Are Buddhists cowards?They want to avoid any kind of suffering, even mild discomfort. Other than extreme physical pain, other types of suffering are pretty bearable and maybe even necessary. Dostoevsky thought humans actually enjoyed suffering and there was something human in it.Why do Buddhist fear suffering so much? I've read that some believe that karma can create suffering beyond words in other lives, but that's just pure theory.
You can say many things of the Buddhist lifestyle: living in the wilderness with all of the tigers, snakes, scorpions, parasites, malaria, bloated corpses, tropical sun, etc. with nothing but robes and a begging bowl. "Cowardly" does not exactly come to mind. Maybe the real cowards are we who live in walled dwellings with locked doors, weapons, air conditioning, cushy furniture, a modest selection of food and drink, and high-tech entertainment.
>>25458070>is the vague idea I made up in my head of this extremely diverse topic bad? thread N017299173
>>25458070To use the modern parlance, they're the ultimate NEETs, or the ultimate hikikomoriThe world is so full of dangers real and imagined that they couldn't cope and decided that rather than even try to fix it, they'll just lie down and dieThe penultimate Buddhist objective is to cause the death and suffering of nothing, and thereby pass to Nirvana, i.e. nothingness. This is pretty much impossible to do while living any kind of normal existence other than to emulate many monks who just sit and slowly dieThe ultimate Buddhist objective is to spread this nihilistic gospel to everyone. This is why Buddha is revered. In Buddhism, greater love hath none other than to lay down and prolong one's suffering in this world so that others may also see that the true path to salvation is deathDon't tell me I don't know this shitI was raised in a Buddhist house
Not that it means much of anything except mild amusement, I had deepseek run a debate between Laozi and Buddha, and Buddha got BTFO.
>Dustyjetski
>>25458070Have you tried actually reading Buddhist philosophy? When Buddhists say suffering they don't mean some sort of physical discomfort or pain or whatever (although this is part of it), it's more akin to a kind of existential dread that people feel when they confront transient existence and try to resist it in some way. In other words the suffering isn't transience, aging, sickness, pain, death, and etc. itself but rather the anxiety or dread that one experiences when they wish to control or resist these things, or desire things to be some way other than how they are
>>25458189As an aside this is really just a language/translation issue where a Buddhist concept is translated as "suffering" in English and people just take that to mean the exact thing that we mean by suffering in every day modern English
>>25458109>Don't tell me I don't know this shit >I was raised in a Buddhist houseWhat sect did they practice? Many are not like yours. But you should know that, shouldn't you?
>>25458193>birth is dukkha>aging is dukkha>illness is dukkha>death is dukkha>union with what is displeasing is dukkha>separation from what is pleasing is suffering>not to get what one wants is dukkha>in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are dukkhaI agree that it's definitely broader than the English translation can capture. Just one of those words better left untranslated. And that's not even getting to the abhidhamma understanding of dhammas and dukkha
>>25458070>Why do Buddhist fear suffering so much? I've read that some believe that karma can create suffering beyond words in other lives, but that's just pure theory.Well it's a religion predicated upon endless transmigration through the various realms of samsara -> hell ghost animal human demigod realms. Ultimately the lives of all these beings are judged to be ultimately dukkha. So what Buddha teaches is dukkha and its cessation. A way out. You can call it cowardly, but if samsara is nothing other than dukkha, and the Buddhist insight provides a path to its end, I don't see how that is cowardly. Just seems prudent.
>>25458070/lit/ is basically the worst forum on the entire internet to discuss buddhism, even worse than reddit and much, much worse than X, I say this as someone who spent close to a decade here and now only return on occasion.80-90% of the Buddhists here seem to subscribe to the most awful crypto-materialist interpretation of Buddhism and most of them don't even subscribe to its basic supernatural/metaphysical beliefs but just view it as endorsing their prior belief in relativism or Wittgenstein or whatever.Historically though like 90% of Buddhism and its schools as actually lived and practiced across Asia reject this reduction of Buddhism to being simply a non-supernatural relativist + empiricist strategy for reducing unhappyness.
