Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Goodbye
Wisdom23
Veteran
The reason i came to Buddhism was because i was stuck in a rutt and needed some advice. Whilst i have learnt ever so much from Buddhism i believe the truth to be Nihilistic but i have found solice and comfort in this. I have also found why i was stuck in a depressive state and have made leaps and bounds in working my way out. I would jus' like to leave a final message to all those who have answered my questions.
i will always keep my buddha statue in my room to remind me of what i have learnt.
I will be departing this forum soon and i thought you deserve a final farewell.
Adios Amigos. i may check once more for responses lol but otherwise i wish you all the Buddha best for the future.
i will always keep my buddha statue in my room to remind me of what i have learnt.
I will be departing this forum soon and i thought you deserve a final farewell.
Adios Amigos. i may check once more for responses lol but otherwise i wish you all the Buddha best for the future.
0
Comments
I know what depression and a nihilistic outlook (from a lack of knowing any better) can do to one's life. It's good that you have made progress out of depression, of course, but I don't see how you can hope to be completely free of depression if you believe that the truth about life lies in a nihilistic outlook.
Many years ago, I believed, quite sincerely (and along with others, whose books I had read) that Buddhism was nihilistic — that, at the end of the miseries that human life can bring, was a kind of peaceful nothingness (nirvana). The candle would be blown out, and that would be the end of sorrows (also, the end of joy). It would be total extinction. Either you chose to stay in the round of samsara, with all its nightmarish qualities (and occasional treats), or set out for the great Void (a kind of black hole, as I understood it), into which (if you were successful in your quest for holiness etc.), you would disappear forever. So, the best that I could hope for was the extinction of being that I understood nirvana to be.
Later, I was fortunate enough to meet a realised teacher. How I knew that he had seen the truth about his being is not possible to explain. However, by close observation over a number of years, and by the realisations that his presence had brought about, I had what, for me, was certain proof that I was in contact with a realised man — a Buddhist sage.
Those years were the best, and the most privileged years of my life. Despite the limitations of my intellect, and the views of those that I had thought to be educated commentators on Buddhism, there was no way that I could now believe that the message of Buddhism is nihilistic. However, it seems that Buddhism demanded qualities that I did not have, and it became necessary for me to break contact with this teacher. My life has been poorer — much poorer — for this. However, I realise that I have been very lucky even to meet this teacher (also, some of those that associated with him). I do my best to live as well, and as mindfully, as I can, and hope that one day, I will be fit to meet up with a similar teacher — maybe in another life. As an ex-nihilist and ex-depressive, I urge you to leave room in your mind for some doubt that the truth about life is nihilistic. I don't know where the Buddhist path ends (if it does end), but if my experiences of blessedness in the presence of real Buddhists is anything to go by, it is not at the end of a dark tunnel, which nihilism seems to assert.
Best of luck, friend! You may leave Buddhists and Buddhism, but Buddhism will not leave you. And it will always make you better fitted to deal with what you cannot escape from — life.
Glad things have improved for you.