I'm an Atheist who's open to exploring spirituality after years and even decades of being a firm anti-theist and I'm thinking of maybe giving religion another chance. I've read a lot of Paul Williams articles on Buddhism and it's making me interested in Buddhism but I don't know where to start.
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The Foundations of Buddhism for a non biased introduction.
If you want from buddhist authors:
What the Buddha Taught (theravada author)
In the Buddha's Words (theravada author)
Approaching the Buddhist Path (tibetan authors)
Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (paul william's book)
Also reading the Sutta Piṭaka/Agamas themselves.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/
https://suttacentral.net/
am I insane, is this "Why I Left Buddhism" article by Williams crazy?
>arguing that rebirth is bad because it's the end of ~~*(me*~~
very very basic introductory talk claims that there is no self to begin with. so what gets reincarnated over isn't anon's self or anon's soul or anon's mind but something more along the lines of karmic imprints, tendencies, etc. Something that I will honestly never actually understand, maybe someone else can explain
I won't disagree with Williams in that Christianity is more hopeful that Buddhism, but.. as he even states early on, Buddhism seems to be a bit more rational. I'm not anti-Christianity or anything, I just don't have any faith.
anyway thanks for reading my blog. what
recommended is spot on.
There's as much continuity between lives as there is between childhood and old age. Saying no self makes rebirth impossible is like saying no self makes aging impossible.
Not sure if it's completely relatable but I'd think a view worthy of taking into account is considering all the cells that make up one's body or fleshly existence, and how many times these die and are replaced by new ones, which would then bring into question whether anyone is really then even the same being they were when they were first born?
Yes interesting point, and I believe this one is talked about a bit in the academic world. I'm in no way well read in academic phil but I like Derek Parfit's notion of how the "self" and personal identity continue on over time - which he claims is due to personal/subjective/psychological continuity, memories, etc. But then you could argue about PKD's Total Recall, and about theoretically injecting false memories into someone, etc.
>paul williams unironically converted to cucktholicism
what a fricking hack
i'm not a buddhist but i remember reading his book on mahayana buddhism and being completely blown away
Have you read the Dhammapada? I’d start there.
>Paul Williams articles on Buddhism
??? This guy is an atheist academic writing about mahayana.
>Williams was a Buddhist himself for many years but has since converted to Roman Catholicism, an experience he wrote about in his book The Unexpected Way[1][2] and in an article, "On converting from Buddhism to Catholicism – One convert's story."[3] He is now a professed lay member of the Dominican Order.[3]
lmao
so he's not an atheist then?
academia is a product of the atheist revolution, and like all atheists he flocked to mahayana
atheists flock to theravada mostly, mahayana is about as close to christian style buddhism as it gets (be good and pray to Avalokiteshvara ie Jesus and you go to the pure land ie heaven otherwise Yama ie St Peter sends you to hell).
flock to theravada mostly,
Unfortunately they don't
Yes they do
>be good and pray to Avalokiteshvara
Pure Land Buddhism didn't exist in Indian Mahayana
That’s Pure Land Buddhism, not specifically Mahayana (a much broader appellation under which Pure Land Buddhism fits as one specific sect of it). Although there is much that’s devotional and like worship in the Mahayana. The various Buddhas and bodhisattvas of Mahayana indeed can be taken as being incredibly similar to deities, godlike beings, or like the Avatars of Indian religion. But still, far from all Mahayana is as strictly devotional and reminiscent of Christianity (or even something like sentimental Krishna-worship) as Pure Land Buddhism is. Hwa Yen Buddhism, the schools of Ch’an and Zen, and Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka are all also of the Mahayana, but tend towards the more cognitive (or trans-cognitive?), abstract, and oriented on meditation (achieving samadhi) or a certain understanding (along with right conduct, of course) instead of just devotion to an external figure saving one, but there is also belief in the supernatural and a devotional bent to be found in these traditions too at times, of course.
>>That’s Pure Land Buddhism, not specifically Mahayana
Pure land is specifically Mahayana since the goal is not to be fully englithened but only to become a bodhisattva.
