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Buddhism 101 (Episode 81)
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Want to become more Stoic? Join us and other Stoics this October: Stoicism Applied by Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay on Maven
This conversation covers the key ideas of Buddhism and compares it with Stoicism. This will be the first of many more conversations. We thought it was important to start with a 101.
(01:49) Introduction
(06:36) The Founding Parable
(14:33) The 4 Noble Truths
(20:07) The Middle Way
(31:39) Buddhist Evolution
(40:17) Stoicism vs Buddhism: Similarities
(48:10) Stoicism vs Buddhism: Differences
Episode 55: Building Stoic Mindfulness
Episode 56: Greg Lopez on Stoicism and Buddhism
***
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Transcript
Introduction to Buddhism and Stoicism
00:00:00
Speaker
There's going to be some similarities between services and Buddhism at that level. But I think if you come to these as philosophies in terms of a metaphysical explanation, a psychological explanation, a meaning of life explanation, there's going to be very, very different. You know, ethically, we might see some, some broad strokes, similarities, you know, seven out of 10 similarity, but in terms of those other things, it's going to be very, very different.
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome to Stowe Conversations. In this podcast, Michael Trombley and I discuss the theory and practice of stoicism. Each week we'll share two conversations, one between the two of us, and another we'll be an in-depth conversation with an expert.
00:00:39
Speaker
Today, Michael and I discuss Stoicism and Buddhism. You can think of it as a Buddhism 101 with a special focus on what Stoics can learn from the ancient religious tradition, especially as it shows up in modern Buddhism.
00:00:57
Speaker
Before we hop directly into that, I should say that we are enrolling for our October 23rd 3-week course on Stoicism Applied. We'll be diving into the 3 Stoic Disciplines focused on how one can't apply them to become more Stoic. I think one of the
00:01:17
Speaker
best aspects of this course will be the fact that we'll be getting together a group of people who are seriously interested in that project, in that project of walking the Stoic path. So if you're interested in that, please join
Caleb and Michael's Personal Philosophical Journeys
00:01:33
Speaker
us. Learn more at stoameditation.com slash course. And here is our conversation. Welcome to Stoa Conversations. My name is Caleb Ontiveros. And I'm Michael Trauble.
00:01:49
Speaker
And today we're going to be talking about Stoicism and Buddhism. I think this is one of the most requested topics. We've had past episodes, one past episode with Gregory Lopez that focused on Buddhist and Stoic mindfulness. We did our own episode on mindfulness, but Buddhism was more in the background, I'd say, for our episode.
00:02:16
Speaker
And at any rate, this is an oft-requested topic that we'll focus on today. And I think there's a lot of rich overlap between the two schools, a lot that people attracted to Stoicism can and have learnt them, and likely the reverse. But the perspective I'm taking is, you know, the perspective of someone who's really interested in Stoicism has some background in Buddhism channeled through Western forces. I'd say I can chat a little bit more about that.
00:02:46
Speaker
But I think there's a very fruitful overlap and debates between the two life philosophies.
Understanding Buddhism in a Scientific Context
00:02:55
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I'm really excited for this discussion, Caleb, and for myself. I mean, I was actually into Buddhism before I ever got into stoicism. Buddhism, I think, was the first philosophy as a way of life that I really
00:03:11
Speaker
was interested in and dug into. I did never got anywhere near as deep as I am into stoicism or as knowledgeable, but it's one that like when I was younger, I thought was really cool. And so excited for us to discuss some of the similarities differences with stoicism today. And especially through this length, I think now I have as somebody who's really knowledgeable about stoicism.
00:03:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So I think we'll talk about some of the background, some of the basics of Buddhism, some of the key doctrines, and then move to some of the similarities and initial differences with Stoicism and see how those two things can enrich our ideas of Stoic theory and practice as well. So that's the main point of this discussion. And I should say that by way of disclaimer,
00:04:03
Speaker
Two things. First, Buddhism is of course an exceptionally complex tradition. You know, it would be like doing an hour on any given religion would by necessity overlook key differences and gloss over things far too quickly. So the forms of Buddhism I'm most familiar with are Western Buddhism. Sometimes it's called Buddhist Modernism or Secular Buddhism.
00:04:32
Speaker
this form of the philosophy is sort of grounded in Buddhist tradition, Buddhist texts, but it's naturalized. Usually it's removed some of the supernatural elements from
00:04:47
Speaker
Buddhist religion, whether that is the different, say, levels of existence, certain views about karma or views about ghosts and lower deities. This form of Buddhism intends to be naturalistic and fit within a scientific worldview, if you will, without any of the supernatural elements. That's what I'm most familiar with.
00:05:14
Speaker
In terms of my background, that's the second other disclaimer I wanted to make. In terms of my background, of course, I'm not a Buddhist. I came across Buddhism first through mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy. So learning about that, the founders of that were heavily influenced by Buddhists and that I have
00:05:33
Speaker
read a lot, I'd say, a lot of texts that sort of fall into this Buddhist modernism, secular Buddhism school, if you will, from Owen Flanagan, Robert Wright, the book The Mind Illuminated, and so on and so on. So that's two quick things. Buddhism is very complex. We're going to be tackling a specific kind of Buddhism here.
00:05:57
Speaker
Yeah, just like there is two Stoics talking about Buddhism here, something which can be fun to pull some up. It'll be interesting, but I'm almost certain that we will get some things wrong. I feel that way still when I talk about Stoicism. So I'm almost certain there's going to be instances where you or I will say things like Buddhism says this or Buddhism argues this and there will be definitely a nuance to that either in the content or in even the separate schools or the separate divisions of them in a way that I'm not aware. I think
00:06:27
Speaker
You know, in an hour, there's going to be some generalizing, but that, that's still hopefully going to be informative and put people in a better place to dig deeper.
