Buddhism Thread: Bitch I just told you about kshitigarbha

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Buddhism Thread: Bitch I just told you about kshitigarbha

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

How important is getting a proper teacher in your opinion? This was a big discussion over on he Dharma Wheel forums back when I found it and posted on it for a while. Some think it's essential that you go and get personal instructions.

I'm not a Buddhist but part of my eternal not getting involved with a religion is my handicap. I'm legally blind and can't drive. The closest Buddhist locations for me are an hour away in Dallas. I won't deny I'm also just incredibly lazy and hate being around strangers which compounds the problem.

I do go out of my way to read as much as I can and learn as much as I can. But some think you need more than that.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2020 05:09

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 03:54

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

I would be interested as well.

# ¿ Feb 29, 2020 03:13

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Do any schools of Buddhism talk about an "end?" I understand the importance of beginninglessness so maybe that precludes talk of an end but I can't help but think about if the process of salvation is ever over.

Is there no point where all beings will be rescued from samsara?

In the Pure Land tradition as I nderstand it, Amida became a Buddha upon fulfilling his Vow to save all beings which basically means that we are all guaranteed salvation because otherwise he wouldn't have become Amida Buddha. So that would seem to posit there has to be some end to his task ie. at some point nobody will be trapped in samsara.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Mar 1, 2020

# ¿ Mar 1, 2020 01:50

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Ya know the Religionthread is kinda about just everyone who is religious chatting but it's still mostly Christians. And this thread seems more like, well, a Q&A thread rather then just shooting the poo poo.

Do you have any favorite sutras or mantras?

Is anybody here a Theravadan Buddhist and not Mahayana or Tantra?

Hearing this is what brought me back to Buddhism. I don't know if I would qualify myself yet as a Buddhist but I'm closer to it than I've been to any faith in a long, long time. Learning and regaining faith very slowly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72luMobA_vI

# ¿ Mar 2, 2020 04:04

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Spacegrass posted:

Well, I've been to prison for a few years and read alot. That's where I discovered Buddhism and Christianity (Islam also).
I'm just so confused because this world is so messed up, and there's tons of christians and the internet is so messed up, it blows my mind because these are real people. I'm going to study some buddism this week, I think I may be on to something. Also, the idea of animals and insects having souls makes no sense unless they screwed up in a previous life. How could a just god do that though.

Spacegrass posted:

Is it ok to be a Buddhist and still believe in Jesus Christ?

There's a concept in Buddhism called the Bodhisattva who are people who became enlightened and could have gone on to Nirvana but elected to stay here and help others become enlightened. Some people who want to make a more syncretic religion think of Jesus that way, as a Bodhisattva. But Buddhism in all its forms rejects the idea of a Creator God so if you did believe in Jesus it could not be in the traditional Christian sense. It's up to you if that is a problem or not. There are Christian Wiccans and stuff.

But the point is, Karma is the reason all those beings became animals. They don't have souls exactly but the important thing is that Karma is a law of the universe like gravity. It's not judging you like a God would, it just does its thing and is completely amoral, even as it legislates morality. it's weird. I've struggled with this idea too since it seems to create a Just World hypothesis and indeed, early 20th Century Japanese Zen were big in Social Darwinism because the poor were proo because they had bad karma and deserved to be born into that state.

I'm not a Buddhist and not sure how you really reconcile all that but I understand being attached to the deeper philosophical questions. That's why I'm here, too.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2020 20:20

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Hiro Protagonist posted:

I've kind of talked about this in this thread, but with COVID I don't have a good place to talk to anyone about this, and I kind of need to vent.

I'm someone who was raised in a very religious context, but has always been somewhat skeptical of religious thinking. I've also had a deep abiding fear of Oblivion as a concept. The idea that my consciousness is solely a product of my physical body is terrifying, particularly because of the finality of it.

That fear and skepticism have kind of combined such that any attempt to understand rebirth, heaven, hell, or any afterlife is tinged with a cynical belief that I'm just trying to deny science or make myself feel better. I do believe there are rational reasons to believe in rebirth, and I find some evidence quite convincing, but my questioning side always claws away at me.

I feel like this affects my progress as a Buddhist, because it means I don't have a solid foundation or relationship with it. I always want a security that I fundamentally have difficulty accepting. Anyone have experience with this?

This defines my entire adult life. I've bounced from religion to religion and even today I don't call myself a Buddhist because Buddhism fundamentally, like all religions, requires a leap of faith. Faith is the opposite of rationality, you can't think it or explain it. You can try to describe it but that's the best you can do. I've longed all my life to find that faith and I'm not sure I will ever find it in myself to believe so wholeheartedly in something. I just read and listen to music and find comfort in the ideas and feelings but 100% commitment is beyond me.

