Embracing a Stoic view of death

Like I said at the end of my previous post about dealing with death, there isn't much to add to the philosophic options given to us by the ancient Greeks and Romans.

After all, there are only so many different ways of looking at reality. The ancients ran though them all. Metaphysical. Natural. Atomistic. Holistic. Rational. Mystical.

So when I found myself leaning toward a "nature knows what it's doing" attitude toward death, it didn't take me long to realize that I was walking on well-trod Stoic ground.

I love Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. Aurelius was a Roman emperor who penned philosophic observations while campaigning against his enemies.

He's helped me get through a bout in the dentist's chair and frustrations with Microsoft. Granted, those aren't quite as serious a problem as death, but Stoicism is well-suited to coping with just about anything.

Because one of its main tenets is to focus on the thing itself, not our reaction to it. It's amazing how problems fade away when we don't spread our own mental crap on top of what's really going on.

"His ship sank."
"What happened?"
"His ship sank."

"He was sent to prison." But if you add the proposition "a terrible thing happened to him," then that is coming from you.

These quotes are from Epictetus, a Stoic philosopher who Marcus Aurelius much admired. They're in Pierre Hadot's The Inner Citadel, translated by Michael Chase.

The "citadel" being referred to is what's under our control: the judgments we make about what's happening. Ships may sink. Jail doors may close. Death may be at hand.

Those are facts. How we look upon them is something different. The Stoic ideal is to see things as they are, not as how our imagination considers them to be.

An objective or adequate representation is one which corresponds exactly to reality, which is to say that it engenders within us an inner discourse which is nothing other than the pure and simple description of an event, without the addition of any subjective value-judgment.

"He was sent to jail.
What happened? He was sent to jail. But 'He is unhappy' is added by oneself [i.e., subjectively]"

Thus both Marcus and Epictetus draw a clear distinction between "objective" inner discourse, which is merely a pure description of reality, and "subjective" inner discourse, which includes conventional or passionate considerations, which have nothing to do with reality.

As I wrote about in my previous post, I (obviously) was very much alive when I began to envision my death. Even more, there wasn't anything or anyone threatening me. Certainly not the full moon.

The thoughts of death that produced such a disquieting feeling in me came from…me.

To a Stoic, it's natural to be startled by things that go bump in the night. And that includes self-induced bumps, such as One day I'm not going to exist anymore!

However, what happens next often is unnatural. We start talking to ourselves. This subjective inner dialogue imagines all kinds of things.

"Somebody's broken into the house. They're coming to get me." "Death is going to cast me into eternal nothingness. I'll be non-existent for eternity."

Who says? How do you know? What in the here and now supports these notions of there and then?

Often, if not usually, zilch. Nada. Nothing.

My anxiety about nothingness is rooted in nothing. Crazy.

Yet this is a reflection of the normal state of human affairs. We're always making up stories in our heads. We project plot lines both forward into the future and backward into the past, even though we're not in control of the action, nor do we have a view of the entire stage.

When death comes, die. Until then, live – in reality, not fantasy.

If we want to become aware of our true selves, we must concentrate upon the present. As Marcus puts it, we must "circumscribe the present," and separate ourselves from that which no longer belongs to us: our past words and actions, and our future words and actions. Seneca has already expressed this idea:

"These two things must be cut away: fear of the future, and the memory of past sufferings. The latter no longer concern me, and the future does not concern me yet."

Comments

[Sita]

We need some dreaming maybe also.
We have our fantasies and idea's,maybe that is also a part of the play..
Sometimes scary dreams,but sometimes sweet and nice fantasies and dreams.
They are just there..
Also come and go..;( :)

[komposer]

I was watching UG Krishnamurti last night (one of the few people I have learned about since becoming a regular on this site), and he was telling a gentleman who was recording him with a videorecorder that his camera was much more sophisticated than he was because it recorded without interpretation.

Brian points out that recording done with as little interpretation as possible often takes the drama out of a situation, and I will add that the drama, once gone, allows me to breathe a little easier, center myself.

Once I start to think down this road, it's amazing and frightening, because I begin to realize that the totality of my life's drama, all the ups and downs, occurs in my mind with me as the only viewer. If a good friend is around, I can tell him/her what's going on, but otherwise we are each sailing in solitary ships.

OSHO, another wonderful person I've discovered since visiting this site, talks about enlightenment as the realization that we each create our reality, and the cessation from creating anything.

BUT, I am sympathy with Sita's points, because most of us, well I'll speak for myself, I can't stop thinking and interpretation. Maybe for short times here and there. So the question arises, how do you live knowing that you are stuck inside of your own drama? That you are socially conditioned and not free? As Sita says, this is also part of the play...the dreams, as everything else, come and go.

