't honestly consider what this or that canon says but that they, to begin with, wouldn't risk reading.

>So I take it the rulership of scientific materialism, for you, is restricted even further to only admit technological production?
To a large extent. Leaving that there's charisma, hedonism and argumentation. Westerner are obsessed with being convincing and proving things. So to approach them with "religion" you have to tell them something like "yeah see, meditating on pratityasamutpada/Jesus doesn't get you a Ferrari, but it makes your brain release X and Y substance and feel really good". Which goes into your neuroscience question too.

Capitalism has made a market out of the whole planet pretty much. It's all this costs that, it's equivalent to this much, measures this, gets you this and so on. So an experience that is transcendental, which does away with opposition, which is not easily shareable and deeply individual or dependent on personal history, which shows no physical ramification, is hard to sell.

>>2180940
>So an experience that is transcendental, which does away with opposition, which is not easily shareable and deeply individual or dependent on personal history, which shows no physical ramification, is hard to sell.
Y'see if you'd have dropped that quote and hour ago I wouldn't have spent all this time trying to figure out if I agreed with you or not :^)

I see what you're getting at now and wholeheartedly agree, I just think you hedged the core point too much for me to notice.

>>2180938
That sucks.

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>>2180946
S-sorry! I hadn't put my thoughts that succintly until this discussion. I apologize if you feel your time was wasted; though discussing stuff with you is anything but that for me, tripfriend.

>>2180940
>So an experience that is transcendental, which does away with opposition, which is not easily shareable and deeply individual or dependent on personal history, which shows no physical ramification, is hard to sell.
Beautifully put. This is the problem I often find with atheist. They either quickly dismiss people's religious experiences as being false or chalk it up to being psychologically explainable. It ultimately gives me the feeling of "don't throw your pearls before swine" as if they aren't going to listen why even bother talking?

Another problem is that people don't realize that if you begin practicing religion (prayer, meditating , fasting, reading scripture) whether Roman Catholicism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism ect Its going to take time for you to get really good. It could take months, even years. No body expects to become a star basketball player after practicing one. Yet people feel like they're entitled to have deep religious experience right away.

>>2180979
>if you feel your time was wasted
Not at all.

>>2180984
I feel like this may be an artifact of the greater West's, or at least my locations, soteriological assumptions.

>>2180984
>. It could take months, even years. No body expects to become a star basketball player after practicing one. Yet people feel like they're entitled to have deep religious experience right away.


So much this, I think it is hilarious when folks think they can become enlightened as a hobby, with less effort and time than it takes than say to truly master the fine arts or something.

>>2180984
>Yet people feel like they're entitled to have deep religious experience right away.
People expect that they'll get into it and get something out of it or at least get back to their normal lives after a holiday, when the whole point is precisely the opposite. Just look at the New Age. Hippies are the result of science putting religious experience into a pill but not doing anything else to support it or integrate it into the rest of life. So what could have been an actual movement ended up as a footnote in history because it required no real discipline or community from its people.

>>2181058
>Just look at the New Age. Hippies are the result of science putting religious experience into a pill but not doing anything else to support it or integrate it into the rest of life.
Hippies are 60's.
New Age is 70's at earliest.

That said I agree that the three dollar conversation with God was a severe marketing mistake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUgs2O7Okqc

>>2181058
Interesting. I've heard from certain people that the hippy movement had far greater potential than what would ultimately, as you said, be a footnote on history.

>>2181079
Anon, the footnotes are the best part of a book.

>>2181070
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5JXrP8yv8o

>>2181079
The 60s and 70s were the last time you saw mass movilization in the West... or really anywhere. With the rights kind of eyes and ears you can see in art how things developped emotionally, from those lively years, to cynicism and profanity in the 80s-90s to deppression in the 90s-00s and cheekyness more recently. And now we're here.

>>2175481
Almost. Stoicism struggles to interpret suffering and pain, and instead prefers to ignore them. So while outwardly stoicism may give the appearance of being calm and collected, the mind within is constantly raging with misery trying to pursue this ideal of emotionless grandeur. But all you've really done is foster ignorance to your own feelings. You've smothered a flame only to have the charcoals burn through your blanket.

Budhism views pain and suffering as tools of developing yourself and encourages you to see them as such. Doing so will remove you from a sense of suffering and you will grow to appreciate challenges and pain. To a buddhist ignorance is the paramount sin since it is what leads to all suffering. Murder, rape, stealing, and lying are all aspects of fear. And Fear can only exist where there is too much ignorance for logic to penetrate.

>>2181145
>So while outwardly stoicism may give the appearance of being calm and collected, the mind within is constantly raging with misery trying to pursue this ideal of emotionless grandeur.
Not really. Its about non-attachment. If you find yourself repressing emotions in an unhealthy manner your doing something wrong.

>>2175700
Zen Buddhism is the weeb one. Majority of Buddhists are Mahayana which is a more religiously conservative field of Buddhism IMO (i.e. they advocate doing things the same way others did to acheive enlightenent and discourage challenging tradition).

Theravada by comparison has a long tradition of classical Buddhist debating styles designed to encourage questioning the methods of the Buddha.

Siddartha is supposed to have said "Test my methods yourself, and you will see that they are good." to encourage people to destroy his previous lessons if there was a better "way" found.

>>2181150
How can it be about non-attachment when you have an ideal in mind though? That's my issue with Stoicism vs Buddhism. Stoicism has a notion of perfection, a type of higher being in a sense, but it's one that encourages non-attachment through ignorance versus non attachment through pragmatism.

I think of it like Stoicism teaches you how to act, but Buddhism teaches you how to be.

>>2181165
>it's one that encourages non-attachment through ignorance versus non attachment through pragmatism.

I don't see where your getting its from ignorance from, but I've never heard that before. Stoicism is about principals you try to follow. Just like Christianity doesn't ask you to be the perfect Christian while asking you to strive to be Christ like, Stoicism doesn't revolve around trying to achieve a perfect ideal so much as it offers an enlightening worldview.

>>2181151
>Theravada by comparison has a long tradition of classical Buddhist debating styles designed to encourage questioning the methods of the Buddha.
>Siddartha is supposed to have said "Test my methods yourself, and you will see that they are good." to encourage people to destroy his previous lessons if there was a better "way" found.


That is actually not true. The Kalama sutta for example was a teaching to philosophical skeptics that were not part of the sangha and specifically asked the Buddha how to distinguish between the various religious claims so prevalent in the area. In the Pali texts he never gives the same teaching to members of the Sangha. Once you have accepted his as your teacher you are supposed to accept the suttas as the highest authority and he gives specific examples that the authority of the suttas clearly trumps anything else, including an elder monk or group of educated monks.

He furthermore warns about fake suttas in the future that are favored by an intellectual literati and that despite their sweet-sounding nature, the original suttas always trump them.

Theravada doesn't have some sort of rich debating tradition nor healthy skepticism of the teachings that purport to represent the Buddha's own, rather that actually comes from traditions that stemmed from the early Great Sangha tree and laid the foundation for Mahayana. The Indo-Tibetan and East-Asian traditions have the long history of rich debate and skepticism and there is a meme in Tibet imported from early Mahayanans in India that misrepresents the Kalama sutta and portrays the Buddha as saying "test everything I teach like gold", which in the end was a mistake that greatly benefited the development of Buddhism.

>>2181151
> Mahayana which is a more religiously conservative field of Buddhism IMO

Furthermore I would like to point out that virtually all the innovation, historically that is, comes from common and uncommon Mahayana.

>>2181217
I feel like in an ideal world people wouldn't just oath up and like reflect on the durability of the praxes before jumping in, but a perfect world this ain't.

>>2181217
what is the difference between Mahayana and zen buddhism?

>>2181244
Chan/Zen is a subset of Mahayana influenced deeply by the Dao and leans heavily on the Prajnaparamita sutras.

>>2181244
Zen is a particular set of traditions in under the larger heading of common Mahayana.

>>2181250
>>2181237
Do you just not sleep? I've been idling checking back to this thread and you're still in it.

Not that I overly mind, just curious.

