What are some lesser-known Buddhist sutras or commentaries that you think are insightful and worth reading? I just finished Red Pine's translation of the Diamond Sutra and am looking for something outside of the usual main recommended works.
What are some lesser-known Buddhist sutras or commentaries that you think are insightful and worth reading?
The Abhisamayalamkara, which comments on the Prajñaparamita sutras and is attributed to Asanga-Maitreya
>pic
What was the meaning of that joke
The "joke" is that Mai is into woodcarving and Buddhist kitsch. So she probably left it there.
Pratyekabuddhas and bodhisattvas are both consequences of the idea of universal timeless dharma. Anyone can, and everyone will achieve buddhahood under the right conditions or auspices. Were this not so the lone vehicle would be impossible. But this world has its Buddha who taught so it is highly pessimistic to favor the lone path, and immeasurably greater to pursue the Mahayana
>The "joke" is that Mai is into woodcarving and Buddhist kitsch.
But why is she
and bodhisattvas are both consequences of the idea of universal timeless dharma. Anyone can, and everyone will achieve buddhahood under the right conditions or auspices.
if it's under conditions, then it is not ''everyone will achieve buddhahood sooner or later'' mahayana bugmen cant stop creating fallacies.
is that Yukko? wtf
The Rhinoceros sutra beautifully contrasts the Lotus Sutra. The Bodhisattva ideal is moronic, and I don't care if most people suffer, most being icchantikas anyways, because I am a chad pratyekabuddha.
I wish the bodhisattva vow wasn't so central to some mahayana/vajrayana practices because they seem otherwise interesting
>the bodhisattva vow
what's so bad about it?
>OP pic
dickydhamma
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn35/sn35.080.than.html
Vimalakirti Sutra and Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra
Those are very well-known. Vimalakirti is even painted in the Dunhuang caves
It's all over the nikayas. Can't remember the exact sutta(s) but would be in the Digha Nikaya
Is there any sutra that explains dependent origination?
https://xuanfa.net/buddha-dharma/tripitaka/sutras/salistamba-sutra/
Salistamba sutra didn't survive in full intact, but we can reconstruct it via various sources. Its one of the earliest "pre-mahayana" sutras. Its a nice sutra about dependent origination.
>Is there any sutra that explains dependent origination?
All SN, but not the first chapter of SN
I like Buddhadasa. He teaches there is no rebirth and it makes the israeli-Theravada Buddhists in New York very upset!!!!!
>modernist interpretations of Buddhist doctrines meant to flex on British protestant missionaries by presenting by presenting Buddhism as rational, scientific, and anti-superstitious must be correct because I don't like the ethnic background of exponents of the traditional interpretation
Don't you people usually insist old thing good new thing bad?
No. Old thing or new thing isn't good. But Buddhism isn't spiritual, it's just living skillfully b/c life is a joke.
Pfft the israeli-buddhists in the USA literally support Israel and still consider themselves Buddhist how messed up is that?
Buddhism is a religion and I'm tired of pretending it's not
I think for most followers it is. but it is mixed eeverywhere with shamanism, animism, hinduism, brahmin, taoism etc.
my advice is to reject any part you dont like and use it as much as its useful
>Just be a new ager
Ngmi
What’s that statue?
I think it's Kannon, so Japanese gender-swapped Avalokitesvara, bodhisattva of coompassion, which is one of the six perfections/paramitas.
You must be *this* Japanese to ride the attraction.
Giant enlightened girly china man
Yes, 100% it is, and anybody who says otherwise simply hasn't read enough about Buddhism.
He's taking the Madhyamaka approach to rebirth in a minimalist sense. Akin to Heart Sutra.
Buddhists are the oriental israelites. The whole karmic universe is a perpetual debt machine.
leave stormer.
Buddhism is a scam to procrastinate, they promise you that you will have another life to live instead of living this one. then you lose your life by concentrating in "nothingness" and in perpetual emptiness.
what the frick are you talking about, buddhism is about getting rid of suffering, there's even a bit where siddharta considers the possibility of no afterlife existing, and then follows by saying that even in such a case scenario, living a life free of suffering would better than to live a life with suffering
you are moronic
>he doesn't know of samsara and reincarnation in other lifes
I find it mildly funny how you simply ignored everything I wrote, and how you seem to believe that buddhism considers samsara a good thing. To free oneself of suffering is the same as freeing oneself from samsara, or life itself. Siddharta was a mega-doomer on super-steroids that saw the atheist death as the ultimate goal, and the idea of living in this world more than one single time to be extremely hellish.
>reincarnation
No such thing in Buddhism
>reincarnation
yeah, you call it "rebirth" and the cycles samsara that's still the same fricking thing, your entire "religion" is a bad copy of hinduism
why did you decide to reply to that post but not to the one above it?
It's not the same thing at all. Start with In the Buddha's Words
>two religions have similar ideas so they are the same [and wrong]
i'll bet you became a christcuck to own the libs too didn't you
>they promise you that you will have another life to live instead of living this one
lol no they don't, in fact is the exact opposite, the whole point of buddhismis to be free from the cycles of rebirth, so "living another life instead of this one" is the thing buddhism want to be free from
at least read a wiki article next time
he's probably read some golden land buddhism texts or just doesn't understand the meaning of moksha
>at least read a wiki article next time
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/israeli_Buddhist
Om vey
No I’m here to storm your anus basedboy.
Aren't israelites living in the orient oriental israelites?
local man literally unable to stop thinking about israelites
I have thought this too. My spidey sense was tingling around them but I now prefer Thai and Sri Lankan people to my own Qristian Qucks even if they're not more "enlightened" on the only two questions that matter: the JQ and RR.
https://www.nizkor.org/
I thought Brahmins were the Oriental israelites?
I did go to a Buddhist temple and it had a bunch of israelites. I've seen Brahminic Jeets rage at israeli tricks but never have I seen a Buddhist rage at israeli tricks.
Monks had a hissy fit with my because I rolled my eyes at the mention of ~~*Bhiku Bodi*~~
>I thought Brahmins were the Oriental israelites
No, Brahminical texts condemned usury and Brahmins were forbidden from engaging in it but Buddhist circles had no problem condoning usury.
Brahmins were telling kings what to do , in order to live off of them
The Mayatrahdhamabahmassupratyaktrilala
How do I enter the stream
Mahayana metaphysics are so seductively elegant and alluring but I feel like I need to focus on the urgency of Samsara
Sotapanna is understanding dependent origination, ie, acquisition of the eye of the Dhamma, or as the understanding that 'yaṃ kiñci samudaya-dhammaṃ, sabbaṃ taṃ nirodha-dhamma' - 'whatever things have the nature of arising, all [of them] have the nature of passing away' see: SN 56.11.
so same thing. Read all Saṃyutta Nikāya sutras
https://americanmonk.org/free-pts-sutta-ebooks/
Pyia has a little article on stream entry
https://themindingcentre.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/3.3-Refuge-3-Entering-the-stream-piya.pdf
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/into_the_stream.html
Once you've entered the stream you're "safe", right? No more aimless drifting in Samsara for billions of kalpas?
