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Noah Rasheta on Stoicism vs. Buddhism (Episode 161)
464 Plays2 days ago
Author and Podcaster Noah Rasheta explores the parallels between Buddhism and Stoicism with Michael Tremblay.
Whether you're seeking practical wisdom or philosophical insight, this conversation offers tools for living more skillfully – regardless of which tradition resonates with you.
From handling grief and identity to achieving wisdom, we uncover where these philosophies converge and diverge.
Noah breaks down core Buddhist concepts like the three poisons (desire, aversion, and ignorance) and the practice of mindful awareness, and Michael talks about how these ideas map onto Stoic ideas about reflection and living according to nature. He shares personal stories about losing his business identity and finding peace during difficult parenting moments.
Whether you're seeking practical wisdom or philosophical insight, this conversation offers tools for living more skillfully – regardless of which tradition resonates with you.
(01:24) The Goal Of Life
(13:11) Judging Ourselves
(19:23) Habitual Responses
(25:04) The Middle Way
(30:44) Identity
(43:37) Wisdom
(54:00) Practice
***
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Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/
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Transcript
Enhancing Life Skills and Self-Examination
00:00:00
Speaker
That's how I approach all of these things. Any little tool that I'm like, Oh, I'm adding that to my little toolkit to try to live life more skillfully. I think that's for me, that really is like the end.
00:00:13
Speaker
The end goal of all this is i just I'm trying to continually examine my life and and myself and and be like, could I be doing this a little more skillfully? Because I don't know if I ever get another chance, um but right I know that I have the chance right now. It's happening right now, so how can I make the best of it?
Stoicism vs. Buddhism: An Introduction
00:00:34
Speaker
Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Stoa Conversations. I'm Michael Trombley, and on this episode I talk with Noah Rashida on comparing Stoicism and Buddhism. Noah is the host of the Secular Buddhism Podcast, a show dedicated to helping people incorporate Buddhism into their life. As Noah describes it in this episode, you don't have to use Buddhism to become a Buddhist, just to become better at whatever you are.
00:00:59
Speaker
Noah is an expert at breaking Buddhism down into digestible examples, and I really enjoyed our conversation. In this episode, we cover the goal of Buddhism and Stoicism, what makes people happy or unhappy, and some of the major similarities between the two schools, along with a few points of disagreement. I hope you enjoy it.
Philosophical Foundations: Comparing Stoicism and Buddhism
00:01:20
Speaker
Hi, Noah. How are you doing?
00:01:23
Speaker
Good, how about you? Yeah, doing really well. um I was just talking before we started recording, exciting to have this conversation. I think Buddhism is... ah I mean, it's a philosophy that seems to me have a lot in common with stoicism from what I've read about it, but I think like anything else, theres you have ah I maybe have a surface level understanding of Buddhism. um We've had you on the show before, you had a great conversation with Caleb, but And I wanted to have you back on and talk a bit about bit more of a focus on comparing Buddhism and Stoicism as life philosophies, maybe how they they differ, how they ban bounce off each other, um and getting into the ah the both at a high level and then maybe in the nitty-gritty of some of the practice. So jumping into that, I guess to start things off, really big question.
What is Buddhism's Ultimate Goal?
00:02:11
Speaker
But in your view, what is the the end goal of Buddhism? Or what is the what is the point of Buddhism?
00:02:19
Speaker
Well, so I think true traditionally what you would hear as the answer to that question is liberation, the concept of nirvana, um freedom to be liberated. But then the the question becomes about liberated of what or you know enlightenment, what does it actually mean? I think from from my understanding of the teachings and the concepts and putting everything into practice,
00:02:47
Speaker
I think it's essentially a liberation from habitual reactivity. you know we We get caught up in a way of living where we're much more reactive than we know we are. Thoughts trigger emotions, emotions might trigger feelings, those feelings might trigger words and actions, and then we we're caught in the cycle of habitual reactivity.
00:03:09
Speaker
And I think ah ah Buddhism as a philosophy comes along with the goal of liberating us from that way of living to be able to have a much more deliberate way of living ah where you can be intentional with your actions and and with your thoughts and words.
00:03:29
Speaker
ah That's what it means to me. that This concept of enlightenment is liberation from habitual reactivity, culminating in a greater sense of of inner peace.
Happiness in Stoicism and Liberation in Buddhism
00:03:40
Speaker
And um what's interesting to me for that is, so Stoicism is, ah they would say, the goal It's either happiness or virtue and those are really intertwined and I think the the way you get to happiness is through virtue. You can't have one without the other. But we we talk about stoicism as a eudemonistic philosophy, um which is just a a philosophy based in achieving happiness. and The ancient Greek philosophers in in the Western tradition, they were just arguing about what happiness entails or the best way to get there. When I was listening to you, that what I thought was interesting was that you don't use the word
00:04:17
Speaker
happiness. you You did say inner peace at the end, which seems like subjectively pleasant, but is liberation different from happiness? Is that intentionally language you're not using?
00:04:29
Speaker
Yeah, from so from the Buddhist perspective, all things are impermanent, emotions are impermanent, and happiness as an emotion is is ah simply ah an emotion that has causes, like all things, has causes and conditions. When the causes and conditions are there, happiness is there. But it's not pursued as the end goal ah because pursuing anything that is impermanent, wanting it to be permanent ah would ultimately be the source of unhappiness. you know like It's almost like you know the notion of the pursuit of happiness that we we talk about in Western society
00:05:13
Speaker
Buddhism would say freedom from the pursuit of happiness might actually be a more skillful way to approach it. You allow it to arise when it's there, but you don't attach to it or cling to it because you know that it can come and go. So a more common way to phrase it from a Buddhist perspective would be joy or contentment or inner peace.
00:05:39
Speaker
But yeah, so that, I think that applies when you're thinking about happiness as the emotion, because if you're, there will be times that you won't be happy, but you could be content with whatever you're feeling. And in that sense, I could be content when I'm happy and I could be content when I'm sad because I'm okay with being sad.
Understanding Suffering in Buddhism
00:05:57
Speaker
For example, if I'm mourning the loss of my pet or a loss of a loved one, I might not be experiencing happiness, but I could still be experiencing contentment.
00:06:08
Speaker
Yeah, interesting. There's so many ways, i want to so many directions I want to take that. um So there's this subjective experience of like feeling good. right And I think that's getting that's getting called happiness. And I think most people mean that when they say happiness. In stoicism, happiness is is not necessarily the subjective state of pleasure. It is this idea of like fulfillment or ah actualization of the best parts of yourself. It's really like ah like living well.