00:06:36
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And we will have Buddha scholars as well as people who identify as Buddhist practitioners on the podcast. So stay tuned for that. But for now, you're stuck with us. So let's start at the very beginning with the Buddha. So Buddha is just a term for enlightened one, a knower. Siddhartha Guatama lived in the fifth or sixth century BC.
00:07:03
Speaker
And he was, if not exactly a noble, someone who lived in a luxurious, sheltered, and pleasant existence. The founding parable of Buddhism involves him waking up from this clean, polished world to make three trips. And in these trips, he sees different forms of suffering. He sees an elderly man who is
00:07:32
Speaker
suffering from aging. He will clearly pass and that can be seen from the features of his face. Then on another trip, he sees a sick man, someone who is diseased and suffering from their physical affliction. And then finally,
00:07:52
Speaker
During his third trip, he sees a corpse, a dead man. And this trip brought Buddha sort of face to face with suffering that he had not known in his prior existence. And because of this experience, because of these experiences, he renounces his life of luxury and turns to religious traditions, religious experiences. He begins a religious quest.
00:08:23
Speaker
And I won't go through all the different traditions he joins that he excels in. The main idea is that Tip, he started with these sort of extreme meditative or extreme aesthetic traditions. So this involves rigorous meditation regimes. It involves things like going without the goods of the material world.
00:08:50
Speaker
And through these experiences, he comes to see that enlightenment falls in between the extremes of his life of luxury and extreme religious pursuit falls in a middle way. So I suppose if you take this
00:09:09
Speaker
these themes from the parable, there's this encountering of different forms of suffering, this encounter with the reality of the temporary nature of things, and then the turn to religious traditions that aim to answer, you know, why do people age and die? Why do we suffer? And then
00:09:32
Speaker
through the Buddha's religious experimentation and pursuit.
Buddha and Socrates: Parallel Philosophical Developments
00:09:38
Speaker
He comes to become awakened. He experiences enlightenment and he finds that it's not in these extremes in this pursuit of pleasure, pursuit of rejecting the world almost in these radical religious traditions, but instead falls in a path that
00:10:01
Speaker
is called the Middle Way, which we'll talk about a little bit more, but that's the first pass for, I think, a useful founding parable for the Buddhist tradition.
00:10:17
Speaker
This is often, people often mention this, but it's kind of interesting that Buddha is a contemporary of Socrates, you know, or around the same time as this. So just to situate that historically, we're talking about, you know, around the same time that that ancient Greek philosophy is getting off the ground. The other thing, Caleb, about this.
00:10:36
Speaker
I'm always interested in why he is a Buddha or Siddhartha is a prince, right? Or some sort of central royalty, right? Yeah, he's taken to be either a noble or someone whose father is very well.
00:10:56
Speaker
Yeah, I'm always interested in that. I'm interested in this kind of starting in this position of being very noble or very rich or very well off. Like I wonder about the, I don't know, the symbolism or the lesson there of somebody starting in that position and then I guess getting exposed to more instead of, you know, you would think, wouldn't the person
00:11:23
Speaker
Why would the person who starts a noble is sheltered and then encounters the world, be in a better position to navigate that world than the person who is already navigating that world and somebody who's not sheltered and already sees elderly, sick people and dead people consistently. I always, I, and I understand part of that historical part of that's comparable, but I always thought that idea that, you know, Siddhartha or the Buddha starts off very well off is an interesting part of his story.
00:11:53
Speaker
Yeah, I suppose part of it is this thought that of course there are different sociological reasons but maybe the more interesting kind of reason may be that Siddhartha is in a place where so many people aspire to be and learns that that is not enough and that even though he is sheltered, he cannot
00:12:23
Speaker
escape Suffering just as it it might take a little bit longer to reach his abode his life and But he cannot escape it as he learns during his during his trips Yeah, that makes sense this kind of experiential knowledge of
00:12:43
Speaker
Hey, even though I've kind of conquered the material world, this is still not enough or I have access to these material goods. The answer is not here. And some, so somebody from that position has that kind of experiential knowledge, you know, this is, this is not enough. And then it's able to kind of move on.
00:12:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think that's one reason. And then he, after becoming enlightened, he essentially becomes a religious teacher. And because he has that noble past, I think that gives him some amount of credentials, I suppose, some amount of family prestige that he's able to travel to different
00:13:23
Speaker
areas, teach what he has learned, and promote the messages of Buddhism. One interesting similarity between Stoicism and Buddhism is that neither are nay after their founder as such. So although of course Siddhartha Gautama is the Buddha,
00:13:48
Speaker
All Buddha means is just an enlightened one, a knower. It's a title and Stoicism derives from the porch, unlike many other philosophical schools or indeed religions that are often named after their founders.
00:14:04
Speaker
So in the Stoic tradition, making these analogies or these comparisons, it's kind of like the Buddha is the sage, right? It's the one who's the end of the ends, the thing that you're trying to get to, but maybe Buddha or Siddhartha was the first one, but it's not the only Buddha and it's not.
00:14:28
Speaker
his way, it's the way of, you know, enlightened people.
Exploring the Four Noble Truths
00:14:33
Speaker
Right, right. So I want to get to some of these key doctrines. The often mentioned as key sort of key ideas are the, I think a fruitful place to start is with the four noble truths. So these are four claims about the nature of reality.
