/lit/ - Literature

Lol, all the authors you cited are either jew or christian, basically a list of maya advocatours. Why you dont simply read the sutras and try to form an opinion by yourself?

And basically they are all attacking buddhist mahayana logicians, not buddhism per se.

>>18341753
>Lol, all the authors you cited are either jew or christian
Jeong Dojeon was a 14th century Korean Neo-Confucian, I'm pretty sure Raghunath Ghosh is a Hindu, and Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva were Hindu as well. It's normal for people with western names writing in western languages to be following western religions.
>Why you dont simply read the sutras and try to form an opinion by yourself?
Well, I'm interested in learning about criticisms of Buddhism, presumably they don't talk about that in the Sutras since the Pali Canon and Mahayana Sutras are presented as being from the Buddha himself, so I wouldn't expect him to highlight the flaws of his own teachings in those sutras. That sounds like the last place I would find what I'm looking for.

>>18341721
You don't need Books. Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan used to be Buddhist but then they switched to fucking Islam. That alone is enough to refute Buddhism

>>18341721
There was some assblasted Korean king or something, who wrote a book called "On Buddha's Nonsense" or something.
Can't remember any details, sorry

>>18341788
Okay, found it
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulssi_Japbyeon
>Jeong stated that this book was written with the objective of refuting Buddhism once and for all "lest it destroy morality and eventually humanity itself."

>>18341764
>And basically they are all attacking buddhist mahayana logicians,
In the Brahma Sutra commentaries of Shankara and other Vedanta philosophers are contained refutations of the Sarvastivada Abhidharma Buddhist school, which was non-Mahayana

The 17th century Italian Jesuit missionary Ippolito Desideri learned Tibetan and wrote a refutation of Madhyamaka Buddhism

Desideri starts from Nagarjuna's assertion: "For him to whom emptiness is clear, everything becomes clear. For him to whom emptiness is not clear, Nothing becomes clear." Having therefore stated that all things will not be real without the correct definition of emptiness, he works in this direction, summarizing in this way: "since all phenomena are empty of existence of themselves, because they are interdependent, it follows that "interdependence" is the meaning of "emptiness." ... The missionary fully accepts the first part of this reasoning, that is, that all things are contingent and strictly produced by causes and therefore without their own nature; this appears indisputable to him. He therefore focuses his efforts on showing that this conceptual construction lacks coherence if no "Primary Cause" is introduced to start the whole process, an absolutely independent entity. He begins immediately and confidently to contrast the two positions: If we look carefully, the whole system of truth and non-truth lies in these two opinions, and that is:

1. The Mãdhyamika maintain that not even an absolute independent entity exists;
2. We believe in this existence of an absolute independent entity. We must therefore carefully examine which of our two opinions is correct and which is wrong

Desideri skillfully appropriates Tibetan Buddhist terminology and specific method of argument but as Robert Goss has correctly said, he "is not just literally translating Christian concepts into a Tibetan cultural milieu; rather, he is modifying a préexistent doctrinal language and scholastic method that is hermeneutically significant to his Buddhist readers, so as to convey new meanings. Desideri creates an interpretative medium, a rhetoric, for Buddhist-Christian communication ad thus for polemical engagement of these two forms of scholasticism."

In contrast to his interlocutors, the courageous explorer proposes an "Existent being beyond the sphere of existing things" and supports this with a substantial series of profound arguments starting with the consideration that the "dependent" in itself requires the independent, continuing with the necessity of a primary cause in order not to retract the principle of causality, and again with the contention of the eternity and infinity of the chain of causality (infinite regress) which would not permit the manifestation of the world in which we live. Last, he focuses on the fact that if nothing exists by its own nature, then neither does the whole sphere of existing things, but then this must depend on an "other" without which it could not have manifested itself in any way, and this in turn leads inevitably to a contradiction without the introduction of a supreme Being outside of interdependence (existing of itself and not by cause).

