I dont believe in reincarnation therefore the whole system falls apart

>>214930355
Daoism seems the most systematic and applicable Eastern religion.

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>>214930428
ok, you'll be reincarnated as a worm then

>>214930513
no its not what the hell?

>>214930355
I like having self. Don't believe de facto death is preferable to any suffering. I do like how developed Buddhist theory of mind is, but` modern cognitve neuroscience superceded it.

>>214930513
Got too high on daoist alchemy manuals?

>>214930355
Where do I start? What should I read?

>>214931218
Start with the Osamu Tezuka manga about The Buddha unironically

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>>214931218

>>214930788
>>214930922
Damn both of you got dubs. I guess you're closer to the Dao than I am.

>>214930788
why so many hands

>>214931890
Thank you

>>214930355
1. Japan
2. I'm not just into it

>>214930355
Because the only zen you find at the top of a mountain is the one you bring there

>>214930355
I'm study and apply a lot of Buddhist ideals but to actually be one and act on the rituals? Yeah nah

I gotta say, it's great for therapy
I remember reading once how the basis of DBT, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy is basically Buddhism

>>214932752
DBT is dependent origination and the 12 links of causation of Buddhism but with the bottom metaphysical part cut off

It's a process of asking "why am I suffering? Where are these feelings coming from?" but only tracing the causation as far back as the mistaken identities that you cling to: "I am depressed because X and Y happened to me and now I cling to those events as defining characteristics of myself. If I don't cling to them and use them to define myself, I won't feel depressed anymore."

Buddhism and the real dependent origination trace the causation back further, all the way to the root of reality. Why do I cling to memories and form identities around them? Why do I believe that I am a person and things happen to me which then form memories? Why do I experience things at all and have either a negative or positive experience of them?

The 12 links are not some kind of dogmatic formula that only the Buddha could ever teach, but they are the heart of Buddhism and anyone can investigate them in meditation.
>why do bad things happen? Why do I get old and feel pain and die?
>It's ultimately because I was born and am here, and anything that's here has to feel these things. If I hadn't been born and wasn't here, I wouldn't feel things like pain.
>Why am I born? Why does anyone come to be born?
>It's because i exist, if I didn't exist there would be nothing to be born into experiencing things
>why do I exist? Why am I what I am?
>It's because I cling to things and hold that they must be a certain thing and way. Because I believe that I must be myself and nothing else, and nothing else can be myself. I believe pleasurable things must be intrinsically good and painful things must be bad. I believe that there are things outside of myself and things inside of myself. I build this entire reality around myself by clinging to my assumptions and observations as real. If I didn't cling to any of it, there would be no 'me' to observe or to do observing.

i'm reading journey to the west rn

>why do I cling to things as needing to be, or be in a certain way?

>It's because I experience things as being good or bad. It feels good to have a solid identity of self in the world, and bad to be lost in non-existence. It feels good to have good things around me and so I go towards them, and bad to have bad things around me so I keep away from them. If I had no concept of pleasure, or pain or displeasure, I would have no motivation to cling to things, either in the form of keeping things that feel good nearby or of clinging to beliefs as being absolutely true or not true. I would have no reason to cling to an identity of self.

>why do I experience things as a mix of good or bad?

>Because I have sense organs that perceive them that way. I have eyes that enjoy seeing certain things like naked women and hate seeing things like rotting flesh pulsing with maggots. My ears enjoy music and hate screeching. My nose enjoys cooking smells and hates sulfurous garbage smells. My tongue enjoys good food and drink and hates things that aren't good for eating. My body enjoys feelings like smoothness and softness and hates things like pain and itching. My mind enjoys thinking about certain things and also feels anxiety and sadness when thinking certain things. I can't control the value judgement of these six sense inputs, the "good"ness or "bad"ness arises inherent to the input as I use them.

>why do I have sense organs?

>Because these are the basis of my reality as I experience it: an image from my eyes, sounds from my ears, thoughts from my mind, and so on, layered together into a composite that forms my real-time experience of myself and the world around me. There is no further way to reduce down what my living experience of reality is except as a composite of these inputs. In order to eliminate the inputs, there would have to be no living experience of reality, either of its physical aspects I experience through my body or the non-physical aspects from my mind.

>>214930428
Reincarnation is real because we’re all the same person living multiple lives. The self is temporary and flowing like a stream from self to the next.