Do you know for sure though that you've entered it, can't you fall into delusion after experiencing a Jhana for example, how can you be certain that you are a sotapanna?
>How do I enter the stream
The other replies you got are good and I hope they're also useful for you, but in simple terms: you don't. The person you currently believe yourself to be will NEVER wake up. No one has ever become a Sotapanna, no one has ever awakened. Siddhartha Gautama did not reach or attain Nirvana.
Entering the stream is the direct realization that the "you" you want to enter the stream, the "you" you think will enter the stream, is a fiction.
As long you go on thinking, "I want to enter the stream" while believing it is that "I" that enters, you won't. The desire to enter is certainly there. But who wants to enter? Do you, or does the wanting to enter want to enter? And what's commenting on the desire? You, or just the thought "I want to enter the stream"? Don't just intellectualize this, instead actually see for yourself.
>Do you know for sure though that you've entered it, can't you fall into delusion after experiencing a Jhana for example, how can you be certain that you are a sotapanna?
The "you" you think will know for certain won't know because it won't be there to know. If "you" "know" then you probably don't. Yes there will be knowing and certainty, but it may require cultivation as the "you" that you currently believe yourself to be may reinstate itself (sometimes immediately) with thoughts like "woah I'm enlightened! ... or wait, am I?", and you may then experience some confusion or uncertainty (but it's the "you" that's confused and uncertain) and feel like you've lost the way until there is stream entry again.
You will all burn in eternal flame
>You will
We already are and have been for an immeasurable amount of time
This. Christiangays need to realize they're already in 'hell'.
I learned from the oven dodgers
I had a delicious supper today
Yes, and
>most convincing Abrahamist argument
They don't affect me.
I will simply not feel pain.
>anything
>eternal
Go away christian larper.
offline and historically it’s not very unknown, but the lankavatara sutra is very good. For ritual components the mahamayuri vidyarajni sutra is fascinating, for interesting beliefs categories practices and so forth check out the vairocanabhisambodhi sutra.
weird how you recommend stuff like this despite being a christian
I don’t see it as any more strange than the history of Christianity recommending and studying platonic literature, considering platonism was always religious and Neoplatonism was explicitly idolatrous with its creations of idols in theurgy.
>Neoplatonism idolatrous
well it's more idolatrous worshipping the nothing in buddhism
>s worshipping the nothing in buddhism
you can't worship the nothing, that's the whole point, nothingness is a way to focus on reality without the need of cosification or idolatry
nothingness is already an idolatry in itself
no, because there's nothing to idolize
you idolize the "nothingness"
Stop projecting your Christian obsessions on religions that are unencumbered by abrahamic neuroticism
you can't idolize the "nothingness" because its main quality is "being nothing", there' s nothing to idolize
The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment
Tathagatagarbha Sutra
Tannisho
Srimala Devi Simhanada Sutra
People on here don't like these, probably because they secretly want to disappear into the void.
I loled. Also, you're better off on /r/zen.
Mahayana is the eastern atheism. It's intellectually deceitful, and on purpose. You have to understand that after the passing away of the buddha, nobody understood anything he said. But at least they had an intellectual honesty about it. They said ''yeah we don't get a fricking thing from the sutras, so we will preserve them and instead circle-jerk on buddhism inside our self-made basket called the abidharma''.
That's not what mahayanists did at all. Mahayanists wanted to feel superior and for this, they rewrote history. Instead they just created their own sutras, then their own abidharma, and of course they say they were the smartest and most righteous Buddhists alive.
The funny thing is that later on, the same people did the same thing to their own teachings: the vajrayanists did to mahanaya what the mahayanists did to buddhism: vajrayanists rewrote mahanaya history by creating their won sutras then their own commentary saying that varjayanists are the smartest and most righteous mahayanists of all time.
You have to understand that buddhists were fricking moronic after the buddha's death. Pudgala are famously just as moronic as the mahayanists, but at least they were honest about it.
And the duplicity of the mahayanists is not even the first time it happened in India. The first occurrence was with the brahmins. The brahmins were socially in power and nobody could stop them rewriting history when in contact with buddhism and jainsim. Their minor frick-up was that they claimed that the Vedas were super sacred, so they could not touch them. So they created the commentaries called the Upanishads and started changing everything the Vedas were saying.
Of course the mahayana duplicity is precisely the vedist duplicity, because they were made by the same people. With buddhism, The brahmins had no barrier for rewriting buddhism into anything they wanted. And they wanted Brahminism. Their major frick up was first to write in sanskrit, like Nagarjuna, then to copy the lengthy and delusion of grandeur style of bramins stories and of course to cram moronic ideas in buddhism, in a covert manner. Mahayana sutras are like hinduism sutras: they are very very long, very very pompous, very very self-aggrandizing and very very moronic.
and guess what? normies absolutely fricking love it. Normies have been in love with brahminism-mahayana-vajrayana for the last 2 millenials, just like normies have been in love with atheism for the last 2 centuries.
I think Mahayana metaphysics are extremely intellectually stimulating but at the same time you probably have a point
I think you are full of the same thing as what you accuse those other people of.
It's much simpler. There are people who understand the true nature of reality much better than you or I. They shape their way of life around that understanding and teach other people by creating skillful means.
You will never create a intellectual system that is perfect for all time. Those systems are just skillful means themselves. Even if they sometimes are very close to describing ultimate reality or sometimes hit the heart of the matter.
Skillfull means are a manahyna invention dumdum
not really, at the end of the day language is in itself a skillfull mean, that is a mean(a mediation/a way to comunicate) and a skill(the smeantics of language) so each attempt to explain or articulate the path to nirvana wil end up being a skillfull mean, the theravada posture is that the tripitaka is the most skillfull of all the forms of comunicating the dhamma and the mahayana tradition would answer that the context of time and space(culture) changes so new means of comunicating the dhamma are needed, which isn't all that unreasonable
but at the end of the day all schools of buddhism will agree you need some kind of skill to show the dhamma
What is the best way of communicating the dharma to the 21st century western man living in a postmodern world?
Start with What the Buddha Taught, then read Red Pine's Heart Sutra translation. The latter is short, it fits in a IQfy post.
I read the latter already and I'm not sure I need the first one
The first one was written with the expressed purpose of conveying the Theravada tradition's basics to a Westerner.
