{"id":77188,"date":"2024-05-24T10:30:21","date_gmt":"2024-05-24T09:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bodhi-college.org\/?p=77188"},"modified":"2025-12-17T10:39:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T10:39:12","slug":"nietzsche-and-the-buddha-reflections-on-ethics-and-authenticity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bodhi-college.org\/de\/nietzsche-and-the-buddha-reflections-on-ethics-and-authenticity\/","title":{"rendered":"Nietzsche und der Buddha; \u00dcberlegungen zu Ethik und Authentizit\u00e4t"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

What is offered here was meant to be a blog on something that I was thinking about. Sadly, this has turned into an almost full-blown essay, but hopefully does touch on some important issues. What is presented is partly polemical, in the spirit of Nietzsche, and exploratory. The exploratory component is that I attempt to think through some of the implications for Buddhism of Nietzsche\u2019s ideas and use him as a way of critiquing the passive reception of traditional Buddhism in Buddhist circles \u2013 this is very much work in progress, so please don\u2019t think this is my final word on the matter \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Next time I will try to make it a genuine blog!!<\/em><\/p>\n

John Peacock<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nietzsche and the Buddha; Reflections on Ethics and Authenticity\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first questions that we must ask ourselves are: \u2018Why examine Western thinkers in relation to Buddhist thought?\u2019 and \u2018What can we gain from such an enterprise?\u2019<\/p>\n

Teaching an online course for Bodhi College recently on \u2018An Existential Approach to Buddhism\u2019 these were the questions that ran through my mind continuously. It wasn\u2019t sufficient, I thought, to simply suggest that what existential thinkers, such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Kierkegaard etc., were arguing was the same as, or like, what we can find in early Buddhist thought. To do so, I felt, was both uninteresting and didn\u2019t offer a compelling rationale as to why we should grapple with what can seem to the Buddhist, and non-Buddhist alike, as extremely difficult, and opaque material. To make such an investigation worthwhile it was necessary to demonstrate that such an engagement offered new perspectives on Buddhist and non-Buddhist material, and more importantly made a real difference to the ways in which we view our lives and approach the tasks with which we are confronted with daily.<\/p>\n

Do existentialist thinkers offer us radically new perspectives; different ways of perceiving existential problems that either fill lacunae in Buddhist thought, or offer stimulating challenges to contemporary western approaches to Buddhism? \u00a0Before we get round to examining that question let us reflect on the Buddhism that is often practiced in the west. Most forms of Buddhism are derived from encultured approaches (India, China, Japan, Tibet etc.,) that come with specific meditational and practice traditions. Most of these traditions date back hundreds of years, if not millennia, as in the case of the Buddhism of the Pali and Sanskrit texts. It goes without saying, that the texts and practices of these traditions derive from totally different socio-historical contexts Unfortunately, all too often Buddhist thought, and practice has the appearance of something fossilized within a rigid orthodoxy derived from traditional Asian forms of religious practice, dating back millennia. We can ask the question as to whether traditional forms may still be appropriate and applicable within new social contexts, which vary considerably from their communities of origin? I would contend that engaging with western existentialist thinkers offers a way – not by any means the \u2018only\u2019 way – of thinking through unexamined ways of thought and practice that have often been integrated and fossilized into a Buddhist world view derived from traditional Asian forms of Buddhism. As Nietzsche puts it when critiquing western philosophy and philosophers:<\/p>\n

You ask me about the idiosyncrasies of philosophers? \u2026 There is their lack of historical sense, their hatred of the idea of becoming, their Egyptianism. They think they are doing a thing an honour<\/em> when they de-historicize it sub specie aeternitatis \u2013 <\/em>when they make a mummy of it \u2026 Be a philosopher, be a mummy, represent monotono-theism by a gravedigger mimicry! (Twilight of the Idols<\/em>, 45)<\/p>\n

