That is the ancient path, the ancient road, traveled by the Rightly Self-awakened Ones of former times. And what about Stoicism? It is a philosophy that stresses the importance of being in accordance with nature and accepting all of the things that happen in life.
The Stoic philosopher Epictetus advocated an unconditional surrender to the course of nature. The Stoics also teach that one should always have their attention focused on the present moment, exactly like Buddhism. As the Stoic scholar Patrick Ussher has observed on the Stoicism Today blog, these lines from Marcus Aurelius would resonate with any Buddhist practitioner:. In Stoicism, virtue is the only good and vice is the only thing that is bad. Wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance are the four cardinal virtues in Stoicism.
As Seneca wrote in Letter 76 in his famous Letters from a Stoic,. Stoic ethics are based on using reason to free yourself from passion. It is because of passion, not reason, that people judge the events that happen to them as good or bad, when most of these are indifferent.
One of the key tenets and guiding principles of Stoicism is of being indifferent to both pain and pleasure, which is a way of conquering both. Similar to Buddhism, Stoicism advises against being ruled and enslaved by desire. Stoicism teaches that all people have value and denies the importance of wealth and social status. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus taught that one should be a dedicated philanthropist, because we are creations of a generous and giving God.
Rationality is the key to virtue and happiness but not a happiness conditional on outside events , while passion is sure to lead to suffering and vice. This is similar to Buddhism, where desire is what causes suffering, however for the Buddhist it is the renunciation of desire rather than reason which is the key to enlightenment. In regards to the self, according to Buddhist teachings, there is no self, all nature is one and our perceived separation from anything else is an illusion.
The Stoics also believe that the entire universe is one, and that it is filled with a divine essence or God. Buddhist ethics revolve around karma, which means that good or bad acts result in better or worse lives when a person is reborn.
The doctrines of Buddhism are profound; they are almost reasonable, and historically they have been the least harmful and the least cruel. But…Buddhism does not really pursue the truth; it appeals to sentiment and, ultimately, tries to persuade people to believe in doctrines which are based on subjective assumptions not objective evidence.
The Stoics do not believe in reincarnation and place emphasis on accepting death as an important part of the natural process of the world.
We should also pause and say that this book is part of a larger project: you have for some time now been kind of resurrecting Stoicism. I think it makes perfect sense for a relatively secular age when people are looking for philosophies to live by. The reason I got into it initially was a combination, as it often is in these cases, of serendipity and choices.
One of the things I was doing is looking for some time for a better, more organic philosophy of life. I grew up Catholic, [but] was done pretty early, when I was a teenager. And then for a number of years I considered myself a secular humanist—to some extent I still do—but the problem is that secular humanism increasingly felt more like a laundry list of things that I liked, really, than an actual organic philosophy.
And so I was kind of dissatisfied; this was a number of years ago. And finally, through secular humanism, I rediscovered, if you will, virtue ethics A lot of secular humanists are into virtue ethics, in particular Epicureanism or Some of them are into Epicureanism because of the metaphysics of the Epicureans: the idea that the cosmos came out of random chaos of atoms and things like that.
And also, even though Epicurus was not an atheist, he certainly was at the very least a deist. He thought that Those are, according to Epicureanism, inventions that are exploited by other people to make us fear things and do things that we don't necessarily want to do. So I did explore a little bit of Aristotelianism, a little bit of Epicureanism, and I wasn't quite satisfied with either one of them In the case of Aristotelianism, it tends to be a little bit of an aristocratic philosophy.
Aristotle said that, yeah, the eudaemonic life, the life worth living, is mostly a life of virtue, but you also need a few other things: you need to have a little bit of wealth, a little bit of education, a little bit of good looks, even. Epicurus was interesting; he said a lot of things that that certainly resonated with me, but Epicurean philosophy is also detached from social engagement and political engagement, because the main point was to decrease pain throughout life, especially of the emotional kind.