00:14:54
Speaker
And those four are the truth of suffering, this thought that life is suffering. That's the first. The second, the truth of arising, usually explained in terms of the root of suffering is craving. The third is the truth of cessation, just this idea that the craving can cease, the cause of suffering can be addressed. And then finally, the fourth is the truth of the path, the way to cease,
00:15:23
Speaker
craving, combat desire is through the eightfold path, and that's this middle way. But let's say some more about each of those. So when we're talking about suffering, essentially the way this is typically explained is that
00:15:43
Speaker
life necessarily involves frustrated desire. It's necessarily unsatisfied. A given thing, we get it, and then we experience more craving, more of this, you know, we want more and more of
00:16:05
Speaker
whatever thing, whether that's a sensual pleasure, existence, and destruction. So that's the truth of suffering. First, just sort of that main claim, the second truth, the truth of arising, what's the cause of suffering? The fact that we have desires, we have cravings. In particular, there's focus on the cravings for sensual pleasure, a desire for existence, think of it as a desire for
00:16:31
Speaker
being a hope that things would not be impermanence but rather we would exist internally the things we want will exist eternally and then also these dark darker desires for destruction the Wants to destroy other things so those are the first two life is suffering the root of suffering is desire any thoughts on that Michael
00:16:59
Speaker
Well, I just, there might be a translation thing here, but what is arising? Like, like, so there's there, if you said something like the truth of craving, so that the truth of suffering, life is suffering, the truth of arising, which is that the root of suffering is this craving. But what's, what's, what's arising?
00:17:17
Speaker
Well, my read on this is just that suffering has a cause. Why is it arising? The root of suffering is craving. The suffering is coming from somewhere. That's what the arising is. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to put these in a really abstract form, it's something like life is suffering. Suffering has a cause that cause can be addressed the way it's addressed. Finally, it's through the path.
00:17:46
Speaker
Yeah. And then what is suffering? Is suffering like just a subjective experience? Like it's just subjective pain. Like what is, what's suffering? Putting you on the spot. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's generally explained in terms of subjective pain, negative mental states, anguish, but I think we can say.
00:18:16
Speaker
That's one aspect of it. Another aspect, I think, is just the fact that what we prefer does not come to pass.
00:18:27
Speaker
And maybe that doesn't have to do with mental states always. Often it does. Often if our desire is frustrated, we know about it and we experience that as suffering or at least frustration.
00:18:46
Speaker
But sometimes what we want, what we prefer doesn't happen, and we don't know about it. And that may still be perceived as a bad, as a harm, as another fact, at least on the surface, that life is suffering. You wish you could have a legacy. You think that people who
00:19:09
Speaker
live after you will keep their promises and so on but of course there's so much contingency in life and many of your preferences are just not going to be respected by others or the world at large yeah and that sounds very stoic to me right this idea of you know you want things to be a certain way and when those desires are frustrated that causes suffering but another thing that looking at this again
00:19:34
Speaker
This from a Hellenistic philosophy lens, I'm getting a lot more Epicureanism than I'm getting Stoicism. This focus on subjective experience, this focusing on not virtue or character, but really pleasure and pain. This focus on the elimination of pain.
00:19:52
Speaker
as a primary goal. You know striking me is much more Epicurean at this moment but I'm interested to see what that eightfold path makes up because maybe that will pull us towards you know virtue and character but yeah very Epicurean very kind of hedonistic almost.
00:20:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think another thing to say here is that many people here life is suffering. I think that Buddhism is a negative philosophy, a cynical philosophy, and there's certainly something to that. I think many Buddhists would claim that in our ordinary existence, we are blind to the truth of suffering. We don't understand the extent of suffering and indeed how
00:20:32
Speaker
this truth is present in ordinary, mundane experiences. And there's something essential about the fact that we are desiring creatures and our desires are frustrated again and again. But nonetheless, it's not a completely negative philosophy. Of course, life is not just suffering. That's not the claim.
00:20:53
Speaker
At all, but let's let's keep the let's keep the thought on the point about epicureanism is interesting And I think we should we should return to that because I think that is it seems plausible to me That is almost a better comparison in terms of Hellenistic philosophies
00:21:06
Speaker
But all right, so now we've got the first two noble truths, truth of suffering, truth of arising. We come to the truth of cessation. The thought is just that, all right, the root of suffering is desire, it's craving.
00:21:24
Speaker
desires, if they are released, will result in no more suffering. So the way to combat suffering is through releasing these desires. This of course brings us to the fourth noble truth, the truth of the path. Okay.
00:21:50
Speaker
The third truth was good news, but how do you fulfill it? That's what the number four is all about. The way to cease craving is through this eightfold path, this middle way. And it's a bit difficult to keep all eight of these in your head, but ultimately they focus on wisdom, morality, and meditation. And I think this is the part where in our initial parable, we found that
00:22:16
Speaker
Buddha came to enlightenment by pursuing a middle way, not one of these extremes. And the way that this is realized is by following the eightfold path, which involves wisdom, right understanding, right resolve, right speech, morality, right action, right livelihood, right effort, and then meditation, right mindfulness, right meditation.
00:22:47
Speaker
And which of those, which of those, I guess, Caleb, do you think are worth pulling into in greater detail or might be like, I mean, I think I understand what those means. You say those words and I think I understand those words, but are any of those a bit different than we might suspect?
00:23:02
Speaker
Yeah, I think unpacking these will take a serious amount of – but what we can say here that I think is most useful is you have these ideas of meditation, which we'll talk about more, which are commonly associated with Buddhism, but you also have morality, wisdom,
00:23:25
Speaker
And these features do get us very close to virtue ethics. Really, it's about being the kind of person who
00:23:34
Speaker
takes on the right livelihood, who does the right thing, speaks well, but doesn't just speak well, sees things as they are, the right understanding, has the right intention, and so on. I think it immediately brings to mind the Aristotelian idea of someone who acts virtuously, is doing the right thing at the right time, for the right reasons. And I do think there's a decent, a good amount of overlap between the
00:24:04
Speaker
that sort of virtue ethic lens and these aspects of the path, which are all about fine-tuning your speech, actions, intentions, and then realizing that in your actions, livelihood, and so on. Okay, so in both stoicism and epicureanism,
00:24:26
Speaker
They're about eliminating suffering, but you don't eliminate suffering by getting rid of craving. What you do is you eliminate suffering by changing the object of what you crave. So in stoicism, you crave character, and that's something that you always have the ability to improve.