>fully englithened but only to become a bodhisattva.
Mahayana aims for the complete enlightenment of a Buddha, Theravada doesn't
Looks like not no mo’
isn't he muslim or something
Exactly like this homosexual : born in atheistan, declares '' i fricking love spirituality instead of this evil atheist capitalism'', goes into mahayana, then claims buddhism is shit
https://www.lionsroar.com/evan-thompson-not-buddhist/
>But, all along the way, during the retreat, there was this little voice off to the side — my skeptical philosopher voice, which said, “You know, this isn’t really about seeing things as they are. This is about learning to sculpt your experience in a certain way. You’re being given certain concepts, like impermanence and moment-to-moment arising and you’re using them to attend to your experience in a certain way, and you’re accentuating things in your experience, and you’re not speaking — because it’s a silent retreat — so you’re internalizing these instructions and concepts in a powerful way. And you know that everybody else is doing this. And this is kind of a collective social construction that we’re all reinforcing for each other. It’s as much about creating a certain mode of experience as it is about revealing anything pre-existently there.”
this is why the only valid entry into buddhism is suffering
everything he writes there in your greentext is true
>how can you desire the end of desire bro
iykyk
What he wrote has nothing to do with that
>how can we arrive at ultimate truth through constructions? how can conditionality realize the unconditioned? I'm going insane
It does.
It be do.
I would object to an idea of authenticity or purity — the idea that I’m a member of a tradition and it’s the authentic and pure one. If it’s “authentic and pure” that means that it’s insulated unto itself and has a special, unchanging inner teaching that isn’t shaped by the world and history and context and culture. I think that’s just false. Everything is always changing and interacting with other things. That’s the world in which we live.
god what an exhausting midwit. westerners are utterly buck broken by provisionality, it's like a sickness
>>I would object to an idea of authenticity or purity — the idea that I’m a member of a tradition and it’s the authentic and pure one. If it’s “authentic and pure” that means that it’s insulated unto itself and has a special, unchanging inner teaching that isn’t shaped by the world and history and context and culture. I think that’s just false.
it's not false. The dhamma, ie the method to end suffering, is not connected specific to a human era, or same specific human society.
The doctrinal part of buddhism is about karma an rebirth and karma doesnt care about what societies humans run in the year 2024, in the year 100, in the year -10k, or +5000.
The contingency in buddhism pops up on the vinaya side. And even there it's not the case that the vinaya is 100% contingent to whatever human society turns out to be when the buddha creates the vinaya.
The vinaya can't be 100% contingent because the goal is to facilitate the cultivation of meditation and insights, and the method for this is independent of any human behavior.
Buddhism is not a legalism and the buddha has no problem making rules on the fly because some monks and nuns do stupid things all the time, and on the opposite side telling an old monk who can't remember all the rules that he can let go of the few rules which don't matter.
>connected specific to a human era, or same
connected nor specific to a human era, or some
LoL NYC has only one theravadan temple
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Buddhist_temples_in_the_United_States
Any way theravada is really recent in the USA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_the_United_States
yea and they're mostly Western Zen, not as exactly mahayana in the true sense because atheists would actually hate it due to the greater superstitions than the theravada counterpart.
it'd be good if you give at least a bit of information about what you are attracted to within Buddhism, as Buddhism is extremely wide-ranging (even within the 'traditional' Theravadins).
