Hey Holla Forums, curious as to your thoughts about Buddhism and Radical left politics...

Alright comrade..
Ill see you on the barricades..
When are they going up FYI

Dunno. I was told if I revolutionalized my lifestyle with this new product and got a tattoo of some dude called "che gerilla" or something, it will arrive sooner.

Its all about the shitty stick and poke stirner tat..
You gotta let the counter-revolutionaties know that your body is "muh property"

I started being a Buddhist a few years ago. I observed the precepts, thought it was a great thing. I spent time reading the texts, found that I agreed with them, started to practice meditation, devoted a certain amount of time to learning more, reading modern Buddhist scholar-monk's books etc.

Until the conflict within me grew, that conflict was the fact that I see revolution almost necessitates some kind of violence, or killing. It requires some hatred. I don't know what to do any more, the ideas of Buddhism always made sense to me, though I cannot use them to address the inequality faced by those who are suffering due to material conditions.

I would love to be a Buddhist; a life aloof from the concerns of those infatuated with sense-pleasure, practicing for extinguishing of passion and ego. The idea is good, and I want to do it.

But I simply cannot reconcile it. I don't know whether still to call myself a Buddhist (though I never cared that much for labels) or for me to accept a life that I know is filled with hate, not universal compassion, and violence and killing instead of resolution via discussion.

So I don't know, OP. I think Buddhism can certainly be supportive of the Socialist cause, though it cannot be supportive of the whole cause if it includes violence, hate and anger and succumbing to the emotions for those who leave their sense-doors unguarded.

The Buddha was not a social revolutionary, he did nothing to change the situation of his contemporaries, though he identified a much deeper kind of suffering inflicted upon ourselves by our own minds, and outlined the path to reach freedom from that. Even if you do not believe revolution requires violence, the Buddha was not a revolutionary. But neither was he a traditionalist.

Those claiming Buddhism is "ok" with killing, as I have heard some Mahayanaists and even Theravadins claim (I do not mean to deride them, rather I am making an observation) is simply false. These accumulate kamma and the result of that kamma, when the fruit ripens, will result in bad experience.

I've been wanting to get this off my chest for a while, especially as I used to be a very regular advocate for Buddhism on Holla Forums.

I will leave you with the idea that the problem Buddhism attempts to solve is much, much deeper than that caused by capitalism; it is a problem inherent to every human being who does not sees self where there is none and clings to his sense-pleasures.

Hope this helps with getting some kind of idea. We ultimately face the dilemma of either advocating the purification of the mind for a distant hope of ending suffering, or helping to better the conditions of humanity, though not eliminating suffering, by destroying Capitalism and the class system.

Your response is identical to my own thoughts on the subject.
With Trumps victory i too found myself in a sort of spiritual dilemma and stopped for the most part any spiritual practice..
As much as i want to be a "good buddhist" (i also dont like titles), i find it increasingly difficult in the society/system that we live in to do so.
Untill capitalism is done away with, I feel that any effort i put towards Buddhism is redundant, and so ive put it on the backburner while i focus on revolution and socialism

I definitely feel your dilemma. I don't know if it will be much help to you but I'll tell you how I resolve it.
I've been studying and practising buddhism for a good few years now and it's more recently that I became a leftist. Through that I also had to reconcile the need for violent revolution with the proscription against harming living beings. I'm not going to try and interpret or reinterpret buddhist scholars or doctrines to make my point, but I want to focus on two things. The first is your assertion:
This is true, but keep in mind that buddhism isn't "ok" or "not ok" with anything. In Holla Forums terms, morals are a spook. The prime consideration is helpful or unhelpful on the path to ultimate liberation from samsara. The second thing is the path of the bodhisattva, which says that one must withhold their own enlightenment until all sentient beings are enlightened. Basically, the highest goal of the Mahayana is to aspire to the bodhisattva.
So I reconcile leftism and buddhism in this way: I do not believe that mass enlightenment is possible under capitalism. I do not believe that staying quiet and passive in the face of the so-called "burning mansion" is helpful to my own enlightenment, or that of every sentient being. So for those reasons I think it necessary to advocate revolution while maintaining my buddhism.
I do understand that this isn't a perfect analysis of buddhist thought and that there are probably many contradictions here. But it's the best I've got. As a final note: many buddhists of the past have taken up arms with similar rationales. Violent buddhism, as much as it sounds like a contradiction has been present since before the death of the buddha.

Buddhism is spiritualist nonsense. It's the worst religion when it comes to promoting tolerance of suffering in this life

No he wasn't. You can be a Buddhist and a socialist, in fact I believe it is the only sensible position if you decide to be political at all, but the historical Buddha was not a socialist and did not teach socialist principles.

It has been around 2'500 years since Gautama Buddha walked the earth and a lot has been added and changed about Buddhist culture since then. But if we look at the most ancient sources and critically evaluate them, you will find that the Buddha primarily taught one thing: Suffering and how to end it. His teachings were aimed at the individual, he taught a personal path. Very rarely did he give political commentary or advice, and even then it is not confirmed – as with any sources – that he actually did do so.

Care to explain? Dialectics was a thing in Buddhism before the Greeks.

You will do what is right and destroy the class system for the the sake of future generations to come and their reach freedom, even if it means that you'll be going to hell.

You misunderstand compassionate violence. You cannot take a life and justify it as compassion, just not possible.

I didnt say he was a socialist, but a social revolutionary in that he rose against the caste sysyem of india, and stressed that all living beings suffer, regardless of class or even species.

Also how is calling everything a spook(the leftypol thing to do) and calling everything a form of suffering (buddhism) any different?

There have been historical militant forms of Buddhism(not including the racsist buddhist groups in indonesia) .. ever hear of Shaolin, or the Ikko-ikki who were egalitarian buddhists during the warring states period of Japan

Oh, I mixed that up there. But in any case the Buddha was only a social revolutionary in the sense that his teachings had that influence, but he himself did not try to bring down or change the system or anything like that.

Buddhism does not call anything a form of suffering. The Buddhist term is dukkha and while it is translated to "suffering", it means three things (I quote from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukkha):

- Dukkha-dukkha, the dukkha of painful experiences. This includes the physical and mental sufferings of birth, aging, illness, dying; distress from what is not desirable.
- Viparinama-dukkha, the dukkha of the changing nature of all things. This includes frustration of not getting what you want.
- Sankhara-dukkha, the dukkha of conditioned experience. This includes "a basic unsatisfactoriness pervading all existence, all forms of life, because all forms of life are changing, impermanent and without any inner core or substance."[web 1] On this level, the term indicates a lack of satisfaction, a sense that things never measure up to our expectations or standards.

Anyone can call themselves Buddhist, it is not a dogmatic religion that necessitates for you to follow rules or anything of the sort. Doesn't mean that they followed the Buddha's teachings.

it will not be "justified". you will suffer for it.
however you'll be taking the place of hell for those who cause great suffering for the masses.

destroy the system for the masses…

this idea has been used before
its even in the tibetan text.

there is a story where the buddha, then the boddhisatva (former birth) was in a ship travelling with a hundred merchants. he has a vision where one of the merchants will kill the rest. He then begins to think about his options and consequences for 7 days.

He can:
1. let the incident happen, with the victims of the merchant dying and that merchant-killer going to hell

2. tell the other merchants beforehand of what will happen, where those merchants will kill their would be killer. Those merchants will go to hell instead. (for some reason the story doesn't allow them to just tie him up)

3. The final solution. The Buddha instead decides to kill himself the would be killer to spare him going to hell by taking his place there.That is the act of compassion he offers to the man,straying from his holy path to prevent someone from suffering even more.

this is compassionate violence.

I know that story and it is a relatively new addition within Mahayana Buddhism. The teaching also teaches that the Buddha decided to kill and in return was set back on his path. It is meant to be understood as a warning and teaching about karma, not as a teaching to follow the Buddha's actions and make use of "compassionate violence".

That's right and that's the point.

Except its historically been used for that. There have been historical buddhist groups who've done acts of violence in the name of compassionate violence. You're simply switching it the use from reactionary to progressive.

Anyways, there's always B. R. Ambedkar, less extreme.
.

- spooks, the spooks of painful experiences. This includes the physical and mental sufferings of birth, aging, illness, dying; distress from what is not desirable.
- Viparinama-spook, the spook of the changing nature of all things. This includes frustration of not getting what you want.
- Sankhara-spook, the spook of conditioned experience. This includes "a basic unsatisfactoriness pervading all existence, all forms of life, because all forms of life are changing, impermanent and without any inner core or substance."[web 1] On this level, the term indicates a lack of satisfaction, a sense that things never measure up to our expectations or standards.

Yes, and I'm saying that this is not a teaching the Buddha taught or endorsed. In fact I am quite sure he would reject it.

sure, im just speculating.

The historical buddha was not a social revolutionary, monarchy is not only not condemned in Buddhism but many of the Sutras and commentaries make mention of the local kings and rulers who are almost spoken of in a positive light. The King is used as an archetype of active virtue in the language found in a lot of Buddhist allegories as well as in Taoism. This isn't actually because Buddhism is monarchist or authoritarian, its just a lack of impetus for political thought. These are conservative ancient societies that had deeply interconnected social, linguistic and religious orders which weren't changing anytime soon when he showed up. Christ was an actual social revolutionary who was a threat to Pharisee and Roman rule.

Buddhist socialism is a thing
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_socialism

I found this some time ago too.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_monism

Revolution is just rapid change not implication of violence.

The Bodhisattva who slays the murderer (I don't remember if he is among them or boards their boat, either is believable) does not create Karma by slaying the man. Its stated elsewhere that the the blade piercing the man and the body falling is just conditioned phenomena that has no inherent existence of itself. Therefore the Bodhisattva doesn't even consider there to have been an ego that was killed or a difference between the killer and the victim or the living world and the now deceased so-called ego. Additionally because the Bodhisattva used Upaya, skillful means (which are essentially devices which people who have mentally gone past the bindings of conditioned phenomena, but use conditional manners of thinking as provisional teaching tools) to cut off attachment and suffering for others in a compassionate and detached manner. This is very important because it absolutely refutes the idea that violence is inherently evil, immoral or unethical.

This was talked about a lot in some parts of /r/zen and /r/buddhism and the consensus among most of the people who've studied Mahayana was that its perfectly justifiable as long as Upaya is used and its done completely with compassionate intentions for others.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic#Buddhist_dialectic

Wikipedia has almost nothing on this but dialectical thinking as a means of reasoning has been a thing in Buddhism since forever.

...

Be a snob all you want, I've had more in depth conversations about zen on /r/zen a few years back then I have with any idiots on here or 4chan or twitter.

Wiki has almost nothing substantive on buddhism at all. Buddhism is very immense and has the longest scripture of the religions, but wiki doesn't tell you anything.

Even after all these centuries scolarship still has a long way to go.

This is half true if you know what to look for specifically there's plenty of multiparagraph descriptions of various texts and schools of thought. Just go on fucking terebess.hu and you have everything you'll ever want

Christ is different.
In the Buddha's time there was an active culture of travelling ascetics and thinkers who would lecture on their philosophies. The Brahmins were the rulers, but even when the ascetics would teach opposing theories to their own, the Brahmins would not persecute them. They found no need to persecute others. It could be said that there was more of a tolerance in those times when the Buddha was active.

In Israel, it was very different, and if the Buddha had taught his dharma there, he would have been lynched even faster than christ.

The buddha was not a revolutionary but he did challenge the Brahmins' claim of divine rule and the claim that they were the sons of Brahma. Even as he would oppose them and their claims of status and theories, they didn't persecute him.

A hero is one bathed in blood, but only in certain cultural and material conditions will blood be drawn

True

Any textual refrence attributed to the Buddha was written after he died/reached nirvana,
Refrences to virtuous kings/kingdoms in the sutras would similarily probably amount to virtuous websites or virtuous youtubers in a post-modern setting.
The early Buddhists used language and metaphors that the people could relate to, which at the time, was the language of kings and queens

didn't know about that thanks.
I was talking more about wiki though.

They were written fucking centuries after he died. Nobody can know even close to what can be known about Christ

I heard Christ was an Anarchist.

Also comparitive religion is bourgoisie. No one insulted or called out Jesus or christianity. This board was about Buddhism and Radical Politics.
So your christ claims need to find a new home i think..

What? I was trying to express how shrouded by mystery the buddha is because of time, etc.

Figured it was the same person
My bad

That wasn't me.

My comment is this one: