(bearing in mind philosophy isn't a strong point of mine) am I correct in my reading that Buddha's idea of there being...

(bearing in mind philosophy isn't a strong point of mine) am I correct in my reading that Buddha's idea of there being no "self" follows a type of Hegelian/dialectical logic?

I.e. Everything in the universe exists in a constant state of motion wherein they are constantly interacting with and shaping (and being shaped by) everything else. Therefore there are no fixed "things" be they animals, ideas or even one's self because all of these things are constantly changing in reaction to outside stimuli.

Am I on the right track or am I completely misreading it?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=E3N4hI40sB8
buddhanet.net/dhammapada
pastebin.com/5Cvt9jwa
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

You're largely correct in your reading of Buddha but I don't see any correspondence there with Hegel

>get my reading of buddha right
>fuck up with Hegel
fuck.

idk, maybe my explanation only lines up with materialist dialectics. iirc it's basically identical to the argument Trotsky puts forth with his idea of A only being equal to A provided A doesn't actually "exist".

Your "everything flows" way of putting it just amounts to something evident in my ears. Yes, there is time and changing things are different at different times. It this sense notions like "self" and "me" are just linguistic tools to capture phenomena.
I don't need to consider ties to Buddha, Hegel, Stirner, Heidegger or anything to say this checks out.

Yeah OP, interesting stuff, I agree with what says "linguistic tools to capture phenomena"

It's just like the physical boundaries of "chair" and "book" only exist in our definitions of such finite objects; at the core they're just molecules floating in space with no actual boundary

actually, stirner was a buddhist, as the self doesnt exist == the self cant be described

but hegel wasnt

I am Buddhist for ~7+ years now. Studied in a monestary for a couple months to see if monkhood would be something for me. I will be probably going for full ordination in a year or two.

If you are genuinely interested give me your email and I answer any questions you have in more detail.

What you said is in general correct, but the power of Lord Buddha's teachings is that you can actually 'experience' no-self directly.

Merely saying there is no-self is like describing the taste of an apple.
Experiencing no-self directly is like tasting an apple.
I can not taste apples for you, you must do that yourself by looking at the naked awareness of mind.

This is a good way to look at it to understand the basics, but not the complete story.

Very briefly Buddha established the Great Middle Way wich rejects the extremist views of eternalism, realism, and nihilism.

If you want to do some reading I on hand reccomend the following books, altough they are very hard to understand and might lead to confusion if you do not already have a good understanding of basic Buddhist theory so on the other hand I be careful and dont get into it too quickly.

*The Middle Way: faith in grounded reasoning by Dalai Lama & Geshe Thupten Jinpa (especially chapter 1: An exploration of Nagarjuna's fundamental stanzas on The Middle Way)

*Mulamadhyamika(Great Middle Way) by Nagarjuna

*Abdhidharma samuccaya: The compendium of the Higher Philosophical Teachings by Asanga

If Buddhists were indeed wise, you see, they'd know to taste an apple is much easier than to describe it.

I dont know much about Stirner, but looking at the fact that most of his readers fall into the wrong extreme view of nihilism I doubt Stirner was Buddhist.

Stricly speaking a Buddhist is anyone who has taken refuge in The Buddha, Dharma, Sangha and has combined wisdom and universal love.

I think Hegel understands Buddhist theory better then Sirner, but Hegel also makes many faults.

I'm not that user but you're misunderstanding his analogy. He's describing an esoteric state of mind not the taste of an apple. This apple you will only taste by complete accident or with effort and diligence. You need to find the path, to find the grove, to find the tree, to find the branch, to find the apple, to pluck it from its branch, to bite it, to taste it, to swallow it and take it with you into life. But all of these exist in a place where you don't. You have can't visually see the path, you can't smell the trees, you can't touch the branches, you can't taste the apple. You have to learn these things in a place which doesn't make reference to the physical world.
All of these events are events of the mind, most often found from meditation, and it can be easy to get lost on the way.

"If you wish to make an apple pie you must first invent the universe."

>looking at the fact that most of his readers fall into the wrong extreme view of nihilism I doubt Stirner was Buddhist.
Those people don't really understand Stirner, and it's very likely they haven't even read him. Nihilism to Stirner would fall under the "pious atheist" category which he criticizes.