>>2181284
Prayer is better than sleep, anon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NEdcRWj-C0

>>2181237
He answers questions and wins over disciples after they reflect and converse with him. He exhausts their vetting processes.

Once they have reflected and realize the Buddha's praxis is the superior way, they then are supposed to apply his teachings as if their head was on fire, rather than wasting time on second-guessing.

The idea is like you are supposed to vet him before you take refuge in the Sangha, it is a full refuge, one with both feet in. Once you are in there is no time to waste.

>>2181237
the first step in the dhamma is really listening to it, then go by faith, jsut like you go by faith in shacking up with some girl or signing a loan, since you have not reached even sotapana.

>>2181305
>The idea is like you are supposed to vet him before you take refuge in the Sangha, it is a full refuge, one with both feet in. Once you are in there is no time to waste.
No I get it, ijs I personally wish the inquisitive attitude toward spirituality was more ingrained 'round these parts.

>>2181305
what if his teachings seem solid but i have no desire to dispute them or take refuge in them?

>>2175485
What's up with the spooks and that smug guy?

>>2175704
now it's poo loo

>>2181341
Then you wind up like me for the last eight or so years.

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>>2181351
That's simply the pratyekabuddha Śaṭṛṇāmākṣa.

>>2181341
He would probably say something about you not fully understanding or reflecting on his teachings then.

>The goal of existence is to end desire
But isn't wanting to be independent of desire a desire in and of itself?
Not to mention lack of desire means lack of desire for existence. Lack of desire for material sustenance, at the very least. It's an ideology of death.

Why are all religions death cults?

>>2181250
It's also been influenced and blended with some aspects of Japanese native religion (Shinto) so some funeral ceremonies will have aspects of both.

>>2181492
"Desire" in Buddhism like a lot of things are treated with a dual nature and disciples are encouraged to not be naive and ever see anything as either black or white.

Much like anger can be a good thing when injustice makes you angry or seeing someone hurt an animal for pleasure. Desire in this case is broken up into desire that fulfils you, and desire that consumes you.

For example, although it is a desire sometimes to want to eat a nice meal, it is not a desire that causes suffering (duhka). There's a fine line though since you could end up making yourself unhappy if you create these grand expectations of a good meal or desire to always eat nothing but the best food. S desire for material wealth or an ideal or perfection that is not within the realm of reality will cause undue suffering as well.

>>2181492
Buddhism is very diverse in it's views on death. Reincarnation itself is a huge debate. Some schools believe that once you're human you will always reincarnate as human, while some think you can go back and forth, while others will say you only ever get to incarnate as a human once.

Then you have those who are more secular over death and focus more on cultivating enlightenment while living. These Buddhists would simply argue that death is irrelevant since there is no way to test anything that can be said about death reliably. If such a method would appear and is tested to be reliable then it could be applied, but the unknown nature of death means that the most pragmatic and logical way to view it is that "it will happen when it happens and there's not much you can do about it in the momment".

>>2181492
Yes and this point was covered since the very beginning of Buddhism.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn51/sn51.015.than.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanda_%28Buddhism%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta%E1%B9%87h%C4%81


>Not to mention lack of desire means lack of desire for existence.

Which means something very, very different in Buddhist metaphysics. For example, there is a critical difference between the bardo of life and the bardo of reality, the latter of which entails a lack of desire for existence but the persistence of some conscious-continuum.


>Lack of desire for material sustenance, at the very least.

There is a critical difference between recognizing when the body needs sustenance and desire in the specific sense relevant to Buddhist soteriology.

>It's an ideology of death.

This doesn't follow.

>>2181557
Some traditions would agree with this, others would reject some of this.

>>2181567
>Some schools believe that once you're human you will always reincarnate as human

What schools exactly?

>>2181709
Page 758 of this i think:

http://terebess.hu/zen/szoto/EncBuddh.pdf

Or I might just be confusing it with something I read about Hinduism/Jainism.

>>2181851
It isn't there.

>Or I might just be confusing it with something I read about Hinduism/Jainism.

Could be, or something you heard from Theosophy/Helena Blavatsky's writings.

I am not too familiar with Jainism and Hinduism but I know she held this view. I have never in all my years of looking into Buddhism heard of a Buddhist school that asserts that once your a human you will always reincarnate as a human nor that you will only get to rebirth as a human once.

That said, if anyone happens to know of some fringe school that in fact does please do link something!

>>2181900
I just seem to recall something about vegetarianism being a thing for Buddhists because it could be a relative or even yourself you're consuming given the cyclic nature of life.

That's another controversial but interesting idea, the idea that you might possibly hold several consciousnesses during the same life but not be able to link them together due to the nature of our perception of self being impermanent.

>>2182053
>I just seem to recall something about vegetarianism being a thing for Buddhists because it could be a relative

This is a common feature, but the reasoning is that samsara and the cycle of rebirth has been going on "since beginning-less time" aka forever so you are bound to eat someone that was once a relative a trillion trillion trillion lifetimes ago.

> even yourself you're consuming

I have never heard of such a thing asserted by a Buddhist school. There are arguments going back to early Indian Buddhism establishing separate experiential continuums.

How are people new to this to approach all the different schools (especially all the subdivisions/schools in things like V and Mahayana) with limited time and energy available?

For those having that fascinating conversation on Tibetan Buddhism how was it that you came to find that one to be the best for you?

How would one go about investigating it?

>>2175704
no itsnt

>>2182410
>How are people new to this to approach all the different schools

There really isn't a systematic or easy way at the moment. Buddhism has more texts than any other religion and probably more than several other religions put together.

Start with secondary works that either seek to survey many schools or seek to reconstruct some of the core philosophy is shared among many of the living traditions. Couple those with some core meditation that will translate well to the majority of traditions.

>>2184578
>>2182410
Also this may sound goofy but take a college course on the damn tradition. Most major unis and a lot of community colleges offer surveys that give what >>2184578 describes.

>>2182410
consider:

Stilling the Mind: Shamatha Teachings from Dudjom Lingpa's Vajra Essence -Alan Wallace

The Seven-Point Mind Training: A Tibetan Method For Cultivating Mind And Heart by B. Alan Wallace

http://www.scribd.com/doc/218160907/The-Art-of-Nakedness-Bearing-it-all-for-the-single-nature-of-mind-a-look-at-Buddhist-salvation

http://webdelprofesor.ula.ve/humanidades/elicap/en/uploads/Biblioteca/bdz-e.version.pdf

http://terebess.hu/zen/szoto/EncBuddh.pdf

Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka: A Philosophical Introduction -Jan Westerhoff

The Foundations of Buddhism-Rupert Gethin

Buddhist Religions: A Historical Introduction by Richard H. Robinson

Buddhist Thought: A Complete Introduction to the Indian Tradition by Prof. Paul Williams

Vision of Buddhism: The Space Under the Tree by Prof. Roger Corless

Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations by Prof. Paul Williams

Gateway to Knowledge: v. 3: The Mahayana Journey by Jamgon Mipham Rinpoche

Nagarjuna's Letter to King Gautamiputra -Peter D. Santina & Lozang Jamspal (was used an a Mahayana primer in ancient India)

http://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/BuddhistRomanticism151231.pdf

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/jhananumbers.html

http://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/TheParadoxOfBecoming.pdf

http://santipada.org/aswiftpairofmessengers/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/A_Swift_Pair_of_Messengers_Bhikkhu_Sujato.pdf

http://studybuddhism.com/en/advanced-studies/lam-rim/the-five-paths-to-liberation-enlightenment/the-five-paths

Alan Wallace's Attention Revolution

The Heart of Meditation: Discovering Innermost Awareness -HHDL

Illuminating the Path to Enlightenment-HHDL

lluminating the Path to Enlightenment: A Commentary on Atisha Dipamkara Shrijnana's A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment and Lama Je Tsong Khapa's Lines of Experience -HHDL

Buddhism In Tibet Book -Emil Schlaginteweit

Tsong-kha-pa's Final Exposition of Wisdom -Jeffrey Hopkins

>>2184628
Though included anyway, one important thing you need to understand about all Theravada meditation traditions is that they were reconstituted from books in the mid 19th century in response to European interested in Buddhist meditation.

