Try not being yourself today

Sunday Buddhism thread

Previous The last thread didn't get much traction, maybe due to the OP being too long, so I'll keep it shorter this time. I'll continue making these threads only if there's sustained interest. I'm also open to suggestions on the best time to post them; it's hard to tell what's a good time since the anons who participated in previous threads have been from various different time zones. Should I do the threads on Saturdays instead?

Anyway, have you been practicing lately anons? Any interesting new insights?

I'd also be interested in any links to summaries of Zen ideas equivalent to the youtube lectures about Theravada I posted in the last thread. I realize there may not be anything so systematic available due to the way Zen is, though.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=oXWgJSpvbic
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_teachings
spiritualdynamics.net/articles/meditation/
near-death.com/paranormal/edgar-cayce.html
youtu.be/kKZfsPMfpo0
youtu.be/af59U2BRRAU
north-node.tumblr.com/post/83509296777/north-node-in-libra
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

Btw my plan is to make one more thread next week if this one doesn't get going, and have that be the last one. Last chance to participate if you're interested.

Shame there don't seem to be enough interested anons to sustain a weekly thread, we had some good discussions in the first couple of them. I'll be back next week for one last thread!

Cool map.

Huh, I didn't know these threads were a regular thing. I did formal zazen at the temple this morning.

I don't have much to say about Zen and I don't watch many lectures. When I started they just told me: this is how you sit.. this is how you bow.. this is how you count your breath. There is an idea in Zen that is called "direct pointing", you might want to research this yourself but it implies that while language and philosophical constructions should serve to show the truth they are not themselves the truth. If you read blue cliff records or mumonkan you can get an idea of what this means; there is always contradiction and paradox in language, in fact we cannot trust language.

fuck off hippie
hate all the westeners who apporpriate buddhism, confuse it with taoism and hinduism and practice yoga
you are worse than most other obnoxious religious groups

Read my summary in the last thread and listen to one of the lectures I linked to, and tell me if I'm confusing anything with taoism or hinduism. I don't practice yoga, if by yoga you mean doing Indian poses.

I agree though that western buddhists who are in it for the "culture" can be pretty insufferable. I don't care about any of that, I'm just here to talk about the ideas themselves.

Deus Vult! Pagan scum!

I will be nigger today and go rape someone

youtube.com/watch?v=oXWgJSpvbic

I've been making them every Sunday morning for the past few weeks, and will continue to do so for as long as there's interest (say, until I get two or three consecutive threads with few or no replies). I'm open to suggestions for different timing or day of the week, but I don't have time to do more than one per week.

How long have you been practicing Zen? What kind of effect has it had on you / your life?

Historically what has been the interplay between Buddhists and Confucians in China?

I'm only just recently starting to learn about Chinese Buddhism myself, so I don't know much. There were anons in previous threads who were much more familiar with it who might be able to tell you if they drop by.

Here's an article that has a little on this

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_teachings

Though wikipedia articles on Buddhism tend to be pretty mediocre in general.

I have been practicing formally for about 6 months. Before that I did secular meditation on my own for a few years.

As for the 'effect' on my life, it's subtle. I understand processes that lead to my actions better. Mostly I am able to notice things in the field of experience that I couldn't before, which is incredibly positive, life feels large and mysterious.

I also had weird feelings of synchronicity for a time and slight hallucinations when doing zazen if you want to hear about the 'special effects' of Zen.

Thanks, this is exactly the kind of thing I'm interested in hearing about. What have you learned about the processes that lead to your actions?

As for stuff like synchronicity, I kind of lost interest in that kind of thing a while back. It's such a frequent and constant thing if you look for it, I guess I feel like that's just the way life behaves and there's no point in reading much into it.

thanks & bump

I have noticed things about the interplay between body states and mind states. Particularly I often find that I become aware of tension in the body accompanying certain thoughts or certain modes of thought. Regardless of whether I intend to or not I end up experimenting with little tricks to influence the state of consciousness with muscular actions. I suppose there's a reason it's called the body-mind.