00:06:42
Speaker
Um, which I think as you pointed out would allow some fluctuations, right? Like it would allow crying for the death of a loved one, but it it it wouldn't, it wouldn't allow. a kind of um anger or frustration with the state of the world. you know At that point, you're not really living living your best life, but it but it is allow it is it does allow things like this is something I would prefer not to happen. And so I'm wondering what what what that contentment, I guess, in the Buddhist picture looks like and how that... you know When you say you can be content, you know but sad,
00:07:17
Speaker
Does that just mean you're not having these kind of meta judgments or these meta frustrations about wanting things to be different? What does it mean to be content but sad? I guess is my question. Yeah, no, that's a good question. I think it does stem from... So if we think about suffering, that the premise of so much of what Buddhism teaches and talks about is around the understanding of suffering and ah minimizing or or eliminating suffering. But then you would start to go in and and kind of
00:07:51
Speaker
address what what forms of suffering. It's you're still gonna feel pain when you stub your toe. So pain, you know, is pain suffering, you'd have to ah you'd have to separate that out. And when we're talking about suffering, in this sense, we're talking about um unnecessary suffering, the suffering that we usually add to cool um what would be natural suffering, like loss of a loved one as an example. So in that sense, when we want things to be other than how they are, that feeling that arises, if we call that suffering,
00:08:26
Speaker
That's the kind of suffering that we're trying to understand in and Buddhism.
What are Skillful Means?
00:08:32
Speaker
So using the example of losing losing a loved one, when I was going through the but my the loss of my dad, he he died of cancer about three years ago.
00:08:42
Speaker
going through that experience, you know you you feel all the intensity of of loss and and sadness and crying. But what I noticed or recognized was no aversion to what I was feeling. And I feel like sometimes when you feel deep sorrow or sadness,
00:09:01
Speaker
You feel bad that you feel bad. And that's that secondary layer that that Buddhism is trying to isolate and say, hold on, part of this is natural and a part of what you're feeling is not. It's unnecessary and it's self-inflicted.
00:09:15
Speaker
And that's what we strive to eliminate. ah So in that sense, experiencing contentment, um i don't know I don't even know if contentment is the right word, but being ah being okay with what you're feeling is what I was feeling when I was you know crying for my dad and people are there. I didn't feel apologetic like, oh, I'm sorry, you have to see me crying. It's like, no, I'm crying because my dad died. And when if you lost the person you loved, you would be crying too. like So in that sense, I felt completely okay with what I was feeling. And it occurred to me, like that I think that's the essence of what this philosophy is trying to do, is trying to help us live more skillfully. That's a concept in Buddhism, skillful means, where rather than framing it as this is good or this is bad, it's like,
00:10:06
Speaker
and my Am I dealing skillfully with what
Stoic Acceptance of Nature's Course
00:10:09
Speaker
I'm dealing with? And in this case, the loss of a loved one, could I be dealing with this less skillfully? Sure. And I think one way would be being upset at the loss, but also being mad that I'm mad or or mad that I'm sad, you know?
00:10:23
Speaker
Does that make sense? It makes total sense. It also kind of inspires me. it makes I love that way of putting it in that focus. I think there's something similar in stoicism, not to try to stretch it too hard to be similar. Seneca has this lovely quote about how we suffer more in imagination than reality, and that makes me think of that unnecessary suffering, right? Something's about to happen and we bring this anxiety, oh, I don't want it to happen.
00:10:48
Speaker
what's going to happen it it when that when that thing I want to avoid comes. And now we've added this entire, we suffer twice, right? yeah And Seneca's point about how how unnecessary that is. That sounds exactly like what what you're saying. yeah Another thing to add to that, just to build on it, Stoicism has this concept of living in accordance with nature. Are you familiar with that?
00:11:15
Speaker
No, not really. Yeah, great. So it's basically, I mean, I don't want to stretch it too much, but it seems to me really similar at least on the surface of Essentially, the happy good life is one in which you will live in accordance with the way things are. That's what nature what's meant by nature, the nature of the universe. not you know That includes ah plants and animals, but they they don't mean... The word there is literally the the word we use for physics today. It's fusis, the state of the universe. right And so their their point is that you become unhappy when you actually... you You get a bad flow of life, when you get out of alignment
00:11:53
Speaker
with the flow of the universe and if we use the example of ah the passing of a loved one. If you don't, Epictetus has all these examples. he's He's a famous stoic where he talks about, you know you need to remind yourself that the people you love are mortal. You need to remind yourself that the people you love will die. And the point of that exercise is not it's not a morbid one. It's not a depressing one. It's to get into a alignment with the way things are, to not lose perspective of the fact of the matter, which is that the people you love are mortal and will die either before or after you.
00:12:23
Speaker
And so that's what the stoics are. I think they're attacking that unnecessary suffering where if someone passes and and you, there, there is a kind of grief that comes with that. Um, a sadness that comes with that necessarily, but when it hits you as a shock or something unfathomable or something that, uh, you know, you wear.
00:12:47
Speaker
I guess, not at all prepared to encounter. ah theres there's There's almost this... um you know you The stokes would say, well, that's that's something that you could have done, ah I guess, to use the so the language of Buddhism, could have more skillfully really prepared for that moment as well by um you know understanding the way things are, understanding the the state of nature. um does that Does that resonate with what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah, it does. I think that resonates really well.
00:13:14
Speaker
and the you know The nature of of losing someone you love is to experience sorrow. So allowing yourself to be at one with the nature of whatever experience you're going through, ah that makes sense. And fighting that would be absolutely adding unnecessary ah suffering to the whole thing.
How do Stoicism and Buddhism Differ on Self-Judgment?
00:13:37
Speaker
And I think there's, I think that something that Stoics struggle with, that I think, it seems to me like Buddhism recognizes this, or your presentation of Buddhism recognizes this and gets in front of more, is I think because Stoics have, you know, there's like this skillful grief example you were giving where it's like, don't judge yourself for grieving, don't be upset with yourself for grieving. But the Stoics have this kind of preparatory aspect where it's like, you should be prepared for this, you should see it coming.
00:14:05
Speaker
And then I think people can judge themselves for feeling those emotions because they feel like, oh, I didn't prepare enough. I'm not being a good stoic because it's it's hurting me so much. I guess what's kind of the what is the Buddhist answer to that question? if Is there any a point where you should be upset with yourself for being like, I'm not being a good Buddhist here? Or is it the same kind of thing of, about well, don't judge yourself for not being a good Buddhist in the moment. Work on that later. How do you deal with that tension?