>why do I believe that there has to be something instead of nothing? why do I have this conscious experience of reality?

>Because my consciousness arises. I have a thought-stream here thinking thoughts and observing a physical universe through a body. I didn't ask for that to be but here it is. If I didn't have that, there would be no experience of the world that leads to sense organs arising, which perceive things as good or bad and lead to clinging which leads to existence and suffering.

>why am I conscious? where does my consciousness come from?

>It comes from my mind doing things. My consciousness is the composite of all the mental actions that my mind performs, like deciding it needs to go a certain place or do a certain thing, or to move towards something or stay away from something, or the actions of wanting something, or wondering about something, or needing something, or following any train of thought at all, or reacting to anything from inside or outside the mind. What I call my consciousness is a way of collectively referring to all of these things as one continuous existence. If my mind simply didn't take any action, or react to anything in any way, there would be no "consciousness" there to speak of. It would be inanimate.

>why does my mind do anything at all?

this is the question at the bottom, but I think the answer is more obscure than in the previous questions
do you even have to do anything? is it necessary?

>>214930355
It's cringe.

Antagonism between Buddhism and Christianity is fundamentally rooted in a difference in understanding of the creative impulse that gives rise to physical reality.

The Apocryphon of John, a gnostic text, has a different way of describing the trinity and the relationship between god and christ closer maybe to a buddhist understanding.
It says that God the Father is the oneness of all reality, an unbounded, omnipotent consciousness of infinite potentiality that permeates all of existence with its light.
This God-mind then becomes aware of itself in the emptiness by observing its own light, and this self-awareness is the first thing to arise from the God-mind called by the gnostics Barbelo and sometimes worshiped as a goddess.
From the infinite father and his self-awareness, the Logos, the third aspect of the god-mind arises. It is an image constructed of the self, a self-identity, the first act of conscious creation from which all other creative acts pour out.

From formation of a self, a "this is what I am," an understanding of existing as a being in a larger world, we begin also to form identities around the rest of the world as it regards the self, an understanding of "this is my mother, this my father," and "this is inside, this is outside," and so on, rather than just mindlessly reacting to impulses like lower animals that don't have the creative, conscious mind

From there, a question arises of why there is suffering in this created existence.
If it issues out from a perfectly good and powerful being, why is it flawed and ugly and painful?

In traditional christianity, the creative impulse of the Logos that gives rise to our reality is worshiped as a deity equivalent to the supreme reality, and so trying to deny that created reality is like denying God.

But in buddhist thought, it is understood that this creative impulse that forms identities and gives rise to the observed experience of reality must by necessity lead also to the arising of suffering.

>>214930355
Because I am not a leftard with an identity crisis.

I am an atheist of catholic culture because my identity is Westerner.

In my own flawed and limited understanding of what we call "Theravada Buddhism," I think that I do see what could be described as a denial of the Logos and the creative impulse of the world.
I can be away from all suffering by cutting away all creative and volitional impulses and doing away with the Logos, and go into a state of perfect purity and luminescence like being at one with the supreme consciousness of the world.
The self-awareness does not necessarily need to be willfully destroyed, but will not matter and melt away into nothing when nothing is observed or produced except the pure, luminous mind.

But I don't think this necessarily needs to be thought of as a hostile denial of the creative Christ-mind
This identification of an "I am" that leads to the arising of the cycle of rebirth and all suffering is always a fundamental aspect of reality even if we choose to retreat away from it and not engage in the cycle anymore

There are also buddhist creeds that do not take a denial of the "I am" and retreating from existence and the cycle of rebirth as the ultimate spiritual goal, and instead encourage continuing to engage in the ongoing experience of reality out of compassion for all other conscious beings

The Mahayana teaches that the buddha's dharma arose from the root of compassion, caused by awakening to a true understanding of reality, and that the perfection of this dharma is the adaption of all teaching to the abilities and understanding of the one being taught, called skillful means, so that other beings will gladly accept the teaching for their own good

Some will be lead to seeking to escape from reality into pure luminous consciousness, but for them this will also be a step on the way to the goal
The Buddha also taught dependent origination as a way of realizing the pure buddha-consciousness on one's own, through contemplation of causality, called the path of the pratyekabuddha, one who comes to awakening on one's own