Perhaps I shouldn't have said 'action' in the previous post, right now the concept of action is for me a little bit dissolved. It seems sometimes that there are degrees of controlling, other times it seems like attention is exactly analogous to controlling.

I honestly don't know if this is something that humans can talk about though.

Regarding synchronicity, hallucinations e.t.c. Zen is pretty clear on it's stance that these are delusions and you shouldn't engage with them. In fact if you take it up with a Zen teacher in doku-san he will probably be very clear on it.

Still the appearance of elaborate hallucinations is well documented in Zen. They are called "makyo" and are said to be a sign of someone nearing enlightenment, you are meant to go beyond them. Gate gate para gate e.t.c...

>I honestly don't know if this is something that humans can talk about though.
We can for sure (depending on what "this" specifically signifies of course). We just don't have much of a vocabulary for talking about mental states, because abstract notions of mental states and behaviors can't be taken out of your head to show to someone else like physical things. It's harder than with physical or symbolic things, but it's still possible.

>Perhaps I shouldn't have said 'action' in the previous post, right now the concept of action is for me a little bit dissolved. It seems sometimes that there are degrees of controlling, other times it seems like attention is exactly analogous to controlling.

What does "controlling" seem like to you? I've been trying to examine that kind of thing but I can't seem to make much sense if it. Volition is a really weird phenomenon when you look at it internally. It's totally unlike anything else in my field of experience, and I tend to shrink away from even thinking about it because it feels so incomprehensible.

no u

bump

wut

Answer faster swede user, or the thread will die. Shouldn't students of Zen speak spontaneously, on the spot?

Any more anons doing any Buddhist practice?

One last thread next week, please post next Sunday if you'd like to keep having these. I think it could be constructive and fun to talk about.

I do silent meditations and affirmation-meditations, but im not a buddhist or a follower of any religion

What have you learned by doing your practice, and what kind of effects have you seen in your life?

last bump

Its circular logic/paradoxical; its the same thing our ancestors/ancients taught us(have been trying to teach us?), and will only have any actual meaning if you're genuine/objective in the pursuit of its meaning.
I'm not sure if it's really done anything for me; what it feels like though is knowing/awareness that everything around you also exists. If anything, i think it taught me that no matter how invulnerable a system is, there will always be a metaphorical 'Achilles's heel' to every system
Its always been based in simplicity.., the majesty though, is realizing Human beings are of unlimited potential, living in a universe of infinite possibilities.

I'm quite interested in meditation, as for example Sam Harris describes in his book 'Waking Up' and his various lectures. But to me a lot of the the Buddhist texts and beliefs seem just as much unfounded bs as those of other religions. I've been trying to do some vipassana, as it seems quite down-to-earth. Apparently for some people it really helps to first read certain texts, like the tibetan book of liberation, but when I did so I felt like I was reading the Bible, worse even. The Bible at least is clear in what it is saying, but a lot of this text was just empty statements sometimes obviously false.

So I'm not sure whether this can really be called buddhism, but its close. Can anyone point me to resources for actual down-to-earth meditation. About the various techniques, which ones actually work etc, and if possible, I know scientific research has been done on meditation, so if that would be used to differentiate the good techniques from the bad, that would be perfect.

"what it feels like though is knowing/awareness that everything around you also exists"
Addendum: which feels very similar to love

Have a look at the youtube lectures I posted here (and read the thread first, it's short) I think if the lecturer's way of speaking works for you, you'll find it a very down to earth, intellectually oriented presentation of Buddhist concepts. If you go by the order I recommend, it starts with concrete, specific instructions for meditation and a clear explanation of the effects and benefits you can expect.

I'm very skeptical of Tibetan Buddhism to be honest. To me it seems more Tibetan than Buddhism - it seems to have the right central points to it, from a distance at least, but all the stuff it adds is really confusing and unnecessary IMO.

