Living in Moderation Part 2 (The Cynics) or Alternately: Doctor No

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Speaking of Self-Deprivation, the Cynics were masters at such a practice.  The Cynics were a philosophy school beginning around 450 BC in ancient Greece.  Most famous were Antisthenes, Diogenes of Sinope, and Crates.

The Cynics thought that:

  1. The goal of life is happiness which is to live in agreement with Nature.
  2. Happiness depends on being self-sufficient, and a master of mental attitude.
  3. Self-sufficiency is achieved by living a life of virtue and reaching your highest potential.
  4. The road to living an excellent life is to free oneself from any influence such as wealth, fame, or power, which have no value in Nature.
  5. Suffering is caused by false judgments of value, which cause negative emotions and a vicious character.

What they meant by a life according to nature is to live with the absolute bare necessities.  In other words, they lived an ascetic life (a life of self-deprivation).  By depriving themselves of worldly desires completely, they draw nearer to to a life of virtue and excellence.

As I said in Part 1, I can see their good intentions, but I think that, in short, they throw the baby out with the bath water by trying to eliminate judgment from the equation.   Would you like some food? No.  Would you like some shelter? No.  Would you like air conditioning? No.  Would you like to travel to Hawaii on a vacation? No.

In short, I think that ascetics have the right idea:  that material things and excesses do not bring happiness.  They certainly lay the foundation for finding happiness.  But aren’t they only half-right?

DON’T FORGET TO READ PART 3

Living in Moderation

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I may one day have to live with nothing…or at least almost nothing.  I may want for food someday, I may miss my loved ones someday, because of separation or death.  I often imagine my life without some of the good things that I enjoy now.  I even make an effort to deprive myself of things “on purpose” (most notably food, sweets) to more fully appreciate them.

Is this enough?

However, I see no reason why I should live a deprived life, and I see no reason why it would make me more enlightened.  I strive a to live a simple life, but I do enjoy some things that aren’t simple.  Further, I see no reason to live the life of a monk or an ascetic.  An ascetic deprives himself of things like food, water, clothes, etc., thinking that by not having worldly wants, then he will be closer to enlightenment, God, the oneness of the universe, etc.

Is this aescetic taking the easy way out?

Beyond a certain level, it seems that having more stuff doesn’t seem to make anyone more or less happy.  OK, the studies are conflicting:  click here.

In any case, it is the desire for stuff, I think, that gets us into happiness deficit.   If my life revolves around getting more stuff, then I think that is when I would be disappointed, regardless of how much stuff I have.  The trick is, how much is too much?  I think ascetics try to make it black and white:  All stuff leads to unhappiness!  I think this is a cop out.  Real life requires judgment of what is and is not moderation.

DON’T FORGET TO READ PART 2

Zen and Stoicism…Two Sides of the Same Coin

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For 15 years, I have been studying and practicing, as best I can, some of the teachings of Buddhism (mixed with a little Eastern thought in general).  The school of Buddhism called Zen concentrates on direct insight into “how things are” through meditation and by calming, then tripping up the mind (unlike some schools which emphasize knowledge of doctrine and the writings of Buddhist teachers).  One of the ways Zen masters trip up the minds of their students is through the use of koans (a kind of unsolvable riddle)  One of the most well-known of these koans is as follows:

Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?

A koan is designed to break your mind free of previous paradigms.  It rattles your perception free of its previous conclusions.  This continues as you meditate upon the question or puzzle of the koan.  The very pursuit of an answer is intended to break your mind free of previous illusion/delusion.  In everyday life, we make conclusions based on a few inputs, then we move on.  We accept our conclusion as true, and often we never return to reexamine.  Thus, we build our own truth based on previous assumptions.  A koan helps your mind enter a state where previous assumptions are questioned. For you Zen gurus out there, I know, koans are supposed to lead you to enlightenment…but I left that pursuit, and tend to be a bit more practical with my koans.  I guess it’s a result of my Stoic side.