00:14:35
Speaker
Yeah, so I think sometimes that seems like human nature want to want to judge be harsh and judge ourselves. um There's a heavy emphasis in Buddhism on being um present to whatever whatever you're experiencing. and Mindfulness, for example, as a practice is the practice of of being able to notice what's happening in the present moment without judging it. And the reason that second part is so important, the judgment part, judgment arises when when we have
00:15:09
Speaker
um concepts or ideas or beliefs around what we're experiencing. So at any given time you have the experience, ah you have your awareness of the experience, and then you have the meaning that you give to the awareness of the experience. So it's like three layers of of reality and in the present moment.
00:15:31
Speaker
And when so what that third layer, you know if I'm ah ascribing meaning to the experience that I'm ah noticing is happening, I can get caught in, for example, if I believe it's it's bad for a man to show emotions or a man to cry, that might be a societal norm I've picked up.
00:15:53
Speaker
Then here I am experiencing death, the death of a loved one. I notice that as I'm experiencing it, this is intense. I'm having strong feelings. Oh, I'm crying. And now I'm saying, oh no, everyone's going to think you know this he didn't prepare well or he he should he should contain his emotions. He shouldn't be crying. like You shouldn't do that in public. Now I'm experiencing a new layer of suffering. we We call this, in Buddhism, there's the this teaching about the two arrows, and it's kind of referring to this idea that life will present itself, and when something happens, it's like you're struck with the the pain of the first arrow. That's the experience.
00:16:33
Speaker
but then we can come along and give ourselves the pain of a second or a third or however many more arrows, because now I'm i'm crying at the loss. I'm crying that now you think I'm silly for crying, right? That that might be a new form of suffering I'm experiencing. and So taking all that and getting back to what you were saying with the the harshness, and the yeah the idea of ah feeling bad that you're not preparing well. I think from the Buddhist perspective, there's this understanding that um
00:17:04
Speaker
we don't know what's around the corner. So as it's as life unfolds, I always use the analogy of life is like a game of Tetris. You don't know what pieces is coming up next. When it does, you're experiencing that moment in time for the first and the last time simultaneously.
00:17:24
Speaker
So to say I'm not prepared, well, I've never been here before. I've never experienced this. And I'm figuring ah figuring it out for the first time and for the last time as it's happening. because the So I think that perspective gives rise to more compassion, to be like, OK, well, I handled that as well as I could have, knowing what I knew then.
00:17:49
Speaker
um But now it might be different when I experience you know the the next loss of a loved one or ah something else that I'm going to go through. So it's not really it's not really viewed from that like, how can you're doing this bad? You got to do better. It's not so much like that. It's more along the lines of I could probably handle that more skillfully and if I experienced that again.
Living Authentically in the Present Moment
00:18:15
Speaker
But how? and And that's where wisdom comes in as a as a part of the the path as well, where you're you're striving to learn and to be you know to be able to be more skillful in dealing with whatever the next Tetris piece is that's going to show up.
00:18:34
Speaker
I mean, I love that. I think that this might also be the first difference where I'm okay with saying that it seems like Buddhism is actually just a bit more compassionate or maybe a bit a bit less. i think I think people can overdo the self judgment in Stoicism, but I think there is maybe seems to me more of that judgment built in. It's probably like this in Buddhism as well. It's certainly like this where different teachers have different emphasis um and certainly Epictetus. um He's a very harsh teacher.
00:19:04
Speaker
And he he's certainly fine with with judging people. um So I like that compassion. I like that remembering that, you know could you hypothetically have engaged more skillfully? Sure, but this is your first time encountering it with a set of knowledge you have, and it's going to teach you something with the next time you encounter it. I really like that. um Moving to that idea of enlightenment as liberation from habitual responses.
00:19:31
Speaker
and skillful action. um Is this something that you have experienced? Is this something you expect to achieve that you move into and out of? Is it kind of a hypothetical goal, but something people don't reach? How do you think of that liberation as as a target for your practice?
00:19:52
Speaker
um You know, I think, to to be honest, when I first encountered Buddhism, I think it was kind of approached with like, okay, this is something I want to strive for, ah this idea of liberation, whatever it means. And I think the definition of what it means has probably evolved for me over the over the years as well. But um I think the more I've studied Buddhism, the less interested I've become in attaining any kind of uh state because to me it now it feels like it's just a concept and what I what I really am hoping to experience is um just authentic living in the present moment you know whatever that's called I feel like back going back to this notion of uh every moment is kind of a first and a last uh like this is the only time that I've got
00:20:52
Speaker
kids that are 15, 11, and nine. you know like and you know In a year, they'll they'll all be different ages. ah But but that moment to moment, that's changing. And I know that one day I won't have kids in the house. I know that one day I won't have ah the youth and energy that I have to go out and do my hobbies, like paragliding is one of my favorite hobbies. I know I won't be able to do that.
00:21:18
Speaker
um So recognizing that right now I get to experience this, whatever this is, um allows me to to enjoy it more and and not just the pleasant because I used to rank, I think I used to, like most of us, would kind of rank moments and ah on the scale of pleasant versus unpleasant. Well, I definitely want more of the pleasant and less of the unpleasant because the value of the moment was ranked on that scale. So a more pleasant moment is more valuable than an unpleasant moment.
00:21:54
Speaker
But over time, that has morphed for me, and I feel like the the the the preciousness of the moment is its uniqueness, knowing that, hey, I've never experienced this before. And that's kind of removed some of the weight of pleasant versus unpleasant, so now even, you know, I had a flat tire on a road trip and it was kind of like, okay, well, I haven't had this happen before. I was thinking, yes, it it was still inconvenient and you have to do all the things that you have to do with a flat tire. But there's a part of me that's approaching life with this bingo mentality of, Oh, here I just, I just got a new bingo number. You know, I haven't had this one before.
00:22:36
Speaker
And I feel like that that's the aim now of the practice for me is recognizing, I don't know if I'm ever going to experience this again, life the way that I'm experiencing it. So as it's unfolding, I sure hope that I'm not missing any of those little precious moments that one day I'll look back and say, I wish I would have noticed this or that. I'm trying to um make the most of it while I'm experiencing it. That's become the highlight of my focus. It's in the in the present.
00:23:06
Speaker
rather than attaining any kind of a future state.
