[softy54534]

A friend of mine once asked about what Buddhism was all about. I wrote this up for him. Hope you get a few laughs.

There was this guy named Buddha. He realized that people can be really selfish and sometimes really stupid. They get upset because their lives are really sucky and all they did was blame other people for their problems. He felt bad and tried to figure it out. Aside from the inevitables like, birth, growth, illness, and death, he figured out there was a way to not be so affected by the situations that life presented. He presented four absolute (noble) truths and 8 ways to realize them.

4 noble truths:

1. life can suck.

2. it sucks because we get attached to the stuff that we imagine makes our selves "unique" and "special."

3. There is a way to not be affected by the suckness.

4. If we open our eyes and follow eight simple methods, we can be freed from letting the suckness affect us.

8 fold path:

No one is absolute nor omnipotent. We're all pretty ignorant.

If you don't learn to stop and say, "hey, i don't know" you're not going to change yourself in a way that's going to free you from the suckness.

Don't open your mouth without considering wtf it's going to sound like to the person on the receiving end.

You're not the center of the universe. Your actions not only affect everything around you, they can affect everything around the people around you. Don't do stupid shit that's going to hurt other people or yourself.

Don't take action that's going to make life suck for other people at your benefit.

If something pisses you off, figure out if you need to fix yourself first. Otherwise,

Know the consequences of your actions, you dumb fuck. Moreover, everyone has their own reality and their own right to their own level of dumbfuckery. When you make a mistake (you will), don't be proud, admit it, and be open to remedy yourself and the situation. And when in a group take care to not act unless it benefits the group in someway.

If you don't pay attention to the task at hand you're going to have a bad time. (Stop texting and pay attention to the wheel, you dumb fuck)

[Slonopotam845]

I heard Buddhism summarized this way: "Pain is inevietable. Suffering is optional."
I am no expert but I'll weigh in anyway in terms of the language. It is my understanding that many times teachers would beat their students about the head, strike them to further their education. Not in a brutal way, mind you, but in an instructive, mind opening way. I view your post in the same light.

[S.T.D.]

I stumbled into this site just today on a whim... That quote is so elegant that I've decided to stay. Go about your day knowing that you've helped someone on a path to better understand this world around them.

[Beerinkol]

Reminds me of a Chuck Palahniuk quote “Torture is torture and humiliation is humiliation only when you choose to suffer.”

[Ifroham4]

Reminds me of Woody Allen's movie Love and Death, "to love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer, to not love is to suffer, to suffer is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore to be happy one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness." Learned the quote, pretty damn neat quote.

[tgs]

I heard Buddhism summarized this way: "Pain is inevietable. Suffering is optional."

Reminds me of what Eleonor Roosvelt once said: "People only hurt you when you let them".

[NeroASERCH]

Simple. Easy to understand. Accessible to a modern time. Sucks that a couple of people are getting bent outta shape over a few saucy words. I enjoyed it!

[brraverishhh]

maybe I'm looking too deeply into it, but isn't the cessation of attachment to certain words or phrases (omg he said fuck!!) part of the whole as well?
fuck fuck fuck
kcuf kcuf kcuf

[9mm_fan]

Letting go of attachment does not mean ceasing to assign meaning to anything. It means ceasing to decide that you can only be happy given certain circumstances.

Even to an enlightened person, vulgarity is still vulgarity.

[Fegasderty]

have you ever read about the sect of buddhist monks that commit themselves to end their life as a mummy? they spend the last few months in a meditative state, consuming a chemical wash which not only acts as a poison but prevents decomposition. when they are dead, if they were successful, their bodies are gilt in gold and then put on display in the temples. the first time i heard that i thought it was a vulgar waste of life. i don't think it vulgar anymore.

[9mm_fan]

I hadn't heard of that. I would think though that considering that suicide brings negative karma that this would be a very counterproductive act...

If you have to end your life to reach enlightenment, you have not reached enlightenment. If you are enlightened, you will have no need or desire to end your life.

But please, if I am wrong, explain it to me.

[Fegasderty]

see... that’s what i thought too.. what goes on to say, "hey, the purpose of this existence will be to dedicate myself to dying. and if i’m diligent and i do it right i’ll become a temple object."

[9mm_fan]

Yeah but even then, a temple object is not nearly as valuable as a living, enlightened teacher...
Dying for a cause is easy, because you must only do it once. Living for a cause is far more difficult, because you're own will must die every day in favor of your cause.

[Fegasderty]

that’s where it clicked. bodhisatvas say, i’m not going to allow myself to be a buddha until all beings reach buddhahood.
and then they take one of their existences and try to make some statement to help encourage people.