Suicide, condemned by most moralities with social and religious foundations, has in fact been permitted by two doctrines whose norms of life are not far from those indicated for the differentiated man in the present epoch: Stoicism and Buddhism. One can refer to the ideas of Seneca regarding Stoicism, recalling above all the general background of its vision of life. I have already said that for Seneca the true man would be above the gods themselves because they, by their very nature, do not know adversity and misfortune, whereas he is exposed to them, but has the power to triumph over them. Moreover, Seneca sees the beings that are most harshly tested as the worthiest, recalling this analogy: in war it is the most capable, sure, and qualified persons that leaders entrust with the most exposed positions and the hardest tasks. Usually it is this virile and agonistic conception that applies when suicide is condemned and stigmatized as cowardice and desertion. (There is a saying attributed by Cicero to the Pythagoreans: 'To leave the place that one is assigned in life is not permitted without an order from the leader, who is God.') Instead Seneca reached the opposite conclusion, and put the justification of suicide directly into the mouth of divinity (De Providentia 6:7-9). He makes the divinity say that he has given the superior man, the sage, not only a force stronger than any contingency, and something more than being exempt from evils, namely the power to triumph over them interiorly, but has also ensured that no one can hold him back against his will: the path to 'exit' is open to him — patet exitus, 'Wherever you do not want to fight, it is always possible to retreat. You have been given nothing easier than death.' \nGiven the presuppositions mentioned earlier with regard to the general vision of life, there is no doubt that Seneca did not intend this decision to refer to cases in which death is sought because a given situation appears unbearable: especially then, one could not permit oneself the act. Here too it is unnecessary to add what is equally valid for all those who are driven to cut their life short due to emotional and impassioned motives, because this would be equivalent to recognizing one's own passivity and impotence toward the irrational part of one's soul. The same is even true for cases in which social motives intervene. Both the ideal Stoic type and the differentiated man do not permit these motives to intimately touch them, as if their dignity were injured by what binds them to social life. They would never be driven to put an end to their own existence for these motives, which are included by the Stoics in the category of 'that which does not depend on me.' The only exception we can consider is the case of a disgrace not before others whose judgment and contempt one cannot bear, but before oneself, because of one's own downfall. Considering all this, Seneca's maxim can only have the meaning of an enhancement of the inner freedom of a superior being. It is not a matter of retreating because one does not feel strong enough before such ordeals and circumstances; rather, it is a matter of the sovereign right — that one always keeps in reserve — to either accept these ordeals or not, and even to draw the line when one no longer sees a meaning in them, and after having sufficiently demonstrated to one- self the capacity to face them. Impassibility is taken for granted, and the right to 'exit' is justifiable as one of the possibilities to be considered, in principle, only for the sake of decreeing that our circumstances have our assent, that we are really active in them, and that we are not just making a virtue of necessity.

• suicide
• meaning
• motives
• power
• freedom
• existence
• justification
• circumstances
• death
• doubt
• stoicism
• buddhism
• suffering
• existentialism

There are the practices of yoga meditation, dervish dancing, psychotherapy, Zen Buddhism, Ignatian, Salesian, and Hesychast methods of 'prayer,' the use of consciousness-changing chemicals such as LSD and mescaline, psychodrama, group dynamics, sensory-awareness techniques, Quakerism, Gurdjieff exercises, relaxation therapies,the Alexander method, autogenic training, and self-hypnosis. The difficulty with every one of these disciplines is that the moment you are seriously involved, you find yourself boxed in some special in-group which defines itself, often with the most elegant subtlety, by the exclusion of an out-group. In this way, every religion or cult is self-defeating, and this is equally true of projects which define themselves as non-religions or universally inclusive religions, playing the game of 'I am less exclusive than you.

• religion
• self
• awareness
• consciousness
• prayer
• buddhism
• zen
• meditation
• lsd
• hypnosis
• yoga

Some people say that Buddhist practice is to dissolve the self. They do not understand that there is no self to be dissolved. There is only the notion of self to be transcended.

• buddhism
• self

The original mind, according to Buddhism, is always shining. Afflictions such as craving, anger, doubt, fear, and forgetfulness are what block the light, so the practice is to remove these five hindrances. When the energy of mindfulness is present, transformation takes place.

• anger
• buddhism
• desire
• fear
• mindfulness
• transformation
• light
• doubt
• energy

Christians and Buddhists both realize that without concentration, without abandoning distracting thoughts, prayer and meditation will not bear fruit. Concentration and devotion bring calm, peace, stability, and comfort to both Buddhists and Christians. If farmers use farming tools to cultivate their land, practitioners use prayer and meditation to cultivate their consciousness.

• buddhism
• christianity
• consciousness
• meditation
• peace
• prayer
• will

For a Buddhist to be attached to any doctrine, even a Buddhist one, is to betray the Buddha. It is not words or concepts that are important. What is important is our insight into the nature of reality and our way of responding to reality.'

• buddhism
• dogma
• identification
• love
• reality
• religion
• nature
• buddha

If we get rid of all wishful thinking and dubious metaphysical speculations, we can hardly doubt that - at a time not too distant - each one of us will simply cease to be.  It won't be like going into darkness forever, for there will be neither darkness, nor time, nor sense of futility, nor anyone to feel anything about it.  Try as best you can to imagine this, and keep at it.  The universe will, supposedly, be going on as usual, but for each individual it will be as if it had never happened at all; and even that is saying too much, because there won't be anyone for whom it never happened.  Make this prospect as real as possible: the one total certainty.  You will be as if you had never existed, which was, however, the way you were before you did exist - and not only you but everything else.  Nevertheless, with such an improbable past, here we are.  We begin from nothing and end in nothing.  You can say that again.  Think it over and over, trying to conceive the fact of coming to never having existed.  After a while you will begin to feel rather weird, as if this very apparent something that you are is at the same time nothing at all.  Indeed, you seem to be rather firmly and certainly grounded in nothingness, much as your sight seems to emerge from that total blankness behind your eyes.  The weird feeling goes with the fact that you are being introduced to a new common sense, a new logic, in which you are beginning to realize the identity of ku and shiki, void and form.  All of a sudden it will strike you that this nothingness is the most potent, magical, basic, and reliable thing you ever thought of, and that the reason you can't form the slight idea of it is that it's yourself.  But not the self you thought you were.

• buddhism
• existential
• self
• time
• reason
• will
• identity
• thought
• doubt
• past
• logic

To 'realize Buddha in this body' is to realize that you yourself are in fact the universe.  You are not, as parents and teachers are wont to imply, a mere stranger on probation in the scheme of things; you are rather a sort of nerve-ending through which the universe is taking a peek at itself, which is why, deep down inside, almost everyone has a vague sense of eternity.  Few dare admit this because it would amount to believing that you are God, and God in our culture is the cosmic Boss, so that anyone imagining himself to be be God is deemed either blasphemous or insane.  But for Buddhists this is no problem because they do not have this particular idea of God, and so also are not troubled by the notion of sin and everlasting damnation.  Their picture of the universe is not political, not a kingdom ruled by a monarch, but rather an organism in which every part is a 'doing' of the whole, so that everything that happens to you is understood as your own karma, or 'doing.'  Thus when things go wrong you have no one but yourself to blame.  You are not a sinner but a fool, so try another way.

• buddhism
• eastern thought
• god
• society
• spinoza
• western thought
• sin
• parents
• culture
• karma
• buddha
• eternity
• damnation
• body

The nature of the having mode of existence follows from the nature of private property. In this mode of existence all that matters is my acquisition of property and my unlimited right to keep what I have acquired. The having mode excludes others; it does not require any further effort on my part to keep my property or to make productive use of it. The buddha has described this mode of behavior as craving, the Jewish and Christian religions as coveting; it transforms everybody and everything into something dead and subject to another's power.

• having
• buddhism
• christianity
• property
• power
• nature
• existence
• behavior
• buddha

The difference between being and having is not essentially that between East and West. The difference is rather between a society centered around persons and one centered around things...It is not that Western man cannoth fully understand Eastern systems, such as Zen Buddhism (as Jung thought), but that modern Man cannot understand the spirit of a society that is not centered in property and greed.'

• being
• having
• east vs west
• greed
• jung
• society
• property
• buddhism
• thought
• zen
• spirit