XPost: alt.philosophy.zen, alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.philosophy.taoism   
   From: tanghuyen@gmail.com   
      
   On 8/25/2016 12:39 PM, Noah Sombrero wrote:   
      
   > Since as you say, it is simply a matter of mental orientation, it   
   > isn't a surprise that people in different parts of the world had the   
   > same thought, if they did.  I suspect the correspondence adds   
   > authenticity to the idea while loosening dogmatic restrictions for   
   > you.   
   >   
   > It might be more fruitful to compare the zen tasks, that might be   
   > distracted from by the supernatural, with stoic tasks, than to notice   
   > that both discount the supernatural.  Does stoicism have provide tasks   
   > with specific self modification in mind?  It might be true that in the   
   > end the zen devotee realizes that no modification was necessary, but   
   > again the tasks were undertaken to bring him to that realization.  I   
   > also suspect that realization would not be the only difference.   
      
   Stoicism is famous for its tasks with specific   
   self modification in mind. Pierre Hadot wrote   
   a French book on them. The famous Stoic   
   masters, Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius,   
   etc. teach tasks of mental culture that are   
   very close to those in Buddhism and   
   Stoicism, though at a lesser level of technicity.   
   Eastern Orthodoxy has tons of such tasks,   
   derived from Neoplatonism and perhaps from   
   contact with Indian yoga (Hinduist?   
   Buddhist?) The founder of Neoplatonism,   
   Plotinus, went on a Greek war expedition in   
   the Near East and met with Indian   
   gymnosophists (yogi from Buddhism?   
   Hinduism?), so there may be direct   
   influence from India, and Eastern Orthodoxy   
   has much that resembles Indian yoga. Roman   
   Catholicism strongly objects to such Eastern   
   Orthodox yoga-like self-induction of ecstasy,   
   for it only admits of God's grace in such   
   ecstasy.   
      
   Stoicism takes God to be the universal, the   
   only universal, and as such we are parts and   
   parcels of him, therefore we are already   
   whole and perfect just as we are, but this   
   thought is more implicit than explicit, though   
   advocates of passivity like Madame Guyon   
   and Fénelon want us to let us be acted on by   
   God and thus be God himself, in the absence   
   of ourselves to interfere with him. The only   
   modification from our side then is to abstain   
   from ourselves in favour of God, who then   
   acts us, in our stead, and that is all we need   
   to do, namely to leave ourselves vacant for   
   God to do what he wants by way of us as his   
   mere vessels. This is one valid (albeit rare)   
   take of Stoicism, which is amazingly close to   
   much Daoism (and some versions of   
   Buddhism).   
      
   You said:   
      
   <>   
      
   I don't know whether you are aware, but   
   you have implicitly embraced an   
   anti-Jewish mythology position, because   
   in Jewish mythology, it (Jewish tradition)   
   is not a mental orientation, but a mere   
   expression of reality, more explicitly the   
   way God expresses himself, in full rigour   
   and for real, and not in a symbolic or   
   idealist manner. It is as brutally realist   
   and literalist as Communism, like with   
   our friend Niunian, who is both a   
   Communist and a Christian.   
      
   Tang Huyen   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)