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Meditation and Anger in Stoicism and Buddhism
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Donald speaks with Matthew Gindin, writer, editor, and former Buddhist monk. We talk about Buddhist teachings on anger and the parallels between Buddhist and Stoic contemplative meditation practices.
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Transcript
Introduction to Stoicism and Buddhism
00:00:00
Donald Robertson
Hello and welcome to Stoicism, Philosophy as a Way of Life. Today's guest is Matthew Gindon, who i' think I'm speaking to it for the second time on the show.
00:00:11
Donald Robertson
He's a writer, an editor, he's a former Buddhist monk, and that's what we're going to be mainly talking about today, our mutual interest in Buddhism and how it relates to other areas of philosophy and psychology.
00:00:25
Donald Robertson
So ah Matthew, welcome to the show. How are you?
00:00:29
Matthew Gindin
I'm good. Thank you. I'm happy to be here.
00:00:33
Donald Robertson
So let's, I guess, dive right in. One of the things I wanted to speak to you about, actually, in relation time or ah in relation to Buddhism, was anger.
00:00:45
Donald Robertson
think we talked about that little bit before. um Because I'm writing a lot about anger at the moment. I'm working on a book about it. And the Stoics are out there on a limb, buddy.
00:00:57
Donald Robertson
because they say famously that all anger is irrational and unhealthy. And the prevailing view in Western society is that anger can sometimes be a good thing.
00:01:11
Donald Robertson
It can get stuff done and it can be quite useful. So this is an area of stoicism that people struggle with. For example, Seneca's own anger. um An entire book in the subject adopts this kind of radical position.
00:01:27
Donald Robertson
But one of the few groups of people that potentially kind of lean more towards the stoic view, um as I understand it, are Buddhists in general.
00:01:40
Donald Robertson
um And I believe that anger is perceived in traditional Buddhism as a hindrance to enlightenment. And the view in East Asian countries, I think culturally,
00:01:56
Donald Robertson
is that anger is perceived as more of a negative thing than, for example, it would be in in North America. So I wanted to start off by just getting your again a bit of a deep dive into a specific subject to get the ball
Anger in Thai Buddhist Culture
00:02:08
Donald Robertson
rolling.
00:02:08
Donald Robertson
I wondered what your views are about anger in Buddhism.
00:02:10
Matthew Gindin
Sure. Well, I have a ah funny story about the perception of anger in in Thai Buddhist culture, which maybe remind me, I'll jump into that in a little bit if you'd like to hear it.
00:02:23
Donald Robertson
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:02:23
Matthew Gindin
um But first, I just want to address what you said about anger in Buddhism. So um just to set the scene a little bit, I'm mostly going to talk from a Theravada Buddhist point of view.
00:02:36
Matthew Gindin
So Just to explain to the listeners, yeah, old school.
00:02:37
Donald Robertson
Old school.
00:02:39
Matthew Gindin
i want I want to explain to the listeners a little bit about like what that is and why. First of all, I was a monk in the Theravadan Buddha school, so I know it the best. But, um you know, the Buddha lived around 5th to 4th century BC. So I believe that's what? That's 100 to 200 years before Socrates, something like that?
00:02:57
Matthew Gindin
that right?
00:02:59
Donald Robertson
Yeah, Socrates lived in the
00:03:00
Matthew Gindin
Yeah, so from the... That's like...
00:03:04
Donald Robertson
5th century BC, there ah the middle or end of the 5th century BC.
00:03:08
Matthew Gindin
Oh, really? So around the same time, actually. Okay, so they so they live not not too far, close together in time.
00:03:10
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:03:14
Matthew Gindin
And the Buddha, um you know, his his teachings were, during his life and after his death, they were memorized and organized and standardized and then and then chanted orally for centuries.
00:03:28
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:03:28
Matthew Gindin
And the people who have the most complete record of that original standardization of his teachings is the Theravada. So that's that's my other logic for speaking from that, because Theravada claims to have the most accurate historical memory of what the human being, the Buddha, actually taught.
00:03:47
Donald Robertson
Can I ask you a quick can interject and ask you a quick question about that?
00:03:47
Matthew Gindin
Yeah. Yeah.
00:03:50
Donald Robertson
Okay, because as you brought up the dates, because before there was Socrates, there were the pre-Socratics, right?
00:03:59
Matthew Gindin
yeah
00:03:59
Donald Robertson
And one of them in particular Heraclitus, um who lived at the beginning of the 5th century BC and the end of the 6th century BC, famously had a doctrine called Pantare and Greek, which means that nothing is permanent and everything is in flux.
00:04:19
Matthew Gindin
who
00:04:21
Donald Robertson
And we know that because people wrote about it. Plato writes about it and discusses it. People quote the fragments from his books. And it's similar to the doctrine of an Ichavada or impermanence in Buddhism, right?
00:04:33
Donald Robertson
Which is a big deal.
00:04:33
Matthew Gindin
Well, more, more. More than just that, um you know, the the Buddha was very aware of what other philosophers and spiritual teachers were teaching. And he he lived in this milieu where there was all these different philosophical groups wandering around in the forest debating with each other and arguing.
00:04:46
Donald Robertson
Yeah. Yeah.
00:04:49
Matthew Gindin
and And the Buddha discussed and evaluated the other teachers and their teachings. And um and and we have there's actually a record of him explicitly saying that there is a foreign philosopher who teaches impermanence.
00:05:04
Donald Robertson
Oh, really? Oh, wow.
00:05:05
Matthew Gindin
Yeah. Oh, yeah. And he says, and and not just that, not just that, but the name given. It's not Heraclitus, but it sounds similar. And many people have said, you know, we think we think he's talking about Heraclitus here.
00:05:14
Donald Robertson
Right on.
00:05:19
Donald Robertson
That's amazing. I said that to a Sri Lankan Buddhist abbot once and he became quite annoyed with me. He had an argument with me about that the dates, right? And I was like, no, Heraclitus is like ah the beginning of the 5th century.
00:05:32
Donald Robertson
and But theres also there's some ambiguity about dating the exact time when Siddhartha Gautama lived.
00:05:35
Matthew Gindin
Oh, yes, there is.
00:05:38
Donald Robertson
But if what you're saying is right, you know he he would have come you know a generation or two after a Greek philosophy.
00:05:38
Matthew Gindin
Definitely.
00:05:45
Donald Robertson
And Ichavada is pretty central. to Buddhism.
00:05:48
Matthew Gindin
It's very special.
00:05:48
Donald Robertson
It's one of the things yeah that distinguishes it from Hinduism and and some some of the ah like the Indian philosophies that were extant. I also want to mention touch on something else that you mentioned, right?
00:06:01
Donald Robertson
because wereate I want to talk a lot about but ancient Buddhism. So the... Spoiler alert, right? The Greeks had contact with ah Indian philosophers, but they called them gymnosophoi, which just means naked wise men.
00:06:15
Matthew Gindin
her
00:06:21
Donald Robertson
So they had limit very limited contact, but there seems to be some exchange of ideas. going back pretty far, and it kind of fluctuates over time, depending on problem is that Persia is in the way, so it was difficult to get back and forth, and it's a long distance, but there were there were some contexts.
00:06:31
Matthew Gindin
yeah
00:06:41
Donald Robertson
There's one ancient text that mentions in passing that Socrates had a conversation with an Indian merchant For example, you know we don't know whether that's apocryphal or it really happened, but there's other texts that Alexander the Great ah got as far as Afghanistan and Pakistan,
Historical Context of Buddha's Teachings
00:06:57
Donald Robertson
and he took a bunch of philosophers with him.
00:07:00
Donald Robertson
right and
00:07:00
Matthew Gindin
Yeah.
00:07:02
Donald Robertson
So there's definitely some exchange of ideas, but we wouldn't expect that a Roman or Greek writers to describe Buddhism, for example, or even Hinduism necessarily in a way that's very recognizable to us today, because they would probably have encountered a whole bunch of wild and wonderful philosophies in India.
00:07:25
Matthew Gindin
Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:27
Donald Robertson
um ancient the ancient um end indian thought was probably you know some of it is quite different it's archaic compared to what we we would think of as hinduism today but there may have been some kind they would have met people indian philosophers that believed things that would seem quite surprising to us so there are some descriptions but they they don't um they seem a lot bit different from what we might expect to see but the the other thing i wanted to mention is you you as you said buddhism is an oral tradition so the pali canon
00:07:27
Matthew Gindin
yeah
00:07:55
Donald Robertson
was written, what, in the the first century BC or or AD or something? um
00:07:59
Matthew Gindin
So um it's a little it's a little bit more complicated. my so um So these early Buddhist monks, right, what they did was they standardized what the Buddha had said. They basically all got together and they agreed on a version that everybody could agree to.
00:08:15
Donald Robertson
Right.
00:08:15
Matthew Gindin
and then they organed And then they organized it in such ways that it could be easily memorized and chanted, which is why it's actually hard to read.
00:08:22
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:08:23
Matthew Gindin
Because when you try to read the Palikkanon, it has all of these repetitive stock phrases in it, which are put in there to aid memorization.
00:08:24
Donald Robertson
Right.
00:08:28
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:08:30
Matthew Gindin
But in any case, they those they had all these groups of professional chanters who memorized huge amounts of material. and And this was maintained for centuries. and And everybody kind of agreed on what would be in there sometime in the third century BC. It was kind of, it it basically took the form that we have now more or less.
00:08:50
Matthew Gindin
and um And then it was...
00:08:51
Donald Robertson
How sure of that can we be, right?
00:08:52
Matthew Gindin
Yeah.
00:08:54
Donald Robertson
So, I mean, so if we take a step back, right, so first of all, there's reason to believe that they made, you know, efforts, technical efforts to maintain the consistency of their teaching over time.
00:08:55
Matthew Gindin
Yeah.
00:09:05
Donald Robertson
But we're talking a bit but talking about quite a long period of time, like three or four centuries.
00:09:05
Matthew Gindin
so yeah
00:09:10
Donald Robertson
Like...
00:09:10
Matthew Gindin
we We are in here and here we want to so so this is a great question, and this is I won't get too into this.
00:09:15
Donald Robertson
Did Buddhism not evolve over the the space of three or four centuries but during during that oral period?
00:09:18
Matthew Gindin
So, so okay. Yeah, so I hear two questions in there so i'll quickly address both. The first one is that yes, there were there were technical efforts um at a very high level to tend to standardize the teachings and even to standardize the language of the teachings in fact.
