>tfw I'm a backslided Christian who's considering

meditate regardless of what you do eventually.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/9avnnk9e5180bon/Meditation.zip
http://www.meditationexpert.com/ebok/howtomeditate.pdf

>>9894093
I have the Headspace app. What do you think of it?

>>9894018
I'm in a somewhat similar situation
I'm not an atheist and I know what I belive but I'm unsure where to go with my faith

born and raised Catholic, still have a lingering appreciation/loyalty to it and Christianity in general I can't shake; anyone who comes from a strong catholic family would understand.
on the other hand I've read enough and am aware enough of the major issues with Christianity which nagg me, mainly the slavishness of it in some respects.
more than Christianity I appreciate Greek and Roman thought, but becoming a Hellenic pagan just seems incredibly silly to me.

I like in asia now so Buddhism is everywhere and I've had time to read a lot on it, while I appreciate it immensely it just seems to lack the same level of conviction in my view that Catholicism has. there does't seem to be that feeling of "rapture". thus far I've always treated Buddhist beliefs and practices as more of an addendum to my Catholic faith, though calling myself a proper catholic would be a lie.

Orthodoxy has always interested me, I read a bit about it while learning Greek in uni but I never went far with the language and thus not with Orthodoxy either.

really I have no idea where to go, I've thought about heathenry as well but again it seems so artificial for me

>>9894018
id say thats a step down anon
christ died for his beliefs
buddah would barely tell his followers anything, mostly just sat under a tree. and the buddha wasnt a buddhist, neither was christ a christian. oh shoot, ve said too much already

>>9894107
Not familiar with that. I do have and occasionally use the Soundmind program, but to be honest, you'd be better off actually learning how to do these things for yourself and the audio pack above will help you do just that.

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I was raised Christian and wandered away into Buddhism (not religious Buddhism). I meditate and consider this world to be an illusion. It works for me.

>>9894176
What is the basis of "the world is an illusion"?

>>9894321
religious belief

>>9894160
have you even seen that fat stacks of literature that are meant to be the buddahs sayings you dolt

>>9894116
>the one true faith is surely the one which appeals to my own personal idiosyncrasies and emotions

>>9894018
You'll be called new age and be made fun of. Lots of white people do it but they're generally the "nu-male" type.
I went to a Buddhist temple for a short while and I'm pretty embarrassed about it. I left because I felt that they were too anti confrontation and were using Buddhist belief to justify their spinelessness.

Not all temples are the same though and I was mainly turned off by the people and not the belief. I would definitely recommend exploring a bit but don't feel like you have to 'convert' really suddenly or all at once.

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>>9894522
well its not like I don't consider myself a Catholic.
I'm just unsure.
my gut tells me Christianity but this may be due to the cultural atmosphere I grew up with and was born into.
and even then, Christianity is massive and diverse as hell
I always lean more towards mystic practices which is why Orthodoxy appeals to me from what I've read on it

as I said I live in Asia currently and have direct access to Buddhist temples and monks which I've taken advantage of. I do really appreciate it but I'm unsure if I could go all the way and abandon Christianity.

not religious but I wouldn't think its healthy to just jump from religion to religion. something you'd have to do a lot of soul searching on. I'm lead to believe that crisis of faith come and go. It would suck if this crisis is temporary and you've now got all this baggage about ditching your faith etc.

>>9894522
Lol roasted, what kind of pleb isn't a disembodied logos with objective knowledge of reality?

>>9895133
That is pleb but people here are always talking about about religion like there shopping for clothes or something.
>This doctrine offends me, this one makes me look like a cuck, this one has bad aesthetics
Theres often no actual reasoning or soul searching it almost seems like its about how other will view them

>>9894018
I've never once seen a Buddhist argument for why we should not just kill ourselves. They usually just resort to the old "but killing is wrong bro" spook

It seems to me if one chooses to live you are choosing to desire, to be hysterical and to be attached.
What Buddhists propose is just an inferior form of damage control, contrary to their own logic

>>9894018
Converting means nothing. You either genuinely believe in something or you don't.

>>9895181
i guess you'll just go too buddhist hell but wont be more enlightened

>>9895181
Bad karma, you'll get reborn and it won't fix anything, and as the Buddha found self flagellation doesn't fix anything.

>>9895110
Read anything you liked?

