I think there are several important differences between stoicism and the Buddha’s view of the world and the human condition. The stoics thought that there was a divine and providential order imminent in the natural world, that the plan could be known by reason, and that a good life was life in conformity with this natural order. They thought that the maturing human develops successively more complex notions of self, and that the highest stage is the rational self.
The Buddha taught that everything we can know of experience is dukkha. There is a regular order in nature, but this order is a wheel of dukkha, not an order providentially directed by some rational force or power toward the good. The best goal of life is to achieve unbinding or liberation from this samsaric cycle of worldly existence, and not to realize a higher self, but to cease the self-making process altogether.
Buddhas teaching is so clinical and neat - it chops effectively the head off the false agent of self, and ask you to point directly back at the source.
Careful, someone may interpret words like that to imply that you think you are more moral than others. To add to my point, most Americans expecting corruption in religion wouldn’t be inclined to dismiss an entire religions for the moral failings of a few in that religion. Taking that route wouldn’t lessen their own morality and might even enhancement with a depth of understanding.
? Being more anything has literally nothing to do with my post. Why do you suggest this??
There is a certain fatigue and repugnance aversion which develops from see ing scandals which I think you may not appreciate. This is not superiority or inferiority, simply increasingly strengthened association from repeated experience of distaste.
edit I will add, your generalization about most Americans is just tacit knowledge, and also does not apply to americans to whom all that is seen are the scandals… which is the vast majority of americans, i suspect. But i do not know for sure. My experiences are limited to what i learned during a few years traveling by foot or car back and forth across america over more than a year, discussing religion and social action.
Rebirth is the main difference, that is the whole point of Buddha’s teaching. Because Nibbana is such an extreme goal, ordinary renunciation, wisdom and virtue won’t do, it has to be better, wisdom imbued with great stillness (Jhana) is required.
Remember that the suttas were recited in the context of monastic life, it was meant for those who are willing to let go of everything to realize the truth experienced by meditation genius the Buddha. As for those who like to enjoy life to the fullest before final death, just following Stoicism is as good as Buddhism but there’s a risk.
Remember that lucid dreaming wasn’t scientifically verified until the 80’s, that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist before that. The same can be said about rebirth, but with statistics gathered by Jim B. Tucker and Ian Stevenson, it’s not hard at all to reconsider Nibbana.
What if 30 years later on your deathbed you found out that scientific community has finally accepted and verified the existence of rebirth, of something beyond death?
I suspect this is probably very far from the truth. The heart of the Buddha’s teaching is the path to the end of suffering. There is only one path, and it involves relinquishing the sense of I and mine, and all craving for states of becoming and non-becoming. Once these defiling conceits and cravings have been destroyed, the powerful and completely illusory sense of a continuing being that wanders from life to life, or even from hour to hour, is gone. How could a conception of reality based on illusion be the whole point of the teaching?
In all of his talks and interactions with kings and householders, the Buddha sought only to guide them gently away from their engagement in the snares of worldly life, a life which is a frothy bubble of transient illusion, lived in Mara’s realm. The conception we have of this thing called “Buddhism” - a highly structured and institutionalized religion, filled with pujas and offerings and rituals, incense and flowers, fixed monasteries and lay dhamma centers, and fitted out with a lot of extra conceptions about socially normalized and approved lay merit-making roles, is an outgrowth of the subsequent “Hinduization” and social normalization of the Buddha’s world-renouncing path, and its reconstruction as a socially acceptable religion.
Our later conception of a “monk” as a person who performs a certain role in the religious economy of Buddhist society represents a later stage of evolution of the Buddha’s movement. In the earliest teachings, a bhikkhu is just another person who has followed the Buddha into the holy life, and is conducting that life in accordance with the discipline he taught, striving to live utterly harmlessly and blamelessly, living by asking for minimal assistance and taking only what is given, retreating into the seclusion of remote jungle thickets to subdue fear and dread, and having no theorized view about states of becoming or non-becoming, anywhere in the world.
I think it’s interesting that there was recently some discussion here of a quasi-secret “deep dhamma” that is perhaps not suitable for lay supporters. There is only one dhamma. There is only one path to the end of suffering - which is to be realized here and now, by transcending the illusory realm of ongoing personal “birth” and “death”. If people are not being taught that dhamma, they are not being taught the dhamma.