00:09:32
Donald Robertson
don't
00:09:35
Matthew Gindin
When we talk about the Pali canon, Pali was not a spoken language. Pali was a language that was standardized for the explicit purpose of standardizing the teachings.
00:09:39
Donald Robertson
know.
00:09:44
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:09:44
Matthew Gindin
Okay. So it was indeed a very technical effort. um
00:09:48
Donald Robertson
Right.
00:09:48
Matthew Gindin
The second thing is, you know, in terms of oral cultures, just to briefly say that, you know, we Westerners are completely ass backwards about oral oral, because we think that textual traditions are more reliable when or than oral traditions, when in actual fact it's the opposite.
00:10:02
Matthew Gindin
um at least in the pre-modern era. I'm not talking about now when we have all this technology, but in the pre-modern era, um you know, a number of anthropologists have shown that oral traditions um have incredible fidelity and they don't actually make the types of scribal errors that textual traditions do.
00:10:17
Matthew Gindin
So just to just to to jump onto that a little bit more, you know, looking like right now, even now there are Burmese monks who memorize the Pali Canon.
00:10:18
Donald Robertson
Right.
00:10:26
Matthew Gindin
And their their abilities you know are absolutely out of this world. To memorize, there's one monk who was able to memorize about 10,000 pages of material without a flaw.
00:10:37
Matthew Gindin
you know
00:10:38
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:10:39
Matthew Gindin
But in any case, it was, you know, it was passed down. And yes, it did evolve. And we can see that, you know, even though they were trying to keep it standardized, we can tell that gradually more narratives were added, more, you know, sometimes there were, we
Buddha's Perspective on Anger
00:10:52
Matthew Gindin
can see where there was some editing or some additions, you know, and and of course, scholars have different theories about exactly what and where.
00:10:52
Donald Robertson
Right.
00:10:58
Matthew Gindin
But When there were disagreements, like when when people disagreed, what they tended to do was form a new school.
00:10:59
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:11:07
Donald Robertson
Right, right.
00:11:07
Matthew Gindin
as ah right So actually, by about the second, third century, there were already 18 different schools of classical Buddhism.
00:11:13
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:11:14
Matthew Gindin
And that's before the Mahayana. So I don't want to take us too too far down the rabbit hole. But... you know We actually have um records of of the way that these suttas came to be passed, suttas, sorry, meaning the discourses of the Buddha, the way that they were memorized and passed down in these different lineages.
00:11:19
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:11:28
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:11:31
Matthew Gindin
And scholars have found fragments of the different lineages. And what you can see from the fragments is that there is an incredible amount of consistency across schools,
00:11:35
Donald Robertson
Right.
00:11:40
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:11:41
Matthew Gindin
And that there also are differences in emphasis, um you know, where you can see that different schools made subtle alterations to emphasize different things, you know, so it's sort of a both and.
00:11:42
Donald Robertson
Right.
00:11:46
Donald Robertson
Uh-huh.
00:11:53
Donald Robertson
Yeah, we can see this in Greek philosophy. So Stoicism, just for example, convenient example, survived for about 500 years as a living tradition. And and it's it's difficult, actually, to quantify the changes. Scholars argue about whether Marcus Aurelius and to what extent he's saying the same thing as Zeno, the founder of of Stoicism, like five centuries or so earlier.
00:12:16
Donald Robertson
um
00:12:16
Matthew Gindin
Right.
00:12:17
Donald Robertson
But it looks like Stoicism also... in some ways is surprisingly consistent over that period of time but there's also changes in the use of language and the emphasis that we find um and there's also like you say is so to some extent a division into different branches or different you know you see people you know perhaps thinking well you know we all agree um to study xeno and chrysipus but we have slightly different interpretations of what they meant
00:12:46
Matthew Gindin
Right, exactly. And and so ah ultimately, the Palai Canon was actually written down, I believe, in the first or second century in Sri Lanka, not in India, and because that was where the Theravada school moved to and became a real stronghold ah in Sri Lanka.
00:13:04
Donald Robertson
So to go back to our original question then, and if we're going right back to the origins of Buddhism, how does anger fit into the picture? So I suppose there actually might be in some religions or some philosophies, anger might not be a particularly central concern.
00:13:20
Donald Robertson
So, you know, it might be something that that's not really addressed in the original scriptures. But ah so to what extent did the Buddha care about anger, for example? To what extent does it feature in the Pali Canon?
00:13:30
Matthew Gindin
you
00:13:33
Donald Robertson
And how orthodox did that position become in Buddhism?
00:13:37
Matthew Gindin
So the Buddha was quite concerned about anger and violence, two two things which are closely related in in in buddh in the Buddha's teachings. and He spoke about both of them quite a lot.
00:13:47
Matthew Gindin
who And the position that he took became orthodox for all the classical Buddhist schools, so for Theravada and all the other classical Buddhist schools. We can talk a little bit later, if you want, about about the way that it evolved a little bit differently in the Mahayana and Tantric schools.
00:14:05
Matthew Gindin
um But so first, I'd like to say, like, what his basic view was, and then talk a little bit about why, what is the logic behind it?
00:14:12
Donald Robertson
yeah
00:14:15
Matthew Gindin
And then third, if you'd like, at some point, um I can share some of the techniques that the Buddha offered dealing with.
00:14:20
Donald Robertson
Yeah, let's do that. That sounds good.
00:14:22
Matthew Gindin
Yeah. So first of all,
00:14:23
Donald Robertson
Those are what we call practical takeaways.
00:14:26
Matthew Gindin
Yeah, exactly. And the Buddha was all about practical takeaways. It was much more about practical takeaways than anything else. Theory was low on his low on his priorities.
00:14:33
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:14:35
Matthew Gindin
um
00:14:35
Donald Robertson
Indeed.
00:14:37
Matthew Gindin
So um the ah there's there's a famous sutta, famous early Buddhist discourse called the simile of the saw, which is, I think, a good place to start.
00:14:46
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:14:47
Matthew Gindin
Because in that discourse, the Buddha says to his disciples, um if my disciples, if you were attacked by bandits... and they beat you and began cutting you into pieces with a saw, cutting you up limb from limb.
00:15:01
Matthew Gindin
If you were to entertain a single thought of anger towards those bandits, then you have abandoned the discipline and are are are no longer my student. So I want to start there, tell you what radical takes on anger.
00:15:13
Matthew Gindin
you know This is the most extreme position of opposition to anger ah that I think one could take. um
00:15:21
Donald Robertson
And by the way, the ancient world was a pretty brutal place.
00:15:24
Matthew Gindin
le He's not joking around that example.
00:15:25
Donald Robertson
yeah know it's not ken you you know maybe yeah it's not It's not unthinkable that bandits might decide to saw you. and he you know Usually look at some of the things that were told happened in the Greek and Roman world, for example.
00:15:32
Matthew Gindin
Exactly.
00:15:38
Donald Robertson
um So yeah, like there were there were a lot of bandits.
00:15:39
Matthew Gindin
No.
00:15:41
Donald Robertson
It was dangerous to leave your your town or village, go for a walk that you know through the woods or whatever. There a lot of bandits and pirates around.
00:15:48
Matthew Gindin
Oh, absolutely. And and and remember, the buddha the Buddha did not live and preach in cities. The Buddha lived and taught in in forests, in rural areas, in a more lawless areas.
00:15:57
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:16:00
Matthew Gindin
So he's talking about real ah real possibility.
00:16:04
Donald Robertson
yeah
00:16:04
Matthew Gindin
And ah and so so then the question is, well, why like why i mean why would the Buddha take such a strong position and why did he see anger as so problematic? um You mentioned that he saw it as a hindrance to enlightenment, and that's true, but it goes beyond that.
00:16:19
Matthew Gindin
The Buddha saw anger as causing suffering. that That is the bottom the bottom line. So even for somebody who isn't seeking enlightenment, his counsel would still be to abandon anger.
00:16:32
Donald Robertson
Would it be going too far to say that he sees it as a kind of disease or sickness of the mind?
00:16:38
Matthew Gindin
Oh, no, it would not be going too far. No, that would be accurate.
00:16:40
Donald Robertson
right
00:16:41
Matthew Gindin
and And, you know, What the Buddha, the Buddha said that um anger is inherently a cause of suffering. And the the reason for that is, and we have to go back for a second to what is the Buddha's fundamental diagnosis of what causes suffering.
00:16:59
Matthew Gindin
So the Buddha said that the cause of suffering is craving and clinging, right? And craving and clinging basically means, I'm translating here the words panha and upadhana into English.
00:17:11
Matthew Gindin
And tanha is sometimes translated as desire, but it's a little bit of a problematic translation and because there's two words for desire in Pali, tanha and chanda. And there's actually a role for chanda on the path, but there's no role for tanha on the path.
00:17:26
Matthew Gindin
Chanda is aspirational desire. It's when you when you when you
The Harms of Anger
00:17:30
Matthew Gindin
discern that something is good and you seek it.
00:17:30
Donald Robertson
Uh-huh.
00:17:33
Matthew Gindin
Tanya is that craving, addictive desire. o And that's what the Buddha said is the source of suffering, the craving, addictive desire, in that clinging onto things.
00:17:43
Donald Robertson
There's a very similar distinction in stoicism.
00:17:46
Matthew Gindin
Yeah, i'm I'm not surprised. And and so, you know, with What the Buddhists, so what is that about? What it's about is simply that we cannot have what we crave to have all the time.
00:17:59
Matthew Gindin
That even if we do get it, it will only satisfy us temporarily. And that clinging to things is fundamentally delusional because we can't control them.
00:18:04
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:18:08
Matthew Gindin
They're out of our control. So what causes us to suffer is that we want things
00:18:10
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:18:16
Matthew Gindin
which either we can't have or which vanish once we have them, or we cling to things which are outside of our control and, and always get what you want.
00:18:20
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:18:22
Donald Robertson
Can't always get what you want.
00:18:26
Matthew Gindin
And, and if you try, sometimes you find that it vanished on you anyway, and it's time to cultivate dispassion and meditate in the forest.
00:18:31
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:18:33
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:18:34
Matthew Gindin
So, so, and so, you know, what, what the Buddha is saying is anger. well what's anger all about? Anger is what happens when you can't control things or you can't get what you want.
00:18:46
Matthew Gindin
And so anger is an expression of the fundamental cause of suffering.
00:18:46
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:18:51
Matthew Gindin
And um it's it's it causes suffering because you are averse to things which you can't cause to cease to exist through that aversion.
