Buddhist Philosophy

A Comparative Approach

Steven M. Emmanuel

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781119068419, 9781119068242
• eBook ISBN: 9781119068402
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Buddhism

Buddhist Philosophy: A Comparative Approach presents a series of readings that examine the prominent thinkers and texts of the Buddhist tradition in the round, introducing contemporary readers to major theories and debates at the intersection of Buddhist and Western thought.

• Takes a comparative, rather than oppositional, approach to Buddhist philosophy, exploring key theories and debates at the intersection of Eastern and Western thought
• Addresses a variety of topics that represent important points of convergence between the Buddhist and Western philosophical traditions
• Features contributions from a wide array of acclaimed international scholars in the discipline
• Provides a much-needed cross-cultural treatment of Buddhist philosophy appropriate for undergraduate students and specialists alike

1
Buddhist Philosophy as a Way of Life: The Spiritual Exercises of Tsongkhapa

Christopher W. Gowans

Pierre Hadot’s signature theme, that for which he is best known – indeed what made him rather well known – is his thesis that the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers regarded “philosophy as a way of life” devoted to bringing about a radical transformation of the self, so as to attain genuine well‐being, through the practice of an ensemble of “spiritual exercises,” of which the study of philosophical discourses is one part, but by no means the only or even most important part.¹ As an interpretation of ancient philosophy, Hadot’s thesis is not without its critics.² But I suspect that, for many, the interest in Hadot has as much to do with the attraction of regarding philosophy as having such a practical aim as it does with the accuracy of his proposal as an interpretation of the early formative period of Western philosophy. In any case, that philosophy, with its propensity for rather abstract and often esoteric modes of rational reflection, could have “living well” as its primary rationale is certainly a thought worthy of consideration.

It has been suggested that Hadot’s understanding of philosophy as a way of life might be valuable in interpreting Buddhist thought and practice.³ From one perspective, this is a rather natural suggestion. Buddhist practice often involves spiritual exercises, and Buddhist philosophy is sometimes intimately related to these exercises. However, more inquiry is needed to see just how fruitful this interpretive proposal may be. The great diversity of Buddhist traditions should caution us against the temptation to make unqualified statements in this regard.

In this chapter I explore this proposal by reference to a single important text: Tsongkhapa’s The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (Byang chub lam rim che ba) (Tsongkhapa 2000–2004). The Great Treatise is a lengthy discourse on a form of Buddhist practice, and an understanding of Buddhist philosophy plays a crucial role in this practice. Hence, we have considerable reason to expect that Hadot’s notion of philosophy as a way of life will be an illuminating interpretive strategy in reading this text. Though I hope to fulfill this expectation, I will also propose that the differences between Tsongkhapa and Hadot’s philosophers are as important as the similarities. A central lesson is that Buddhist philosophy as a way of life, as understood by Tsongkhapa, takes us in directions that depart in important ways from the philosophical ways of life considered by Hadot.

I will begin with a brief elaboration of some central themes in Hadot based on a distinction between the concept of philosophy as a way of life and particular conceptions of this idea that he supposed were dominant in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. I will then examine the Great Treatise in some detail and argue that it clearly exemplifies Hadot’s concept of philosophy as a way of life. Finally I will highlight some of the main ways that Tsongkhapa’s particular conception of this converged and diverged from the conceptions of the philosophers featured in Hadot’s accounts.

Hadot on Philosophy as a Way of Life

Though Hadot believed that his account of philosophy as a way of life applied rather broadly to ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, he stressed that in some respects these philosophers developed it in divergent ways. For example, there are key differences in the manner in which the Stoics and the Epicureans envisioned philosophy as a way of life. In light of this, and in light of my interest in employing Hadot’s account in interpreting Tsongkhapa, it will be helpful to distinguish the concept of philosophy as a way of life and particular conceptions of philosophy as a way of life. The concept is the basic idea, that which is largely shared by all proponents of philosophy as a way of life, and the conceptions are different ways the proponents fill out this idea by explaining, elaborating, and applying it in accordance with their distinctive philosophical visions.⁴

There are two interrelated aspects to Hadot’s concept of philosophy as a way of life (sometimes referred to as an “art of living”). First, it is supposed that, in their ordinary condition, human beings are quite deficient in well‐being in significant respects, but human beings have the capacity to undergo a radical transformation so as to achieve, or at least approach, an ideal state in which there is genuine well‐being (the state of “the sage”). The deficiencies pertain primarily to beliefs, desires, passions, and actions. These deficiencies render our lives unsatisfactory in some fundamental ways: we are frustrated, anxious, fearful, angry, alienated, and so on. The ideal state is characterized by some kind of understanding or wisdom, a high level of contentment typically involving tranquility (ataraxia), and (at least often) some form of moral virtue.

Second, it is thought that the way to bring about this transformation is to practice a set of spiritual exercises (askēsis or meletē) in which philosophy plays an essential, but not exclusive, role. The exercises are wide‐ranging: they involve cognitive, affective, sensory, imaginative, volitional, moral, and other aspects of a person’s character. They are needed because the obstacles to our well‐being are deep and diverse: only exercises that alleviate the totality of these obstacles can hope to liberate us from the suffering that is our usual condition. Though many religious ways of life involve spiritual exercises, what is distinctive about the idea of philosophy as a way of life is that philosophical reflection is regarded as one of the essential spiritual exercises.⁵ Philosophy, in this view, is not a specialized theoretical or academic discipline: it is a way of living for all persons, practiced at each moment, and it has a practical goal. Philosophy as a way of life involves philosophical reflection. But this intellectual activity is not sufficient by itself to live in this way and attain the goal of well‐being: philosophical reflection must be combined with the full range of spiritual exercises to be effective.

The concept of philosophy as a way of life is nicely captured in a well‐known statement attributed to Epicurus: “Empty are the words of that philosopher who offers therapy for no human suffering. For just as there is no use for medical expertise if it does not give therapy for bodily diseases, so too there is no use in philosophy if it does not expel the suffering of the soul” (Long and Sedley 1987, 155 (25C)). The medical analogy – that philosophy cures the soul just as medicine cures the body – was a prominent theme in ancient philosophy.⁶ According to Hadot, “philosophy presented itself as a therapeutic, intended to cure mankind’s anguish” (Hadot 1995, 265–266). That philosophy must be understood by reference to a set of exercises with this practical goal is the key idea in the concept of philosophy as a way of life.

The different conceptions of philosophy as a way of life are distinguished in part by the different ancient schools of philosophy and their distinctive metaphysics (physics), epistemology (logic), and ethics – those of the Platonists, Aristotelians, Stoics, Epicureans, Skeptics, and the like (but especially the Stoics and Epicureans, the schools that are constantly at the center of attention in Hadot’s analysis). However, though the philosophical doctrines associated with these schools are important, much of the substance of Hadot’s account of the different conceptions emerges in his discussion of the various spiritual exercises that he thinks were important for the ancient philosophers.⁷ He believes that these exercises were communicated primarily through “oral instruction” and, lacking a text that systematically outlines them, Hadot provides a reconstruction based on a variety of sources.⁸ According to Hadot, some of the exercises were common to different schools, but some were practiced or at least emphasized only in certain schools. In any case, these exercises will provide a fertile field for comparison with Tsongkhapa’s Great Treatise.