>>9895234
I'm being generous and talking about the more sophisticated Westernized buddhism not that mystic man magic bullshit

>>9895306
>sophisticated
Its just a western atheist corruption of an eastern religion and the reason they cant answer your question is because their half baked new age reinterpretation is retarded and not internally consist

>>9895181
it's because buddhism believes in literal reincarnation, no matter what these buddhists try to calim about "hurr no it's 'rebirth' ", no the buddha actually believed in past lives and future lives, he even talked about dreaming about past literal past lives, he grew up in the hindu tradition

the idea with buddhism is samsara (the cycle of birth and rebirth) is so bad that one must try to entirely escape the whole thing, by autisming your mind so hard it never becomes a new lifetime

you shouldn't 'just' kill yourslef because you'll simply be born (according to buddhism) in a new lifetime, ad probably in a lower form on this earth, or in one of the lower realms.

although saying that the buddha did say that some suicides were okay, that ofpeople who have reached enlightenment already. basically his view was suicide is pointless because you;ll just have to do another lifetime ina lower form, BUT if you are enlightened then it might be okay to suicide because you wont be reborn

of course if the buddha were born within the modern scientific doxa where we don't believe in reincarnation, then he would simply have killed himself to avoid suffering, and acheive the nirvana (to blow out, like a candle, to end) he was after so much. nirvana is nothing other than atheistic death

>>9894018

Read the Dhammapada

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>>9895246
pic related on recommendation from here

>>9895181
The urge for annihilation is just another form of thirst for becoming, it must be let go just like other unhealthy urges.

>>9895394
That doesn't make any fucking sense.
I know Buddhists aren't the brightest lights in the ballpark at the best of times but stop making them look dumb by talking shit

>>9895401

read some sutras

>>9895405
Read my asshole fuckwit

>>9895401
silly fucker. can't even begin to grasp basic concepts. back to your magic sky man, mental semite.

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>>9895416
Gladly

Buddha bashing is the one of the only thing Freddy was good for

>>9894018
>considering converting to Buddhism
How about sit on it for at least 10 years.

>>9894018
Walk the lines shared by all religions to truly see.

Buddhist here. You don't have to convert to the religion of Buddhism to be one. Ours is less a religion than a living philosophy of peace and understanding as well as a certain amount of mental and physical enlightenment through meditation and fitness.

>>9895343
You need to not post until you know what you're talking about.

>>9896115
>hurr knowing enough = agreeing with me

He clearly has a thorough knowledge of Buddhism to be speaking on the subject, if you don't like his conclusions tough shit

>>9896106

Me too, though you can strictly speaking be accepted into refuge of Buddhism through a monk. Or even by self-initiation :

"All you need is to have an earnest, sincere mind, repent your transgressions before your home altar for seven consecutive days and express the wish to receive the precepts by yourself. On the seventh day, you should kneel before a Buddha image and say aloud:

“Your disciple, by the name of [x], vows to receive the five precepts and fulfill the obligations of a laywoman. I vow that for the rest of my life, I will not take the lives of sentient beings, steal, indulge in sexual misconduct, lie or take intoxicants.”

Repeating these vows three times constitutes receiving the precepts. The most important thing is to do so in an utterly sincere frame of mind – in which case, the benefits and virtues of receiving the precepts are the same whether you do so by yourself or through a monk or nun." (Patriarch Yin Kuang)


OP, avoid secular buddhism, it's a western corruption of the Dharma.

>>9896128
No, he doesn't. He has described Buddhism as a patient suicide when it's more like a peaceful annihilation of the individual mind. There's a major difference. One's an escape and the other an acceptance.

>>9896206
Thats simply your own interpretive description of the same process. How is suicide not be called the ultimate act of acceptance?

ZOROASTRIANISM IS THE TRUE ORIGINAL PATH

>>9896217
Because it is ultimately an act of the ego rejecting reality. It is not peaceful or accepting, it is violent.

>>9896253
Thats nonsensical, death is part of reality. Suicide can be a peaceful acceptance of it. Its simply the logical means towards the minimization of suffering which any Buddhist strives for

>>9896268
You should probably read up on Buddhism before jumping to your so called "logical" conclusions.

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>>9896271
>if you read what I read then you'd agree with me

>>9896268

No, they will simply be reborn.

>"Do not think, furthermore, that to commit suicide is to free yourself of the cares and worries of this life! Once dead, your soul will be led away by the power of karma to be reborn in another body".

Categorically incorrect in the context of the Buddhist dharma.

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>>9896293
>No, they will simply be reborn.

>>9896217
You're projecting your own insecurities. The ultimate acceptance is to live under the solitary motive of love. Suicide is not an acceptance. It is either a duty or an ignorance. The only acceptance in honorless suicide is of one's own lack in faith of themselves.

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>>9896329
Now you just sound a normie, surprised you haven't said just b urself. What a crock of shit

>>9896337
I'd say it, but I know that you have no idea who you really are. So it wouldn't matter, and you'd be your own mockery.

>>9896357
Yeah yeah, go suck a big fat cock reddit. There's no need for your pretentious anti-intellectual drivel here

>>9896374
One of us is actually saying anything. To be funny, I'll let you decide who it is.

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>not raised Christian because my not very religious parents felt like "I should decide on my own"
>read the Bible and feel like I like Christianity and the cultural aspect of it all
I'm not baptized, but I would like to be
This is problematic because I'm not sure how to go about that, especially since I sort of feel myself drawn to Orthodox Christianity

Please someone shake me out of it or tell me what to do so I don't act like a fucking retard and do dumb shit
I'm just a simple minded idiot

>>9896404
There are no decisions that need to be made, simply trust what you know as true through reason and let your works in the Spirit prove your faith.