Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

SKAOG t1_j39iflv wrote

Reply to comment by BataBataShiteiru in My Name is Daniel. by Hellisme88

Thanks for correcting any gaps of my knowledge about Buddhism. I do understand that Nirvana is basically realising what already exists and cutting off the roots of dukkha ie englightment.

However, I'm Hindu, so Samsara is bad to me and thinking so isn't keeping me in it. I believe in Atma and Paramatma and that living multiple lives of false ego and attachment to the impermanent are not good, so Buddhist teachings don't really apply to me.

14

BataBataShiteiru t1_j3a9ke7 wrote

It's not too difficult to connect one description to the other.

Cutting off the roots of Dukkha is the deep realization that there is no Dukkha to cut off and nothing to attain.

In a conventional sense, of course Samsara is bad and you are in it. But in an absolute sense the concepts of good and bad themselves don't exist - they are mental constructions, not things inherent to reality itself. The same goes for rebirth - in a very real sense the stuff of you-ness is continually unfolding and changing. There are some conventionally meaningful changes that we call "birth" and "death" (and within that framing, we cannot escape this and have countless rebirths) but even these are empty of inherent, non-mentally constructed meaning (hence: escape the cycle of birth and death by realizing what they really are: empty). They're important to "us" (the phenomena of self), our ego only, which is indeed a real phenomena, just not some kind of enduring spirit or essence. It is from the belief itself in the enduring reality and separateness of the self that our attachment, aversion, and suffering arises, when really we are one boundless system. One Brahman.

This is why we can say that karma ripens from the merit of past lives - it's not a point system, it's simply cause and effect of the whole. Samsara is the human condition that is simply that - a human condition.

9

SKAOG t1_j3dnsmz wrote

The whole point of Hinduism is for the Atma to return back to the Paramatma, so Samsara is literally an obstacle to the end goal. General Good and Bad may be human constructions, but specifically Dharma and Adharma have been determined in sacred texts (Vedas, Upanishads etc.), of Hinduism and by countless of Rishis. And that adhering to a dharmic way of life, being indifferent to Sukha-Duhkha, and pursuing the knowledge of Atman will result in Moksha.

What you're saying may apply to Buddhism, but not Hinduism, because words with the same name such as Karma doe not mean the same in Buddhism as they do in Hinduism due to disagreements of the two dharmas.

5