00:24:44
Speaker
It's not dependent upon anything else. So there's no suffering that comes from external to you. If you, if you just want to be a good person, then you set yourself on that goal in Epicureanism, you crave things that are easily obtainable. So, uh, community with a couple of friends and some, you know, some vegetables and potatoes and things like this. Well, my guess my next question is, is, and you might be getting to this, but how would this eightfold path eliminate suffering, especially if suffering comes from craving?
00:25:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, so I should say that my sense is that there's some amount of debate about whether, say, desire is completely eliminated or not. But I think, you know, the source of desires that cause suffering are
00:25:35
Speaker
that there would be minimal debate on, if any, are these desires for sensual pleasure, existence, and destruction. Whether the sorts of desires from more positive aspects of existence are the sorts of things that are also released, or maybe released at later stages, I think is another issue.
Meditation and the Understanding of Buddhist Truths
00:25:57
Speaker
But I think the main focus is, okay, so we have this picture
00:26:00
Speaker
of the Eightfold Path. How does it actually take us to a life without these cravings?
00:26:10
Speaker
And I want to say that this eightfold path is again taking this virtue ethics framework about becoming a kind of person and in particular internalizing the nature of the world as Buddhists see it and then realizing that in your action.
00:26:36
Speaker
Suffering is exceptionally negative. You want to reduce suffering. So you have these ideas of compassion for all beings. And in that aspect, you're going to see that in morality. Compassion for all beings involves releasing suffering both from yourself and for others. And then wisdom and meditation are going to involve
00:27:05
Speaker
seeing the world as it is and internalizing some of these key Buddhist tenets about the nature of reality. And I think many people who've heard a bit about Buddhism will be familiar with ideas like everything is impermanent, the nature of the world is
00:27:24
Speaker
empty, all things are causally interlinked, everything to be very coarse, it's connected, it's almost like you have these karmic principles, and then finally you have this illusion of a separate cell. And these are the sorts of things that, especially these modern Buddhists are going to say, you can realize these truths, the truth of impermanence,
00:27:53
Speaker
emptiness, connectedness, and the illusion of a separate self in deep meditation. And these truths will help you become more moral and help you make wise decisions. You have this interlinking, which is very similar to the interlinking
00:28:15
Speaker
of the three stoic disciplines. Building up wisdom, morality, meditation is going to focus your mind, your actions, your character towards being the kind of person who reduces suffering for yourself and for others. So these are kind of like, these are mistakes we can make or misunderstandings about the nature of the world.
00:28:38
Speaker
You think of something like the stoic dichotomy of control. This is pretty clear, easy to understand idea that some things aren't up to you. And if you treat them like you're up to you, you're going to suffer. And so there's the same kind of thing with impermanence.
00:28:52
Speaker
The world isn't permanent. I'm not permanent. The life of the people that I care about aren't permanent. And if I treat them like they are, that kind of craving is going to cause suffering. So it's something like this. And then it's now it's also about also this idea of the self, conception of the self. That's another thing that causes suffering, which we also see in stoasis, although maybe in a different sense. In Buddhism, there's this idea of no self.
00:29:20
Speaker
or that the self itself is an illusion at least to some degree. In Stoicism, I think there's this reconceptualization of what the self is. When I was first studying these, I would think about Stoicism as the reduction of the self to an essential core.
00:29:40
Speaker
And that is, that is like a diamond that you can't break. And I would kind of, I saw Buddhism as kind of the expansion of the self across everything. Maybe that's related to that idea of causal interdependence so that you kind of dissolve the self out. But in either way, you're playing around with the size and the shape of the self certainly differing from what normal people think it is, which is, you know.
00:30:03
Speaker
I'm Michael and I am my career and my friends and my reputation and my body and things like that. Like we're playing around with those concepts in order to eliminate the suffering that comes with that, both because it's suffering and because it's false. Is that right? Cause that sounds, that sounds really similar to stoicism, just kind of maybe taking it a different direction, but attacking these false beliefs. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think, yeah, there's a, the stoicism sort of like the minimal self model and then.
00:30:31
Speaker
Buddhism is no-self and they have a high degree of overlap. So if you look at something like a desire for career success and then bring into these truths, well, whatever success you have is going to be that will not last, not just in the sense of your lifetime, but each
00:30:54
Speaker
day is just one day after another. Another, what is something like a career? Notions of emptiness, always difficult to describe, but I think
00:31:06
Speaker
One way to come at it is through Marcus Aurelius' decomposition exercises to take a stoic lens. A career just going to some place every day if you're working in person, that is, and performing some physical movements that satisfy the desires of it.
00:31:26
Speaker
sick society, if you wanted to add some cynicism, or also include the truth of the nature of suffering. And so those are two of the ideas that come into play. And I think especially these ideas around impermanence, emptiness, are really questioning
00:31:44
Speaker
Why do we want sensory pleasure? If we
Robert Wright's Evolutionary Argument for Buddhism
00:31:50
Speaker
saw its true nature, we'd see that this desire for some independent, lasting experience is illusory and not going to lead to satisfaction for ourselves. So I think just to put this sort of modern lens on this, Robert Wright has a book called Why Buddhism is True.
00:32:13
Speaker
And he makes sort of, if you could think of it as an evolutionary argument for the usefulness of Buddhism. So the position being argued for is that Buddhism is pragmatically useful for promoting human well-being. And this is so because the Buddhists got so much about human nature right,
00:32:39
Speaker
and their cure for becoming better works or is one of the best ones we have. And I think it's a reasonable argument. It's one that's worth taking seriously. So I thought we should put it on the table.
00:32:59
Speaker
One of the main claims is that from the evolutionary standpoint, human beings are not optimized to experience positive well-being. Natural selection selects at the unit of genes, not positive human experiences or something of that sort. And that means that
00:33:24
Speaker
humans are created to be, you know, these craving creatures who are never satisfied and were constantly deluded. So we have this notion of the hedonic treadmill, this thought that we do have these cravings for the next thing, whether it's the next material object, next rank of status or next experience. But as soon as we get whatever that is, we want the next thing that's after that.
