Discussion Opinions on buddhism?

[LoNatural]

Buddhism is pretty much the only "pro-life" doctrine that is keeping me a sceptic about suicide being a solution. According to their doctrine, (as far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong), they say that true death isn't physical, and that detachment from one's circumstances is the true liberation. What do you think about this? Is it just another religious stigma to keep unhappy people in the matrix being slaves?

 

[BitterlyAlive]

I'm a Christian, if it matters, but I kind of like the Four Noble Truths. It seems like it's all about acceptance. I'm a bit ignorant so I don't really know much about Gnosticism and Stoicism, but the concepts of these two and Buddhism seem similar? It's interesting.

 

[LoNatural]

I'm a Christian, if it matters, but I kind of like the Four Noble Truths. It seems like it's all about acceptance. I'm a bit ignorant so I don't really know much about Gnosticism and Stoicism, but the concepts of these two and Buddhism seem similar? It's interesting.

Yeah I think that buddhism is anti demiurgic like gnosticism. At least theravada (the most conservative doctrine) is as far as I know.

 

[BitterlyAlive]

Yeah I think that buddhism is anti demiurgic like gnosticism. At least theravada (the most conservative doctrine) is as far as I know.

Sorry, but do you mean like how they don't believe in a specific deity? And I didn't know Buddhism has different doctrines. Thanks for sharing; I can research that and it gives me something to do today.

 

[ExitStageLeft]

The Buddhist doctrine of Anatman - no-self - is certainly true. The self you perceive is a conflux of influences, none of which have permanence.

There is every reason to believe you will be "reincarnated" into different iterations of your neurobiological brain throughout eternity. There is also good reason to suspect that not all of these neurobiologies will be tied to the same fate - again, assuming a bounded universe to which the Poincare theorem applies, it's plausible the universe will eventually reproduce a brain arbitrarily similar enough that your stream of perception would emerge into it (a clone would not suffice, nor would a computer simulation; it would have to be an exact replica of your brain developing as a fetus under the precise conditions of your moment of conception) which then "takes on a life of its own". And there is no reason to assume this brain wouldn't be subject to probability also - literal reincarnation, as your own stream of perception in your own body, with endless possibilities, infinitely good, infinitely bad, without end. But very early on into this process, "you" would cease being "you". Your perception endures, in a body genetically near-identical to yours, but its history should diverge fairly quickly in most iterations, most of the time subtly, sometimes radically. There should also be many near-you iterations which are too divergent from you for your perception to recur in it. "You", then, are simply a discontinuous stream of perception thrown into history.

There may be some kind of probabilistic distribution involved where the "yous" nearest "you" temporally are the most nearly identical to "you", shading off into entirely different existences gradually. Though a miscarriage would probably interrupt this process...

Also, Boltzmann brains. Lots and lots of Boltzmann brains.

Anyway, Buddhism is correct, except karma can only manifest once, but it might be a good idea to live well just in case probability comes into the equation.

 

[jgm63]

My general view on such matters :
https://sanctioned-suicide.net/threads/have-you-ever-thought-of-afterlife.26403/post-479607

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

I've studied Buddhism and agree with the summary statement in the OP.

However, Gautama Buddha was not anti-suicide.

Some of his disciples ctb'd when they were ill and he claimed after their deaths that they had released attachment (clinging) to life and had achieved enlightenment.

A meditation for releasing desire for the human form and attachment to it was to go to charnel grounds and look at decomposing bodies. Once when Gautama had gone off on retreat, a group of monks took his teaching about hating the body literally. Many of them ctb'd, and others convinced a monk to murder them with a knife, which they all believed would increase his karmic merit since he was releasing them from suffering. When Gautama retuned from the retreat and was informed of the incidents, he did not denounce the suicides, he added to his teaching a method for managing the disgust.

I highly recommend the book In the Buddha's Words if one wants to learn what Gautama taught before different sects developed.

@BitterlyAlive, I don't know about Gnosticism, but I've also studied Stoicism and it does have much in common with Buddhism -- non-attachment, eudamonia in comparison to equanimity, and not having a problem with suicide, although Stoicism had specific reasons in which suicide was a rational choice, while Buddhism did not.

 

[mesohappy]

Horseshit... But a distraction indeed.

 

[TheSoulless]

I don't think of Buddhism as a religion. I'm "interested" in it (don't have to energy to study) and I think it's pretty good, so to say. Could be helpful to many. That's just my impression, though.

 

[Soul]

I don't think of Buddhism as a religion. I'm "interested" in it (don't have to energy to study) and I think it's pretty good, so to say. Could be helpful to many. That's just my impression, though.

Buddhism is technically a philosophy rather than a religion. That may be one reason so few wars have been based on it. Until last year that was my reason for rating it very highly among organized belief systems. The recent behaviour of Myanmar monks changed my thinking.

And @BitterlyAlive, there have been hundreds of branches of Buddhism, and the differences between (for example) Zen and Tibetan Buddhism are great and fascinating. I recommend both.

 

[last_tour]

Buddhism is pretty much the only "pro-life" doctrine that is keeping me a sceptic about suicide being a solution. According to their doctrine, (as far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong), they say that true death isn't physical, and that detachment from one's circumstances is the true liberation. What do you think about this? Is it just another religious stigma to keep unhappy people in the matrix being slaves?

Is it really pro-life? What I got from it and other eastern religions was that nirvana is the state of detachment from everything including human life itself.They mostly believed nirvana only happens when we leave the human body behind like what yogi's did with mahasamadhi (choosing to leave their bodies at will) and that it isn't possible in our lifetime. Life to them was just enduring the pain or making light of it.

On the other hand, you could interpret Christianity as an anti-life philosophy as well. Adam and Eve were exiled from Eden for being seduced by the devil. The reason we suffer is that we were born from sin and have to endure it to return to God. That really means we need to abandon human life itself, its all a product of our sin anyway, and the only way to do that is to die become a spiritual being, and go to heaven.

Also got to keep in mind, with most religions, the original teachings were never written on paper. The followers tended to be in line with the laws of the state, so they likely won't affirm suicide even if it was believed in because that could get them into trouble. If anyone preached suicide or anything really that goes against the laws of the time they would get labeled a death cult and you wouldn't see them for long. Religions though, do talk about death a lot and affirm its existence, its really the state that thinks death should not exist and prolonging life, suffering, at whatever expense (including killing others) is their #1 priority.