/lit/ - Literature

>>18668978
IEP article on them
>Pudgalavada Buddhist Philosophy
https://iep.utm.edu/pudgalav/

Aside from the karma-attachment problem there is the problem of there being no basis for normative compassion if no self exists, threatening the entire ethical project of Buddhism.

>IEP
If the effort to gain anything for oneself is essentially deluded, how can it not be equally deluded to try to gain anything for other persons, other selves? If to be liberated is to realize that there was never anyone to be liberated, why would that liberation not include the realization that there was never anyone else to be liberated either? Yet it was out of compassion that the Buddha, freshly enlightened, undertook to teach in the first place, and without that compassion there would have been no Buddhism.

>>18214605
In the Shadow of the Dalai Lama by German authors Victor & Victoria Trimondi. They have an English translation published on their website:
http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/Contents.htm

>>16136091
The Shadow of the Dalai Lama by Victor & Victoria Trimondi. Excellent book that covers the entire breadth of Vajrayana Buddhism, it's history, myths, practices, including a chapter on your Japanese friend and other millenialist Buddhist movements inspired by the Shambala myth and the Kalachakra Tantra.

You can read an HTML English translation at the their site (it was originally a published book in German), or a formatted versions from archive.org
http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/Contents.htm
https://archive.org/details/THESHADOWOFTHEDALAILAMA_201903

Essential reading for all Buddhists:
>The Shadow of the Dalai Lama: Sex, Magic, and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism
http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/Contents.htm
https://archive.org/details/THESHADOWOFTHEDALAILAMA/page/n3/mode/2up

>>15598254
The best critical book on Buddhism. Covers the differences between Vajrayana (Tibetan) and Chan (Chinese) Buddhism where relevant. Focus is on Vajrayana and the Kalachakra Tantra, the history and internal disputes of the diffierent factions within Tibetan Buddhism:
>The Shadow of the Dalai Lama: Sexuality, Magic and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism
English translation is online and google has pdf and epub versions:
http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/Contents.htm