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.
What is nihilism?
dear New Buddhist forum
i was reading posts on a Buddhist forum, which defined 'nihilism' as not believing in life (rebirth) after the death of the body
it got me thinking
in some religious teachings, such as the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, it is written the soul cannot be cut; that the soul will enter a new body after death; therefore we should not be concerned about going to war & dying in that war. upon death, the soul will enter a new body so there is no grounds for concern, conscience or worry
or some religious folks believe if they kill in the name of their religion they will be martyred & go to their God's heaven
so what exactly is nihilism? is it not believing in an afterlife? or is it not believing in the results of karma?
in the quote below, what exactly is being emphasised?
i thought this topic to be suitable for new Buddhists on a beginners forum
metta
i was reading posts on a Buddhist forum, which defined 'nihilism' as not believing in life (rebirth) after the death of the body
it got me thinking
in some religious teachings, such as the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, it is written the soul cannot be cut; that the soul will enter a new body after death; therefore we should not be concerned about going to war & dying in that war. upon death, the soul will enter a new body so there is no grounds for concern, conscience or worry
or some religious folks believe if they kill in the name of their religion they will be martyred & go to their God's heaven
so what exactly is nihilism? is it not believing in an afterlife? or is it not believing in the results of karma?
in the quote below, what exactly is being emphasised?
i thought this topic to be suitable for new Buddhists on a beginners forum
metta
There is nothing given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed. There is no fruit or result of good or bad actions. There is no this world, no next world, no mother, no father, no spontaneously reborn beings; no brahmans or contemplatives who, faring rightly and practicing rightly, proclaim this world and the next after having directly known and realized it for themselves. A person is a composite of four primary elements. At death, the earth (in the body) returns to and merges with the (external) earth-substance. The fire returns to and merges with the external fire-substance. The liquid returns to and merges with the external liquid-substance. The wind returns to and merges with the external wind-substance. The sense-faculties scatter into space. Four men, with the bier as the fifth, carry the corpse. Its eulogies are sounded only as far as the charnel ground. The bones turn pigeon-colored. The offerings end in ashes. Generosity is taught by idiots. The words of those who speak of existence after death are false, empty chatter. With the break-up of the body, the wise and the foolish alike are annihilated, destroyed. They do not exist after death.
Samaññaphala Sutta
0
Comments
although, i'm interested how buddhism views this, good question, op.
The Buddha, however, taught a middle way between a static unchanging self and not-self, or no self. He taught an ever-evolving changing self. If our personalities were frozen in time, there would be no potential or opportunity to grow and strive to improve ourselves toward the goal of Enlightenment.
"Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."
-Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) The Big Lebowski
Its a good topic, but I think the Sutta passage sums it up for me, I didn't have anything constructive to add so in nihilist fashion I added something unconstructive. :rarr:
i mean can we actually ever point at NOTHING?
everything in our reality is composed of atoms geographically located and formed into what we see as chair, cat, person... etc...
atoms and space...
@person
like what?
do you think that the inability to point at NOTHING disproves nihilism?
Nothing only exists in abstraction and in relationship to something.
Careful.... you'll get one of your headaches in a minute.....
Nihilism is a wrong view against the middle way, Nihilism denies Buddha's teachings on rebirth and in general the concept of other beings in Samsara and the effects karma, having this view is a hindrance to practice. It is a wrong view to be abandoned.
http://buddhaspace.blogspot.com/2011/05/buddha-eckhart-on-nothingness.html
you do know as far as (Mahayana goes) that the Lotus sutra proclaimed these teachings to be provisional and the lotus sutra is the starting sutra of the eternal Buddha and the last doctrine of Tathagatagarbha???
sorry to go off topic