>>25458070kill yourself retard
>>2545825890% of Buddhism is shit bashing Daoists down the mall and collecting money through cheating grandmothers out of land.Don't tell me I don't know this shitI was raised in a Buddhist houseThe house literally followed the 8 fold path, which is pretty difficult for a non-communicative object.
>>25458070>They want to avoid any kind of suffering, even mild discomfort.Bro they're homeless people living in the fucking forest, it's the ultimate form.of discomfort, some of them even avoid sleeping Lay down,only leting themselves fall asleep sitting in meditation>>25458109>they're the ultimate NEETs, or the ultimate hikikomoriNeets spend all day playing videogames and watching porn, living a lie of hedonism Is the opposite of the buddhist practice,monks can't even watch t.v>Buddhist objective is to cause the death and suffering of nothingThose aré the jains, buddhist can eat meat and kill bugs if it's not intentional
>>25458272>The house literally followed the 8 fold pathIs that where you come up with 8 ways to avoid answering >>25458196 about what exact sect your house actually subscribed to in practice?
>>25458364>yourThis was me, NAYRT>>25458310>jainsNot only themDifferent Buddhists follow the Five Precepts to different degree>>25458258Historically 90% of Buddhists got it completely and utterly mixed up with Shintoism, Taoism, Hinduism, animism and folk religion>>25458196>What sect did they practice?Mahayana
>>25458093Every time.
>>25458364That wasn't me, and even if it was it wasn't me.>>25458427>MahayanaWhich is basically like saying Nicean.
>>25458109lmao have fun fixing the world, icarus
>>25458460>lmao have fun fixing the world, icarusSome men want to have the world watch them burn.
>>25458070Have you seen what's happening in Burma with the locals Vs the Muslims?They seem fine with inflicting suffering.
>>25458070Desire is suffering, and so is the desire not to suffer.
>>25458258This is 'Mixing Buddhism with eastern thing is good but mixing it with western thing is bad' take.Also 90% of Buddhism around the world, and especially in East Asia, is garbage. Golden age of anything is always an early age, when practicioners of this anything are enthusiasts.
>>25458641I think that anon's issue isn't so much Buddhism being mixed with western ideas as it is Buddhism being thoroughly subordinated to western ideas and then reinterpreted into being a puppet for those ideas.
>>25458427I must not he familiar with your school of mahayana. Because neither theravada nor mahayana to my knowledge teach nothingness in the way you've described it.The way you described it, in fact, is a common western misinterpretation, since the Buddha specifically rejected annihilationism.
>>25458070where do you retards even come from?
>>25458109>Don't tell me I don't know this shit>I was raised in a Buddhist houseThen they were fucking posers cause your entire impression of Buddhism is fucking retarded>The ultimate Buddhist objective is to spread this nihilistic gospel to everyone.This sentence alone tells me you don't know shit about Buddhism.
>>25458070>They want to avoid any kind of sufferingWrong, right off the bat. They strive to avoid attachment. Have you read fucking anything about Buddhism? They welcome suffering, it's part of the process. Trying to avoid it is a form of attachment. You have to let it come & go.
>>25458070I would advice anyone aspiring to engage with philosophy to avoid this sort of infantile playing with dolls (nuh uh my philosophy is sooo much stronger than yours). I know it is very tempting when youre young and getting into philosophy, but do not do it. It is a great killer of any kind of understanding, even when the philosophy under attack is in fact incorrect. Go actually read some of the more advanced dialogues in the buddhist canon and try to actually identify where the logic goes wrong. dont do these vague lukewarm critiques based on the half-baked stereotype you hallucinated out of 3 misread wikipedia articles.
>>25458109I keep re-reading things, giving it the benefit of the doubt, thinking that maybe like many Buddhist writings there's some cryptic truth held within... Nope, you're just a fucking dumbass who legit doesn't know a damn thing about Buddhism. Literally nothing you said is accurate to any school Buddhism I know of and I've studied them all. Even the esoteric ones like shingon & bankei.
