Why aren't you a Buddhist yet?

Why aren't you a Buddhist yet?

Happy Easter anons.

I made a Buddhism thread last week that got a lot more good discussion than I expected. Let's see if I can get some interest this week as well. I'll start with a brief blurb on "sati", which is usually translated as "mindfulness", but "mindfulness" is so contaminated with new agey associations you might as well forget the English word. The Buddhist term means something different from whatever you're thinking.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(Buddhism)

There is absolutely nothing more important than direct awareness of what's going on in your mind. Nothing else compares. All your thoughts and actions are dictated by simple habitual mental shortcuts, and which shortcut you end up using and how well it works mostly depends on the current state of your mind and physical body. Turning your intelligence directly toward understanding those states on an intuitive level makes your mental shortcuts work much, much better. It's the difference between a five year old acting on instinct, and a self-aware adult seeing a situation, allowing his full creative faculties to understand what his senses are telling him, and acting accordingly. Is your mental awareness at the level of a five year old? If you haven't seriously asked yourself this question, it almost certainly is, no matter what your intuitive notion of your own level of self-awareness might be.

Other urls found in this thread:

accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn35/sn35.023.than.html
accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn46/sn46.055.wlsh.html
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

cont.

Most people have some vague notion of how their mind works that they acquired just by living and doing things, but because they're busy and have tons of things to think about, a complicated project like studying their own mind is out of the question. That's a shame, because it's really not as complicated as it seems when you start out. Your mind's activity is unpredictable, highly variable, and dependent on whatever is going on with your body at the time and what you've been thinking about over the past several days, but there aren't really that many different basic states it can be in.

It only seems complicated because you don't have a good framework of organization and classification to associate your own direct experiences with, and be able to verbally notice "I've previously labeled this current feeling with this particular name, and it's caused by that other thing that I've assigned this other name, and results in this new thing that has that other name". The converse problem is to go full psychoanalysis and think that you need to memorize an entire library of complicated made up concepts to understand anything about your mind. Fortunately, that's not necessary, when much simpler classification systems like the one Buddhism uses are much more useful and directly applicable. Buddhism's classifications aren't the "truth" of what your mind is like - it's just a map, not the territory. But it's a damn good map.

final

Complimentary short sutras:

The All
accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn35/sn35.023.than.html

The Hindrances
accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn46/sn46.055.wlsh.html

There are a few people on Sup Forums who practice Buddhism and other traditional methods of awareness training - what kinds of insights have you had so far, and have they been helpful in your lives in practice? I'm in my early thirties and so far Buddhism has been the most useful thing I've ever studied, and applicable to the largest number of other activities I do.

Bumping because buddhism is pretty based, although hard to get around and, ironically, easy to get bogged down into superficial details.

Yes, it's really easy to get distracted and bogged down by details. I think from the time I first got interested in it, I spent at least five years just being confused about which particular branch sounded the most sensible, and which were core concepts and which were peripheral.

Fortunately, it turns out that the core concepts are very few and simple. It's not like academic study, where the more you know the more new concepts get added to your collection, and it all expands endlessly like a fractal. The core of Buddhism is simple and self-contained.

It's tricky because it's overwhelming when you try to approach it from an academic or religious perspective, plus there's always some wonks more focused on details than the main idea which further muddy up the waters.

It did help me with getting my life together and getting rid of post-injury pain instead of slowly lobotomizing me like the pills I was taking for a long time with no discernible efect except numbness, so I'd say it's worth looking into if someone has doubts.

What kind of practice did you do that helped with pain?

I think this is a really strong selling point to help get people interested in Buddhism. The current state of medicine is tragically primitive and ineffective at dealing with chronic physical pain.

I'm getting into this but I don't tell anyone, it's plagued with these "hippy", travelling, student fucks. I use it to combat anxiety and clearing my mind, making better judgements and being a better person to others.

Good call. You can't help what kinds of people get interested in something, but you can ignore them. Who cares, if the thing itself is actually great?

Meditation, specifically learning to let go.