speaking of early buddhism in particular, there are at least 3 large bodies of interpretation of the early texts that I like to group:
-secular, often lay, teachers who usually teach some sort of yogic style meditation combination of calming techniques and observing impermanence. often use modern neuroscience and psychology to 'back up' the buddha's doctrine
-traditionalist theravadins who are usually more severe and are interested in the full noble eightfold path including the '''religious''' cosmology aspects and so on. usually bound by classical commentarial traditions like with the Visudhimagga or abhidhamma or the traditions of various countries like thai forest buddhism
-more severe teachers like the traditionalists who emphasise renunciation and abandoning sensuality over just practicing yogic style meditation techniques, but stand outside the mainstream theravadin commentarial traditions and stick to 'early' texts only
there are various introductions that are possible to give but most will veer towards one of these interpretations, so its good to know which one you yourself are most interested in. this is without even speaking about the mahayana and vajrayana
You start with the 'Jeets. Might also want to read some Western philosophy for balance
HELLO SAAR PLEASE DO NOT REDEEM BUDDHISM BLOODY BENCHOD
>Buddhist
>chantards
You're better off trying reddit
Start with a general non biased book on all world religions still being practiced. It will give you a good overall bearing on the beliefs of most peoples.
Also, you don't need to be religous to believe in god.
theres no water at the bottom of the Buddhist well, though there's interesting insights on the way down. Religions can be interesting but there is one true faith, you must submit to Him who calls, The Lord Christ Jesus.
Amen, Buddhism may be interesting to read about but you will only end up burning in eternal hellfire by following it.
>burning in eternal hellfire
Why do contemporary Christians know so little about Christianity?
ewe following a israelite really makes people dumb
thank you ngubu, very cool
Imagine poking your eyes out with a fork, one by one.
This is a very secular book about how to meditiate.
listen to this advice.
also read In the Buddha's Words
most fundamental is probably the Mettā Sutta.
a zen monk gave me a mantra that summerized it as:
May _ be joyful and peaceful
May _ be safe from inner and outer harm
May _ see the beauty and abundance of this world
May _ take care of themselves and others happily.
fill blanks with: loved ones, neutral ones, enemies, yourself.
and do some wim hof breathing and there will be a lot more to explore about Buddhism, but start there and you will have a lot more clarity of thought to study everything else. void/emptiness meditation is cool too, but is likely to lead you to a Dark Night of The Soul. So balance it out with affirmations such as the mettā sutta. Let yourself drift eventually to equiminity where "nothing matters", you'll eventually get around to it, you dont need to aim towards it, towards becoming enlightened. Just have fun with it.
>void/emptiness meditation is cool too, but is likely to lead you to a Dark Night of The Soul.
No, first dark night of the soul is a semitic invention.
second in buddhism no meditation can be harmful because it's reward is at least samatha, at most samatha+wisdom
>t. never meditated
>void/emptiness meditation is cool too, but is likely to lead you to a Dark Night of The Soul
All meditation ever led me to was boredom.
All that means is that you're a novice. Overcoming boredom in meditation is something you can learn to do with practice.
Abrahamists would passive-aggressively curse anybody who don't submit to their theology with hell (eternal suffering). Then when you come to the Eastern religions, going to hell is the default. It's all so tiresome. I can't find relief anywhere.
buddhism is not scholarly, you cannot research your way to truth. you have to have authentic experience.
develop a meditation practice, do it until you experience ego-death.
then all buddhist teachings will be rendered obvious and de-mystified to you.
then you can accept that god is real.
>buddhism is not scholarly
Really?
yes the buddha never said monks should be scholars
Buddhism isn't about meditation, it's about insight
True, and meditation facilitates insight.
>nastika instead of astika
ngmi
How 'excluding' are the main streams of Buddhism? I like the 'helping others' aspect of Mahayana, but I cannot get into the whole cosmology and Buddhisatva structures. I much prefer Therevada in that regard, but it is possible to adhere to Therevada but still hold some Mahayana practices (i.e. helping others as much as possible)?
Also, is meditation only possible in the classic lotus position? I feel most 'connected'/meditative on long runs or hikes.
Apologies for the silly questions, I don't know much about this topic but I'm intrigued
The answer is the same as last time this question was posted. Anyway buddhism starts with morality with the 5 precepts, so just do that for several weeks.
Mediation is done with sitting, walking, lying. For the postures you can watch this
Bhante Punnaji has a little yoga session in the morning
>I much prefer Therevada in that regard
You prefer the Abhidharma account of Mount Meru cosmology?