00:19:04
Matthew Gindin
And I'm sure you're hearing the resonance Epictetus here because there definitely is one.
00:19:07
Donald Robertson
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:19:09
Matthew Gindin
and and so And not only that, but the Buddha goes on to say, um excuse me, you you know, anger is inherently problematic, but he also, he also says that it causes a whole bunch of kind of obvious empirical real life problems.
00:19:26
Matthew Gindin
So there's actually, there's a sutta of his, another discourse where he says that there are um seven, a seven ah harms that anger causes.
00:19:39
Matthew Gindin
He says, he says, there and he says, he says, these seven things oh pleasing to an enemy,
00:19:39
Donald Robertson
Right. Interesting.
00:19:46
Matthew Gindin
bringing about an enemy's goal, come to a person or he actually says, come to a man or a woman who is angry.
Is Anger Ever Useful?
00:19:54
Matthew Gindin
So just note the language there. You know, he, what he's saying is if you are angry, you bring things to yourself that an enemy would wish for you.
00:20:03
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:20:05
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:20:06
Matthew Gindin
Right. So he says the seven things are, um, your appearance becomes unpleasant. right And I've heard Buddhist teachers say, you know if you if you think this is silly, then the next time you're really angry, go and look at yourself in a mirror.
00:20:12
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:20:19
Donald Robertson
You know, in Greek literature in general, a surprising amount of emphasis, not just in Stoicism, but in other schools of thought, is placed on the ugliness of anger. It's one of the things that strikes us looking at it. They're very preoccupied. know you know Seneca, for instance, goes into, and as does Plutarch, into quite a lot of detail about the grimacing and the throbbing temples and the painting, this very graphic picture of how physically unappealing they think anger looks, which is a bit odd from a modern perspective perhaps.
00:20:50
Matthew Gindin
Yeah, that's very interesting. And I wonder if there's some kind of intuition here that um that this is relevant. that you know In other words, that theres there's some deeper meaning to what is beautiful and what is ugly.
00:21:02
Matthew Gindin
You know, that that sort of ah almost like a Plato-like idea.
00:21:04
Donald Robertson
Yeah. Oh, for sure. i mean, they so many of these philosophers were were not Cartesians like, you know, where our modern folk psychology is suffused with Cartesian dualism and they weren't.
00:21:17
Donald Robertson
So, you know, the the like the body and facial expression was seen as much more intimately connected with the state of your soul than we would normally assume it to be in and modern society.
00:21:30
Matthew Gindin
That's fascinating. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. and Just give me one second. Sorry. Get a little something in my throat. Okay. So yeah, so the Buddha goes on to say, um the next one is poor sleep. And I'm sure all of us have experienced this, you know, tossing and turning because you're really pissed off about something.
00:21:42
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:21:47
Matthew Gindin
um The next one is loss of profit. and what's What's meant here is, you know, you can't focus on your job, can't focus on your work. Um, loss of possessions is the next one.
00:21:58
Matthew Gindin
And, I think this is just an intensification of loss of profit. You know, you, you begin, you you begin losing your resources in the world, bad reputation, you know, people and this is certainly true.
00:22:03
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:22:09
Matthew Gindin
People who are frequently anger or who are known to have a temper, um, definitely damages ah other people's trust and esteem that they hold that person in loss of friends, same thing.
00:22:18
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:22:21
Donald Robertson
That's big one.
00:22:22
Matthew Gindin
And, uh, and then, um, And then the particularly the seventh one is particularly Buddhist, which is a bad rebirth.
00:22:30
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:22:30
Matthew Gindin
And and here here the idea is um you know, the idea behind karma is that karma is thought of as a natural law, right? It's not it's not really like such a metaphysical principle.
00:22:40
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:22:43
Matthew Gindin
it's just It's just that certain mental states tend to have bad effects, both in in the immediate present and in the longer term.
00:22:50
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:22:53
Matthew Gindin
And anger is one of those, you know, it it immediately um it has bad effects. It makes you ugly. It it agitates your nervous system, et cetera, et cetera. But over time, the more you indulge in it it has these rippling bad effects throughout your life.
00:23:07
Matthew Gindin
And then ultimately when you die, if anger is prominent in your mental stream, then it continues to have those bad effects and to to take you to to ah more unpleasant
00:23:07
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:23:21
Matthew Gindin
rebirth So that's that's the yeah the the last one there mentioned among the seven.
00:23:26
Donald Robertson
let me play devil's advocate for a minute if you don't mind because i get that i get this all the time all i'm gonna i'm gonna flip the tables because normally i'm in the receiving end of this argument
00:23:29
Matthew Gindin
Yeah.
00:23:32
Matthew Gindin
Yeah.
00:23:37
Donald Robertson
What about, people might say, righteous indignation in the face of social injustices? Doesn't anger help us to fight and take a stand against political injustice or social injustice?
00:23:54
Donald Robertson
So can anger, in fact, be something that's extremely important for civil rights, for instance? Isn't that what protests against... ah social injustice so are motivated by it, express, for for example.
00:24:10
Donald Robertson
That's the one of the main objections that often hear against the stoic idea that all anger is a disease of the mind and is unhealthy. So I wonder what a Buddhist perspective would would be that.
00:24:24
Matthew Gindin
Yeah, well, so the Buddha said that there are five nivarana, which are are there like coverings or distortions, which make it difficult to think clearly.
00:24:34
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:24:36
Matthew Gindin
and And part of Buddhist meditation is actually stilling and focusing and gladdening the mind to the point that these five nivarana disappear, at least temporarily.
00:24:48
Matthew Gindin
and and And then once they've disappeared, you can actually think philosophically in a clear way. And that's what leads to enlightenment.
00:24:53
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:24:55
Matthew Gindin
So ah one of the new warana is ah ill will, which is seen as an inescapable part of anger in Buddhist thinking.
00:25:01
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:25:05
Matthew Gindin
when you When you are angry at somebody, from a Buddhist point of view, there's always a degree of ill will embedded in the emotion itself, in the logic of the emotion itself.
00:25:16
Donald Robertson
Can I just interject there briefly? Because in Greek philosophy in general, they typically give a cognitive definition of anger, and it's fairly similar across different schools. They usually define anger as a desire for revenge or the desire to punish somebody in response to a perceived wrongdoing on their part.
00:25:34
Donald Robertson
But my experience is that many people today will deny that their anger consists in a desire to punish or harm the other person. So I think, to me, the jury's kind of out on that. There's a lot of people that claim that that's not what they feel when they're angry.
00:25:48
Donald Robertson
But I still think that really underneath anger, there is usually this desire to inflict some sort of harm or punishment on the other person. And it sounds like that but this idea of ill will is similar to the Greek idea of anger is revenge.
00:26:02
Matthew Gindin
Yes, no, that's exactly right. And you know it might be subtle or it might be gross, you know but but there's but there's there's the sense that that's an inherent part of the emotion cognitively, like you were saying.
00:26:15
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:26:15
Matthew Gindin
um So the point that i'm the point that I want to bring this to there is that what the Buddha is saying is that when you have ill will or anger
00:26:22
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:26:26
Matthew Gindin
um in the mind, you can't think clearly. So when talking about social justice and wanting to make society better, the Buddha's advice would be, if you're, if you're doing that with anger or ill will in the mind, then you are impeding your ability to do that.
00:26:44
Matthew Gindin
it It is not, it is not only is it not required to do that, but it actually is an impediment to doing it well.
00:26:49
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:26:53
Matthew Gindin
And you are actually, um, it's, it's, first of all, you you're not going to be able to to think clearly about what you actually need to do and what should happen and how things work, what needs to be changed, et cetera.
00:27:07
Matthew Gindin
But also if you're operating with anger, you're still going to have all of the other bad effects of anger, which means that not only are you impeding your own ability to think clearly and make change, you're also making yourself unpleasant to others, being unable to sleep, losing friends, damaging your reputation.
00:27:22
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:27:23
Matthew Gindin
And of course,
00:27:24
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:27:25
Matthew Gindin
but you know, the Buddha says many times, one of his most famous quotes, right, which is in the Dhammapada near the beginning is, in this world, hatred is never stilled by hatred.
00:27:36
Matthew Gindin
Hatred is only stilled by non-hatred. This is an eternal law.
00:27:38
Donald Robertson
Excellent. Hang on a minute. I've got a sound effect for that.
00:27:46
Donald Robertson
There you go.
00:27:47
Matthew Gindin
That's great.
00:27:47
Donald Robertson
Got sound effects. That's a great saying. like you know that We get this idea in Greek philosophy sometimes as well that anger begets anger and it just leads to cycles of violence and so on. you know It's not the solution usually the that people think it's going to be.
Mindfulness: Buddhist vs. Western
00:28:01
Donald Robertson
um i The way I explain this problem is that I think it comes from a sort of selective thinking and a one-sided interpretation, the idea that anger can motivate us, so therefore it has some value, because that ignores the costs that are associated with it.
00:28:16
Donald Robertson
And I compare it to there's a meme about coffee that says, drink coffee, do stupid things faster and with more energy. Right. So that's what anger is like.
00:28:26
Matthew Gindin
yeah
00:28:27
Donald Robertson
anger but Anger literally causes your but but your blood pressure to increase and your body produces more adrenaline. So it does give you a kind of like drinking a shot of adrenaline, a shot of coffee goes through your system.
00:28:40
Donald Robertson
But it also clouds your judgment. There are countless research studies that show the various cognitive and attentional biases that are sort of associated with ah anger. Even low-intensity anger impairs our judgment, ah introduces thinking errors, um it impairs our decision-making and problem-solving ability. um And so to mix these two things together, high increasing motivation sounds like a good thing, right?
00:29:07
Donald Robertson
But increasing motivation combined with poor judgment Sounds like a really bad combination, particularly bad combination.
00:29:12
Matthew Gindin
Yeah, really
00:29:15
Matthew Gindin
it sounds like if you really want to be an effective change maker, the very first thing you should do right at the beginning is rid yourself of anger.
00:29:23
Donald Robertson
Yeah, yeah, i think I think that makes sense. um So i was I'm interested to hear that being the Buddhist, but ah the Buddha, I'm not big fan of anger.
00:29:35
Donald Robertson
Now, there's another topic, if you're if you don't mind me shifting the focus slightly, there's something else I wanted to ask you about, and that is Buddhist mindfulness meditation.