Stoic Indifference: Is Virtue the Only Good?
00:23:10
Speaker
You're really you're really selling me on Buddhism here. this is It's really beautiful the way you're describing it. That's something I find, I don't think this is necessarily a stoic practice, but I find myself doing that as well where um maybe not as consistently as you, but let's say I fail at something or something goes poorly and I'll think, well, now I get to have the experience of failing at this, which is like not something every human gets to experience. like That's a unique
00:23:36
Speaker
Uh, that's a unique piece to my life now. And there's no point in kind of describing it. This, this value prematurely, or maybe as you said, the value is in the uniqueness and in getting to, you know, now you get to have a flat tire and a road trip story. Well, I think I remember.
00:23:52
Speaker
The first time I went through a really hard breakup, I thought, wow, now I get to like empathize with other people that have had hard breakups. Now I get to watch movies where people are really sad about being heartbroken and connect with that experience. And so there was a kind of ah there was a kind of joy to even just going through something like that in terms of um yeah experience experiencing more of what human life has to offer. And I think that's something that i mean you've emphasized really well.
00:24:20
Speaker
um And one thing I wanted to to add to that, connecting this back to stoicism now. Stoicism has this idea of indifference. And so it has this idea that the only good and bad thing is virtue or vice. you know Living well is is always good. Being a good person is always good. Being a bad person is always bad. Everything else is indifferent. So it's how you perceive how you approach it, how you think about it, how you relate to it. um The stoic answer to that or the the the the common response is like, well, are you saying it doesn't matter if I
00:24:55
Speaker
you know cut off my hand or I starve or my house burns down and the stoic answer that is to say something. Well, some of those indifference you prefer, you don't prefer. So, you know it's okay to try to avoid them.
00:25:08
Speaker
But insofar as they come about, ah they haven't actually ruined your ability to be happy. um does if if you're If we're always open and we're not ranking things, how does a Buddhist
Buddhism's Middle Way: Balancing Ambition and Acceptance
00:25:21
Speaker
prioritize their life? How does a Buddhist say, well, oh, I'm sorry for you if this bad thing happens, or I'm going to i'm gonna try to avoid this and I'm going to try to pursue this? i guess yeah How do you rank things if everything is unique and special in its own way?
00:25:37
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's ah that's a good point because I feel idealistically, yes, everything is unique, but that still doesn't take away from the fact that I don't want to stub my toe. I don't want to ah touch something hot and burn myself. um I think there's the the very real aspect of the human experience that we we have a tendency to avoid ah discomfort and to chase after things that provide comfort. you know to We want the pleasurable and and not the unpleasurable or the unpleasant.
00:26:16
Speaker
um And I think that's natural. I think it only becomes problematic when we attach our sense of contentment and happiness on only getting what we want and always avoiding what we don't want. So um a common phrase in Buddhism is, or Buddhism is ah often talked about as the the middle way or the middle path. And I think that that would apply here. It's like, yes, every moment is precious. And yes, I'm probably going to prefer some moments over others. um You know, I'd rather not go through the loss of loved ones too regularly. So finding that middle way, but not getting lost with with the extremes of I will do everything in my power to avoid discomfort for the rest of my life, or I will do everything in my power to
00:27:10
Speaker
avoid all the things that I don't want in my life. It's like, it's there's somewhere in the middle and that middle way might be different for us. I know that for myself, that middle way has fluctuated, you know, as a parent, for example, different priorities than me as a college student, uh, that I'm sure will be different for me 10 years from now. So that I'm, I'm always trying to adjust and find what is that middle way
Flexibility and Adaptability in Life's Changes
00:27:37
Speaker
for me? What is that middle path? Um,
00:27:40
Speaker
but never landing on it thinking I did it, this is it. I found the middle way because then tomorrow that middle way might be slightly more to the left or slightly more to the right. So I think part of the the practice becomes um the ability to pivot and say, well, this is what I'm dealing with right now in life and this is how I'm handling it. and But then I'm under no obligation to me to make that the norm of how I'm going to handle tomorrow based on how I handled yesterday. you know yeah this makes sense so um
00:28:13
Speaker
The middle, the middle way is this balancing between, yeah, I'm going to have ambitions and goals and targets, and I'm going to try to avoid things. Uh, but if I put all my energy in that camp, I'm sometimes going to fail. And so I'm going to have, get hit really hard with that second arrow. If I'm not expecting it or anticipating it, yeah but then it's also the middle way is the other side of the middle way apathy. Is that the like trying to control too much versus being apathetic? Is that the other side?
00:28:44
Speaker
I think so. I mean, I think the the the idea of that middle way applies on almost any extreme. That's one of the misconceptions that people will have with Buddhism, like, okay, then that means I shouldn't have any goals, I should just sit here and not care, you know? and i and i would And that's where I would bring this, I think.
00:29:05
Speaker
that's not realistic. You're going to desires, for example, cravings and desires. Like, should I just not have cravings or desires? It's like, well, if you don't eat anything for a while, guess what? You're going to be having cravings before long. So I like to say it's what you're trying to hone in is your skill and your ability to pivot because life is always changing and the more nimble you are with adjusting to the new set of cards that ah life has handed you, the more skillful and more enjoyable life will be. If you get hung up on, wait wait a second, that's not the piece I was expecting to deal with. Life threw a new curve ball at me. you know You could spend years with resentment or whatever over something that, hey, that's how quickly can you pivot and move on?
00:29:58
Speaker
Yeah, i mean i the the skill metaphor is really resonating with me.
Identity: Rational Control vs. Impermanence
00:30:03
Speaker
um is there do do the Do Buddhists, do they do they make metaphor? like One thing the Stoics do a lot is they compare um they can compare stoicism to sport. They can compare stoicism to ah art or music. they They really take it seriously as like a craft, like living well as a craft like any other. Is that is that a way that Buddhists talk about practicing practicing well?
00:30:29
Speaker
I'm not sure I've, I've really heard it quite like that, but the idea of practice, yeah, that's, that's a ah common way to talk about it. Like my practice, I'm always, I'm always practicing.
00:30:44
Speaker
And then I want to get to the day-to-day practice um in this conversation, but one thing you said earlier was this idea of flexibility. And I assume one thing that really limits people's flexibility is this question of identity. um I am this kind of person, or I do things this kind of way.
