How does one get into Buddhism?

It's impossible. Every English text on Buddhism goes out of its way to not explain things and show how it is from too different a culture for an Occidental to ever understand it. Just learn the primary source languages. That will be easier.

>hur dur if yu huv not the religion of your parents yu ar dum und smell fedurafog
Nice "faith", did you also became catholic or orthodox because they are based and against le ebin marxist degenerancy?

pali canon and wikipedia

4nobletruth -> 8foldpath
3marks of existence

meditate

How do you deal with the historicity issue though?

Are you studying history or want to be a Buddhist?

Not OP, I just have a passing in interest in buddhism (without being discriminatory school-wise)
If you are mahayana buddhist I'm just curious about how you feel about the historicity claims of theravada over mahayana

Theravada is inferior

I'm non-sectarian. Historicity claims are petty claims. Oldest Theravada texts are only written down within 100-200 years of core Mahayana texts.

Divergence starts later on in the centuries, not during those early periods.

I like foundations of buddhism by Gethin.
idk
my families 'buddhist', i've been to temples and done rituals hundreds of times with my family but I learnt far more about buddhism with gethin's book than I ever did with my family, it's just the nature of a religion that doesn't hold their religious texts with as much reverence as christianity does with the bible.
Admittedly we are mahayana though.

Why?
Which one is closest to the original though?

Current Theravada Tripitaka text is closests. Current Mahayana Tripitaka canon little more than Theravada but they're both similar enough. Mahayna has the added texts that differentiate it from Theravada.

1. Existence is suffering
2. We suffer because we desire.
3. Desire can be stopped.
4. This is accomplished through the 8-fold path

What are the arguments for Mahayana > Theravada?

(((Faster))) and its for all people with multiple different paths.

For theravada, the only path to enlightenment is via direct arhatship. For mahayana, there are multiple path like guru help, instant awakening, pure asceticship, even pure behaviorships (following the selfless behavior itself is supposed to lead to awakening), regular arhatship, and so on.

>(((Faster)))
Why ((()))?

(((They))) believe it.

Do you believe in rebirth?
How common do you think is stream-entry / first bhumi boddhisatvahood? are you concerned about dying without attaining that?

The Jews?

Rebirth is fundamental to any Buddhist. No idea on number of bodhisattvas. As for fear of death, personally, I don't fear death but rather worry of its ramification. The fix to that is obviously to clean up the acts before death. As someone who still has some cloudy conscience, that is to be cleared before death.

Theravada is rather stressful for me because of the possibility to never actually be able again to end rebirth if you don't make it to stream-entry in this life.

bangkokpost.com/news/general/1387254/villager-killed-driving-elephant-away-from-community

>tries to get good karma by helping an elephant
>the elephant kills you

dumb buddhists

question:

lets say I don't believe in reincarnation and want to acheive nirvana, should I just kill myself?

as in, if there is no reincarnation, would the buddha just have killed himself? nirvana is just the cessation of all experience right?

>as in, if there is no reincarnation, would the buddha just have killed himself? nirvana is just the cessation of all experience right?
Uh, if the Buddha in this scenario was like Buddha, he'd go around convincing everyone to kill themselves and would then kill himself, since he dedicated himself to preaching through rebirth instead of nirvana momentarily since he was compassionate.

>would the buddha just have killed himself?
only if this would stop experience dukkha

>nirvana is just the cessation of all experience right?
the point is to end dukkha, whatever the cost. also, asking what is felt once nirvana is done is not a good quesiton, since it involves the senses

This would fundamentally change the nature of Buddhism. If Buddha didn't think "reincarnation" (aka rebirth) was true, then Buddhism would be fundamentally different (if Buddha wanted a coherent system).

The concept of karma, anatta-skandha, impermanence, etc would be meaningless.

In fact, I'd reckon if Buddha somehow believed "reincarnation" aka rebirth was false, he'd more likely join in with the hedonists.

>dude buddhism is so exotic and sensible but christianity is silly and for dumb-dumbs like my parents lmao
Christianity lacks ritual, and has morphed into belief only.

Question for buddhists, why do you think buddhism is more likely to be true than per se, christianism or hinduism?