00:29:47
Donald Robertson
um I suppose I'll begin with a little bit of an anecdote.
00:29:50
Matthew Gindin
Mm-hmm.
00:29:51
Donald Robertson
When I was a kid, I read the Dhammapada and or excerpts from it anyway university because I studied he history of Indian religions and the history of religions department Aberdeen University as part philosophy degree.
00:30:06
Donald Robertson
And I went to Buddhist retreats and Buddhist society and we did meditation. And I read books by Western thinkers about meditation.
00:30:19
Donald Robertson
And I couldn't help but feeling there were differences between ah the way that meditation and contemplative practices seem to be described in ancient Buddhist texts and the kind of modern, particularly the modern American take on it.
00:30:38
Donald Robertson
Now, my understanding that that when we talk about mindfulness meditation today, increasingly, I think, over the past few decades, and it's become part of an integral part, really, of cognitive behavioral therapy, and mainly based on Jon Kabat-Zinn's mindfulness-based stress reduction approach.
00:30:59
Donald Robertson
So it's a kind of minimalist, minimalist a westernized version of mindfulness meditation. And it's often understood as being about suspending judgment. and sometimes described as ah ah cultivating a kind of bare attention to your breathing or walking or scanning through the sensations in your body and so on.
00:31:20
Donald Robertson
And what struck me is odd about that from some of my experiences of speaking to Buddhists, Buddhist monks and reading Buddhist scriptures was I thought, well, what's the point?
00:31:35
Donald Robertson
of studying Buddhist scripture then. if when you're practicing meditation, you just forget about all of that and give your attention to the bare experience of the the present moment. Surely if you spent years and years and years and years studying and debating Buddhist scripture, memorizing the concepts, that's going to shape your perception of mindfulness practice, basically.
00:32:02
Donald Robertson
you know it's going to Those concepts are always going to be there.
00:32:03
Matthew Gindin
Absolutely.
00:32:05
Donald Robertson
For example, if if you've learned that anger is unhealthy and you've studied you know these seven consequences of anger and you've debated that with monks for years and years and years and years, and then you're practic meditating on your breathing or whatever, and you you you suddenly have an angry thought that pops into your mind,
00:32:23
Donald Robertson
All that training in Buddhist scripture, philosophy and psychology and ethics is undoubtedly going to shape. Even if you try to suspend judgment, it's going to have an effect on the way that you perceive the thoughts and feelings that are passing through your mind.
00:32:38
Donald Robertson
And so I think the idea that you could kind of extract mindfulness meditation completely from this philosophical context um seemed a lot but seems a little bit odd to me and in some
Sati and Stoic Mindfulness
00:32:49
Donald Robertson
ways. and i fit Because I feel the same way about Stoic meditation.
00:32:51
Donald Robertson
philosophy. I the yeah and i i guess I'll say right out the gate that i wonder I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the language of Buddhism as well, because I believe the the the word in Pali that's associated with mindfulness meditation is sati or smirti in Sanskrit.
00:33:14
Matthew Gindin
Mm-hmm.
00:33:16
Donald Robertson
But the the original meaning of that word, from what I understand it, is recalling or recollecting. And we have, there's a word for something akin to mindfulness and in Stoicism, it's prosokiae.
00:33:30
Donald Robertson
It means paying attention. And when Epictetus, there's a whole discourse about this. And what he says is that when you're practicing continual attention to your impressions and your faculty of judgment,
00:33:43
Donald Robertson
um you should be recalling the central doctrines of stoicism and applying them through continual attention to your experience.
00:33:53
Donald Robertson
right And so I guess there might be different ways of interpreting what that word originally meant, but one interpretation is that it was a kind of contemplative practice that entailed recollecting the core doctrines of Buddhism.
00:34:07
Matthew Gindin
Absolutely. So I heard, i heard like four things in what you said that I'd love to, i'm going to try to address. um One was the question of, you know, what does s sati mean and what is its relationship to presoke and to attention?
00:34:21
Matthew Gindin
um One is, um does it make sense to talk about a practice where you're so simply non-judgmentally aware without having some kind of interpretive framework that's embedded in that awareness?
00:34:31
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:34:35
Matthew Gindin
Number
00:34:35
Donald Robertson
That's some conceptual apparatus, as it were.
00:34:37
Matthew Gindin
Yeah. yeah number Number three, you know, what did the Buddha what did the buddha teach? And number four, what's the relationship between that and Western mindfulness? And is Western mindfulness a kind of decontextualized extract?
00:34:48
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:34:51
Matthew Gindin
So um I'll try to, I want to respond to all of those because those are all great questions and points.
00:34:51
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:34:56
Matthew Gindin
um Maybe I'll start with what the Buddha taught. and And what sati means. So you're right, sati means to remember. This is very well demonstrated by the fact that it's Sanskrit equivalent, smriti, which everybody knows means memory, is also the word used for the memory of religious teachings and oral traditions in India. So if you say if you're if you're talking to a Hindu and you say, oh, is that smriti?
00:35:22
Matthew Gindin
What you're asking them is, is that a passed down oral teaching?
00:35:26
Donald Robertson
Right.
00:35:27
Matthew Gindin
So, um so yeah, so, so sati means to remember the Buddha, um the Buddha taught, ah you know, the noble eightfold path, which has eight different things, which are supposed to fit together.
00:35:38
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:35:40
Matthew Gindin
Right. And sama sati, right. Mindfulness is one of those eight things. and It definitely exists in a context. So what is it? It is to remember what you're supposed to keep in mind.
00:35:54
Matthew Gindin
friend That's the essence of it.
00:35:55
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:35:55
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:35:55
Matthew Gindin
It's to remember what you're supposed to keep in mind.
00:35:57
Matthew Gindin
right um Attention is yoni somani sakara in Pali. Yoni somani sakara means um to pay attention to the right thing. and and if i were If I were going to say what what is the equivalent to prosoke, I would say it's actually yoni somani sakara.
00:36:18
Matthew Gindin
which is to be attentive to the right thing. you know in epic In the sense of Epictetus, that would be to attend to your impressions. right But then it's not just attention because you have to, like you said, you have to attend, but also within a certain framework, which makes sense of what you're attending to and what you're supposed to discern about what you're attending to.
00:36:36
Donald Robertson
Yeah. What are we watching here? What am I watching? I can imagine, like for some people, that when they meditate, I think they're just thinking, I don't know, it's just a bunch of random thoughts.
00:36:41
Matthew Gindin
yeah
00:36:47
Donald Robertson
what Am I looking for anything here?
00:36:47
Matthew Gindin
right
00:36:48
Donald Robertson
but Whereas a Buddhist monk... would have much more insight into you know the distinction between different types of thoughts and feelings that they're experiencing.
00:36:58
Matthew Gindin
Yeah. so so
00:36:59
Donald Robertson
Epictetus, of course, thinks that one of the main things a Stoic should have in mind is you know which aspects of this are under your control in which aren't.
00:37:08
Matthew Gindin
Right. Absolutely. so So, you know, the Buddha taught something called Satipatthana, which is, ah it means the the four ways to establish mindfulness. Although I should say that the teacher who I learned the most about this, and I would i would i would say anybody who's curious to understand what the Buddha actually taught about mindfulness should check out Tanisara Bhikkhu, who's got many, many, many teachers online, who I studied with when I was a monastic.
00:37:31
Matthew Gindin
um So, you know, Tanisara Bhikkhu, he actually used to translate Satipatthana as the four frames of reference. Because what he was saying is, ah when you say that you are, basically the Satipatthana method says that there are four things that you should keep in mind.
00:37:49
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:37:49
Matthew Gindin
And you keep them in mind as the frame of reference for your attention. Right? So for Epictetus, the frame of reference would be what is under my control and what is not. Right?
00:37:59
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:37:59
Matthew Gindin
That's the frame of reference. Then you're paying attention to your impressions with that frame of reference in mind. Right?
00:38:04
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:38:05
Matthew Gindin
That's all very consonant with the Buddha's approach to mindfulness and what he meant. So what do you keep in mind in a Buddhist sense? Well, the buddha the Buddha actually taught 40 different meditation exercises. So I'm not going to get into all of them.
00:38:16
Matthew Gindin
But basically, you know, the Buddha.
00:38:17
Donald Robertson
yeah let me enter Let me just interject a quick comment there again. and this came as ah i guess because I started off reading scriptures and studying Buddhism at university, it took me a while to wrap my head around the fact that when I was talking...
00:38:35
Donald Robertson
to people today about meditation, many people assume that there's only one type of meditation. ah find that really perplexing at first. i really It really, puzzled me because I'd always taken it for granted that meditation is quite a broad,
00:38:53
Donald Robertson
concept and there are many different types of meditation in the buddhist tradition in the hindu tradition in west in the western on tradition you know there's not just like one thing called meditation but it amazed me that there are people that believe that
00:38:58
Matthew Gindin
Absolutely. Absolutely.
00:39:06
Matthew Gindin
No, the, but you know, the,
00:39:09
Matthew Gindin
Absolutely. you know, the Buddha had the Buddha's approach to medicine. Meditation is like a doctor's medicine bag or something.
00:39:14
Donald Robertson
yeah
00:39:14
Matthew Gindin
He's got a whole bunch of different medicines. Each type of meditation is a different medicine to heal you of a different thing. You know, my the same teacher, Tanisara Biko, remember he said that sometimes he came across Westerners who only did one meditation like they just focused on their for like 30 years.
00:39:26
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:39:31
Matthew Gindin
and he would say And he would say, well, that's like you know that's like a a handy person who only carries around a hammer. That's the only thing you carry around. you know what How much can you do with that?
00:39:43
Matthew Gindin
So to come back to Satipatthana, the Buddha said that you should remember to keep in mind your body for certain meditations.
00:39:44
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:39:51
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:39:54
Matthew Gindin
For certain meditations, you should remember to keep in in mind your feeling tone.
00:39:55
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:39:59
Matthew Gindin
For certain meditations, you should remember to keep and in mind what your state of mind is. As you go about in your daily activities, just paying attention to, oh now my mind is ah bright. Now it's darkened.
00:40:10
Matthew Gindin
Now it's clear. Now it's, now you know, and any of these, you can learn a tremendous amount. If you spend your whole day remembering to keep in mind and be aware of what your state of mind is while you're doing and thinking different things, you're going to learn a huge amount, right?