>>18341753
>maya advocatours
Dumb fuck

>>18341721
Maybe not 100% what you're looking for but gonna rec anyway because it's great.
Zen at war is a history book about about Zen Buddhists support of Japans militarisation in WWII

>>18341721

bump

>>18341786
That was accomplished largely via force of arms and through the spread of charismatic sufi preachers who brought many people into Islam and not through pointing out problems or contradictions in Buddhism though. So while it may indicate that Buddhism may lack a certain power or vigor in comparison to other religions, its not a refutation of Buddhism

>>18343784
Exposure to Islam also led to the development of the kalachakra tantra in Tibet, which predicts a millenarian holy war against it. Moreover, by the logic of conquest, Islam ought to be abandoned for whatever form of Judaism is most popular in Israel, formerly Palesneed

I'd recommend you start with What the Buddha Taught and the Heart Sutra. After that, check out the Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way by Nagarjuna. The problem you're going to run into is people thinking Buddhism is simultaneously about "self annihilation" and "worshiping the self", both of which are completely absurd (and impossible) according to Buddhism. This is the result of Westerner critics using Buddhism as a standin for things they don't like or that they feel are flaws in their own doctrines and beliefs (Might Makes Right and The Wicker Man are two similar works that do this) rather than actually engaging with Buddhism. From the perspective of someone who actually wants to engage in dialogue, this is absolutely disastrous to do because a Buddhist will just reject anything you say because you are not actually talking about Buddhism and it will make you look silly to a crowd when you get dunked on (for example, the "nagarjuna doesn't talk about self-illuminating lamps" argument).

>>18341795
https://web.archive.org/web/20160303171945/http://www.acmuller.net/jeong-gihwa/bulssijapbyeon.html
It's really neat, actually. It's a fun combination of Han (yes, it's Korean, but the entire point of being Korean is LARPing as Han) chauvinism and arguments stemming from fundamental disagreements on the nature of things. For example, in 10 you get a fun little bit of disagreement on how to keep people from engaging in bad behavior. The Buddhist position (which is obviously not unified, but in the text is aimed at certain Chan strains) argues that Hells (which also serve as a standin for in-this-life punishment, such as caning) are necessary to keep people from behaving badly. The (Neo-)Confucian position is then used to rebut it, that people should know good like a pleasant fragrance and hate evil like a foul odor (quoting from Wang Yangming, who is quoting the Great Learning).

It's two opposing, completely at odds, philosophies of how morality even works.

>>18341721
the Bible

>>18343849
>kalachakra tantra
Can you please tell us more? Seems like this is for the highest level of initiates of Tibetan Buddhism

>>18343862
>I'd recommend you start with What the Buddha Taught and the Heart Sutra. After that, check out the Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way by Nagarjuna.
Why would I do that when I'm looking for criticisms and refutations of Buddhism and those contain neither?
>The problem you're going to run into is people thinking Buddhism is simultaneously about "self annihilation" and "worshiping the self", both of which are completely absurd (and impossible) according to Buddhism.
The books already listed above deal with many more criticisms of Buddhism which don't rely on either of those claims.
>This is the result of Westerner critics using Buddhism as a standing for things they don't like or that they feel are flaws in their own doctrines and beliefs
In your opinion is every single western criticisms of Buddhism unfounded and based on misunderstandings, there's not a single one who had accurate criticisms of Buddhism? That sounds like cope to be honest.
>(for example, the "nagarjuna doesn't talk about self-illuminating lamps" argument).
I don't understand what this is referencing

>>18343930
>Why would I do that when I'm looking for criticisms and refutations of Buddhism and those contain neither?
See >>18343862

> is every single western criticisms of Buddhism unfounded and based on misunderstandings
The vast majority are, yes. For the most part Western engagement with Buddhism is either a genuine interest in it (if only because of DUDE PROCESS LMFAO) in which case there's no criticism or a complete and total rejection as just being some weird foreign religion that is inherently bad because it is foreign and threatens to upset the delicate religio-political dialectic that America exists in. Again, we go back to the "Buddhism is simultaneously about the worship of the self and the annihilation of the self" criticism, which in addition to being mutually contradictory is just flat out impossible in Buddhist thought.

So yeah, for the most part Westerners aren't really interested in criticizing Buddhism, as I said they just want to use it as a standin so they can argue against something else within a Western political or philosophical dialectic by proxy (like, say "nihilism", which the Buddha himself demonstrates as absurd).

>I don't understand what this is referencing
It's just a common "argument" on /lit/ that Buddhism isn't capable of explaining self-illuminating lamps or reflexive action. It comes from Adi Shankara making this "argument" and Guenonfag spamming /lit/ for two years with his dribble. The problem with making this argument is that Buddhism is perfectly capable of explaining reflexive action and Nagarjuna in the MMK uses self-illuminating lamps as a demonstration of Sunyata. Shankara never actually read anything by Buddhists and was just going off of hear-say, so when Buddhists point this out any argument from Shankara completely collapses in the eyes of the audience because Shankara is a retard, even if he might have actually made a good point about something. Hence why it's important to actually know what someone else in a debate is saying or thinking, because the audience will just completely reject your position if it turns out you're just an idiot arguing past the other position.