With the relevant changes being made this critique could equally apply to much of what is purveyed as Buddhism in the contemporary world. With some marked exceptions most western approaches to Buddhism in the contemporary context appear to be in thrall to a de-historicized tradition, and the priests (bhikkhus\/ bhikkunis<\/em>) of those traditions, those that hold the sacred and interpretative authority for how Buddhism is taught. If the so-called \u2018lineage\u2019 of authority is never challenged, then like Nietzsche\u2019s philosophers, we become the transmitters of a \u2018dead\u2019 artifact and mere Egyptologists regarding what is passed on. We may not be gravediggers for \u2018monotono-theism\u2019 but we are doing something incredibly similar if we only parrot out received interpretations without subjecting them to challenge.<\/p>\n

To have a \u2018living and breathing\u2019 Buddhism, one that is in full vigour and health, this \u2018mummified\u2019 tradition requires an urgent blood transfusion. Some obvious ways in which this can be achieved is to put, for example, early Buddhism in conversation with non- Buddhist traditions that supplement and challenge the Buddhist approach; attempt innovative interpretations that retain contact with the source material, but that diverge considerably from the received tradition. This \u2018healthy\u2019 approach to Buddhist thought would mean that we test and deconstruct Buddhist concepts and practices on a regular basis looking for vital signs of life within this ancient tradition. If we don\u2019t do this then I suspect, we are dealing with something that is \u2018dead\u2019 and needs relegating to the museum of ideas. However, to test these traditions, in the way that I have suggested, can not only invigorate them by placing them much more firmly into our<\/em> socio-historical milieu, but in addition honour Gotama (The Buddha) by subjecting his ideas to the kinds of rigorous testing that he recommended \u2013 it appears that Gotama was no lover of orthodoxies!<\/p>\n

For me Existentialism was the obvious choice to put into conversation with what we can refer to as early Buddhism. This, as I have already stated, is not the only tradition \u2013 Greek and Hellenistic thought are also other candidates – that appears to say something similar. However, existentialism departs, on some issues, significantly from Buddhist pronouncements. \u00a0Existentialist thinkers, from Kierkegaard onwards, have thought deeply about how we confront the problems of living and the existential structures entailed in what it means to be a human being confronted by questions of authenticity, freedom, self, consciousness and meaning. Some, but by no means all, of these thinkers are heavily indebted to the language of phenomenology \u2013 a philosophical discipline that reflects on the experience of experience itself \u2013 this alone sounds somewhat meditative! Phenomenology, unfortunately, uses a highly technical vocabulary that has alienated many a reader wishing to approach existentialist thought. However, prior to the advent of a systematized phenomenology, with its obscure and technical diction, one thinker \u2013 included retrospectively in the existentialist canon of thinkers – writing in a highly accessible manner in the nineteenth century was Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche is not only an accessible philosopher, but he is also considered to be a master stylist in his native German language. However, accessibility \u2013 and this does not equate necessarily with easy understandability – is only one area of Nietzsche\u2019s work that makes him a relevant subject to investigate; he was also au fait<\/em> with aspects of Buddhism coming to him via early translations from Pali and Sanskrit.<\/p>\n

And yet, Nietzsche\u2019s style marks him out considerably from the language, not only of the Buddhist texts, but of other existential thinkers. In comparison with the rather prosaic and pedestrian language of early Buddhist texts, or the technical vocabulary of the phenomenologically inspired existentialists, Nietzsche\u2019s language is excessive and playful; he is challenging us to argue with him – Nietzsche as a thinker spurns disciples and wants us to engage, albeit critically with him. Even when he says the most outrageous things, he is throwing down a gauntlet, and both goading\/ encouraging us to refute him. Nietzsche\u2019s texts, in this sense, are far from reticent in their language, in that he challenges us both to understand him, and to put that understanding into practice.<\/p>\n

So far, so good. We have an existentialist thinker who is not only slightly easier to read than most existential thinkers, but we have one who had a rudimentary knowledge of Buddhist texts, albeit through rather shaky early translations.<\/p>\n

Nietzsche commenced his professional life as a classical philologist working in the University of Basel. At the astonishingly early age of 24 \u00a0– he was the youngest professor ever \u2013 he was appointed to the chair of classical philology, but he relinquished the chair in 1879 due to ill health. He lived thereafter as an itinerant thinker and writer, moving around southern Europe and Switzerland. It is not inconceivable that when he was a student at Leipzig University that he came across Buddhist texts through the figure of Hermann Brockhaus who was an orientalist and philologist working at the University, whose specialism was Asian languages, including Sanskrit and Avestan (an early Iranian language closely linked to Sanskrit). It may even be possible, although this is speculative, that Nietzsche studied some Sanskrit whilst at Leipzig. Brockhaus was married to Richard Wagner\u2019s sister Ottilie, and there was a highly significant meeting between Nietzsche and Wagner at the home of the Brockhaus\u2019 in 1868 – Nietzsche\u2019s relationship with Wagner was to last until 1876 when he became disillusioned with Wagner\u2019s philosophical aesthetics and severed his connection with him.<\/p>\n

What is clear is that Nietzsche maintained a lifelong friendship with Paul van Deussen (1845-1919) who was both a philosopher and Indologist. It is highly probable that Deussen\u2019s work on early Indian Vedic texts was mentioned in their conversations. It is known that amongst the books that Nietzsche possessed were some translations of Indic texts, including Pali Buddhist texts. However, Nietzsche\u2019s use of Buddhist texts in his writings is almost entirely in the service of his sustained demolition of Christianity, and the life-denying nihilism that he perceived within Christianity.\u00a0 Although he makes many positive comments regarding Buddhist thought he also views Buddhism as nihilistic, and Nirv\u0101<\/em>\u1e47a yet<\/em> another expression of the nihilistic trajectory of religious forms of thinking \u2013 he is construing nirv\u0101\u1e47a <\/em>as \u2018extinction,\u2019 a view that most early western translators, and interpreters of Buddhism held at the end of the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n

Nietzsche regarded Christianity as the apogee of a life denying nihilism, that can be traced in the history of western thought back to Plato. Whilst Plato may be seen as the instigator of such life denying tendencies, with his insistence that the Real existed in a realm inaccessible to the ordinary human senses, Nietzsche conceived of Christianity as being the rather crude successor to such thinking; Christianity, therefore, was nothing other than a rather vulgar and less sophisticated form of Platonism.<\/p>\n

The chief characteristic, and driving force that Nietzsche sees within Christianity, is what he terms ressentiment<\/em>. Ressentiment<\/em> is seen as a hatred towards life itself and is exhibited in the idea that \u2018Real life,\u2019 primarily a freedom from pain and distress, exists in a plane far removed from our earthly abode \u2013 a Christian heaven, or even a Buddhist nirv\u0101\u1e47a<\/em>. Yet, far from being the sole province of Christian thinking, this tendency to speak of a \u2018Real\u2019 removed from our living in the world that we know through the senses, is a recurring theme within the history of both western and Asian thinking.<\/p>\n

Despite attributing an inescapable nihilism to Buddhism, one of the claims that Nietzsche makes in his reading of Buddhist texts is that the Buddhist path to freedom is free from the slightest feelings of ressentiment<\/em> or vengefulness, what Buddhists may call \u2018ill will\u2019 (vy\u0101pada<\/em>). Nietzsche claims that:<\/p>\n

Nothing burns one up quicker than <\/em>ressentiment. Vexation, morbid susceptibility, incapacity for revenge, the desire, the thirst for revenge, poison brewing in any sense \u2013 it causes expenditure of nervous energy, a morbid acceleration of excretions, for example of gall, in the stomach \u2026 This was grasped by that profound psychologist Buddha. His \u2018religion\u2019 which one would do better to call <\/em>a system of hygiene so as not to mix it up with such pitiable things as Christianity, makes its effect dependent on the victory over <\/em>ressentiment: \u2018<\/em>not by enmity is enmity overcome, by friendship is enmity overcome\u2019 \u2013 it is not morality that speaks thus. It is physiology which speaks thus. <\/em>Ressentiment born of weakness, to no one more harmful than the weak man himself \u2013 in the opposite case, where rich nature is the supposition a <\/em>superfluous feeling to stay master of which is almost proof of richness. <\/em>Nietzsche, (Ecce Homo<\/em>).<\/p>\n