As for different kinds of techniques, I know there have been some studies but the data is very limited. I don't think you can learn much from it beyond "meditation in reasonable amounts is healthy and helps with some things".

I would rely more on long traditions. They've at least had time to be exposed to every possible criticism, and have nonetheless had people continue to practice and recommend them. You can always look up the criticisms too, now that we have the internet, so there's not much risk of going too wrong if you approach it empirically.

I definitely recommend the branch of Buddhism presented in the lectures I linked, but Zen seems to also be very popular.

what i would do is give myself some time to try for myself what i think works(like a month i guess?, however much time u personally feel is necessary to garner an objective judgement)
after that i would read the material from what other ppl have said worked for them..
ur intiuition is law, so if u dont want to do it, its prolly cause it wont b meaningful/helpful
.... i likes this one :D its pretty much the principle of every other affirmation :
spiritualdynamics.net/articles/meditation/

Thanks for the lectures. It's quite late here and I have to get up early so I'll have a look at them tomorrow.

> I'm very skeptical of Tibetan Buddhism to be honest. To me it seems more Tibetan than Buddhism - it seems to have the right central points to it, from a distance at least, but all the stuff it adds is really confusing and unnecessary IMO.
That's exactly my problem with it, but I can't seem to find a Buddhist tradition that doesn't include this. For that reason I consume all my Buddhist teachings through others that kinda filtered it down to the good parts, though I'd like something like a book with a giant collection of those good parts, or a tradition I can follow that I don't have to filter. Those lectures may be just the thing, we'll see. Thanks for the thread in any case, would be nice to have this weekly or so.

> That's exactly my problem with it, but I can't seem to find a Buddhist tradition that doesn't include this

To clarify, by 'this' I mean: A whole tradition full of unnecessary beliefs surrounding the actual kernel of truth.

>dalai lama is against all forms of cruelty
>dalai lama eats meat

near-death.com/paranormal/edgar-cayce.html
^ very simple, and very curious, i thought this man offered a wealth of spiritual knowledge

(i never investigated what my image says (i assumed, through extrapolation tho)so...(its in my to-do list(among many other things) ...(lol)))

Take your time, they're not going anywhere.

I think you're not likely to have much luck finding a tradition that contains only and exactly the things you'll find most useful. Over thousands of years, there all kinds of stuff will accumulate in every tradition.

Judging by your specific complaint, I'd definitely recommend using the listening order in the thread I linked. I made it specifically to start with parts of the teachings that are immediately applicable, verifiable, and actionable. Some of the stuff you don't like is there in the later lectures, but you can listen to those parts or not without missing anything important.

>spiritualdynamics.net/articles/meditation/

I'm pretty skeptical of stuff like this. It seems like there's never any shortage of people who will come up with terms like "infinite being" or "life energy", assert that it exists without explaining what it is in any meaningful way, and then follow up with long chains of poetic pseudo-logic.

I'm more interested in empirical data about my field of experience, actionable models of how my mind behaves, and practical results. Buddhism is particularly good about this - it has an explicit bias against concepts, and mostly restricts itself to ones that are absolutely indisputable. Anicca is indisputable, "infinite being" is definitely not indisputable. Why do you need this "infinite being" concept, or this "life energy" stuff?

Its another way of saying that you are God/part of the Universe/"made in his image"

>you are God
Sounds like Vedanta or something, don't know much about that
>part of the Universe
Objectively true enough
>"made in his image"
If God exists, his image is not some biological meat sack, let's be serious here. Why would we expect ourselves to look like God, other than because we read it in the Bible?

ur a portion of him; your body is the vessel ur mind is ur soul, and what we c as life and functions of physics/universe is known as the spirit of God
>Why would we expect ourselves to look like God
u wouldnt. only by incident, design or how you think subjectively what God would look like(since ultimately thru technology what u decide to imagine can be created)

If you see the Buddha on the road, you better kill him.

i think ur making it more complex than it rly is

Make your explanations as simple as possible, but no simpler. I'm just giving an opinion on the spiritualdynamics link. Basically, my point is that Buddhism has much more to offer than this, and if you're interested in meditation already it would be a shame for you to limit yourself to the kinds of ideas presented there. Try listening to the lectures I linked in the other thread, keeping an open mind.