It seems chemically and atomically correct. We are forever losing parts of ourselves (dead skin), organ and tissue degradation. And the atomic structure is merely an "obscure" model of Reality. Intellectually, some people do not change.

bump for Buddha

Guatama rejects the ātman ultimately because the cultural assumptions about the ātman/purusa which are taken for granted in 450 BCE India (that it's eternal and changeless) rule out his thesis that all phenomenal existence is dukkha, unsatisfactory. You're not off-track but the reasoning goes like this:
1. All phenomena are temporary and subject to cessation (they are anicca).
2. Temporary phenomena are dukkha.
3. Therefore, everything is dukkha.
4. Therefore, there is no ātman (because by definition the ātman is sukha and nicca).

We don't want to taste apples, because they might not be good. Actually, on a deeper level, we don't want to taste apples because we want to taste the desiring of the apple and we are afraid to go through the experience. So we describe them and call it a day, we keep the desire and do not taste the apple. This is how neurotic people get around and why it is easier to look at the finger and not the moon, in spite of it being just right there.

>linguistic tools to capture phenomena
that's basically how its described in the diamond sutra

No it wouldn't, Jesus Christ.

Well, the kind of nihilist who wants to tear everything down, yes, but not nihilism.

Almost correct, but you made the mistake of forgetting about mind.

1. All phenomena are temporary and subject to arising and cessation according to the law of cause and effect or causation.
2. The mind grasping for temporary phenomena causes suffering. (dukkha)
3. The mind graspes for temporary phenomena because of ignorance about impermancence(1)
(The mind out of ignorance mistakenly believes phenomena to be eternal or to be atman (independent/external of mind)
4. Because of (1) there is a cessation of grasping for a mistaken reality and thus also the cessation of suffering.
5. The cessation of grasping is caused by cessation of ignorance (about impermance(1) and about ignorance of mind).
6. The cessation of ignorance is caused by knowing the ultimate reality of mind and its relation to phenomena.
7. Knowing mind is caused by meditation.
8. That wich knows and understands mind, is mind itself.
9. Anatman is already implied by (1)

Mind is the cause of suffering.
Mind is the cause for the cessation of suffering.
All negative states come from mind.
All positive states come from mind.
Mind is the forerunner of all phenomena, mind made are they; mind is chief.
There is no difference between observer and observed; both are of the same nature, one taste, one essence.
This essence or nature is emptiness. What can be said of emptiness? That it is devoid of an essence or nature.
That wich has awareness of emptiness is mind, and mind is emptiness.

Whatever appears to mind, is mind.
What can be said of mind?
That it's devoid of a self-nature. (That it is devoid of an identity of its own)
Therefor helping others unselfishly,
even at the cost of your own life, shouldn't be a problem.
These are The Lord Buddha's teachings.
Nothing more can be said then this.

Saying more would merely light up the teachings from different angles.
Or distort and obscure it to fuel the thoughts of egoism.

forgot pic, cause pics are awesome.

Was Buddha an essentialist?

This is something that I've been thinking a lot lately on my own personal journey.

"Merely saying there is no-self is like describing the taste of an apple.
Experiencing no-self directly is like tasting an apple.
I can not taste apples for you, you must do that yourself by looking at the naked awareness of mind"

Do you fully believe you are no-self? How does someone start

Once Subhuthi(One of the main disciples of Buddha) was in deep meditation and the Buddha appeared to him to ask:

"Subhuthi have you reached Enlightenment?"

Subhuthi answered:
"No World Honored One. There is no Enlightenment to attain, therefore I have not reached Enlightenment"

Then the Buddha posed the question:
"Subhuthi are you Enlightened?"

Subhuthi answered again:
"No. If I where to say that I am Enlightened I would assert there exists an invidual who is able to be Enlightened, and therefore I would not be Enlightened"

At the moment pretty flowers came raining down from the sky and the Buddha said:

"So it is, so it is, indeed. That is why you are my disciple who has achieved the Perfection of Wisdom. When you come to nothing you come to Buddha.
If a good man or a good woman realizes the Perfection of Wisdom they are in the presence of Buddha, and is fully seen by all the Thus Come Ones"

>How does someone start?
Depends how well versed you are in Buddhism and your motivation for wanting to start, and how far you wanna go at this point in your life and if you are in for the long run

There are multiple points to start from depending on your reasons to start. All roads lead to Rome, so it doesn't matter where you start, but each road is different depending on your personality, the problems you have in life and so on.
Each roads have obstacles. but what is difficult for one person can be very easy for another person.

