Why aren't you a Buddhist, anon?
Many of you wallow in self hate and doubt, wishing that life were better, wishing you had a girlfriend (or friend in general), wishing for this or that.
I think it's worth looking into. It can't hurt.
But how do I start, op
Buddhism is idiotic. It stands on the premise that if you have no aspirations and are content with what you have, you will be happy. However, the byproduct is that this produces useless, self-content idiots; happy but also trash; people that lecture others while bringing nothing for the greater good.
Fuck buddhism.
>>29962793
Abandon fear of death
Abandon desire of material good in life
Death is the end, but its a natural end. Its the way it will be no matter what. Accept and meet it.
Life is not a comparison of wealth or status among your peers. Life is preparation for death. Life is entering non becoming and achieving calm and peace.
Im not even a bhiddist. All that thou shalt not kill stuff
>>29962845
I just don't really know how to apply the teachings to my life
>>29962793
Not OP but it starts with the Noble Truths.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths
You should know that there is no way to be an "armchair Buddhist." You can't go to service every Sunday and then check the box that you're going to heaven for another week. The goal Buddhist practice is a state of mind that takes time and effort to attain and sustain. So it's much more difficult. I say this as a former Christian myself. But although it's more difficult, it's also much more exciting, because virtualy every moment in your life is an opportunity for your training.
>>29962836
For the most part it's more about reshaping your perception of is happening than actually changing your behavior (obviously excluding cases where you're clearly harming others). You don't have to go full ascetic if you don't want to.
Also you don't sound like you've thought very hard about your conception of what makes people beneath others, as well as your notion what the greater good actually is. Read ecclesiastes my nigga.
>>29962910
I disagree. It seems to me that Buddhism, if it is practiced in such a way as to benefit others and not just yourself, is a very action-oriented religion. A Western scholar name of Stephen Batchelor explains this in great detail in his book, Buddhism Without Beliefs
>>29962617
I take a lot from some buddhist ideas but I'm just not into the 'love all life' thing. Maybe that's what makes normies happy but I don't feel it.
>>29962978
Ya agreed. I wasn't clear - was mostly responding to that dudes idea that buddhism become some sorta bums.
Who needs Buddhism when you have existential philosophies?
None of its teachings really make any sense. I tried to read up on it and different writings kept contradicting each other. I don't really understand what Buddhists mean when they say "the self doesn't exist". Why would we have to escape samsara if we don't even exist to escape from it in the first place? Some people said that Enlightenment was the realization of the self, which brought it into existence, but other people disagreed with them and the two groups started beating each other up and causing property damage. I don't think most Buddhists really understand most of the teachings.
One of the most serious sins, according to Buddhism, is to split up the Buddhist community. Well, a lot of people must be burning in the deepest dungeons of naraka, because there's a billion splinter groups within Buddhism. Most of the core teachings of these different schools were made up long, long after Buddha had died. Early Buddhism was nothing like any strains of modern Buddhism, but it's pretty much lost to history because over the ages Buddhist monks just started making shit up and putting it into the holy books, saying Buddha said it.
>>29962617
>Why aren't you a Buddhist, anon?
Because im not a nihilist.
Suffering is part of life, and gives it flavor.
Its easy to empty yourself and give yourself to chaos.
Order requires effort, pain, and discipline.
>>29962910
>>For the most part it's more about reshaping your perception of is happening than actually changing your behavior
That's what makes it seem like bullshit to me. If Steve Jobs could become a buddhist and still act like Steve Jobs, then it's a worthless philosophy. A true religion would produce real changes in its followers, not just allow them to do whatever they were already doing before while feeling slightly different about it.
>>29963110
I don't think that's quite the Buddhist concept of "suffering." You can give effort and develop discipline and, yes, even feel pain as a Buddhist. In fact, as a Buddhist you should be giving your full attention to your pain. It's the desire to run away or escape your pain that is, I think, the Buddhist interpretation of suffering--it's the suffering born of desire, of wanting to be somewhere other than this moment, in which your pain occurs.
>>29963165
What about pain from the ego?
>>29963201
Could you be more specific, senpai?
>>29963148
You change your perceptions and then your action changes because you want different things.
>>29963105
You know how, when you empathize with a person, you experience not just how you feel but also how the other person feels? You usually think that your Self just includes how you feel, but when you empathize, you also feel how another person feels, and in that sense you've included them in your Self. Well imagine extending that empathy, from just one other person, to multiple people, to everyone you've ever know, to everyone alive and finally to everything in existence? Your Self grows according - by the end of ita growth, what is it? If it includes everything, it's inseperable from the rest of the universe and thus it doesn't exactly exist as a separate thing anymore.
>>29962836
The progress spook is wedged into your brain reallllll tight.
>>29963256
>>You change your perceptions and then your action changes because you want different things.
His actions didn't change though. What a shitty reply.
>>29963282
>>29963282
>his
Meaning Steve jobs? Nigga if you think that guy was meaningfully a buddhist. much less whether some random dude can invalidate a couple thousand year old religious tradition that has included way more than just Steve fucking jobs, you're really fucking dumb.
>>29963311
No true buddhist
>>29962617
>Why aren't you a Buddhist, anon?
Buddhists are stupid. Nothing they say make any sense, and spewing nonsensical and contradictory wordsalads is seen as "wisdom" in the buddhist community.