What does this mean?

Yup, will do.
I think realizing the enormous amount of sacrifice humanity collectively has made to achieve Eden/Paradise has motivated me enough to do what I thoroughly believe what my current maximum-intellect is desiring, since after all, I too am haunted by the memory/stories of Eden/Paradise we all once had, supposedly of course
God bless
"Testify against me, and I shall restore it to you." 1 Samuel 12:3

Well, Buddhism doesn't require being a vegetarian anyway

I'm fascinated by how far West Buddhism spread. During Jesus' lifetime Afghanistan was largely Buddhist. Do you think during his time 'wandering in the desert' he was in Afghanistan?

The Dalai Lama himself says that if anything within Buddhism is found to be disproved by science, then we should throw that thing out

The cornerstone of Buddhism is the Four Noble Truths, every else flows from that

No idea, but I think you do have to squint pretty hard to see much Buddhism in his teachings

>compassion
>patience
>forgiveness
>generosity
>lack of dogmatism
>challenging materialsm/attachment
>taking on the suffering of others

'Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life"

Many would disagree with me on this, but I don't think any of those are particularly central to Buddhism, except the rejection of materialism. Most are common to many religions and philosophies.

One thing that kind of amused me is a sutra in which the Buddha explains the purpose of virtue, morality, good deeds, etc. He says something like "it leads to gains and acquisitions in the current life and future lives, and favorable rebirth". My immediate reaction was, "wait that's it, that's the whole point of it? the whole religion teaches you not to want any of those things". And indeed, according to Buddhist doctrine, good karma is karma too, and generally leads away from nirvana. Still better than a bad life, unfavorable rebirths, etc, but fundamentally beside the point.

you don't think compassion is central to buddhism?

morality and virtue have no purpose in themselves but there natural consequence is those things- "gains and acquisitions in the current life and future lives, and favorable rebirth"

practicing for the purpose of achieving a favourable rebirth is within the scope of the buddhist path. and good karma, when done with the motivation of renunciation or bodhicitta lead to nirvana and enlightenment respectively

> you don't think compassion is central to buddhism?
Nope, I don't. Well, "central" is a vague term I guess. But in any case, the compassion of Buddhism specifically refers to wishing for the liberation of sentient beings and acting to make it happen, and is not the kind of compassion we mean when we say for example "his wife died so I'm feeling a lot of compassion for him". Of course Buddhists tend to have that virtue as well, because it's a widely recognized virtue and Buddhism promotes being virtuous in general.

> good karma, when done with the motivation of renunciation or bodhicitta lead to nirvana and enlightenment respectively
Yes, specifically the good karma of practicing the Buddhist path leads to nirvana, but my point was that other kinds of good karma, which are central to other religions, do not lead to nirvana and so aren't so central in Buddhism, at least not in the same way.

What you call compassion is Great Compassion, the fully developed form of compassion. It's not serparate from the other kind you descried, just a more intense form

>Yes, specifically the good karma of practicing the Buddhist path leads to nirvana, but my point was that other kinds of good karma, which are central to other religions, do not lead to nirvana and so aren't so central in Buddhism, at least not in the same way.
There is not one 'buddhist path', there are three- 1) wishing to achieve fortunate rebirths. 2) wishing to achieve nirvana 3)wishing to achieve full enlightenment

And there are not different 'kinds' of good karma, only different motivations behind them

buddhism isn't pagan

>There is not one 'buddhist path', there are three- 1) wishing to achieve fortunate rebirths. 2) wishing to achieve nirvana 3)wishing to achieve full enlightenment
What branch of Buddhism recommends aiming for fortunate rebirths as a path? I'm not doubting you, for all I know this recommendation is in the Theravada sutras and I just haven't seen it or forgot, but it's a bit surprising to hear Buddhists recommend favorable rebirths, in the context of other sutras that explain how important specifically a human birth is, particularly at a time when the dharma is taught, and how much of a danger there is that even with a rebirth in a deva realm you may not get another chance for liberation for many aeons, etc etc

Also, what in your view is the distinction between nirvana and full enlightenment?

>And there are not different 'kinds' of good karma, only different motivations behind them
Not sure what you mean by this exactly, there are all kinds of karmas (actions), saying something nice is a different good karma than giving a gift, and so on.

Or by "fortunate rebirths" do you mean the pure abodes stuff associated with the jhanas, the pure lands in Pure Land Buddhism, and things like that?

Buddha those who were interest in achieveng higher rebirths the teachings necessary to achieve those. He taught to whatever capacity people were at. It's not recommended, but for those who have taken refuge and have conviction in rebirth and cause and effect but dont yet have renunciation, desire for higher rebirth would ber there default position. It's known as the 'intial scope' within a the Gelugpa Tibetan buddhist presentation. that's different to somebody who has generated renunciation and is aiming towards nirvana but who practices to achieve another equally fortunate human rebirth in order to continue practising

The difference between nirvana and enlightenement in terms of path is that enlightnement isachieved through the union of bodhicitta (rather than renunciation) and realisation of emptiness. Bodhicitta is the wish to rescue all beings from samsara motivated by great compassion. By fruit, the differences are complicated and I'm not fully sure but you become a Buddha rather than an Arhat and have all the accompanying qualities to help beings

>Not sure what you mean by this exactly, there are all kinds of karmas (actions), saying something nice is a different good karma than giving a gift, and so on.
I meant as a response to you saying that other paths have different kinds of good karma. I know there are different kinds as in karma of the body, karma of the speech and of the mind

fortunate rebirths just means the three 'higher rebirths' - human, demi god and god, rather than the three 'lower rebirths'- animal, preta and hell being

the higher rebirths are characterised by mostly positve experiences, the lower rebirths by mostly negative. human beings are in the fortunate position to be in the goldilocks zone, not too much but just enough to spur us to turn inwards

>Gelugpa Tibetan buddhist
Thanks, it's helpful to know which branch you're coming from. The Theravada view on these things is somewhat different - for one thing, in the Theravada view there is no distinction between a Buddha and an arhat except that a Buddha achieves the same enlightenment as an arhat without having to be taught by anyone else.

>I meant as a response to you saying that other paths have different kinds of good karma. I know there are different kinds as in karma of the body, karma of the speech and of the mind
What I was basically trying to say is that unlike in other religions, according to Buddhism most good karma will not help you attain the goal, except maybe indirectly. No matter how many good deeds you do, how much metta you feel all day, and how much merit you accrue, none of this will ever help you attain enlightenment, except by maybe predisposing you to be around people who will encourage you to do so.

The actual karma that leads to enlightenment is doing the Buddhist practices, and having merit or doing good deeds will not make you any more enlightened than someone who hasn't done any of that. That was what I meant by these things not being central.

>No matter how many good deeds you do, how much metta you feel all day, and how much merit you accrue, none of this will ever help you attain enlightenment, except by maybe predisposing you to be around people who will encourage you to do so.
this is not true. ethics is basis of the development of concentration

and with good karma, you would not now be experiencieng having a healthy body, 5 working sense faculties, a working mental faculty, food in the fridge, money in your pocket, a safe street outside your door... and all of these things are necessary conditions for practice to some degree or another

good karma done with motivation of renuncation will act as the cause for liberation

without* good karma, that should say

I think we're just talking past each other here. Morality is a required basis for concentration, but is not itself sufficient. It will only lead to favorable rebirths, which are emphatically not a good thing in the (Theravada) Buddhist view, and only put you in much higher danger of missing out on learning the dharma than you have in your current life.

