Dealing with an existential crisis: the Stoic and the Buddhist way
About a year and a half ago, I was seized by a strange form of existential dread. It was abrupt, challenging my mental habits, which I had deemed fortifying. Almost every day I used to imagine that my life and those of the people I care for were finite — and that there is nothing wrong with this natural fact.
I intended to increase my appreciation for what I have in the here and now, avoiding false hopes.
The inspiration for my daily routine came chiefly from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. The emperor-and-philosopher insists a lot on the fleeting nature of (his own) life, employing different rhetorical means along his philosophical diary. According to him, we humans are like ‘grains of incense’ (4, 15) falling one after the other on a common altar; by imagining that you are dead right now you can see the rest of your life as ‘a bonus’ (7, 56); there is no difference between dying in old age and dying ‘before time’ (9, 32), etc.
Some readers cannot help but grasp a tinge of morbidity in such passages. That would be non-Stoic, to say the least, and the entire Stoic corpus is full of reflections of that sort. Putting Marcus back in his context, however, we see that those recurrent meditations on death were probably designed as a remedy against the luxury and flattery surrounding him, not to mention the imposing tasks of a Roman emperor.
Hence his position is not like any of ours. Philosophically trained since early years, witnessing plagues and wars in adulthood, Marcus could nearly effortlessly deal with the perspective of his own finitude. The lógos (a Greek word that means ‘reason’ but also implies ‘discursiveness’) within him was very often alert, prone to navigating in the midst of sad perceptions without submerging into them. Most of the time, he managed to live in accordance with the orthós lógos — with ‘right reason’, also keeping an inner and outer discourse in harmony with reality.
I do not idealize Marcus Aurelius, who in all likelihood was not a sage. I simply want to stress that when you have a reason which is very well crafted (in Stoic terms), you will not fall into what we may loosely call ‘despair’, even when you take into account every harsh aspect of life.
That was not my case. What I experienced for nearly a month was a loop of thoughts I could not cope with rationally. ‘My reason’ was not totally off, but it was severely crippled in front of what was arising inside me. I was not able to avoid strong emotional responses to the horrible things that were crossing my mind. Reason within myself was reduced to a mere chronicler.
I must not be much more specific. I suppose this kind of malaise is somewhat contagious. For a literary comparison, I would say that it bore a slight resemblance to Sartre’s Nausea, in that I felt estranged from my own daily life. As a curiosity, the only pieces of entertainment I tolerated then were superhero cartoons — for I was sure nothing crucial was happening before my eyes.
From that period onwards a new awareness emerged. I believe I have discovered on a deep and empirical level something important.
Which can be stated like this: many of our innermost problems as human beings are related to the passage of time and its effects. We observe things changing around us, we understand the inevitability of the transformation of everything that exists, but we also have a tendency to think and act as if we are exempt from those processes.
I can understand rationally and without pain that the objects around me are constantly changing, but the same is not always true when I notice that I am constantly changing, too. And ‘changing’ means that life is streaming or going away. After all, the constitution of this reality is so that subject and object are submitted to the same natural laws — that we are also being transformed while we observe things being transformed. The separation subject-object is, at least in this sense, illusory.
When we examine facts like these without the rearguard of a robust, vigilant reason, we can be easily thrown into an existential crisis. Roman Stoics, in turn, were well-equipped to deal with that sort of perception: their philosophy presents many variations on the memento mori theme as ‘spiritual exercises’. Just consider, for instance, this passage from Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius (24, 19–20; translated by Richard M. Gummere):
…we die every day. For every day a little of our life is taken from us; even when we are growing, our life is on the wane. We lose our childhood, then our boyhood, and then our youth. Counting even yesterday, all past time is lost time; the very day which we are now spending is shared between ourselves and death. It is not the last drop that empties the water-clock, but all that which previously has flowed out; similarly, the final hour when we cease to exist does not of itself bring death; it merely of itself completes the death-process. We reach death at that moment, but we have been a long time on the way.
Cotidie morimur: we die every day. The Stoics prompt us to accept the rules of the game of life (and death). Not accepting them makes us feel miserable or live purposeless lives.