00:40:23
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:40:24
Matthew Gindin
Right. But all of these exist under an overarching thing, which is that all of these different ah things that you keep in mind are kept in mind in the context of the teachings. So the fundamental thing that you keep in mind is the dhamma, right?
00:40:40
Matthew Gindin
so so So for instance, you know, and the Buddha lists fundamental dhammas that you should keep in mind. So for instance, like fundamental teaching. So one quick example, the Four Noble Truths.
00:40:51
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:40:52
Matthew Gindin
The Four Noble Truths is the overarching frame of reference for everything. So if you're paying attention to your state of mind within that frame of reference, what that means is you're going to notice when you're craving and clinging to things, and you're going to notice when that causes suffering. It's not just a theoretical thing. you know It's something you're actually supposed to observe.
00:41:12
Matthew Gindin
Oh, I'm experiencing craving. Oh, here's the suffering that that caused.
00:41:14
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:41:16
Matthew Gindin
Oh, I'm experiencing clinging. Oh, here's the suffering that caused. And that's what causes you to, and doing that, by the way, paying attention to that with discernment is the fourth noble truth, which is the path to the end of suffering.
00:41:28
Donald Robertson
Okay.
00:41:29
Matthew Gindin
And then when you when you apply that path and then you experience dispassion and you let go of the craving, that's the third noble truth, Nibbana, which is freedom from suffering.
00:41:35
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:41:38
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:41:39
Matthew Gindin
So you have you have this this very you know neatly designed frame of reference that you're
Ethics in Modern Mindfulness
00:41:44
Matthew Gindin
applying, not as a theory, that's meditation. you know you're You're applying it in... So to come back to sati, sati is to remember what you're supposed to what you're supposed to keep in mind ah right now in whatever practice you're doing.
00:41:59
Matthew Gindin
right So how did we get from there to Western mindfulness? Yeah. the The super brief version of the story is that in Burma, there was a particular meditation lineage, which um which their practice was basically that you should um observe everything that was going on with bare awareness.
00:42:11
Donald Robertson
Yeah. Yeah.
00:42:23
Matthew Gindin
But there's reason behind that. It's still not quite Western mindfulness, because the reason behind that is if you observe everything with bare awareness, then you become aware of its impermanence. you you begin to experience that everything that you're aware of is passing away, passing away, passing away, that it's fleeting.
00:42:32
Donald Robertson
yeah
00:42:40
Donald Robertson
Can I just quote something at you very quickly? and Heraclitus said, everything that we see when awake is death. And I can only imagine that he meant by that, that everything we perceive when we clear our minds and we awaken from the slumber of ignorance is impermanence.
00:43:05
Matthew Gindin
and Absolutely. I mean, that makes so much sense to me. And that's, you know, in this Burmese tradition, that's that's what they were getting at. And this, by the way,
00:43:12
Donald Robertson
Quick question about that. you're You're not talking about in the ancient world, right? How long ago was this?
00:43:17
Matthew Gindin
no, this began in the 19th century.
00:43:20
Donald Robertson
Yeah, pretty recently, right?
00:43:20
Matthew Gindin
And absolutely, it was Ledi Sayadaw Webhu Sayadaw, these particular Burmese monks who began this, this who developed this particular approach. And they were the teachers of some kind of S.M. Goenka, you might have heard of.
00:43:33
Matthew Gindin
Because SN Goenka back in the sixties, he began doing what were called the past and retreats. And, and that was what popularized this idea of the past. And it's from that tradition of the past tradition that Western mindfulness comes from.
00:43:46
Matthew Gindin
And basically what happened is that, you know, Western mindfulness teachers.
00:43:46
Donald Robertson
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
00:43:51
Matthew Gindin
And i want i don't mean to I want to be careful what I say here because I'm not meaning to be dismissive or critical. I think there's value to what they did. but but they But they did introduce a shift. And the shift is that um this ah this bare awareness of things as they come and go.
00:44:09
Matthew Gindin
They began emphasizing how when you when you're just aware in a simple way of everything as it arises – You are, um you're great yeah there is a certain medicine to that because you're grasping at things less, you're judging things less, you're being averse to things less.
00:44:26
Matthew Gindin
You're just experiencing one thing after another as it arises. So they began to make that its own thing, which was sort of like both the path and the goal at the same time.
00:44:37
Matthew Gindin
And it's it's kind of this massive simplification of Buddhist teachings.
00:44:38
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:44:42
Matthew Gindin
and And that's really where Western mindfulness comes from. And it's shown to have...
00:44:45
Donald Robertson
Well, it's Buddhism with the Buddhism removed in a sense.
00:44:49
Matthew Gindin
Exactly. No, that's because you don't have to believe in karma. You don't have to believe in rebirth. And, you know, and what I've heard from many traditional Buddhist teachers is, um you you know, their their criticism is, well, hold on a second. First of all, before you even begin meditating, you're supposed to cultivate good personal conduct. You're supposed to cultivate generosity.
00:45:10
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:45:11
Matthew Gindin
um You have to get your house in order before you begin, you know, and if you just jump into these deep types of meditation, then actually all kinds of things can go wrong.
00:45:19
Donald Robertson
Yeah, you could be a psychopath and you know practice mindfulness meditation.
00:45:20
Matthew Gindin
And, well, yeah.
00:45:25
Matthew Gindin
Absolutely.
00:45:25
Donald Robertson
and It's Buddhism for people that don't like Buddhism.
00:45:26
Matthew Gindin
Or a... Yeah, yeah. or Or a corporate sociopath, which happens.
00:45:32
Donald Robertson
Yeah, yeah. Well, but yeah, like, they pause for a second while people think of examples, right?
00:45:33
Matthew Gindin
So...
00:45:37
Matthew Gindin
yeah
00:45:38
Donald Robertson
but there are I mean, they also just there are celebrities that seem kind of, you know, there are people who are quite vain and materialistic and maybe exploitative of other people that claim to practice mindfulness meditation and believe that helps them to be more successful, you know, as a tech baron or whatever, you know, like that.
00:45:58
Matthew Gindin
No, absolutely. It's like, it's like, ah you know, well, it's like, no, it's just like, cause you, cause you can easily say, well, as long as I'm just being aware of things and not clinging to things as they pass by, i can do whatever I, you know, and, and that does actually happen.
00:46:01
Donald Robertson
This is our culture.
00:46:11
Donald Robertson
and
00:46:14
Matthew Gindin
People are like, now I'm, you know, now I'm, now I'm drinking my whiskey without clinging. Now I'm, You know, now I'm now I'm calling somebody on the phone and and berating them without clinging, you know.
00:46:25
Matthew Gindin
And so so it ah it actually becomes a way to it ends up potentially I'm not saying this always happens, but it can potentially be a way to just um facilitate, you know, your own current level of delusion and.
00:46:40
Donald Robertson
i heard someone say in the zen tradition the they refer to something called meditation sickness that is a state of mind that's kind of nihilistic and self-absorbed that results from practicing bare attention excessively without developing your character in other ways, such as, you know, through compassion and so on.
00:47:00
Matthew Gindin
Absolutely. absolutely From a traditional Buddhist point of view, that that would be true. and And just for the sake of fairness, I just want to point out that I'm i'm not at all saying that all Western mindfulness teachers teach this approach or that they're not aware of these dangers or anything like that.
00:47:13
Donald Robertson
No. No.
00:47:15
Matthew Gindin
In fact, there are many Western mindfulness teachers who are aware of these dangers and and who try to balance out these things by introducing some things from the Buddhist tradition. You know, ah in a way that is palatable to Westerners to mitigate these dangers.
00:47:29
Matthew Gindin
So don't you know don't misunderstand me.
00:47:29
Donald Robertson
Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:31
Matthew Gindin
I'm not meaning to paint everybody with the same brush here or anything. but But I'm just saying that these that this is a this is a danger. ah i mean, at the very least, to be neutral, you could just say these are changes which have been introduced into the traditions.
00:47:48
Donald Robertson
yeah Yeah, and if people go back and read the Dhammapada, I just think, like surely, if people who are introduced to this very westernized, minimalist take on mindfulness, if they then go and read the Dhammapada, I just feel it's going to seem quite strange to them.
00:48:03
Donald Robertson
you know It's come's going to come as little bit a shock in some ways. so i you know it It's different.
00:48:08
Matthew Gindin
Absolutely.
00:48:08
Donald Robertson
It's got very kind of different tone to it from what what they've been learning.
00:48:11
Matthew Gindin
Well, it's like somebody... It's like you look at, you know, when you start out with the Dhammapada and that, I mean, you know, for instance, the first line of the Dhammapada says that um mind is beyond is behind everything that happens to you.
00:48:24
Matthew Gindin
And it's determined by your state of mind. And those who act with a bright, with a bright clear mind, happiness follows them.
00:48:27
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:48:31
Matthew Gindin
And those who act with ah with a, you know, a deluded or confused mind, the suffering follows them.
00:48:37
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:48:39
Matthew Gindin
So right there, you've got a dichotomy. It's not saying just be non-judgmentally aware. It's saying, here's a fundamental dichotomy, which you should be mindful of, which you're supposed to be mindful of is that dichotomy so that you can correctly discern which thoughts are in which so are on which side of that dichotomy.
00:48:58
Donald Robertson
Yeah. And i mean, I'll give you another example. It always seemed odd to me. For example, when we study ah cognitive therapy, there are common thinking errors that people experience, right, that go tend to go hand in hand with emotional disturbance. So people will make over generalizations.
00:49:19
Donald Robertson
they'll jump to conclusions about what other people are thinking.
Meditation Practices Compared
00:49:22
Donald Robertson
And if you are not paying attention to that, and and in many cases, you know just being able to label a thinking error, like put a name to it, seems to help people notice and discern more of what's going on and their mind.
00:49:39
Donald Robertson
So for example, in anxiety, people exhibit a thinking error called catastrophizing, where they focus on the worst case scenario and exaggerate the severity and probability of something awful happening.
00:49:51
Donald Robertson
But once you are familiar with those thinking errors, if you were practicing mindfulness, you might just notice that some of your thoughts consist in unfounded assumptions or overgeneralizations or typical exaggerations that are characteristic of anxiety.
00:50:07
Donald Robertson
But if you don't know any of that stuff, you don't have any of that terminology, then you might not even notice that some of your thoughts are inherently distorting reality.
00:50:20
Donald Robertson
And I think we get kind equivalence of that in ancient Buddhist scriptures as well. You need to know what unhealthy thoughts look like in order to spot that you're having an unhealthy thought.