Breaking through illusion

Here is an example of a possible truth you may have built.  What if your parents wanted you to go to college?  When you were young, they told you that college is good and will ensure you get a good job, which implies you can earn more money, which will allow you to buy things you like.  Presumably, this would lead to greater happiness.  They didn’t specifically say the thing about happiness, but some of what they said, as well as societal influence certainly led you to believe that this was true.  So, college = good…you built a truth, and then moved on.  But what if that conclusion was wrong?  What about other jobs that might have made you happy without a college degree?  Do you really need a lot of money to be happy?  Do you need  any money to be happy?  If you are that smart (smart enough to get into college), couldn’t you have spent those 4 years building your own business, teaching yourself how to run it?   What if the $60,000+ spent on a college degree, and the $100,000+ loss of four years of wages weren’t worth it?  These are questions that we may all answer a little differently, but my point is that if we’ve moved on without questioning, then we’ve assumed “college = good” is true.  I lived for over 30 years with this “truth,” without ever reexamining.  I am questioning it now.  In a way, I’ve presented a koan to myself to break my paradigm.  A practical one:  “What is the worth of not going to college?”  I have teenagers of college age, and this question is an important one for me to answer.  Practicing with koans gets me in the habit of viewing something from a different perspective.

So, viewing things from a different perspective is an important tool we can take from Zen.  The Stoic does this as well, by examining whether his actions and reactions to the events of his day are correct.

Another of the most important facets of Zen is to be aware.  Awareness of the present moment allows us to observe our situation clearly.  The mere effort of being aware allows me to examine my motives clearly.  It is in this pursuit of awareness that I think a second very strong connection between Zen and Stoicism occurs.

So Zen and Stoicism are similar in these two ways:

  1. We try to gain a new perspective.
  2. We try to become more aware of the present moment and how we fit in it.

The Stoic makes every effort to be aware of his place in life.  What is in his control, what is not.  If my goal is to be aware at all times of what is in my control and what is not, then I must practice and cultivate this awareness.  The beginnings of this type of awareness are found in meditation.  Zen meditation focuses on making the mind still, focusing on the present moment, maybe even working through a koan.  Stoic meditation is similar, but it is more reflective, more examining.  “What things did I react badly to today?  How could I have utilized the things I can control, my thoughts, reactions, emotions, to be a better man?”  Either way (Stoic or Zen), meditation gets us into the habit of awareness, increases our perspective, and into the habit of asking these questions.

(Feature photo by Kriss Szkurlatowski)

 

 

On Playing Our Role Well

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“Remember that you are an actor in a play,
which the playwright wills;
if short, short; if long, long;
he may intend you to play a beggar
so that also you might act this naturally;
or a cripple, an official, or a private person.
For this is yours, to play the given role beautifully;
but the selection of it is another’s.”

Epictetus

To answer, “what is in my control?” is a very important aspect to gaining tranquility.  I didn’t plan on having to replace my sideview mirror, but it looks like I have to now.  Yes, I erred and struck one of those big orange barrels (why to they have to make them so rigid and heavy).  I thought that the one before it was the last one, so I started to enter the lane to my right.  Not so fast!  There’s another barrier, and…BAM!  I have gone from everyday driver to guy who needs a new mirror.  I didn’t plan for this to happen, but it has changed my role.  Was it in my control to not hit that large cone?  Well, to some extent.  There were outlying factors:  I was tired, it was dark, I was sucked in by an optical illusion, and possibly the barriers were placed too far apart….but we all make mistakes.  So this outcome was partially in my control, and I misjudged.  Now, my reaction to it is COMPLETELY in my control.  This reaction is governed by how well I play my new role as “flawed driver, who must now remedy his broken mirror.”  Don’t get me wrong, I was peeved, mostly at myself, but my Zen/Stoic outlook helped me refocus back to a state where I could deal with my new lot in life.

It could have been worse!