[Rakesh Bhasin]

Embracing a Stoic or uncontrolled emotional view of death on account of something or other does not make much of a difference. It is the terminal part of the journey of life for plants, animals, humen beings alike.

In my opinion, it (death) is not even worth a consideration. As one springs up on the earth, one fine morning, so also one goes down the drain on another fine morning. That is all, it is.......

imo, one must take the life as it comes.

[sara]

I'm a new participant, so I'm not sure if what I am about to ask has been covered on another thread, so forgive me if this is a boring question, but isn't it virtually IMPOSSIBLE to live without belief? After all, Marcus Aurelius trusted that the Universe was one that made sense in some ultimate way. This is a belief, is it not? If Marcus had no belief in anything at all, he wouldn't have been extolling virtue so often in his writing.

I could be wrong, though. I haven't read the Stoics in a long time.

One more question. Are you opposed to "opting" for a belief because the belief itself provides rewards; that is, a joyful and richer life which allows you to do more good in the world? I'm thinking of William James "Will to Believe" concept.

Of course, I think we must remind ourselves that our belief is a "choice", so that we can resist the temptation to become arrogant or dismissive of other people's choices.

Oh yes, another question...most angry spiritual people I encounter these days are ex-Catholics, but you seem quite bitter about that group you were in for many years. (sorry, I forget the name), but you must have learned some things from them for which you are grateful, no? Perhaps the years of meditation? Were they a waste?

Thank you for creating this interesting site.

I hope I'm posting this correctly. I'm not much of a blogger, nor do I visit many sites like some people do.

[Brian]

Sita, absolutely -- dreams and fantasies are a part of life, and us. Like you said, there's no problem if we enjoy them for what they are, letting them come and go. Fixations, though, can be a problem.

Sara, you expressed yourself well. Yes, I agree: much of what Marcus says is founded on belief. But so is science, and everyday life. I believe I'll wake up in the morning because such has happened every day of my life so far.

But one day, maybe not (well, certainly not, unless I die while awake).

What I like about the Stoics such as Marcus is that they point us toward one of those "beliefs" that seems worthy of being called a fact.

Namely, that our inner mental dialog has a big impact on how life appears to us. My wife recently retired from being a psychotherapist. Her favorite modality, if you want to call it that, was "cognitive therapy" (believe I have the name right).

Meaning, drawing her clients' attention to the thoughts that go through their head in certain situations. Like Sita and you said, beliefs can be positive and productive when they make us happier, more positive, more giving.

But often the words we speak to ourselves in our head don't correspond to reality, but to an imagined past or future.

Quite a few years ago I had a bad car accident on a snowy/icy Oregon road. It took me a while to feel comfortable driving on snow again, particularly on that same road.

Last Thursday I was driving into town from our rural home to go to my evening Tai Chi classes. It's been cold here. A few snowflakes began to fall.

I noticed them. They weren't amounting to much. The temperature was just above freezing. Traffic was fine. I felt anxious, though. My mind said, "It might snow more during class. Roads could get icy."

I toyed with the idea of returning home. But the rational part of me, the "inner citadel" part that Marcus talks about, did its best to separate what was really going on in the world with the judgments I was making inside my head.

I realized that I was over-reacting. That I was driving an all wheel drive Toyota Highlander with stability control. That I had chains in the back and knew how to put them on. That the forecast was for little if any snow today.

I continued on to class and had a good time. Stayed in town until 7:30 pm. Driving home, I encountered some more light snow at the top of the south Salem hills. No big deal. Pretty without affecting driving.

A small thing. But a good example of how beliefs and judgments can be in accord with external reality, or out of touch with it. This is a large part of what psychotherapy is all about, whether done with a counselor or with oneself: getting outside and inside reality more in tune.

Lastly, yes, I am grateful for the years (decades, actually) I spent with my spiritual group. I learned a lot, had good times, met a lot of fine people.

I don't know if I'm angry so much as disappointed. Or disillusioned, in the sense of seeing myself and the group without the distorting belief perspective that made some things seem real that actually were illusions.

[poetryman69]

Azure in the arms of Cerulean

Cast adrift in the Indigo isles

May Angel love and Moon glow light your path.

[tAo]

Brian said: "After all, there are only so many different ways of looking at reality. The ancients ran though them all. Metaphysical. Natural. Atomistic. Holistic. Rational. Mystical."

You missed one... How about the Electrical Universe?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4773590301316220374&q=thunder

http://www.plasmacosmology.net/

http://plasmascience.net/tpu/TheUniverse.html

And while you're at it, and BEFORE you get lost in the above links, please be sure to first go check out the TU24 Asteroid that is headed our way on Tuesday, January 29, 2008:

http://www.tu24.org

[Steve Zengel]

It is amazing how we torture ourselves with are own thoughts. Imaging future events that don't happen. Blocking out the beauty right before our eyes