The fact that time elapses and leads us nearer to our final hour is by no means a scandal. Living is dying. One of the tasks of the portion of the lógos allotted to us is expanding our understanding of the nature of things, which are ruled by the lógos in the macro scheme. Thus it provides a sort of harmony between what is inside and what is outside of us. When we succeed in doing it, what we have as a result is a philosophical life — a life according to nature.
When our reason is ‘impaired’, however, the acceptance of the rules of the game of life does not occur, or occurs defectively. This may be a temporary or a permanent condition. This may grow into a nihilistic mindset, in which existence has no meaning. What can we do on those occasions?
In my case I have experienced a great relief by learning how to meditate. I am certainly not an expert in this practice, but it has been growing on me ever since. And it opened for me the doors of the Buddhist tradition, which seemed so arcane years ago.
What I found remarkable in the Buddha’s teachings is that their point of departure is the acknowledgement of our suffering. Everything we live is duḥkha, is mixed with ‘suffering’ or ‘unsatisfactoriness’. In line with this ancient precept, a contemporary master like Thich Nhat Hahn says that we should present ourselves before the Buddha Shakyamuni showing him our own suffering. And since I have been introduced to meditation techniques while I was suffering, this statement makes a lot of sense to me.
The reality of suffering is the first of the Four Noble Truths enunciated by the Buddha. It was probably derived from his archetypal experience sighting an old man, a sick man and a dead body. The legend of Prince Siddhartha Gautama suggests he underwent severe existential troubles by noticing he was not protected from those disagreeable experiences — as we are not, as well. He suffered even before being actually exposed to those things — as may be our case, as well.
Thus the troubles of young Siddhartha have something to do with the passage of time every one is subjected to. The rules of the game of life are not unfair nor scandalous, yet they can be perceived so. Since we do not have the power to change them, we have to focus on changing our perception about them. That was the task carried out by Buddhists and Stoics alike.
That is the task of an education worthy of the name.
My aim here is not to draw a systematic comparison between the two traditions, which is beyond my competence. If you want something more or less in this direction, I recommend the excellent 2018 book More than Happiness, written by psychotherapist Antonia Macaro. I am writing from a very personal perspective, of someone who only sees meaning in those traditions inasmuch as they are able to make one’s life better.
The theme of suffering, for the Stoics, can be approximately identified to the problem posed by the passions, or violent emotions. Passions like anger, sadness and fear are viewed as the result of wrong judgment. Speaking broadly, when we do not manage to see reality as it is, we are giving way to the possibility of internal turmoil. We have to rectify our judgments in order to get rid of those passions.
But what to do when you are dealing with a current feeling of dejection, for example? You know that violent emotion was somehow caused by your own failing to judge things as they really are in the first place, by your lack of inner vigilance, but that perception may be not sufficient to put an end to it.
As a remedy for situations like that, if I am not mistaken, the Stoics mainly prescribe that a person sticks very fiercely to excellence or virtue (aretḗ). They would stress the uselessness of suffering, and the importance of personal integrity and commitment to duty.
Here is Marcus Aurelius, in a marvelous excerpt, describing the inevitability of the passage of time for the ánthrōpos (a human being in general), and making a very realistic portrait of things as they really are (2, 17; translated by Martin Hammond):
In man’s life his time is a mere instant, his existence a flux, his perception fogged, his whole bodily composition rotting, his mind a whirligig, his fortune unpredictable, his fame unclear. To put it shortly: all things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is a warfare and a visit in a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion.
What then can escort us on our way? One thing, and one thing only: philosophy. This consists in keeping the divinity [daímōn] within us inviolate and free from harm, master of pleasure and pain, doing nothing without aim, truth, or integrity, and independent of others’ action or failure to act. Further, accepting all that happens and is allotted to it as coming from that other source which is its own origin: and at all times awaiting death with the glad confidence that it is nothing more than the dissolution of the elements of which every living creature is composed. Now if there is nothing fearful for the elements themselves in their constant changing of each into another, why should one look anxiously in prospect at the change and dissolution of them all? This is in accordance with nature: and nothing harmful is in accordance with nature.
Everything flows, but we have philosophy on our side. Philosophy in the Hellenistic sense: as a ‘way of living’, as something really put into practice every moment. Consequently, our divine part, our higher mind, the lógos within ourselves, will be kept in good condition, under good shelter.
