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Comment by aatarax | Hacker News Reader

There are many flavors of buddhism. I am partial towards the Thai Forest tradition because it emphasizes practice and experience over dogma and so avoids metaphysical discussions.

> But what troubles me most about Buddhism is its implication that detachment from ordinary life is the surest route to salvation.

The response from the Thai Forest would be to engage in your life skillfully while paying attention to what causes you happiness or suffering and adjusting what you’re doing based on that. Maybe you discover a certain level of detachment is optimal, maybe you find you need to be more involved in your life. You go where the practice takes you.

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> But what troubles me most about Buddhism is its implication that detachment from ordinary life is the surest route to salvation.

Perhaps the author just haven't heard of Madhyamapratipada, that insignificant bit in Buddah's first sermon ever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Way

How is that different from stoicism ? Asking genuinely.

The Greeks and Indians are closer to each other culturally than people are willing to admit. They should be considered cousins in terms of their philosophy, cultural, and religion.

That there were Greek states and colonies in Norther India/Gandhara that spoke Greek for generations is not given enough scrutiny imo. The cultural impact of that transmission not always clear outside of something concrete. Like the most obvious being the Greco style Buddhist statues in Gandhara.

So Stoicism is probably similar because of some cultural link that's lost. This is especially likely considering that the rise of Stoicism coincides with Alexander's conquest and lateral cultural contact.

True! Buddha and Alexander the Great were really only 100 years apart. Greeks and Hindu deities have many similarities. The trimurthi of Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva correlates pretty closely to Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. It works the other way as well as I think Greek philosophy also got influenced by Hindu/Buddhist world view like Stocism. Both sides seem to have benefited with the ideas of the other especially along math and science.

A hundred years after Alexander the Great we have Ashoka the Great who sent Buddhist missionaries to the four winds and if you squint Christianity sort of resembles a mesh of Jewish and Buddhist philosophy.

The root for the Gods is perhaps even older than that and comes from a yet older culture.

> if you squint Christianity sort of resembles a mesh of Jewish and Buddhist philosophy.

Buddhism originated the entire concept of a "savior" and for the first time introduced the idea of conversion in religion.

There are some theories that as ideas flowed along the silk road, that Buddhism influenced Stoicism.

There is a lot of crossover of ideas.

And of course, both have been re-interpreted a lot in the modern age. Lot of intermixing continues today.

There are some similarities. A key difference is buddhism’s emphasis on meditation and practice as a key part of learning to act skillfully which I don’t think stoicism emphasizes as much.

Stoicism has always felt more “human scale” to me. It talks in terms of human virtues, and how a good life is only found in virtue. Buddhism always felt more focused on the mechanics of the mind and how understanding can be converted into attaining happiness/enlightment.

That being said, I’m not nearly as knowledgeable about stoicism.

The emphasis on meditation practice with specific techniques.

Well, it's not yet monetized by YouTube hustle bros, for one thing. :D

I hate to break it to you, but Buddhism was commercialized by Western grifters decades before YouTube!

> it emphasizes practice and experience over dogma

soto-zen emphasises something like this too.

the tl;dr in my very limited and general understanding seems to be — keep sitting zazen, try to not be an arsehole, you’ll work it out eventually.

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