>>2184592
The problem is the quality ranges to such a large extent. On one hand if they have faculty that actually specialize in Buddhological studies, then the chances of decent courses is pretty high.

If however they only have like comparative religious faculty, then they are likely to use shit, out-dated material spreading Western academic myths that no one that specializes in the field takes seriously anymore and you will walk out of there with the most absurd of ideas.

I know of people that walked out of an into survey from their community college and believed that Buddhists worshiped the symbol of the wheel and that it was central to their religion in the manner that a cross is to Christianity...

So proceed with extreme caution.

>>2184663
>I know of people that walked out of an into survey from their community college and believed that Buddhists worshiped the symbol of the wheel and that it was central to their religion in the manner that a cross is to Christianity...
Jesus Fuckin' Hell.

Some days I feel blessed for my educational experiences.

My "Eastern Survey" instructor originally sparked my first interest in Buddhism, latent though it was. Came away with a deeper appreciation of Jainism than anything but dude was a fairly serious philosopher that was pulling out Pali canon excepts to go along with our, maybe, 6.75/10 textbook.

>>2182410
>For those having that fascinating conversation on Tibetan Buddhism how was it that you came to find that one to be the best for you?

I was initially pretty eclectic, though I avoided oversimplifying or trivializing the various traditions so though I was rather practice oriented I studied a great deal of theory and history. As my practice deepened and my own speculations became more nuanced I began to really appreciate the purpose and reasoning behind behind the tantric approaches.

I heavily adopted these approaches over the course of years while I continued to study, and along the way I had some very intense, meaningful experiences and the death of a close friend that all sort of culminated in me taking Indo-Tibetan Buddhism as the height of Buddhist thought, both in terms of metaphysics, general theory, subtle anatomy, and most importantly an unparalleled attention to detail when it comes to the mechanical underbelly of advanced practices and their application. In many areas important to my own practices and corresponding experiences and thinking, other traditions glossed over or even ignored areas that Tibetan Buddhism went into great detail on.

>>2184694
Yeah you lucked out then. The other issue aside from getting even the basics wrong is the prof. pushing his pet theories down his students throat without any disclaimer, but as long as they are getting most of the basics right then it isn't the end of the world.

>>2184740
You could tell he cared, maybe not at like a deep theological commitment level but he wasn't afraid to "well I really don't fuckin' know" instead of trying to all all Emerson all in our heads (which I have heard of a lot of professors doing).

Superiority is a completely relative concept, but let's be honest: If any religion is going to dominate the world, it's the islam.

>>2184815
Demographics win in the end, so yes with breeding rates the way they are, Islam is going to take the cake.

>>2184841
>Thinks breeding rates don't change
wew lad

>>2184740
This is an issue with religious education in general. I know a professor who taught Jesus practiced the Kabbalah (odd considering it wasn't developed when Jesus was alive). I don't have a problem with people teaching their pet theories but put a disclaimer up beforehand.

>>2184899
In the periods of time we are talking about, plausibly not to any significant degree. Before I die France will majority Muslim. It's all downhill from there.

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>>2181492
>It's an ideology of death.
Define the implications of death.

>Not to mention lack of desire means lack of desire for existence.
You don't need to desire breathing to breathe. There's lots of biological functions which you don't consider and are much more important to life than things like sex, good food etc. But they don't matter to people because there's no scarcity of them. Desire isn't about having, it's about not having.

>>2185572
>Desire isn't about having, it's about not having.
^^^
I'm really glad I worked a lot of the "why don't I have" out of my system young. Jain karma doctrines REALLY opened my eyes to a lot of what's meant by desire, loss, and the debts thereof.

>>2175721
>subscribe to these 4 easy memes and ultimate truth is yours!

If buddhism was invented today it would be sold on late night television by tai lopez.

>>2182410
All schools embrace the Four Noble Truths. Outside of that most of the discussion is based around trying to obtain the purest form of "knowledge" possible and how to ascertain if what you have is a genuine truth or a truth you just accept.

>>2185587
>sunyata, co-dependent arising, the Bodhisattva vow
>easy

Read Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka: A Philosophical Introduction by Jan Westerhoff and Tsong-kha-pa's Final Exposition of Wisdom by Jeffrey Hopkins.

http://davidsenouf.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Buddhism-and-Physics-Interdependence-from-classical-causality-to-quantum-entanglement-Michel-Bitbol.pdf

Sunyata is many things, but is really only "easy" misrepresent and inaccurately paraphrase, but it isn't easy otherwise and is rather nuanced for example in it being a radical critique of ontology.

>>2181351
He literally called things like morality and God spooks even though him making the effort to call them spooks shows some metaphysical idea to behaviour, which he calls a spook. He's a silly hypocrite.

>>2185892
>some metaphysical idea to behaviour, which he calls a spook
That's not what he says at all. Hell, the spook/possession metaphor isn't used as extensively in the book as its meme use would have you think. When he's exposing it properly the term he uses is "fixed ideas" and not plainly "ideas". It's the subordination of all else to these ideas, the unconscious nature of this subordination by as well as the unconscious vicarous use of given to them by individuals that he's expounding on. He's mocking people like Hegel, his followers and (ironically) later Marx that try to take great concepts down only to replace them with other great concepts which will bring about the same issues and therefore making it all pointless.

>>2175489
Because the soviet union and peoples republic of china took great care of the land

>inb4 "state capitalist"

Buddhism is not a philosophy, in general, east has created a philosophy, philosophy is exclusive to the west and is western creation

>>2186737
>philosophy is exclusive to the west and is western creation
[historical citation missing]

Only folk Protestantism can compete with the glory that is Mahayana.

To the Buddhists here who know their shit: how is practicing Buddhism supposed to make me happy? This is probably a gross over-simplification, but to me the message of Buddhism seems to come down to: "life is shit so try to achieve enlightenment so you can break the cycle of rebirth". That doesn't sound bet inspiring to me. I want to find a religion or philosophy which makes me enjoy life.

>>2189453
I wouldn't call myself a Buddhist, but I am fairly well read in certain Mahayana sects and that is my area of research. Many are world-affirming, in that you must pay attention to the karmic bonds you forge with others and must achieve merit so that you will have less bonds in the next life. So it is less about freeing yourself than it is about helping others to be free as well. If you read a lot of literature coming out of a Mahayana framework, many appreciate life because of the silent tragedy of its brevity. It's hard to articulate.

Buddhism will always fail against "Western" philosophy because it is at it's core religious belief upheld by the same nonsensical magical and superstitious belief of all supernatural based belief systems. While Western philosophy is fractious and composed of many beliefs that disagree with each other on the truth, in general they at least attempt to reason out how the world works through observation and deduction. This is why "Western" philosophy has in general even evolved from it's beginnings into specialized fields such as the social and hard sciences.

>>2189513
>I know nothing about western philosophy or buddhism: the post

>>2189487
Yeah I'm not too sure what you're saying. Is it just like other generic advice in that you're supposed to be happy doing good deeds?

>>2189727
Yes.

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>>2189774
Yeah I can't find that very inspiring. I guess I'll just continue to be an existentialist waiting for death to take me.

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>>2189885
Isn't waiting for wha's certain completely pointless? Why don't you just think about something that isn't the big bad universe being out to get you? Why can't you live without thinking of it as a struggle? Who do you want to beat anyway?

>>2190037
>Why don't you just think about something that isn't the big bad universe being out to get you? Why can't you live without thinking of it as a struggle? Who do you want to beat anyway?

I don't think the universe is "out to get me", I actually struggle to believe there could be any meaning.

And considering how depressed I've been for years, it's hard to not think of life as a struggle.

I used to hope there would be some sort of finish line where I would finally be content with life, but now I'm realizing there's no finish line besides death. Life is just one long grind and I don't know if I will ever be satisfied with life.

>>2190060
>I actually struggle to believe there could be any meaning.
What do you mean by meaning? Why do you need it?

>some sort of finish line where I would finally be content with life
What would you do once you reached that state? Why can't you do it now?

