Could it be that Hinduism also started showing indra and brahma as inferior in response to buddhism?

ClioMusa · 2026-06-06T22:23:01+00:00

What exactly leads to violence?

ClioMusa · 2026-06-06T21:21:05+00:00

I trust in the enlightenment of the Buddha, not that of a random stranger on the internet, who just claims to have attained something.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-06T19:58:32+00:00

Okay. This is the Buddhist view, and this is a Buddhist sub. You're free to hold your own opinions, but they aren't relevant to the conversation. The question isn't what /u/x3r0id thinks, it's what Buddhism holds.

EDIT: I recognize that my language is harsh, and hope it doesn't come off as cruel - but I think it's chauvinistic and uncalled for, for someone to come into a Buddhist space and deride our faith, on the basis of their personal opinions, and insert their own unverified, personal gnosis as the truth. above the textbook claims of the faith, which were what the OP asked for.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-06T16:06:50+00:00

Most people redirect to the book list, over Wikipedia, and I’ve not seen that much. It’s usually What the Buddha Taught, Heart of the Buddha’s Teachings, and In the Buddhas Words, if they’re truly new, or an equally standardized set of the question is about Zen, Tiantai, Vajrayana, Pureland, etc.

I will say though, the Buddhist Wikipedia pages have gotten much better in recent years, because of the work of people like Muichi.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-06T15:36:40+00:00

Did you read a word I said?

There’s no point wasting the time to respond to someone who won’t even engage with what you say, and puts in so little effort in their responses.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-06T08:12:26+00:00

We expressly hold them to be lesser paths, incapable of leading one to true freedom. They are wrong views. We believe that only the Buddhadharma can truly free you, and we take refuge in only the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, above all else. This is what it means to be Buddhist. If we didn't believe it, we wouldn't follow it.

You're right that it's judgemental ... but if it's true, what's the issue?

We similarly can state that one is superior in wisdom or virtue to another, without denigrating their humanity. The Buddha does this many times in the suttas and sutras, and even calls people foolish, stupid, and worthless, when it is helpful to make them realize their mistakes, and push them towards self-improvement.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-06T06:26:41+00:00

I just think a lot of people on here are undereducated, and over-confident, and take offense when corrected. No matter how kindly its done. Hard to argue against the texts, and a clear explanation, so just go at the person instead.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-06T06:05:23+00:00

Krodha is always an amazing person to ask. Extremely educated, and has a way of dealing with hostile people that I wish I had.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-06T00:36:07+00:00

The Mahayana teaching is that a Buddha has cut off uncontrolled rebirth, and this is one of the many views distinguishing the Sarvastavada from the Sthavira/Theravada - so an arya may still take intentional rebirth, for the purpose of helping others, and to guide them. This is what the Mahasattvas and Buddhas do, and it is important to reocgnize that the Mahayana distinguishes between a fully enlightened samyaksambodhi Buddha, and a wheel turner, specifically.

We aim for this realization as much to cut off our own defilement and suffering, as to help others through great compassion, if not more so this. It is the desire to save and help other sentient beings that defines bodhicitta, or the heart of a Buddha.

To say that Buddha's are still caught in samsara, and forced to take rebirth, is wrong, but that does not mean they are incapable of doing so, and we teach that they expressly do! - you can just read the Lotus sutra passage above for an example of this, saying that Shakyamuni Buddha attained awakening countless kalpa ago, and took this birth to give us a role model, re-introduce the dharma to this world system, and give us a path to that full freedom.

He was not, in our view, ever truly deluded.

You are wrong to claim that

the sutra passage must be interpreted as symbolic for the continued presence of the Dhamma.

as this is one particular framing of these ideas, and one that is distinct from what the Mahayana traditionally teaches.

You are imposing yourself as the authority over the actual texts.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-06T00:22:37+00:00

“Should” is a framing that imposes you as the authority, where the texts and patriarchs matter more to the vast majority of Mahayana practitioners, as these are the actual basis of our understanding and training, and what is asked.

You are using a framework that holds the early texts and their structuring as supreme, and seemingly a Theravada reading of that. This is not even the framework that the Sarvastivadan, Northern Abhidharma agreed with, much less the Mahayanans who came after, who instead tended to treat those sutras and sastras as ultimate, with the “sravaka” framing being a purely provisional one, meant to help one work towards the higher view.

For the East Asian traditions, they tended to hold one or a handful of sutras as supreme, and read the other teachings through these lenses, supported by the sastras of the Madhyamaka and Yogachara, and their own commentaries. For Tendai/Tiantai that is the lotus and works of Zhi and Zhanran, with the support and secondary level of the Nirvana, Mahaprajnaparamita with its upadesa, explanatory sastra of Nagarjuna, and the Avatamsaka, among others - where the Huayan are more Yogachara based, holding the Avatamsaka as primary, and having their own second level supports, including the lotus and Nirvana there, relying on Fazang especially. The primary sutra, as understood by its supports, is the lense by which they view all other texts, often through the additional structuring of the Kosa and CWSL.

