More than happiness : Buddhist and stoic wisdom for a sceptical age

More than happiness Buddhist and stoic wisdom for a sceptical age

Antonia Macaro

Book - 2018

Modern readers tend to think of Buddhism as spending time alone meditating, searching for serenity. Stoicism calls to mind repressing our emotions in order to help us soldier on through adversity. But how accurate are our popular understandings of these traditions? And what can we learn from them without either buying in wholeheartedly to their radical ideals or else transmuting them into simple self-improvement regimes that bear little resemblance to their original aims? How can we achieve more than happiness? This ground breaking study provides a much-needed philosophical framework for those practising mindfulness as well as a call to recover the pragmatic and therapeutic dimensions of philosophy.

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Subjects
Self-actualization (Psychology) > Religious aspects > Buddhism.
Stoics.
Self-actualization (Psychology) > Philosophy.
Published
London : Icon Books 2018.
Language
English
Main Author
Antonia Macaro (author)
Physical Description
x, 213 pages ; 21 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 179-204) and index.
ISBN
9781785781339
  • Introduction
  • Setting the scene
  • Dukkha happens : we suffer
  • Maladies of the soul : why we suffer
  • How to be saved 1 : nirvana
  • How to be saved 2 : living in accordance with nature
  • More than happiness
  • Removing the dust from our eyes
  • The sage and the Buddha : models for living
  • Spiritual practice : beyond theory
  • Meditations for a better life.

In practice, what does it mean to be rational? Mainly separating what really is good and bad from what merely seems good and bad. Here the Stoics' views are lofty, at odds with more ordinary perceptions of good and bad. As we have seen, all the things we are normally attracted to or repulsed by should be of no concern. Virtue alone is genuinely good mainly because it is the only reliable thing in life. Nobody can take it away, since it depends only on us. Everything else is fragile, uncertain and liable to slip through our fingers at any point. Also, unlike other things, which can be used well or badly, virtue can be only good.  Epictetus put this in terms of what is up to us, or in our power, and what is not: we should cultivate the former and disregard the latter. He also urges his students to practice denying value to indifferents: '[Begin] with the meanest and frailest things, with an earthen vessel or a cup. Afterwards, proceed to a tunic, a dog, a horse, a piece of land, and thence to yourself, your body and its parts, and your children, wife, brothers. Look around you in every direction, and hurl these things away from you. Purify your judgements. See that nothing is attached to you or cleaves to you that is not your own and may give you pain when it is torn away .' You needn't go to the same extremes as Epictetus, hurling away cherished objects and loved ones. But you could practise becoming less attached to things that you know on reflection are not that important. Next time you break a mug, for instance, or spill coffee on a favourite jumper, you could try adopting Epictetus' attitude. Excerpted from More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age by Antonia Macaro All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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