There is such a thing as an equivalent bodhisatta path in Theravada, look into the Cariyapitaka and the 10 paramis.
Also as the other anon said, Theravada has its own very in-depth cosmology, though it's more descriptive and less soteriological. You don't have to pray to the Four Great Kings or Sakka, in fact there appears to be no canonical guidelines about worshipping them, unless you count devanussati as a very loose form of worship. Pic related is a good resource if anyone's interested
sick book cover
Right view is the forerunner. And how is right view the forerunner? One
discerns wrong action as wrong action, and right action as right action.
… One tries to abandon wrong action and to enter into right action: This
is one's right effort. One remembers to abandon wrong action and to
enter and remain in right action: This is one's right mastery. Thus these
three qualities – right view, right effort, and right mastery – run and
circle around right action. (MN 117 iii72)
Now, Ānanda, one who says: “feeling is my self” should be told:
“There are three kinds of feelings, friend: pleasant, painful, and
neither pleasant not painful. Which of the three do you consider
to be your self?” When a pleasant feeling is felt, no painful or
neither pleasant not painful feelings is felt, but only pleasant
feelings. When a painful feelings is felt, no pleasant or neither
pleasant not painful feeling is felt, but only a painful feeling. And
when a neither pleasant not painful feeling is felt, no pleasant or
painful feeling.
A pleasant feeling is impermanent, conditioned, dependently
arisen, bound to decay, to vanish, to fade away, to cease – and so
too is a painful feeling and a neither pleasant not painful feeling.
So anyone who, on experiencing a pleasant feeling, thinks, “This
is my self,” must, at the cessation of that pleasant feeling think:
“My self has gone!” and the same with a painful and a neither
pleasant not painful feeling. Thus whoever thinks: “feeling is my
self” is contemplating something in this present life that is
impermanent, a mixture of happiness and unhappiness, subject to
arising and passing away. Therefore it is not fitting to maintain:
“feeling is my self.” (DN 15 ii66-7)
This seems like the current Buddhism thread, so I have a question for those who subscribe to the idealist schools like Yogacara with its mind only principle. Why exactly does it matter whether everything is mind or not? It does not seem directly relevant to the cessation of suffering, since the principle of shunyata applies whether or not you accept this principle, so why bother with worrying about the mind. As someone who subscribes to a Madhyamaka position, this always felt strange to me, since I never understood why later Yogacara-influenced thinkers in the tradition cared about this mind only principle as well.
Just as, with an assemblage of parts,
The word “chariot” is used,
So, when the aggregates exist,
There is the convention “a being.” (SN 5.10)
These two qualities have a share in clear knowing. Which two? Tranquility (samatha) and insight (vipassana). When tranquility is developed what purpose does it serve? The mind is developed. And where the mind is developed, what purpose does it serve? Passion is abandoned. When insight is developed, what purpose does it serve? Discernment is developed. And when discernment is developed, what purpose does it serve? Ignorance is abandoned. – AN 2.30
Why are there so many foreign terms. I can into this thread wanting to learn about Buddhism, but it ends up being the same as post transcendental dialectical Hegelian ubersweisengkflorpianist philosophy threads.
>bro you have to read the super sutra before you read the mega ultra sutra before you read the super sayan god sutra.
Just read Bhiku Bodi, Great Disciples of the Buddha so you can immerse yourself in the culture instead of arguing with the German fake clergy
Here's all of Buddhism in a nutshell (from AN 11.2):
And so, mendicants, the knowledge and vision of freedom is the purpose and benefit of dispassion. Dispassion is the purpose and benefit of disillusionment. Disillusionment is the purpose and benefit of truly knowing and seeing. Truly knowing and seeing is the purpose and benefit of immersion. Immersion is the purpose and benefit of bliss. Bliss is the purpose and benefit of tranquility. Tranquility is the purpose and benefit of rapture. Rapture is the purpose and benefit of joy. Joy is the purpose and benefit of not having regrets. Not having regrets is the purpose and benefit of skillful ethics. And so, mendicants, good qualities flow on and fill up from one to the other, for going from the near shore to the far shore.
Most people are never able to achieve the very first thing that Buddhism requires, which is "skillful ethics", and instead jump to meditation. When, in fact, as this sutta clearly describes, meditation as a formal practice is entirely superfluous. Ethical conduct alone inevitably leads to the end of suffering.
I wouldn't say meditation as a formal practice is entirely superfluous, but I do think the fact that ethical conduct is step no. 1 on the path is oftentimes overlooked.
not op but i've had the path of individual liberation by chogyam trungpa rotting on my bookshelf forever, is it a good first foray into buddhism?
No, tibetan buddhism is buddhism in name only. A good introduction is books like ones by bikkhu bodhi
It's easy to get carried away by all the crazy tantra left-hand path stuff, but there are plenty of Tibetan writings that are mostly acceptable to original buddhist standards. The Middle-Length Treatise by Tsongkhapa is very good for example.
>Parinibbana isn’t an annihilation of the individual
>btw the individual is made up of aggregates which cease to exist and don’t continue in Parinibbana
was Buddha trolling or just moronic?
An individual never existed to be annihilated
What is experiencing samsara if not an individual?
>the aggregates are
so Buddha was teaching “annihilation of the aggregates” then and his claim to not teach annihilation is a contradiction
A discrete, enduring, independent self is taught to be a delusion or an illusion. You can't destroy a non-thing, you've gotten your answer, if you don't like the answer that's fine, no need to start lying about what the answer was. If the self is not the aggregates, for the aggregates to cease is not teaching that the self is annihilated. You are either being dull or creatively misinterpreting. You can just say you believe sensations form consciousness etc constitute a real self and if those go the self goes so I am not a Buddhist.
The consciousness aggregate experiences samsara.
>his claim to not teach annihilation is a contradiction
Is a fire annihilated when it runs out of fuel?
The aggregates are empty, you can't annihilate what's already empty of an essence
That's only the case in a sustantialist ontology, but buddhism is a proccess ontology, by leting the conditioned processbe completed a new iconditioned "realm" is attained, the conditioned leads to the inconditioned, we're just letting the process do it's work and free it from a circularity (samsara) that trap it in a never endind cycle of conditioned existence
You mentioned, "conditioned", "iconditioned" and "inconditioned", are these three different things? I have never heard of the latter two and it looks like they aren't even actual words in English.
>he doesn't know
the aggregates don't cease to exist just like energy doesn't cease to exist, the clinging to them is what ceases
they cease to exist at parinabbana
nuh uh
What clings to them?
Buddhism? You might as well be Catholic. Their teaching re: everyday life is the same.
And yet millions of people like OP will be Buddhist, despite sleeping around etc. You'd better hope the Buddhists aren't right, because you will burn in hell for 10,000 years.
But God doesn't exist
George Grimm, Doctrine of the Buddha
this is a pretty gentle introduction to the core of Buddhism. After this you should read some of the classic Buddhist texts others have mentioned.
what is the buddha nature
An invention by scholars to turn buddhism into eternalism. Huge mistake.
Emptiness
The Lankavatara Sutra states that Tathagatagarbha is a provisional teaching for people afraid of emptiness
無
if you just flip to the last page you didnt actually "get there".
it's a process.
it's like when I can turn off the chaos in my head but when I try to explain to a friend how he can just turn off his schizophrenic demonic psychosis telling him to do violence and shit, it's wildly confusing and there is no way I can just say "lmao, stop feeling and stop automating your motivations".
First step is emptiness meditation, start sorting what is wholesome and what scares you, then do metta, then so on and so forth, dont strive for enlightenment, equiminity, nor buddha nature. just aim to lower bloodpressure a bit, stop grinding teeth, stop being scared of nightmares.
>can't even define or locate consciousness
>says consciousness is the true self
>>can't even define or locate consciousness
It's partless self-luminous awareness and it's omnipresent (i.e. located everywhere)
>>says consciousness is the true self
yes
What does awareness without an object look like?