Everything flows — but a certain form of nobility is still within our reach.
I may testify that this way of thinking was vital for me. In fact, valuing excellence — the excellence that was within my reach — did prevent me from doing something crazy at that point. But the suffering went on and on.
Here is where meditation helped me a lot. If you ask a Buddhist practitioner the question ‘What is in our control?’, he/she will certainly not fail to mention ‘our breathing’ as one of the most important things. This was not an item in Epictetus’ famous dichotomy of control, which included, among the things in our power (tà eph’hēmîn), ‘judgment’ (hupólēpsis), ‘impulse towards action’ (hormḗ), ‘desire’ (órexis) and ‘aversion’ (ékklisis). To put it simply, our inner life.
Breathing in and out is not on Epictetus’ list, but it is surely something we can control. And it is no small feat. Besides, you do not have to be a neuroscientist in order to know that the rhythm of our breathing is closely connected to the rhythm of our thinking. If you master your breathing, if you practice ‘mindful breathing’, this will have a distinct effect on your own thoughts.
‘Mindful breathing’ facilitates a careful observation of one’s interiority. When you focus on the acts of inhaling and exhaling — the very acts that grant us the possibility of life — you may find a very profound calm within you, and you may also put yourself in the position of witness of your thoughts. It is a constant chattering — but pleasant and unpleasant thoughts combined simply pass off, like clouds in the starry sky. Time is on your side when you perceive deeply and empirically that no tempest lasts forever.
Sometimes you will luckily experience the cessation of verbal thoughts for a few seconds or minutes. Not a poor solace at all.
You will discover — or rediscover — that you exist underneath — or beyond — your thoughts and feelings. Taceo, ergo sum: I remain silent, therefore I am.
The centrality of silence in Buddhist tradition does not rule out, of course, attempts to describe reality in words for the sake of the ordained and the laypeople. In a very short treatise of the pali canon, the Upajjhatthana Sutta (‘Subjects of Contemplation’), the Buddha Shakyamuni states the following ‘Five Remembrances’ (I am combining Thich Nhat Hahn’s rendering in The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching with Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s translation):
There are these five facts that one should reflect on often, whether one is a woman or a man, lay or ordained. Which five?
(1) I am of nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
(2) I am of nature to have ill-health. There is no way to escape having ill-health.
(3) I am of nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
(4) All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.
(5) My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.
These are the five facts that one should reflect on often, whether one is a woman or a man, lay or ordained.
Those remembrances sound like Stoic ‘spiritual exercises’. And even more if we bear in mind that ‘to remember’ is a verb constantly used by Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, as a means to draw one’s attention to the aspects of reality one tends to forget.
The discursive character of Greek philosophy in general seems intimately related to the culture of the polis. Socrates was a proverbial chatterbox; Plato and Aristotle wrote extensively on many subjects, collecting contrasting opinions in their works. So the lógos supposed openness to other people and a certain form of citizenship, not an isolated human being. Paraphrasing Aristotle, a man [ánthrōpos] who is content to live alone is either a beast or a god.
The former merchant Zeno of Citium and his followers were even more adherent to that trend, so to speak, since their philosophy was born in the Poikílē Stoá, the Painted Porch, near the Agora of Athens. Not surprisingly, human nature was regarded by them as logikḗ kaì koinōnikḗ, ‘rational and communal’, in accordance with the lógos and the universal koinōnía (the community of gods and human beings) at the same time. Exchange of words and ideas was congenial to that notion. Therefore, Stoic therapeutic tends to be reason-based and mostly discursive.
Buddhism, in turn, is an offspring of the rich and varied tradition of Indian asceticism. It was born in a forest when the Buddha Shakyamuni instructed his first followers and grew a sangha (‘assembly’). Until today Buddhist monasteries and retreat centers are the places where you go looking for guidance, or even enlightenment. Plausibly, Buddhist appreciation of silence has a lot to do with its origins, aside from the personality of Gautama Buddha himself.
In light of everything I think I have learned, I came to a twofold conclusion.
Silence is sacred.
But the lógos — understood as ‘reason’ but also as ‘word’ or ‘discourse’ — is equally sacred.
Perhaps we are talking about two aspects of the same thing — of the same mystery.