I really wish I had some solutions to give but I'm the last person on Earth with the answer to this problem. Unfortunately, I'm not sure anybody can fix this problem for any of us. We have to do it ourselves. That's the worst answer but if there is a better one, I'm still looking. But you're definitely not alone in always questioning and fearing, I've been there since I was 117 or so. (32 now)

# ¿ Nov 23, 2020 22:04

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

echinopsis posted:

what part of it requires the leap of faith?

Karma and rebirth. I'm open to the idea but can I say for certain that I think my mental stream or whatever term you want to use for it will survive after my body dies? No. That can't be proved so far as I'm aware, any more than a Christian soul can be proved.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2020 00:08

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

quote:

Because the power of the vow is without limits,
Even our evil karma, so deep and heavy is not burdensome,
Because the Buddhas wisdom is without bounds,
Even the bewildered and wayward are not abandoned.
(Shozomatsu Wasan 37)

While initially giving the appearance of presenting a rather bleak portrait of the human condition, the above verse contains, in fact, an important insight into the nature of the Buddha's compassion. When fully appreciated, it is capable of providing a liberating vision of spiritual emancipation for ordinary people.

What Shinran is trying to tell us here is that we should not be judging our spiritual worth by merely human standards which are, perforce, limited and distorted. Many sincere individuals who earnestly follow a spiritual path become easily discouraged as they soon begin to realize their many flaws and infirmities. A sense of unworthiness often develops in response to the countless imperfections we recognize as we come to deepen our self-awareness. This awareness, of course, is often a consequence of following a spiritual commitment or, at the very least, of recognizing a higher reality against which one judges oneself. Many individuals who lack such a commitment are often oblivious to such insights with respect to themselves as they lack the appropriate benchmark by which they can make an accurate assessment of their true natures.

Neverthless, there are dangers in coming to this awareness if one draws the wrong conclusions from it. It is not uncommon to encounter spiritual confessions in a number of the world's religious traditions where the individual in question expresses a profound self-hatred and sense of worthlessness in the face of Divine perfection. Occasionally, this can lead to extreme ascetic practices designed to crush one's ego or to even punish oneself physically. While such practices can serve as a corrective to address particular anomalies in one's self perception, more often than not, they can also greatly harm an individual and effect damaging distortions in one's spiritual life. The Buddha always exhorted individuals to avoid such extremes and to adopt a more measured and balanced approach in these matters.

Shinran's verse is important because it provides us with a crucial key in ensuring that we able to achieve such a balance. The recognition that our karmic burden is 'deep and heavy' and that we often feel 'bewildered and wayward' is a natural and honest response to the difficulties we all face in following the Buddha's call to a life of transcendence amidst the pain and turmoil of this world. Anyone who claimed that such a vocation can be pursued without considerable and confronting challenges is deluding themselves. However, the crucial insight that Shinran brings to this situation is that the Buddha does not judge us because of our limitations and spiritual poverty. The Buddha does not 'weigh up' our good and bad qualities and come to some overall assessment as to our worthiness of being 'saved'. The Buddha, in his boundless and inconceivable compassion, fully comprehends the human condition with all its tragic consequences. Such compassion would be meaningless if it did not embrace everyone despite these crippling flaws and obstacles in our natures. Such compassion is the preserve of the Buddha alone, not ordinary people who can only manifest it imperfectly. As Shinran observes in his Tannisho, there is no 'good' that we can do to earn our liberation and there is no flaw so bad that can impede the Buddha's desire to save us from our woeful state in this world.

As the verse says, the Buddha never abandons us even if we feel that we are utterly undeserving of his compassion. The recognition that we are saved despite ourselves, is the very thing that allows our karmic weight to no longer be as 'burdensome' for the Buddha takes it on his shoulders, so to speak, and assures us that it is no longer an impediment to our being embraced by his wisdom and compassion. To be sure, we still feel the bitter pain and disappointment of our own manifold shortcomings but we no longer have the added burden of feeling that we are thereby excluded from the Buddha's grace.

http://www.nembutsu.info/may033.htm

I always find comfort in this and I feel it's relevant to the discussion about struggling for faith and belief.

Of course, the "reality" of the Pure Land also is a matter of faith and belief. Whether it's an actual location or just a state of mind has been debated for thousands of years according to this book on Chinese Pure Land Buddhism I have.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2020 00:39

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

So I was very excited to find this was just put up on Audible:
The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika

Figured I'd share this in case there are any other Buddhist or Buddhism-interested goons like me who need audiobooks.