Once I've realized that my chronic pain is caused by tense muscles that didn't properly release even long after the injury was healed, which in turn was caused by constant anxiety and shame, I started working towards getting rid of that.

Of course I needed physio to fix it for good, but it brought no effect since my mind was in no mood to heal.

The pills were only making things worse since they were making me numb, drowsy, and emotionally blunted, while the key was dealing with the emotional trauma resulting from the constant physical trauma, something I couldn't do when I wasn't even in touch with my emotions.

It may sound like mumbo jumbo, and sometimes for a good reason as there are many self-stylized spiritual gurus who would tell you the pain is only in your mind. And this sounds bullshit as in many cases you won't get better just by breathing exercises and thinking happy thoughts. But one physio I went to and who actually helped me the most, pointed me towards the mind-body connection and Eastern practices in general, which turned out to be the key point in my therapy.

tl;dr Accepting your emotions and learning to let go is crucial

Friendly reminder that Israel/CIA/Shariablue create religious threads in an attempt to cause infighting among us. It's classic D&C (divide and conquer). Ignore religion threads: the OP is NEVER sincere with his questions or points. It all just to start a fight.

I dislike Buddhisms notion of detachment from emotion, as well as Its nihilistic understanding of the afterlife.

Perfectly respectable though.

Link past thread mein nigger

Say that once you actually see a fight, without starting one yourself. Last week we had a good thread even though I really was just dicking around looking to start an argument that time. I was pleasantly surprised, there seem to be plenty of people on Sup Forums willing to discuss religion in a civil way, and none of the other boards are as good for this kind of discussion.

Good call, here you go

Thanks
Any tips on reaching nirvana?

>even though I really was just dicking around looking to start an argument that time.

never forget youre cancer and a bad reflection of Buddhism

I always found it weird with buddhism how it claims that life is full of suffering, true, but that all that suffering is caused by desire that should be ceased. If I desire nothing and simply aspiring to nothing, why not just be dead?

One thing I discovered that was particularly shocking to me in a visceral way is that the things I'd been calling "emotions" my entire life were about 90% psychosomatic physical sensations, just like cramps or sore muscles.

It made my head spin - all I had to do was ask myself, "ok I recognize this emotional feeling, now what does it physically feel like in my body?" Every time I do this, the 10% of it that's actually emotional/mental content suddenly vanishes like a pricked bubble, leaving me with a visceral sensation that I'm just feeling a physical sensation, exactly like being tired or hungry or having a headache.

The sensation is intense and physically real, and easy to notice that it's directly caused by a particular sequence of thoughts over the past couple of minutes, but it has no actual emotional content to it at all.

Should I apologize for starting a thread on Sup Forums for my own amusement that turned out unexpectedly well? Well don't answer that, obviously I shouldn't and I won't.

Because I'm not a mountainnigger

It's important not to confuse the "detachment" from emotion required to look directly at your own emotions as a thing in itself, with feeling emotions less intensely or being numb or in a dissociative state. I've been practicing for a long time and my emotions are more vivid than ever (except maybe compared to early childhood).

Once I get there, maybe I'll have some tips to offer. Until then my only tip is to use the Buddha's tips.

Because desiring things isn't necessary for getting them. Even neuroscience supports this, "wanting" and "liking" are two completely separate circuits in your brain. Each has its charms, but liking is more consistently pleasurable and much less likely to cause suffering.

This is my experience. It seems promising and then ghosts and past lives and previous universes comes up and I start thinking it might just be some made up control the proles bullshit.
Have you ever had doubts like this? What, if anything, diffused them. I am at a point in my life where something has to change. I have food, shelter, loving wife, but it just seems like something is still missing. Don't want to be another sheep getting fleeced, however.

Well, after all it's a several thousand years old tradition that arose in India, where belief in ghosts and past lives was as default as belief in God in a medieval Christian country.

Fortunately, unlike many other religions, there is no need to wait for death to verify whether the ideas are sound or not. It's a central teaching of Buddhism that insight isn't something you gain from trusting teachers or traditions, you have to see for yourself. The teachings and traditions are just there to point out what it is you're supposed to be examining.

