My favorite Buddhist tale is that of the Chinese monk Birdsnest, so called because he always hung out in a tree.
Now, Birdsnest was famous and highly regarded, and a governor heard of him and decided to seek him out. The governor travelled for days to reach birdsnest, and when he arrived, he asked “hey, birdsnest, what was it that all the Buddhas taught?” Basically, dude was asking for a one sentence summary of religion, like the famous tale of economic study resulting in the one sentence summary of “no such thing as a free lunch”.
Birdsnest answered “Don’t do bad things, only do good things.”
The governor scoffed, and said “my three year old nephew knows that!”
“Easy enough for the three year old to understand,” Birdsnest retorted, “but still very difficult for the sixty year old to do.”
A monkey was in a tree above a river and plunged into it. He came out with a fish and scurried up a tree. Once safe in its branches he said to the fish, “Holy shit, good thing I was here. You were about to drown!”
Intention without awareness can be harmful.
Another one is the two monks.
Two monks are traveling. Their sect of Buddhism doesn’t allow them to touch women. They came across a river and when they crossed it they saw a woman who capsized her canoe. The elder Monk swam to the woman and helped her to the shore. She hurt her leg so he carried her to the rest of her party.
Once they were traveling again, the younger monk continued to badger the elder Monk on why he thought it was okay to touch that woman. The elder Monk said, “I am no longer carrying that woman. Why do you insist on continuing to carry her?”
One story that stands out to me is there were these warriors who fought a hundred dudes consecutively and then one guy who fought 100 of those warriors consecutively and then Buddha killed him instantly.
He was tired from fighting all those other dudes. Of course he killed him
Dopest shit I’ve ever heard. Bastards established powerlevels before the Roman empire
I felt a bit sympathetic to Buddhism up to the point when I actually visited a Buddhist temple and listened to the speeches of monks.
The amount of brain rot disguised as wisdom has made me feel Christianity ain’t that bad after all.
Sorry in advance to any Buddhist out there, but it struck me how the common perception of it differs from the actual thing.
That’s like saying, “I used to be a fan of pizza until I had one in Altoona, PA.”
There’s better pizza out there.
Out of curiosity, which Buddhist tradition was this temple out of? I’ve had similar experience, but I get the feeling like Buddhist thought might be about as diverse as Christian.
Late to the party, and no offence to buddhism, but i always loved this quote from Terry Pratchett
“Master, what is the difference between a humanistic, monastic system of belief in which wisdom is sought by means of an apparently nonsensical system of questions and answers, and a lot of mystic gibberish made up on the spur of the moment?"
Wen considered this for some time, and at last said: “A fish!”
And Clodpool went away, satisfied.” ― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time
(copies the quote from https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/46982-thief-of-time?page=2 but i’m rather sure its correct, so i didn’t check my copy).
It depends really. I grew up Buddhist and things were chill. Speeches I heard at temple were just telling us to be good people, be nice to people no matter their race or gender stuff like that, don’t do harm to people or animals.
Even Abrahamic religions have good and bad spiritual leaders, some are cult like and others are just trying to get people to have decent morals.
Fair point!
I kinda lost my interest in Buddhism when I learnt that according to traditional Buddhist lore, women can’t reach Nirvana.
When they’ve collected enough good karma, they are reborn as a man.Good for them!
I mean aint that different from what the old testament teaches. Not saying the choice is between Christianity and Buddhism, but I’d assume most religions have patriarchy vibes baked into them. Not that I agree with religion, I see them all as means of various levels of crowd control for the masses, and somebody trying to benefit from it, be it a spiritual leader or an orange clown.
Care to give any examples ?
A classic cult tactic tbh. Convince people that they can divine meaning from random nonsense and they’ll convince themselves that they are more enlightened and above those around them who don’t understand.
Bible stories are the same way, we’ve just heard them a million times so they don’t seem weird
“Hey Jesus what toppings do you want for pizza?”
“Plain with cheese”
Later the disciples are eating pizza with Jesus
"“Hey Jesus why did you say you like cheese pizza when you normally order pepperoni?”
“You dumb fucks how dare you not understand my hidden meaning, I am the true pizza and you are the pepperoni, the grease is my blood”
“Oh of course, sorry boss”
Its almost like nonsensical parables are a recurring theme in religions in general and we shouldn’t be assuming a bunch of mystical morons from a thousand years ago knew any better.
… And one day, Jesus saw a fig tree. It was not the season for figs, and so there were no figs on the fig tree. But still, Jesus wanted a fig. He was upset there were no figs, and so he cursed the tree to never bear fruit again. If he couldn’t have a fig, no one could! Probably bathed its roots in a thin stream of uric acid, I don’t know.
Point is, that fig tree never made another fig, and when his followers asked how, Jesus zipped up his pants and said “if you believe in me, you can do anything. Not only can you totally curse trees to death, you can fuckin’ teleport mountains into the ocean. That’d be sick, dude.”
- The Book of Dave, 69:66-6
Thought that one always tied back to the whole “you shall know them by their fruits” thing.
As in those who talk nice but don’t produce anything useful (like a fig tree that doesn’t produce figs, just leaves) are not really doing what Jesus said. Don’t be like the Pharisees hollering out in the streets, just love God and do good in the world.
I think you’re confusing the testaments, Jesus was ultimately a great guy as far as I can tell. The God used to be extremely cruel and vengeful in the old testament, though.
This is a common misconception, if you dig into it you’ll see that God is basically the same in both old and new testaments. Nobody talked about hell more than Jesus.
Lol? Read Matthew 21:18-46
I never told you he wasn’t goofy, ay!
… my original comment was a beat for beat parody of that passage…
In response to calling a prophet bald:
“So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the LORD. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.” -New King James bible, 2 Kings 2:24
This is the real way to turn the other cheek
Where have you heard them a million times? I guess you grew up in a far less secular country.
The US. I grew up in the central and southern US and the shit is (or perhaps was) inescapable.
“Jesus… when you say ‘get me off this fucking cross, so help me God’… is that a test? Or should we actually get you off the cross?”
( More ranting and screaming and moaning )
The disciples nod wisely at their leader’s self-sacrifice for… their sins maybe? And he will always be immortal in their hearts, because they’ve already eaten him or something.
The disciples go home, wiser and holier and warily eyeing each other in confirmation of the deeper meaning behind their saviour’s last words: “Guys, please, I’m not fucking around, get me down, please, I’m so fucking thirsty… Jesus fucking christ”
Buddhism’s “Life sucks? Be nice and die and you’ll get a better one” sucks but it’s still better than “you should be nice to others, but that’s too much to ask so go be as awful as you want and just regret it later and that’ll be fine”. But even that was better than whatever the fuck people are interpreting from religions these days.
I’m not sure if Buddhism is particularly concerned with being nice
What the actual fuck are you talking about? Go educate yourself
Before Christianty it was also a lot of “killing people is just really fucking cool, actually”, which even as an atheist I still admit was worse.
Not that Christians didn’t.
But they made some sort-of-safe havens.
The Spanish missions have entered the chat. They actually sent people back to Spain when they said “yo, maybe Jesus wouldn’t be cool with us enslaving and murdering the locals”.
“Entered the chat” is a stupid phrase.
Ok
Christianity was revolutionary for suggesting that we are all equal in the eyes of the divine and suggesting that you can be forgiven.
Yeah. Personally I don’t see life as being “sacred” or anything and I think people should ultimately be free to choose to end their own if they really want to (provided they also get good support for trying to deal with whatever leads to that choice) - but it kinda scares me that this “sanctity” that is attributed to life is the only thing stopping people from being casually OK with murder.
Perhaps it depends on your definition of sacred. Life is the only mechanism that we know of by which the universe understands itself. If you ascribe to free will, life is the only mechanism able to change the course of events that were initiated by the Big Bang. If you don’t ascribe to free will, then it is the only mechanism able to witness the course of events that were initiated by the Big Bang.
That seems like something worth preserving in large, even if an individual life should be ended for compassion or justice. A life doesn’t have to be sacred, but Life seems pretty sacred to me.
Agreed
I think I can explain. In Buddhism, you have to understand if he didn’t the last into the pizza, but from where I stand it simply is. I hope that helps.
I suddenly feel enlightened.
What
The fool asks ‘What?’
The wise man interjects ‘What’
The enlightened silently nods and thinks ‘WTAF’
If you have to ask, then you don’t know
Induction technique
Beautiful words.
Before enlightenment, shitpost daily
After enlightenment, daily shitpost
The Buddhist Monk walks up to the hot dog vendor and says: “make me one with everything.”
The monk pays with a twenty, which the vendor pockets.
“Where’s my change?”
“Change comes from within.”
Zen koans are basically ancient memes.
“what is the path to enlightenment? a sesame bun” *ding *
Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing to steal.
Ryokan returned and caught him. “You have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.”
The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.
Ryoken sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow,” he mused, “I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon.”
Ok that’s pretty based I’m converting to Buddhism
See the other comment for a variation of the story.
I just wish I could live naked in a little hut at the foot of a mountain.
In another telling of the story he arrives to find his meager shack ransacked by the thief and writes a koan with a broken piece of charcoal on a torn piece of parchment:
He left it right there In the window The moon
That’s translated and also my memory from a book I read 20 years ago. Do not take this as historically or literarily accurate.
are they just trying to fuck with white people?
Not just white people, but people in general.
That’s Hinduism, not Buddhism.
TIL the Kama Sutra is just an average Netflix show released 140 years too early.
Also, Zeus
Isn’t Buddhism at least partially about a lack of desire? Buddha is enlightened, meaning he has no desires, therefore if you asked him what he wanted on his pizza, he’d be like “Eh, whatever’s fine”
Never thought that depression meant that I was enlightened.
I think it’s more about attachment. We suffer because we get attached to feelings, desire, etc. When we should realize, those, along with most things, are ephemeral, or “not real”. I don’t think it is that Buddhist can’t have desire or are indifferent, but that they strive for lack of attachment. That’s probably a gross oversimplification and, like most religions, there are many different sects.
Lack of desire is a metaphysical control of your realm, essentially by not wanting, you cannot truly be hurt.
The physical path is about actualizing your body through routine use. Meditation for example usually had physical exercise as that allows your breathing to take a dominant part in your brain, regardless of thoughts.
One of the coolest ways of mastering the metaphysical realm is through imagination, as some buddhist sects just imagine a holy land.
Anyways, he’d probably dislike a meat supreme.
I am enlightened.
If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, the meal was cooked a long time ago.
Exactly Daniel Jackson
I understood this reference.
There are things that cannot be communicated by reading alone.
Zen is said to be based on a “special transmission outside scriptures”
I suspect that actually looking at someone (preferably while you’re together in the same room) lets you understand things better.
yeah a lot of Buddhist proverbs and koans are about getting us to think LESS
The Dao that can be told is not the eternal Dao.
Spiritual practices are experiential; you aren’t meant to just hear them, you are meant to practice them and be enlightened through lived understanding.
To be honest Tao Te Ching reads like an edgelord fanfic.
Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding
And when they hit you with the real stick it really hurts
Have you Heard, Seen, or Suspected the salami here comes from an animal that was killed for my consumption?
Dont know man… is my first day here.
The Blessed One acquiesced with silence.
… The vegetarian one then. Next customer!
Anon looks at the finger smh