>>2189453
>how is practicing Buddhism supposed to make me happy
It's not, you make yourself happy. No Buddha or Guru does this on your behalf.

>life is shit
Sorta, there was some equivocating on Dukka earlier in the thread and in some others I was commenting in.

>>2189487
>in that you must pay attention to the karmic bonds you forge with others and must achieve merit so that you will have less bonds in the next life
This, though the merit bit makes some odd assumptions about the Pali canon, but w/e.

>>2190060
>I don't think the universe is "out to get me", I actually struggle to believe there could be any meaning.
Buddhism asserts that the universe is 'empty' of meaning (Sahaja, in the uncommon Mahayana, or conditional/non-arising). The image here is not the nihilistic lack of inherent meaning and more that 'things' are an empty vessel to fill with meaning; you can fill it with more sense attachments or you can fill it with compassion or you can leave it empty or any other variation.

>>2190160
>Why do you need it
^^^
harrisonfordwhogivesashit.gif

>>2175476
Paganism.

Once you realize the gods are representative of human, earthly, and universal forces you see how deeply esoteric it is. There's also all that stuff about living honorably, preserving the spirit of your ancestors, and respecting nature. The most based set of myths/faiths ever, all lost because some cucks wanted to do Jewish stuff instead.

>>2190209
>Paganism
I feel like that's a reduction of the Western esoteric systems since like 12/1300.

I mean, we have Lurianic Kabbalah and Rosicrucianism that make (some) parallel assertions to Buddhism.

To the anons who practice Buddhism what has your experience with and your opinion on Therevada it seems to get much less attention and adherents than other forms.

>>2190209
i agree with this anon, western paganism is pretty sweet

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>>2190209
>Paganism
get the fuck out of here with that contrarian LARP bullshit. Actual pagans venerated vengeance and homicide as the noblest deeds that a man could commit. All of their heroes like Achilles, Hercules, and Cú Chulainn were killers. The one divine creature who did something nice for the humans (Prometheus) was tortured for eternity because of it. Their divine pantheon lorded over humans like a fickle, capricious aristocracy and had no qualms about murdering, raping, and tormenting to their heart's desire.

The culmination of this culture was the Flavian Amphitheatre, better known as the coliseum, where entire ecosystems along with hordes of untried 'criminals' were fed to the cruel delight of the bored, jaded urban pagan poor.

Humans haven't thought this way in almost 2 millennium for good reason: it is a cultural artifact from a more violent, senseless age.

>>2190321
It is, but there's more Western esotericism than simply the Pagan traditions.

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>>2190334
Right, because "Stories of the Hebrew genocidal rampage and why genocide is okay when Yahweh says so for arbitrary and nonsensical reasons" is a much better moral guideline than "anger will destroy you and everyone around you, don't be like this guy".

>>2190334
>everything I don't like is larp
Middle/late Imperial State Religion =/= all of Paganism. Even to that point I highly doubt the Eleusinian Initiators included knowledge lectures on the virtue of homicide.

>>2190315
Theravada's great, I feel like it only gets less attention because of immigration patterns to the West.

>>2190361
Is it true its the least mystical of the main schools?

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>>2190334
>When -I- pretend to be an Eastern Orthodox monk on the internet, it's GENUINE SPIRITUALITY with APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION
>When anyone else takes moral lessons from their ancestral heritage, it's LARP
get stuffed cunt

>>2190371
That's a stretch; there's less running commentary on mysticism, imho. The Pali canon is the base phenomenology, where a lot of the Mahayana tradition is running commentary on personal and cultural manifestations of that phenomenology.

>>2190372
Every person is eager to denounce their ideological enemies.

>>2190315
>it seems to get much less attention and adherents than other forms

In the early days of the Western transmission sure, but that is changing quite a bit. Older folks are the ones practicing things like Indo-Tibetan forms of Buddhism. While younger folks are gravitating towards an eclectic secular Zen and Theravada. Zen is still in the lead though because it markets itself better as being secular and even effortless etc.

>>2190371
>Is it true its the least mystical of the main schools?

Not really, but for some reason there is this pop-meme that suggests otherwise. The Pali talk about literal flying skeletons, the Buddha teleporting and flying and a whole host of powers etc.

>>2190393
>93
>literal flying skeletons
Sutra? I must have missed that while jerkin' it to stories of Vangisa juggling human skulls.

sorry to drag a question about Indo-European paganism into a Buddhism thread but

If one was to partake in worship of the Vedic Hindu gods but reduce the "Indianness" of the Gods and focus on the esoterics and aspects of nature each Vedic deity represents would this come close to the theology of early Indo-Europeans? Or would it have been too corrupted by later Indian religious thought?

>>2190401
>If one was to partake in worship of the Vedic Hindu gods
K.

>reduce the "Indianness" of the Gods and focus on the esoterics and aspects of nature each Vedic deity represents
Um, to do this you need Vedic, Agamic, and Puranic sources, up to and including the Tantra which contains esoteric precepts through correlation correspondances and linguistic considerations like Kabbalistic indices.

>would this come close to the theology of early Indo-Europeans?
Probably not.

>Or would it have been too corrupted by later Indian religious thought?
It's my contention that the Vedas already exhibited large amounts of cultural synchretism. This becomes fairly clear when we look at our weak but existing reconstructions of what the nearby PIE cultures were doing in terms of religion.

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>>2190356
>Hebrew genocidal rampage and why genocide is okay when Yahweh says so for arbitrary and nonsensical reasons
>1Christ has liberated us to be free. Stand firma then and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.b 2Take note! I, Paul, tell you that if you get yourselves circumcised, Christ will not benefit you at all. 3Again I testify to every man who gets himself circumcised that he is obligated to keep the entire law. 4You who are trying to be •justified by the law are alienated from Christ; you have fallen from grace.c 5For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly waitd for the hopee of righteousness. 6For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision accomplishes anything; what matters is faithf working through love.g
>galatians 5:1
The modern western ethical tradition is built around the concept of the golden rule, this idea that we are all equals in the eyes of the divine. This is a stark difference from the pagans who believed that if you were wealthy and successful it was because the gods favored you and if not it was because you haven't been praying hard enough.

>"anger will destroy you and everyone around you, don't be like this guy".
Blind groping for a new moral compass in an age where Pax Romana had driven the original ethical ideals of the pagans into obsolescence. What ultimately killed their society was generals who literally thought that they were gods and waged bloody wars on their own countrymen trying to fulfill their destinies. This is the face of the last large scale pagan society in the west, and once Christianity was legalized it spread like wildfire through the pagan communities, with the archaeological record showing this happening as quickly as over the course of a single generation, even in the last pagan hold outs like Scandinavia.

>>2190393
Why is it referred to as the lesser vehicle then?

How have you found their meditative techniques compared to other schools ? Are they more effective?

Which school of Buddhism can best be done without a sangha?

>>2190419
>Middle Late Imperial Roman State Religoin =/= all of Pagandom

>>2190422
Posturing. Hinayana is actually a few shades more insulting than 'lesser'. That said individual text positions will vary between "they're fine" and "they fucked up".

The meditative techniques are, in my humble opinion, rather similar across schools though the form and trajectory will be a bit different. Tech X or Y are both oriented toward Z.

>Which school of Buddhism can best be done without a sangha?
Technically speaking? None. Even if you're flying solo you're still drawing from text sources that were compiled by and transmitted to you via the Buddhist community.

The Buddha prescribes practicing with the Sangha. There isn't much we can do to mitigate this.

>>2189453
>how is practicing Buddhism supposed to make me happy?

A simple gloss on one presentation: Basically the sense of being someone behind the eyes is a collection of products of perception (percepts), which at subtle level are concepts-taken-as-objects. Basically that sense of being is the bearer of the burden of anxiety, anger, selfishness etc., and the idea is that one can modulate one's experience in a way that puts an end to the arising and sustaining of percepts, therefore ending the sense of being. No bearer to bear said burden means no burden.

This leaves a raw sense-data stream that is panoramic, totally relaxed, and innately, completely satisfied. A total unity and completion. So panoramic that the sense of the center-periphery distinction greatly dissolves. This doesn't end one's capacity to recognize persons in the provisional sense, but the experiential illusion of beingness is gone. One doesn't experience a sense that "all is one", as that is still the tight grip of the phantasmagoria of being, but there is no typical sense an experiencer that is, an experience that is, and a thing to be experienced that is, moreover a sense of control is replaced with a kind of sapiential spontaneity.

As such typical happiness is actually seen to be a subtle stress of the delusion of being, and so rather the "great happiness" that is nibbana is a radical contentment and kaleidoscopic, spacious freedom.

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>>2190444
>>Middle Late Imperial Roman State Religoin =/= all of Pagandom
It was the last major pagan society that weren't a bunch of backwards mudhut savages on the borders of civilization. And every major "pagan" society since then has been a contrarian minority too small to even be recognized as a proper religion in the first age where calling yourself a "pagan" wouldn't have gotten you chased out of town by an angry mob.

>>2190459
>that sense of being is the bearer of the burden of anxiety, anger, selfishness etc., and the idea is that one can modulate one's experience in a way that puts an end to the arising and sustaining of percepts, therefore ending the sense of being.
Gosh that sounds like a lot of hard individual work, contemplation, and reflection.
;^)

>One doesn't experience a sense that "all is one"
Nondual experience is notoriously a huge bastard to describe in English.

I do, though, think "how will this make me happy" is an extremely Western approach to the system.

I don't wanna be happy. I want Liberation. If bliss is a side effect thereof, even better. But that's not (exactly) on my checklist of attainments (though lots on that checklist lead or contribute to happiness).

>>2182898
Yes, it does, thats the facts
Buddhism isn't an East Asian religion
inb4 nepal

>>2190473
In that first age 'Pagan' simply meant 'nonchristian', lifted from the Latin roughly equivalent to 'country bumpkin'.

But sure let's invalidate every culture or civilization after Rome's conversion that's not a part of that conversion as incomplete humans. Christianity is the only Real Religion™ because it says it is.

>>2190315
Theravada is mostly practiced in sri lanka where it was founded and south east asia, and it's less popular in the west because most immigrants from SEA are catholic filipinos and most sri lankans in the west are hindu tamil refugees, I think

Though it's more orthodox and conservative from what I can tell of it; Thais and Sinhalese Sri Lankans would probably consider nodding head smiling Buddha statues to be heretical

>>2190422
>Why is it referred to as the lesser vehicle then?

Because its intention is lesser in scope. The aim of the lesser vehicles is primarily to achieve individual freedom from samsara/existential lack.

The greater vehicle seeks to become fully enlightened for the sake of all sentient beings, with the last several stages going beyond personal salvation from samsara, and entail perfecting the qualities of great wisdom and great compassion to fully rise to the task of being capable and willing to lead sentient beings to nirvana for eternity.

>How have you found their meditative techniques compared to other schools ?

Modern Theravada techniques are either approximate reconstructions starting in the mid 19th century, catalyzed by European findings and interest, or simply made up very recently. Theravada went into a coma for the majority of Buddhist history and all living lineages were lost. The views most commonly held presently concerning the function and process of said techniques parts ways with what we know of early Theravada, and instead shares various features from other dead Hinayana/Nikayana traditions.

I am partial, for a variety of reasons, to the tried and true techniques passed down from the still living lineages of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, which stretch back many hundreds of years unbroken. These techniques and their lineages directly benefit from the history of Buddhism and its refining of thought and practice.

>Are they more effective?

To what end? The goals are actually distinct, but in general I have found Dzogchen methods to be the most effective and most profound, which is why they are considered the very pinnacle of Buddhism according to the Nyingma traditions of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.

>>2190422

>Which school of Buddhism can best be done without a sangha?

Buddhism would argue none, but then would whisper about how the texts and passed down methods are in fact the Sangha and its fruit and that one in a million can go all the way with just these and no physical Sangha.

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>>2190486
>country bumpkin'.
there's a reason for that. Because intelligent, educated people saw/see it for the throwback to our barbarous past that it is
> because it says it is.
No, because that's what the archaeological and demographic record shows.

Pagan civilization collapsed horribly. It's intellectual remnants do not contribute to wider society in any meaningful way beyond mere poetic license and new age mysticism. Very few people are actual, practicing pagans.

Face it, this language just does not speak to people the way that it used to. And face the fact that there are good reasons for it.

>>2190485
>nepal
I wouldn't really call Nepal "East Asian".

>>2190511
The meaning was
"It was founded India, inb4 no it was founded in Nepal"

>>2190506
>archaeological
This is gonna be awesome, please give me a paper published in an arcaheological journal that demonstrates that Christianity is the only true religion.

>>2190505
>the texts and passed down methods are in fact the Sangha
I mean, I don't think it needs whispered, it's the logical precedent for there being a tradition or body of text at all.

>>2190503
>Because its intention is lesser in scope
Well that's the nice clean philosophical reason but as mentioned the term 'lesser' used in the pejorative was rather more insulting than the English translation. Note I agree with this 'scope' interpretation but it's hard to skirt the intent.

>Dzogchen methods to be the most effective and most profound, which is why they are considered the very pinnacle of Buddhism according to the Nyingma traditions of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.
I'd agree but these interpretations are truly in the hands of practitioners. If someone hits Attainment outside of the Tibetan elaboration I can't really argue with that.

Like, Rinzai's the shit.

>approximate reconstructions
What's the deal w/Buddhism in like the Ayutthaya kingdom or did the 'coma' only come about after their collapse but before renewed Western interest?

>>2190514
OH.
Well, that shit's equivocation anyway, the south Nepal foothills have changed hands so many times it's goofy to try to attribute the transmission to either culture exclusively.

>>2190481
>Nondual experience is notoriously a huge bastard to describe in English.

Agreed, and this difficulty has also allowed people to too easily conflate different kinds of non-dual experiences and what is even meant by non-dual. The "non-dual" (advaya) in Buddhism and the "non-duality" (advaita), common in other traditions like Advaita Vedanta, are actually miles apart and mutually exclusive, but it takes some background to parse out how and to appreciate how critically important the distinction is.

For example the narrative of Gautama the monk pre-Buddha, when he was said to be studying under Alara Kalama and then Uddaka Ramaputta, resulted in him learning, mastering, and ultimately moving on and rejecting as the goal, two ultra-refined formless states of non-duality. In modern lingo they are sometimes referred to so the 7th and 8th jhana. Another example being the category of non-duality states called kun gzhi, which Dzogchen identifies as the most dangerous obstacle in the path of the advanced yogi.

While often the most powerful instances of states of advaita result in an incorrect view that mistakenly takes one's nature as ontological, transpersonal, homogenous, unconditioned existent and reduces all to a single substance that is self-existing. While contrariwise, the proper advaya is epistemic, personal (or perhaps metatranspersonal), heterogeneous and free from the extremes of existence and non-existence etc. It is insubstantial and so isn't an existent, and rather is merely the recognition that phenomena are free from dual extremes. It doesn't reduce anything and so is non-reductive, not leaving anything in its wake... there is nothing established in which or of which to be a part.

>>2190536
Buddhapalita cautions us: "We do not advocate non-existence. We simply remove claims that existents exist." Likewise in the other direction, Sakya Pandita cautions us that imagining anything "beyond" the freedom of extremes would also necessarily be an extreme and thus a cognitive error.

>>2190481
>I want Liberation.
Liberation from...?

>>2190536
>In modern lingo they are sometimes referred to so the 7th and 8th jhana. Another example being the category of non-duality states called kun gzhi, which Dzogchen identifies as the most dangerous obstacle in the path of the advanced yogi.
Could you explain more about these different types of non-duality?

>>2190444
Thanks for the response

>>2190503
>Modern Theravada techniques are either approximate reconstructions starting in the mid 19th century, catalyzed by European findings and interest, or simply made up very recently. Theravada went into a coma for the majority of Buddhist history and all living lineages were lost. The views most commonly held presently concerning the function and process of said techniques parts ways with what we know of early Theravada, and instead shares various features from other dead Hinayana/Nikayana traditions.

Can you expand on this a bit? I thought Theravada was the only school with continuity and was what East Orthodoxy is to Christianity with Buddhism. How could the group with the Pali Cannon from nearly 2000 years ago get so messed up.

>To what end? The goals are actually distinct, but in general I have found Dzogchen methods to be the most effective and most profound, which is why they are considered the very pinnacle of Buddhism according to the Nyingma traditions of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.

How does it compare to the other schools of Tibetan buddhism? What makes Tibetan Buddhism unique or special compared to the various Mayahana schools?

Is the book of the dead a good place to start?

>>2190536
>advaita
Moreover, Advaita appears mutually exclusive to the Tantric traditions as well, which Buddhism appears more comfortable with in terms of doctrine.

>"This doctrine does not lead to aversion, to absence of passion nor to quiescence for gaining knowledge, supreme wisdom and nibbāna , but only as far as the realm of Neither Perception nor Non-perception ... This is not the doctrine of the Undying that I long for."
Buddha's more or less correct here. I'd probably argue about the ellipses but that's likely an artifact of more or less orthodox nondualism anyhow. Also I wouldn't call it a rejection as much as I'd say it's an acknowledgement that states are beyond, need parsed, explored, and systematized in an ethical sense.

I could ramble all day about the distinction between Advaita and Uttara Kaula Trika but that's really beside the point.

>>2190528
>I mean, I don't think it needs whispered

I was being hyperbolic, sorry. Indeed the Buddha explicitly identifies himself with the suttas, but nonetheless virtually all the traditions openly advocate a physical teacher and connection to a physical sangha.


>Note I agree with this 'scope' interpretation but it's hard to skirt the intent.

I don't agree, early Western scholars and upset Hinayanists read intent into the issue that wasn't there.

Largely the viciousness of sectarianism throughout the history of Buddhism was actually very rarely long the lines of Hinayana/Mahayana.

Mahayana texts that speak poorly of Hinayana are not meant for anyone other than those following the Mahayana. Why? Because the whole idea was to keep people motivated in their undertaking of a much more difficult path. It is like speaking poorly of Masters degrees and those that hold them and less purely for the sake of motivating someone to finish their P.hD thesis.

Any other view runs into all sorts of weird contradictions and explicit violations of the secondary vows Mahayana regularly took, it also contradicts other sister texts which defend the Hinayana as authentic Dharma. It makes very little sense to think they systematized such a contradiction.

Prof. Jan Nattier is one of the leading authorities on this specific issue and is widely regarded in advanced Buddhology, I recommend you check out her work and presentations.

>>2190537
>beyond
Artifacts of language of movement. See: >>2176089

The Bodhisattva leaves to and returns from the pinnacle of attainment, while moving nowhere.

Abhinava, to his credit, appears to recognize the nondual as a base condition state rather than an explicit goal, emergent from conditioned forces, but we run into the same linguistic problems. In short the salvific mechanism in the Trika is less the nondual, which is means rather than end.

>>2190547
>Liberation from...?
The wheel of samsara.

>>2190528
>If someone hits Attainment outside of the Tibetan elaboration I can't really argue with that.

>Like, Rinzai's the shit.

Rinzai certainly takes steps to remedy the overemphasis on the sunyata aspect that Soto tends to stumble into.

I am not sure if you are saying that Rinzai holds attainments entirely unfamiliar to Tibetan elaboration or that it also allows the accomplishing of attainment. The former would very much surprise me and I would be quite skeptical, the latter is totally non-controversial and would be accepted in principle by all major Tibetan tradition I am aware of.

The differences they would argue would be an issue time efficiency rather than possibility. Nyingma would take a firmer stance on this than Kagyu, which places Chagchen and Dzogchen on the same level.

>>2190560
>Prof. Jan Nattier
Thanks for the recommendation, and again I did note that texts run from approval to disapproval above, I just think it's less easy to handwave because lack of systemization of the bias doesn't mean the bias isn't present in a handful of critical materials.

Again, I defer to the Masters. I'm barely qualified to even form an opinion.

>>2190531
yeah, and the historical definition of India as a region included Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc, regardless of modern borders

It'd be like claiming Alexander the Great was from FYROM

>>2190528
>What's the deal w/Buddhism in like the Ayutthaya kingdom

Theravada was in the coma, other Buddhist traditions continued to flourish. You could find an odd scattering of crude caricatures of Theravada at best, in all seriousness largely fortune telling and magic tricks.

Jhana was pretty much dead to this tradition, and the doctrine had wholly been consumed by decentralized folk traditions with no access to a sufficient pali texts to reestablish integrity. If your community monk happened to have some pages, it would be very rare that he could read the language. So they would typically pray to the texts and venerate them as quasi-stupas.

>>2190503
Didn't a copy of the original Pali canon and Theravada tradition survive in Sri Lanka after the Muslims destroyed Nalanda and the Hindus absorbed Buddhism in India?

>>2190595
That doesn't mean the practice was rigid and workable.

I truly don't know much about this period as demonstrated by needing >>2190584 to hand hold me.

I hear stories of seekers coming back from SE Asia who find temples that are only really interested in a couple coins in the coffer.

>>2190584
>So they would typically pray to the texts and venerate them as quasi-stupas.
That's NUTS.

>>2190607
Not entirely sure on everything myself, but;

>Sri Lanka has the longest continuous history of Buddhism of any Buddhist nation, with the Sangha having existed in a largely unbroken lineage since its introduction in the 3rd century BCE. During periods of decline, the Sri Lankan monastic lineage was revived through contact with Burma and Thailand.

>>2190547
>Could you explain more about these different types of non-duality?

Advaya and Advaita as terms are both often lazily translated as 'non-duality'. Advaya literally is "not two" and could be glossed as "not dual". It is basically an adjective and never referring to a thing in itself. Advaita is grammatically and semantically very different. It refers to an abstract notion of 'non-duality' (non-dual-ity, a-dva-<i>tA), and in nearly all usages is an abstract noun referring to a kind of thing, and furthermore that very thing in itself. Therefore, advaita means non-duality in the manner of being one single thing, it refers to a kind of monism. While with advaya there is no such implication, here "not two" doesn't necessarily mean "one". We see this play out in context. In Advaita Vedanta they explicitly believe in a real, truly existing state of 'non-duality', and constantly use the word advaita to indicate this. While Buddhism proper, which Advaita Vedanta has borrowed from liberally overly the centuries, completely rejects their position of monism and non-duality. In Buddhist texts we see the term advaya used almost exclusively and the proper translation held in both Chinese and Tibetan.

So what does non-dual (advaya) mean in Buddhism? Beyond 'one', beyond 'two'. Just the fact that all things arise in dependence and are therefore empty, free from all conceptual extremes (such as existing, not existing, infinite, finite, singularity, multiplicity, and so forth). It is of limited soteriological use on its own: by understanding that our existential lack, unpleasantness, and lack of awakening stems from not apprehending the non-dual nature of things, we can strive to overcome it. While emptiness, non-arising, and non-origination aren't views but cures for views, nonduality is just a view.

>>2190160
>What do you mean by meaning? Why do you need it?

I guess by "meaning" I just mean what people usually ask like "what's the meaning of life?", "does the universe have meaning?", "does our consciousness have a point" etc. My feelings are "There's probably no higher purpose to life beyond surviving and reproducing, but who cares?". So I wouldn't say I need a higher purpose or meaning.

>What would you do once you reached that state? Why can't you do it now?

If I reached a point where I was content and satisfied with life, I would want to maintain it at that state. I can't do it now cause I'm depressed, am never satisfied no matter how much my life improves, am unable to commit to important tasks (hence why I'm shitposting on 4chan), and have little confidence in myself.

>>2190190
>Buddhism asserts that the universe is 'empty' of meaning (Sahaja, in the uncommon Mahayana, or conditional/non-arising). The image here is not the nihilistic lack of inherent meaning and more that 'things' are an empty vessel to fill with meaning; you can fill it with more sense attachments or you can fill it with compassion or you can leave it empty or any other variation.