00:50:30
Matthew Gindin
Absolutely.
00:50:33
Matthew Gindin
No, you know, this is a key thing I'd like to make sure to mention.
00:50:34
Donald Robertson
Not all thoughts are created equal.
00:50:37
Matthew Gindin
Yeah, this is a key thing I'd like to mention, which could also, if we want to return to anger, this could dovetail back into it too. um A key thing I want to mention is, you know, ah the Buddha taught, um you know, the Noble Eightfold Path, as I mentioned before, right?
00:50:49
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:50:50
Matthew Gindin
Samasati is one of those eight, Samasati meaning right mindfulness, is one of those eight things.
00:50:54
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:50:56
Matthew Gindin
Another one is Samawayama, which means right effort. Okay.
00:51:00
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:51:00
Matthew Gindin
So what is right effort? I actually find right effort fascinating. that I've taught it to many people in in non-Buddhist contexts, actually, just to say this is it this is a brilliant and simple analysis of how we change.
00:51:13
Matthew Gindin
And what what right effort is that um if a if a harmful, um what what the Buddha calls an unskillful mental state, which means that it it leads to bad consequences. So if if a harmful, destructive mental state arises,
00:51:30
Matthew Gindin
you recognize that it's arisen and then you abandon it. Okay, that's step number one. Step number two, you recognize that you have a tendency to that destructive mental state and you take proactive steps two to engage in mental cultivation that will discourage that harmful mental state from arising again.
00:51:53
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:51:54
Matthew Gindin
That's number two, right?
00:51:55
Donald Robertson
Yep.
00:51:56
Matthew Gindin
now Now, number three is if ah and this is important because Westerners sometimes don't forget about this one. Number three, if a positive, constructive, nourishing mental state arises, you recognize that and you dwell in it, you celebrate it, you you indulge in it, you strengthen it.
00:52:16
Matthew Gindin
And number four, you engage in types of mental cultivation that will make it more likely for that positive mental state to arise again in the future.
00:52:21
Donald Robertson
Yes.
00:52:24
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:52:24
Matthew Gindin
Okay. Now that's, that's right effort. Now, according to the Buddha, and this is the quick point I want to throw in here is you can't practice right mindfulness without practicing right effort.
00:52:27
Donald Robertson
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
00:52:33
Matthew Gindin
The two things are part of this path of practice.
00:52:33
Donald Robertson
Yeah. Right, right. Actually, that's a neat segue, not necessarily into anger, but there's something else wanted to go back to that you mentioned earlier, which is this idea that there are different meditations in the Buddhist tradition, because i I'm going to put it out there.
00:52:38
Matthew Gindin
Okay.
00:52:54
Donald Robertson
that some of the other meditation practices might be kind of similar to stuff that we find in the Western tradition, like in Greek philosophy and stoicism. So I think my recollection is that in Buddhism, in ancient Buddhism in particular, it's quite a lot of contemplating your own mortality and meditating on corpses and things like that and decay, right?
00:53:16
Matthew Gindin
Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, mindfulness doing yeah mindfulness of
00:53:20
Donald Robertson
Yeah, so and in Stoicism, and actually in Greek philosophy generally, we have this contemplation of death that so simply could be you know that the same meditation technique or a similar meditation technique.
00:53:32
Donald Robertson
There's also, in the Buddhist tradition, which is, I think, completely omitted from the kind of Western, maybe in a sense, one of the most notable things that's missing from this kind of, what would you call it, secularized modern Western tradition,
00:53:47
Donald Robertson
concept of of mindfulness meditation is that in Buddhism there's meditation on the qualities of the Buddha as a kind of role model as it were, right?
00:53:55
Matthew Gindin
Absolutely.
00:53:57
Donald Robertson
And we call that the contemplation of the sage in Stoicism.
00:54:02
Matthew Gindin
Interesting.
00:54:03
Donald Robertson
like We have exactly the same thing. the So the sophos is the Greek word for somebody who's enlightened or wise. And the the Stoics believed that this person had probably never existed.
00:54:18
Donald Robertson
Or if they did, they were extremely rare.
00:54:18
Matthew Gindin
Right.
00:54:21
Donald Robertson
One Stoic text says the wise man is as rare as the Ethiopian phoenix, which, according to legend, was born every 500 years or something, right? So they they have this kind of figurative weapon.
00:54:30
Matthew Gindin
Oh, I
00:54:31
Donald Robertson
They go, either, if this guy does exist, he's extremely rare, right? But nevertheless, they and they they thought it was very interesting that we all have the capacity to imagine what a wise person might look like and sound like and what they might do.
00:54:46
Matthew Gindin
oh i love that.
00:54:47
Donald Robertson
we can consume we have We have an intuition about what wisdom would look like, and they think we should explore that to imagine a wise person and ask ourselves, what would Zophos do in this situation?
00:54:59
Donald Robertson
And also to think of living role models, even though the Stoics emphasised that they're imperfect, they particularly thought we should meditate on Socrates because they took him to be their their best living role model.
00:55:12
Donald Robertson
um Although Socrates himself insisted that he wasn't wise, um but he was somebody who was making an effort to pursue wisdom. And the Stoics thought he'd maybe made more progress than anyone else in that regard. But again, I think Contemplation of death, contemplation of impermanence, contemplation of a kind of ideal of enlightenment or wisdom are contemplative or meditation practices that we clearly find in ancient Buddhism and also mirrored in the Western and the Greek tradition.
00:55:42
Matthew Gindin
Absolutely. so um So, yeah, I want to share something with you in response to that First of all, I'll just say it also reminds me of Spinoza, who, you know, talks about the importance of having a model of the sage in the ethics and says that's part of what he's trying to to do, is to is to is to create a kind of a correct model of what the sage would be like.
00:55:50
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:55:52
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:55:56
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:56:00
Matthew Gindin
um
00:56:00
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:56:01
Matthew Gindin
but ah But so the Buddha said there are 10... 10 recollections. And again, the word recollection here is mindfulness. And we should just pause for a second to to to point out that, you know, if mindfulness was bare nonjudgmental awareness, it would be hard to explain what the Buddha could possibly mean by mindfulness of death.
00:56:20
Matthew Gindin
um Because, you know, it wouldn't make any sense.
00:56:20
Donald Robertson
It would make sense.
00:56:22
Matthew Gindin
But so let's look quickly what the 10 recollections are, because they play right into what you're saying. The first one is recollection of the Buddha. which is just like, so it's it's thinking about the Buddha's qualities and and developing, you know, um you're developing him as a role model. The second one is recollection of the Dhamma.
00:56:39
Matthew Gindin
So this is just recollecting and thinking about the teachings.
00:56:40
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:56:42
Matthew Gindin
The third one is recollection of the Sangha, which means thinking about other people who are more advanced on the path than you, not necessarily the ideal saint, but other examples, right?
00:56:43
Donald Robertson
Yep.
00:56:50
Donald Robertson
Right. Uh huh.
00:56:52
Matthew Gindin
The fourth one is recollection of virtue.
00:56:52
Donald Robertson
Right.
00:56:55
Matthew Gindin
And this is interesting because this is actually recollection of your own virtue.
00:56:57
Donald Robertson
Boom.
00:57:01
Matthew Gindin
In this practice, what you're actually supposed to do is think about times that you yourself have acted virtuously and rejoice in that. Because the more that...
00:57:09
Donald Robertson
Yeah, we have this in, we very explicitly have this in stoicism as well.
00:57:13
Matthew Gindin
Right, because the more the more pleasure you take in your own virtue, the more virtuous you will be. The next one is recollection generosity. Same thing. You just think of times that you you yourself have been generous.
00:57:26
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
00:57:26
Matthew Gindin
and Then this is a very Indian one, recollection of the devas, which means you you think about the fact that beings on higher spiritual planes have all followed the path that you're following.
00:57:38
Matthew Gindin
Then there's recollection of the breath. So this refers to what we know as just breath meditation, keeping the breath in mind.
00:57:45
Donald Robertson
hmm hmm
00:57:45
Matthew Gindin
um And there's mindfulness of death. which we're discussing. And the last two are mindfulness immersed in the body, which means that as you go about your activities, you keep your mind grounded in your physical sensations.
00:57:59
Matthew Gindin
And the reason that you do that is because you get less carried away by emotion and thought if you stay grounded in the in the experience of your body.
00:58:05
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm. All
00:58:08
Matthew Gindin
That's a particularly Buddhist kind of insight and technique. And then the last one is is recollection of of stilling the mind, which means...
00:58:16
Donald Robertson
right.
00:58:16
Matthew Gindin
that you you remain mindful of how to focus and still the mind. And then you you make time to do that. you you know You make time to actually that whenever you can.
00:58:24
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:58:27
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
00:58:27
Matthew Gindin
So there's an example of 10 kind of the the basic toolkit.
00:58:33
Donald Robertson
I would say most of it, like we can find parallels for most of those in stoicism.
00:58:33
Matthew Gindin
That's the basic
00:58:39
Donald Robertson
um In the interest of, not the divas, I don't think there's anything that that kind of corresponds to that that I can think of.
00:58:42
Matthew Gindin
Okay.
00:58:46
Donald Robertson
Contemplating breathing and contemplating the body aren't very explicit. that I can think of in Stoicism. I think the others all have parallels in Stoicism. There's two, there's a couple of other meditations in Stoicism I want to ask you about, because they're quite prominent and they're not on that list.
00:59:03
Donald Robertson
But I wonder if they they might be parallels in Buddhism. So one of them is Premeditatio Malorum. which is to imagine future misfortunes as if they're happening now in order to prepare yourself in advance for them.
00:59:09
Matthew Gindin
I don't
00:59:16
Donald Robertson
So you would shut your eyes and visualize yourself becoming sick or but going bankrupt and becoming impoverished and to practice coping wisely with that to prepare yourself for unexpected misfortunes in the future. charges I'd be surprised if there wasn't something like that Buddhism, but I'm not sure I've come across it.
00:59:37
Donald Robertson
you know do you Do you think that,
00:59:37
Matthew Gindin
that's see
00:59:39
Donald Robertson
Is there a Buddhist practice that resembles that?
00:59:41
Matthew Gindin
So there's an interesting question because I think yes, I think the answer is yes and no. the The yes part of the question is that um there there's a meditation where you think out how what you're doing in the present and what you have in the present, what's going to happen to it over time.
01:00:00
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:00:03
Matthew Gindin
So a classic example of this came from a famous Thai master, Ajahn Lee.