>What does awareness without an object look like?
utterly simple self-knowing presence
A Comprehensive Beginner Course In Buddhism | Ven. Subhuti
On Every Saturday at 2:00 p.m. (UTC/GMT), 7:30 p.m. (SLST/IST, UTC/GMT+5:30) - please convert to your local time.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLR80bTnRtp0fGIFidEjpHnzALWk1xZOV9
Beginner Buddhism - 01 - Introduction to the Course | Ven. Subhuti
Beginner Buddhism - 02 - What Is Real Theravāda Buddhism? | Ven. Subhuti
Just read the Analects of Confucious. It's simply a better version of Buddhism
Why do people like you even post in these threads? In one short sentence you've let us all know you know nothing about Confucius and Buddhism.
Because it's true. Better off studying Taoism as well, Buddhism is the lesser of Confucionism and Taoism.
Sounds like we need to beef up the captcha, if AI can post shit like this here.
i hate buddhism so fricking much
Religions are outdated anyway and the future of spirituality lies in NDEs as NDEs are unironically irrefutable proof that heaven really is awaiting us because (1) people see things during their NDEs when they are out of their bodies that they should not be able to under the assumption that the brain creates consciousness, and (2) anyone can have an NDE and everyone is convinced by it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U00ibBGZp7o
So any atheist would be too, so pic related is literally irrefutable proof of life after death. As one NDEr pointed out:
>"I'm still trying to fit it in with this dream that I'm walking around in, in this world. The reality of the experience is undeniable. This world that we live in, this game that we play called life is almost a phantom in comparison to the reality of that."
If NDEs were hallucinations somehow then extreme atheists and neuroscientists who had NDEs would maintain that they were halluinations after having them. But the opposite happens as NDEs convince every skeptic when they have a really deep NDE themselves.
So if you want to know the truth about spirituality and what actually happens when we die, study NDEs and the scholarly literature on NDEs and listen to what NDErs actually have to say about what entering the light is like.
How do you know there is an eternal heaven instead of temporary birth in higher realms?
>reddit spacing
These experiences can be had in deep meditation, bardo yoga, lucid dreaming, etc. Muh NDE is just when it happens unexpectedly to a dying normie, though being a normie makes it a volatile source of information. And how would we make a system out of it? Would we show up to your NDE retreats and choke each other until we see the light?
I don't like him much, but the one good takeaway I've had from Seraphim Rose was in his discussion of so-called NDEs in pic related. Basically they are unreliable because they tend to be brief and reflect the desires of those who have it. If you research more ancient NDEs, you'll find that they were very long experiences, days at a time, and more crucially that after the beginning pleasantries of light and such, there's a series of ghastly experiences with demons and angels set to frighten and judge the mortal soul; Rose espouses the orthodox view of spiritual toll-houses, but it's analogue with experiences in the Tibetan Book of the Dead for example.
https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=D%C3%A9lok
NDE are interesting but also just a sliver of the full meaning of heaven and hell and demons and angels. I don't think it's good to focus on it too much, just like the people who go for ayuhuasca, not realizing that they are trading away the fullness of life for narrow intensity.
This guy has posted this same post multiple times over the course of years. Respect to a true poster.
read this: https://archive.org/details/BhanteWalpolaRahulaWhatTheBuddhaTaught/page/n1/mode/2up
Nothing stays the same yet nothing dissappears unless it's CREMATED, and even then the CO2 from it is recycled into the atmosphere. Rocks last more than organic matter, but even these will be recycled between different layers of sediment into new minerals until the extinction of the planets and the gasses of solar system are themselves recycled. So existence can thereby maybe be ultimately deduced to be devoid of an tangible essence or source, but nothingness cannot exist without somethingness like pain can't be discerened without pleasure as a contrast, so the two aren't mutually exclusive but dependent on eachother.
If translating vedaanta as "determination of insight", can 'insight' be thereby considered to be deterministic?
