/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19624895]

what are good books to help someone get into buddhism

[Anonymous No.19624913]

the holy bible

[Anonymous No.19624930]

>>19624895
Daniel Ingram - Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha

[Anonymous No.19624953]

Start with the jeets

[Anonymous No.19624955]

>>19624895
There is a good introduction by the Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai Tokyo - What The Buddha Taught. It's good, not excellent, but there really is no better introduction as of yet. I have pretty much read them all. Maybe I will write one if no one else does.

> free pdf and audio, paperback is also available (but not free of course)
https://bdkamerica.org/find-your-edition/

[Anonymous No.19624963]

>>19624953
You can tell the person who made this jpg did not read them. bad advice.

My advice is reading about the life of the Buddha. Then maybe read a few of the short sutras in the pali tipitaka before moving on to a more substantial summarizing mahayana text like the Awakening of Faith in the Mayahana.

[Anonymous No.19624965]

buddhism by edward conze

[Anonymous No.19624968]

>>19624963
What is wrong with starting with the dhammapada or the heart sutra? Just start with the jeets or you're ngmi

[Anonymous No.19624990]

>>19624895
https://archive.org/details/buddhaandthegosp028023mbp/page/n7/mode/2up

[Anonymous No.19624993]

>>19624968
>What is wrong with starting with the dhammapada or the heart sutra?
You can of course. These texts however leave you with very little knowledge about the Buddha or what he was teaching. Its better to either start with a broad view of Buddhism or to start with the fundamental teachings than to dive into specifics right away.

[Anonymous No.19624998]

>>19624968
I like all those books now, but if you gave them to me before I knew the basics I would have been bored and confused. I got introduced to Buddhism by books that are very flawed, but good for people who know nothing. Evola's doctrine of awakening helped me see there was more to Buddhism than "mindfulness" and "relaxing meditations"
I also watched the cheesy indian tv series "Buddha" which made the suttas easier to understand.

[Anonymous No.19624999]

>>19624993
That's somewhat a different goal than learning about "Buddhism." But in any event, if you would consider neither of those texts to have "the fundamental teachings," what Buddhism is there left?

[Anonymous No.19625009]

Why, siddhartha of course :^)

[Anonymous No.19625025]

>>19624998
The chart is specific to Buddhist texts, which at some point someone interested in Buddhism should read, instead of just tertiary lit from orientalists or californians

[Anonymous No.19625064]

>>19624999
The Pali Suttas are generally considered to contain the fundamentals of Buddhism while the Lotus Sutra is generally considered to be the heart of (Mahayana) Buddhism.
The Heart Sutra is only about Emptiness. A concept that when wrongly understood can do much harm to a beginner's understanding and the Dharmapada is unusual compared to other Buddhist texts. It might well have been written by Seneca.

[Anonymous No.19625173]

>>19625064
>the Lotus Sutra is generally considered to be the heart of (Mahayana) Buddhism.
For China/Japan, especially Tendai/Tiantai but the Heart Sutra is older

[Anonymous No.19625247]

>>19625064
>the Dharmapada is unusual compared to other Buddhist texts. It might well have been written by Seneca.
How? It seems to conform to much of the Pali canon. Maybe you read a bad translation?

[Anonymous No.19625710]

>>19624968
>dhammapada
Nothing
>heart sutra
Everything is wrong with this. Heart Sutra requires you to have a teacher explain to you what the fuck it is about. Its a condensesed text of a condensed text of a complicated system of thought. No way should anyone read it as a starter other than to say they did as a form of street cred. Which is nonsense. Mahayana sutras are condensed and would not be good for starter text, unless you have a teach to explain to you.

[Anonymous No.19625737]

>>19625710
What would you start with for Mahayana if not that? Lotus? Vimalakirti? Personally I read two of the nikayas before anything Mahayana related, but if someone just wants to start with a book or two that's a large commitment in terms of prerequisites.

[Anonymous No.19625742]

>>19624895
Tv Series MONKEY MAGIC!
Zen Comics (the 1970s/80s version)

[Anonymous No.19625746]

>>19625737
Start with Dhammapada if you want a solo ride in Mahayana. You need a decent foundation in Theravada to make sense of Mahayana if you're doing without a teacher/guru/lama/etc. Otherwise, one off sutras are more cryptic than helpful.

[Anonymous No.19625771]

>>19625746
I think that's true for the more scholastic or philosophical texts like Nagarjuna or Asanga which were responding to other schools, but certainly for the average person who was raised in Mahayana Buddhism there was no prerequisite to study the nikayas/agamas before reading the Heart Sutra, and if your intention as an interested outsider is to just absorb some of the teachings rather than commit to studying "Buddhism" an academic discipline I think it's fine to just read it. If one is more inclined to the intellectual angle then it makes sense to do the extra work

[Anonymous No.19625781]

>>19624895
A path with heart - Jack Kornfield

>>19624930
Also this.