00:33:54
Speaker
And of course, you should expect this from evolutionary logic because the human who's always striving is more likely to be evolutionarily successful as opposed to the human who, once something gets it and then relaxes and no longer plays any of the social games that matter for their reproductive fitness. So I think that's one
00:34:22
Speaker
One useful example, the other example recently had a chat with Randolph Nessie, an evolutionary psychiatrist, and he makes the very compelling argument that, you know, things like our anxiety control systems are going to be built by logic
00:34:42
Speaker
that's gonna push them towards being over sensitive because the person who is, you know, has a panic attack every time they hear the bush rustling and runs away is going to be more likely to survive than the person who knows nine times out of ten there's
00:35:03
Speaker
nothing in the bushes, but on that one time gets it wrong and there is in fact a tiger, there was in fact a threat that they should have taken seriously. So you have these ideas of we're not satisfied, we're always craving the next thing, and in fact our mental machinery is built to ensure that we are
00:35:24
Speaker
not just not satisfied but, you know, deluded and have these oversensitive emotional systems, have these beliefs that promote things like permanence, these ideas of an ego lasting through time and so on.
00:35:42
Speaker
Yeah, great. I mean, there's a lot, there's two points I want to add to that. The first is there's this idea in statistics, which you're probably familiar with is this idea of a type one error and a type two error type one error is a false positive type two is a false negative. So that, the.
00:35:58
Speaker
Your argument there is that we've been hardwired to have, to make type one errors, to have false positives, to have our bodies go, oh, this is a life or death situation. And the situation's where it's not. And have that anxious response because it's better to the downside to that is a subjectively unpleasant feeling with like high stress.
00:36:22
Speaker
Yeah. But the downside to a type two error where you say, ah, it doesn't really matter. I know this person doesn't, I'm not going to get a bad vibe when walking by this person in the alley and then you get mugged or shot or something. The downside to type two error is death. So we've biologically developed to have these kind of type one errors, which makes us stressed, makes us suffer, but keeps us alive long enough to pass our genes on.
00:36:47
Speaker
The other thing I was thinking about with that connection was I saw a tweet the other day, so let this be evidence that you can take things of value from Twitter. I read this tweet and I was like, this is a good tweet. And it was this kind of joke about how
00:37:05
Speaker
There's this constant setup where people will say, you know, I don't understand people, you know, they have all this money and they have this successful job and they're like unsatisfied or, you know, they have a nice house. They've got the kids, they've got the husband and they're unsatisfied.
00:37:21
Speaker
Then there's always kind of commentary making fun of these people on the tweet is pointing out. Well, it's got the causation totally wrong, right? The reason why these people have achieved success, external success is because they're kind of an unsatisfied person because they're the kind of person who is constantly is maybe suffering or feels that kind of unease or anxiousness. Then they go out and they construct and then prove their external circumstances are driven to do that. And that just connects back to the white Buddhism is true point you're making, which is that.
00:37:51
Speaker
you know, people who have this kind of sufferings, cravings, anxiety, might be biologically in a better position to achieve kind of material success, pass their genes on. So that's kind of a biological nature of humans and why we need an antidote to like something like Buddhism and like Stoicism that's connecting, you know, because it's connecting with something that's like has to do really with human biology or, you know, our evolutionary
00:38:19
Speaker
psychology, uh, not, not something sociological or cultural. So it's like, you know, any insights that occurred 2,500 years ago. Well, those are still, those still stand today because they're making comments about kind of the hardware, our brain hardware, not our, like, you know, our cultural cultural moment.
00:38:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, those are two good points. Yeah, so just I think wrap up the sort of the evolutionary argument for Buddhism, if you will, you have those facts about human nature. And then the next claim is the way to address these facts to achieve some form of serenity or tranquility is through following what's been set out in this Buddhist tradition.
00:39:00
Speaker
And doing it in an empirical, experimental manner, I think will typically be promoted. Practicing things like meditation in particular, both to cultivate the right states of mind, cultivate powerfulness and equanimity.
00:39:19
Speaker
And then also to come to the sort of experiential insights into the nature of reality where in meditation you see by focusing on the breath, focusing on sensations or what have you, you come to see not just merely in a propositional way, but deeply internalize these Buddhist truths of impermanence, emptiness, the nature of suffering and the illusion of the separate cell, no cell.
00:39:46
Speaker
Yeah, so what I was thinking there was this idea that we had these kind of propositional claims while false police about permanence, the nature of the self, causality, these causes us to suffer, but then we actually have this practice of well, the mindfulness is going to allow you to focus on these things and understand them at a deep level.
Comparing Stoicism and Buddhism: Shared Insights
00:40:07
Speaker
And that's where that Buddhist practice comes in. It's not just a set of truths that you need to read, but something that you then put into practice through this kind of mindfulness training as well. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Sweet. So I think we can move to, okay, like at the quick rundown of Buddhism, you know, modern Buddhism 101.
00:40:27
Speaker
if you will. Now, what are some of the similarities of Stoicism? What are some of the differences? What can we take from that? So I think one of the key insights of many philosophical and religious traditions in Buddhism and Stoicism are no exception, is that the root of so much suffering is our desires and our illusions. The fact that
00:40:50
Speaker
we want things we cannot have, the fact that we have so many beliefs that are mistaken and both cause suffering intrinsically but also
00:41:06
Speaker
our beliefs we end up acting on and making mistakes. And I think that's something that Stoicism and Buddhism deeply shares and questions. If you think about the idea of indifference in Stoicism, the pursuits of pleasure, wealth, status, these sorts of things are things we're always chasing after.