Remember that my original response was to the question of how much Buddhism is in Christianity, and my point was that it's really mostly just the morality parts, which are shared not only by Christianity and Buddhism but by many other religions and philosophies. The ultimate goal of nirvana is what makes Buddhism, Buddhism, not moral principles that you could find in other religions.

Yeah, I agree with that. I just got the feeling you were throwing the baby out with the bath water and saying that practicing virtuous merit is not part of the path

"Avoid all negative action, cultivate the good, purify one's mind- This is the teaching of the Buddhas"
Dhammapada 183

No, I certainly didn't mean that. Three of the eight parts of the eightfold path are about moral virtue after all.

Hello, Theravada adherent here. I don't trawl Sup Forums in hopes of finding kindred spirits, but I'll be pleasantly surprised if a productive and sustained discussion can happen here. Good luck.

It's not often you see something so tame on Sup Forums. It's quite nice actually, considering I'm not a Buddhist.

Happy discussion Buddhist bros.

No problems so far. There's no reason at all there can't be good discussions here. Shitposters mostly don't interfere with non-shitty non-bait threads.

The only question is whether there are actually enough anons with enough interest to sustain threads over time.

(I am OP on my phone)

>I guess I feel like that's just the way life behaves and there's no point in reading much into it.
By observing it you can actually learn about how life behaves. That's the point of awareness.

The distinction between a buddha and an arhat aren't about who taught you, its about who YOU teach afterwords.
Gautama Buddha was taught by plenty of people, but ultimately taught many people himself and spread the Dharma in a huge way. If he had just become enlightened and then died without having brought the dharma to others he wouldn't have been a buddha.

What do buddhists think of taoists
Should we have another fistfight its been a while

Give me a quick rundown of any epiphanies you may have had.

I don't have time to meditate and all that other shit.

That is a top-tier Tesla quote

Ok :)

How about death being the end?

I think that's pretty cool. Kill a bunch of enemies and then just die.

Don't you think that sounds fun?

I think that sounds fun.

What's wrong with the idea of hopelessness?

Nothing , i reckon.

The shortest summary I can give is that despite being a fully functional adult, with a reasonably successful life and decent relationships, my level of self awareness and self control was revealed to be shockingly bad as soon as I seriously looked at it. It was very scary to realize. Then over time, various lifelong emotional problems that I always thought were part of my personality started to kind of just crumble away.

(I am OP on my phone)

Okay , is life still pointless?

Is not Zen a Chinese Buddhist school?

No. Pointlessness is either some abstract philosophical point, or more usually, an unpleasant emotion that only occurs under certain conditions. I've had some periods where I forgot what it was like for life to not feel pointless, fortunately I'm not like that anymore. Not recommended.

Yes, paccekabuddha/pratyekabuddha is the term for what Gautama Buddha would have been if he hadn't taught the Dhamma to others.

Right , but what's the fucking point?

Everything dies and gets forgotten in the end.

"I've looked ahead and everything was dead"

A teaching by Tang dynasty Zen master Linji Yixuan. The buddha you see is a hallucination, you must ignore it. Same with your parents and gods. Connected to the Tang dynasty novel Du Zichun.

pls, stahp

look, you're just not a good guru.

According to Buddhism, there is no such thing as a dead person.

THIS IS FUCKING FALSE

see what I mean, this thread is stupid and always wrong.

let it die.

The only thing I can say is the kind of thinking that resolved this problem for me.

What are you asking when you say "what's the point"?
What kinds of responses to this question are possible?
What's a "point"?
Is it a statement about the world, some kind of feeling, a physical sensation, all of the above, none of the above, ...?
Why do points depend on dying or not, or being forgotten or not?

The questions don't really matter, what matters is that while asking them at some point you'll probably find an idea or sequence of thoughts that doesn't just feel pointless, it feels outright really, really bad. At this point, forget the questions above and don't even think about them anymore, they're useless.