This is incorrect. There is a sutta where the Buddha uses a fertile-infertile field simile to describe the sanga, lay people, and those of other religions. Yet, I believe he says he gives the same dhamma to everybody in hopes of getting some positive result but obviously with diminishing returns. However there were times when he withheld and kept noble silence (Vaccagotta for example) when it wasn’t clearly going to be beneficial. Anathapindika’s story is sad, but he was asked to develop seclusion by Ven Sariputta, but it isnt clear having such close proximity to the Buddha whether he took his words to heart, as when he cried on his death bed, it couldnt have been out of not hearing the deep dhamma. He is told by Ven Sariputta ‘you have given enough- now meditate’ showing he was very much into making merit- perhaps a warning to the approach many buddhists in the East take. The other possibility is the Ven Sariputta was trying to take him to arahanthood at the point of his death, having been admonished by the Buddha previously for not doing this with another man who was in his deathbed, and may not have heard the deeper way the dhamma was presented, however there was nothing particularly new in the sutta. If there is anything which is hidden, it is about how to develop the supernormal powers, but these are not essential but helpful to the path. I’m not certain right now they weren’t explained -maybe it was to do with the vinaya rules.
At Savatthi. There the Blessed One said: “From an inconstruable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. What do you think, monks: Which is greater, the tears you have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — or the water in the four great oceans?”
“As we understand the Dhamma taught to us by the Blessed One, this is the greater: the tears we have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — not the water in the four great oceans.”
"Excellent, monks. Excellent. It is excellent that you thus understand the Dhamma taught by me.
"This is the greater: the tears you have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — not the water in the four great oceans.
According to this discourse there is one “you” that has been wandering, and that experienced those sufferings in earlier lives, and will continue to experience them in future lives, unless liberation is achieved.
But according to other discourses, the sense of a continuing “I” and of a train of experiences and acquisitions that are all “mine” is illusory, and can be overcome. Seems like some tension in the teachings to say the least.
One has to decide how to resolve these tensions. My choice, after reading these texts for many years, and deciding which ones ought to be prioritized, is that the teaching on the illusory nature of the continuing, wandering “I” is the more accurate transmission of the words renunciate, ascetic sage Gotama, and that much of the rest of what we have is a later construction that took shape as that sages teachings were transformed into a popular and institutionalized religion.
But of course, I could always change my mind some day.
If we look deeper into the philosophy of the Stoics, we find that it is not without its deficiencies. They essentially tried to come up with some way to get through the hardships of life without getting overwhelmed by all the travails that assail us. Schopenhauer analyzed them rather well - some of his observations:
But, we can learn quite a lot from the Stoics, nevertheless.
See the “from life to life”? If there’s nothing beyond death, then everyone gets automatic nibbana on death, there would be no need to develop stillness and wisdom to stop the illusion of a being wandering from life to life. If the “wandering from life to life” is taken out of Buddha’s teaching, then it’s just Stoicism - strive to live well and on death everything is resolved.
I disagree with that. That reading is based on an overly-literalized misidentification of nibbana with the mere extinction of all mental formations. Nibbana is the extinguishment of greed, hatred and confusion, and of all suffering. It is the severing of all fetters tying one to Mara’s realm, and is thus perfect freedom. But it is also the arising of the non-sensory bliss that accompanies that perfect freedom.
I don’t believe innumerable people have, over the centuries, devoted their lives to the attainment of nibbana simply because they were seeking a fancy way of committing the ultimate suicide. They were seeking the summum bonum of human existence, a perfected state that can be experienced in this very life.
There’s no way I can describe nibbana accurately, “a perfected state that can be experienced in this very life” for example could easily sound like “realizing your true self in Hiduism”. Since we’re comparing Stoicism with Buddhism here and I think we might have some secular Buddhists and even Stoics here, ultimate suicide sounds easy to understand for everyone. You may provide a better description for it, I’m fine with it.
Nibbana aside, my point is the main difference between Stoicism and Buddhism is simply the concept of rebirth, got rebirth means got extra explanations, methods and practices.
So great was the experience of joy on the attainment of release from all mental intoxicants (aasavakkhaya) that sometimes arahants have stayed in that same position continuously without moving for seven days enjoying the bliss of emancipation.[28] It is said that the whole body was permeated with this joy and bliss.