The reincarnation bit interests me. I've had a notion that reincarnation is the process of birthing. A child is going to inherent their parents DNA, genes, environment, and situation. Whatever pain the parents are burdened with will be passed on to their child, and so on and on and on. We are [adaptable] copies of our parents.
Im self aware enough to observe the traits I picked up from my parents. I've thought about all the suffering I've been through. If I dont have children, I can be the end of the thread. I can stop the cycle of suffering.
/armchair
Buddhism is definitely a religion. The founder of the religion himself talked about an order of monks.
What happens with Buddhism in particular, especially in the West, is that people pick and choose what they want to believe from it to the point that whatever they're left with is hardly Buddhism at all, and it does end up being a philosophy.
For an example, ask the next white person you meet who identities as a Buddhist if they believe that there are 8 hells. They're going to tell you that's, to use your word, "nonsense".
> is that people pick and choose what they want to believe
Pretty sure this is SOP for basically every religion. :)
As I understand it, a common interpretation of The Buddha's teachings is that he wanted people to find their own path and he specifically dissuaded people against dogma and organised religion.
I've seen people at buddhist retreats suggest some wilds benefits to meditation (magic powers etc). Thats clearly nonsense. But one thing I've noticed about meditation (and yes, it is just sitting still) is that it makes it harder to lie to yourself. And thats really important because Nothing is so easy as to deceive one’s self
I think the author here is right to point out the problems of enlightenment (its a sortof fictional ideal that no-one ever achieves but we might as well critique it). The Buddhist point of view is that wanting leads to suffering and so the ideal is not to 'want' anything. But really, if you truly achieved 'not wanting anything, that wouldn't be much different from being dead. We need wants. Its more about getting wants in balance.