Fuck buddhism. It's anti-logic.
Because the cross is better than the circle
![hipster-haircuts-for-women9[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/wa3rz5M.jpg "hipster-haircuts-for-women9[1].jpg")
I'm not religious but I am spiritual
>>29963346
Opposing Buddhism or any religion for that matter on the grounds of logic is frankly stupid because theology is inherently illogical. The miracles of God or Allah or reincarnation defy explanation. Christianity too is anti-logic. The same argument can be made that anti theism is anti-logic. There's a lot wrong with Buddhism but it's lack of logic isn't a flaw.
Buddhism sucks. I want things, it's part of what makes me human. I'm not going to sacrifice my humanity for anything or anyone.
>>29962836
Thats not what it means. and its not that easy.
You're saying at the essence we just dont need to try anymore and should be content with being mediocre. You don't need a religion for that, its called being a manchild.
>>29963438
>it's part of what makes me human
No, your DNA makes you human. Wanting things is what you think makes you a person.
>>29963423
So you're basically saying it's OK because others are doing it? That's stupid.
Mindfulness meditation is completely secular and will completely transform your relationship with "yourself" and reality to the extent that most people seem completely insane.
Most people wander around listening to the voices in their head and identifying with them! Madness!
When you see that you can step away from any thought, life becomes a meme.
Buddhism is like medicine. A little will cure you and an overdose will kill "you."
>>29962845
But op, I'very already accepted death. Nothing pleases me anymore. Yet I'm still unhappy.
>>29962617
If only getting rid of desire was so easy, anon.
>>29963346
How is it illogical?
>Life is suffering
>It is suffering because we, as humans, constantly want things to be different than they are, to a fault
>You can, however, be free of suffering by prevailing over the desirious state of mind mentioned above
>If you need help doing this, the Buddha has some great ideas about it, like meditating, selfless action...
In the Four Truths alone you have the problem, the origin of the problem, the solution, and the means of realizing the solution. Illogical, really?
>>29963562
I'm not saying ALL of buddhism is bad. Pic related is what I mean when I say "nonsensical and contradictory wordsalads". This shit really pisses me off. Eckhart Tolle may not be exactly a "buddhist", but you hear a lot of buddhists spewing similar crap.
>>29962836
Not really, Buddhism is just a descendant of Hinduism. It believes that life is suffering and the only way to escape the circle of reincarnation is through enlightenment by severing your attachments to the physical world.
>>29963562
If you just ignored all desires you'd lie down and starve to death, so it seems like the life of a buddhist would be spent constantly deciding which desires to listen to and which ones to ignore, rather than actually ignoring all desire
And that sounds gay
>>29963469
No that's not what I'm saying. Take Catholicism, they're called divine mysteries for a reason. Logic cannot be applied so religion defies logic. Therefore using logic as an argument against a religion is stupid because of course it will defy logic but that doesn't mean it's wrong.
>>29963631
Not defending that particular quote, but religions often express concepts in language like this because the concepts can't be expressed very easily in simple, literal language. Just because something is unambiguous and made of simple expressions doesn't make it any close to the truth; if that were the case, there'd be no difference between a poem and a summary of the contents of that poem.
>>29963562
It's kind of shitty because it completely denigrates life, much more than even Christianity. At least in Christianity, God created the world and "it was good." There is no impetus in Buddhism to improve Earthly conditions or innovate whatsoever. Buddhist culture would never generate a great inventor or scientist who would alleviate actual suffering with vaccinations. It is a deeply pessimistic and passive religion.
In Buddhism all non-nibbana experience is regarded as dukkha and even the most heavenly experiences are regarded as undesirable. Monks either live in utterly deplorable dogshit conditions or are hypocrites.
There's a pretty disgusting hierarchy that goes on at monasteries where abbots and senior monks get "first pick" of all the donated swag and live like kings compared to the dirty underling monks. There's also issues with kiddie fiddling and all the other decadance and perversion that goes on in other religions.
The peasants till the fields and do bonebreaking labor while the "holy" men sit in their palace on the hill. The institutions of Buddhism are just another scam a lot of the time.
>>29963666
A bether way to phrase it is that people cling to impermanent mental states instead of detaching themselves a bit. You could think of it like it's the same thing you learn when you mature enough that you can control your emotions during adolescence, taken to its logical conclusion.
>>29963631
You should read everything you can about Zen. I think you'd really dig it.
buddhism is as shitty as any religion, don't listen to roasties with yoga mats repeating phrases they saw on pinterest
>>29963795
>>roasties with yoga mats repeating phrases they saw on pinterest
kek, best summary of buddhism I've ever seen
>>29963751
Zen is best girl
Yin yoga is best yoga
And fuck you, other guy, I ain't no roastie
>>29962617
>erase your ego and desire to achieve happiness
>literally lobotomizing yourself
>>29963262
Progress is a natural process of struggling to survive. If you are a hunter-gatherer, you want to kill prey more efficiently. If you are a farmer you want to produce more for the same amount of labor. Thus you need to progress your skills and technology to achieve these things.
>>29962617
I want to die
die
die
die
>>29963676
>of course it will defy logic but that doesn't mean it's wrong.
Uh... yes it does. If it defies logic it's wrong.