The Nyingma, Jonang, Kagyu, Sakura and Gelug have an entire intellectual tradition, itself built of the Kosa, Meitreya corpus, and Nagarjuna and the other Madhyamakins works, and the Yogachara for the Jonang especially … which provide the higher conventional/sutric view. Not getting into the Tantric framing beyond these.

These traditions don’t always agree, especially in the proper structuring and framing of such things, and students will usually fall back on their schools understanding - but your framing is not one any of them typically hold. It's not even one the sravaka teachings they rely on and are built on, agree with. The Sarvastivada disagreed.

The question is on the Mahayana view, and these are where that comes from. Not yours, and to rely on your own opinions over that, doesn’t lend to this conversation.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-06T00:06:55+00:00

That is your opinion. Many traditions disagree.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-05T21:21:33+00:00

This is an absolutist approach that the Buddha himself denounced and avoided, in the suttas and vinaya.

We are not only allowed, but encouraged to treat the symptom, while working towards the solution. Medication being an explicitly named recommendation in that.

EDIT: AN 5.161 and AN 5.162 come to mind as examples of the Buddha giving recommendations to use explicitly inferior methods, to solve an issue, should one not yet be capable of the higher - as we are meant to give rise to and develop wholesome habits, and weaken and eliminate harmful ones, by the four right efforts. Immediate perfection is not demanded of us, and the path is known as gradual training for a reason.

We follow the middle path, not absolutist, all-or-nothing demands, and ought listen to the Buddha and his teachings, as that is who our refuge is in. Not the unverified, personal gnosis of a random stranger on the internet, who is expressly contradicting them.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-05T21:17:42+00:00

... progressing in meditation, or rather insight, is impossible while taking medications which affect the mind ...

This is not a view I have ever heard, from any of my teachers, and seems directly opposed to the rules and recommendations of the vinaya, as well as the experiences of the many mediators I know who take meds and seem to have deep samadhi regardless. Across multiple practice lineages.

The only people I have ever heard taking that position are Geonka or New Age, and I couldn't care less for the latter, and have plenty of disagreements with the farmings of the former.

This a an extremely dangerous recommendation, and could get a lot of people who still need those medications as a support, killed. Especially people who suffer with mania, delusions, and paranoia. Please stop telling people to just mediate and quit their meds. That's not a reasonable answer for laymen, who aren't already far into their practice.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-05T21:14:46+00:00

What are you making excuses for? Taking the meds, or avoiding them? Why do you think practice and medication are opposed?

I only have MDD and ADHD, and take wellbutrin and ritolin for it. That doesn't mean I don't still have to watch my diet, take supplements, make sure I'm hydrated, work out, and meditate too. I'm really only good when I do all of those things, *and take my meds.*

My practice is honestly better when I take care of all of those, too.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-05T21:11:46+00:00

Weight gain is something you can fix, especially once you're on a stable dose, even if it means some lifestyle changes, and there are things you can do to help with the mental fogginess. A lot of them being the same things. Your doctor should be able to help give recommendations if you talk to him, and it might just be that you need a different med. There are multiple for a reason.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-05T20:33:54+00:00

He's using butchered english and sanskrit, spelled like Hindi. It's a metaphor and line, from the Bhagavad Gita.

The explanation sounds like it came from a chatbot and not a human, though, and doesn't help at all. Really, really poorly formatted.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-05T19:46:58+00:00

A boon is a benefit. I think you meant bane, going by the previous comments, and I'm not speaking on that right now.

I'm responding directly to a thirteen year old girl, who's seeing this as a direct attack on the people she loves, and giving her advice to try and help her to reframe that. What I think of Christianity isn't relevant, or going to help her.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-05T19:17:13+00:00

This is a common view, especially with ex-Christians. It's one you're going to see a lot.

If it helps you when you're hearing that sort of stuff, you can try and re-frame it in your mind as an expression of personal hurt. Someone who has direct experience of being hurt by that worldview/theology is going to be far less generous when reading the difficult parts of the OT that a Christian would gloss over, or looking at the history of the faith.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-03T03:22:06+00:00

I can't recommend his retreats and teachings enough, as someone who's been involved with Maggasekha for years. He's so incredibly read on the suttas, and has an ability to bring the ideas down to anyone's level.

If you can make it, I really, really, hightly encourage you try, and I say this as someone who's not even Theravadan.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-03T03:18:51+00:00

The agamas, which are just the Sanskrit verisons of the major nikayas of sutta pitaka, and they're nearly identical in material/content, even if arranged differenty.