Can you elaborate? By "compassion", you mean good deeds towards others right? What's a "sense attachment"? What does it mean to "leave it empty" in this context?

>>2190190
>It's not, you make yourself happy. No Buddha or Guru does this on your behalf.

I didn't mean to imply that Buddha or a guru is supposed to make me happy. I mean if following the Noble Eightfold Path can make one content in their current life, or if it is only meant to end the cycle of rebirth.

>>2190459
>modulate one's experience in a way that puts an end to the arising and sustaining of percepts

So are you basically describing nibbana in your post or something else? What specific actions does one undertake to "modulate one's experience in a way that puts an end to the arising and sustaining of percepts"?

>>2190621
What blows me away is Advaita's insistence there can be a differentiation between pure and impure. They're cucked by their own Vedic orthodoxy.

>>2190635
Compassion is a broad term; yes, good deeds to others, notions of charity, but I feel like this runs deeper than most Christian contexts. In a lot of Protestantism you get work for work's sake while the Noble Eightfold Path emphasizes Right Livelihood, which while taking on a different connotation for monks, for laymen and householders this implies like actually orienting your very career into Service with a capital S.

>sense attachment
Pretty much what it sounds like, pleasure compulsions.

>leave it empty
Recognizing all the stuff referenced here: >>2190621

>>2190651
Means to nibbana, more like, perhaps 'sights along the way' in some Pali interpretations.

>what specific actions
Yoga, generally speaking. Guided meditational forms that are either reconstructed or passed down. These are necessarily diverse but condense to the LCD we could call it 'mindfulness'.

One of my favorite exercises is actually not Buddhist but produced in Buddhist yogic spirit, https://hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib16

>>2190632
Have you never been content in your entire life?

>>2190657
>the Noble Eightfold Path emphasizes Right Livelihood, which while taking on a different connotation for monks, for laymen and householders this implies like actually orienting your very career into Service with a capital S.

So I know the basics of the Noble Eightfold Path, but is there a place where I can read how to follow it in more detail?

>>2190684
I'm 25 this month, and I think the last time I had no complaints about my life and was completely confident in myself was elementary school

>>2190663
I'm looking at that link now, but where else can I learn how to do yoga and meditate?

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>>2190703
That's sad. I can relate. I was in a similar state until about 21. Then just reading on this kind of stuff made me see how lots of the things that depressed me either made no sense or weren't a cause for depression of themselves.

I think it's purely a matter of attittude Anon, to be honest. You can think of things differently. You can choose to take even the worst kind of think with good humor. You can not be led along by your conditions. If you set out to do it. You won't get out of it instantly, yes. Breaking your habits is difficult because they pretty much constitute what "you" are and pretty much everything in the world is pushing the other way and you'll often be alone. But it's also on you whether you take this to be easy or difficult. In some sense, you'll only get to where you will get, but pretending you know it already is as tyranizing as doing it to others. It's likely you haven't been very good to yourself either Anon. But please don't regret this too! Life is too big to either say it's all good or all bad with security. Simplicity is not something that's common. Nowadays depression rarely makes sense to me, but it does come from time to time; it's likely some of my down times have been worse than they were before. But these four years have been the most beutiful and happy in my life. I wouldn't take one second from my bad years. They're as much mine as these moments are. I've smiled directly at complete defeat. But still, suffering isn't something anyone should go through. At times my childhood comes back to my memory more pleasing than it was.

I wish you luck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam

i was reborn last christmas and i am in incredible danger, this is not a hoax, i need this message to be spread as far and as wide as possible, the water needs to be released from the three gorges dam and set the earth back on its natural rotation, please believe and trust in me. If anonymous or the russians are listening or watching, I'm angel 222 and i need all the belief and help i can get, i need this message to be spread wide and far, please trust in me and share this message. This is not a hoax.

>>2190550
>I thought Theravada was the only school with continuity and was what East Orthodoxy is to Christianity with Buddhism.

A legend perpetuated by Theravada. Early Theravadans tried to write themselves back earlier into history by claiming they were the Sthaviras. This legend reemerged with the new state-backed Theravadans emerged starting in the late 1800s. This was a crucial component to establishing a national identity connecting citizens to antiquity, which was a primary aim of the state.

>How could the group with the Pali Cannon from nearly 2000 years ago get so messed up.

The Theravada tripitaka wasn't the earliest and was a gradual dynamic work with many synthetic components to it that simply cannot have any plausible relationship to the earliest Cannons. The Satipatthana Sutta is the token example due the most synthetic version being the most influential and most cherished in nearly every present-day Theravada sect.

The earliest fully recovered Theravada tripitaka dates to the mid 19th century. Its rediscovery by Europeans lead to the new 'Theravada' lineages we have today. Earlier than that we have a handful of partial Theravada texts dating to the 15th and the earliest is a badly damaged scrap from 9th century Nepal.

So not only does the present group have no relation to the one long ago, but the one long ago was relatively late on the scene when something like 10-15 other Buddhist schools already existed.

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People who love Dzogchen and other ''''''''''true nature'''''''''''''''' fail to see that there is no pure state which then becomes tainted which then becomes pure again. Once you see the dhamma, you do not lose it and it is just plain stupid to claim that you can go back to an impure state

>>2190915
Jesus anon your pic hits too close to home

>>2190741
Thanks for your advice anon, you've given me a lot to think about. I wish you the best of luck too.

>>2190550
>How does it compare to the other schools of Tibetan buddhism?

It is easily has the most unique features, both in terms of theory and technique, among all Tibetan schools and has a special place in Tibetan history with many of the most interesting figures throughout the country's history being involved. It was heavily suppressed by the Gelug, Tibetan medicine and its radical innovations over Indian subtle-anatomy stem from it, and Bon is based on it. The bardo model as is found in every tradition comes from it. It was the pinnacle system coming from the first of the two major dharma transmissions to Tibet.

It critiqued other approaches and presents very thorough critiques of the systems of tantra while pushing the boundaries and providing a tantrayana system so unique that some consider a third path in its own right (a path of spontaneous liberation, with the other two being path of transformation normal tantra and the path of renunciation for the Sutrayana schools).

>>2190550
>What makes Tibetan Buddhism unique or special compared to the various Mayahana schools?

It became the single best repository for early Indian Mahayana and Vajrayana. Indians were abandoning most of Buddhism and the Tibetans brought it in with open arms. Tibetans sought great translations and built an early, high-quality compilations of texts (unlike the poor translations that largely founded early East-Asian forms of Buddhism, for better or worse) and actively imported great masters from the larger Indian area to teach them Buddhism and translate texts from Sanskrit to a new Tibetan system of writing. The quality of these translations and early teachers set everything in motion.

So much of Tibetan society and culture was gradually built around the study and practice of Buddhism, and to a really unprecedented extent that isn't really shared elsewhere.

Many of the best and brightest for generations joined the study, and the culture tacitly encouraged them to push their practice extremely far. So eventually, despite their deep reverence for early Indian Buddhist masters, some truly fantastic innovations were had that in my opinion brought Buddhism to unparalleled heights.


>Is the book of the dead a good place to start?

Not at all. The Tibetans initially thought they were working with scholars for the sake of preservation, and then boom the translation starts being sold in the West. Many of those texts were traditionally kept private and were not intended for public consumption, many are self-secret and written to obscure the meaning unless one is given verbal instructions. There are some gems in it if you are naturally drawn to Dzogchen, but worth waiting until at least you have some background and can begin to appreciate the entendres.

>>2190551
>Moreover, Advaita appears mutually exclusive to the Tantric traditions as well

Without question. Even though it shares some shared ideas with Chagchen and Dzogchen regarding the general ideas of a basis and recognizing the original condition of said basis.

>>2190565
>Abhinava, to his credit, appears to recognize

I would hope so considering the schools of thought that heavily influenced him.

>>2190573
>doesn't mean the bias isn't present in a handful of critical materials.

The bias isn't in question and needs no handwaving. The issue is in intent as you mentioned. My contention is that we have good reasons to believe that the authors were quite self-aware of this bias and (rightfully) considered it upaya rather than something maliciously petty as is commonly suggested by present-day Nikayana adherents.

