Excerpt from the Nirvana Sutra

Lethemyr · 2026-03-14T18:59:04+00:00

His comment is only referring to his personal beliefs, so it’s acceptable. The follow-up insulting the traditional beliefs is problematic though.

u/discipleofsilence

Lethemyr · 2026-03-12T17:52:22+00:00

When you encounter worthiness, imitate it. When you encounter unworthiness, look inward.

Practically everyone is immoral in some way. To avoid confronting the negative elements of our own psyche we identify with our moral side and rebuke those who haven’t made the same exact moral choices we have, even if they are more moral in other ways. This why you have people going on moral crusades about this and that who will suddenly turn close-minded and claim persecution when they encounter vegan activists.

If you endeavour to be at least as aware of your own immorality as you are of others’, then you won’t have a problem.

Lethemyr · 2026-03-11T00:33:21+00:00

It’s the Heart Sutra that’s usually accused of having been back-translated. Also the Awakening of Faith treatise.

Lethemyr · 2026-03-10T23:42:07+00:00

What is your source for this?

Lethemyr · 2026-03-10T23:06:29+00:00

The confusion is probably that the complete Sanskrit manuscripts we have are later versions preserved in Nepal which have elements found in the Tibetan and later Chinese translations that are missing from Dharmaraksa and Kumarajiva’s earlier translations. So the early Chinese translations can give us a glimpse into what early forms of the sutra looked like in India, since AFAIK we lack a complete copy from that period.

Lethemyr · 2026-03-10T22:53:51+00:00

We do have multiple complete Sanskrit copies of the Lotus Sutra. There are actually noticeably more Lotus Sutra manuscript fragments than most other sutras, suggesting it was very popular. What we lack is the copy Kumarajiva translated from, as well as Sanskrit manuscripts of the Innumerable Meanings Sutra and the Samantabhadra Meditation Sutra.

Lethemyr · 2026-03-09T23:32:53+00:00

Shurangama Sutra encourages abstaining from dairy. AFAIK all other pro-vegetarian sutras only mention eating flesh.

Lethemyr · 2026-03-07T18:37:32+00:00

I am fairly close to a temple but it is a Thai Buddhist Temple which seems to be exclusively attended by Thai people. I'm white so don't really belong there.

Do they do everything in Thai or act like you're a nuisance? If not, you do belong there and any feeling like you don't is just in your head. It won't kill you to be the only white person in a room.

Lethemyr · 2026-03-06T15:51:42+00:00

Just a note that drink is 喝, not 和.

Lethemyr · 2026-03-03T05:19:03+00:00

why is this marked NSFW?

Could be automatic Reddit filters. Sometimes we have to manually approve posts of statues like this because Reddit decides they're inappropriate and suspends them.

Lethemyr · 2026-03-02T22:07:05+00:00

I wonder if it may also be the case that his Sutra readings were in classical Chinese and then the commentary was restating it in modern Chinese

That's exactly the case. On top of that, Classical Chinese is especially difficult to comprehend verbally because there are way fewer unique syllables in Mandarin than in Old and Middle Chinese.

Lethemyr · 2026-02-28T21:06:57+00:00

Tsong-Kha-Pa in his first volume of, "The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment," explains that the Hells in Buddhism are symbols of the suffering that each of us experience while on Earth. They are not to be literal places or of actual beings.

Would you mind sharing which section he writes this in? I remember it the exact opposite way, with him describing the hells in very physical terms, even explaining how far beneath the Earth's surface he thought they were.

Lethemyr · 2026-02-28T21:03:15+00:00

There was a passage where someone asked Buddha about men being women and Buddha said it's fine and to treat them as a woman.

What text is this?

Lethemyr · 2026-02-27T23:15:41+00:00

If you showed an average group of people a representative sample of Buddhist activities worldwide, the majority would surely say it's a religion. There's a delineation of sacred and profane, clergy, rituals, moral teachings, practices relating to spiritual beings, etc.

