Center right man here

Aight mate thanks.

Be sure not to read Buddhist Romanticism.

I'm talking about all is oneness, oneness bliss, etc etc.

That's basically Buddhism filtered through 19th century Romanticism.

Buddhism is about the complete cessation of suffering. If you're not reading this, you've got some sort of Romantic Buddhism.

I suggest Thanissaro Bikkhu

What are you talking about? Catholicism was still his preferred option among a lot of other things.

Why the fuck would you try to understand Buddhism by reading the interpretation of an adherent of any sort of 20th-century political philosophy?

It's such a bizarre decision. It's like if you didn't know much about Shakespeare and decided to start with a third-and feminist guide to his tragedies, or if you decided that your introduction to Latin American history should be a book with an explicitly Marxist approach to historiography. I'm not saying that Evola is dumb or anything, but Skimming through this book, and seeing how he devotes chapter to the "aryaness" of Buddhist tradition and trying to justify its validity as a life philosophy by saying that it belongs to an ancient Indo-aryan lineage (as if the cultural pedigree of a philosophical concept should make a difference to it's objective truth or falsehood), I am very skeptical. You should really try to read original Buddhist texts such as the Dhammapada before taking a Western interpreter's ideas into consideration, especially an ideologue.

Easy bud. You'll pop a vein. You ought to be reading the Dhammapada, there, Mister Pissypants.

You're right, I'm actually going to go meditate for 25 minutes.

Hopefully you get the point I was making, though, about how letting your initial forays into any particular literary or philosophical area be tinged by the interpretation of a strong adherent of an existing ideology is a bad idea, if your goal is truth-seeking.

I am not OP but your point is accepted and thrown in the trash. Have a nice nap.

>your point is accepted and thrown in the trash.
Interesting, so you're saying that prefacing an exploration of a philosophy or literary tradition with a guide or work of literary criticism with a strong ideological bias is not a bad idea, but actually a good idea.

I'm curious about your reasons for believing this, because while I don't think it's an unheard-of opinion, I don't see a lot of people openly admit to it because our philosophical and academic traditions highly encourage engaging with the primary sources as the first and most important thing when understanding a text. Why do you hold this opinion, and can you give some examples of how this approach has enhanced your understanding of literature and philosophy?

>prefacing an exploration of blablabla
perfectly crafted straw man, my good fellow

I am
I never suggested starting with an ideological bias is a good thing. In fact I said the opposite in my first post to OP, a simple sentiment you repeated... with much more vigor. Truth and heresies are everywhere, common as bed bugs. You may cling to one proper way of understanding a canon, and that's fine, but it's not the only way to truth.

>initial forays into any particular bla bla bla, if your goal is truth-seeking.

Consensus on a doctrine does not make truth. OP said he wants into Buddhism. Evola is not Buddhism. But it is one man's understanding of Buddhism. Just as Easwaran's is another. The truth he seeks is here and there, but no one earthly religious ideology has all of the truth.

Back to watching Point Break.

Not that guy, but there's no "first hand" approach to a text. Epistemology doesn't work with literature because language is metaphorical, rather than be based on base human sensual experience; you can't read or speak at all without being taught how to and what to say. So there are texts that (in their inception) don't "mean" anything, or need a "clue" to be understood, or need to be worked on over and over again to be grasped.

Lol. Easwaran is a Hindu. Read a real Buddhist.

Nah I'm good senpai. I've read a few translations of the Dhammapada and similar over the years. I searched and found what I needed. Not too concerned with racial/sectarian nonsense.

That is to say, Easwaran is what is on my shelf at the moment. I don't remember the first one I read, but this one is more than adequate.

You should stop believing everything you read on facebook.

Yes, it's by far the best book on Buddhism I've read.

This guy doesn't know what he's talking about: the Secret of the Golden Flower is not by a Westerner, it is a translation of a TAOIST alchemical text, not a Buddhist teaching.

You have shown yourself to be an utter ass, sir. Please cease from commenting on what you manifestly do not comprehend.

Evola's book was published in 1943 as I recall a time when the hippies and other new agers hadn't yet co-opted exotic religions into the West, so Evola's premise - to present the teachings of Buddhism in a practical form - was very much a novelty at the time, and those times were quite racist as you may have heard. That is not to say that Evola warped the teachings of Buddhism to his own end, but simply that he presented them in a way that made them more acceptable to the people who stood to gain from them - European people for whom the Semite desert religions had no resonance. Hence the chapter you refer to.

This article by Evola is an excellent introduction to his book: counter-currents.com/2013/06/spiritual-virility-in-buddhism/
The practical value of his book cannot be overstated: it truly is an inspiring read. Yes, there are some mistakes of fact and of interpretation, but overall they do not detract from the power of this book.

