By SAMUEL KILSZTAJN*
In the West, philosophy courses are usually restricted to the study of Western philosophy. In China, on the other hand, the study of philosophy encompasses Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, as well as Marxism-Leninism and Maoism.
From an Eastern perspective, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim monotheists are all the same; and from a Western perspective, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Shintoists, and Confucians are the same. Half of the world's population is monotheistic, concentrated in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and the Middle East. India is Hindu, and the Far East and Southeast Asia are Buddhist and Taoist (Japanese Shintoism and Chinese Confucianism are not very significant). Estimates for China, in particular, are very contradictory. According to official data, the vast majority of Chinese people declare themselves atheists, but various other estimates consider that the vast majority of Chinese people profess Buddhism, Taoism, or other popular beliefs.
In the West, philosophy courses are usually restricted to the study of Western philosophy. In China, on the other hand, the study of philosophy encompasses Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, as well as Marxism-Leninism and Maoism.
Buddhism is particularly present in the West as a religion or philosophy of life, but it is not part of the university curriculum, which understands it as mystical and esoteric. If we consider that the hegemony of civilization and Western thought is in crisis, it would be interesting to include the study of Eastern thought in the philosophy curriculum. And a possible bridge between Western and Eastern thought would be Baruch de Spinoza.
It is said that King Suddhodana raised his son Siddhartha Gautama in a glass dome to protect him from being affected by human suffering – only joy! And Siddhartha became Buddha when, by chance, upon leaving the palace, he came across illness, old age and death. (Would living in gated communities and frequenting shopping malls be a way for wealthy parents to protect their children from being affected by human suffering? Would repressing anti-Zionist demonstrations be a way for the Western world to avoid being affected by the suffering of the Palestinians?)
Buddhists seek to achieve equanimity and detachment, to free themselves from the desire for pleasant sensations and the aversion to unpleasant sensations, which bring us pleasure, joy, suffering and sadness. To be at the mercy of pleasant and unpleasant sensations is to remain in ignorance and suffering. Impermanence, moreover, is a key concept. “This too shall pass…” is used for both pleasant and unpleasant situations. In Catholicism, there are seven deadly (fundamental) sins: greed, gluttony, envy, anger, lust, sloth and pride/vanity. They are deadly because it is through them that a person can incur mortal sins. For Buddhism, however, the main challenge is to free oneself from pride/vanity, that is, from the ego. The ego would be the basis of all the other six deadly sins. Once the ego is diluted, there is no more room for greed, gluttony, envy, anger, lust and sloth.
The process of liberation from the ego and worldly sensations usually focuses on the practice of meditation. One tries not to react to pleasant and unpleasant sensations, to remain equanimous during meditation, so as to be able to live in balance both in the periods of glory and adversity of life. One must know how to win in order to know how to lose, to learn to be modest in golden times, of success, so as not to suffer in difficult times. Taoists also seek to develop non-reaction.
O Tao Te Ching Lao Tzu refers to the Tao as unknowable, unfathomable, inconceivable and unnameable. “We do not know…” is his best expression. We only know that “all living things are born and die, but life is immortal.” In this sense, Buddhism and Taoism could be considered agnostic.
Spinoza
In the 17th century, Baruch de Spinoza committed the sacrilege of daring to question religious dogmas, affecting structures and institutions. For this audacity, Spinoza was greatly affected in life and, categorically, continues to affect us… eternally.
At the age of 24, in 1656, Baruch de Spinoza was cursed and heremized (excommunicated) by the Jewish religion: “… no one can speak to him orally or in writing, nor give him any favor, nor be under his roof, nor within four cubits, nor read any paper made or written by him.”
In your Theological-political treatise, published anonymously in 1670, Benedictus de Spinoza ventured to denounce the profane writing of the Old testment (in 1679, the Treaty was included in the index of books prohibited by the Catholic Church). Ethics, his greatest work, was only published in 1677, one year after his death.
For daring to investigate the divine nature, Baruch de Spinoza was considered an atheist (and atheists celebrate his company). However, God is affirmatively present and permeates all of his work, associated with terms such as nature, eternal, immortal, infinite, essence, etc. “… God, insofar as he loves himself, loves men…” (Ethics V:36). Rather than an atheist, Spinoza, like Buddhism and Taoism, might better be characterized as an agnostic (Einstein used to say that he believed in Spinoza's God).
The term affection is usually associated with a positive manifestation. The term disaffection is used for a negative manifestation of affection. Affect, in turn, is usually used in a negative sense. However, to affect and to be affected can incorporate positive or negative charges. Affection, more specifically, would be the manifestation of any feeling through sounds, words, gestures and other forms of expression. A person can affect others in personal relationships, as well as through manifestations that transcend their presence and their own life. Artistic manifestations, literature, music and visual arts are forms that can affect generations. Who is not enchanted by Sophocles, Bach and Van Gogh?
