The problem is that you, let me be kinda harsh, are severely suffering from Dunning-Krugger Effect!!! Your comment on 'Midway' ideology will really be laughed at if you show it to a venerable monk!!!
亲爱的QQ网友,请小心点,我现在慢慢说明给你 (To those who doesn't speak Chinese: "Dear QQ-internet friend, please carefully read my explanations which I'll give you below:")
1. I admire your honesty but I am not suffering from the effect (because,
as you forget, I am 48, I graduated in 2000 in the biggest South-East European University majored in Philosophy, I learned Eastern philosophy, religious philosophies, religions, etc., plus I am a former Buddhist.)
2. As a person who learned Buddhism (in all his forms from the SEA's Hinayana to the Japanese Zen) by myself and in the university, I'd like to say that I am at the end of the Dunning-Kruger's scale and (as a newbie in Buddhism) you're at its very beginning. Think by yourself: a man who was a Buddhist since
1990 and read even
Nāgārjuna (an Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist philosopher monk of the Madhyamaka (Centrism, Middle Way) school) till around 2005 (when he was lucky enough to be in China and to communicate with real scientific-oriented masters of science, law, dialmat, socialism, etc. and to challenge his philosophy and unbased Buddhist/religious beliefs) can't be just a victim of the effect mentioned above.
You said, by yourself, that you're a freshman to all this Buddhist theories + you're 25 years younger than me + you're not a philosopher. Well? Any thought?
3. I met more monks than you in my entire life (both Christian and Buddhist in: Bulgaria, Russia, including Tatarstan, China, Macao SAR, Cambodia) and I want to tell you that there aren't many venerable monks. Most of them are monks just to gain something (like money or donations) and the rest are there just because their parents said so, or because they had no other significant choice.
Also, it's not important who laugh or not, the important is that the "Midway" (I even know it in Chinese! It's "中道", 那个佛教的术语!) is nothing so "genius" what you think just because you'd like to improve your Karma and/or you're impressed by it because you didn't compare it with similar theories. I bet you even didn't compare it with the Gadaffi's "Third Universal Theory" (ظرية عالمية ثالثة) or the Titoism (Yugoslavian's)...
So, please (拜托, 兄弟), before you think someone is that dumb check a bit his background. I didn't spend my 48 years + life to learn and study just to get this sort of criticism online.
Of course it's nothing new, but it's really very hard to keep in the 'midway' all the time Yeah it's just 'objectivity' but Buddhism also teaches you how to keep objective, by being without ātma-grāha for ex, which is actually as easy to be as you think.
a)
ātmagraha (आत्मग्रह) doesn't need a hyphen. Well, if you just copy-pasted it from the 我执's article in Wikipedia, it's understandable.
b) So many (nearly all) philosophies and theories wants to keep you objective. Point me at least to 3 of them who claim that their goal is to keep you subjective. Can you? So, what's the uniqueness of the Buddhism in this? The Islam also says that if you start following it, you'll be the most objective. So what?
c) How you will be without the mentioned 我执 (atmagraha), if you don't follow the latest scientific discoveries? Hey, my friend, the Buddhist that time (when they created this concept of atmagraha) even didn't know about the existence of the DNA, the existence of the Pluto, the existence of the Americas, if you wish... Don't think of them as omniknowledgeable.
And you think this makes Buddhism?!
And if you think Buddhism is 'suppressive', 'pessimistic', etc., whatever you think of it as, you even have not had primary understanding of Buddhism yet!
And how is it active then? Being an arhat makes you to achieve your goals of having a girlfriend, becoming good-looking and having a business? Yes, if you're filthy rich like Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama, you see? I even know his real name since I was a kid!) you can play around but what if you're poor, homeless and it's -20 degree Celsius outside like in Inner Mongolia (内蒙古)? Still going to be in the state of isolation outside?
I really suggest you embark on reading some sutras and abhidharmas... Your understanding of Buddhism is really not even primary and not better in the slightest bit than the one of everyone who has not tried learning it tbh...
Said the 26 years younger male to his uncle (大叔, in Chinese) who's graduated in 2000 and learned so much about Buddhism by himself and in the university + was a Buddhist himself + living in a Buddhist kingdom currently + wrote even articles about this culture... Impressive! Try again. I was really shocked by its 'extraordinariness and excellence'....
1. It's just because you didn't learn enough other philosophies and theories.
Be honest to yourself and tell me how many of these you (at least) heard of? 1.1. Дъновизъм
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_White_Brotherhood)
1.2. Stoicism (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism)
1.3. Illusionism (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusionism_(philosophy))
1.4. Hesychasm (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm)
1.5. Варлаамитство (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barlaam_of_Seminara)
Your knowledge compared with my knowledge is around 25% at its best (when it comes to philosophies, religions, anthropology, etc. If we are talking about Chinese language or Mathematics, you know more probably).You will also be surprised by how wise and intelligent Buddha was...
Oh, really? Let me think... when I had my first biography of Buddha book (in 1990) you were... just a dream in your father's and mother's heads?
