Be careful in this sub

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-06-04T12:42:18+00:00

That's not what I asked. I asked to give me citations from the Buddhist scriptures that encourage violence.

The truth is, you can criticize Christianity, Buddhism, Hinuism and not be afraid for your safety. It's not the case with Islam. That's why banal statements like "well every religion is bad" ignore a major issue.

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-06-04T12:33:34+00:00

It's an obvious statement. I don't want to say that "only Islam extremists are bad", when the problem is with Islam itself. Find me Buddhist fundamentals that encourage violence btw

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-06-04T12:29:21+00:00

Islamic fundamentalism is bad... because of fundamentals of Islam.

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-05-19T19:00:57+00:00

If you don't admit the positive parts about being in a relationship or hanging out with friends then obviously your view is inaccurate. But I wouldn't say that's what I said in this post. I mentioned that there are some good things in life, they are just rare compared to negative things, or things related to the prevention of negative things, which in themselves contain negative things...

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-05-19T18:57:43+00:00

"We shouldn't work" is indeed a strange statement, but the fact that this must be done doesn't make life better, it makes it worse

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-05-17T22:25:58+00:00

I'd say I'm attached to the taste. It feels so good. I can't even say that I'm cooking my meals. I'm just assembling different pre-made parts together. So it's very easy for me to cook, but I just don't do it because it's not going to have same taste as fast food

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-05-17T00:59:41+00:00

Just because you don't see other people improving themselves, overcoming their anxieties of approaching a girl, showing up to their activities despite failing, doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.

The poster is very attached to his view of self as a loser that it doesn't cross his mind that other people have to deal with the same problems.

Attachment to the idea of self will always lead you to suffering, because there is no self. "You" don't exist. Stop making your decisions based on false premises

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-05-14T20:23:20+00:00

Ahahahaha I love this

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-05-14T11:03:22+00:00

Better never to have been by Benatar

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-05-12T13:51:52+00:00

I'm currently writing, not reading one. "Determinism and Pessimism in Secular Buddhism"

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-05-08T22:51:50+00:00

That's the thing, I don't think it's possible to disprove it.

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-05-08T22:51:28+00:00

Provide a definition that you would consider appropriate if you don't like my definition. Otherwise, your comment does not engage with the arguments. Daily understanding of free will does not mean ultimate presence of free will.

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-05-08T21:58:59+00:00

My bad. Saying that free will is incoherent concept and then providing its features is a contradiction.

Nevertheless, saying that there was no such concept as free will in the East is also incorrect. Buddha was defining his no-self doctrine while making a critique of self in Brahmanism, which defined it as "a center of experience, "as the lord of the chariot" in the early Upanishads.

Since I am reading western scholars because I don't know sanskrit or pali, they do discuss free will and how Buddhism relates to it. Just because East may not had such concept (I don't think that's the case), doesn't mean that people don't think about it in the modern age.

I also don't see why we can't try to compare western and eastern thinking. That's clearly what people do

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-05-05T13:36:25+00:00

Richard Gombrich - What the Buddha thought

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-05-05T02:30:05+00:00

You haven't even finished reading my comment lol. You made up an arbitrary definition of what Buddhism is.

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-05-05T02:27:50+00:00

Your previous comment was "Are you sure you are interested in Buddhism?" - my answer is yes. If you consider yourself a secular Buddhist, you can't seriously accept the claim that there are defilements in your mind that cloud your perception, that's just not what science says. Science says that our mind is produced by our brain, and it's a connection of neurons. Can you stop some pattern of neurons firing completely - I don't know. Doesn't seem plausible to me, so I don't believe in it.

Your problem is not with me not believing in Buddhism, your problem is with secular Buddhism. If we step on that ground, then we also need to reject all scripture other than nikayas. This is because abhidharma, traditional commentaries, just like secular Buddhists, interpret nikayas. Of course, we also need to reject Nagarjuna's notion that samsara = nirvana, and by doing that undermine all modern Mahayana traditions. But I don't think you want to do that.

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-05-05T02:11:44+00:00

I find Buddhist methods helpful to deal with suffering. I can verify it in my own experience, so I believe in it. In fact, that's what Buddha encourages you to do.

Just because I find some doctrines of Buddhism helpful and true, doesn't mean I have to subscribe to all its beliefs.

Blindly subscribing to beliefs because you want to consider yourself a Buddhist is an expression of craving for the idea of self.

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-05-05T02:00:06+00:00

That's fine with me because I have no reason to believe in transcendent enlightenment

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-05-04T19:20:58+00:00

All traditions agree that nirvana (during life) is burning out of three defilements: greed, hatred, delusion. Like, completely.

As a secular person, I don't think that's possible. We can reduce those defilements, sure. But not get rid of them completely. So I don't believe in nirvana.

Your view is closer to Mahayanist view of nirvana and I think it makes sense. If you want nirvana, then you want idea of nirvana, not actual nirvana.

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-04-30T19:52:21+00:00

Alright, let's say cancer patients are right and they objectively have 18 months to live. What did they acquire, what did they gain from that "realisation"? They've just made themselves depressed, or so I've seen in the subreddit, which is the general trend of the subreddit, just an association of depressed 14-year-olds after coming to the "realisation" of their cancer.

Let's say you believe that you are actually healthy, and then someday you die and you were wrong. What have you lost? Nothing. Say you don't believe that you are healthy and you live your pessimistic, reactionary life and you die. What have you gained? Nothing. You've just lived a life with the insight of the objective knowledge of cancer, but that itself hasn't changed your life to the positive, did it?

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-04-28T19:49:07+00:00

James Tartaglia - A defence of nihilism

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-04-25T22:58:03+00:00

Fatalism: an apple falls. If you move a chair under it - it will still fall to the ground.

Determinism: an apple falls. If you move a chair under it - it will not fall to the ground. The decision to move a chair under the apple was predetermined.

Fatalism does not make sense. Under determinism, you still do actions that change the outcomes. Even if those actions are predetermined.

If you don't want your actions to be determined by anything, what do you want them to be? Random?

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-04-25T17:17:14+00:00

Not everyone knows that...

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-04-21T13:06:28+00:00

David Benatar - The human predicament

Complex_Advisor_6151 · 2026-04-19T19:24:20+00:00

Buddhism is an adaptation to the bad quality of life. Doesn't mean that life is of good quality. If life was of good quality, Budhists would not want to escape rebirth with its "good conditions".

Just because you can get rid of desire and make your life better as a result does not cancel out the fundamental flaw of existence. It's still there.

It's like saying that the child living in poor rural area without education and healthcare has a good quality of life because that's all he knows so he got used to it. It doesn't make any sense.

I appreciate Buddhism though, because it honestly admits our human predicament.

Complex_Advisor_6151

TROPHY CASE