[Anonymous No.19625794]

>>19625771
>form is emptiness, emptiness is form
DUDE WEED LMAO

Thats your generic takeaway from Mahayana Sutra without understanding the basics.

[Anonymous No.19625798]

>>19625794
Yeah and people get "aaaaaa life is sooooffering" from skimming the nikayas. It's unavoidable.

[Anonymous No.19625802]

>>19625798
Better the straight forward reading than some drug trip nonsense.

[Anonymous No.19625815]

>>19625802
You don't seem inclined to wisdom literature. Even the nikayas are going to tell you "there's no you outside of what you experience." Just don't bother then

[Anonymous No.19625827]

>>19625815
Right, but thats after long discourse on the basics of what constitutes you-ness and such. Mahayana sutras dont do that because teachers are essential for Mahayana. Whereas Theravada texts are more readily accessible for individuals to get a straight forward, although more dry textual reading.

[Anonymous No.19625892]

>>19625827
The Pali suttas from the nikayas are all purportedly recitations of remembered sermons. They are also much shorter than many of the Mahayana sutras, like the Lankavatara for instance, which would be equivalent to dozens of Pali suttas. Now, why would you need to memorize a text? Is it to demonstrate to your... teacher.... that you are worthy of receiving exegesis or further instruction? If everyone merely understood the dharma there would be nothing needed beyond reciting these. But, obviously that can't be true since even Theravada and its commentarial tradition is not the oldest Buddhist school, just the oldest extant one. If you can be a Theravada autodidact you can be a Mahayana autodidact. Arguably this is easier for some Mahayana texts since they are not only longer but take a particular root verse from elsewhere and expand upon it as compared to some of the more compressed suttas. Either way you are doing something very artificial and more in line with Western scholarship than Asian religious tradition if you are just reading through a syllabus by yourself.

[Anonymous No.19625907]

This has been a good first Buddhism book for me and others before settling on a particular tradition to focus on.

[Anonymous No.19625908]

>>19624895
This isn't Buddhist exactly, but Andrés Gómez Emilsson is worth reading. He talks about concepts that are relevant to Buddhism, like Open Individualism.

https://qualiacomputing.com/
https://www.youtube.com/c/Andr%C3%A9sG%C3%B3mezEmilsson/videos

[Anonymous No.19626469]

>>19624895
There are some great resources at dhammatalks.org

[Viruses don't exist No.19626847]

>>19624895

[Viruses don't exist No.19626851]

>>19624930
imagine thinking all these mainstream books have anything to do with real teaching

[Anonymous No.19626875]

>>19626851
Monkey magic advances new theses on the ontological purposes f2m transvestite disco kungfu and it’s role in becoming aware of why every sexy female daemon wants to eat tripitaka while fucking “him”

Even pigsy is changing.

[Anonymous No.19626894]

>>19626875
Nice

[Anonymous No.19626903]

>>19625892
You cant just go reading books by yourself... in a religion made by a guy who sat under a tree by himself...

Thank you this.

[Anonymous No.19626922]

>>19626875
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J-SUoHmpRdM
Tripitaka was a gravure model.

[Anonymous No.19626932]

>>19626894
>doesn’t know Monkey
I pity non Australian non gen x buddhists

[Anonymous No.19626948]

>>19626932
Indeed i am not a holder of the Strayayana shitposting lineage

[Anonymous No.19626971]

>>19626948
So it’s a disco version of journey to the west where the holy monk is played by a hot Japanese porn star, Buddha is a milf and the boddhisattva of compassion has a moustache.

It is the main cause of Australian Buddhism. And straight men who are gay for F2M.

[Anonymous No.19626974]

The discussion in this thread above was interesting, gave me an idea of where to start with buddhism. Thanks all

[Anonymous No.19626994]

>>19626971
Enlightening commentary, thank you

[Anonymous No.19627022]

>>19624968
the heart sutra is explicitly against the teaching of the buddha, since the buddha claims phenomenon arises and ceases, and the heart sutra says the contrary.

[Anonymous No.19627063]

>>19627022
There is an obvious confusion of terms here due to translation, but in any case, that a "phenomenon" arises and ceases is the same as saying it has no inherent self-nature or substance etc.—it is impermanent. The arising and ceasing of an ephemeral thing then can hardly be said to describe reality at all. Therefore, that there is no birth and no death in reality is not at all incompatible with the appearance of birth and death, as these pertain to phenomena

[Anonymous No.19627269]

>>19624895
start by abstaining from sensory perception

that is the best 'book', the book within

[Anonymous No.19627535]

>>19624895
This flow-chart.

[Anonymous No.19627840]

>>19627535
That’s a cool chart

[Anonymous No.19627843]

>>19627535
look like a Rube Goldberg machine

[Anonymous No.19628115]

>>19625908
>qualia
fuck off with nonsense

[Anonymous No.19628120]

>>19628115
how are qualia nonsense?

[Anonymous No.19628141]

>>19628120
Its a sort of nonsense Buddhism argues against. Qualia is an extension of platonic "essence" stretched to the mind. At every level, Buddhism argues against essence nonsense. In early Buddhism, the idea of anatman/skandhas were used to deconstruct the essences of a person. Later on in Mahayana, the sunyata was used to deconstruct the essences of phenomenas (including but not limited to the mind, the person, the world, the substance, the essence, the objects, the concepts, the structures, etc) in general.

Qualia nonsense is nonsense from Buddhist pov from the get go, along with all other essence/platonist interpetations of soul/mind/person/objects/etc.

[Anonymous No.19628176]

>>19624895

unironically read Osamu Tezuka's Buddha

[Anonymous No.19628306]

The best general introduction to Buddhism is without a doubt "The Teachings of the Buddha". This book has been published and is being continually refined by the BDK of Tokyo for almost a century:
https://bdkamerica.org/product/the-teaching-of-buddha-english-hardcover-edition/

After the introduction you should read the actual words of the most important early sermons and discourses the Buddha gave so you have a general idea of the basics of Buddhism. These are from the Pali Canon; most of them are also extant in the Chinese Tripitaka but not all are translated into English or easily available.

Buddha’s autobiographical accounts of his search and liberation:
The Noble Search: Arya-Pariyesana Sutta (MN 26)
The Mahā Saccaka Sutta: Longer Discourse to Saccaka (MN 36)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN26.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN36.html

Buddha's first sermon after liberation:
Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: Setting the Wheel of Dharma in Motion (SN 56.11)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN56_11.html

Magga-vibhanga Sutta: An Analysis of the Path (SN 45.8) - Noble Eightfold Path
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN45_8.html
Saccavibhanga Sutta: An Analysis of the Truths (MN 141) - Four Noble Truths
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.141.than.html

(find the rest of the basic suttas on dhammatalks with the key)

Anapanasati Sutta: Mindfulness of Breathing (MN118) - Breathing Meditation
Anatta-lakkhana Sutta: The Discourse on the Not-self Characteristic (SN 22:59)
Cula Sunnata Sutta: The Shorter Discourse on Emptiness (MN 121)
Satipatthana Sutta: The Establishing of Mindfulness (MN 10) - Mindfulness Meditation
Sabbasava Sutta: All the Effluents (MN 2) - On Defilements (of soul)
Samadhi Sutta: Concentration (AN 4:41) - Samadhi Meditation
Cula Malunkyovada Sutta: The Shorter Exhortation to Malunkya (MN 63) - On Speculation
Kalama Sutta, To the Kalamas (AN 3.65) - On Discerning Truth
Sallatha Sutta, The Arrow (SN 36.6) - On Suffering
Brahmajala Sutta: (DN 1) - The All-embracing Net of Views
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.01.0.bodh.html

Maha Parinirvana Sutra, Last Days of the Buddha (DN 16) (important!)

Once you have developed a principal understanding of the dharma and life of the Buddha jump right into one of the easier comprehensive long form Sutras and you will figure the rest out from there:
- Maha-Parinirvana Sutra (Nirvana Sutra) (500 pages) - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0w7f776wBnEtz2SMFwiWXgpRn2LF5URj
- The Awakening Of Faith In The Mahayana (150 pages) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0w7f776wBnEwNk_yALaV_lDJ8QEDU6fH
- Srimaladevi Simhanada Sutra (Queen Shrimala of the Lion's Roar) (200 pages) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFb9wBs0vR0fpvMugp3toqnfQCIfRdrHZ
- Tathagata-garbha Sutra (Buddha-Nature Sutra) (30 pages) https://zenawakened.com/tathagatagarbha-sutra/
- Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment (200 pages)

[Anonymous No.19628632]

>>19628141
You called Qualia "nonsense" 3 or 4 different times without explaining why. Is this the power of Buddhism?

>Qualia is an extension of platonic "essence" stretched to the mind
Qualia has nothing to do with Platonism, qualia are the unique first-hand experiential/subjective perspective that attends knowing things, e.g. the qualitative aspect of knowing the 'blueness of blue'

[Anonymous No.19628770]

i read this one. Is it any good?