/lit/ - Literature

'what if some demon... Etc"

I would say you're an insane person, only the insane and mentally ill want endless repetition

It is true that rebirth is a key part of buddhist doctrine. However as seen in the Kalama and also the vimamsaka sutta, the Buddha did not expect people to accept the dharma without serious questioning. Not only that but the Buddha had a strong dislike of attachment to views and of metaphysical speculation (see the parable of the poisoned arrow and the Buddhas 'unanswerable questions'). Also just what exactly is to be meant by rebirth is up for interpretation. Even if the stories in the pali canon point to a literal metaphysical interpretation of rebirth, this need not be everyone's way of looking at it. My opinion is that this is a metaphysical view which can be put aside and interpreted in a phenomenological and non literal way, just like the presence of gods in the suttas.

>>4267361
Interesting, though this particular view (if we go by Cicero's account) sounds more like the Jain practice of Sallekhana - ritual fasting until death.

>>None of this, however, is as strong as the testimony of Cicero,[3] who claims that Hegesias wrote a book called Death by Starvation (Greek: ἀποκαρτερῶν), in which a man who has resolved to starve himself is introduced as representing to his friends that death is actually more to be desired than life, and that the gloomy descriptions of human misery which this work contained were so overpowering, that they drove many persons to commit suicide, in consequence of which the author received the surname of Death-persuader (Peisithanatos). This book was published at Alexandria, where he was, in consequence, forbidden to teach by king Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-246 BCE).

>>4267315
Pyrrho is actually a very special case, he traveled to India with Alex and may have picked up some Indian ideas. But yeah, Pyrrhonism is also another similar philosophy to Buddhism, though I don't think they had meditative practices.

They did of course, there are similar contemplative practices in Christianity, especially Catholicism and Eastern orthodoxy as well as in Sufi Islam

It's just not as easy to secularize because it's based on a Theistic philosophy (not unlike some Indian forms of meditation in Vedanta and Yoga).

Also I find many similarities in Stoic practices to Buddhist ones. Not meditation itself, but many of the psychological techniques and self training such as meditation on death and the like.

I'd say the closest the west got to Zen was Apophatic Christian mysticism, something like the Cloud of Unknowing, or perhaps some of the pre-Socratics like Heraclitus and Parmenides.

>>4249318
that's the paradox of power, it takes more strength to rule over onself than over others

>>4246814
I find Garfield's translation of MMK to be pretty good myself.

I guess if you had fun with that, go ahead and get Candrakirti's commentary on the MMK and also his Madhyamakavatara.

Of course then there's Tsonkapa's Ocean of Reasoning, which is like the final boss of Tibetan Philosophy (also translated by Garfield).

I haven't read either of them to be honest, I find Madhyamika texts to be quite dry to read.

There's a few books out there, one is called Buddha's Brain, another 'The Bodhisattva's Brain'. The first is by a neuropsychologist and outlines some of the practices, the other by a philosopher and Neurobiologist and also deals with Buddhist ethics and naturalism.

>>4189959
Yeah, I mean, what you've described is pretty much the monastic life, no sexual attachments and worldly desires. Sounds good, if you think that life is for you.

Did you have a specific question on the Kaccayanagotta or Acharya Nagarjuna?

I think the central importance of this sutta for Nagarjuna is the middle way between eternalism and nihilism, so:

>"'Everything exists': That is one extreme. 'Everything doesn't exist': That is a second extreme. Avoiding these two extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma via the middle. (Kaccayanagotta Sutta)

If you always keep this mind, you won't misunderstand the theory of emptiness as nihilism or as some kind of eternalist monism.

>>4186278

A motley mix of ideas from different Buddhist schools, mostly Zen and Theravada.

Some Hellenistic philosophy, Stoics, Skeptics, Cynics, etc

And to round things out, some Germans like Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Heidegger.

I mean, its a work in progress, but they tend to have more in common than it might seem on first glance.

author is a zen priest, Time-being (uji) is from Dogen's philosophy, the founder of Soto zen

I'm intrigued, I'll check it out

Check out Peter Harvey's book, An introduction to Buddhist ethics

http://www.e-reading.biz/bookreader.php/142060/An_Introduction_to_Buddhist_Ethics.pdf

Here's a paper by Jay Garfield:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/106633936/Buddhist-Ethics

Bhikku Bodhi, essays on Buddhist ethics:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/wheel259.html

>>4178049
I think some people live like this naturally

But this was a philosophy in a historical context, it was responding to the overly intellectual Chinese philosophies of the 100 schools, especially Confucianism. So even though its trying to get at this non verbal, simplistic and natural way of being, it's trying to argue this to a bunch of upper class Chinese intellectuals, so the actual written work is very sophisticated philosophically and aesthetically - but it also includes within it the caveat that the truth it is pointing to is beyond all words (the Dao that can be named is not the true Dao, etc)

Best edition of the book is the Jonathan Star IMO

It has a character by character translation, with the meaning of each Chinese character

It also has like a total of three translations in the entire book.

I mean, if you're obsessive about this stuff like I am.

>>4168451
wow, glad to actually see Sloterdijk here

May I also submit for your consideration, this sexy motherfucker right here

>>4166386
I love good old Daruma because he's a such a refreshing break from all the half smile slightly opened eye Buddhas.

Sometimes zazen is not nice

>>4165928
this sounds good, I always thought it like

1 - Slave morality
2 - Master morality
3 - Slave/Master morality transcended, Beyond good and evil, etc

>>4165931
yes, this one with this wife Kathy Higgins

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=415

also
>mfw when I never marry a Nietzsche scholar

Snow Crash was kinda fun, the Sumerian mythology stuff gave it an interesting twist

I remember a TTC lecture series by Robert Solomon on Nietzsche where he gives a good explanation of this. In fact, the entire lecture course is amazing, go torrent it.

>>4163394
Likewise Stirnanon