Venom
Babylon Candle
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2008
- Messages
- 2,126
- MBTI Type
- INTJ
- Enneagram
- 1w9
- Instinctual Variant
- sp/sx
One thing I've always had problems with in Buddhism is the eight-fold path. I've always seen Buddhism as more of a philosophy than a religion. The first three noble truths are very interesting philosophically: life is suffering, suffering is caused by desire, ending desire can end suffering. It is an interesting existential concept. But then you hit the eight-fold path, which is just a bunch of rules. Seriously, what?
I think it goes to show another truth about humans, that is that they can't seem to adopt anything without clearly outlined rules to follow, which essentially just lead back to what all religions seem to be: follow the rules and you will get rewarded. It's also gotten even worse, since popular (Mahayana) Buddhism is absolutely nothing like original (Theravada) Buddhism. I wouldn't be surprised if there were philosophers other than Buddha with the same philosophical ideas that didn't gain as much popularity because they didn't have a set of rules to follow.
Excellent book called "confessions of an atheist Buddhist". It's by a European guy who studied as a monk for like 30 years. First Tibet. Then a Satellite in europe, also some zen variety. Basically he says, like you, that it's actually like an orthodox religion with pointless rules. He then explores whether a gotama of today would ever have agreed with this. He very much breaks Buddhism down into some visceral Understandings rather than "beliefs" in such a way that you still get all the psychological effects, but without having to believe in a hinduistic eschatology or renounce material enjoyment.
For example, the Hindu world view (karma, gods etc) that he grew up was more like "natural science" than religion to him. It just "was". It'd be like how we view physics today. Also, he relied on some powerful patrons and benefactors. It's likely he worked his core beliefs around some of the more "nonnegotiable" hinduistic stuff because of this. It's likely that a modern gotama would have been less mystical about the whole eschatology. The noble truths and eightfold paths can all be simplified once the Hindu stuff is gone. Life is impermanent. You can't enjoy good stuff because it never lasts. Therefore the solution is to let go of attaching to these things which won't last, but be enjoy the experience while it's here: ie involved detachment. There. A lot less rules now, right? Also a lot less like a religion
Last edited: