/culture/ - arts & literature

Hi, susghi, theravada sushi here. I most certainly do have resources for you. I have some Theravada resources I can recommend you. Perhaps chief among them is dhammatalks.org. There you can find a lot of free resources on Buddhism, and there is even a Beginners' section that I think is very high quality. Although, it's worth noting that the works here are primarily authored by a single Thai Forest Ajahn and are not necessarily reflective of the whole of Theravada thought. Some other prolific English Theravada authors, both of whom are more orthodox than Thanissaro Bhikkhu, are Bhikkhu Bodhi and Bhikkhu Analayo. There's also suttacentral.net, which is both a place where you can read the Pali csushi roll in various translations (although the default by Bhikkhu Sujato is the best) and a forum where you can engage in Buddhist discussion or get questions answered by both experienced laity and ordained monastics.

Beyond this, if you're interested in Mahayana Buddhism or you want a broader perspective than just what I've noted here, I'd recommend finding a Sangha through the World Buddhist Directory (avoiding Japanese Zen) where you can receive the teachings directly. Otherwise, reading the relevant suttas (the Heart Sutra, Lotus Sutra, and Prajnaparamita Sutra all come to mind as foundational for Mahayana Buddhism) and finding books written and talks given by properly ordained monks and nuns are going to be your best bet for avoiding New Agers.

Regarding history, this is where I can be of the least help to you unfortunately. Some Bhikkhus have written quality histories of Buddhism, but your best bet is really going to be trying to find secular resources on the topic. Try and find books written by qualified historians specifically.

Also, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them here and I will give you the best answer I can.

>>1440
My best general tip for researching is that if you want to filter out new age stuff you should preface your search with the specific type of Buddhism or the name of the sutra/text your currently interested in.
More specifically, I would personally recommend some more modern sources to get a grasp on general concepts and then later reading the primary source/sutra since they can be a bit difficult to grasp without some foundation. I am partial to Vajrayana so I recommend checking out The All-Pervading Melodious Drumbeat for a relatively easy but interesting read.

>>1441
Thanks sushi. Those resources were helpful. Why should I avoid Japanese Zen?

>>1442
It’s hard telling the different types apart. I need to do more reading.

>>1443
Why should I avoid Japanese Zen?
I suppose I should have clarified this. It's not that Japanese Zen is bad per se, although I have many theological issues with it for what it's worth, but rather that Japanese Zen as it has come to the west is dominated by anti-dharmic secularization and new age thought. There are sincere Japanese Zen groups in the west, but unfortunately a lot of the groups out there are pretty embroiled with these issues. As a rules, I would avoid Japanese Zen as a beginner to Buddhism. Other schools of Zen (e.g. Vietnamese Thien and Chinese Chan) would generally be OK. There are problems with other schools of Japanese Buddhism as well, such as Nichiren Buddhism generally being cult-like (avoid Soka Gakkai like the plague). Certain schools of Japanese Buddhism are usually OK, though, such as Tendai and Shingon.

>>1441
Not that sushi. What kinds of rules do lay buddhists follow compared to monks? I've also heard that buddhist doctrines see women as inferior/you will be reborn as a woman if you commit sins or something like that.

>>1445
>What kinds of rules do lay buddhists follow compared to monks?
The laity aren't forced to follow any rules per se, it's merely expected that those participating as members of a sangha but the 5 precepts are the ideal for laity. They are:
1. I undertake the training to refrain from killing sentient beings.
2. I undertake the training to refrain from stealing.
3. I undertake the training to refrain from sexual immorality.
4. I undertake the training to refrain from telling lies.
5. I undertake the training to refrain from consuming intoxicants that cloud and poison the mind.
The primary issue of concern behind this precepts is kamma, or intent, and so following them is more about purifying the mind of ill-will rather than dogmatically following rules. Accidental killing, such as by stepping on a bug you didn't see, is not a violation of the 1st precept for example.
>I've also heard that buddhist doctrines see women as inferior/you will be reborn as a woman if you commit sins or something like that.
There is a major issue with misogyny within traditional Buddhist structures, and the misogyny is unfortunately as old as the religion itself. The Buddha was hesitant in his time to ordain women despite them being just as capable of attaining nibbana as men precisely because misogyny was so bad in his time that it could threaten the existence of the sangha in the first place (AN 8.51). That is, the Buddha knew and stated that women were just as capable and worthy of attaining the deathless as men but that social convention was the only barrier, and yet the monastic and lay sangha has liked to ignore this fact and marginalize women through history in spite of the fact that they make up half of the sangha, the noble sangha and the mundane sangha both. And such an important element of the sangha they are as the composers of the Therigatha and Theriapadana and in preserving important verses from the Buddha such as in the Itivuttaka, bringing an important feminine perspective to the sangha and doing the same tireless work as their male counterparts if not more. Rebirth as male or female has nothing to do with kamma, except maybe for the fact that rebirth as female in some societies is made difficult by those in the society, unfortunately including some ignorant and spiteful Buddhists. I will also add to this that, even if we presume being born as a woman were indeed the result of negative kamma, the attitude of spite that some Buddhists take towards humans who are reborn in worse conditions than others is absolutely reprehensible. No noble Buddhist, no stream-entrant, no attainer of the first level of enlightenment, would take this approach of cruelty towards others for the effects of past-life kamma, or even current life kamma (MN 21 & MN 86). All of this is a long way to say, no, women are not seen as inferiors in the dhamma.

Visit your local temple. Talk to people there, see if it's for you. That's what I did. I'm not Buddhist anymore for several reasons but I don't regret it.

>>1444
What theological issues do you have with Zen?

>>1449
Many of the same as any other Theravadin would. The Japanese approach of discarding the vinaya and the precepts is bad. The Soto Zen approach of discarding almost anything other zazen is bad. The Rinzai Zen approach of discarding almost anything other than koans is bad. Japanese Zen has devalued morality, disregards the suttas, and seeks enlightenment through inexpedient forms, such as attempting to immediately jump into the jhanas without mindfulness first. The buddha nature teaching, which is essentially the teaching of a universal, impersonal, unchanging, enlightened self, is an issue with all Mahayana. It is taught that this enlightenment is attained suddenly as well, rather than gradually through concerted and consistent effort. And, of course, the goal of this enlightenment is the to be a bodhisatta that endlessly wanders on until becoming a Buddha, another issue with all of Mahayana. These are just the ones that stand out most immediately.

>>1451
>The buddha nature teaching, which is essentially the teaching of a universal, impersonal, unchanging, enlightened self, is an issue with all Mahayana.
What is this teaching and why exactly is it an issue? What exactly are the major differences between Mahayana and Theravada?

>>1447
I should clarify this as I have now learned better that the current scholarly consensus is very much so in favor of the idea that the entirety of AN 8.51 is a later fabrication rather than just the garudhammas, some particularly misogynistic rules against nuns, being fabricated. That's to say that the sutta is likely best disregarded as the result of misogynistic editorializing of the Pali csushi roll in and of itself. It seems that the issue of ordaining nuns may never have been a question that the earliest monastics were concerned enough with to record.
>>1452
>What is this teaching and why exactly is it an issue?
To preface, it should be noted that in Buddhism you don't so much as gain enlightenment as much as you shed the prison of dependent origination and that causes you to be enlightened. That is, awakening is more about what is lost than what is gained, and what is lost is all impermanent and stressful things, hence why "nibbana" (nirvana) is perhaps best translated as "unbinding." The suttas use the simile of a beam of light that can fall on many things in the unenlightened mind and can cast shadows while the enlightened mind has nothing for the light to fall on and no shadows can be cast. The buddha-nature follows from this idea as the conception of the mind as inherently awakened and the individual inherently a Buddha, but that the mind is temporarily defiled by external things. This is a conception that applies to all beings, and de facto constitutes a universal self of Buddhahood. The issue with the buddha-nature teaching is the ontology it presents. The Buddha specifically cautioned against overly ontological views, to the point that some Theravadins outright reject ontologies whatsoever and see the few that are presented by the Buddha as merely a temporary view that is skillful when it's used up to a point. The purpose that the Buddha had for denying the majority of ontological questions as a worthy pursuit is that they are obstacles to enlightenment. The result is that the Buddha usually remained silent when people asked ontological questions, or sometimes rebuked persistent people. The buddha-nature teaching itself can be a barrier to enlightenment when one fixates on themselves as inherently enlightened. The teaching also causes other major ontological questions to arise about the nature of the undefiled Buddha mind. For example, how can one have faith that nibbana is lasting when it has already been defiled? There is an ontology of the mind that does have to be presumed in Buddhism, but the right view is that the mind is a uncharacterized agent. That is, the mind can only be characterized by the fact that it is a process that has agency and that its agency can be used for both self-examination and other-examination which can be used skillfully and unskillfully.
>What exactly are the major differences between Mahayana and Theravada?
The 2 most notable are the 2 I mentioned in my previous post: buddha-nature and the bodhisatta ideal. To explain the latter, it's the belief that the ultimate goal of enlightenment is not releasing oneself from samsara but rather releasing all beings from samsara. The Tibetan story of the bodhisatta Avalokiteshvara exemplifies the ideal. They vowed to delay parinibbana, the final unbinding of death, until all beings had escaped samsara as a result of their own tireless work. They vowed that if they ever faltered in having faith in their goal that they would shatter into countless pieces. They constantly reflected on their work and each time didn't falter until after so many lifetimes of this tireless working they saw they had made no conceivable progress in enlightening all the countless sentient beings beings trapped in samsara. They finally faltered on seeing this and, as they vowed, shattered. The Buddha Amitabha reformed Avalokiteshvara in a new state and pushed them to keep going once they were sorted out, to maintain the mission of bringing all beings to enlightenment regardless of how much patience and tolerance for suffering such a seemingly futile task may require.

>>1461
>They vowed to delay parinibbana, the final unbinding of death, until all beings had escaped samsara as a result of their own tireless work.
So for some traditional Buddhists, if a person tirelessy works at something they can gain special powers or influence the cosmos? Secular Buddhists downplay this but wouldn't doing that call into question the Buddha's other teachings?

The 5 precepts uses the word training a lot. This makes me wonder about how the Buddhist tradition understands training and morality. Its not as simple as I must not lie, but I must dedicate myself to undergoing training to refrain from lying. Its like there's an art of refraining from lying that I have to dedicate myself to learning rather than just not lying. So its not about following a simple rule but embodying a practice? On the surface, "don't tell lies" is an easy rule to follow, but in reality lies creep up on you and we wind up telling small lies all the time and that's a hard thing to kick. I wonder what the training for that looks like and what you'd need to do daily to get to a point where you're not lying.

How do Buddhists see non-Buddhists? Catholicism famously denied salvation to anybody who wasn't a member of the Church. What would be the status of non-Buddhists? Is it possible to release oneself from samsara without the Buddha's teachings? What kind of relationship does Buddhism have with other schools of thought or religious traditions?

>>1462
>So for some traditional Buddhists, if a person tirelessy works at something they can gain special powers or influence the cosmos? Secular Buddhists downplay this but wouldn't doing that call into question the Buddha's other teachings?
This is complicated and as being outside the Mahayana philosophy, I'm pretty hesitant to comment on their views of the matter. I will add, though, that narratives of bodhisattas are at least as much about aspects of the buddha state as they are about cosmological beings. The Avalokiteshvara story is particularly about the boundless patience and compassion necessary for an effective bodhisatta. Secularized Buddhism does call into question the validity of many aspects of Buddhism, but I'm not certain that this is one.
>So its not about following a simple rule but embodying a practice? On the surface, "don't tell lies" is an easy rule to follow, but in reality lies creep up on you and we wind up telling small lies all the time and that's a hard thing to kick. I wonder what the training for that looks like and what you'd need to do daily to get to a point where you're not lying.
Precisely correct. It's about training the mind to be free of defilements and stopping the worst of the unskillful kamma, ill-will, from arising.
>How do Buddhists see non-Buddhists? Catholicism famously denied salvation to anybody who wasn't a member of the Church. What would be the status of non-Buddhists?
Buddhism is deeply varied on the subject. On the more liberal side, you see this view of all religions as "different paths up the same mountain" with Buddhism being the most expedient of them. On the more conservative side, which is generally my own position, you see the idea that other religions are adhammic and do not lead to enlightenment. Even if they can teach good values and lead to favorable rebirth, many also teach bad values that lead to unfavorable rebirth.
>Is it possible to release oneself from samsara without the Buddha's teachings?
It's pretty universally recognized that it's possible to attain enlightenment without the institution of Buddhism, but it's also pretty universally recognized that it's incredibly rare, substantially more difficult that seeking it through Buddhist structures, and demands someone cultivate all the aspects of the eightfold path anyways. Those who discover enlightenment themselves are called paccekabuddhas; those who do it themselves and share it with the world are sammasambuddhas. The true dhamma is ultimately the same, but how precisely it is expressed is dependent on language and culture.
>What kind of relationship does Buddhism have with other schools of thought or religious traditions?
Generally, the relationship between Buddhism and other religions is positive, but there are pretty strained relationships with some. Nichiren Buddhism takes a very adversarial approach to other religions, but ironically it tends to be most hostile towards other schools of Buddhism for being false dhammas. Theravada Buddhism has seen pretty strained relationships with Islam in particular (see: Rohingya Genocide). Pretty much all schools of Buddhism have struggled against communist state atheism as well. In the west, relations are generally positive with all religions they interact with, though not without disagreement. It helps that Buddhists are not generally inclined to proselytism as whether or not someone comes to the dhamma is generally seen to be an act of their own kamma and their receptiveness of it as a result thereof. Coercing others into Buddhism is generally seen as reflecting poorly on the triple gem and is unskillful.

The Pali Csushi roll is huge. What are some good selections from it for an absolute beginner?

>>1468
The Dhammapada is the typical starting point, and I certainly agree with that. The Itivuttaka and Udana are both approachable as well. I also found Theragatha and Therigatha to be interesting although were totally authored by monks and nuns respectively. Reading through a substantial amount of the csushi roll is definitely a marathon, not a sprint, though. I will also add that the most relevant of the pitakas for lay Buddhist practice is the sutta pitaka. The vinaya is mostly concerned with monastic law, and the abidhamma is good mostly just as a reference but has some notable wrong views in it since it's just historical commentaries on the suttas and vinaya.

Personally I find Taoism more interesting though also more difficult to understand just reading the Tao Te Ching. Buddhism is too similar to Stoicism and cognitive behavioral therapy to me. I like some ideas within it but I feel it does not match with my own goals. Anyway you should maybe start looking into Hindu philosophy first because many Buddhist concepts came from Hinduism first so it may help you understand the context.

>>1470
Well, Buddhist and Hindu philosophy was influential on the Greeks after all. It should be no small wonder that stoics and pyrrhonists and others derived from them. It also doesn't help that stoics and therapists have been adopting things from Buddhism in the modern day as well. I don't think studying Hinduism would be as beneficial as you are implying, though, given how much Hindu thought has developed in the 2600 years since the foundation of Buddhism, including by incorporating Buddhist and Jain ideas and how generally diverse "Hinduism" is conceptually. There are also a lot of non-Brahmanical philosophy that Buddhism responds to as well, including Jainism, "annihilationism," atheism, and more, all of which you would not be prepared for just by studying Hinduism. Really, it's best to research these things as they appear in the csushi roll and one becomes interested in them, I think.

>>1472
What's the Buddhist response to atheism?

>>1472
I should clarify, I meant to say that annihilationism as a current of thought in the Buddha's time was roughly analogous to atheism as a response to the prevailing beliefs of its time. With that said, the general response to atheism is the same you would see to theism or anything else: that the unenlightened cannot be actually certain and that dogma about it only drives suffering and stands in the way of the end of suffering. It's also broadly considered something unworthy of debate. That is, Buddhists should not have being Buddhist and proving that as their purpose, but rather should have escaping samsara as their purpose. That purpose of escaping samsara first and foremost is a contraindication to most theological debates. If you want some scriptural examples, I could recommend Digha Nikaya 1, the Brahmajala Sutta, which gives a pretty comprehensive view of where Buddhism stands on a lot of different beliefs, and Digha Nikaya 23, the Payasi Sutta, which is specifically about a monk responding to an annihilationist.

>>1463
There's a Catholic theologian, Paul Kritter, who describes himself as a Buddhist Christian. He wrote a book called Without Buddha I Could Not Be A Christian. I haven't read it, but he clarifies that he sees himself as a Catholic who's indebted to Mahayana teachings and practice rather than belonging to two religions. I wonder what Buddhists think of this? Some Catholic and Buddhist tenants seem irreconcilable but does that rule out religious borrowing? Kritter talks about Sunyata, which he translates as interbeing, and uses it to interpret the Biblical idea of God as love. He's a bit vague here but I'm interested in what a Buddhist makes of this.

I'm not a Buddhist or a Christian but some Buddhist ideas and ritual seem very useful and helpful.

>>1480
I was raised Catholic so I suppose it is the other side of this equation, but in my readings of both sides I do think that there is a surprising amount of similarity when you look at the main thrust of both in a lateral sort of way. This might be a bit universalist of me, but personally I would say that if you believe, you have to believe in a general shared metaphysics for everyone. As an illustration of this, there are catholic churches with so called pagans like aristotle in their stained glass windows due to the influence he and other greeks had on the religion.

So it would stand to reason that there are (some would say true) ways to interpret reality that ring more or less congruently even if you aren't the same exact religion. Even staunch Christian writers like CS Lewis do seem to believe this in some form.

>>1480
From a Theravada perspective, I am all for this so long as it isn't a meaningless adaptation of Buddhist concepts for the purpose of scoring converts in a western world that increasingly looks to wisdom in eastern philosophy. I think it's great to see others adapting, even if only a little bit, elements of the path to ending suffering. Buddhism as a religion does not hold a monopoly on the path to ending suffering nor any element of it, even if it is the only religion that accurately and fully describes it and leads to its fruition. When the time arises, I may pick up the book as I do find the subject of interfaith dialogue quite interesting.
>Some Catholic and Buddhist tenants seem irreconcilable but does that rule out religious borrowing?
There are absolutely irreconcilable aspects, but intermingling is certainly permissible by both to an extent. If any group were to be more offended, it would absolutely be on the side of the Catholics. Although, naturally, as a Buddhist I do not think this should come at the cost of any aspect of the Eightfold path.

>>1481
>a general shared metaphysics for everyone
I'm not sure what you mean by this. A single metaphysical model for all religions? I don't know if that would work. But there is one thing many of the big religions (but not all) seem to share that makes them opposed to the worldview that came out of the Enlightenment. They all see the world around us as dependent on something else to make sense, even if we don't agree on the specifics. The universe is incomplete and to understand the world and ourselves we need to understand our incompleteness and lack of self-sufficiency.

>>1482
If the Japanese could radically adapt Buddhist beliefs and still be considered Buddhists what makes California Zen type new agies that different? Aren't they just doing the same thing or is there a deeper reason their presentation of Buddhism is flawed?

>>1485
>A single metaphysical model for all religions? I don't know if that would work.
From the Buddhist perspective, Buddhadasa Bhikkhu tried this. I disagree with his approach, but you could take a look at what he wrote if it interests you.
>If the Japanese could radically adapt Buddhist beliefs and still be considered Buddhists what makes California Zen type new agies that different? Aren't they just doing the same thing or is there a deeper reason their presentation of Buddhism is flawed?
Bold of you to assume that I think Japanese Buddhists are real Buddhists! Although, I do think that, so it was an accurate guess nevertheless. While I think that Buddhism doesn't hold a monopoly on the path to the end of suffering, I do think that Buddhists absolutely should exercise a healthy amount of gate keeping of what is and is not deemed "Buddhist." Languages are not scientific, there is nothing objective or perfect about them, and there will very likely come a day where what is called "Buddhism" will be almost fully adhammic. I still should remain as the goal of every Buddhist to forestall that from happening, and a part of that is regarding secular "Buddhists" as non-Buddhists.

So about secular "Buddhists" means they should be gate kept out of the mix while Japanese Buddhists shouldn't? Well, the majority of reforms that the Japanese solidified into their brand of Buddhism were pretty Buddhist in intent even if they were misguided or led to poor outcomes. The major outlier, I think, is the Meiji era reforms that proposed drinking, marriage, and discarding of robes as permissible for monks (though, notably, nuns typically maintained a more austere practice). Compare this to secularized Buddhism here in the west, for example, which picks and chooses ideas as they are amicable to one's preconceived notions of what is true and what the religion should be, while harmfully appropriating concepts like upaya by divorcing them of vital context and intent that they do not meaningfully function without. This is seen better nowhere else than in the fact that many of them seek to take away from Buddhism its religious identity and promote a "philosophical Buddhism" as the true and original Buddhism by disregarding the majority of Buddhist scriptures as fabrication and replacing confidence in the triple gem with confidence in oneself.

This is a long way of saying that Japanese Buddhism is generally interested in escaping suffering through noble practice of the dhamma while western, secular "Buddhism" is interested in escaping suffering through the dhamma so long as that aligns with what one already thinks is within the realm of what leads to escaping suffering. The former trusts the triple gem while the latter doesn't. The former still holds to the virtues that drive Buddhism while the latter is thoroughly unconvinced by them.

I suppose I should also be more careful with using the term "California Zen" as another user had as it gives the impression that this issue is intrinsic to there when it's really a problem in a handful of Buddhist groups all over the west as well as outside of it. Even the Vipassana movement here has these problems, although the Vipassana movement has other problems to begin with.

>>1486
>Buddhadasa Bhikkhu tried this.
Yes. Toshihiko Izutsu did something simmilar. He is well respected in Muslim circles. Although you may not like him since he was a Zen Buddhist. Izutsu wasn't trying to argue all religions are the same but build a common Asian meta-philosophy by looking at where different Eastern religions overlap and common patterns of thought.

I see what you mean is that while you see Japanese Buddhism as a flawed interpretation of a tradition, secular Buddhism doesn't really engage with that tradition. I've wondered that many secular liberal or progressive variants of religions do this, not engaging with their respective traditions but demolishing them to make way for an alien value system that doesn't sit well with the tradition. What do you think of the Critical Buddhism trend in Japan?

>>1485
My thinking is a little less specific than a grand unified theory. It's more like, if you are religious, then you believe in a metaphysics at all, as in, something more than our base reality. I personally believe in this for several reasons, but its aside from the main point. With respect to this conversation I am not really looking to argue about the true or truest religion, I am thinking more along the lines that if you can think of religion as, in part, the study of metaphysics (I'd say a large component of many religions are cultural, law, etc, which clouds things), then it stands to reason that humans are all looking into the *same* metaphysics to some degree, and our nature as humans prevents us from coming to a full understanding of God. With regard to Catholics, this is probably why they tend to use the word "mystery" for just about everything really major. Humans cannot comprehend a being like God, even in theory. So any cultural attempts at really encompassing more than a fraction of such a thing are similarly limited. This is not to denigrate religion but more like, humanity is a very humble thing even if we tend to feel very big most days.

Just as an aside to that, I've spent a lot of time meditating on what "omnipresent" and the like actually would mean to a human, I think our mental scope is severely limited and it's difficult for us to even envision, because we exist within a single moment in time at all times, a creature that could truly inhabit multiple moments in time at once, let alone ALL of them at once as we would think God to, is like trying to envision the fourth dimension (literally, I guess). It is beyond human capability.

Apologies if this doesn't make much sense, it's pretty difficult to organize my thoughts on this topic, trying my best.

>>1487
>What do you think of the Critical Buddhism trend in Japan?
Truthfully, I don't know much about it, but from what I understand it failed because it lacked praxis. The spearheads of the movement were, to my understanding, academics who lacked an entrenched connection to a sangha and as people had nothing substantive to show for all their philosophical works. The ideas, whether merited or not, simply had no foundation in which to really take root, so as seeds they died. That they saw Buddhism strictly as criticism is precisely the akusala dhamma, the uskillful practice, that led to the movement failing, especially with as quickly as it did.
>>1488
>It's more like, if you are religious, then you believe in a metaphysics at all, as in, something more than our base reality.
Ironically, this idea in itself presumes that there is some kind of dualism (or pluralism) between the material and immaterial and that the material (which is presumably empirically observable) is principally correct and should be regarded as "first among equals" to use Catholic parlance. That is to say that the very assertion that there is a non-metaphysical view of the world requires one make a few specious metaphysical (and likely epistemological) claims.

>>1489

>That is to say that the very assertion that there is a non-metaphysical view of the world requires one make a few specious metaphysical (and likely epistemological) claims.
I would agree on this, I'd say that it's probably more of a weakness of language than the correct way to put it. The "base reality" part is more to say that to a non-religious person, base, empirically observable reality is all that can possibly be. The term "metaphyiscs" is probably a bit of a pejorative that only really makes sense from the side that asserts that only empirical reality can possibly exist.
So you are right, if you believe in religion there is no distinction at all, after all, how could there be?
I am interested in what you mean by those arguments regarding the assertion of non-metaphysical reality.

>>1490
There is no conception of reality that is actually non-metaphysical. It's a bit of a nonsensical claim that relies on saying that the metaphysical is only that which is not empirically proven, often pejoratively as you noted. There are numerous criticisms of metaphysics as a field of inquiry, but they all do make metaphysical assumptions one way or the other.

If Buddhism can cure my depression I am all for it.

>>1492
If you're struggling with mental health issues, it's likely worthwhile seeing a professional about it. The buddhadhamma absolutely does help up break down our thought patterns and actions, but it kind of presumes a basis of self-reflection and questioning that is often suppressed by mental illness. Buddhism can definitely help managing the problem, but eastern philosophy shouldn't be your only recourse on the issue. Take advantage of all the resources available to you.

>>1493
My despair is existential. Therapists can't help me.

>>1494
If you're dead set on this approach, then yes, buddhism can help mental health issues and its helped with mine as well. To make it clear, though, it requires a very strong commitment to the practical side of buddhism and to questioning everything you already believe and accepting or discarding things in terms of utility rather than truthfulness. The thing is, this approach is a slow road. There's no magical cure or mindset you can jump into and be saved by. You're going to have to do this constant wrestling with your thoughts for probably years, as you try to build awareness of thought patterns and gain control over your conscious mind and the ability to do it all without toxic self-shaming. If it's the only thing you're willing to try, sushi, go for it, but I don't have high hopes if you're walking into it not considering anything else already. That's just not the right view to enter into this practice with.

I read Buddhist and Daoist scriptures to dispel mental suffering, Dhammapada, Zhuangzi and Tao Te Ching works really well for me. I consider those works as priceless treasures.

>>1496
You should throw the Confucian Analects in there as well to really get on the three teachings grindset.

>>1496
You may like reading the poetry of Hanshan & co. There are two translations available, by beat poet Red Pine and by sinologist Paul Rouzer.

>>1497
>>1498
I appreciate your recommendations.

>>1497
Reading Confucius changed the way I look at life. I'd also recommend the Great Learning and the Mencius.

>>1490
>if you are religious, then you believe in a metaphysics at all, as in, something more than our base reality
Even self-identified atheists do believe in non-observable phenomena that transcend our everday existence e.g. the market, the invisible hand, cooperate personalities, not to mention stuff from theoretical physics that cannot be empirically proven. I prefer to see the secular worldview as akin to a religion itself. It is traditional and has its own particular quasi-theological structure and value system. It just pretends its not one. It hides itself. Other rival systems of belief and morality are boxed in under the name "religions" and some pejorative labels are applied to them, this is designed to cement the secular worldview as the only one allowed to be socially dominant. It would be a mistake to flip this around and simply say "well religions are good and have these positive features" because its buying into a false distinction. The need to confront a secular modernity might bring religious people together, but I think struggling against a common problem isn't really the best way to build a positive solidarity because each religious community relates to the secular worldview in different ways. If you're a Protestant Christian or a Shintoist, it really isn't much of an issue to co-exist with it. If you're a Muslim, a Confucian or an Orthodox Jew you find yourself ostracized. Buddhists seem to be let off the hook, despite their teachings contradicting some secular dogmas (faith in the individual, that the world exists and is permanant etc). I'm guessing this is a mix of orientalist fetishism, lack of conflict between Buddhist communities and the West, and Buddhists being too passive.