As noted above, some of the exercises are in the neighborhood of what nowadays would be regarded as philosophical inquiry. Hadot says that “philosophical discourse is one of the forms of exercise of the philosophical way of life” (Hadot 2002, 178). This discourse justifies the way of life, and it is important to learn the doctrines it articulates as well as to reflect on, question, and examine these doctrines. A related exercise is intellectual dialogue concerning these doctrines in the context of a community. Socratic dialogue is a “communal spiritual exercise” (Hadot 1995, 90). Also important are dialogues with one’s self (meditations). Hence, rational reflection on and discussion of philosophical ideas are important parts of the spiritual exercises. To this extent, there is some resemblance to what goes on in a typical graduate seminar in philosophy today. The difference, Hadot insists, is that for the ancient schools, philosophical thought and conversation was in the service of – in fact was one part of – living a philosophical way of life, such as the life of the Stoic or the life of the Epicurean. But it was only one part since other spiritual exercises were also necessary and perhaps even more important. Living a philosophical way of life required understanding some philosophy, but it did not require anything resembling an academic degree in philosophy, as may be seen in a figure such as Marcus Aurelius.

Some spiritual exercises directly focused on the practical application of philosophical ideas. We needed to meditate on (meletē), remember (mneme), and have readily available for everyday use basic doctrines, practical maxims, and even arguments of the favored philosophy. This is why it was important to assimilate brief résumés of the philosophy such as Epictetus’s Handbook (Enchiridion) or Epicurus’s Principal Doctrines – and also very brief formulae such as the Epicurean’s “fourfold remedy”: “the gods are not to be feared, death is not to be dreaded; what is good is easy to acquire, what is bad is easy to bear” (Hadot 2002, 123). Likewise, it was valuable to incorporate the philosophies into our daily life, not only by thinking, but by writing. Hadot interprets Marcus’s Meditations as a spiritual exercise – “exhortations to himself” – intended to transform himself throughout his life so as to live in accord with Stoic doctrine (see Hadot 1995, ch. 6; 1998, ch. 3; 2002, 177).

Other spiritual exercises were more overtly practical in that they were designed to transform our habits. They focused on eliminating or at least limiting various troublesome desires and passions. For example, enduring forms of physical depravation was undertaken to learn how to become detached from external goods that are not necessary for well‐being. That these goods are not necessary is something philosophical reasoning could teach us. For instance, the Stoics argued that all external goods are unnecessary for well‐being while the Epicureans maintained that well‐being requires fulfillment only of natural and necessary desires. But understanding the teaching and its rationale needed to be supplemented by practical training that would reshape our habits so that we would no longer want the goods we now understood we did not need. Since there were many troublesome desires and passions there were many exercises devoted to alleviating their various demands. Other practical exercises also contributed to these ends – for example, for the Epicureans, these included daily examination of one’s conscience, public confession, and correction by other members of the community.

Many spiritual exercises centered on the theme of “philosophy as training for death” first articulated by Socrates in Plato’s Phaedo (Plato 2002, 67e; see Hadot 1995, 94). These diverse exercises sometimes reinforced one another and sometimes pulled in opposite directions. They included: learning to appreciate the insignificance of human affairs; coming to accept whatever happens in life; learning to live each day as if it were one’s last; realizing that death is nothing to fear (either on account of immortality or because the dead do not experience being dead); knowing how to separate one’s true self, the soul, from what is foreign to it, the body with its partial senses, desires, and passions; focusing on the present moment and its value; and contemplating nature and the universal, obje...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Editor’s Introduction
• 1 Buddhist Philosophy as a Way of Life
• 2 The Other Side of Realism
• 3 Emergentist Naturalism in Early Buddhism and Deweyan Pragmatism
• 4 Metaphysical Dependence, East and West
• 5 Metaphysics and Metametaphysics with Buddhism
• 6 Are Reasons Causally Relevant for Action? Dharmakīrti and the Embodied Cognition Paradigm
• 7 Zen’s Nonegocentric Perspectivism
• 8 Rhetoric of Uncertainty in Zen Buddhism and Western Literary Modernism
• 9 From the Five Aggregates to Phenomenal Consciousness
• 10 Embodying Change
• 11 Buddhist Modernism and Kant on Enlightenment
• 12 Compassion and Rebirth
• Further Reading
• Index
• End User License Agreement