looks like I'm gonna have to get into Daoist neidan if I'm gonna be serious about this whole "trying not to die" thing

@nyx whatever keeps you alive, I endorse

@nyx Were all of the previous times you brought up `compounding the golden elixir` just ironic

@lvvhate no I just have been putting off jumping into this rabbit hole because of other priorities but it probably will pay off over the long term to start doing neidan alongside whatever else I'm doing

@nyx nyx get mummified in ritual dedication to the ancient god Pangu

@ink I do think often about becoming a sokushinbutsu lol

@nyx nyx at the hibachi buffet station testing the sushi meat temperature with a thermometer, the glass breaks, mercury gets into the rice wine...her martial arts mentor chuckles and reminds her of an old immortality potion, he takes a sip

@nyx i dont know what that means or entails but please stay safe.

@nyx
do you have any idea how batshit sokushinbutsu is from a buddhist perspective
at best there is an argument for long running ascetic suicide practices involving starvation as entry into nirvana, these were deeply heterodox

at some point a guy started consuming and developing a tolerance for the poison actions of furniture grade lacquer through buddhist practice and combined the literal lacquer chemical buildup at the metabolic level in their tissue as a slow immune barrier

@ink oh yeah I mostly just think it's cool as like an edgy meme thing, according to the resident Buddhists on here it's kind of a fundamentally incorrect practice I think? idk I don't know much about Buddhism lol

@nyx @ink idk there is precedent for suicide practices in the sutras. mostly it was self-immolation vows i think based on the example of medicine king bodhisattva from the lotus sutra. idk where sokushinbutsu came from. personally i think it's a violation of the first precept against killing but there are probably arguments to be made in favor of it

@unmind @ink I think it might've been georgia who posted something about this cc @georgia

@nyx @ink @unmind yeah ive mentioned that Guatama Buddha himself advocated against severe forms of asceticism including prolonged starvation and mortification of the flesh after his enlightenment. the Japanese Buddhist living mummies were fundamentally a violation of both. I know more about hinduism though and while suicide is prohibited in orthodox hinduism there are forms of suicide that are recommended for non-brahmin varnas (with the contemporary understanding that they cant perform renunciation) in two or three sannyasa class upanishads. I can't remember the specifics (i dont believe they are divinely inspired so its kind of in one ear out the other, but iirc it was basically "do something incredibly reckless, willingly enter fire, drown yourself" or some such) but it was quite jarring to read in an otherwise innocuous upanishad about the trappings of and practices of a sannyasin. of course, I should mention that much more prominent in hindu thought is Krishna's condemnation against mortification of the flesh as a tamasic practice in the Bhagavad Gita. he calls it a crime against the atman within. now as far as suicide in dharmic religion goes one must with proper caveating mention mahasamadhi. that is, the highest form of samadhi where an enlightened yogi liberated while living enters samadhi and uses his/her complete control of prana to consciously leave their body for good, joining with Brahman. this is similar to suicide but it sort of the opposite--it is not done out of despair or infirmity but out of a desire to achieve perfect final unity with God.