00:31:06
Speaker
This is one thing that i you know I was talking to an existentialist philosopher and this is one of the main ideas of existentialism is we put ourselves in little boxes because the actual freedom we have to be any way we want to do anything we want to do is so scary to us. We we lie to ourselves and say, no, I'm this kind of person. I couldn't possibly do that.
00:31:27
Speaker
I'm familiar with this idea of like ah deconstruction of identity in Buddhism, but how does identity play into that practical flexibility? Are you constantly trying to question these boxes you're putting yourself in? Is that something that comes up? um It does, and it comes up through the lens of ah introspection. What we're trying to continually do is understand ourselves, not not with the goal of ah changing, um i so because the default perspective from from Buddhism is that whether you want to or not, you're changing. ah Life is always changing, you are always changing. And ah when it comes to identity, there's no there's no permanent self um from the Buddhist perspective. ah So from the Buddhist perspective, this
00:32:17
Speaker
this whole experience of me experiencing what it is to be me ah is through the lens of interdependence and through the lens of impermanence. In other words, I'm always changing, but everything that I am is also dependent on other things that are not me. um An analogy here that ah to visualize this, if you take a car, for example,
00:32:41
Speaker
you could take that car apart into all of its parts, put it in the parking lot. And if I were to ask you, you know, bring me the car, not one of those pieces is the car. You can't pick one and say, this is it. This is the essence of the car. But all of them together make up the car. So in that very real way, there is such a thing as a car, but there is actually also no such thing as the car.
00:33:05
Speaker
There's engine, and there's steering wheel, and there's wheels, and all these things. But then um you can take any one of those, and it's the same thing. right Take the engine. Well, what what is an engine? Take it apart. Well, is the piston the engine? Is the rod the engine? you know um So the Buddhist perspective of self is very similar. We are made up of things that ah that are part of what makes me me, but none of those are actually me. And this would be like my physical form, my perceptions, my mental formations, my
00:33:38
Speaker
ah awareness or consciousness. like These are all aspects of me. so The idea of who am I, there is no solid answer. ah I am and then ah fill in the blank. ah so there's There's a big sense of flexibility there where what I am trying to do is understand. Why do I say what I say? Why do I do what I do?
00:33:58
Speaker
And through that ah introspection to understand myself, I may gain insight and I may realize, oh, this is why I think this sense of humor, you know, these types of jokes make me laugh. But I wouldn't identify in any of that an essence of me. And that can be quite liberating. I actually went through this in a very experiential way.
00:34:20
Speaker
When I encountered Buddhism, and um i was at the time I had a ah ah company that I had built up selling um ah mobile phone accessories like camera accessories, little flexible leg tripods and selfie sticks and stuff like that.
00:34:37
Speaker
and my business had grown. And I always had this ah view of myself as I am an entrepreneur, that's who I am. And over the course of ah that experience of um entrepreneurial venture that eventually went went under, the the whole rise of the selfie stick was also the fall of the selfie stick very quickly. But anyway, that affected my my company. and When I had to close that down, I was experiencing um an incredible sense of suffering that I didn't quite understand. It's like losing your business, having to go through bankruptcy, all these things. like Yeah, that's really ah inconvenient and and
00:35:20
Speaker
you know other ways to describe it rather than what I'm feeling, which is like the world is ending. Why am I feeling that this is such a big deal? And it occurred to me that I had fused my sense of identity with what I do. When I say I am an entrepreneur, like I genuinely felt like that's what I am. And through through Buddhism as a philosophy, I came to understand it's what I do, but it's not who I am.
00:35:48
Speaker
And that made the the pain or yeah, I guess the pain go away in and a lot of ways. I still had the inconvenience of the big life changes now happening, but it it changed my relationship with the experience of what was unfolding. and And that's when I realized that's the benefit of having a perspective like this when it comes to the sense of self. Like I i am what I do.
00:36:12
Speaker
um But there really isn't ah an answer that I could give you to say, who am I? Because that's always changing. um Even things that feel very much a sense of my identity. I'm a parent right now. I haven't always been a parent. And I'm not less authentically me now because I have kids than I was when I didn't have kids. You know what I mean?
00:36:33
Speaker
so um Yeah, so that I think is very has been very liberating in a way, this recognition that there isn't a me that I could say, this is my identity. I think it's a great example too.
00:36:49
Speaker
um
00:36:53
Speaker
I try to push that against the, compare this to stoicism now, because what with stoicism would say, stoicism would say, absolutely right, that a lot of our suffering comes from attaching our identity to the wrong thing, or attaching our identity to something that we're not. So if I think of myself, Epictetus talks about this a lot, like you you are not your body, you are not your reputation, someone insults your reputation, they haven't hurt you because you are not your reputation.
00:37:21
Speaker
um You are not what other people think of you. But the Stoics then, I always think of this as like the Stoics ah create this like really secure small thing that is your identity, which is to say you are um basically your perceptions and how you respond to those perceptions. So your the impressions you take in and the way you react to those or make use of those impressions.
00:37:50
Speaker
And then the Stoics are going to say, well, that is your identity. And if that is bad, you are harmed. You should be sad because that means you're a bad person. Not a bad person, but that means that you're not living skillfully. You're not living well.
00:38:07
Speaker
um If that's going well, then you should be happy and youre you're doing well even if you have a bad reputation, even if you've you know you've lost your job and things like that. So they kind of reduce the identity to something very small and as the folks would say, something in your control, something that's up to you, which is your response to the situations.
00:38:25
Speaker
um I guess, throwing that back to you, I mean, what would a would a Buddhist, does that resonate with you or is your perspective like, oh, well, you're still making, we're still, the Stoics are still making a mistake, still trying to hold on to that one little piece. They're almost there, but they're missing that final insight that even that could be broken apart. Now, without knowing super well the um the the thought process or the ah the deeper teachings of Stoicism? i I don't know exactly how to answer that question. I will say from the Buddhist perspective, there's a stripping down entirely of this
00:39:08
Speaker
of identity to you know ah the teaching of of
Introspection and Flexibility in Beliefs
00:39:12
Speaker
no self. like it's it's the teaching In Buddhism, it's it's a concept of like there is no permanent sense of self. And even with perceptions, where perceptions are or part of what they call the um the heaps or The skandhas is what it's called. The things that make you you, but you are not not those things. Perceptions falls into that category. An example here would be.
00:39:42
Speaker
So my eyes right can perceive a certain spectrum of light where some other creature might be able to perceive light on a spectrum that I can't, in infrared or something like that. So here I might be perceiving my reality out looking at the cosmos and my perception of reality is limited. It's it's incomplete because I can only see through the lens of what my senses allow me to perceive.