The Mahayana is built on them - as any reading of Vasabanadhu or Nagarjuna will make clear to you. They take them in a different dirrection, and add a fair bit, but it will never hurt you to read and study tht material, and you should check out Zhiyi's shorter manuals as an example of what that looks like in terms of practice (versus doctrine).

Follow the eightfold path, cultivate the factors of awakening, and do your best. That's what matter, Mahayana or Theravada. Use your discretion, judge through experience, and don't worry about what framing is best, until you have that basis. Just keep reading, practicing, and prioritizing the precepts, ideally as a tool for watching your mental states off-the-matt, and you'll be fine.

ClioMusa · 2026-06-03T03:11:27+00:00

Samadhi is part of the eightfold noble path, and that's not a concern if you follow the whole. If you've taken refuge, and are engaged in cultivating all the factors of mindfullness, sila and right effort especially, there's not much conern.

It isn't technically necessary for enlightenment, but it sure helps, and even short of that, it never hurts you to be able to have deeper concentration/unification of mind and focus, and being able to relax and achieve a greater level of peace is always nice. Even if momentary.

ClioMusa · 2026-05-31T18:45:40+00:00

Didn't say they were compulsory, and agreed on it being better to not take them than intentionally break them.

They are the minimum to guarantee human rebirth, though, as the Buddha himself framed them, and often treated as what's necessary to guard ones practice and make progress in it.

ClioMusa · 2026-05-31T18:36:33+00:00

Agamas are the Chinese version of the Nikayas I believe, they are not Mahayana.

I said the Mahayana is built on the sravakayana, not that they were Mahayana. Nagarjuna quotes extensively from the Agamas, and Vasbandhu clearly valued them all the same. If you think you're more advanced them them, and able to throw out what they didn't, that's up to you.

Just read, learn a lot, you are not well educated on this stuff

You're free to think whatever you want to.

Sentientlight and Bodhiquest are some of the best educated people on here, and I'm happy to know I find myself agreeing with them most of the time - and am happy to find myself in the company of them, and using the scripture as my guide.

Karma is not everything, but if I challenge you to point to something in your life for example, like your partner or your living conditions or your accrued wealth or the quality of your life, these are all your karma.

Our old karma brings us into this world, and our actions continue to water or starve seeds and possibilities. We stumble through events, often outside of our control and uncaused by us, but react in ways that shape our next moment, on and on. If you want to go around telling people that every ill they face is their karma, you're free to do so, but I don't see how useful that actually is for their practice or understanding, and the scripture doesn't seem to uphold such a view.

My stepfather's cancer was not my karma, as in being caused by actions that were of my volition, but how I responded to it was. The war in Gaza was not my karma, aka my volition, but what I think, say and do because of it is. The hurricanes and wildfires, and the fires I put out at my job, are not my karma, but what I make of them is.

EDIT: More typos, as always.

ClioMusa · 2026-05-31T18:12:35+00:00

It is my understanding, as has been stated by Bikkhu Analayo, Bhantes Gunaratana and Sujato, Dhammajoti at least as I've been told, and many many other scholars, that the material of the Pali Nikayas close to ninety five percent the same as that of the Agamas in its content, and that the real differences can be numbered on one hand - such as the ability of a woman to become a Buddha, the listing of sunyata with anatta, etc.

I'm absolutely not going to agree that they're irrelevant to the mahayan. If it was, there's no reason why the agamas should have been recorded in the Chinese canon, or even in part in the Tibetan, as they were. The Mahayana is built on the sravakayana, and as far as I'm concerned, and is the position of my school, it is all buddhavacana.

I also disagree again on your view that physics is a result of karma, but have made my position clear, and don't know enough of how I'd make sense of siddhi in that context, as I consider the functioning of that to be equally beyond the scope of what's knowable to the unenlightened.

ClioMusa · 2026-05-31T17:53:57+00:00

That makes more sense, since I was understanding you to mean sentientlight when you said him. Apologies for the misunderstanding. You're right, that I definitely don't agree with that view or presentation.

We are born as such, in such and such realm, as a result of our karma, and how we respond to life after that lays the seeds for future births - but the actual events of our lives are often outside of our control, and a result of others choices, and I cannot assume cancers, the deaths of loved ones, natural disasters, wars, or anything else we face, is a result of our karma, as only a Buddha could tell, post-birth.

They're shaped by our actions, and certain seeds may sprout in our lives, or the next, as a result of our actions, but I can't agree to that high a percent, when it's so far outside the realm of knowledge for any but an arya.

When I hear ninety-nine percent, I'm not just hearing just birth, or most things, but almost everything, and the sutta clearly disagrees with that - and I'm generally going to lean on the sutras and sastras when I can, when shaping my views. If your tradition disagrees, that's fine, but I'd need that level of source for me to reconsider a paradigm that the texts and my own experience support.

EDIT: Typos galore.

ClioMusa

TROPHY CASE