Other religions – just ask you to believe based on “faith”, or whatever is written in a book.

I think the Buddha views self-pleasuring on the same level as eating too much. He would just “tut tut”, wag a finger and say, “It’s OK, I know humans have desires. I’m not sending you to hell, because you’ve already kind of punished yourself by taking time away from other ways of being happy or being selfless. So think about that if you do it too much.” Or at least that’s what Thai Budhist monks would say. Smilingest monks on the planet, those guys, esp. Ajahn Brahm in Australia.

The Prajñāpāramitā you mentioned, actually is a syllabus of sorts, and certain sections is tailored only for monks, certain sections only for normal folk. We don’t need to know about all the different branches. If it gets boring, you just skip to the good parts or change books!!

The basic teachings of Buddha is pretty simple though – don’t need no extra material. But the understanding and practising this material should already take up quite a bit of brain space!

YEah, you guys started it!! :D

To delve too much into the different branches, to be overly academic about it – is like admiring the menu, instead of enjoying and eating the food that the menu points to! Or like admiring the capacitors on a motherboard, instead of using the machine to enjoy the wonder of the Internet or a game! The first involves at least a bit of scrunching of the brow and a lot of focus on the details, the latter is just.. fun and might make other people happy too.

Even with that, saying that they are “distinct in a relative sense”, but are the same from an “absolute perspective of the enlightened mind” seems to be an impressive and verbose way of saying “an apple is different from an orange – but they are both fruits to a smart person”. Don’t get me wrong, I understand what you are getting at – and it is an interesting point. But somehow I think only two of us cares hahaha.
 

I’ll get my coat.

Well, if there are any Turkish boingboingers, or any planning a trip to Istanbul, I suppose they could go look for it–those old tablets should be in the “old eastern works museum” at the Istanbul Archaeological Museums. Interesting though that this version, from someone who claims to have actually seen the tablet, doesn’t mention the part about “every man wants to write a book”, it’s just quoted as saying:

We have fallen upon evil times
and the world has waxed very old and wicked
Politics are very corrupt
Children are no longer respectful to their parents.

At first the earliest cite that would turn up from the 1926 ‘Report of the Commissioner of Industrial and Vocational Education’ for California: http://books.google.com/books?id=uQMZAQAAIAAJ&pg=RA6-PA34&dq=tablet+earth+degenerate+2800#v=onepage&q=%20degenerate%202800&f=false
Another copy of the quote was in an essay by the State Librarian of Connecticut, in the 50th anniversary ALA review in 1923.

G.T.W. Patrick, of the University of Iowa, claimed in a book published in 1913 to have seen such an inscription himself in a museum in Constantinople, attributed to the King Naram Sin
http://books.google.com/books?id=Yf8KAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA493#v=onepage&q&f=false
(and there’s your 3800BC date, BTW)  The name of Isabel Dodd, a female archaeologist living in Constantinople, kept coming up in interesting connections; she was on the faculty at the School for Girls, and Patrick’s sister was the founder of the school.

But then someone found a cite from 1908: http://books.google.com/books?id=o6pXAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA235&dq=%28constantinople|istanbul%29+%28papyrus|tablet%29+%22no+longer%22+%22write+a+book%22&client=firefox-a&cd=5#v=onepage&q=%28constantinople|istanbul%29%20%28papyrus|tablet%29%20%22no%20longer%22%20%22write%20a%20book%22&f=false

… and the date for the first appearance of “The Quote” started getting pushed back further and further.  IIRC though, we never did manage to find out if there was some actual (mis)translation of a specific actual tablet (Assyrian, Sumerian, Chaldean, or whatever) in that museum.

In a book of archaeology published in 1898, I stumbled across a mention of an actual translation of a tablet in Sumerian from Abu Habba, translated as saying: “Whoever shall distinguish himself at the place of tablet-writing shall shine as the light.”  http://books.google.com/books?id=iZgXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA86#v=onepage&q&f=false  As scribe was a high-status occupation, it seems possible that some tablet of the time might have written “Everybody wants to become a writer of tablets [scribe]” which a reader of a modern translation might easily have converted to “Everybody wants to write a book” and muddled it together with other “everything sux” sentiments.

If by “conventional Buddhism” you mean the Hinayana schools, or the “relative” teachings of the Mahayana schools, then yes. But in the Mahayana schools (which include things like Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, there is an important teaching that samsara (the cycle of existence) and nirvana are only distinct in a relative sense, but they are really the same thing from the “absolute” perspective of the enlightened mind (which in some sense is the common basic nature of all of us, even for people who from the relative perspective appear unenlightened…though from the absolute perspective there aren’t really an separate selves to begin with). See the perfection of wisdom as well as absolute and relative truth (also known as the two-truths doctrine) There’s also this article which compares these ideas to some from Western philosophy, and to me they also seem related to the philosophy of Bradley (I like these connections because they suggest to me that these ideas aren’t pure mystic paradoxes, that to a degree they can also be understood conceptually)

P.S. It’s your turn to be the debbie downer. :D

Prajñāpāramitā is a Mahayana focus, and does include the Four Noble Truths. For most of us normal folks not trying to be monks, just trying to get a lark out of life and do some good for people around us, the Four Noble Truths is already good enough, no?

“Good enough” : another Buddhist concept. Do your best, and that is good enough. Understand that everyone is trying to do their best in their circumstance – that makes it easy to forgive (Love your enemies, Jesus said), or to provide service to help them change their circumstance.

Actually, in conventional Buddhism there is a huge difference between this world and “eternity”, if I understand correctly what you imply by “eternity”. The ultimate state of being would to be in nirvana/nibbana/nothingness/peace, or “no rebirth”, to take yourself out of the cycle of existence in this world. By our very existence in this world and not in “eternity”, we will suffer – so the crux of Buddha’s teachings is on how to deal with the suffering and how to be happy.
How to be happy according to the Four Noble Truths: accept that there will be “suffering”, understand that the cause of “suffering” is uncontrolled attachment, know that “suffering” can be dealt with, how to deal with “suffering” and be happy.

Were we all in the bathroom or something?

What, you’re rioting? MILITARY OCCUPATION

(At least they’re not facing Princess Trollestia; What, you’re rioting? BANISHED TO THE MOON)

Just sayin.

There are a few indications of shenanigans about this quote.