00:40:11
Speaker
But that's not an accurate depiction of what's actually there. you know Another animal might say, no, what you're seeing, like that's there's not there's so much more to see if you could see on this other spectrum. But that's not a that's not a fault of my of my doing, it's it's truly a ah limitation of the sense organs. um So with that in mind and recognizing that I can only perceive reality through what my senses allow me to perceive, that will always be incomplete. And if i if my sense of identity is tied to how I perceive reality,
00:40:46
Speaker
ah it would be ah ah faulty It would be faulty just because um I can't help how I'm configured. i I can see where a blind person can't. um I might not be able to hear what a young kid can hear when it comes to other decibels and frequencies. So knowing that I'm always limited and in in my perception of reality, I wouldn't want my sense of identity connected in any way to how I perceive.
00:41:16
Speaker
yeah I don't know if that makes sense. No, that makes a lot of sense. And I think that's something that the Stoics would hit on. It's more this, I mean, to to get into a little bit more, the Stoics have this view that, you know, rationality is divine. So there's like a hierarchy to nature. Rationality is the highest part of nature. And so we are at the top of that hierarchy, except for God. And God, um you know, is the is the universe, which is a rational living thing.
00:41:47
Speaker
And we are the most self-reflective. We are the most self-aware part of that universe. I don't think it privileges us. if If an alien came around and was also reflective, we'd be like, well, that's a reflective thing as well. um And so there's there's that fault to our perceptions, which I think you're which i think you're right, but they that they really place this emphasize on that self-reflective capability. So whereas an animal is input in output,
00:42:11
Speaker
You know, the the they receive the input and then they act on it. We have that capacity to pause, not be reactive, be reflective and say, well, I agree with that impression or I don't agree with that impression. I'm going to act on that impression or I'm going to withhold judgment until I have more information.
00:42:30
Speaker
And it so I would say the emphasis is is not so much on that those impressions because you're correct that they can be false. They can be non-representative of reality. Or even if they're true, they're only the human ah you know sense perceptions are very different than what a dog sees or you know a bird or something like this. um But what is important and critical and they would stand by is that reflexivity, that capacity to be kind of self-aware about what you're perceiving.
00:42:59
Speaker
um Yeah, so I guess that is like um that is the thing that they would more than anything else want to hold on to and It almost seems to me like that's privileged in Buddhism as well, right? Like the goal of Buddhism is also maybe not the goal I'm one of the one of the aims is that not being reflexive right that that is seen as ah as a really good thing um Yeah, so I mean, i I don't know if there's a question at the end of that, but just trying to get a sense of... I mean, trying to articulate that as the stoic position is is really placing that identity in that in that ability to self-reflect. I think from the Buddhist perspective, there's certainly there's certainly a...
00:43:43
Speaker
the understanding that, or let's call it the the path of wisdom. like there's there's There's an aspiration to have wisdom. And that's done through introspection, through observing, through recognizing, here's this thing that's happening and I'm able to be aware of it and and make sense of it. um ah The only line where that becomes tricky is you know I mentioned there's the experience, your awareness of the experience than the meaning that you give it. That that meaning is influenced by ah beliefs, ideas, or or concepts. But let's let's just call it, or opinions, however we want to frame that. but let's If you think about this in the context of beliefs, for example, um it could be that what I consider to be a virtuous action on my part um isn't
00:44:38
Speaker
but it but it's because we have a shared belief that makes it seem like it is. um Just thinking as an example, let's just say I happen to believe in and witches and curses, and then here's this person who is really doing no harm, but... Um, because they were stirring some big pot and I had bad luck that day. Now I'm thinking, Hey, the virtuous thing to do here is let's, let's hang this witch and everyone who believes in witches and and believes that, yeah, that's probably what's causing the bad luck. Could get caught up in that same mindset of doing what they think is right. That's obviously taking this to an extreme, but what I'm getting at is.
00:45:20
Speaker
The caution of thinking just because, just because my level of intelligence or my level of understanding deems that this is but a good path or a right action or something doesn't necessarily mean that it is. I would need to pause there. Like you talked about, we can pause, but we can pause about pausing too and and really think, um,
00:45:45
Speaker
That's why like skillful means as a skillful skillfulness has the word here, but could there be a
Buddhism's Three Poisons and Their Life Impact
00:45:50
Speaker
more skillful way? Am I doing the the most skillful thing? and I think in a lot of scenarios, that the honest answer is, I don't know. Maybe, but how would I know if my level of intelligence can only get me so far?
00:46:03
Speaker
if if um you know we We look at our intelligence as humans ranked and stacked down with everything that's not as intelligent, but what if there's something out there that's more intelligent, and then you know on that on that scale, we're actually like the dog, but to some other a life form.
00:46:25
Speaker
Anyway, as I was just throwing thoughts thoughts out there. I don't know what any of that is trying to point to, but i it's really I'm just trying to express my concern when I try to be introspective, like to not get to too caught up in what my thoughts might mean because I might not know.
00:46:45
Speaker
Yeah I guess like I mean trying to pull that back to really trying to slam it against stoicism again to see what we can come up with um which is really fun for me. I'm really enjoying this. What I'm hearing from that is something along the lines of like what the stoic would say is look you've got to pause, you've got to reflect, you've got to come up with a good standard by which to tell it you know is that person a witch or not. The flaw is not necessarily condemning the witch it's there there's kind of a There's a factual claim, are they actually a witch? And then a moral claim, you know what should we do with people that are witches? And if you get those wrong, then the mistake is that you were ignorant, right? The the Stoics,
00:47:24
Speaker
ah um without getting too much into it, you know virtue is seen as wisdom and vice is seen as ignorance. And so so they said the ignorance has produced this wrong response.
00:47:35
Speaker
And what I'm taking from you I think is more of a um more humility maybe than the Stokes put forward, which is to say, Well, look, like ah wisdom is actually a pretty high bar to clear, maybe not for the perfect person, maybe not in a hypothetical situation, but in a complex day to day situation, it's a pretty high bar to clear. So we should be not just, oh, I pause and okay, now I know for sure that I did the right thing because I paused and I thought about it. We should be pretty cautious about how we're coming to these decisions, what beliefs, backgrounds, biases, or informing these decisions. um b Be aiming at skillfulness, but not overly confident that we've achieved it. um and and kind of because um you know One thing that you mentioned earlier was that Buddhism has this idea of you know
00:48:25
Speaker
We don't wanna put ourselves against what we are as people like we're we're these embodied creatures and if i don't eat for a day i'm gonna be hungry and if i get mad at myself for being hungry that's kind of a bit silly and so we're kind of biased. Yeah people that ah we we go for confirmation bias we act on our beliefs we have these.
00:48:43
Speaker
background experiences that that we ah Maybe nott don't recognize inform our behaviors. And so we should be really cautious about those I guess is what I'm taking you to say and So I'm seeing that difference as being maybe a little bit more ah Humble and maybe a little bit more on the side of skepticism than stoicism might be Is that right? Yeah, and you know that might be my my personal take on it. ah of Of course, with any tradition, you're going to encounter, like you said earlier, different different emphasis on different ideas and teachings. But speaking from the Buddhist perspective, um with the the concept of what they call the three poisons, ah which are um greed or desire, um hatred or aversion is the second one, and then ignorance or delusion is the third one.
00:49:38
Speaker
um I feel like applying that to what we're talking about as I as i go through my my lived experience, if if I'm chasing after things without knowing why I'm chasing after them, that's the poison of of desire or greed. It's not that you don't have desire, it's that, do you know why you want what you want? And the flip side of that is, do you know why you don't want what you don't want? um Then I can be more skillful. And then the third one with ignorance or delusion is thinking you know thinking I know. It's like, well wow, and there's so much that we don't know that we don't know. like um so So we're always striving to to be more to gain wisdom, to gain insight, but the combination of those three is considered poisonous because it can poison
00:50:31
Speaker
relationships, it can poison the experience that you're having. you know What you would now say, well, that was a horrible thing. Was it really?
Socratic Influences on Stoicism and Buddhism
00:50:39
Speaker
Maybe it wasn't. Had had had it not been tainted by by that combo or one of those poisons? you know um um so ah Just tying us into what we've been talking about,
00:50:50
Speaker
I think when from the Buddhist perspective, if I if i think about life as an experience to be had, it's it's unfolding. Every moment is a unique moment.
00:51:02
Speaker
And if I can try to spend the time to understand myself and what I chase after and why, and what I run from and why, and and my blind spots, my my ignorance, I may come out on the other end of that introspection, realizing um that I can be more kind, I can be more compassionate, I can recognize that Things are interdependent. um we're not We don't exist in a vacuum. What I say, what I think, what I do, and what I don't say, think, and do both matter, right? Both have ripple effects. and then And then recognizing that the experience itself is actually quite universal. You will know what it is to lose a loved one. I will know what it is to lose a loved one. We're both going to die. um I think this is in stoicism, right? The memento mori. Yeah, that's stoicism, right?
00:51:52
Speaker
um Again, just recognizing at the end of the day, um we're all going to experience difficulties. Can I make it to where it's less difficult than it needs to be? Both on myself, but also on on others. That would influence a lot of my decision making and things that I do or don't do um and why I would choose to do kind things or be compassionate or or to read a book or you know whatever it is that I'm doing would be informed by that perspective and that worldview. I think that's i think it's inspiring. They're the three poisons. Is that the is that the term?
00:52:32
Speaker
Yes, the three poisons. Yeah. So in in Epictetus, he has these three areas of study, um but the first one, it's they don't map on exactly, but the first one is mastery of desire and aversion. That's the first thing you've got to get right. And then the last one is is achieving knowledge, ah which I mean, maybe you could graph that onto ignorance, but it comes back, I think, to this ah Socratic idea. um Socrates was a really big influence on Stoicism, and he had this idea that um i'm I'm smarter well because the the story is that the um the Oracle called him the smartest person in ah in either Athens or Greece at the time. and He was like, how could this be? I don't know anything. and He went around and tried to talk to other smart people and be like, well, Why could I be the smartest person? You're so smart." And then he realized that they're all ignorant as well, but they don't realize their ignorance. They're blind to their ignorance. And so he has that line of, ah well, i'm at least I know that I know nothing. At least I have one piece of knowledge, which is that I haven't fallen into, I guess, that third poison of self-conceit.
00:53:39
Speaker
And so that reminds me of that so much. And um and I know they're different you know totally totally different historical traditions, and Buddha lived before Socrates, although I think they lived around the same time. I think Buddha died when Socrates was just a little was ah child.
00:53:53
Speaker
um But it's really it's always lovely to see those overlaps. Yeah.
Mindfulness as a Tool for Awareness
00:54:00
Speaker
Um, the last thing I wanted to hit on is just in terms of day to day practice, I guess people listening to this thing, you know, this sounds, this sounds, I, it sounds like I could, I could use some Buddhism. What is that? What does your practice look like? Or what are things that you recommend people doing to do if they want to get started in this?
00:54:19
Speaker
ah Yeah, that's ah that's a good question. I i feel like ah one thing that I always mention when I'm talking about Buddhism, concepts from Buddhism or ideas from Buddhism, i so i I always start my podcast with the with the ah sentiment or the thought that you don't need to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist. You can use it to be a better whatever you already are.
00:54:45
Speaker
And coupled with that, I i very much have this ah view that concepts like this, they're they're like tools. And you could take these tools, put them in your toolkit, and it doesn't mean that it's going to be the right tool for you. But if you have a whole bunch of different tools, the right one for whatever circumstances you're in, you might have it. um So with that,
00:55:11
Speaker
I would say one of one of the tools that has been a very effective one um for me in my daily practice is just mindfulness meditation. And I think the the biggest misconception with meditation, is pra at least Buddhist meditation, is that it's something that you do to feel good, and and that's not what it is. It's something that you do to be good at ah noticing.
00:55:41
Speaker
ah going back to what I said before, where there's the experience, there's your awareness of the experience, this is the tool to help you be more aware of the experience. And it's not about feeling good, it's ah it's about being good at noticing. And then what happens when you notice? Well, all kinds of things, but insight arises from from awareness. So,
00:56:02
Speaker
um I would say that's my go-to practice. If if someone were to say, what is what is your Buddhist practice? I'd say the biggest one is um spending time trying to notice. Notice what I'm not noticing. And it doesn't mean sitting there with your eyes closed for an hour. No, I think there's so many other ways of doing it. ah simple A very simple way um is paying attention to your breath and noticing what do I feel? Do I detect a slight temperature difference when I'm inhaling versus exhaling at the tip of my nose or you know just paying attention? That's really what you're doing is practicing paying attention. You just happen to be putting your attention on something like the breath. Another one that's very easy to do is um when you're driving and you get stuck at the red light,
00:56:51
Speaker
pay attention and look around and be like, what have I never noticed about this particular place? Because we most of us have our, it's not like we're always somewhere new. It's usually your yeah your drive home to work. like you get It's a it's a ah ah routine you're used to.