This isn't just for Buddhism, mind you, it goes for anything at all (like "Catholics worship Mary").

>>18343989
Buddhism, living rent free in Hinduism for centuries

>>18343989
>is every single western criticisms of Buddhism unfounded and based on misunderstandings
>The vast majority are, yes
Four of books listed above (by Sion, Burton, Taber and Ghosh) critique Buddhism solely or largely on points of logic and epistemology, without relying on the alleged false criticism of Buddhism which you accuse so many western authors/scholars of holding.

>It's just a common "argument" on /lit/ that Buddhism isn't capable of explaining self-illuminating lamps or reflexive action. It comes from Adi Shankara making this "argument"
That's not true, you appear to be wholly mistaken about what Shankara wrote. He never wrote that Buddhists can't explain self-reflexive lamps, but rather when criticizing Yogachara Buddhism Shankara has his stand-in opponent (purvapaksin) representing the Yogachara Buddhist cite the analogy of the self-revealing lamp to explain how mental ideas can be self-revealing even in the absence of any witnessing self, and Shankara criticizes that theory as wrong and says the lamp example fails because the lamp too is invariably revealed by a consciousness which is different from the lamp. Shankara never wrote anything about self-reflexivity in relation to Nagarjuna, and he only attacked the Yogachara model of self-reflexive individual ideas, he never made wide some claim about Buddhists not being able to handle the notion of self-reflexivity like you falsely said.

Most academics and most Buddhist schools too interpret Nagarjuna as rejecting reflexive actions or relations as logically untenable based on MMK verses such as MMK 4:6a and MMK 20:19; and some people have written about how this poses problems for Nagarjuna's attempts to demonstrate the emptiness of the self or of consciousness, however this is an argument against Nagarjuna which Shankara himself never wrote about.

A few Buddhists accept reflexivity in various forms, like Dharmakirti's and Dinnagas notion of perceptions and ideas being self-intimating or self-revealing. Most Buddhists especially those of the Madhyamaka type like Nagarjuna, Chandrakirti, Tsongkhapa etc argue against accepting reflexivity. Mipham argues that that awareness is self-reflexive in conventional reality but that this still isn't real ultimately.

>Shankara never actually read anything by Buddhists and was just going off of hear-say
The contrary would in fact seem to be more likely since he accurately describes the doctrines of Sarvastivada Buddhism and the later Yogachara Buddhism of people like Dinnaga and Dharmakirti in his works. According to the Shankara specialist AJ Alston, Shankara quotes from a work of Dharmakirti called 'Pramana Varttika', and in his criticism of Sarvastivadin Buddhists he mentions that one of the Sarvastivadins ideas contradict their own Buddhist scriptures.

>>18343929

It's a large text which which combines Madhyamaka philosophy with teachings from a range of Buddhist schools as well as non-Buddhist schools like Samkhya and Tantric Shaivism into a detailed cosmology of existence with its own metaphysics. They text presents itself as being ultimately something that adheres to Madhyamaka doctrine, although with the amount of influence seemingly drawn from other sources you'll find plenty in it that would seem to conflict with Nagarjuna. For example, like Advaita Vedanta talking about the Atman, the Kalachakra Tantra contains texts describes Buddhahood or the Dharmadhatu as "a self-aware (svasamvedana) natural luminosity which is partless and all-pervasive".

Parallel to the existence of the written text is a tradition of initiation where you are initiated into some of the texts practices, and stuff like visualizations from the texts. This is now practiced by the Dalai Lama who is a Gelug but the full transmission of all the Kalachakra teachings was only transmitted to the present day by the Jonang school of Tibetan Buddhism, who then shared it with the other schools. Some large public initiations into it with hundreds of people would happen around the world with hundreds of people every year, although there are also higher levels of initiation into the Kalachakra teachings that can only be done by personally studying under a teacher of it. There is one Tibetan Jonang teacher based in Australia who teaches it, he has his own youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/c/KhentrulRinpoche/featured

https://rimebuddhism.com/about/kalachakra/

>>18343784
Cope

>>18341721
You don't even need a book. It's gay nihilism disguised as deep Eastern Philosophy. Read the Bible and forget the Buddha even existed

>>18341804
Abhidharmic teachings are criticized even by Theravadists.

>>18343094
they're the same

>>18344846

>>18344918
>they're the same

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