A simple guideline - if you're reading or hearing something about Buddhism, is the subject of discussion something you can empirically verify for yourself, right now or with a little practice and experimentation? Or is it something about some abstract concept that you're not sure about, or some metaphysical thing "out there", or some story about this or that historical event or some supposed supernatural happening?

If it's the former, pay attention. If it's the latter, you can safely ignore it. You won't miss anything important.

Food for thought. Thank you. Where would you suggest someone begin? How do the different traditions differ? What do you do?

Gay hippy shit.
Sage

Great thread.

Got a question. Basically I'm Odinist and I've read that Buddhism is less a religion than "just" a philosophy or stance of mind.

That would mean it's basically compatible ... right ?

And if so, what are some primers to get a glimpse of Buddhism ? Because there seem to be a shitton of branches and it's easy to get lost, at least from my perspective

Try skimming my previous thread from last week for my views on identifying the real thing and not getting misled from the start I am not a Buddhist teacher, so I can't claim to have any experience with helping a total beginner start out, I can only really give my own opinions from my experience.

The various Buddhist traditions differ in pretty much the same kinds of ways that branches of Christianity differ. See the other thread for sone people's comments on this. The core unifying concept is developing conscious awareness of your own mental processes. Buddhism is the study of the mind. To the degree that a particular branch of Buddhism focuses on anything whatsoever other than the mind, I consider it relatively inauthentic.

I'm a programmer, but semi early retired. I can't necessarily credit Buddhism as a cause of financial success, but I don't doubt that it did help in some ways.

The Buddha never did anything for his followers. He also left his station in life to pursue self-fulfillment.

Buddhism is just as destructive as Islam.

Just be one with your fellow man, you don't need to label it, though I agree that buddhism is probably the closest to the truth.

"Do what thou wilt" is really your only job.

I'm not talking about doing something that's fun now, but you regret later.

I'm talking about doing everything that deep down in your core you truly want to experience, that you will never regret doing even if it turns out to be worse than you thought, because all you needed was the experience.

When people have near-death experiences, they are usually asked what they want to do by the Source, and since you are no longer stricken by your body filter, you can recognize what it is that your soul truly wants and needs and ask for it.
The Source will grant your desires as long as they are pure.
And they don't even have to be pure positive, they can be pure evil, as long as they are pure.
Any doubt that arises when asking for something from the Source will be your higher self letting you know it is not a true desire.

I don't know why I felt the need to ramble, maybe it's that someone here needed to see it.

Good luck you guys, change is coming soon.

I advise you all to read An Ascension Handbook by Tony Stubbs, and The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life (vol 1 & 2). It's information from my good buddy Thoth.

friendly bump for interest

Rather than a philosophy, it's better to think of it as an exercise regimen for your mind. Just like the religious parts, you can take or leave the philosophical parts as well, but you have no way of having the judgment required to make that call without doing the exercises.

It's pretty stupid that people religiously work out and train their bodies to get ripped, but leave their minds flabby and weak. There are of course all kinds of mind training regimens out there, but Buddhism is the best, full stop. I'm interested in this particular topic, so I've pretty much seen them all by now. You don't need any others until you've at least directly seen what Buddhism can do for you.

For branches, see

>"Do what thou wilt" is really your only job.

I cannot think of a more disgusting and violent creed than this.

Then you have very negative thoughts and should probably meditate on it.

Every tyrant that has ever lived has lived according to that creed.

I see, thanks very much.

Gotta read through it. I'd like to see you doing more of those threads breah. They're pretty constructive .... contrary to basicall 99% of all the other shitthreads on here

If you don't believe that mind training has value, then of course you would think he didn't do anything useful. As for leaving his station, abandoning your life to be a beggar monk sounds like some kind of wacky thing to do to us, but in India at the time that was just something people did, and was considered quite respectable. There was a huge tradition around it even then.

"Mind training" has no value. As far as him being a "mind trainer" there is very little evidence that any of his training has resulted in anything of value whatsoever.