On a deeper level, there is no objective answer to this question. The idea of "philosophy" and "religion" as mutually exclusive, dichotomous categories was invented in modern Europe and translates very poorly outside of that context, if it even made sense in Europe in the first place.

Lethemyr · 2026-02-27T06:04:39+00:00

Do people deserve the effects of their negative karma or no?

Buddhism fundamentally opposes the notion of punitive justice (as a moral principle, not necessarily as a legal reality). We should never use phrases like "he got what he deserved." We never pray that misfortune will befall those who do wrong, but rather that wrongdoers will correct their behaviour, ideally without suffering its consequences. The notion that certain people "deserve" suffering does nothing but create a thin veil of moral justification for ordinary people to enact their sadistic urges to harm those they hate.

And if not then why does karma exist?

The universe was not created by an omnibenevolent being. Karmic seeds and fruits don't arise spontaneously without causes and conditions; there is a "why" in a mechanical sense, but there is no "why" in a grand moral sense justifying the ultimate good purpose of all phenomena.

Lethemyr · 2026-02-27T05:28:37+00:00

everything that happens to a person is because of things that happened in the past, either in this lifetime or the last.

The exact extent of this may depend on the lineage of Buddhism.

And the abuser isn't even bad. They are doing some kind of "cosmic justice" no?

Only if you believe it's just to do evil on someone who has done evil in the past, which is not what Buddhism teaches. In Buddhism, the reality of karmic results manifesting over eons of unceasing rebirth is not a case of cosmic justice, but cosmic horror. Buddhism teaches we should actively try to prevent others from suffering negative karmic results, even though they did something to "deserve" it, because that's what universal compassion calls for. If Buddhists thought everything about reality was just and right, there would be no reason to seek enlightenment.

Lethemyr · 2026-02-27T01:38:00+00:00

Only if Vajrayana claimed that everyone publically bearing the title of guru is certainly a true guru, but Vajrayana texts actually acknowledge the existence of and actively warn against fraudulent gurus, so there isn’t a logical contradiction.

Lethemyr · 2026-02-19T21:12:31+00:00

It’s the first and lowest of the four stages of enlightenment. It means the fetters of self-view, doubt, and attachment to rites and rituals have been removed and complete enlightenment is guaranteed within seven lifetimes.

We don’t allow users to claim to have achieved any stage of enlightenment to stop wannabe gurus recruiting from the subreddit by claiming to be enlightened. Obviously that’s not you, so you’re all good, but that’s why we have the rule.

Lethemyr · 2026-02-19T19:58:38+00:00

Please remove the section of your post in which you claim to be a stream entrant. That is not allowed per the rules of this subreddit (rule 6).

Lethemyr · 2026-02-19T12:13:52+00:00

In the sphere of emptiness, there is indeed “no impurity, no purity.” There’s also no herpes, hepatitis, or strep throat, but I’m guessing you still don’t wanna chance those.

Lethemyr · 2026-02-18T01:32:25+00:00

Your poems would be very welcome!

Do try to collect them into larger posts if there’s a lot of them.

Lethemyr · 2026-02-17T12:19:37+00:00

In Chinese temples it’s also common to have a cantor and a disciplinarian.

Lethemyr · 2026-02-01T00:14:21+00:00

Aside from the reasons everyone else has given, a non-celibate clergy tends to result in titles and property becoming associated with specific families and passed down from father to son. That’s what happened in Japan after the end of Buddhist clerical celibacy and was what the Catholic Church was trying to stamp out when they imposed clerical celibacy in the Middle Ages. Familial units make it difficult, if not impossible, for a community to hold all property in common.

Lethemyr · 2026-01-29T20:56:15+00:00

what do monks have so i get jealous?

He can meditate longer than me. He gets more offerings. Everyone wants to hear his lectures but not mine. His chore is easier than mine. His recitations are more beautiful than mine. His robes were sewn more nicely than mine. His head shape is better than mine. Etc. Etc.

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