What Nietzsche appears to grasp about Buddhism, despite his many criticisms, is that it is a psychological approach \u2013 rather than a religion it is \u2018a system of [mental] hygiene.\u2019 When we look at the endless lists that are found in early Buddhist texts this appears to ring true, in that mental factors are divided primarily into the categories of what is skillful (kuslala<\/em>) and unskillful (akusala<\/em>): the emphasis here being that one should cultivate the skillful and put down the unskillful. Amongst the many approaches to life that one is encouraged to relinquish is ressentiment, <\/em>in Buddhist terms, \u2018Not by hatred are hatreds ever quenched, but they are quenched by non-hatred.\u2019 This is the ancient rule.<\/em> (na hi verana ver\u0101ni sammant\u2019 idha kud\u0101cana averena ca sammanti, esa dhammo sanantano.<\/em>) \u2013 this verse from the Dhammapada <\/em>(1. 5)\u00a0 is cited by Nietzsche in the quote above. The primary \u2018hatred,\u2019 that Nietzsche identifies, is a fundamental hatred towards our ordinary lives, replete as they are with loss, pain and suffering, and the longing for something other \u2013 this \u2018other, so it is believed, is free from these all too present facets of life. Happiness and true affirmation are reckoned to be found elsewhere \u2013 as if \u2018real life\u2019 can occur somewhere else, and in some other realm not associated with the ravages of time. This attitude, for Nietzsche, was life denying, and thus nihilistic.<\/p>\n

Nietzsche is asking us to examine our own \u2018life-denying\u2019 tendencies by placing them under question. What escapist tendencies, whereby we negate and deny aspects of life, do we exhibit in our own lives?\u00a0 What is it that we are refusing to entertain, or look at closely in the hope of escaping to a \u2018sanctuary\u2019 that is free from the distresses of temporality? We may not long for a heaven or nirv\u0101<\/em>\u1e47a<\/em> \u2013 a metaphysical realm free from pain and distress \u2013 but we may still hanker after something in our lives to be certain, solid, and secure. However, subtle that longing may be, it still represents for Nietzsche the spirit of nihilistic life denial.<\/p>\n

Equally, as practitioners on a path that is said to \u2018end\u2019 suffering we must be extremely careful that this doesn\u2019t fall into the kind of life denial and ressentiment <\/em>that Nietzsche cautions against. <\/em>By positing an escape from suffering and distress, are we not seeking to evade the very texture of life, as the weave of life has inextricably bound into it suffering as one of it foremost threads? Is not the ultimate revenge<\/em> that we can take against life, in the face of distress and pain, to deny its reality in the longing for something \u2018free\u2019 from its pervasiveness.<\/p>\n

Nietzsche in his work Also Sprach Zarathustra<\/em>, has Zarathustra speaks of \u2018the eternal return\u2019 as the ultimate test of life\u2019s affirmation. In traditional Buddhism, certainly as it was understood in Nietzsche\u2019s time, and continues to be understood in long-established contexts, rebirth is conceived of in a literal sense \u2013 one moves from life to life determined, in terms of destination, by the way one has lived one\u2019s previous life. Becoming, in this literal sense, is depicted as a rise and fall through various possible forms of existence, each possessing suffering as an attendant quality of that existence. In this traditional context one seeks to put an end to this endless cycle by becoming awakened or \u2018enlightened,\u2019 and escaping this endless cycle. Nietzsche, however, takes something like the notion of rebirth and transfigures it into an eternal return<\/em>. Unlike the notion of rebirth, in Nietzsche\u2019s eternal return<\/em> everything, \u2018absolutely everything\u2019, that has occurred in your life is going to occur again and again, in exactly<\/em> the same way an infinite number of times. The challenge of the eternal return is this: Could we say a wholehearted \u2018Yes\u2019 to such a proposition, rather than viewing it with horror?<\/p>\n