He abandoned his station to sit around helping himself. Well, not even helping himself. Just sitting around wasting space, pretending to think and coming up with nonsense, esoteric jargon to explain a nonsense, esoteric philosophy. He was a bum and a waste.

What's the most casual someone can be at buddhism and still be considered a buddhist? I think you guys have good ideas but I'm fuckin lazy man.

My older brother was on ritalin at a young age. My father was a racist (not based) angry drug addict who ended up overdosing and killing himself leaving my mother to raise 4 boys on her own. We grew up in crime and poverty, as white minorities in the rough inner city. So nothing besides what the amazing liberties of what America provides were given to us.

When he moved out indulged in a life a video games and pot. He was always into eastern culture and books and kung fu movies, but discovering Buddhism changed his life. It redpilled the fuck out of him. For a while he was still getting high and getting lost in rabbit holes, but he stopped getting high and realized what was important to him.

Less than 10 years later, he is married with an incredible, strong/smart wife and three beautiful children, earning more than 6 figures a year, constantly looking for new work opportunities because he has an impressive skillset that gives him power and leverage wherever he works, and is overall in control of his life rather than life being in control of him. He is based as fuck.

I provided the backstory to give insight to how buddhism can open someone's eyes, no matter where you come from. Someone who came from nothing and wanted nothing but to get high and play video games was able to completely turn their life around and break the mold on their own terms. The catalyst was buddhism. He still meditates every day.

Well if you notice, I said that pure evil is granted their desires as well as pure good.
That is because the desire is pure, and there is no good and evil outside of this realm.

We perceive time linearly because we have to be able to receive karmic lessons, and if time was all at once, as it is outside this density/dimension, we would not be able to say X lead to Y happening. Additionally, we would be aware of the game we were playing, and if you know the end of the show then there's really no point in watching if you are trying to learn something new.

We created this 3rd density/dimension to help ourselves learn how to overcome things about ourselves that we don't like.

If you enjoy causing others harm and feel no regret, you are on your path to self-service and will not receive karmic backlash because you feel no regret, and therefore no karmic ties.

Once you merge back with the source, everyone will experience what you have experience and also gain the knowledge about your service to self for themselves.

We are all just experiencing.

Kids with cancer may have agreed on the astral realm with their soul group to come in and die so that the member of their soul group that needs to experience their child's death can grow from that experience.

It is all related for some reason or other, nothing is random.
Everyone's higher self is nudging them in the right direction, you just have to listen.

If you are a positive person you create positive fields around yourself, and negative will not be able to reach you until you create the karmic tie necessary for them to break through.

Lurking great thread, make it a daily.
People need to unwind from all the stress on pol from shills etc.

Clearing ones head would be the first step to abolishing stupidity in america

>I've never done any successful mind training, but I know it has no value. It's the ones who are doing it who are wrong!

That all sounds nice in an academic setting. It has no meaning in the real world.

If the fruits of mind-training are to be displayed by the post I replied to above, then I not only stand by my earlier statement, but I expand it to say this:

Mind-training is not useless. It is abhorrent and destructive.

Don't confuse the issue. If someone says "do what thou wilt" to you they're usually just parroting Aleister Crowley's philsophy, usually without even understanding what he meant by "wilt" (not that the guy wasn't confused as fuck regardless).

None of that is Buddhism. Like with everything, methods of mind training are not created equal.

The most casual would be to just read about it and do the practices! I haven't even taken the five precepts myself, which most would consider to be the absolute basics of being a Buddhist. That means I don't get to go around calling myself a "Buddhist" since that involves fulfilling a certain kind of social role that I can't honestly undertake. But the subject matter itself is solid gold, and I don't do it for the company.

Recommended reading?

I don't intend to get into any arguments about beliefs, but since people are reading who don't know much about Buddhism, I should say outright that none of this is Buddhism, it's just an unrelated esoteric belief system.

Did anything I said sound like Crowley, other than the quote?
Do what thou wilt is the law of the universe whether you like it or not.

Once you understand this, and understand that you have a field around you that literally will not let other fields in if you don't wish it, then you will know that "good" truly does conquer "evil" because the law of free will cannot be broken. It is written into the code of this universe.

