4 ms·

Reminds me of stoicism. If it's outside your control, don't bother too much. Face your challenges and do the best you can, being a better you.

codemonkey-zeta 5y ago
Great wisdom presents itself with different faces to different people throughout time, but maintains the same essence. That's what makes it wisdom. It is eternal and unchanging, it just takes perspective to see. I had exactly the same epiphany while reading Meditations. I thought, "wow, this sounds an awful lot like the Buddhism I've read/heard about". Again, after reading Ralph Waldo Emerson I saw the same wisdom with a different face. I realized that all these people throughout time came independently to precisely the same conclusions about how to live life as part of the great "wholeness" (for lack of a better word) to which we all belong. My experience with Buddhism is mostly limited to interactions with an old Buddhist friend, but in terms of literature I found Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and J. D. Salinger's Teddy to be very palatable from a western perspective. For stoic philosophy you can really do no better than Marcus Aurelius's meditations, specifically the more modern Gregory Hays translation. Epictectus's discourses are pretty good too, but are less pithy and have a lower signal to noise ratio when it comes to true wisdom IMO. Emerson's Self Reliance, History, and finally The Oversoul will reveal the same wisdom from all the other works I mentioned.
- jonaustin 5y ago
  This idea is called the Perennial Philosophy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy Aldous Huxley wrote a book about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perennial_Philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perennial_Philosophy
  - codemonkey-zeta 5y ago
    Brilliant! Thank you for pointing this out, I was unaware of this notion. From the first link, > "In the early 19th century the Transcendentalists propagated the idea of a metaphysical Truth and universalism" So it seems it was not a coincidence Emerson stuck out to me when I first read him (Emerson was a foundational Transcendentalist).
salt-thrower 5y ago
It is very beautiful and interesting to me that Stoics and Buddhists arrived at very similar conclusions despite being thousands of miles apart and having little to no contact.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- astrophysics 5y ago
  They did have a lot of contact. I read about it from some Buddhist scholar, but I can't remember where.
- stevofolife 5y ago
  Seems like mainstream folks tend to give credits of life wisdom to Buddhism and Stoicism but let’s not forget the Bible also mentioned the same in the book of Luke: “Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.” ‭‭Luke‬ ‭17:33‬ ‭NKJV‬‬ https://bible.com/bible/114/luk.17.33.NKJV https://bible.com/bible/114/luk.17.33.NKJV
  - tingol 5y ago
    That's because they did it centuries before Christianity?
  - salt-thrower 5y ago
    As others said, Buddhists and Stoics were earlier. Some Christian writings were definitely influenced by those lines of thought though, yes. Speaking for myself, another reason I enjoy Buddhism and Stoicism is that they feel more like pure, distilled wisdom. Especially Zen Buddhism. Christian writings are filled with excessive moralizing and mythology, which enables all sorts of problems.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
  There was some interaction between Greece and India, and it's possible some thought from the Indian subcontinent may have influenced the founders of scepticism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism While there isn't much direct evidence to support this theory, both philosophies have some ideas related to mindfulness that are too similar to me to be a coincidence.
mekoka 5y ago
Somewhat. At a higher level being a stoic, gets you closer to the Buddhist mindset. Buddhism tends to differ in its acknowledgment that the active practice of stoicism (as a discipline) is still a pursuit, and thus still a means to assert control.

codemonkey-zeta 5y ago

Great wisdom presents itself with different faces to different people throughout time, but maintains the same essence. That's what makes it wisdom. It is eternal and unchanging, it just takes perspective to see. I had exactly the same epiphany while reading Meditations. I thought, "wow, this sounds an awful lot like the Buddhism I've read/heard about". Again, after reading Ralph Waldo Emerson I saw the same wisdom with a different face. I realized that all these people throughout time came independently to precisely the same conclusions about how to live life as part of the great "wholeness" (for lack of a better word) to which we all belong. My experience with Buddhism is mostly limited to interactions with an old Buddhist friend, but in terms of literature I found Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and J. D. Salinger's Teddy to be very palatable from a western perspective. For stoic philosophy you can really do no better than Marcus Aurelius's meditations, specifically the more modern Gregory Hays translation. Epictectus's discourses are pretty good too, but are less pithy and have a lower signal to noise ratio when it comes to true wisdom IMO. Emerson's Self Reliance, History, and finally The Oversoul will reveal the same wisdom from all the other works I mentioned.

jonaustin 5y ago
This idea is called the Perennial Philosophy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy Aldous Huxley wrote a book about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perennial_Philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perennial_Philosophy
- codemonkey-zeta 5y ago
  Brilliant! Thank you for pointing this out, I was unaware of this notion. From the first link, > "In the early 19th century the Transcendentalists propagated the idea of a metaphysical Truth and universalism" So it seems it was not a coincidence Emerson stuck out to me when I first read him (Emerson was a foundational Transcendentalist).

salt-thrower 5y ago

It is very beautiful and interesting to me that Stoics and Buddhists arrived at very similar conclusions despite being thousands of miles apart and having little to no contact.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
astrophysics 5y ago
They did have a lot of contact. I read about it from some Buddhist scholar, but I can't remember where.
stevofolife 5y ago
Seems like mainstream folks tend to give credits of life wisdom to Buddhism and Stoicism but let’s not forget the Bible also mentioned the same in the book of Luke: “Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.” ‭‭Luke‬ ‭17:33‬ ‭NKJV‬‬ https://bible.com/bible/114/luk.17.33.NKJV https://bible.com/bible/114/luk.17.33.NKJV
- tingol 5y ago
  That's because they did it centuries before Christianity?
- salt-thrower 5y ago
  As others said, Buddhists and Stoics were earlier. Some Christian writings were definitely influenced by those lines of thought though, yes. Speaking for myself, another reason I enjoy Buddhism and Stoicism is that they feel more like pure, distilled wisdom. Especially Zen Buddhism. Christian writings are filled with excessive moralizing and mythology, which enables all sorts of problems.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
There was some interaction between Greece and India, and it's possible some thought from the Indian subcontinent may have influenced the founders of scepticism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism While there isn't much direct evidence to support this theory, both philosophies have some ideas related to mindfulness that are too similar to me to be a coincidence.

mekoka 5y ago

Somewhat. At a higher level being a stoic, gets you closer to the Buddhist mindset. Buddhism tends to differ in its acknowledgment that the active practice of stoicism (as a discipline) is still a pursuit, and thus still a means to assert control.