I am no expert on Buddhism, but it is my understanding from my own reading, as bolstered from statements of people I respect, that (borrowing from a friend) throughout all the schools [of Buddhism] runs a thread that teaches that our existence is characterized by suffering, and that self-denial and intense meditation is required to reach a state of equanimity that is beyond suffering. As such, I have always seen Buddhism, like Stoicism, as at root all about the suppression of desire (which surely includes pleasure) and therefore totally incompatible with Epicurean philosophy.
However when in the face of generalizations like that I get:
"You don't know what XXX said in the year YYYY!" And of course there are hundreds of XXXs and dozens of YYYY's so the implication is we can't get a fair assessment of Buddhism til we have studied all of them.
Further, I get:
"Well that may be the position of the 100 million Buddhists in India, by there is Guru XXX in YYYY who had a couple of dozen followers but he was exactly like Epicurus - so don't judge Buddhism by those 100 million!"
And last but not least for this into post, I get: "But Epicurus is all about "freedom from pain" as the goal of life! That's exactly what Buddhism teaches! "
And I have to just sigh and start over with them on what Epicurus really wrote about pleasure.
That's just a sample. The purpose of this thread and subforum is to collect material that will help us all better distinguish Epicurean philosophy from Buddism.
I do ask this: Please try to avoid the above dismissals and let's attempt to fairly generalize, so that people can read this thread and subforum and be educated about the high-level situation, and not the details which are clearly exceptions to the general rule.
Opening Post On Distinguishing Epicurean Philosophy from Buddhism
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Cassius
December 17, 2018 at 6:16 PM Changed the title of the thread from “Opening Post” to “Opening Post On Distinguishing Epicurean Philosophy from Buddhism”. -
The best place to start this discussion objectively is with the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism. These are among the most fundamental doctrines of Buddhism.
THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS
The truth of suffering
The truth of the cause of suffering
The truth of the end of suffering
The truth of the path to the end of suffering (the eightfold path)
THE NOBLE EIGHTFOLD PATH
Right understanding (of the four noble truths, for one)
Right intention
Right speech
Right action
Right livelihood
Right effort
Right mindfulness
Right concentration
My understanding is that desire/clinging/attachment is one of the causes of suffering in Buddhism. Possibly you could compare this to unnatural and unnecessary desires, but I don’t think that would be completely accurate. Desire/clinging/attachment is more about clinging to things which are impermanent. It is also about clinging to the self, which is considered an illusion. This aligns to some degree with “don’t fear death” in EP. So there are overlapping or related concepts common to both philosophies, but how the concepts fit into the big pictures seems to be quite different.
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the end in B. is nirvana, which means "extinction" (of the fires of desire)
this is confused / and not the same as with sukkha (bliss, delight, pleasure), which is the opposite of dukkha (suffering, dissatisfaction, existential angst), which is the problem that Buddha was attempting to solve. Because sukkha is the opposite of dukkha, it's often thought of as "the end" (and in Nichiren Buddhism it is).
I also think it's fair for someone who wants to delve in the differences in doctrine to consider to what extent the upayas (= efficient means) of the Buddhists can serve Epicurean ends--because many of them do, and a blind dismissal of them comes off as insincere, impractical, fanatical and uninformed. Do we want pleasure or not, and do we consider it worthy of cultivation? If we do, we will study the means to it diligently and not dismiss the means because they are not the end.
It is clear that both in Epicurean philosophy, as well as in scientific studies, and in many other (secular or religious) wisdom traditions (like Buddhism, and also hygge, sumac kawsay, etc.), there are many upayas / efficient means that lead to a life of pleasure. The clear designation of these as "means" helps to not confuse the issue.
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The Four Noble Truths and eightfold path are universally known as the core of Buddhist teaching. You can quickly search them online or on youtube and learn more.
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My understanding is that they are considered to have been part of one of Buddha's first teachings and transmitted orally after that, until they were eventually written down. However this wikipedia article provides much more detail than I was aware of, both as to their origin and to their centrality in various branches of Buddhism:
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Yes, after Siddhartha Buddha attained nirvana under the Bodhi tree, he touched the ground (a symbol of his vow to benefit innumerable sentient beings on Earth, rather than keep his insights to himself).
He then went to the Benares deer park, and there he started preaching his first enlightened sermon, which was on the four noble truths to his first disciples.
As for feeling / desires, yes the doctrine is more ascetic than EP and there's no hierarchy of desires (natural and necessary), instead it seems that all desire is dissatisfaction / dukkha.
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Buddhism isn't against feeling by any means and the goal isn't to suppress or terminate feeling. The goal is enlightenment/nirvana, which involves a sense of connectedness/oneness with all beings and a sense of joy.
Desire, however, is to be understood and ended. A nuance of eliminating desire is that if you understand yourself as being one with all things, then there is nothing to desire. So the Buddhist approach to desire is quite different from that of EP, where it is (to my current understanding) worked with as a means to focus the pursuit of pleasure on the life-enhancing varieties.
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It would only be an incidental byproduct of other activities and not something to be sought after or desired (since one should be getting rid of desire). For example meditation, enlightenment, or helping an old lady across the street may bring pleasure. But they are to be done because they are what needs to be done. If they bring pleasure, there's no reason not to enjoy that pleasure but it shouldn't be dwelled upon and the activities aren't done for the reward of the pleasure.
That sounds pretty dry. There's plenty of pleasure in B, but theoretically it's achieved under these conditions.
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End of inquisition. (For the moment
) Anyone else who wants to continue is welcome but I will stand aside .....