Thanks for this, I like hearing stories like this. They're very encouraging

Karma is not part of buddhism? The seed and flower of life? Reincarnation? I have covered all of these and said that what I say is not buddhism, only that they got it the closest.

The biggest issue I have when explaining these things is that people try to put the ideas into a box of religion, and it's so much grander than that.

I jumped in because of the similarities of buddhism, and felt that those that know the teachings can easily understand and make the transition to this new level of understanding.

You're dreaming up conceptual notions. All conceptual notions are just mental objects. Why did you create these mental objects about fields and such, how did you test them against the evidence of your senses, and in what way do thry benefit you?

Saying words that Buddhists also use doesn't mean that what you're describing is a Buddhist idea. I don't mean to insult your beliefs, but at least try to be careful to distinguish your own ideas from Buddhist teachings in a Buddhism thread.

No need to overdo it, I might start doing them two or three times a week first, but only if they're usually successful and people don't get tired of them.

Please reference the books I have previously listed, but will list again:

An Ascension Handbook

The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life, Vol 1 & 2.

These are just the most recent of my findings that are the amalgamation of quite a bit of research.

I've spent 2-5 hours a night for the past year and a half researching all religions and metaphysics, the occult, you name it.

I do not claim to know it all, but I also don't dismiss things that don't fit my narrative just because it's new or strange.

So, please read those, they should help you understand if you are truly interested.
You can read a fair amount of preview on Amazon.com.

If it doesn't resonate with you, then it is not your time, and that's fine.

Everyone has their path.

I'm off for now, I wish you the highest guidance and benefit on your journey.

Adonai

can I be buddhist and still have a massive ego?

Zen made me religious, whereas Christianity would have never done that. Now that I've taken the godpill I'm turning to my cultural roots.
Basically zen explained jesus to me.

Shitty nihilistic religion that says nonexistence is the ultimate goal. Gay.

Based Monk Wirathu called terroridt for wanting to get rid of inbreed muzzie carp terrorist scum plague. Time is dogdhit.

Zen and walking meditation worked for me m90s.

We are all attracted by the mental gainz initially, but learn to go over them. The Western notion of Buddhism is that of a feel-good pseudoscientific cult.

Luckily, if you ignore most of the bullcrap written about it and just practice constantly and regularily, your understanding of God, faith, samadhi whatever develops naturally. You'd be mislead, if you regard it as relaxation, but in the hard effort is where the redpill lies.

I would recommend zazen, as it's the most elementary type of meditation and work my way from there.

I don't have any, sorry. I'll try to think about what to recommend to beginners and make another thread next week.

Google is pretty much all you need though, so long as you stick to direct, primary sources, ie sutras and texts by OLD famous Buddhists, who have had time to develop and sustain a reputation over hundreds of years.

Literally anything written by anyone else, especially books "for beginners", should be viewed as likely nonsense at best, and highly misleading misinterpretation at worst. It's like with any other topic, except even less reliable since it's so hard to talk about internal mental states. So you might as well not bother with anything that wasn't written by someone thousands of years old and famous.

World would be a better place if everyone was Buddhist

Ok, but have you put any of this into practice and tested any of it? What, concretely, have the results been?

I used to be prone to this sort of "I need to read everything on this topic" behavior too. It's important to realize that you don't have hours in your life to really carefully read even 1% of what's been written, and actually put into practice 1% of what you've carefully read. And then the Zen guys come along and tell you to burn your books because you've completely wasted all those hours of reading.

I doubt it m8

Sure, but you'll notice more when it hurts.

If you had to already have all the Buddhist virtues to do Buddhist practices, it would be a pretty shitty practice.

What is the picture and why do i want to lick it

I see. Yeah I guess my post wasn't properly worded. I know at least that "actual Buddhism" is far from the western 420 blaze it faget shiet-type """buddhism""".

I was just curious about whether it's compatible with being guided by the Gods - though Buddhism seems to ultimately state that Gods aren't ... ehrm ... or are "empty" and therefore ultimately unimportant (as I've read in the other thread which is linked above) - on my path rather than needing to switch "teachings" than just mindset so to speak.