Then all that's left is to, instead of indulging in the feeling and reasoning further with the feeling as a basis, look at it directly and try to see what caused that mental event to happen. Seeing the cause, you'll suddenly start to notice it along with its cause every time it happens. Your mind won't like that, and it will start to happen less and less. Eventually, you'll start wondering what it is you were feeling bad about because everything suddenly seems rather different.

Of course, this isn't necessarily easy to do, but it's the only way I know. Meditation helps make it easier.

I'm not a guru, but I'm not sure what you're complaining about. Do you expect me to vouch for everything every user says in threads I post?

Yes, Zen is the branch of Chinese Buddhism I'm just getting started on learning about. I'm more familiar with Theravada.

How is it false

There are dead bodies, but after death at no point is consciousness 'gone'

Darkness and bleakness. And lots of buildings on fire. Death. Suffering.

Crying , lots of crying. That's always a plus. Crying children. And women.

Women crying , ah yes , it's all about hearing the lamentations of the women , innit?

War. Violence. Murder. Torture. Conflict. Hatred. Blood. Soil. Struggle. Will. Heroism. Sacrifice. Masculinity in it's higest expression. Cowardice. Punishment. Speed. Force. Machinery. Sound. Guns. Oil. Steel. Horses. Tanks. Planes. Nuclear bombs. Ships. Cannons.

Loud fucking sounds. Fucking intense. Devastation. Anger. Slavery. Chaos. Order. Order out of Chaos , through violence. Race. Nation. City. Village. Family.

Tragedy. So.. very... fucking tragic.

SSex. War is kinda gay actually. Like me. Art. Grace. Style. Honor. Beauty.

COMBAT!

Lies , insidious fucking lies , eh?

POWER!

I think it's beautiful.

War , i mean.

Watch this video (mute it) youtu.be/kKZfsPMfpo0

Play this song in the background youtu.be/af59U2BRRAU

Ain't it just.. , something?

Maybe it's not.

Maybe it's just because i'm an Aries south node - Libra north node north-node.tumblr.com/post/83509296777/north-node-in-libra

Or maybe it's just because i'm a fucking idiot.

That's probably it.

I don't know what Buddhists think, but I think Taoism sounds kind of cool initially then turns really weird and superstitious as soon as you look into it

Well, based on this I have a hypothesis - you may feel like life is pointless because you consume too much media that glorifies tragedy and tragic things in general.

I don't have much to contribute but I like this much better than the cringey reddit-tier christian larper threads, so here's a free bump.

Living a life based on the things of just this life is ultimately pointless.

'Society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they will never sit'. A wise old Greek said that I think

Yep , life is still pointless.

You don't say. You're not going to magically stop thinking or feeling a way you've been feeling for a long time, just because you read an user's post or just decided you want to try feeling a different way. That's not how minds work.

Still, if you actually did read my post at least you've got the idea in your head, so eventually it may help.

>Well, based on this I have a hypothesis - you may feel like life is pointless

Life is pointless , that's just an objective fact of reality. There is no ultimate meaning.

>because you consume too much media that glorifies tragedy and tragic things in general.

Nope , was a combatant in a past life. I'm used to it.

Apparently i'm some sort of tough guy.

Not as cool as it sounds.

> Life is pointless , that's just an objective fact of reality. There is no ultimate meaning.
How can you meaningfully assert such a thing? Saying that life has meaning or doesn't have meaning isn't some objective fact, it's a human-constructed notion that's meaningless by your own standards.

You can't out-nihilism a Buddhist, bro. Buddhists deny nihilism, but they are next level meta-nihilists.

>Taoism
Of course Taoism had to cater to superstitions to gain followers, but at its philosophical core it's about seeking spiritual liberation. See Zhuangzi for contemplations on where is god, what's the point of life, of laboring your whole life, of approaching death, etc.