A Stoic must be able to pick up new roles as things happen to him.  For example, you may be a welder, but then you are fired.  Your new role is to find new work.  That is your role, now.  I can wallow in self-pity or I can take on this role with “passionate equanimity.”  The equanimity helps you understand that there is nothing you can do about how you’ve been fired.  The passion allows you to do your best to find new work.

Passionate Equanimity

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Passionate Equanimity – this term, found in my creed, I owe to Ken Wilber, or rather his wife Treya.  In his book, Grace and Grit: Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treya Killam Wilber, he details his relationship and journey with his wife, Treya, who discovers she has cancer 10 days after they are married.  Five years later, she dies of the cancer.  The book reflects on this time with his and her thoughts.

Treya writes in her journal:  “What if you had passion without all that stuff, passion without attachment, passion clean and pure? What would that be like, what would that mean? I thought of those moments in meditation when I’ve felt my heart open, a painfully wonderful sensation, a passionate feeling but without clinging to any content or person or thing. And the two words suddenly coupled in my mind and made a whole. Passionate equanimity, passionate equanimity – to be fully passionate about all aspects of life, about one’s relationship with spirit, to care to the depths of one’s being but with no trace of clinging or holding, that’s what the phrase has come to mean to me. It feels full, rounded, complete, and challenging.”

Treya Killam Wilber starts with passion and ends with equanimity.  I think many of us do that; we start with passion in our blood, ready to take on the world, to change it, to succeed, to be a champion.  Without a doubt, when I was younger I was 99% passion and very little equanimity.  Then, as I aged and matured, I started to get some perspective, yeah, some of that equanimity.  It took me years and years, and I’m still working on it…on gaining more equanimity.  I think we’re all like that:  we start with passion first, then maybe we gain the perspective.  In the Air Force, we would say “that guy is all thrust, and no vector.”  I think most of us have a lot less vector than we think…especially when we are young.

Bungee Jumping…all thrust, no vector?

Before I get too far, I think it is best to describe equanimity further.  It is the ability to distance yourself from a situation.  It is to be “dispassionate,” unemotional, and rational about a particular situation.  I think I will use an analogy here.  Think of a bad situation in your life as like a drop of deadly cyanide.  A drop of cyanide is enough to kill a person quickly and cleanly.  However, if I took that drop and placed it in the ocean, it would disperse quite quickly.  Would it kill any fish, or swimmers? Very unlikely…even more so as time goes by and the drop becomes mixed in with the sea.  So, if the situation is that drop of cyanide, then the ocean is equanimity.  Equanimity helps us dilute that poison in our life and gain some tranquility about a situation.  In a sense, it is the opposite of passion!  That’s what makes “passionate equanimity” such an intriguing concept.

Unlike Treya Killam Wilber and myself, who started with passion then found equanimity, Stoicism starts with equanimity (well, the Stoics might call it tranquility).  With our logic and our values, and with acceptance that so much is out of our control, we can gain perspective, which in turn gives us equanimity.  Further, the Stoic accepts that tragedy will befall us, because it is our fate.  If we can dispassionately accept the impermanence of the world around us, then we can have some perspective.  Once I have a large measure of equanimity, I have a better understanding of my situation juxtaposed with my own values, then I can better cultivate a passion for what I set out to do.

I think it works better to start with equanimity, and only then be passionate about our calling.  I think that this works better because when we rationally observe our lot in life or our current situation, we can make a better choice about what to be passionate about.  I am a living example of this:  I was passionate about my job as an AF pilot and officer, but I think I would have been happier if I had examined what my job was really about:  killing for a government, rather than defending “freedom.”  In a sense, I think I lacked the big picture of what my values should be because I did not reflect enough before I acted.  I committed to something without fully understanding it, and thus I was dissatisfied with what I was doing.  Possibly, I just didn’t have enough information.  In any case, gaining equanimity helped me vector my passions in a different direction.

USAF F-4: Loads of Passion with little Equanimity

I suppose it is inevitable that we lack equanimity in our youth, and in fact, some never get it.  As you read, I hope this helps you gain some equanimity.  Again, I throw a little seed your way….I hope it helps you.