Because I actually like to adhere to the ancient Germanic beliefs but I'm all up for improving my mind as well as my body and skills through "unorthodox ways" if you know what I mean.

And meditation, though practiced not too often, is a vital part of the Edda-ic myths in one or the other form

Thanks for clarifying anyway, though, breh.

true store, i was blessed by shiva and buddha one night, they are super dope :)

kind of contradictory but yeh, ur prolly a fag neway

Any jhanafags here

The picture is just a picture of some colors I googled. You want to lick it because of your latent karmic tendencies.

The colors look kind of like paint spilled on water, which is a visual metaphor the Buddha used to describe sensory pleasures. The idea is that the behavior of your mind is the water underneath, but you can't see it because it's covered in colorful paint. It's a good mental image. There are similar metaphors involving water with stuff in it to describe other mental states that interfere with direct perception.

Hear me Brothers and sisters, also those lost in the middIe.
I prefer like to say I'm Jediism instead of a Buddhist for various obvious reasons. People need to hear the good word of attempting to better our understanding of our reality by optimizing our reality rig's usage, thus making the experience more enjoyable.

Shal'kek nem'ron. You can't deny that Kek right there. Peace be upon you, OP.

Dudes you don't need buddhism to teach you anything, while it is a nice religion/concept it really does over complicate things in your head. Instead you should try self discovery/rediscovery, and that is as simple as obserbing your own mind and learning that you are seperate from your mind.

Then you don't have to act upon your thoughts at all, things like anger, depression, sadness stem from your thoughts as they arise in your head.

...

Kein Problem, mein Freund.

Was gesagt wird ist wirklich von keiner so großen Bedeutung. Abschiließend hat jeder, der meditiert ein Verständnis vom Gott (dem Geist usw.). Meiner Meinung nach existiert ein solches religöses Verständnis mehr oder wenig der Tradition ungeachtet.
Also, ja, du kannst davon Nutzen haben ohne ein richtiger Buddhist zu sein.

Kulturell bin ich ein Christ und versuche meine Religion besser zu verstehen. Leider verhindert die nachchristliche Wirklichkeit ein rein christliches (wahrscheinlich auch heidnisches) Verständnis vom Glauben.

Naja, Hauptsache, wir üben unsere Religion der Tradition möglichstgetreu aus.

"Empty" doesn't mean unimportant!

What do you mean by "unimportant"? What associations do you have with that word? It's a visual object when written down, an auditory object when spoken aloud, and some kind of mental object when stored and retrieved from memory. What immediate causes cause the idea of "unimportance" to appear in your mind, and what is the immediate effect, and downstream effects, of it having appeared?

This is what it means for something to be "empty", in the same sense that the idea of unimportance is also empty.

While this is an accurate description of one aspect of the Buddhist concept of "anatta", it's misleading to suggest that one part of one basic foundational teaching that's required to even get started with Buddhism is all you need, and there's nothing else to see.

The only meditation practice you'll ever really need, though some may disagree with that vehemently, and it doesn't stop me from experimenting with other practices anyway

I find that Stoicism and Taoism are a beneficial supplement to Buddhist practices. There may be a few discrepancies in the teachings but essentially the message is aimed in the same focus. By acknowleging the impermenance and maleability of all things and refrain from grasping at and clinging to material objects/ideas/beliefs we may free ourselves from the potentiality of suffering.
Simply put; acknowlege, accept, acclimate.

For people who have concerns that Buddhism will inflict some kind of lifestyle on them that might be "wrong" or cause them to miss out on important things in life, it's useful to notice that all the major Greek branches of philosophy seem to have independently arrived at very similar comclusions, at least as far as what constitutes a "good life" is concerned.

I believe I read somewhere that Einstein said that Buddhism had the best chance of being a universal religion because of how adaptable it is to changes in percieved truths when they are able to be disproven, dont quote me on that though. Also relativity is very Buddhist in its essence (not the relativity of motion but relativity as a acknowlegement that there are no absolute truths but truths that may be shared amongst the percievers of the subject of observation).