00:41:28
Speaker
but are not the sorts of things that ultimately, in and of themselves, lead to a good life on the Stoic picture, and they certainly don't do the same for Buddhists either. Yeah, I think that's that on it. I mean, if you've got somebody who's just done a Stoicism 101 and a Buddhism 101, or I think the connection most people make is in this category, the root of suffering being desire and illusion, and specifically a certain type of desire, which is a kind of attachment
00:41:58
Speaker
To use the Buddhist terminology, maybe attachment is a desire for existence, maybe. Maybe that's what attachment is. But this idea of, you know, you're kind of holding on to something. You're wanting to force the world to be a certain way.
00:42:14
Speaker
I would say that if there was a single idea that summed up stoicism to most people, it's this idea of the dichotomy of control. And for Buddhism, I think it's that idea of detachment of the self or kind of dissolving of the self to not be attached to other things or certain outcomes. And so I think there's a certain kind of flavor there in that. It's not just the root of suffering is
00:42:41
Speaker
these false beliefs, but there's a certain kind of flavor to the false beliefs that they share in common, I think. Yeah, I think that's right. That's exactly right. Another area where there's just so much overlap is this focus on impermanence. So both Marcus Aurelius and Seneca have numerous passages where they go over our mistaken beliefs about the facts, that things will be permanent and suggest both exercises
00:43:09
Speaker
and reflections on the nature of constant transformation, the fact that our lives are temporary, often short and uncertain. And I think right there they are
00:43:27
Speaker
at home in the Buddhist tradition. But also the Buddhist tradition, I think, offers ways to enrich the Stoic themes of impermanence. You have the focuses of practicing on breath, the breath, watching sensations arise and depart. And these are sorts of things that the Stoics don't talk about so much.
00:43:54
Speaker
kind of exercises also help one internalize the reality of impermanence that surrounds everything. Yeah. For the Stoics, the impermanence is going to be more mental morey. Remember the fact that you're going to die. View from above, take this broader perspective that doesn't involve being focused in your life. Maybe it spans over a period of time. But as you said, the
00:44:24
Speaker
I mean, I think that's an interesting question for, you know, as Caleb and the kind of project we're doing at Stoa, which is this idea. I know sometimes with mindfulness, there's this idea that like, well, the Stoics aren't, you know, the Stoics don't talk about meditation or the Stoics don't talk about.
00:44:42
Speaker
And they certainly talk about mindfulness and sort of training your focus, your attention, but not in this kind of, there's many, I think meditation as a tradition has been something that's been built up from Eastern religions and philosophy and from Buddhism. But I think there's that, there's that point here, which is like, look, if these things are similar in their practice and they're trying to achieve something,
00:45:04
Speaker
which is this knowledge of impermanence, for example, that Buddhism has just figured out this other strategy through years of trial and error of achieving that. And so that's because Stoism and Buddhism are so similar here, we can kind of pull over that mindfulness meditation practice and it can kind of slot in
00:45:24
Speaker
without bastardizing or ruining the Stoic tradition, it slots in because it's a similar kind of project, and it's something that somebody else doing a similar kind of project, the Buddhists figured out really work.
00:45:39
Speaker
Right, right. Yeah, I think exactly. I think this both Buddhists and Stoics promote what Pierre Hadeau calls spiritual exercises, these practices that involve radically changing what one is, changing one's mode being to either becoming more stoic, becoming more Buddhist,
00:46:04
Speaker
and where they have different forms of meditation. And I think the Stoics in particular can learn a lot from the Buddhist forms. You know, you have these two aspects of meditation that it promotes certain kinds of mental states. It promotes attention. Of course, that's something the Stoics are always talking about to the extent that that is true. I think that's something that Stoics should be
00:46:33
Speaker
heavily invested in, exceptionally interested in.
00:46:36
Speaker
And then there's also this other aspect where meditation can help you come to experiential insight into the nature of reality. And this is possibly an area where there's going to be more conflict. You know, one of the insights Buddhists have, or think one will come to, at least further down the line, further down the path, as you become more expert, as you start moving, is that those advanced levels are this, you know, seeing that there's no self.
00:47:04
Speaker
I think that, of course, there are question marks. Is that something you can actually learn in meditation? Is that something that's actually true? And the Stoics are at least going to deny that on some understandings of the phrase, they're going to deny the no-self doctrine. But nonetheless, I think
00:47:22
Speaker
you can see with meditation, you can come to better internalize some of these ideas around impermanence, how the frustration of desire leads to suffering, noticing things that people discuss in mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy about, you know, you are not your thoughts. Often the way we fuse with our thoughts causes an exceptional amount of suffering. So both of those aspects
00:47:51
Speaker
I think are important for Stoics, though I recognize that, especially as you get into
Similarities and Differences in Self-Conception
00:47:57
Speaker
the area with insight, the insight one can come to from meditation, there's going to be more debate. Yeah, very cool. I mean, yeah, I think that's right. I think those are what I see as the initial similarities.
00:48:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So what do you think in terms of coming to some of the differences? What differences stand out to you so far from this tradition and these two traditions? I think we hit on one earlier in this conversation, which is that difference in the conception of self. So as you said, the minimalist self and stoicism versus the no self and Buddhism. I think it's a big difference because it kind of changes what the project is, right? Like the project and
00:48:39
Speaker
The project in Stoicism is you want to be the best you you can be, right? You want to be awesome. It's just what awesomeness looks like. It's not what most people think it looks like. It looks like this, this sole focus on character and virtue, but it is really about cultivating the self. It is the same kind of project as the person who tries to get rich.
00:49:02
Speaker
or tries to, you know, become famous or tries to have lots of pleasure. It's like everybody's trying to live the best life possible and the stoics just have a slightly, have a very different answer to that. But, but it is focused on being the best you possible. And so the no self, I think it's like, wow, they're doing something entirely different here. What's you kind of introduced that idea.
00:49:24
Speaker
Yeah, I suppose one thing you could come to is, well, there's some overlap in terms of at least restricting what you identify with. For especially Epictetus, what you are in the stoic picture is a minimal thing.
00:49:42
Speaker
It's, you know, these sort of these rational faculties. It's not you don't identify closely with any indifference. You don't identify closely with even your body. But yeah, I think and I think you are right that however, at the end of the day, there is going to be a significant difference in terms of how Buddhists and Stoics define what define what the self is. So
00:50:12
Speaker
Maybe that's the sort of thing that only comes up for advanced Buddhists. I know in my conversation with Gregory Lopez, he essentially argued something like this that, you know, this is a significant difference, but in terms of practitioners, most Buddhist practitioners are not going to be at that no-self level. So that's, you know, that's one possible thought here, but I agree 100%, at least at the philosophical level, that's going to be an important difference. And it's an interesting argument whether, okay, given that there is that difference, maybe even though Buddhists aren't going to
00:50:42
Speaker
get there, it's going to take a lot of work to get there. The fact that they have that as a target is going to mean there are going to be differences on the path that they're walking. Yeah, totally. Good point. Yeah, yeah.
00:50:54
Speaker
To me one main difference is I think in Buddhism you have this focus on eliminating suffering experiencing tranquility as opposed to a more strictly Stoic focus which you know as you said is you know being an excellent person
00:51:18
Speaker
or in traditional Stoic language living in accordance with nature, which is not about, say, subjective internal states or even about
00:51:30
Speaker
you know, managing one's desires explicitly. Although that is a focus of the project, I think that's potentially significant differences between the two traditions. So I'm trying to think if there's any, you know, what sort of actions or lives would those, would that difference result in? I mean, it's the same kind of thing as Epicureanism though, right? Where Epicurean says, look,
00:51:54
Speaker
I'm really virtuous because that ends up being the happiest kind of life. And the stoic says, no, I'm going to be virtuous because that's the best kind of life. And it also happens to have very little suffering in it. Like the actions of the Epicurean and the stoic differ very little on a philosophical level. I mean, the practices of the schools look different, but the, the, the.
00:52:18
Speaker
The Epicureans are still pro virtue and it seems the same thing here with the Buddhist, right? You're still pro virtue because that's the path to eliminating suffering. So it seems, it seems to me there's no necessary difference at an action level. Although I guess you might end up in some sort of, the way you put it is, is the way that I would think about it is, is there's not going to be any difference until you've got to pick one.
00:52:42
Speaker
So if there ever comes up a circumstance where you have to pick one, you have to pick between living in the course of nature or living virtuously and eliminating suffering. Well, then that matters for the Stoics and the Epicureans, you know which one to pick. And so I guess in the Buddhist picture, is that ever a choice? Does that ever come up?
Experiential Knowledge vs. Propositional Knowledge
00:53:01
Speaker
Maybe it seems maybe not because maybe they're talking about kind of a more cosmic type of suffering than the Epicureans who are literally talking about like,
00:53:11
Speaker
You know, I've got a blister on my foot or something like the Epicureans are literally talking about just day to day suffering. And it's not clear to me that the, that the Buddhists are talking about that or that the Buddhist will ever be in a position to have to choose between virtue and that kind of suffering in that kind of way.
00:53:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think that remains to be seen. If I think about some of these existing modern Buddhists, do they promote ideas that Stoics cannot sign up for? My sense is probably not, although of course there are going to be disagreements. There are disagreements within Stoic circles about what
00:53:48
Speaker
living in accordance with nature looks like. And they're going to be significant, but are they more significant between the differences you're going to see in different modern Western Buddhist sects? I'm not so sure. So you have a difference in focus? Perhaps that's a...
00:54:05
Speaker
significance in terms of, you know, where your attention is going to lie, how you think about building your life. But I mean, as far as I can see, there's not a huge, I think you're basically right that there's not a huge difference in terms of what the virtuous life looks like that comes to mind. So what else do you got in terms of differences? I mean, the, I mean, we've hit on this briefly as well, but there's this idea, as you noted, this idea of kind of experiential knowledge or this idea of
00:54:35
Speaker
in Buddhism of meditation or the subjective experience of meditating as being a means by which like maybe even meditating on the same proposition for extended period of time as a way of kind of revealing a nuance to that or a different kind of understanding of that in a way that I don't think the Stoics and the Stoics are more
00:54:58
Speaker
And I think this might actually be a failure of stoicism. I think one of the things that I think stoicism doesn't account for properly is this difference between propositional and experiential knowledge. I think stoicism leans too much on this idea that
00:55:15
Speaker
You know, as long as you have a strong foundation and logic, if the propositions are laid out to you and they're evident, that will necessitate you to reach the light conclusion. And I think anybody who's got about the messy act of living feels like, well, there's something missing there. It's a bit more complicated and the Stoics don't really have this, this complex picture of the subconscious to appeal to, or this real experiential knowledge language to appeal to. But it seems like the Buddhists.
00:55:43
Speaker
do or if they don't, they are at least leaning into it more in their practices, which I think is cool. It's just trying to close the gap between, you know, the stoats probably, it's this gap that Epictetus talks about, you know, you've, you've, you've learned this tenets of stoicism, you've endorsed them. Now what are you waiting for? And one way to read that is like, you know,
00:56:02
Speaker
you got to work, you got to put your work in, you got to pay, you got to pay, you got to pay up and do your side of the bargain. But the other way of reading that is the question is, what are these people waiting for? What is the gap from somebody who's endorsed the premises and taking them to be true and wants to be a stoic and why are they failing? And it seems like the Buddhists have kind of
00:56:24
Speaker
don't have these practices, but you don't have this thing of like, you know, a bunch of Stoics going to a secluded area, for example, and kind of engaging in these practices in a kind of experiential way, then in the way I can think of a kind of stoic Buddhist monk or Buddhist meditation practice, you know? Yeah, I think you're, of course, you see experiential practices.