And affection is not restricted to human relationships; you can be affected by it and affect the environment. You can be captivated by the song of a bird, the sunrise, the sea lapping against the coast, the gentle impact of the breeze rocking the tops of a tree and the blossoming of a flower. It can also cause the destruction of animal species, forests, rivers, mountains and cause climate crises.
The capacity to affect and be affected is a key concept employed by Baruch de Spinoza, which refers to three types of knowledge: the senses, reason and intuition. Positive affects generate joy, increase our power to act and are useful for the preservation of our being; negative affects generate sadness, reduce our power to act and are harmful to the preservation of our being. However, the knowledge provided by the senses (the first type of knowledge) is truncated, confused, disordered and false. The human being, governed by positive and negative affects, is not autonomous, is at the mercy of his passions (Ethics IV: Preface). Although conscious, he ignores the cause of his desires, he has no control over his desires and actions. Even knowing what would be best, he often ends up being dragged into doing the worst.
Here the parallel between Buddhist thought (being at the mercy of pleasant and unpleasant sensations) and Spinoza (being governed by positive and negative emotions) is clear. We are faced with a plentiful table, we know that we should not stuff ourselves, as this will harm our digestion, generate other health problems, make us obese and hinder our mobility – but we continue to desire, driven to fill ourselves up and we stuff ourselves anyway, without knowing why and without being able to restrain our behavior. The same goes for excessive alcohol and other drugs. Sex then?! How can we resist this passion that, depending on the plot, can ruin your life and the lives of others? Embark on a suicidal war (turn on your TV)?
“The majority of men, in fact, seem to believe that they are free in so far as they are allowed to obey their passions.” (Ethics V:41). According to Spinoza, man is only subject to repressing his passions because he fears the laws of his religion and the state – he needs the state not only to save him from others, but also from his own impulses and to enable him to live a life of reason.
Rare are the people who use reason (the second kind of knowledge), that is, who are not subject to the passions of joy and sadness. Here, Spinoza's use of reason to free oneself from passions is related to the practice of Buddhist meditation to develop equanimity and free oneself from attachment to worldly sensations, ignorance and suffering.
Living without attachment does not mean alienation. Buddhists and Taoists seek to ensure balance in the face of life's vicissitudes, to act, yes, but not out of reaction, not to let oneself be carried away, to be in control of one's actions. In the same way, living with detachment does not mean depriving oneself of emotions, living without pleasure. On the contrary, living with detachment means fully experiencing the pleasures and joys that life offers us.
I take this opportunity to pay tribute to Antonio Candido de Mello e Souza, who was always very cordial and affectionate. He explained to his granddaughter Maria Clara Vergueiro that he was not affectionate, he was affectionate, which may sound somewhat unfriendly – “I don’t hate people, I don’t wish them harm, I don’t wish them well either, I don’t need people [which is the concept of detachment]”. However, Antonio Candido was always so generous and helpful that everything good that happened at the Faculty of Philosophy at USP was invariably attributed to him. It was even common for him to be congratulated for achievements he had never even been aware of.
Just like non-monotheistic Eastern religions (all living beings are born and die, but life is immortal), Baruch de Spinoza contrasts living beings (mortal) with life that goes on (immortal). Spinoza understands eternity as existence itself, an essence without duration or time. He who is guided by feelings and passions is agitated in vain and lives reacting to external stimuli, in an almost complete unconsciousness of himself, without ever experiencing true inner contentment. Through intuition (the third kind of knowledge), the human being (finite) is capable of achieving self-awareness, true contentment and eternity (infinite). “The greater the number of things that the soul understands through the second and third kinds of knowledge, the less it is affected by bad affections and the less it fears death.” (Ethics V:38). And in this particular case, once again, not fearing death, for Buddhism, is living life to the fullest.
In many situations, we cannot avoid being negatively affected, whether by being victims of bloodthirsty executioners, being imprisoned by dictatorial regimes, or being isolated during epidemics. But even in these cases, the joy of living prevails.
During the Second World War, the ghettos continued to promote intense cultural and artistic life. Armed with an immense strength, all those who survived the degradation suffered in the concentration camps became true activists for life.
Despite the military dictatorship, Brazil experienced a cultural effervescence between 1964 and 1985. Political prisoners, within the narrow confines of the prison that suffocated them, exercised their freedom by doing physical exercises, yoga, drawing, reading and studying alone or with the help of the many specialists in prison.
During the coronavirus pandemic, a cousin of mine, an incorrigible optimist, fell into depression. To please him, I put together an album with some photos of everyday life with my daughters under house arrest, our activities and the artifacts we produced. He replied that it seemed like we were enjoying the quarantine.
Spinoza concludes the Ethics with the proposition “Happiness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself; and we do not enjoy it by restraining our passions, but, on the contrary, it is because we enjoy it that we are able to restrain our passions.” (Ethics V:42).
*Samuel Kilsztajn is a full professor of political economy at PUC-SP. Author, among other books, of From scientific socialism to utopian socialism. [https://amzn.to/42Yd5AZ]
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