That said. Simple meditation is always a good start. Just sit naturally. Start counting the breath with your eyes open. When you get distracted or your thoughts start wandering be aware of that and return to the breath. Then you develop concentration and awareness. The side effect is that you become more calm and relaxed, but the side effects or not the main goals

As you can read here Awareness is quite important Not specifically self-awareness but complete awareness of space, of the contents of space, of the mind, of how reality functions(how things appear and dissapear based on conditions in the flow of cause and effect)
Some people call it 'mindfullness' but I very much dislike that term and doesn't seem to be as accurate or effective as awareness
Altough mindfullness is used a lot by Buddhists :/

When a thief robs a bank he could think "I am being mindfull of robbing a bank". It seems useless to me
With awareness the thief could think
"I am aware I am robbing a bank, but I am aware of the law of causaulity, and I am aware that my act can have a negative impact on myself(going to jail) and others(people getting robbed) therefore I should stop robbing this bank for the sake of my own hapiness and the hapiness of others."

I discourage anyone from comparing Buddhist philosophy to western philosophy. I tried it myself and failed everytime Whenever I see others do it they also fail and get mistaken ideas Buddha can not be labeled. The Sanskrit word Buddha even means "One who has gone beyond"

So Hegel and Stirner are manifestations of the Buddha from what I can surmise?

What's a good entry point for Buddhism? I'm keen to learn about any and all spiritualities. Your devotion is awesome btw.

Everything is basically. You are Buddha, I am Buddha. From tiny insects to Donal Trump is Buddha.
Every single living being wants to be happy, and does not want to suffer.

Knowing the life story of Buddha Shakyamuni(Shakyamuni is the historical Prince Guatama) helps a great deal if you just have a general interest in Buddhism.
I find this movie/animation (The Legend of Buddha) both entertaining, lightweight, and very clear on his most important life events.
youtube.com/watch?v=E3N4hI40sB8

If you want to get more into the techings you can never go wrong with starting with the Dhammapada. (pic related)

buddhanet.net/dhammapada

Hegel's Geist = the annihilation of the Self and ego-death

Thank you so much for informative comments

Trotskyists are notoriously shit at understanding Hegel, avoid at all costs

I am sorry for the ignorance of my question, but I shall ask. To what point buddhist perspective is compatible to that of STEMfags (that is, the observed world and all the phenomena it consists of, including of course humans, can be derived from a number of simple laws, and does not substantially depend on the nature of these laws themselves) ? I have no good understanding of buddhism, but it seems to me that these two are generally saying the same thing. That there's no need to go beyond the scientific worldview for the buddhism to work, so to speak, as buddhist spirituality is more concerned with the internal structure of the mind than the external entities (as compared to certain other spiritual traditions), and the mind is obviously present.

Buddhism is the final sublime despair of the Pre-Socratic world. Without a Plato to point toward the One out of whom the Many come, who is Being itself, there is only meaningless flux and, in the end, unbeing. The Buddhist aims for this unbeing, attempting to embody it and transcend his own contingency which he rejects as illusion and suffering. Of course, being essentially contingent, this is impossible.

(You)

This post is the final sublime despair of a pseud world

You are the final despair of a pseud world.

I am not exactly sure what you are asking, so forgive me if I misunderstoond your question.

Buddhadharma is centered around the law of karma.
Karma is Sanskrit for 'action'. Every action can have multiple causes and produce multiple effects. These effects in turn are again the causes for new effects.

His Holiness The Dalai Lama has done many debates with scientists from all fields. Buddhists and scientists both agree and disagree on many things. If both parties keep an open mind then a lot can be learned from each other.

pastebin.com/5Cvt9jwa

Note that its about 40 hours of footage so it takes some time to sit through it all.

I have many friends who study science and the general feeling I get from them is that they either see science as collecting knowledge just for the sake of knowledge, or to develop the world materially.

From the Buddhist perspective the first(collecting knowledge) is useless since all your worldly knowledge will be destroyed when you die. The second(material devlopment) is useful only in becoming more comfortable in the world, but does not give any useful method to reduce negative emotions. (Many people in first world countries are severely depressed and the suicide rates are much higher in highly developed countries)

Buddhists always stress the combination or union of wisdom and compassion or love.
In this pic the 3 flags on the drum is wisdom, compassion, and the 3rd the union of them.
In the pic the woman is wisdom and the man compassion, their sexual embrace is the union.
in this pic the damaru drum is compassion and the bell is wisdom. (sometimes other way around)

A person with wisdom, but no compassion is destructive and wasting their knowledge on useless things.
A person with compassion, but no wisdom is like a big blind person trying to lead or guide other blind persons.