Epicurus thought that if you if you get yourself involved in social issues and politics, you're definitely going to ask for it, so don't do it, and I don't think that a good human life is acceptable without a social and political involvement. So I was kind of looking around and maybe even making up my own little version of things.
But out of curiosity, I signed up for it and so for a week, I was practicing. Let me let me continue for a little bit longer. I need to think and learn more about this stuff. Let me commit to another year.
One thing that Buddhism and Stoicism have in common is an emphasis on maintaining equanimity in the face of circumstances that might be considered adverse.. That's the ideal? And is there,, I don't want to say a ranking system Is that right?
Yeah, that's about right. I mean, the figure of the sage in Stoicism is a little bit controversial, even among the ancient Stoics. Some of them seem to say that the sage is just an idea, or it's not something that anybody can actually reach in their lifetimes. Now that leads to a question.
First of all I would say there's very much a similar kind of argument, at least in Western Buddhism In Asian Buddhism, I don't think there's any doubt that enlightenment is in theory attainable; certainly the Buddha reached it.
But in Western Buddhism And you have this same argument there. So Christianity has original sin: we inherited the sin.. Buddhism has something comparable; the idea is you are born with some degree of confusion about the actual nature of reality and liberation, or just alleviation from suffering, will lie in dispelling the confusion, the ignorance, and getting a clearer view of reality.
So there's a theory about why we suffer to begin with. Does Stoicism have something like that? The Stoics do have something like that. Now, it's not indifferent in the sense that you don't literally care about it -- in fact, that's what the Stoics introduced this distinction between preferred and dispreferred indifference.
This wonderful oxymoronic phrase does help in making a fundamental point, which is: [therea are] certain things you do want to go after, the same things that Aristotle and everybody else will value: you know, education, wealth, friends all that sort of stuff.
And other things you want to stay away from as much as possible: poverty, sickness, and so on and so forth. But all of those, both the positive and the negative ones, are indifferent, meaning that they are not the things that make your life worth living. What makes your life worth living is right judgment and behaving as a person that is concerned about his or her moral integrity.
That's what makes your life worth living. You should be detached from them, you should really not care about them. Okay, so the basic distinction between things that are in your control and things are not, is reflected in the Christian serenity prayer, right? That's right, and the serenity prayer is actually fairly recent. It was introduced by a theologian in the early part of the 20th century. I don't think a big deal is explicitly made of that distinction in Buddhism, in part because the aspiration in Buddhism is so radical: to be able to be indifferent to all forms of adversity.
There isn't as much emphasis on reaching out and controlling the things you can. I should say that, of course, Buddhism is so diverse and far-flung, and because it has been a living and geographically spreading tradition ever since 2, years ago But with that as a caveat Let me stop you there for a second.
When I'm asked by people about the similarities between Stoicism and Buddhism, other than telling them that I don't have expertise in Buddhism, that I only read a few things and I talked to a few people like you, I also tell them that [this is] one of the major differences in terms of cultural tradition.
The first similarity is the set of practices that lead to happiness. The Buddhists have the Eightfold Path, which consists of 8 practices: right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right samadhi samadhi can be translated loosely as meditation.
By following the Eightfold Path we release ourselves from the bondage of attachment to earthly pleasures as well as our endless mental chatter and reach a state of liberation. The Buddhists call this liberation nirvana, which means enlightenment. To attain nirvana we must abstain from certain things and embrace others; we are to keep our desires for sensual pleasure in check, do the right thing and act wisely instead of foolishly.
This is surprisingly similar to the Stoic system of virtue and vice. For the Stoics, happiness means living in accordance with nature, which they call eudaimonia. Eudaimonia can be attained by the following of virtue and staying away from vice.
Stoic virtue can be subdivided into wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation. While there are differences between the Buddhist and Stoic pursuit of happiness; both traditions revolve around practices to end suffering and reach inner peace. In Buddhism, the root of suffering lies in the three poisons: delusion, desire, and aversion. Desiring food and water is necessary to some extent, otherwise, we would not survive.
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