Siddhartha (a.k.a. 释迦牟尼, in Chinese) was just intelligent enough to see that outside of the palace people are getting ill, die miserable, etc. and he was depressed enough to start being scared about his own future to the level when he started to be a philosopher (and not the best of the philosophers to be honest, because you can't compare him with Aristotle or Marx, for example) and to think what to do to "suffer less", because you see, the "life is suffering"... From the root of his philosophy you can see the escapism, the defeatism... nothing in common with the Chad-like (in terms of the Incelology here) philosophy of Marx, Engels, Lenin... Even people like Hegel were more active-oriented and success-oriented than him! It's a fact.
You can't really understand if you have not learned Buddhism enough. I bet you have yet to read any sutra or abhidharma right? I suggest reading some and then come back to disguss witih me.
Well, if I inherit more than 1 000 000 dollars like you, I surely will. Sadly, as you know, my father decided to give his only small apartment to his lover, not to me. So, even I am a poet, a philosopher, a writer, a webmaster and a martial art fan, I should struggle day by day to earn a dollar or two.
(Only the good banks here, with fixed deposits and ~7% interest rates are saving me from being a poor man!) So, really sorry, but not enough time to discuss exactly the useless Buddhism. You're a rich young fellow, you may spend your time for this. I have to struggle to earn a dollar or two, I have to do sports to keep myself above average (not willing to be a Norman-tier type) and I have to learn really useful knowledge (economics, psychology, martial arts, online activities, etc.)
You are a philosophy student right? What about seeing a layman who thinks philosophy is useless and it can only overwhelm yourself in shitloads of meaningless coundrums? I am having the same feeling now.
It shows that you're a
zealot! I don't care who respects or not the philosophy. But you're on the state of a zealot -- a few months ago you didn't even mention the religion and now... trying to make all of us Buddhist or Buddhists fans... Not very different than a Muslim who wants people to truly believe in Allah, meleks (angels), etc.
I don't want to hurt your feelings but, as it was mentioned above, we're mostly poor or semi-poor people, who only can rely on science, sport and working hard, so we have NO NEED AND NO TIME for Buddhist things that only can make us more:
- poor
- weak (not active and giving up easy)
- subjective (believing in theories who never prove till today).
But I am not saying you are 'over-confident' or 'unopen'. It's totally normal for a person to be like this when he or she has not learned something yet.
And I have to repeat that I was born 1975, a former Buddhist, a Master of Philosophy, a writer, etc. and... when I was reading about Buddha you were even not planned by your parents. True.
I remember I myself thought IQ was just bs and believed anyone who treated IQ seriously just coped with his or her unindustriousness, but now? I have known IQ is the most validated construct among all of psychometric constructs.
Oh, wait! This topics you also didn't finish. There were many questions about it and you just avoided them. Like those that the IQ is once and forever (according to your mentor) and the opposite ones who state that the IQ is improvable. Take a look again. I see your memory isn't well (if you even forgot that I am a 大叔, a QQ-pal and a philosopher-anthropologist), but at least you're not an amnesiac, right?
I remember I myself thought Communism was just a piece of white lie that was made use of by evil politicians like Xi to encroach on his or her people, but after I had known how scientific it was actually, I even embarked on learning Communism literatures before!
The problem of the Communism (in its Marxism-Leninism variant primary) is that it's too fatalistic. My Ontology professor (Alexander Andonov) did agree with me that it's a sort of fatalism. The world's history showed I am right a few years later (after I stated this in the Sofia University).
For Buddhism, yeah I was even a former anti-Buddhism, because I thought it robbed people's money by the pieces of white lie, the mysterious stories, the hypocritic ideologies it preached, etc., but after I had known how amazing it was, I turned into a Buddhist from an anti-Buddhism!
And you denied all those facts that you witnessed? Hey, there are really tons of it! In China, everywhere! They, mostly, use your money, sometimes even may rape your girlfriend (if she is too naive to believe them)! Of course, it's nothing to do with the Buddhism as a theory, but... till now you didn't give a
single example, at least 1 or 2 examples, how the Buddhism helps the incels to become happy, normal noncels (not volcels what the Buddhism is teaching). OK, you accepted yourself as a volcel, for this time, but, see the "tiny" difference, OK? Here we are trying to deal with the problems of the incels. In case you forgot, here is my e-book:
https://www.amazon.com/How-Escape-Inceldom-QUICK-Deincelization-ebook/dp/B0855FTRZ1I really suggest learning some literatures before forming any viewpoint! You may realize how severely you were suffering from Dunning-Krugger Effect after you really know about Buddhism!
(PS: yeah I know Dunning-Krugger Effect has been debunked but it's easier to throw to let you understand what I am construing than 'You are being too over-confident in your understanding of Buddhism because of your lack of understanding and learning of Buddhism')
I do suggest to start a better diet (+ sports) to improve your memory because (I really wish you the best and I hope it's not the case but..) it looks like amnesia (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesia)! So,
don't get me wrong, I have no hard feelings; I even wish to re-connect with you on QQ and I will find you when I move my desktop computer to my apartment because now it's in a shop. I will suggest you some good cooperation here, because there are some bank opportunities which are only a dream in China. Hope to see you soon around! Best wishes!