While it might be the case that he understands emptiness literally rather than from the perspective of Eastern philosophy, I think he's right to assume that God is unimportant in Buddhism. Whether or not God exists is of no great importance.

Maybe I'm more likely to take that up view since I've practiced in the Zen tradition, but you'll have to agree with that to some extent.

Either way, all of this talk is confusing and pointless at best until one has meditated for some time.

Well I'm considering it (buddhism again) after reading about
jhana

because the wiki entry states that it is a state of no mind used in Buddhism. That is what I'm getting at really, I've experienced this state many times and I don't find it hard to get into but I always slip back into normal state which has all the stresses of life...

That's true enough, certainly as a religion Buddhism is definitely not "about" God in the same way that most other religions are about God(s).

As far as pointless talk goes, I think the only important thing is to remind people not to form ideas about what words mean by guesswork and intuition, but to treat each word like they've never heard it before, since the English word is in fact just a clumsy translation of a foreign concept in a foreign language.

That's correct, even as a religious proposition. "live your own life" in itself is a religious preposition. Internalising the fact that, we live in our own bubbles of subjectivity + the innate flaws of language were huge redpills for me.

This is what constitutes the concept of ineffability of Truth in theology.

Stoicism is more of a layman's Buddhist practice. To achieve perfect enlightenment would almost require years of monastic dedication bordering upon reclusion, like that of Neitchze's character zarathrustra, to the cultivation thereof. The Taoist's wuwei is rather insightful in regards to understanding the nature of things, almost a "it is what it is and it is as it should be for if it should have been otherwise then otherwise it would have been." At least thats my understanding of it.

>Is your mental awareness at the level of a five year old?

I am not a moral brainlet, for I see the world as will.

That's good! Keep learning about it, and keep in mind that there is absolutely no way for you to check whether your experiences are what the texts are referring to or not, except by carefully doing the practices over a long period.

Everybody who has the slightest interest in Buddhism comes in thinking they've had some amazing experiences, and it always turns out it's some minor thing you might encounter early on long before you even get anything near the first jhana. For instance, the total absence of perceptible mental chatter or discursive thought is a relatively minor attainment, because the more you pay attention the more you see that there's a lot going on even then that you just weren't noticing before.

Not trying to bust your balls, that's just how it always turns out - it just means that there's much, much more for you to look forward to.

Even in Buddhism the Buddha can become a subject of idolization. The finger that points(messiahs/holymen) to the moon('truth') often becomes the object of worship(much like Jesus, Muhammad, and various other reputable teachers of 'truth') and the heavenly beauty of the message they were trying to convey is lost in the worship of the speaker. The Buddha advised to seek out your own salvation, there may be those that will aid you in your pursuit yet they cannot fulfill your salvation for you, they can lead you to the threshold but it is for you to make the step. I may be erronious in my reasoning, thats for you the reader to determine.

I'm not a heathen cur. That's why i'm not Buddhist

'Buddha nature' can be likened to 'The game', once it is acknowleged it is lost. BTW you lost, both.

Do you see the world as will because that's what your will dictates, or do you really think the world "is" will? Assuming it's the former, what are the benefits and drawbacks of seeing the world that way?

That is your perception, the opinion of right/wrong;good/evil is merely relative. Plato's 'The allegory of the cave' may be a beneficial insight to this, its available on youtube if youre willing to look into it.

Can you give a confused and curious brother a list of the core concepts please?

To add to this topic; will is a consious effort, counsiousness is the means by which sentient beings are able to experience their surrounding environments. So if the universe is therefore consious, all matter contained within would have consiousness down to the subatomic level mayhaps even further down in the spectrum. This could possibly give 'truth' (

a poem by Ryōkan:

You see the moon by pointing your finger.
You recognize the finger by the moon.
The moon and the finger
are not different, not the same.
In order to guide a beginner,
this analogy is temporarily used.
When you have realised this,
there is no moon, no finger.

So uh, how do I meditate? Just sit and examine my thoughts?