Ridiculously good reddit thread is ridiculously good

[Zombie]

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/d ... ?limit=500

TL;DR: An Ask Me Anything thread by a fellow who lived most of his twenties in a Buddhist monastery. There's a bit of unintelligible stuff about specifics of the faith in the beginning, but most of the thread is just a ton of good discussion that should have some food for thought for just about anyone.

[gaius]

Wow, that thread is unbelievably interesting! I don't think I have ever found such a genuine, fascinating, deep and even sometimes funny conversation on the web. I learned quite some things on Buddhism. Thank you for sharing!

[Toge]

Its was very nice read, thank you for sharing it with us.

What most bugs me with spirituality is that it feels like nonsense. Same make believe television and advertisement industry is full of. Not so. This person seemed to have grasped what is essential. Words are only second-hand information and thus unreliable. Things are true only when experienced first-hand.

the Buddhism I encountered was a very straight forward and honest variety. Just as in science, where you cannot know something until you've seen it yourself, the Buddhas teachings are the same. You can't just read it and then try to preach it, you have to practice it and see the results for yourself. There was a heavy emphasis on what you, individually, know through your practice vs what you have read about in the sutras, or heard about from some one else's more advanced practice. Even the monk who founded the place, who most people believe to be on a high level of enlightenment, exhorted his followers to not believe what he said simply because he said it, but to examine it themselves to see whether it is true or not.

[Zombie]

One of my favourite parts of the thread:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/d ... or/c0xiazk

Nice to see that others appreciated it as well ^^