Leading a proper life, following proper conduct, achieving spiritual enlightenment .
Extra : There is no god in Buddhism, also it is only a practice but I don't know why people take it as a religion which means it can be practiced by all people of different religions.
No, its not nihilistic. It just seeks truth. In fact, Dali Lama is active in investigating quantum physics and the big bang. "Right view" is one of the 8-fold path and involves seeing the world as it actually is.
No. A nihilist would deny there can be knowledge. A Buddhist will simply tell you knowledge is not the point.
The point, to a Buddhist, is liberation from suffering. This is what spirituality is all about.
The rest is a distraction, including metaphysical speculations as to immortality, the nature of the self, the creation of the world, etc...
The Buddha taught that these questions didn't lead anywhere and were mere distractions.
No it is not. The Buddha cautioned against nihilistic beliefs. Including a belief in only one life then nothing. Which is called annihilation's. You may have heard from the westernized garbage Buddhisms. The Semi Buddhisms, the Diet Coke Buddhisms, the splendor Buddhisms, the Buddhisms that are almost Buddhism but are not.
The point of Buddhism is to overcome the sufferings of birth, aging, sickness, and death. And live happy lives. In the Master's old teachings, in his early career, he said that suffering comes from desire,
in his latter teachings, he said that suffering comes from ignorance, and living a life based on ignorance of the true nature of all things. You can understand that nature of all things by meditating and other practices. In his early years, he taught according to the "listeners ear", meaning according to the student's ability to understand, in his later teachings (the lotus Sudra) he taught from HIS own experience. Because he knew he was only years from dying. But in none of these stages, did he teach nihilism or even the value of nihilism. Buddhists are not nihilists. Although it is easy to take his early teachings, and misunderstand them as nihilism. Which is why many western converts, even monks, screw up and invent crap like "secular Buddhism". But even that is a step towards right understanding, even though they lack right understanding. THeir minds need to be opened.
The Buddha only taught one thing: what is suffering and the practice that leads to its end (aka nirvana). All his teachings point and lead to this goal. Kinda like a sweet release... a calming full stop.. where our consciousness cease to take rebirths(reincarnations) as a result of the causes to seemingly endless cycles of rebirths being totally exhausted and extinguished.
37. "So teaching, so proclaiming, O monks, I have been baseless, vainly, falsely and wrongly accused by some ascetics and Brahmans: 'A nihilist[38] is the ascetic Gotama; He teaches the annihilation, the destruction, the non-being of an existing individual.'[39]
"As I am not as I do not teach, so have I been baseless, vainly, falsely and wrongly accused by some ascetics and Brahmans thus: 'A nihilist is the ascetic Gotama; He teaches the annihilation, the destruction, the non-being of an existing individual.'
"What I teach now as before, O monks, is suffering and the cessation of suffering.
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When this was said, one of the wanderers said to Vajjiya Mahita the householder, "Now wait a minute, householder. This contemplative Gotama whom you praise is a nihilist, one who doesn't declare anything."
"I tell you, venerable sirs, that the Blessed One righteously declares that 'This is skillful.' He declares that 'This is unskillful.' Declaring that 'This is skillful' and 'This is unskillful,' he is one who has declared [a teaching]. He is not a nihilist, one who doesn't declare anything."
What is the *point* of Buddhism. Is it nihilistic?