01:00:03
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:00:08
Matthew Gindin
Ajahn Lee wrote a book, an autobiography, and he talked about how one time when he was a young monk, he was, you know, he was just looking at the, I think, I'm pretty sure it was young women. And he was just thinking, I don't know, I think I should just leave the robes and look at these beautiful young women have a happy, successful life, you know.
01:00:22
Matthew Gindin
And what he did was he sat down and he forced himself to visualize what the rest of his life would actually look like. ah meaning, you know, going, getting married, very exciting. But then, you know, they accommodate to each other and the passion wanes and then they have children and they have to do that. And he has to work hard and then eventually people get sick and then eventually his wife dies.
01:00:41
Matthew Gindin
And he went through, so he, but what's happening there is it's more of a type of imaginative engagement with impermanence, right?
01:00:46
Donald Robertson
yeah
01:00:48
Matthew Gindin
You're just, you're, so it's not, it's, it's a little bit similar, but also different, right? You're, you're not thinking about how well it,
01:00:53
Donald Robertson
there's another There's another stoic practice that's kind of maybe more similar to that. There's a couple of variations of it, but one of them is, I think, for example, Marcus Aurelius says, before you undertake any course of action, ask your so picture the consequences and ask yourself whether at some point you'll regret it.
01:01:11
Matthew Gindin
Yeah, it's more similar to that. I think it's more similar to that. and And I think there's maybe a reason that Buddhists didn't cultivate something like, could you say the Latin again? What is it? Meditatio malorum.
01:01:22
Donald Robertson
premeditation malorum malorum
01:01:24
Matthew Gindin
Yeah, I think the reason they didn't maurum so i think the reason they didn't is ah there's there's a famous teaching of the Buddhas where he talks about how to have an auspicious day, which was a big concern in pre-modern world, right? it's like what what what
01:01:40
Donald Robertson
um
01:01:41
Matthew Gindin
you know And usually if people said, how how will you have an auspicious day? The answer would be something like, well, check the astrological signs, make sure that you don't see a bad omen in the morning, you know um do your rituals, tell me to have an auspicious day.
01:01:54
Matthew Gindin
So the Buddha was was going against the grain. He said, the the way the way to the way to have an auspicious day
01:01:57
Donald Robertson
Right.
01:02:00
Matthew Gindin
is to be is to be mindfully aware of of every physical and mental phenomena as it arises within you. That's the way to have an auspicious day. so and But he actually says, don't think about the future, which may never happen, and don't think about the past, which is gone.
01:02:16
Donald Robertson
Right.
01:02:18
Matthew Gindin
Rather, ta-ta, ta-ta, which means like right here, right here. What's happening in your mind right now, be aware of
01:02:23
Donald Robertson
Right, right. I'm going to play devil's advocate again for a second, right? Because I wonder if there's another way of looking at this.
01:02:29
Matthew Gindin
yeah
01:02:32
Donald Robertson
Because i would argue that although I mentioned things like poverty and enslavement and sickness and all the misfortunes that can afflict people, Seneca says we should imagine as if they're happening now, arguably the stoic contemplation of death is an example and maybe the most fundamental example of premeditatio malorum and the ancient buddhists did contemplate their own death so i think surely did the ancient buddhists not imagine different forms of death like didn't they didn't they contemplate the idea of you know
01:03:09
Donald Robertson
um being butchered or ah developing a disease and and dying in a number of different ways as part of the practice of contemplating death so that that could be viewed as a form of premeditating misfortunes
01:03:23
Matthew Gindin
That's a good point. Yeah, no, they did. usually um Usually, the type of contemplation that's mentioned in the suttas is pretty, how would I put it, pretty banal in a sense. It's it's it's it's more like thinking um eventually, like here's an example. The Buddha said every every single day you should think to yourself, I am um i am subject to illness.
01:03:52
Matthew Gindin
I am subject to aging. I am subject to death.
Cosmic Perspective Meditation
01:03:56
Matthew Gindin
Everything that I love, everything that is dear to me will change and grow otherwise. So this is, and what this is about is cultivating non-attachment. It all, it all goes back to not clean, right?
01:04:08
Matthew Gindin
um
01:04:09
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
01:04:09
Matthew Gindin
But, but however, the Buddha did suggest that people meditate on death in ways which were a bit more gruesome, but it has a bit of a different purpose.
01:04:18
Donald Robertson
Right.
01:04:18
Matthew Gindin
And it was for monks. It wasn't for people who were in the world. So for for people who are monks, they would they would meditate on the way that their body, they would actually meditate on, they would actually go to like a charnel ground and look at decomposing bodies.
01:04:22
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
01:04:33
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
01:04:33
Matthew Gindin
And then they would imagine their own bodies going through all the different stages of decomposition.
01:04:34
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
01:04:38
Matthew Gindin
And and the the point is twofold. Number one, when you do that, it really decreases your sex drive.
01:04:46
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:04:46
Matthew Gindin
And they would actually, they have meditations where they would say, if you go out, and this is but this is not, by the way, a gendered thing, the same advice was given to ah female monastics.
01:04:54
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:04:55
Matthew Gindin
if you If you go out and you see whoever it is that you're attracted to, female, male, non-binary, or whatever they happen to be, um if you you go out and you see that person that you're attracted to,
01:04:59
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:05:06
Matthew Gindin
and you And you're a monastic who's trying to not get caught in sexual desire, then you can meditate on on the fact that one day that body that you think is so hot is going to go through these.
01:05:10
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:05:15
Matthew Gindin
And when you actually imagine as they go through that exercise, providing that you want to give up the sexual desire, it's quite effective at helping with that. Yeah.
01:05:24
Donald Robertson
you know what, just as an as aside, that reminds me of a famous passage in the Meditations where Marcus Aurelius is talking about something very different, but he's using a similar psychological strategy.
01:05:24
Matthew Gindin
yeah
01:05:33
Donald Robertson
He's talking about craving for fine foods, and he says, tell yourself this is just fermented grape juice, not like really expensive wine. he He says, tell yourself this is a dead pig, it's a dead bird, it's a dead fish, right?
01:05:48
Donald Robertson
Rather than, you know,
01:05:48
Matthew Gindin
Totally. That's great. Yeah, that's exactly the same strategy, really.
01:05:53
Donald Robertson
and There's one other meditation technique I wanted to ask you about that we find not just in Stoicism, it's very prominent in Marcus Aurelius, but we actually find it in Latin poetry and a you know hinted at in Plato, maybe, and other ancient Greek literary sources.
01:06:09
Donald Robertson
And it's the one that Pierre Hadot, who is a ah French scholar of Greek philosophy, um who studied the spiritual exercises, contemplative practices in Greek literature,
01:06:22
Donald Robertson
he he called He dubbed it the view from above. And so there are a couple of versions of ah You could say, i mean, one version of the view from above is kind of like the view from the Acropolis in Athens.
01:06:33
Donald Robertson
It's just look it's like a helicopter view. It's looking down on the world or imagining you're looking down on the world from high above and broadening maybe a bit your chronological and spatial perspective.
01:06:45
Donald Robertson
But another version of it is more cosmological, and it consists in trying to imagine the whole universe, um the whole of space and time, and just kind of wrap your head around the idea, which arguably Greek philosophers did whenever they talked about cosmology and drew diagrams and things and talked about the planets.
01:07:07
Donald Robertson
And to imagine um the brevity of human life and the the smallness of the space that we physically occupy within the vastness of cosmic space and time.
01:07:19
Donald Robertson
um ah kind of almost feel that seems more like an Indian yogic sort of meditation, but I wonder is there anything resembling that sort of expanding of spatial and chronological perspective in Buddhist contemplation practices?
01:07:33
Matthew Gindin
Yes. And, you know, it's interesting. you're You're correct, by the way, that there are versions of that and in yogic traditions as well.
01:07:42
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:07:42
Matthew Gindin
And I've also, you know, I've also studied in a number of non-Buddhist yogic traditions and practiced them as well.
01:07:43
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:07:48
Matthew Gindin
So I have ah i have a broader, Theravada Buddhism is one aspect of my interest, but not the whole thing. But um in the yogic traditions, it tends to be more, I think, what you're saying, which is this cultivation of the sense of smallness in relation to the vast scope of things, which which of course puts your own ego fixations in perspective.
01:08:10
Matthew Gindin
But the the Buddhist version tends to focus more on dispassion, which in classical Buddhism is is such a core part, especially of monastic discipline.
01:08:15
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:08:21
Matthew Gindin
So the Buddha said, for instance, um that
01:08:21
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:08:27
Matthew Gindin
if you were, and you know this is gonna strike some listeners perhaps as a bit gruesome, but if you were to take like the bones of all of the people who you've been attached to in all of your lives and pile them up, then you know it would make a veritable mountain of bones, right?
01:08:48
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:08:49
Matthew Gindin
And what he's trying to do there is to expand out your perspective to realize, okay, like, um the attachment that I feel for people. And here we're talking about painful attachment.
01:09:00
Matthew Gindin
you know the The Buddha is not saying that you shouldn't have goodwill and care and compassion for all the people around you, but he's talking about your egoic attachment to them. And he's saying that you know this egoic attachment seems so important to you right now, but you have been attached in the same way to hundreds or thousands of different people who you don't even remember now.
01:09:23
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:09:23
Matthew Gindin
So this contemplation really depends on a reincarnation cosmology to make sense, right?
01:09:29
Donald Robertson
Okay.
01:09:30
Matthew Gindin
But I guess you know the one way you could maybe make that modern if you don't believe in reincarnation is just to, like, let's say, for instance, that you're suffering terribly because somebody you're romantically interested is not treating you the way you would like to be treated, would be to step back and say, well, did I feel like it was just as important for my last partner and the partner before them and the partner before them to treat me in the same way?
Greek and Indian Philosophical Exchanges
01:09:53
Matthew Gindin
You know, just to get some perspective, to relativize it so that you can let Thank you.
01:09:58
Donald Robertson
Interesting. I think we find something that's not exactly like that, but a little bit similar in the Stoic literature. I think that's probably a good place to begin wrapping things up. I suppose the one thing I wanted to mention in a way to go back to the beginning is it might be interesting at some point to have a conversation about, I was thinking of a guy called Apollonius of Tyana.
01:10:21
Donald Robertson
I don't know, have you ever come across that name?
01:10:22
Matthew Gindin
I have, yes. yes
01:10:24
Donald Robertson
Yeah, because he was a neo-Pythagorean philosopher in the Roman Empire. And he was a big deal back in the day.