Are you a Tibetan Buddhist?

Ah, I see. Thanks for the links, I'll study them!

I am not a Tibetan (the race), but I do follow Tibetan Buddhism. To be technical its called Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism.
To be specific I follow Karma Kagyu lineage/tradition of Ogyen Karmapa. With a main focus on the Cakrasamvara yidam (All of Lord Buddha's essential teachings are symbolised into pic related).

What all these terms mean is only relevent if you are already Buddhist, otherwise it doesn't matter what it means.

No problem. Good luck and take care.

Is it safe to say that we choose to perceive things as being by recognizing a limited unity, ascribing an identity to it while it has no being or unity in itself?

That is more or less correct to say, yes.

The mind has 3 fundamental 'properties':
Emptiness or voidness
Luminosity
Awareness

Emptiness is the lack of there being any 'solid' independent essence. Because of emptiness there exist no limitations and it allows the potential for anything to happen whitin the sphere of emptiness.

Luminosity is that wich cognizes emptiness into the sense objects. forms and shapes, light, sounds, tastes, smells and so forth.
It is that wich makes everything appear and dissapear like a great magician or a skilled illusionist.

Awareness is that wich is aware of the object being cognized and from that awareness comes touching, seeing, hearing, tasting, and smelling.
The union of awareness and luminosity forms counsciousness, feelings, emotions, and perceptions.

When we are in a deep sleep without dreaming, bored, dull, tired, or sleepy the alertness or sharpness or sensitivity of awareness is reduced.

When we are dead the luminosity is reduced or nearly gone.
Emptiness however always stays, wich allows for rebirth and the mind to re-gain luminosity and awareness based on karma.

When we are over excited, or angry, scared or depressed the luminosity of mind is being merely being overactive. Because of emptiness the mind has unlimited potential, but on a relative level this luminosity is governed by the law of karma/physics (causes and conditions)
In our fantasy we can make anything appear. When we experience negative emotions we are like a painter who paints a devil and becomes afraid of their own painting.
When we experience positive emotions we are like a painter who paints an angel and falls in love with their own painting.

Emptiness, luminosity and awareness however can never be fully destroyed. It has existed since beginingless time and will forever exist until endless time.
You are the center of your universe, I am the center of my universe.
Everything is like a dream and on a relative scale we are merely dreaming each other.

All of reality can be described as body, speech, mind.
The body is simply material objects.
The speech is the expression of material objects(not just words). Its just movement of material objects.
Mind is that wich controls the body through speech.

For example someday we had the tought: "Can we go to the moon?"
Then through speech(communication, using math, mining metal, extracting fuel, etc) we gathered and constructed the body(spaceship)
And we accomplished the desire of the mind.

>cont

Buddha mind is the mind manifesting unselfishly for the benefit of others.
The Buddha speech is the beneficial actions coming forth from the Buddha mind.
The Buddha body is the contents of the universe.
Emptiness is space itself where in the body, speech, mind can exist without limitation. "without limitation" here means everything that CAN exist in the scope of emptiness.
If something can not exist, then by definition it is limited in its existence.
(If even the Buddha who is infinite can not see something, then its impossible for it to exist.)

Ignorance in this context simply means being confused about Buddhanature. e.g. not seeing everything that exists as Buddha itself, perfectly being in what it is, without a single imperfection.
From this confusion that what appears as Buddha is mistaken as something imperfect and negative emotions arise according to law of cause and effect.

"Buddhism" is a spook, a religion. All these retards trying to study like their life depends on it are the biggest cucks on planet earth.

this

Saying something is a spook is a "spook", All these retards trying to shit post like their life depends on it are the biggest cucks on planet earth.

^ this.

Start out with something academic. Most books on Buddhism are written by crystal gripping hacks who orientalise it into some bullshit hippie philosophy with completely out of context quotes that sound deep but are ultimately meaningless unless you have a solid grasp of the competing trends in ancient indian philosophy.

For a start anything by Richard F. Gombrich. Any of his books will do or if you're especially lazy watch one of his lectures.

If you want something really in-depth read anything by Hajime Nakamura. He's basically #1 in the history of Buddhism. Pain to get a hold of one of his books though.

You are the spook and the cuck good sir.

This. I have a few good readings on Buddhism that I was assigned for a class and if I think about it I'll check in later and post those for anyone who might be interested.