There is also this channel on YT where a guy with a very nice voice reads a lot of differnt Buddhist material. I found him while looking for readings of Pure Land amterial like sutras or Shinran's works
https://www.youtube.com/c/acalaacala/playlists

# ¿ Jul 21, 2021 13:15

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

So I had a very annoying argument on Discord.

I've pondered why Buddhists support social change. If life is fundamentally dukkha, why support capitalism or socialism? We will all still suffer from desire and lack no matter what political arrangement.

My theory was that how can people be enlightened to the Buddhist Path if they are in miserable conditions? Like chattel slave or a poor African-American child with lead poisoning. Equality is the urest path to helping people understand the Four Noble Truths.

I was then promptly told material conditions mean nothing in Buddhism and I'm just a dumb Westerner who doesn't understand Buddhism at all.

Well...I kinda am. But I've read Buddhist Socialist stuff from fuckin' Japan. I don't think I was wrong. But I wanted to ask actual Buddhists what you think?

# ¿ Aug 10, 2021 02:36

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Whether the Pure Land is a "real" place has been debated for a long time. I got a book on Chinese Pure Land Buddhism which details the debates they were having forever ago.
https://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Pure-Land-Buddhism-Understanding-ebook/dp/B07MB7L8BD

And people are still having this debate.

Does the idea the Pure Land is some other realm violate the nondaul philosophy of Mahayana? As LuckyCat said, is it here and now and it's all just a matter of perspective, from one view this world is defiled and in another, to the enlightened, it is a pure land.

quote:

Of these two, the Vimalakīrti Sutra develops this theme more extensively. In the first chapter, called �On Buddha Lands� (F�gu� pǐn 佛國品), a young seeker asks the Buddha Śākyamuni how one purifies one�s future buddha-land. The Buddha replies that this comes about through the purification of the mind by means of good deeds and practice. When a bodhisattva learns a point of doctrine or perfects a virtue, then that virtue accrues to his future buddha-land as well as to him personally, and beings who share that virtue will be drawn to his Pure Land. This part of the exposition ends with the oft-quoted summary, �Therefore � if the bodhisattva wishes to acquire a pure land, he must purify his mind. When the mind is pure, the buddha-land will be pure� (trans. Watson 1997, p. 29; T.475.14:538c4�c5).

This causes the Buddha�s disciple Śāriputra to wonder if his master is indeed fully awakened. After all, the Buddha dwells in the present world, which is clearly not a pure land but a world of suffering and ignorance. The Buddha reads Śāriputra�s thoughts and addresses this concern by teaching that the present world�s impurity must not be ascribed to the buddha whose buddha-field it is, but to the impure minds of ordinary beings. To demonstrate the point, the Buddha touches the earth with his toe, and empowers all in attendance to see this very world as he sees it with his purified mind. The land suddenly manifests jeweled radiance, and the Buddha explains to Śāriputra, �My Buddha land has always been pure like this. However, because I wish to save those persons who are lowly and inferior, I make it seem an impure land full of defilements, that is all�. If a person�s mind is pure, then he will see the wonderful blessings that adorn this land� (trans. Watson 1997, p. 30�31; T.475.14:538c26�c29). The Buddha then withdraws his foot, and everything appears as before.

The Nirvana Sutra (Ni�p�n jīng 涅槃經, T.374) answers the same question in an entirely different way. Here the Buddha Śākyamuni explains that he has his own pure land, which lies to the west beyond buddha-lands numbering as many as the sands of thirty-two Ganges Rivers. This land is called �Unsurpassable� (W�sh�ng 無勝) because it is the equal of both the western Land of Peace and Bliss (Ānl� sh�ji� 安樂世界) and the eastern Land of the Full Moon (Mǎnyu� sh�ji� 滿月世界). From his base in that pure land, Śākyamuni manifests in this world of Jambudvīpa in order to turn the wheel of dharma and save all its sentient beings (T.374.12:508c25�509a4). This sutra thus affirms that the Sahā world is indeed defiled, and that the pure buddha-land of Śākyamuni lies elsewhere, contradicting the �mind-only� position.