01:10:35
Donald Robertson
he was Some people describe him as like a pagan Jesus, like he performed miracles. He was kind of mystic, but he reputedly went to India and spoke to the Gimno Sofoi.
01:10:43
Matthew Gindin
Yeah.
01:10:44
Donald Robertson
And we have a description of conversations that he had with Indian wise men. So it may be interesting to look at what the Greeks think they said. also, here's a real deep dive bit of trivia for you.
01:10:57
Donald Robertson
One of Marcus Aurelius' best friends, um I think it was a guy called Alexander Peloplaton, his name by the mean way means this kind of plastic Plato.
01:11:10
Donald Robertson
um it was like a nickname he acquired. People thought he was like really into Plato, but you know, it means clay Plato. We might say plastic Plato. It was a slightly demeaning kind of nickname that he acquired.
01:11:21
Donald Robertson
But Alexander Peloplaton had travelled. He was a teacher. He'd been to Egypt, um He traveled through the East and we're told that he spoke with Gimno Sofoy, with Indian wise men.
01:11:39
Donald Robertson
So Marcus Aurelius knew a guy who knew Indian sages apparently. He's like one step removed perhaps from ancient Buddhism, you know, maybe.
01:11:50
Matthew Gindin
No, that's fascinating.
01:11:50
Donald Robertson
but
01:11:52
Matthew Gindin
And i I would love to read, I know there's a biography of Apollonius, which I would love to read.
01:11:57
Donald Robertson
There's a cool biography. Scholars think it's semi-fictional or that it's completely fictional, but in a way it doesn't really matter because it tells us what the Romans think Indian wise men um were like. They hold them in very high esteem.
01:12:12
Donald Robertson
um and I can't remember exactly. They have an interesting a brief conversation. i think there's also a record of conversations that Alexander the Great was supposed to have had with Indian wise men or Gimno Sofoy when he was in northern India.
01:12:30
Donald Robertson
um But there's all...
01:12:31
Matthew Gindin
Well, we should mention something really quick. And then and then I wanna say too, before we go, if I have like 30 seconds,
01:12:34
Donald Robertson
Yeah. Aha.
01:12:38
Matthew Gindin
I'd like to offer one quick technique, the practical takeaway, because I'm here.
01:12:38
Donald Robertson
Aha.
01:12:41
Donald Robertson
Oh yeah, because the practical takeaway.
01:12:42
Matthew Gindin
feel like I'm here. just feel like talking about the Buddha for so long without offering a practical takeaway. It's really like a dishonor of his memory.
01:12:48
Donald Robertson
Go on.
01:12:50
Matthew Gindin
So, but let me just say quickly that there's a, there's a Sri Lankan text called the questions of King Melinda, which is about Menander actually.
01:12:58
Donald Robertson
Exactly.
01:13:01
Matthew Gindin
And, and that is, that is a whole discussion between a Buddhist monk and, and you know, a,
01:13:01
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
01:13:06
Donald Robertson
A Greek king.
01:13:08
Matthew Gindin
Yeah, exactly. So that's something people can look at it's ah if they're curious. That's that's a Theravada work.
01:13:12
Donald Robertson
ah
01:13:13
Matthew Gindin
It came out of the Theravada school.
01:13:14
Donald Robertson
people don't people don't realize that. So they think we've got these kind of obscure fragments and stuff in our tradition. a lot of people don't realize that in the Eastern tradition, they have like ah ah a very well-known reference.
01:13:25
Donald Robertson
And it's a Buddhist monk, isn't it? Having a conversation with the ah the ruler of a Greek colony.
01:13:28
Matthew Gindin
Yeah. the
01:13:31
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
01:13:31
Matthew Gindin
Yeah, it's a Theravadan Buddhist monk specifically. So he's coming from a Theravada point of view.
01:13:35
Donald Robertson
yeah
01:13:36
Matthew Gindin
Yeah.
01:13:37
Donald Robertson
Here's another bit of trivia for you. You know, ancient Bactria, or Afghanistan as we call it today, was colonized by Alexander the Great and was very pro prosperous, affluent cities there are for many centuries.
01:13:49
Donald Robertson
We have, there's an engraving ah that was found in a city in Afghanistan, that contains a and four lines verses from ancient Delphi.
01:14:01
Matthew Gindin
and
01:14:05
Donald Robertson
right So we've got like stones engraved with like Greek ah philosophy, um a little poem about it the virtues and stuff, like way over like on the borders of Pakistan.
01:14:18
Donald Robertson
you know ah So greek Greek, I think a lot of people just don't realize that the Greek world extended that far.
01:14:25
Matthew Gindin
Totally. I think people in general don't realize the degree to which, um, ancient religious and philosophical cultures were interdependent and in contact in so many ways.
Buddhist Techniques for Managing Anger
01:14:39
Matthew Gindin
Yeah.
01:14:39
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
01:14:40
Matthew Gindin
Um, so I,
01:14:40
Donald Robertson
So, yeah.
01:14:41
Matthew Gindin
So I just, yeah, so I'm going first of all, I'll just note that, you know, for anybody who's listened to the whole podcast that earlier when we talked about the seven drawbacks of anger, that in and of itself is a technique which the Buddha recommends, which is to reflect on the drawbacks of a mental state when you're in it and you're having difficulty controlling it.
01:14:51
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:14:55
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:15:00
Matthew Gindin
Call to mind the drawbacks. So that's a very simple one. but But there's ah a little bit more of a finessed technique.
01:15:04
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:15:09
Matthew Gindin
ah The Buddha believed that um you know mental states were were concocted or fabricated in certain ways in the present. And he said that they were fabricated through the body, through speech, and through mind.
01:15:26
Matthew Gindin
So one thing you can do if anger is arising is to pay attention in the present moment to what you are doing to keep it going.
01:15:29
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:15:34
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:15:35
Matthew Gindin
So first you start with the body. Is there anything that you're doing with your body to keep it going? For instance, pay attention to the way you're standing, the way you're walking, and the way you're breathing.
01:15:43
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:15:45
Matthew Gindin
You may, for instance, be pacing around, breathing high on your chest. Well, okay, stop doing that.
01:15:49
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
01:15:50
Matthew Gindin
Walk slowly and breathe deeply. And then the bodily fabrication part of it is calm down.
01:15:54
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:15:56
Matthew Gindin
Then you turn the verbal fabrication.
01:15:57
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:15:59
Matthew Gindin
The verbal fabrication is the way that you are talking to yourself about it in your mind, probably, although who knows? You might be talking to yourself out loud and you're saying something like, oh my God, I can't believe it.
01:16:07
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:16:10
Matthew Gindin
That person did that thing again. They've done it 50 times before. So pay attention to the way you're talking to yourself about it and then calm that down as well. but so So if you just catch yourself, oh my God, i'm talking I'm literally talking myself into a state of anger right now.
01:16:24
Matthew Gindin
I'm going to stop that.
01:16:27
Matthew Gindin
Then the mental fabrication is you pay attention to what acts of attention and perception are feeding the anger.
01:16:35
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:16:36
Matthew Gindin
This is where you get more Epictetus-like. So what what perceptions arising in the mind am I attending to? So for instance, if I'm attending to the perception of myself a victim, if I'm attending to the perception of the other person as a perpetrator,
01:16:45
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:16:52
Matthew Gindin
If I'm attending to um the gross injustice of what happened, et cetera, et cetera, these are all feeding the anger. And so then you you just basically say to yourself, can I move differently? Can I breathe differently? Can I talk to myself differently?
01:17:06
Matthew Gindin
And can I attend to perceptions and thoughts which deflate or deconstruct the anger? So that's that's what I would offer.
01:17:17
Matthew Gindin
and that you know there's There's a fair bit of creativity allowed to the practitioner in that exercise.
01:17:20
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
01:17:23
Donald Robertson
Yeah.
01:17:24
Matthew Gindin
But you can start just with that question of physically, verbally, and in terms of my attention and perceptions, what am I doing to keep this anger going?
Buddha's Teachings and CBT
01:17:36
Donald Robertson
Mm-hmm.
01:17:36
Matthew Gindin
And how can I do something different in those three areas that will calm it?
01:17:40
Donald Robertson
I think that's psychologically very sound advice, and it's pretty similar to some of the things that we tend to do in CBT for anger as well. So, you know, it's I'd say the Buddha's spot on there once again.
01:17:53
Donald Robertson
He's
01:17:54
Matthew Gindin
Spot on once again there, Buddha.
01:17:57
Donald Robertson
on the mark. Like, he's not wrong.
01:17:58
Matthew Gindin
Yeah.
01:17:59
Donald Robertson
He knows a thing or two. Yeah.
Reflections and Future Dialogues
01:18:04
Donald Robertson
So i that's been a pretty astounding discussion. I mean, I'd be amazed if people listening to that aren't at least ah a little bit more enlightened as a result of it.
01:18:14
Donald Robertson
um yeah um I definitely
01:18:14
Matthew Gindin
May it be so, and may ah and and hopefully you and I are are a little bit more enlightened because we're Rodgers, you and I are, you know, we've we've got a lot of work to do.
01:18:20
Donald Robertson
um
01:18:22
Donald Robertson
umm definitely i'm I'm definitely getting there after that. you know i'm i I don't think I'll have many more incarnations after this, at least I hope not.
01:18:34
Donald Robertson
So I think there's a lot to take away.
01:18:36
Matthew Gindin
I second that.
01:18:39
Donald Robertson
And you give them some good practical advice at the end there as well. So thank you very much, Matthew, for joining me once again. Hopefully, you know, we'll be able to continue have more conversations in the future. It's great fun talking about, you know, these it's always fun comparing different perspectives is when they complement each other like that.
01:18:58
Donald Robertson
um And kind of getting deeper into some of these thornier questions in Buddhism as well. You know, areas where there might be some misunderstanding or things that people mean know haven't heard about before.
01:19:09
Matthew Gindin
Yeah, I love it. And i enter sort of intercultural or intertraditional you know dialogue and analysis is one of my favorite things.
01:19:16
Donald Robertson
Yeah, it's all good fun. So thank you once again. It's goodbye from me and Matthew. And, you know, thank you for listening. Please share the the podcast episode with your threat are your friends. Thanks very much.
01:19:29
Donald Robertson
Bye, everyone.
01:19:29
Matthew Gindin
Thanks, Donaldson.