>>25458070>They want to avoid any kind of suffering, even mild discomfort.No. They want to accept it like stoics. The buddha said that there are many forms of suffering but he can only help you eliminate one of them: the one caused by craving. It does not surprise me that most of the posts here fail to mention this, since they clearly do not read buddhism. The real flaw in buddhism is that it teaches that people like you should not be made to endure immense and meaningless suffering and have your pleasures intentionally obstructed.
>>25459215>since they clearly do not read buddhism.My man. No need to be nice. They do not read anything at all.
>>25458109>Don't tell me I don't know this shit>I was raised in a Buddhist houseThis is essentially the Asian version of neckbearding. How many fucking atheists have we heard say>Don't tell me I don't know about Christianity, I was raised in an authoritarian fundamentalist household!>>25459215>there are many forms of suffering but he can only help you eliminate one of them: the one caused by cravingHe says all suffering originates from craving, right there in the suttas. There isn't some other kind of suffering that he shrugs his shoulders at.>Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: it is this craving which leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there; that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, craving for extermination.SN 56.11
>>25459215sounds like the definition of slave morality. and to think people admonish the christians for this.
>>25459287Yes, that is essentially just mental pain or dissatisfaction. He does not teach you to be a neckbeard who avoids pain or whatever. You will feel immense physical pain and disaster, but he teaches you how to endure it like a man with strict discipline. That is not what a modern day hedonistic neckbeard like yourself does.>>25459290How so? Also, did you know that Nietzsche classified what he once called slave morality as another expression of the will to power?
>>25459287Also, that specific quote goes against what someone else here was saying about buddhism desiring death or whatever. It is about ceasing to crave. It is about attaining transcendence
>>25459307>How so?>>Just endure the suffering, don't seek to ameliorate it.There's a reason why eastasian societies at times stopped believing that time ticked forwards and even forgot about their own past completely until the christians came around to re-discover it for them. What happens when you get comfortable with suffering? You just suffer, eternally. While the people telling you that "this is good, actually" laugh at you.
>>25459290The problem with the "definition" of slave morality is that Nietzsche defines it as being borne specifically from ressentiment toward a ruling class while also specifically relying on some external god or moral system to exonerate the weak. But buddhism as a doctrine teaches against ressentiment and advocates for psychological mastery.
>>25459319>There's a reason why eastasian societies at times stopped believing that time ticked forwards and even forgot about their own past completely until the christians came around to re-discover it for them.I have never heard of this. Can you substantiate this claim and also tell me what the "reason" is?>What happens when you get comfortable with suffering? You just suffer, eternally. While the people telling you that "this is good, actually" laugh at you.Ah ok, so do you think slave morality is actually maintained by the ruling class who themsekves live in hedonistic abundance which you consider to be presumably good? I don't agree with this sentiment. I think that you are going to suffer either way. This world is not a child's fairy tale and there is no utopia on the way. In fact, pleasure is worse than pain. Pleasure makes you weak, sluggish, indolent, it literally leads, deterministically, to decadence and, thankfully, makes your suffering all the more painful for when it inevitably strikes you. So while you burn and scream, others burn and smile with enlightenment. The afterlife will literally be nothing but the crying basedjak vs gigachad meme.
>>25459319>What happens when you get comfortable with suffering? You just suffer, eternally. While the people telling you that "this is good, actually" laugh at you.I smell resentment
>>25458427>Historically 90% of Buddhists got it completely and utterly mixed up with Shintoism, Taoism, Hinduism, animism and folk religionYes, because you yourself are such the expert at discerning proper Buddhism from improper Buddhism because you project your own 'pure' protestant mindset onto Buddhism. All of the hundreds of thousands of masters from history with genius level IQ's who spend their lives absorbing Mahayana and Vajrayana texts and teachings and actually practicing them were all just hopelessly confused.Thank Science that in the 21st centuriy we have mentally-Protestant soibois who can restore the original untarnished original Buddhism of atheistic empiricist relativism. Stupid brown and yellow people are incapable of understanding their own traditions without the superior Western methods of Science and Critical Theory.
>>25458705>The way you described it, in fact, is a common western misinterpretationThe "Western misinterpretation" meme is turning on itself because all you gaijin are doing now is misinterpreting prior misinterpretations and calling the misinterpretation du jour "the Real Deal", that's allBuddhism is nihilism but with extra steps, that's all
>>25459287>This is essentially the Asian version of neckbearding. How many fucking atheists have we heard say>Don't tell me I don't know about Christianity, I was raised in an authoritarian fundamentalist household!Fair pointSure sounds that wayBut I don't give a shit lolUltimate nirvana is basically death. Cloak it in all the fanciest words you can imagine, that is still what it is, the cessation of self and existence"True" Buddhism is a death cultFortunately most "Buddhists" aren't true Buddhists
>>25459545Does death technically not exist in Christianity or something?
>>25459545Regardless, you are going to die and it will either be damnation, pleasure palace, or lethean oblivion. Buddhism has a contingency for all possibilities.
>>25459432>Stupid brown and yellow people are incapable of understanding their own traditions without the superior Western methods of Science and Critical Theory.Is this meant to be an unironic description of this thread?
>>25459545>But I don't give a shit lolYou should. You are the Asian (I assume; if you're the child of white hippies I am very sorry) equivalent of libtard Skeptics™. If you don't like Buddhism, that's fine, do your thing. If you want to rail on it, fine too, but do your damn homework and read what its philosophers have actually had to say over the millennia. The middle path (kek) of riffing off what mom and dad did is fake and ghey, kind of like you.
>>25459287Isn't it fun to tell people who've spent a good chunk of their lives studying something, that they don't know it? It's exactly what you'd expect from 4chan, if not the internet at large.
>>25458189Why not be a stoic then?
>>25459623huh
Christians lurking in this thread, how do feel about the Book of Ecclesiastes and proverbs comapred to what you heard about/know of/researched about Buddhism?
>>25459690Why do you think they are related?
>>25459545>"True" Buddhism is a death cultI'm probably not the most knowledgeable in Buddhism in this thread. But to me, it seems the death cult, is here. This material existence.
>>25459606>Is this meant to be an unironic description of this thread?Not of this whole thread, but some of the most active long-term Buddhist posters on this board embody that attitude, and I say that after interacting with them for years.
>>25459290Then you're retarded and haven't the slightest clue what slave morality is. It can't be slave morality in any way if there isn't a master that it's telling you to serve. There is no master in Buddhist philosophy. Just those who are good at letting go and those who aren't. Christianity literally covers you in chains with a system that says if you don't do as you're commanded then you will suffer according to the masters will. Buddhism doesn't do this. Buddhism teaches you're the master of your own suffering.
>>25459531>Buddhism is nihilism but with extra steps, that's allNo, it isn't. There literally is nothing in it that would substantiate this and I dare you to prove otherwise.
>>25458070From what I understand buddists don't fear suffering, they acknowledge it and figure out how to avoid it, that's all. Thich Nhat Hanh said to hold it up and recognize it
Isn't AVERSION one of the Three Great Poisons? Read the literature first when you're in the literature board, please!
>>25458705>>25458427lay mahayana is just doing offerings which is unironically better than being a pseud
>>25458267
>>25459215>>25459101>>25459825it's not even about some conceptual acceptance or endurance if you practice buddhism properly you literally will not register it
>>25459646There are some similarities between Buddhist ans Stoic ethics, and even some Buddhist philosophers like Kiyozawa Manshi were quite into Stoicism, but they aren't really the same thing. They have very different ontological commitments for example and the Buddhist view of suffering and liberation from suffering is ultimately downstream from these
>>25460241Not registering implies lack of awareness, but buddha means awakened one.
>>25458070Buddhists are cuckolds, Daoism is for Chads
If Buddha was a coward, he would have stayed in his palace and assume his role as a King after his father would pass that role to him and live in comfort for the remaining years of his life. He did not. He renounced everything to become a wise sage.
>>25461415>expecting /lit/ to readHeh.
>>25459690Book of Ecclesiastes and proverbs are styles minus a few chapters. Not seeing much comparison to Buddhism accept the broad category of wisdom literature. >>25459817
>>25461755*are different writing styles
>>25458093SPBP