00:57:09
Speaker
But you'll never, ever fully know it. You could always stop and be like, what have I never noticed about this place or or about the traffic light itself? I didn't notice one of the little LEDs is is out, or you know the the metal shield for the ah the blocks the sun has a slight bend to it. I wonder if a bird hit it or ah you know the top of a truck. like Just the the art of getting better at noticing things, that to me is a very useful skill. And where that's come into play in real life is
00:57:44
Speaker
By practicing that continually, I have noticed moments that I cherish now that I don't know if I would have noticed them had I not been actively practicing how to notice. um An example would be ah my daughter was sick.
00:58:01
Speaker
and she had been throwing up and i I went out and lay down on the couch with her and then sometime in the in the night as she was sleeping, she threw up again and it kind of it was all over her. It was on me and I was cleaning it up and that was a moment where I noticed in the middle of of this is unpleasant and this doesn't smell good and this is all the things I don't want right now.
00:58:23
Speaker
I also noticed one day I'll look back and this will be a memory. like This will be like, I'll remember that time. And I was so happy in that moment to realize i'm not goingnna I didn't miss it. like I'm noticing it right now that this is a moment that I will look back to in my future.
00:58:45
Speaker
and And instead of only regretting that I'm experiencing it right now, I was still regretting that I was experiencing it, but also happy that I was experiencing it. And ah and I loved it. I thought, that's that's what I want my life to be. It's like still acknowledged that dealing with throw-up isn't fun, but also, is it really the worst thing ever? No, it's not.
00:59:09
Speaker
And I was so glad that I noticed that and that's when that that's the day I realized that's why I want to keep practicing this because that's always happening. And and I want to make the most of, you know, every moment I have. um So that's why I practice that. I love that. I think that's really um Again, another beautiful idea made me think of three things. It made me think of a line in The Office. Andy says this line, I don't know if you've watched that show, where he says, I wish you could tell when you were in the good old days before they were gone, something along these lines before the old days. It's that right idea of like, And imagine that time, that last time you're hanging out with your friends or you're having some sort of moment and you're actually mindfully appreciative of it. You're actually flipping it and being also appreciative of even something that in the moment is not good, but you understand it's like a special time you're getting to spend with your daughter.
01:00:04
Speaker
um The other thing I think of is that that's something those are some of the happiest moments in my life, I think, is when I'm with friends, for example, and I can just take a moment to be like, oh, this is this is like as good as it gets. like This is really you know what I want. I'm i'm actually like you know doing something that I think is special in this moment and like appreciating that.
01:00:24
Speaker
um The third thing, just to pull it back to to ancient Greek philosophy again, is ah you were talking about that tool belt analogy and ah Socrates has this line that the unexamined life is not worth living.
Socratic Philosophy and Life Examination
01:00:38
Speaker
And I really think that's the first priority of studying ancient and Greek philosophy. And something that I'll say when I talk about these is like, you don't have to be a stoic, but I think it's important to take these kinds of questions seriously. To take the question, I would say you phrase the well of skillful living.
01:00:54
Speaker
Seriously. And so maybe you're going to come up with a different answer of what that looks like. ah Maybe you're going to take some of these tools and throw away. Maybe you're going to become a Stoic or a Buddhist. But I really think that people should be taking skillful living very seriously. um And so I empathize with your perspective of, look, maybe these are the tools for you. Maybe they're not. But at least we're thinking about this question of what kind of life we want to be living and how we want to be engaging with it.
01:01:22
Speaker
um And that's something that the Socrates talks about too. Yeah, I love that. um Great. so the that's so Just to wrap things up, ah Noah, people i mean you mentioned your podcast, but anybody listening to this that wants to um you know engage engage more with your work, ah where can they find you? How should they follow
Noah's Secular Buddhism Podcast
01:01:46
Speaker
up? um what What are you working on right now?
01:01:50
Speaker
ah Right now, the main place where I put anything out is just on on my podcast and and my website that also has... That's where I put the podcast, but it's called Secular Buddhism and it's secularbuddhism dot.com.
01:02:05
Speaker
um and that's yeah Anyone who's interested in learning more about these ideas. my My goal with that podcast is to present Buddhist concepts or teachings or ideas in a framework where um It's just, how do you apply these things to the everyday person and everyday life? That's been my goal since the beginning. um there's And like I said earlier, and ah you don't need to use these ideas to become a Buddhist. um i I genuinely feel like these are just ideas that can help you be a better whatever you already are. And you may find that, oh, I like i want to
01:02:43
Speaker
incorporate this or that idea from Buddhism and this are and this or that idea from Stoicism. That's how I approach all of these things, any little tool that I'm like, oh, I'm adding that to my little toolkit to try to live life more skillfully. I think that's for me, that really is like the end the end goal of all this is I'm just I'm trying to continually examine my life and and myself and and be like, could I be doing this a little more skillfully? Because I don't know if I ever get another chance, um but right I know that I have the chance right now. It's happening right now, so how can I make the best of it?
01:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, beautiful. ah this and and And it speaks to the spirit of this conversation as well, right? like this this People listening to this, so ah interested in one or the other, maybe both. um I think back to this line from Seneca who talks about... um he He has in his letters on ethics, he he has a lot of quotes from Epicureans who are at rival school all the time and he's like, look Just because they're the rival school doesn't mean they can't have something smart to say. and I think the line is something like, um you know, I'm going there not as a trader, but as a scout, which is to say like, I'm trying to find, I'm not jumping ships. I'm just always trying to find something of value from anywhere I read it. um And yeah, definitely coming to into this conversation as a scout and coming away with with lots of nuggets of wisdom. So thank you for that. Yeah, thank you too. Okay. Thanks, Noah.
01:04:16
Speaker
Thanks for listening to StoA Conversations. Please give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share it with a friend. If you want to dive deeper still, search StoA in the App Store or Play Store for a complete app with routines, meditations, and lessons designed to help people become more stoic. And I'd also like to thank Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music. You can find more of his work at ancientlyar dot.com.
01:04:47
Speaker
And finally, please get in touch with us. Send a message to stoa at stoameditation.com if you ever have any feedback, questions, or recommendations. Until next time.