I don't think it is, I just follow it because it's my families religion and my grandmother would be upset if I didn't.

Don't go into it expecting answers. The ones you get will lead to other questions and are designed such. Buddhism is a journey with many paths which are intended to lead to understanding, realisation of non-self and nirvana.

That's probably common wuh all religions.

You said it first, not him. I wouldn't be surprised if he disliked Nazis and libertarians too.

How hard Jhanas are hard to attain?

On/Off Buddhist here.

I don't quite know other religion quite honestly. I know superficial stuff like "lol god" "lol worship". I can easily discard that based on lack of evidence of god or disdain for worship of higher power due to understanding of nature of reality as composite particles rather than divine.

But I sorta get what you're asking. "What is true about Buddhism?" is probably the crux of your question. For that, I'd simply stick to the very basic fundamentals of Buddhism. 4 Noble Truth. Its an diagnosis based on the axiom that people generally don't like suffering. With these axiom, the diagnosis is quite right. Might be little bit wonky with "desire causes suffering" if you dont understand bit more, but it can casually be explained as "clinging to a permanence of an object." There's also 3 Marks of Existence which to me seems to be even more cruder core form of Buddhism. If you understand "3 marks of existence", you have the core of Buddhism. Impermanance, no-self, and suffering.

There are many ways to tackle Buddhism, I like the ground up approach. Going from the very basic and then building up.

...

Ground up build up approach has the advantage in reducing the complexity and approaching the system in a very concise/accurate/simple way to deal with problems.

The three marks of existence is "simple" enough yet each of those 3 can be expanded with papers about it on each subject.

Furthermore, you can approach Buddhism from a practical stand point too. With mundane suffering being the starting point. We can go about it as a psychological problem.

The situation is a bit more complicated though and akin to debates on textual criticism of the Bible.
Bhikkhu Boddhi in one of his videos in the free material about the dhamma pastebin link posted on here before say's that in some verses the Sanskrit Mahayana texts are more original or less doctrinally embellished or edited than the Pali versions. I don't know if the Sanskrit texts might not be older even.

Here's the link on Dhamma material for anyone who's interested. Not an expert on the topic but there's this monk who leads a school of a type of reconstructionist Theravada and there are videos of his Pali canon readings. The Digha Nikaya which is said to have been written for gaining converts looks like a good place to start.

pastebin.com/UpP9QBZJ
youtu.be/ilMCTfl715Q

>How does one get into Buddhism?
1. Shave off your hair
2. Wrap yourself in an orange bedsheet
3. Join a monastery

What's the surest way to become a stream-enterer?

3 things must be destroyed (in the mind) to become a stream-enterer.

1) Full realization of no-self. The idea and the realization that you as a being is a false view. The realization of skandha is this. By realization, I mean your mind must work with this as a reality, not just "understand it". This involved meditation and hundreds to thousands of hours of meditation to gradually shape your mental formation.

2) ritual realism must be abolished in the mind. Aka, "I must do it this way to get this result" "I must meditate constantly to become a buddha" "I must pray to god to be a good christian" etc. These dogmas must be broken. Basically, your mind must be at a state where your beliefs can change at will.

3) You must be 120% sure of Buddha's way. Any doubt will create a mental block.

Ideally, you reach all 3 goals at same time over the period of training.

>Christianity blows itself out with nothing but scripture. Paul was a confirmed liar and con man.
For you to say something like this is proof that you can never hope to understand Buddhist canon. The themes of Paul, which are metaphysical and spiritual, by their very nature cannon be "cons." At worst, Paul has theological opinions you disagree with.

>Christianity lacks ritual

there is no way to become one. the goal is not stream entry, it is arahant. stream entry is just something which happens on the way to to the goal

what happens is that if you are good at the jhanas and your hear a discourse and reflect on the doctrine, you achieve the goal
People who achieve stream entry are lay people who hear some discourse from the aharant, but today you do not have that...

>the sacraments arent rituals
>>>/reddit/

Stoicism is for rational people user

>disliking librarians
For what reason?

What the fuck is your problem that you dont have disdain for the worlds worst meme???