The Importance of Nofap during the 'Degenerate Age of Dharma' (Buddhism)

1

Hi comrades, in this topic I would like to talk about the importance to refuse PMO in Buddhist perspective. Maybe you are not Buddhist, still you may find the insight in Buddhist sutra meaningful and helpful.

There are 3 Ages of Buddhism following Buddha’s passing:

  1. Age of Right Dharma (正法) in first 500 years, when the Buddha’s disciples were able to uphold Buddha’s teachings
  2. Age of Semblance Dharma (像法) in the next 1000 years, which only resembled the right Dharma (Buddha’s teachings)
  3. Degenerate Age of Dharma (末法) in the subsequent 10000 years, which the Dharma declined

The parinirvana of Buddha was at approx. 400 BCE, so now we are in the Degenerate Age of Dharma, when less and less people believe in Buddha’s teachings and the world becomes more and more degenerated.

There is a Buddhist sutra that talked about the degenerated world of current Age – The Sutra of the Total Annihilation of the Dharma. This is a heavy-hearted sutra, and it talked about the decadence and lust of men in the latter days:

When the Dharma is ending, women will diligently perform virtuous deeds while men will be indolent and arrogant. Men, having no faith, will not use the words in the Dharma
法欲滅時，女人精進恆作功德，男子懈慢不用法語

As kalpa is ending, the sun and moon will be unstable and the human life span will shorten. At the age of 40, one’s hair will turn white. Men indulging in sexual acts may die prematurely from depletion of their semen, or may live only to 60. While men will live short lives, women will live long, to 70, 80, 90, or even 100 years of age
劫欲盡故，日月轉短、人命轉促，四十頭白，男子淫佚、精盡夭命、或壽六十，男子壽短，女子壽長、七八九十或至百歲

Buddha already saw the degeneration of the world of our time – most men are indulged to lust, depleting semen, the essence of the body and die prematurely. And we also see women started improving themselves nowadays, doing yoga, practicing meditation, learning ancient wisdom, and pursuing spirituality.

But why it is still a degenerate age when women is doing good? Below is just my opinion, no discrimination – Men tend to think more independently while women tend to be submissive. So the Devil first makes men decay, so they have no power to fight against the Devil. It’s similar to an army eliminating the soldiers (young men) of a country first; others would be easily under its rule.

That is why in this period of time, it is especially crucial for us as men to awake and fight against the Devil. We must not allow the Devil to rule the world. We must stay alert, on one hand fight against degenerate values of our society, on the other hand help those around us to awake and fight. Stay hard!

6 Likes
2

Explain more about Buddhism.

I am Hindu. I want to know more about Buddhism.

2 Likes
3

I think Hindu and Buddhism are similar, in my knowledge the ultimate goal of Hindu should be union with Brahma, while for Buddhism it is experiencing Emptiness. Give me some time to arrange and I’ll talk about some aspects of Buddhism :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
4

Sure bro? So many of them are 304s

1 Like
5

That’s interesting. Hindu ages are very different from Buddhist ones.

2 Likes
6

Today I would like to share another Buddhist sutra that talked about the degenerate world nowadays, which is the Shurangama Sutra (楞嚴經). This is a very important sutra in Chinese Buddhism, and the Shurangama Mantra in the sutra is regarded as the king of all mantras.

Let’s see how the sutra talked about lust during the Degenerate Age of Dharma:

After my extinction, in the Dharma-ending Age, these hordes of demons will abound, spreading like wildfire as they openly practice greed and lust. Claiming to be virtuous friends, they will cause living beings to fall into the pit of love and views and lose the way to enlightenment.
我滅度後末法之中，多此魔民熾盛世間，廣行貪淫為善知識，令諸眾生落愛見坑，失菩提路

Here Buddha explained the root cause of the world today being so degenerated – there are actually demons controlling the world. The age we are in, the Dharma-ending Age, is the period when the demons are ruling the world. And the Buddha’s prophecy is true, nowadays advertisements, dramas, social media, online games, everything are filled with sensual and suggestive contents, the promotion of lust is spreading like wildfire.

