Am I the only one who feels some kind of disdain for Pure Land Buddhism? It sounds nice on paper, and I certainly find the cosmology to be interesting: however, the idea seems so intellectually lazy when compared to other Buddhist traditions.
>"this world is so terrible, we can't ever reach Enlightenment on our own, why even bother trying?"
>"welp, let's pray to this fanfic-tier celestial Buddha that he'll let us be reborn in his Heaven-realm and literally hand-hold us into nirvana"
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All Buddhist sects are fan-fic. The Buddha was nothing more than a wandering skeptic and moral philosopher of the likes of Diogenes and Epicurus. In India there's no separation between religion and philosophy. If Plato or Aristotle had been born in India their schools would have undoubted have become religious sects, with their followers attributing every sort of miracle and apocryphal text to them. The Mahayana tradition is the worst when it comes to making stuff up.
>look at this manuscript I found containing the "secret teachings" of the Buddha, a thousand years after the Buddha's death and written in Chinese
You think Mahayana is bad, look at Vajrayana.
Theravada is the only acceptable school, and even then-
Except it's an entirely orthodox concept:
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In either case Adi-Buddha is slightly more common in the Vajrayana traditions that straight Mahayana; and even then it's most often referring to, again, an orthodox concept:
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>why even bother
Wait, what?
According to most of the Tibetan schools the only valid goal is achieving Liberation as quickly as possible. "One who aspires to become buddha as soon as possible and then help sentient beings in full fledge."
Geshe Kelsang Gyatso notes:
>In reality, the second two types of bodhicitta are wishes that are impossible to fulfill because it is only possible to lead others to enlightenment once we have attained enlightenment ourself. Therefore, only king-like bodhicitta is actual bodhicitta. Je Tsongkhapa says that although the other Bodhisattvas wish for that which is impossible, their attitude is sublime and unmistaken.
>Theravada is the only acceptable school
Oh, you mean that one school where it languished in neglect and lineal succession crises to the point where people were literally worshiping page fragments in a language they couldn't read while the Tibetans maintained a historically traceable and well documented chain of initiations that cross back and forth into the subcontinent from the end of the Pala Debates through the modern day?
Even you know the Tibetans pretty much merged their own wacky religion with Buddhism right?
The debates and commentary for the most part are lost, all we have commentary about commentary.
Siddharta would have cringed hard at Tibetan Buddhism.
>tripfag
Why am I not surprised?
>In India there's no separation between religion and philosophy
There were the Charvakas. They were a kind of proto-empiricists, who rejected spiritualism.
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>Even you know the Tibetans pretty much merged their own wacky religion with Buddhism right?
I dunno what the problem is. Bon is neat, and has nothing to do with the fact that the doctrines in question here: , are all supported in the Tripitaka.
>Buddha: "K, guys, I'm gonna go teach the Dharma to the Gods."
>Tibetans: "Man, maybe we should go see what Siddhartha taught the Gods. To both verify doctrine and seek new perspectives."
>user: "I think Siddhartha would have objected to this."
You seem to have misplaced your argument.
Carvakas are also neat. Soft spot for some Jain doctrines too.