The first book "what the buddha taught" can only serve as a theoretical and imcomplete introduction - what is "visible on the surface". The author is not a authority; just an atheist materialist intellectual with a political agenda.
>atheist materialist intellectual
Buddhists don't worship a volcano demon so they are all atheist by that standard. They are not materialists either, though I understand this is used as another loaded and nominally derogatory term for atheists
>The author is not a authority
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Buddha_Taught
>What the Buddha Taught, by Theravadin Walpola Rahula
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walpola_Rahula_Thero
>Rahula Thero was awarded several titles during his lifetime. The highest honorary title, Tripitakavagisvaracarya (Supreme Master of Buddhist Scriptures), was given him by Sri Kalyapi Samagri Sangha-sabha (the Chapter of the Sangha in Sri Lanka) in 1965, with the qualification Sri (Gracious), a title held by only two or three scholars in Sri Lanka. He was also awarded the title "Aggamaha Panditha" from Burma.
So, yes, he is actually an authority on Theravada Buddhism. In fact, his position in the Sangha is literally "Supreme Master of Buddhist Scriptures", meaning that his job is to literally be an authority on Buddhsim.
Maybe you should have looked up what the book was about before just assuming?
>t .advaitin
There are other good Mahayana books as well that serve as good introductions to the various traditions. For example, Buddhism Of Wisdom and Faith by Thich Thien Tam, Words of My Perfect Teacher by Patrul Rinpoche, Silent Illumination by Guo Gu, and Taming the Monkey Mind.
You start with the 'Jeets of course.
To add to this, we know from the records written by Chinese pilgrim-monks like Xuanzang that Mahayana and "Hinayana," that is to say the earlier non-Mahayanist schools which Theravada is a cousin of—coexisted in many monasteries in northern India. The major reason this was possible, in a way that is unthinkable in Christianity to continue your comparison, is because they used the same Vinaya rules of monastic conduct. Xuanzang also notes areas where these rules were neglected, but it remains a fact that there were not separate Vinaya rules for those who valued the Mahayana sutras vs those who exclusively valued the canonical agamas (the nikayas in Pali). The Mahayana literature both sutra and shastra, is full of combatitive remarks against the hinayana and the sravakas and everyone else, but not the vinaya, in India, remains the same. And this was in fact something Chinese monks were looking for, since the transmission to China was so piecemeal that they didn't have a complete Vinaya in Chinese. So even though China was entirely Mahayana, just like in India they will adopt the necessarily non-sectarian monastic rules, while interpreting the metaphysics and philosophical views largely in parallel to Indian developments until Huayen/Chan come about. (Contrary to popular assumption, "Pure Land" has roots in Gandhara and Persian/Indian hybrid areas, and is not something the Chinese simply make up due to acculturation of foreign material; it happens that this is an element of that foreign material they liked to emphasize).
The Lankavatara, traditionally associated with the transmission of Chan by Bodhidharma, is also important to development Chan/Zen, as are other Yogacara sutras
Nah, we dont start with the jeets anymore. Here's the updated version.
neat, a fourth Buddhist chart
>all this emptiness stuff
Is there really anything wrong with just aiming for stream entry in this life?
Nothing strictly wrong with it but why would you stop there if you could go farther?
I don't feel comfortable with the bodhisattva vow.
Then don't take it. Practice anyway
How do you practice without taking the vow assuming you want to exit samsara as quickly as possible?
>assuming you want to exit samsara as quickly as possible?
Tantric buddhism then. Pick your favorite tantra that has a translation in a language you understand and get practicing. Commentaries on the tantra might include a section describing the bodhisattva vow but it's not like they can force you to do anything. The buddha is not going to come down and stop you, especially if you're earnestly trying for enlightenment.
I thought you couldn't safely practice tantric buddhism without guidance from a guru, which requires you take the vow during the initiation.
Who's going to stop you? They might have been able to enforce that when all the information about the highest yoga tantra were held by the very few but that's no longer true.
If you mean that you can try but the practice just won't work without a guru then that's not true either.
I said safely in that the practices could be spiritually harmful if not done with the proper guidance, as it was explained in a previous buddhism thread from a few days ago. I wouldn't want to go psychotic or whatever.
The bodhisattva vow is more about formally recognizing that you care about something other than youself so that when you plunge into emptiness you don't go all solipsistic. So when you're going exercises where you become a diety, the yidam, you don't get attached to being a god but understand than even this powerful being is an illusion.
I get the idea, but it's still a vow, and I don't want to remain in samsara until everyone else has become a Buddha.
That's fair but don't let that stop you from trying at all. Tantra is a tool that achieves a certain goal, you do the practices and you receive the effects. It doesn't have a kill switch in it, if it detects that you didn't make a vow.
"The limit of samsara is the limit of nirvana."
"Nirvana is samsara"
Check out Treasure of the Lotus Crystal Cave, it's a very helpful teaching.
>"Nirvana is samsara"
This is something I have trouble with. The sutta/Pali view in which nirvana is separate from samsara makes more sense to me.
>The sutta/Pali view in which nirvana is separate from samsara makes more sense to me
As long as you don't imagine that nirvana is a place. it's emptiness, it's empty of everything.
I don't imagine it's anything.
The Bodhisattva ideal is of three different kinds. One chooses to remain in Samsara until all beings are liberated, the other chooses to liberate some before becoming a Buddha, and some choose to become a Buddha and then deliver sentient beings.
Are you explicitly given the option to choose the third one?
Yes, you can choose any of the three vows.
>So when you're going exercises where you become a diety, the yidam, you don't get attached to being a god but understand than even this powerful being is an illusion.
This has never been advocated by the buddha.
Been reading "the teaching of buddha", its not theravada + mahayana. Its simply just mahayana teaching. I think the concept of 4 noble truth in this book is too generalising. Walpola rahula's what the buddha taught is better book.
>REEEEEE YOU HAVE TO DO PROTESTANTISM VS CATHOLICISM REEEEEEE
Why even bother? No, seriously, why? Why import these weird dichotomies and dynamics into a foreign religion? If you just want to argue about Protestantism vs Catholicism, just go to /Bible/ or whatever and do it there.
No, he is completely wrong. The Theravada and Mahayana do not conceive of themselves as locked in existential combat like Protestantism and Catholicism do. He is saying that Theravada is Protestantism and thus actually reads the Bible (sorry, the Pali Canon!) and Catholics worship Saints which is idolatry. This is not at all how the Mahayana and Theravada conceive of each other, let alone themselves. It's not how either conceive of their texts or how Dharma or Buddhism even work.
This ignorance is demonstrated here:
Catholics don't read the Bible, they just get everything from IDOLATRY and THE POPE, therefore any given Catholic doctrine must NOT be able to be found in the Bible, a priori. Thus, anon assumes that "Skillful Means", the inevitability of universal enlightenment, and Bodhisattvas cannot be found in the Pali Canon. This is completely incorrect, all three are found in the Pali Canon. The only quibble that the Theravada have with the Bodhisattva Vow is concerning the technical nature of pulling it off (Theravadans argue that you cannot do it on your own no matter how enlightened you are, you have to have a Buddha physically present to MAKE you into a Bodhisattva; the Buddha did this to a number of his students in his lifetime, but his death and Maitreya's yet-to-be-born-ness mean that we cannot get any new Bodhisattvas from this universe).
The Theravada tradition is not Protestantism. The Theravada do not use Sola Scriptura. The Theravada do not disagree with the Mahayana for anything to do with texts. You cannot apply Sola Scriptura to Buddhism because the fundamental point about the Torah having been divinely revealed to Moses is absent from Buddhism.
>The Theravada and Mahayana do not conceive of themselves as locked in existential combat like Protestantism and Catholicism do
I never said they were. In fact I even discretely explained that the denominations in Buddhism are nothing like the denominations in Christianity.
>He is saying that Theravada is Protestantism
I never said this
>This is not at all how the Mahayana and Theravada conceive of each other, let alone themselves.
I never said its how they see eachother. Its my own interpretation. Do you not have any reading comprehension whatsoever??
The Pāli Canon just contains the words of the Buddha as well as rituals and philosophies derived from the words, and commentaries of these words and of Buddha himself as perceived by the school in Sri Lanka. Mahayana Buddhists, straight up, just do not follow the Pāli Canon as closely as Theravada Buddhists. It's not that they disagree with eachother on what the Buddha's words meant, its that they just have different strictness in following his words, because they have different philosophies on what you should do in your life.
Theravada Buddhists prioritize enlightenment or at least approaching it, Mahayana Buddhists prioritize staying in samsara to help others become Theravada Buddhists. They are not in combat and I never said they were. They compliment eachother. Mahayana Buddhists acknowledge that they do not follow the Pāli Canon as closely as Theravada Buddhists do, they themselves are aware of this fact. They give up their own chance of enlightenment it for a noble reason. But they made this noble reason up themselves, the Buddha (as far as I know, to be fair) didn't define the origins of samsara and suffering, and the cessation of suffering and rebirths, just for people to go ahead and not end their own suffering and rebirths, and rather to help others end THEIR suffering and rebirths. My main problem with this, well, is that if so many people are helping other people achieve enlightenment, but they do not strive to achieve it themselves, nor do the people they help strive as they become Mahayana Buddhists themselves, then how exactly have they helped anyone in the first place? They haven't, they've just coped themselves into staying in samsara. Its by oneself evil is undone, by oneself is one made pure. Nobody can purify another. It's only when you're in pursuit of your own enlightenment do you help others, since you can become one's friend and help them to the shores of the stream, without needlessly sacrificing your own path to enlightenment. Would you yourself have listened to the Buddha if he didn't actually achieve enlightenment, but instead sacrificed his own enlightenment so he could stay in samsara and help others achieve enlightenment? No, its nonsensical
>stay in samsara and help others achieve enlightenment
That's literally what the Buddha did though. He didn't just zap away to the astral plane or whatever you imagine nirvana to be. He was tempted not to teach others because it would be difficult, but then chose preach and found his order. Whether you value the bodhisattva path or not it doesn't change the fact that the historical Buddha—whether you believe he was an emanation of a cosmic reality principle or a person who had achieved enlightenment as ripened over lifetimes—remained in the world despite having achieved total gnosis.
>He didn't just zap away to the astral plane
He didn't because it doesnt exist.
Also according to Mahayana itself, arhats are not reborn so even mahayanists can't get them ''fully enlightened a la mahayana''.
That's blatantly untrue, both the Lotus Sutra and Pure Land Sutras state that Arhats are at a stage where they will still go on to achieve Buddhahood, they just aren't in the Six Realms, but rather a limited form of Nirvana.
>arhats are not reborn
That's the part of the critique of course—from the Mahayana view the sravaka path gets one stuck since one has not attained Buddhahood and has cut off their rebirths; a private liberation instead of a universal one. To which the answer may well be "who cares," which is why Mahayana and non-Mahayana had a long period of coexistence in India before all Buddhism became extinct there, and both sides were using the same vinaya rules and occupied the same monasteries. It wasn't nearly as rancorous as it is often assumed to be by western surveyors. Gradually Mahayana did dominate India and elsewhere, leaving Theravada to the south as the surviving representative of pre-Mahayana.
The only gripes i got with mahayana sutras are they kick down the position of arhats
>That's literally what the Buddha did
What the frick? Do you even know basic doctrine? He never reincarnated, he escaped the cycle of rebirths and deaths permanently, and was freed from all suffering from the point he first became enlightened to the point where he passed away. That's what nirvana is, not whatever bullshit you think it is. And after this, the Buddha explained and taught how he did it for us to achieve nirvana ourselves. I'm shocked at the level of confusion you have with Buddha's teachings, because he was VERY explicit on all this. But clearly you probably haven't read the Pāli Canon, and Buddha's actual words, as much as you have read Mahayana texts
You are missing THE POINT which seems to be something paligays are dead set on enforcing through their hyperprotestantism. You are knocking the bodhisattva ideal of remaining in samsara to liberate others as nonsensical while believing in "Buddhism," as if there could even be "Buddhism" without the Buddha having remained for his 40 or so years on earth in a form everyone agrees was capable of communicating discursively in order to teach others the path of liberation. The finer scholastic points of nirvana vs nirvana without remainder, or parinibbana, or the death of his body are all besides the point. He "got it" sitting under the tree and he decided to stick around so others could "get it." At the most simple level that is the same impetus of the bodhisattva vow—supposing you could check out right then and there (if that's what you think nirvana is) the Buddha decided not to, which is the only reason the sutta pitaka exists.
>You are knocking the bodhisattva ideal of remaining in samsara to liberate others as nonsensical while believing in "Buddhism," as if there could even be "Buddhism" without the Buddha having remained for his 40 or so years on earth[...]
That's a good point actually. So the question becomes: Did Buddha achieve nirvana and THEN teach others, or did Buddha understand nirvana, teach others, and then achieve nirvana?
I believe the former; Buddha helped others after achieving nirvana, which is possible even with world-renunciation, since being concerned with others' enlightenment is not a worldly matter (or precisely, a pro-wordly matter) since it is exactly a matter about renouncing the world, about following the noble path. Buddha didn't teach us advice in negotiating in trade deals, or the best way to swing a sword, because these are matters concering the world and involve participating in samsara.
Look, I can accept being something like a bodhisattva if you're on your way to becoming an arhat, and in fact it cannot be done any other way, but most if not all Mahayan Buddhists strive to become actual bodhisattva and give up on achieving nirvana in their present life, and this is what I do not accept. Perhaps they hope their good karma will let them reincarnate into a person who wants to become an arhat. But because they're procrastinating now, so forth they will procrastinate forever. There's a reason Buddha never said "well actually you don't need to renounce the world *right* now. You can always just die, and cross your fingers you'll reincarnate into a person who will!". You don't reincarnate into someone else, you reincarnate into yourself as you were when you died. You change as you live, not after you die and before you are born.
My main gripe with the bodhisattva path is that it is simply the end result of failure to become an Arhat, and it's been written down and and is being praised as something that's a good thing, and even worse it's idealized over achieving nirvana. I say this because, again, you can do everything a boddhisattva wants to do on the journey to become an Arhat. So, the boddhisatva path has become an obstacle towards nirvana for their believers and practitioners, not an aid.
>That's a good point actually. So the question becomes: Did Buddha achieve nirvana and THEN teach others, or did Buddha understand nirvana, teach others, and then achieve nirvana?
The buddha achieves nirvana, then teaches the path to nirvana, then achieves pari-nirvana, ie what atheists call death.
Yeah this is what I believe too. I didn't see any reason to distinguish pari-nirvana from nirvana. Really just a semantic thing
Yeah and the buddha helped others by teaching the 8 fold path for full enlightened.
bodhisattvas don't do that, they do something else, and by the way they make people suffer more since their teaching doesn't lead to full enlightenment.
Holy shit, I just realized what you're even saying. You don't know what samsara is, oh my goodness gracious, no wonder I couldn't figure out the source of your autism. You think samsara is just to exist??? And that nirvana is something akin to immediately not existing anymore, like going to heaven maybe. And you think that Buddha was in samsara because he existed in the world after he became enlightened. Bro, you don't even know what samsara is.
>The historical Buddha, even if you believe he was a person who achieved enlightenment [...] remained in the world despite achieving total gnosis
Buddha, by the fact that he was enlightened, no longer remained in the world after the destruction of his body, he was not reborn. However, he was not freed from samsara at the point of the destruction of his body. Samsara is not just the cycle of death and rebirth, it is also the cravings you have in the period of time between rebirth and death, that is during your life. Therefore, he was freed from samsara from the point he was enlightened, since the point he was freed of ALL desires, at the point when he completed the eightfold path, after figuring it out himself, and at that point he was no longer going to be reborn into anything.
*He was freed from all unwholesome desires, freed from all cravings
t.seething protestant
We get it, you hate white males.
Single digit IQ post
Nothing is wrong. Maybe there's a sense in which some of the resolve for liberation is minmaxed in exchange for brahmaviharas, since much of the real meat of the Mahayana is concerned with after one has become an arhat. I'm no scholar, but I don't think it's a necessity for a Mahayanist to have to stay in Samsara. I view it as a more vigorous vow - to become a buddha: a teacher, an influencer, even in a mundane sense like Budai - just not merely a sravaka, like what is so commonly depicted in Theravada sutras.
One could argue morality/motivation is the whole of the path. The Aśokadatta Sutra is all about the virtues of the Mahayana. It's one of the best I've heard: https://soundcloud.com/lotus-underground/asokadatta-sutra-the-gift-of-fearlessness6-19-2020 (Couldn't even find a text)
>Has your majesty ever seen or heard of a lion, the king of beasts, rising to welcome jackals?
http://www.buddhism.org/Sutras/DHARMA/Tripitaka/FireSermon.htm
>Bhikkhus, all is burning.
>And what is all that is burning? Bhikkhus, the eye is burning, visible forms are burning, visual consciousness is burning, visual impression is burning, also whatever sensation, pleasant or painful or neither painful, nor pleasant, arises on account of the visual impression, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of craving, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion; I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with grief’s, and with despairs.
>... Being dispassionate, he becomes detached; through detachment he is liberated. When liberated there is knowledge that he is liberated. And he knows: Birth is exhausted, the holy life has been lived, what has to be done is done, there is no more left to be done on this account.
https://www.mctb.org/
>Mahayana texts
>Using them to critique Therevada Buddhists for idolizing nothingness, even when Buddha said nothingness cannot be idolized
That's analogous to me using texts from the Book of Mormon and commentaries supporting those texts, to criticise a Catholic or a Protestant of believing
and idolizing Joseph Smith as a prophet, when Jesus told them not to do just that.
The relationship that the Buddhist denominations have to eachother, are based on how much they actually listen to Buddha and how much they instead just make their own shit up. Not at all like Christian or Muslim denominations, many of whom have equally valid and differing conclusions from the same source. Mahayana Buddhists just straight up do not follow the Buddha's teachings as strictly as Theravada Buddhists do.
>muh protestant buddhism
He's not wrong
>probably because they secretly want to disappear into the void.
there's "no thing" that can disappear into the void, that's the whole point
Yes, because its a skillful mean that is meant to point to the truth about reality. Shunyata is not something you write endless layers of abstract analysis about until your head is full of them.
>t. prays to torah scrolls, rabbis, and buildings
lol
Depends. The Theravada position is that it is possible to enter a state where you can guarantee that you will achieve nirvana in the next five rebirths (tl;dr due to karmic accounting), and that after a certain point you cannot regress IN THIS LIFETIME, AND that you can be sure that you have entered this state and tell if others have.
The Mahayana has a variety of positions, but they are generally speaking more willing to admit that you cannot know when you will achieve nirvana unless you are already a Bodhisattva (in simple terms), that regression is totally possible in this life, and that only you can know if you have entered this state.
>you cannot regress IN THIS LIFETIME, AND that you can be sure that you have entered this state and tell if others have.
Is that sotapanna or anagami?
no partially enlightened people can regress, so it's sotapanna
Rituals are useless in buddhism
Bros... I was just fricking around and challenged Buddha to escape his palm but wherever I go, Buddha is one with it. WTF DO I DO I DON'T WANNA BE TRAPPED IN A MOUNTAIN!!!
what was that about again
The Qingjing Jing
The Abhisamayalamkara
that's my desktop background
ITT: People who misunderstand the doctrine of Emptiness and think it's about a literal all destroying void instead of a net of interconnected phenomena.
What are some good Pure Land sutras or commentaries aside from the Lotus, Avatamsaka, Amitabhadhuryana, Shorter Amitabha, and longer Amitabha sutras? I need to deepen my practice.
The Tannisho and Shinran's Kygoshinsho. Also check out this YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/acalaacala
Thanks anon. I'm actually Chinese Pure Land Buddhist, but I appreciate Japanese style as well, though I don't agree with some of the tenants. I'm also aware of Acalaacala, I love his videos.