>vedaanta
what do you call vedaanta
I'm more interested in the history of Radical Buddhism like the Buddhists of Burma who kicked out the Rohingyas or the Buddhist Ninjas of Japan who assassinated Samurais. I want to know what was the clergy's(?) rationale for violence during that time.
The Burmese rationale is that we can't practice Buddhism if we're under attack; just as a monk must have silence and so goes into the wilderness, the country as a whole must have peace and so destroys invaders. As for ninjas, I have nothing from that era but I remember reading about a Zen monk who told Japanese soldiers in WW2 that, since all things are empty, beheading someone is just empty atoms passing through other empty atoms.
The Japanese mindset was always about honing oneself and one's skill. Being an instrument of violence for a principality is just as valid as being a rice farmer, even if there were strict hierarchy involved. So when it comes to Buddhism in Japan, it too was a means of physical and spiritual training for the warrior, where death was simply an inevitability.
What the Buddha Taught, and the Heart Sutra.
There's a book, Zen At War, that discusses this. Be forewarned that it's be a Western academic who thinks that ethnonationalism is evil. Anyways the rationale is simple: it doesn't matter how filled with loving kindness you are, you cannot sleep next to a rabid dog.
I know very little about buddhism, but why is it so universally attractive to western bugmen? I highly doubt it's a hippie religion like media tries to portray it as
1. It has no overt worship of God(s)
2. It purports to make you feel good (reduce suffering is equated in their minds as increasing pleasure)
3. It appears logical and rational, perfectly fitting their materialist scientism
4. It promises a sense of superiority toward your (literally unenlightened) peers
I'm ashamed that IQfy Buddhists are more well-read and knowledgeable about their religion than all the larping tradcath zoomers here.
I think the problem is a lot of zoomers come at it from the political angle, it's le based and tradpilled thing to do. It seems very few of them actually read the gospels or hear a sermon and have that awakening of sincere faith, so it just remains a shallow aesthetic. Whereas there's no big political reason (that I know of) to convert to Buddhism, so those that do are by and large sincere faithful. But on the flipside it feels like, across IQfy IQfy and /x/, Buddhists are wildly outnumbered by Christians.
>As it happens, the government of India openly admits to having provided one-third of the financing of Gandhi out of state funds, straight out of the national treasury—and after close study of the finished product I would not be a bit surprised to hear that it was 100 percent. The screenplay was checked and rechecked by Indian officials at every stage, often by the Prime Minister herself, with close consultations on plot and even casting. A friend of mine, highly sophisticated in political matters but innocent about film-making, declared that Gandhi should be preceded by the legend: The following film is a paid political advertisement by the government of India.
>The picture of Gandhi that emerges in the movie is grossly inaccurate, omitting, as one of many examples, that when Gandhi’s wife lay dying of pneumonia and British doctors insisted that a shot of penicillin would save her, Gandhi refused to have this alien medicine injected in her body and simply let her die. (It must be noted that when Gandhi contracted malaria shortly afterward he accepted for himself the alien medicine quinine, and that when he had appendicitis he allowed British doctors to perform on him the alien outrage of an appendectomy.)
>I cannot honestly say I had any reasonable expectation that the film would show scenes of Gandhi’s pretty teenage girl followers fighting “hysterically” (the word was used) for the honor of sleeping naked with the Mahatma and cuddling the nude septuagenarian in their arms. (Gandhi was “testing” his vow of chastity in order to gain moral strength for his mighty struggle with Jinnah.) Nor, frankly, did I expect to see Gandhi giving daily enemas to all the young girls in his ashrams (his daily greeting was, “Have you had a good bowel movement this morning, sisters?”), nor see the girls giving him his daily enema.
https://www.commentary.org/articles/richard-grenier/the-gandhi-nobody-knows/
Vince makes drama and e look like coomer, porn addicts huffing pure copium when they try to dismiss his claims of semen retention bettering his life in all aspects. Thoughts IQfy? Link to discussion https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hxdYcZdCV2k