Thus, the Chinese Pure Land tradition inherited from India two distinct ways of conceptualizing the Pure Land. The first position came to be known as either �western-direction Pure Land� (xīfāng j�ngtǔ 西方淨土) or �other-direction Pure Land� (tāfāng j�ngtǔ 他方淨土). This entailed the belief that Sukhāvatī literally existed far to the west of this Sahā world, and that one could attain rebirth there after death by religious practices such as visualization of the Buddha or the simpler method of reciting the Buddha�s name with faith. The second position came to be known as �mind-only Pure Land� (w�ixīn j�ngtǔ 唯心淨土) and was favored by the Chan (Zen) School. This position held that the world is inherently pure and that impurity only appears because a defiled mind mistakenly projects its own impurity on to the landscape. In this conception, one gains the Pure Land by exerting oneself, purifying one�s mind, and achieving enlightenment. These competing ideas provided the basis for a long series of polemical writings right up to the twentieth century.

I don't know how I feel about that second interpretation Any view that says evil or suffering is just a matter of perspective or some sort of illusion just doesn't sit right with me. This is not something unique to Buddhism, a lot of religions try to denigrate evil and make it seem less real.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2022 05:37

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:

Buddhist imagery and symbols should not be used to promote things contrary to the teachings of Buddhism nor for personal profit.

I'm reminded of the Trump Buddha statue from a few years ago.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2022 04:59

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Virgil Vox posted:

I'm intrigued by the forthcoming commentary on Nagarjuna [Cracking The Walnut] , always wanted to learn about that/him

If you're interested, the philosopher Jay Garfield has a translation and analysis of Nagarjuna's main work. And it even got an audiobook.
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Fundamental-Wisdom-of-the-Middle-Way-Audiobook/1666120588

# ¿ May 24, 2023 18:30

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Beowulfs_Ghost posted:

Garfield's book is pretty good, but very dense.

And when it comes to the audio book version, it is hard to get much out of it if you are trying to do anything while listening to it. It requires your full attention.

Over all, it is easier to digest if you are already familiar with Western skeptics, like Sextus Empiricus, Hume, and Wittgenstein, as they touch on many of the same points.

While I do like the Mulamadhyamakakarika, it is hard to recommend it outside really specific contexts. It is mostly about tearing down attempts by others' to do metaphysics. While you can use it to argue with someone else that a chair has no essence, it isn't a very good text for doing your own personal salvation.

I see what you mean. I never use audiobooks as background fuzz or noise while doing other things, though. I have bad eyesight so the only way to get through big books is with TTS or preferably an audiobook so finding that on Audible one day made me very happy.

But what you're saying at the end makes me think of that story about the poison arrow and how Gautama rejected metaphysical speculation (supposedly) because what really mattered is you're suffering right now. Wondering about the nature of reality and causation won't help with that. But for me, metaphysics, epistemology, theology - that stuff all fascinates me. What you think reality is or what a person is has massive implications for how you think we ought to live, you know.

# ¿ May 24, 2023 23:35

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 03:54

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Herstory Begins Now posted:

nah imo you're confusing some things, though you end up pretty close at the end there.

strictly speaking, the metaphysics of buddhism aren't considered speculative and indeed they're meant to be testable and independently verifiable (particularly via meditative experience and reasoning). understanding the nature of reality, impermanence, and attachment isn't speculative poo poo that has no bearing on ending suffering, it is the actual tool to end suffering. like that's so absolutely central to buddhism that it is one of the noble truths.

speculative metaphysics is just him refusing to engage in purely speculative debates that will go nowhere because they're unverifiable/unfalsifiable. to kind of oversimplify it: understanding impermanence helps with pain from attachment or aversion; understanding how phenomena come about helps one avoid doing harm and generating negative karma, in turn reducing suffering. by contrast, arguing about, like, the metaphysical equivalent of' do UFO's exist?' doesn't accomplish anything, thus is treated as not worth the time.

Karma itself is a metaphysical doctrine, though. and Buddhists were arguing how it worked since the Abhidharma days. The entire idea of no-self is such a huge problem all the earliest schools we know about were split on what that even means. How does karma transfer, how are people reborn, without a soul or atman? I'm sure you know way more about these things than I do but I know they happened.

I read it a couple years ago now but The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy in the First Millennium CE was a fascinating book and I took a special interest in the Sarvāstivāda school because their doctrines were so novel. "Everything in the past, present, and future exists, just in less real stages" was their solution to all the questions these self-evident Buddhist doctrines inevitably engendered.

I've always heard Buddhists say the Buddha was just a doctor, diagnosing simple facts everyone knows. But like...I don't agree and the huge wave of interpretations and reinterpretations shows plain that it isn't so simple and non-speculative.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 03:48 on May 25, 2023

# ¿ May 25, 2023 03:44

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