00:56:48
Speaker
in stoicism, but they don't have the same emphasis. So I think Marcus Aurelius, when he's doing the view from above, that is an experiential practice. It's not like he's coming onto some new proposition in the same way one does when one's doing logical exercises. But that being said, you don't have
00:57:15
Speaker
you have much more of a focus on reason, logic, systematic and explicit reasoning in the Stoic tradition. And of course, I recognize there's Buddhist logic and so on, but I do think that as a broad brush is true that you have.
00:57:36
Speaker
that's a significant difference in how the Stoics and Buddhists might tend to spend their time and one where on the margin perhaps many Buddhist types could become more Stoic and perhaps some Stoics ought to move closer in the in the Buddhist direction Yeah, definitely in terms in terms of other differences And those are the really the ones that's that out to me anything else in your view Caleb?
00:58:05
Speaker
Yeah, let me see. I think if you get really into the theory, this focus on reason and this view of Stoic psychology is going to be different from Buddhist psychology.
00:58:23
Speaker
We have this episode on Epictetus' psychology. I don't think that's how Buddhists see the mind exactly in terms of being faced with impressions, ascension to them, and so on. Again, that's, I think, a specific way, the different amounts of focus on different forms of knowledge comes into play. I think you're right, though, that we've been keeping this conversation at the level of action, right? And at the end of the day,
00:58:51
Speaker
If you zoom out far enough and we took, like we came into this conversation, we said stoicism versus Aristotelianism. And we weren't, we didn't know as much about Aristotle or procuritism. There's a way of looking at those and saying, well, they're actually pretty similar. They have this emphasis on virtue. They are not advocating for anybody to be terrible people. Like there's a way of looking at broad strokes, but these are, you know, these are philosophies of way of life in terms of actions.
00:59:16
Speaker
There's no culture that I think has had an incredibly different conception of what a good life looks like. Maybe the cynics go that far. Maybe the, the, but, but in most cases, good lives are going to look pretty, you're kind to your others, only suffering where needed, you're active in the community, things like this.
Deep Differences in Metaphysical and Psychological Explanations
00:59:35
Speaker
And so.
00:59:37
Speaker
I think there's going to be some similarities between Moses and Buddhism at that level. But I think if you come to these as philosophies in terms of a metaphysical explanation, again, a psychological explanation, a meaning of life explanation, there's going to be very, very different. Ethically, we might see some broad strokes. Similarities, 7 out of 10 similarity. But in terms of those other things, it's going to be very, very different. We didn't really have the time to dig into that in this episode. But those are not going to be the same there.
01:00:07
Speaker
Yeah, that's definitely worth stating. I think there are many fruitful similarities. There is rich overlap, but especially as you start zooming in to some of these main doctrines, you're going to start noticing some of the differences. And although maybe it might be difficult to come up with some broad strokes differences in terms of, you know, actions, perhaps those might become more obvious in specific contexts that you're faced with.
01:00:36
Speaker
One other aspect I did want to add in the reason versus experiential knowledge debate in terms of something I think the Stoics got right just is this idea that our judgments do influence our experiences. And one critique of many modern Buddhists that I think is a powerful one is this idea that
01:01:04
Speaker
They state what you will come to learn in meditation, these truths of emptiness, there being no self.
01:01:14
Speaker
And then those statements, those judgments actually inform what people experience in meditation. So you can imagine, I think, other kinds of beliefs, other judgments, you know, might shape people's meditative experiences differently. And it's one mistake that I think
01:01:42
Speaker
some people make is thinking that these meditative experiences are pure and not at all influenced by our judgments. So the idea there is that you're not, if you're meditating for a certain function or you're meditating, sorry, just to clarify at this point, you've been given a prompt for your meditation, so your meditation is not accessing the
01:02:11
Speaker
you know, essential nature of the world, it's exploring a prompt. Is that what you mean? Yeah, there's so I think if you're, if you're given the idea that in
01:02:23
Speaker
meditation, what you experience is entirely internal. And it's what philosophers might call some idea of indirect realism. All you have access to are these things inside of your head. And that's going to shape what your meditation experience is like. You know, you'll think, I'm coming into contact with all these impressions and so on.
01:02:52
Speaker
Whereas if someone else has a meditation course and they're given all these ideas about what philosophers call direct realism, this idea that, no, you don't actually experience things inside your head. You actually encounter the world as it is. You wouldn't think of things in terms of, oh, I notice some sensation arising in my mind, or I notice some thought. Instead, you would categorize things as I noticed
01:03:21
Speaker
explicit pain in my body, if I was doing an open eye meditation, I didn't see the image of a plant in front of me, I saw the plant. And that, you know, maybe is a sort of abstract philosophical example, but when you get down to things like, you know, I have an experience of no self in meditation, it's hard to see how that just isn't influenced by
01:03:48
Speaker
the judgments you have surrounding meditation and the fact that all these meditation teachers told you that you would come to see reality as it is through meditation and that involves seeing that there is no self, things are impermanent and
Conclusion and Audience Engagement
01:04:04
Speaker
so on. But perhaps if they had said something completely different and I think it's plausible, you would have had a different kind of experience. Cool. That's interesting. I mean, maybe that's a difference when it comes down to that.
01:04:14
Speaker
You know, Starbucks are very explicit about that indirect realism, as you said. Starbucks are very explicit that we only ever have access to our oppressions, right? And so that's obviously, when you're meditating or when you're reflecting, you're reflecting upon your oppressions of the world. So that might be a difference there. But yeah, that's a really cool thought. Cool. All right. Anything else? No, that was great. All right. Uh, yeah, thanks for doing that. That was fun. Awesome. Thank you.
01:04:43
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Stoa Conversations. Please give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and share it with a friend. And if you'd like to get two meditations from me on stoic theory and practice a week, just two short emails on whatever I've been thinking about, as well as some of the best resources we've found for practicing stoicism, check out stowletter.com. It's completely free. You can sign up for it and then unsubscribe at any time as you wish.
01:05:13
Speaker
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01:05:40
Speaker
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