The man who translated this book into English, an English soldier, became a very respected Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka after translating it. His name was Nanavira Thera.

Evola also wrote further articles on Zen, and also one commented excerpt from a classical Buddhist meditation teaching in his Introduction to Magic volume. You can find them online.

Good job Wikipedia scholar. Campbell isn't Buddhist either, but his book is a powerful exegesis of Buddhist and taoist belief, which you may be surprised to learn do not exist in a vacuum and influenced each other quite a bit. Make a contribution, don't mislead op from your own ignorance.

You are immature. I read the texts in the original, whether Chinese or Sanskrit and Pali, thank you.
I have also read these books in the translations you mention. The Secret of the Golden Flower was translated by Richard Wilhelm. Campbell's understanding of these religions was superficial at best, yes his presentation is compelling, but superficial nonetheless. Read up on the scholarship instead of pretending.

Your passive aggressive tone undermines any authority you try to claim by recommending books from unrelated traditions, then concocting nonsense arguments against a book which you haven't read - as well as recommending books which you clearly haven't read either.

I am very well aware of the supposed mutual influences of Buddhism and Taoism but I think we are straying quite far from the original thread here. In any case you do not seem qualified or able to take the discussion any further.

You're a good bullshitter, but you haven't made a useful contribution yet and this is more telling than your authoritative regurgitation of amazon summaries. Recommend something to OP, or continue riding my dick in disgrace.

OP, you can easily find the PDF of pic related online. It's not very long, but it is quite dense and involved. It is neither a history nor overview of Buddhism in any way, but a clear exposition of its principles and practice. This is drawn from the earliest sources, the Theravada tradition.

If you are interested in knowing the core essence of 'original' Buddhism, it is an excellent work. If you are looking for a potted history, then look elsewhere.

The Oxford Short Introductions to Buddha and Buddhism are well written and accessible. Gethin's Foundations of Buddhism and Harvey's Introduction to Buddhism are much more academic and comprehensive. Once you've gone through some of those, you ought to have a good idea of the history, doctrines and teachings of Buddhism, and more importantly, whether it is something you wish to study further.

That ought to be enough references for now.

More of your immaturity, samefag. I have made a number of recommendations as you can see if you could read. And on the subject of reading, if you had read a little more, you would know that the Dhammapada, inspirational as it is, is little more than a short collection of quotes. Nothing more, nothing less. The fact that it's short makes it an obvious recc. for simpletons like yourself who are unable for sustained study.

You seem to assume everyone on here is like you; 15, immature and reliant on amazon summaries. That's a lot of assuming, because I can assure you that some of us on here have advanced degrees in these subjects.

>Easwaran's Dhammapada
>Campbell's Oriental Mythology

Ffs don't act like an authority when you don't know what you're talking about.

Whereof one is a fucking retard, one just shut up.

>muh aDvANCeD bUdDhIsM DeGrEe

Tell us about it...
These fools wouldn't be so quick to criticise Evola if they knew what Campbell thought of the blacks, the coloured, and the Jews... Not to mention his shoddy scholarship and vast generalisations.

It's called scholarship, a notion you seem to trouble grasping, newfag.

Passivity is always a poor choice, albeit the only usable word, that occurs in evola's mystical writings. It does not mean whether something has or does not have momentum, but rather passive comes to mean as something that relies on "emotions or sentimentality of the heart," which corresponds with the inversion of masculine virtues.

Something like that I think. I probably have worded it better, but whatever.

>if they knew what Campbell thought of the blacks, the coloured, and the Jews...

Go on then, enlighten us.

You're joking, right? These mini-scandals have been all over the place since he died. Google is your friend, newfag.

Don't get me wrong here, I actually quite like some of Campbell's insights into myth in general, but the man was a bit of a hack, inspirational yes, but a hack nonetheless. There's no problem with not letting the truth get in the way of a good story if you're not being dishonest about it.

>Julius Evola places the doctrine of liberation in its original context.
Dude believed in fucking Atlantis, he didn't put anything into any context but his own fantasies.

This has literally nothing to do with the book at hand. You seem to have him confused with Guenon, by the way.
In any case, the Hyperborea theory was in part inspired by BG Tilak, yep, a learned Hindu scholar. Hardly the stuff of Orientalist fantasy.

>the guy with PhDs in Buddhism loses his cool at a random user, then deletes his tirade.

Toppest of keks. Practice in secret next time, dope, like Jesus wants you to.

>hindu scholar
>not dealing in fantasy

the random user recommending random non-related shit?