Even worse, the value is distorted nowadays. In ancient times, a man is honored for his respect to women, but now people envy those men having affairs with many women. And many others appreciate those who share lustful contents, some of them even without consent from the people involved. The demons become ‘virtuous friends’ (善知識, Kalyāṇa-mitra), the demonic value becomes the norm, and the ancient wisdom is abandoned.

Brothers, as we are here fighting against PMO, I hope we all can uphold the true values taught by our ancestors, and defend against the distorted values nowadays. Wish we all get back the purity and positivity we once have!

2 Likes
7

Ok thats quite insightful
Also
As per hinduism it is the age of kalyug where the evil will grow and people will start questioning about the existence of god

Also as per jainism the period are called as aara and currently we are in 5th aara where there is dharm but less compared to previous 4 aara
And this is the last aara where people will worship god whether it is for greed or anything only few will do it to for enlightenment

Also it is said that currently everything from 1st aara till 6th will go in downward way
Like the height of people will keep going down (except few exceptions)
The age and all will be less
Also during this time
Women would start to sexualise themselves more (not the exact words of teachings but thats the best way i can explain)
Its also being said 6th aara will be the worst where
People will fight on daily basis for food and water
People will kill each other for food as there will be scarcity of it
And the weather will be at worst
There will be many calamities etc

Im sure that all these things will be there in buddhism and other sanatan philosphies just explained differently…

3 Likes
8

Been going on since the turn of the millenium.

3 Likes
9

When I was a child, learning Buddhism in history class felt shitty af. I thought why we must learn about this guy who left his everything and became a good person when he had luxuries.

But now I am 23 and idk, whenever I see buddha statues or anything related to buddha, I just become very positive. Around 6 months ago I told my parents to buy a buddha statue from shop. They bought the buddha but it was only his head. Anyways I was and still am happy. I still feel happy and enlightened when I see buddha sitting on top of the god worshiping room. At night his head lights up due to inbuilt light option.

Get enlightened people :joy: :relieved: :relieved:
https://www.youtube.com/live/it7rQh4HtO4?si=sAT_zWK6_v-hWOTp

2 Likes
10

I also bought a statue of Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara recently, and I found myself getting healthier and more positive these days, probably due to the blessing of Buddha.

It’s surprising to me that your school taught Buddhism. Seems most of Indians are Hindus. But is Indian Buddhism similar to Chinese Buddhism? Have you heard of the sutras that I mentioned above?

1 Like
11

Nope, idk, it differs from person to person and if u were thought about it

12

It’s actually local culture/teachings intertwined with Buddhism.
Hindu-Buddhist culture spread from South Asia to southeast and east Asia. There were multiple waves of spreading. Buddhism rejected the Hindu/Vedic deities originally, so let’s say there was first a Buddhist wave spread in east and southeast Asia which didn’t revere the Hindu gods. Later though, another wave of Hinduism spread too so the Buddhists from there adopted Hindu deities and it became a syncretic culture of local customs + Hinduism + Buddhism.

Thus there are differences as well as similarities if we compare Chinese (or Japanese) Buddhism vs Indian Buddhism.

For example this deity is originally a Hindu goddess Saraswati, but with the Japanese name and got intertwined with the Buddhism of Japan.

I revere her myself as she’s the goddess of knowledge. I have mentioned her in my post.

There’s also Japanese version of Ganesha (elephant headed God) and Yama (God of death and justice, and one of my beloved)

1 Like
13

There’s also Tibetan Buddhism, with Dalai Lama as its head.
Myanmar also has its own version but I think it is mostly similar to Tibetan one.

I guess you can compare it with sects of Christianity like Catholics vs protestants, or Sunni vs Shia Islam.
You can see similarities as well as differences.

Other countries from south-east Asia like Thailand, Laos and Cambodia still have a strong Hindu presence today and it is again intertwined with Buddhism.

Cambodia has the largest Hindu temple in the world instead of India :rofl::rofl:

Then some other countries don’t follow these religions but have majority as Islam or Christianity (Indonesia and Malaysia is majorly Muslim and Phillipines is largely Catholic) but if we go back 4-5 centuries back we can still find high influence of Sanskrit terms. We can see this effect on their cuisines as well.

Basically it’s a big soup.

1 Like