Anyone know about this? Thoughts?
https://dharmasun.org/tte/
It's a legitimate organization that teaches you exoteric and esoteric Mahayana in the Tibetan tradition. I'm also pretty sure if you have financial problems they're willing to waive the fee to join.
Is it a good way to practice if I don't have much time and unpredictable job hours?
If it's all online how do they initiate people into tantra anyway?
Empowerments can be given in any fashion as long as a guru oversees it. And yes, it's a good way to learn a basic practice that can help you out. I also recommend Garchen Rinpoche, as he gives teachings on sadhanas and also gives empowerments that are transfered online by watching the prerequisite videos. He's on youtube.
>Empowerments
Initiation is different from empowerments iirc
What do you listen to while meditating? For me it’s https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=alo3KFRfLvE&listen=1
>What do you listen to while meditating?
Nothing
to whatever my favorite music is, I just try to lose my mind dancing to it and that's my meditation
I go to a temple where it is guaranteed to be silent as can be. You're not meditating. You're listening to music. You haven't learned about emptiness.
read this, homosexual
The two most important Zen/Ch'an sutras that give it "foundation" are the Diamond and Platform Sutras. Imo, if you haven't read those two, you cannot technically call yourself a Zen/Ch'an Buddhist. The split between Northern and Southern schools that happened after Huineng does threaten the legitimacy of claims of continuity to the lineage of patriarchs.
>Modern philosophical schools of Buddhism are all more or less influenced by a spirit of sophistic nihilism. They deal with Nirvāṇa as they deal with every other dogma, with heaven and hell: they deny its objective reality, placing it altogether in the abstract. They dissolve every proposition into a thesis and its anti-thesis and deny both. Thus they say Nirvāṇa is no annihilation, but they also deny its positive objective reality.
>According to them the soul enjoys in Nirvāṇa neither existence nor non-existence, it is neither eternal nor non-eternal, neither annihilated nor non-annihilated. Nirvāṇa is to them a state of which nothing can be said, to which no attributes can be given; it is altogether an abstract, devoid alike of all positive and negative qualities.
>What shall we say of such empty useless speculations, such sickly, dead words, whose fruitless sophistry offers to that natural yearning of the human heart after an eternal rest nothing better than a philosophical myth? It is but natural that a religion which started with moral and intellectual bankruptcy should end in moral and intellectual suicide.
Christians can only outline the bliss of heaven and in no way describe God too
>According to them the soul enjoys in Nirvāṇa
Sounds like he was extremely filtered
>According to them the soul enjoys in Nirvāṇa neither existence nor non-existence
>the soul enjoys in Nirvāṇa
>the soul
lol
He is obviously talking about the aggregates… the point is still the same either way
It would be like saying "According to them, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is not seated at the right hand of the Father in Heaven;" it means he was filtered or is criticizing the doctrines for the sake of invalidating them in favor of some other doctrine, namely that of a substance view.
BDK America has a translation of some Tiantai material as "Tiantai Lotus Texts" though personally in terms of Chinese/Japanese esoteric Buddhism I find Shingon to be more valuable. The Lotus Sutra is very sparse in terms of doctrine and explanation and the text largely consists of alternating between reminding you to read the Lotus Sutra and psychadelic episodes
>Shingon to be more valuable
Why? As far as I can see Tiantai metaphysics are quite unique
>He is obviously talking about the aggregates
the aggregates don't enjoy nirvana, like at all, the whole pourpose of liberation is to extinguish the agregates, that's what nirvana literally means "extintion"
so no, the point becomes even more dumb if he thinks the ggregates remain in nirvana, and that shows how little he knows about buddhism
lol, shilling cool modern degeneracy
Anyone know good books on Tiantai/Tendai buddhism?
Thoughts on Tiantai in general?
most common theme in buddhist texts is the idea of moksha (liberation from cycle of death and rebirth), the schools of buddhism vary on this on how one achieves this and what it implies, the concept of jivanmukta implies that one can liberate themselves here and now while still alive, some interpretations say that they must achieve moksha to even merit a rebirth into a higher realm, it is this concept that the person has most likely heard that is referred to the pure land buddhism, there are also some inbetween realms depending on which school you follow
however if you are "true buddhist" then the goal should be buddhahood or liberation from samsara not some afterlife where one can take time to do it, your "aim" should be to be liberated not to see buddha unless you have to to be able to liberate yourself
buddhist sects encourage you to exhaust all the lines of thoughts in it to come to the conclusion that buddha did "first noble truth, life is suffering", very early in the story of gautama buddha's story he learns of the 3 states of suffering shared by all, we get sick, we grow old and we die, all of these are global and all of these are forms of suffering
these alone should motivate the aspirant to seek release from the cycle of death and rebirth, one could argue that "i will just do it in my next rebirth" but to that you must remember that there is no guarantee you will hear of the scriptures / dharma in that life, your birth may be that of an animal, you may be born a wicked man who shuns the teachings etc
the whole goal of your life the moment you come to know of the teachings should be aimed at moksha while still alive, even to be a bodhisattva is to wait for too long unless you first liberate yourself and then others, we are not guaranteed tomorrow each day could be the last day we live on this world thus to be a jivanmukta and to achieve moksha should be every aspirants number 1 priority
for zen buddhism the goal is kind of weird, it relies on satoshi and then spontaneous liberation after enough of those, this to me seems like a gamble that you will live long enough to have enough of those to have liberation in this life
>moksha
this one is not used in buddhism. Buddhism uses vimutti because the jhanas alone dont bring wisdom
vedas refer to it as moksha from what i gather and they are the basis of hinduism which is the basis of buddhism, doesn't really even if you call it getsy outsie as long as your goal is to leave samsara
Hinduism, Mahayana, Vajrayana all say meditation is nirvana. The buddha says it's not.
And there is no moksha in the vedas, because there is no nirvana in the vedas, because there is no samsara in the vedas, because there is no karma in the vedas...
>meditation is nirvana
What
>satoshi
satori*, it's late here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satori
The Rose Sutra.
how do you know whether you're under a bodhisattva vow? just reading it aloud from a book isn't going to send me to hell, isn't it? i hope its just some trick, like how could a vow have any meaning if there is no subject only emptiness?
what if its impossible to fulfill, either because some souls dont want to be liberated (even out ouf spite just so stupid vowgays can never be free), or there are always coming new souls into samsara and killing that source would be blinding god or destroying nirvana or worse
>how do you know if you're under a bodhisattva vow
might be unorthodox but frick dogma, bodhisattva's take their vows because they feel empathy to the sufferers of the world, the vows are not made out of obligation or under duress, if you don't want to liberate all living things / as many as you can you're not under vows, even if you were you would just be binding yourself to pointless dogma instead of actually doing it for any abstract good
When you wholeheartedly vow to accomplish your Bodhisattva deeds, then you are under them. At the same time, we do not know if we have taken these vows in a past life, and considering the countless births and deaths we have undergone, it is likely we have already taken them in a way. You should understand that there are three kinds of Bodhisattvas: those who stay in Samsara to liberate sentient beings, those who shepherd some through samsara and enter Nirvana, and others who vow to become Buddhas and shepherd countless sentient beings that way. You are not necessarily tied to saving all sentient beings in samsara, but the more you progress on the path of liberation, the more you will want to help them out of true compassion and wisdom.
You are rude.
I am happy for you! I hope they teach you more about the dharma door of your choosing.
i think even the scriptures said that there are shit tons of bodhisattva's that don't end up fulfilling "their vows", you should focus mainly on living "a good life" and liberating yourself, you can still be a arahant even if you're not a bodhisattva
The books finally arrived
frick Abe Books and frick you too for ruining my weekly shipkek updates
good for you bro! hope they're useful
These books are extremely advanced
What are the prereqs?
In what way?
A lot of people int his thread are overthinking it.
Stick to the original pali material. It's as simple as the Dhammachakra Sutra. That's all you need.
The other things are simple pleasures to chant. Blessings and reminders like this one:
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/ChantingGuide/Section0060.html
>>The other things are simple pleasures to chant
That's insane. The buddha forbids the monks to chant precisely because they would prefer this pleasure over renunciation.
Chanting does not make you less agitated. on the contrary, chanting makes puthujjanas more agitated and the buddha says it is a mistake for the bikkhus to chant, but the buddha allows ''intonation''.
The problem with chanting is that puthujjanas love to get carried away by the chant and as usual being carried away by the senses is the biggest mistake a puthujjana who wants to stop being unhappy can make. So the bikkhus must avoid that in order for the bikkhus to stop creating suffering for the bikkhu and for and for the audience, so that the puthujjanas are not carried away by their words, which means preventing suffering in lay people. This is called having metta for oneself and for others.
http://obo.genaud.net/dhamma-vinaya/pts/vp/03.cv/vp.03.cv.05.03.horn.pts.htm
Having given reasoned talk, he addressed the monks, saying:
"Monks, there are these five disadvantages to one singing dhamma with a long-drawn plain-song sound:
he is pleased with himself in regard to that sound, and others are pleased in regard to that sound,
and housepeople look down upon,
and while he is himself striving after accuracy in the sound[2] there is an interruption in his concentration,
and people coming after fall into the way of (wrong) views.[3]
These, monks, are the five disadvantages to one singing dhamma with a long-drawn plain-song sound.
Monks, dhamma should not be sung with a long-drawn plain-song sound.
Whoever should (so) sing it, there is an offence of wrong-doing."
Now at that time monks were doubtful about intoning.[4]
They told this matter to the Lord.
He said:
"Monks, I allow intoning."
Anon, I think (in what you posted) he's making he distinction between singing and chanting. at least that's what it sounds like to me.
All buddhist traditions chant instead of sing, and i don't think that's inconsistent with what you posted.
I think the real reason for chanting instead of singing though (because singing doesn't create suffering regardless of what that quote says) is that it's the only way you're going to get all the material in.
If you sing everything instead of chanted it, it would take like ten times as long and everybody would be snoring on the floor by the time you finished the sutra.
Anyway, a victory blessing for you!
Which is the better method
>With each and every breath
>Mastering the core teachings of the the Buddha
bump
Ingram is just rehashing the pali abidharma and adding his stupid idea of cycling, after the Burmese monks told him he was an arhat during one retreat, but when he went back home he made up his 4 fourth path arhatship. Then he mixes this with mahayana.
So yeah stick to thanissaro.
So Ingram's book is worthless?
Not him, but I found it useful because it references tons of other books. As to Ingram's method, I just think he drove himself crazy with it and is not realized.
I would say With Each and Every Breath is a great introduction to the Thai Forest form of meditation. I cannot speak on the other text, as I have not read it. I hope this helps though.
Thank you friend
Last night I dreamed that I was in some kind of inescapable prison and was despairing, and some guy gave me an old book which contained a lost step-by-step teaching authored by Shakyamuni that was the only way to break out of the prison. I started reading it but then woke up
Weird stuff
I wish I had dreams with ancient figures in them
I didn't see the Buddha directly, just some kind of emissary. I really felt like I was in an inescapable situation and that these specific steps outlined in the book were the key. But I don't know what the book contained
I wonder if dreams like this are particularly meaningful anyway
The buddha told me in my dream that Mahayana is his true teaching.
No I'm joking.
Now you need to learn to lucid dream and ask for the rest of the teaching
I really suck at lucid dreaming
Dreams are the realization of desires.
Dreams can be pretty good for insight, beyond typical dream analysis. That entire dream was you (provisional you). You were the inescapable prison, the despair itself, the some guy, his book, the teaching, Shakyamuni, his emissary, the feeling of the book being the key, and the desire to break out of the prison. The "you" you felt yourself to be in the dream was also just a dream object. The dream as a whole and it's apparently individual objects and people are all empty. And if the dream is lucid, going by direct experience, it couldn't be said that there was the real you outside the dream dreaming it, unless you relied on imagination and memory or belief.
Another point to note specifically is that you were despairing at being trapped in the inescapable prison, and desperately seeking the special teaching, but the whole time "you", the prison, and the teaching was the same """thing""". And I don't mean this in a superficial metaphorical self-help kind of way. That which is seeking for the one special teaching that it believes will provide liberation IS that teaching.
All of this is also true for waking life.
>That entire dream was you
In the sense of emptiness?
Yeah, excuse the expedient language. I don't mean you as in atman.
I once had the insight that really, there's nothing to do but relax, but I end up going back to practice and study. The notion that there's nothing to do doesn't sink in. Paradoxically, making it sink in may be what the practice and studying are about.
If there's nothing to do how come stream enterers, once returners, non returners and arasants exist?
Paradoxically, those may be the people for whom it really has sunk in.
Sounds like something a Terton would say. Rediscovering a lost text in a dream.
Termas are not supernatural or original, they reference previous works, in paraphrase etc. Sure if you want to say every spiritual revelation or writing is supernatural then that's fine. Tertöns are humans who train - to write... and so on, the whole thing about tertöns receiving a text from a dakini, I receiving a long as text in a dream, or travelling to a pure land and being given a text is not the full story..
The translations of these texts suck, are partial and unfaithful to the original. So the guy who bought these will need to be well studied in the original Tibetan and the bön tradition to even get the smallest use out of them, he probably bought these because of the
>muh zombies!
Etc. Stuff from another thread, the books are not magic.
Nirvana
What is this exactly?
It sounds like nothing.
Nothing doesn't sound very enticing.
Compared to infinite lives.
It would be nice to reincarnate rather than rebirth,
but I would be worried about bad luck sundering my path.
Most NDEs talk about a heaven anyway.
I'm not sure about it at all.
Is there any difference between nirvana and the atheistic conceptualization of what happens after death?
I'm struggling to understand or be drawn toward it.
I find interesting how people are angrily cussing at one another in a debate over fairly non-essential doctrinal differences about what enlightenment means. I think the exact nature of karma, nirvana, when exactly samsara is exited, etc, are very minor concerns of the teachings compared to the three poisons. Forests and trees. Still, I am curious for a response for general knowledge of the issue.
>"They say their own teaching is perfect
>while the doctrine of others is lowly.
>Thus quarreling, they dispute,
>each saying his agreed-on opinion
>is true.
>If something, because of an opponent's say-so,
>were lowly,
>then none among teachings would be
>superlative,
>for many say
>that another's teaching's inferior
>when firmly asserting their own.
>If their worship of their teaching were true,
>in line with the way they praise their own path,
>then all doctrines
>would be true —
>for purity's theirs, according to each.
>...
>he remains equanimous:
>‘That’s what others hold onto.’
>251. .....there is no grip like hatred......
>252. Easily seen is the fault of others, but one's own fault is difficult to see. Like chaff one winnows another's faults, but hides one's own, even as a crafty fowler hides behind sham branches.
>253. He who seeks another's faults, who is ever censorious -- his cankers grow. He is far from destruction of the cankers.
Good luck on your path.
>Is there any difference between nirvana and the atheistic conceptualization of what happens after death?
My understanding is that atheistic death is the total cessation of you, of your experience. Whereas nirvana is the realization that the you that ceases in atheistic death wasn't really ever here to begin with.
>I'm struggling to understand or be drawn toward it.
Following from above, the difficult thing is that this "I" that's struggling won't ever understand or experience nirvana. Since nirvana is the realization of the nature of this "I" construct. The "I" can't realize this because to realize it means that the "I" won't be here to realize it. The "I" trying to awaken the "I" is like trying to take a step towards or away from yourself.
atheist death = pari-nirvana
No
"Atheist death" is supposed to mean what, atomism? Materialism? People who don't believe in your god may have a variety of beliefs about death but Buddhism is neither atomism nor materialism.
>nirvana is the realization that the you that ceases in atheistic death wasn't really ever here
I feel like when you strip away everything that would make someone an "I" (thoughts, desires, form, perceptions), you are left with literally nothing. How does one exactly exist without senses, thoughts, or desires? So what are you?
>the "I" won't be here to realize it
I can understand that there is ego death, but it's the loss of the rest of it that confuses me more. I'm not sure I'm sold on ego death as desirable entirely either (certainly muted), but perhaps I don't get a choice in that matter.
And as nirvana is outside of the cycle of life, what is there exactly? You have died, exited the cycle, so where are you?
The best-cast I could make of it is that you just sort of become the universe, or the consciousness field of the universe that your brain plugs into at birth, which sounds an awful lot like having your body dissolved into an ocean and becoming the ocean. But at the same time, you're nothing and I doubt I can conceptualize what "being the universe" is like. You always at least had a piece of that ocean (your body water) in you, except now it doesn't get recycled in little meaty bags anymore and it no longer has individual form.
Is that accurate?
>How does one exactly exist without senses, thoughts, or desires?
You still have senses you're just not obsessed with them. You still have thoughts you just can choose to not think if you don't need to, the constant mental noise is gone. You still enjoy things you just don't have the illusion that these external things are the secret to satisfying your endless cravings. Stripping away "this will make me happy" lets you see things for what they are without a bunch of mental contrivances on top. You also don't delude yourself into thinking something is eternal.
I think part of your misunderstanding is that you're conflating things done in meditation, stripping away all thoughts, dissolving all form into the mandala, cutting through your perceptions, with the way that you actually live your life afterward. Sure you could just give up everything and sit there in emptiness, eternally in the clear light, for the rest of your life. But what's the point of that? You need to be able to integrate the clear light into the rest of your life. The point of buddhism isn't to sit around basking in your own holiness; ok you're enlightened now, go do something with it.
The anon you replied to here. I wanna preface this by saying that some people may disagree with my understanding, which is fine. But don't take my word as final, keep doing your own studying.
>I feel like when you strip away everything that would make someone an "I" (thoughts, desires, form, perceptions), you are left with literally nothing. How does one exactly exist without senses, thoughts, or desires? So what are you?
Yeah so you've actually kinda got the point. The problem is that the "I" is still trying to get it, but it can't. Thoughts, desires, forms, perceptions, etc continue. But they're no longer constructed or reified into an "I" that owns them. It's more like there is thoughts, desires, forms, and perceptions aware of themselves. In some sense since it's not the "I" that wakes up, it's the skandhas that wake up.
>I can understand that there is ego death
Personally I avoid the term "ego death", or anything to do with destroying or killing the ego. It's misleading because what claims ownership of the desire for ego death and is trying to kill the ego IS the ego. Likewise with the experience of ego death or ego loss, because there's still identification as someone who is or has experienced not having an ego. "I (ego) am experiencing or have experienced ego death"; you see how contradictory such a statement is? So "in" nirvana, the ego doesn't die exactly, or even really disappear, but it's seen for what it really is.
>And as nirvana is outside of the cycle of life
I get how you'd come to this because the language can be confusing. If you mean that nirvana is only attained after death, that's not how I understand it. Nirvana isn't a True world heaven kinda thing. Nirvana is right here right now, it's never just out of reach or somewhere other than here or attained in the future. Nirvana is "outside the cycle of life" in the sense that it's the realization that there's already no one inside the cycle of life, so there's no one to get outside it.
>Is that accurate?
Possibly. You could perhaps say our physical form returns (not that it ever left) to the physical universe, I think some interpretations of dependent origination implies this kind of thing. "The consciousness field of the universe" sounds somewhat Advaitan, and so does your ocean metaphor, but personally I think the differences are minimal. Buddhism seeks awakening via negation whereas Advaita seeks awakening via positive assertions, but as I understand it both are provisional/expedient. So buddhism says look there isn't really a wave here, whereas advaita says that this wave is nothing but the ocean. But in both it's not the wave that wakes up.
>I feel like when you strip away everything that would make someone an "I" (thoughts, desires, form, perceptions), you are left with literally nothing
that's the illusion, that's what total identification with a self does to the mind
Anyone read have listened to lectures from Jay Garfield? He's a great guy to listen to. Listened to this youtube.