>>2190595
>Didn't a copy of the original Pali canon and Theravada tradition survive in Sri Lanka

The most complete version of the Theravada tripitaka was indeed found in Sri Lanka, but it dates to well after the events in question and it isn't plausibly a copy of some original canon. The earliest extant texts (by a long shot) are non-Theravada. Most are still from Nikayana traditions, but the earliest thus far is a Mahayana text.

>>2190611
This is exactly a product of the fabrication of a national identity extending to antiquity that I have mentioned a few times. It is a legend. There is no evidence for a continuous lineage, let alone a Theravada presence at all for very long periods of time. Rather you have evidence of fluctuating Nikayana and Mahayana activity.

>>2190651
>So are you basically describing nibbana

More or less, depending on how much precision you are will to trade for brevity/an introduction.

It would require a lot more detail and distinguishing it from imitation states to pass muster for a yogi with an eye for doctrinal clarity, but it does answer the initial question and probably can be pragmatically considered describing the liberation from existential lack/mental unpleasantness.

>>2190651
>What specific actions does one undertake to "modulate one's experience in a way that puts an end to the arising and sustaining of percepts"?

That depends on one's capacity as well as one's diligence for practice. The lower end is gradual and more indirect, the higher end is far more sudden and direct (and eventually non-deliberate). The rules and methods of operation change as capacity and diligence increases. A basic example being that so many introductory and intermediate practices are centered around forms of applied mindfulness/attention, while typically more advanced practices directly allow the sudden dissolving of mindfulness/attention to get to much simpler modes of consciousness.

Generally you would follow a path. One might for example start by practicing mindfulness of breath until there is feedback indicative of sufficient malleability of attention and the capacity to sustain willed attention for long periods of time.

Then you would use that refined attention to now carefully examine, probe, and investigate various aspects of experience to particular ends. So you might try to isolate the exact position or character of the sense of being, only to find that it can't be pinpointed. You do this again and again until consciousness becomes exhausted and sort of shifts in perspective, where it gives up and no longer senses such a being, analogous to looking through a window and suddenly shifting perspective and seeing your reflection. Something like 'without paying attention to the view, locate the viewer', without paying attention to the feeling, locate the feeler, without paying attention to the meditation, locate the meditator, without paying attention to the attainment, locate the attainer'. This coupled with analysis eventually collapses the house of cards and the peripheral sense of being some ghost in a machine ends.

More directly: find a authentic Dzogchen master, receive direct introduction, then practice trekchö.

>>2190961
>. There are some gems in it if you are naturally drawn to Dzogchen, but worth waiting until at least you have some background and can begin to appreciate the entendres.

What starting works would you suggest?

Also why did the Indians abandon Buddhism so much?

>>2190915
>People who love Dzogchen and other ''''''''''true nature'''''''''''''''' fail to see that there is no pure state which then becomes tainted which then becomes pure again.

What are you on about? That is Dzogchen 101. Semde Dzogchen establishes this in no uncertain terms. The issue is that there is a distinction between that and the reality on the ground as experienced as an individual.

In other words there is a distinction between Dzogchen and a Dzogchenpa. If there wasn't then there wouldn't even be a process of "seeing it" and no "once you have seen it", as you put it. As such you are implicitly utilizing this distinction.

From here we realize that what is being discussed is a yet-to-be-realized theoretical basis which is distinct from the actual basis "seen". To confuse the two is to allow an intellectual view to cannibalize the path, it is just pure intellectualism that has no bearing on the heart of the matter. This is why later series call out Semde for being for the intellectual, rather than the yogi.

>Once you see the dhamma, you do not lose it

There is a difference between 'not losing it' or it not 'becoming tainted' and you not having unalternating direct non-conceptual knowledge of the dhamma.

>dhamma

Please define exactly what you mean by this.

>it is just plain stupid to claim

Not an argument.

>>2191079
>What starting works would you suggest?

For Dzogchen it is rooted heavily in a living lineage and having a root guru (someone who gave you direct introduction).

So you should start with something preliminary while you seek out a direct introduction from a qualified master. Chögyal Namkhai Norbu is one of the great living Dzogchen masters and live-streams a few world-wide transmissions a year open to the public.

http://webcast.dzogchen.net/ The next one will probably be sometimes over the next 3 months.


Until then work through Stilling the Mind: Shamatha Teachings from Dudjom Lingpa's Vajra Essence by Alan Wallace. After the transmission pick up the Dzogchen Community's book on Guruyoga and practice the White A and Thigle practice until you can practice Trekchö directly without supports.
>Also why did the Indians abandon Buddhism so much?

The Buddhist historical narrative suggests it had at least something to do with Nagarjuna and people misunderstanding the more explicit not-self stance that early Mahayana was taking as a result. He stressed the difference between not-self and not-not-self, but people thought the latter was the Buddhist position.

In reality a lot more of it was probably happenstance coupled with politically ambitious Brahmins pulling clan favors to push in favor of the classism of the Vedas. Buddhism and Jainism contributed to Hinduism becoming a loose unity in that various traditions viewed them as "outsider" and a common foe and so raised the same banner against them.

>>2191079
>Also why did the Indians abandon Buddhism so much?
Ordinary people saw that Buddhism was too confusing. Certain religious denominations exploited that and called Buddhism "elitist" which excludes the ordinary people. There's also the Hun invasions, the Muslim invasions, the local wars, and Muslims targeting Buddhist monasteries/universities to destroy the head of Buddhist foundation, the monks/sangha.

>>2191123
thanks anon

any views on Zen, a few anons on her seemed to crack it really hard.

>>2175476

I think Vedanta is superior to Buddhism, though Buddhism has a lot of redpills that are hard to swallow. Though I have always been partial to Platonic thought, since it is the school of thought that the West has unfortunately strayed from today (with some remnants in protestantism), though Kant "resurrected" it without all of the spiritual overtones.

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So can anyone here redpill me on what kind of deity Dorje Shugden is and why the Dalai Lama told its worshippers not to meet with him? Do Dorje Shugden worshippers have legit reasons to be pissed at the Dalai Lama, or are they exaggerating their "persecution" and are basically Chinese pawns?

>>2191916
>Chinese pawns
Yes.
>exaggerating their persecution
Yes. Mainly western Buddhist mixed with Chinese money and minor legitimate worshipers.
>Have legit reasons to be pissed at Dalai Lama
Yes. Historical.

>>2191933
What are the historical reasons exactly? And do you also mean they have no good reason to be pissed at the current Dalai Lama?

>>2191582
>Vedanta
As in Advaita Vedanta? As me and the really well educated dude above were ranting about I really feel the nondual system as posited by Advaita can't pull it's own weight compared to the non-Puranic Tantra schools.

>>2191916
It's a really really long and complex story.
Dorje Shugden was proclaimed as a dharma protector by a past Dalai Lama.
This led to the establishment of a Shugden oracle, who gives advice and prophecy. This oracle was one of the people who told the current Dalai Lama to GTFO of Tibet or he'd forfeit his life. They went with him.

SOMETIME between that point and a handful of years later, a number of Shugden worshipers had been indoctrinated into ChiCom sentiments. The current Dalai Lama is under the impression, again due to more oracle consultation, that this faction could threaten his life.

This is all rather contentious. One of the largest pro-Shugden groups (the people protesting in your pic) have verifiable ties to the PRC. On the other hand the prohibition has really not set well with practitioners with little ideological affiliation but who still rest within the Tibetan schools.

I'd say that "legit reasons" would greatly depend on the individual practitioner. If they're affiliated with a PRC funded advocacy group? Probably not. An unaffiliated no-name monk inside a traditional school and was initiated to Shugden before things went really really really haywire and is now being told 'no'? Maybe a bit more, but then it becomes a matter of fealty...you've sworn yourself into a school with a line of temporal authority of proclaimed doctrine not unlike more traditional Christian bodies...where do your loyalties lie? With the Saint that's in hot water with the highest temporal authority? Or the temporal authority?