\u2018Behold this gateway dwarf \u2026 it has two faces. Two ways come together here: nobody has ever taken them to the end.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018This long lane back here: it goes on for an eternity. And that long lane out there \u2013 that is another eternity.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018They contradict themselves, these ways; they confront one another head on, and here, at this gateway, is where they come together. The name of the gateway is inscribed above it: \u201cMoment\u201d (augenblick<\/em>) \u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026. \u2018Behold,\u2019 I said, \u2018this moment! From this gateway Moment a long eternal lane runs backward<\/em>: behind us lies eternity.<\/p>\n

\u2018Must not whatever among all things can<\/em> walk have walked this lane already? Must not whatever among all things can <\/em>happen have happened, and been done, and passed by already?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018And if everything has already been, what do you think, dwarf, of this moment? Must this gateway too not already \u2013 have been?<\/p>\n

\u2018And are not all things knotted together so tightly that this moment draws after it all<\/em> things that are to come? Thus – – <\/em>itself as well?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018For whatever among all things can<\/em> walk: in this long lane out<\/em>, too \u2013 it must <\/em>walk once more! –<\/p>\n

In one of his notebooks Nietzsche toys with the idea that the eternal return is something that could physically happen. Given an infinite amount of time, he conjectures, and a finite amount of material stuff wouldn\u2019t all things, at some point, be reassembled in exactly<\/em> the same configuration? However, it is unclear whether Nietzsche took this thought experiment seriously, and the scholarly literature remains divided on the issue.<\/p>\n

From the point of view of our exploration of this concept, it is only necessary to think of this as an \u2018as if\u2019. What, in other words, would<\/em> your reaction be \u2018if\u2019 the eternal return were true, and that everything in your life that has been, will be once again. The pains and joys that sit side by side in your life, these will occur in the same way, with absolutely no divergences, from now to eternity \u2013 even sitting reading this will occur again and again time without number, a prospect you would most probably not relish!<\/p>\n

Taken in this way, as an \u2018as if,\u2019 the eternal return would be one of the most stringent of ethical tests that you could ever subject your actions of body, speech, and mind to. It would entail that this action, the one that I am engaged in right now, I would have to be willing to affirm for eternity \u2013 not just this action, but all<\/em> my actions. And not just my actions, but everything that has ever occurred to me in my life I would again have to be willing to say \u2018yes\u2019 to for infinity. To embrace the eternal return, even as an idea and ethical test, is to come closer to embracing the whole of life, without residue. To do so, would mean that we would have to be prepared to accept unconditionally all that is most painful in our life experience. Could we do this? That is the challenge Nietzsche sets us. Unlike Buddhism, Nietzsche does not seek to evade the pain of existence, no matter who it is construed.<\/p>\n

Although the eternal return exhibits some similarities to traditional notions of Buddhist rebirth it differs markedly in the challenge that it offers to us ethically. This action, this very action of body, speech, or mind that I am engaging in now, is not something that I should be careful about simply because it could lead to unfortunate future births. And, even if we interpret rebirth in a psychological manner, as the danger of being \u2018reborn\u2019 into similar psychological states repeatedly, both interpretations could be seen as disaffirmations of the present moment and fixated on a future that is \u2018pain free.\u2019 This present moment, Nietzsche is arguing, is not an \u2018empty moment\u2019 but a plenitude. The moment when we inhabit it fully is the effect of an endless stream of past actions that have culminated in this present \u2018now.\u2019 It is also the origin of the endless potential experiences that stretch out ahead of us, and that originate in this moment, full as it is, of the past. This moment, so Nietzsche is claiming, must be embraced in toto<\/em>. What this means is that the whole of our past, the pleasant and painful, ethical and unethical, must be affirmed as giving rise to our possible and potential futures. Rather than reject our past and look upon it scornfully, or try to deny it, we are encouraged to embrace it completely. A person that can achieve this is on their way to becoming an \u00dcbermensch.<\/em><\/p>\n

The authentic person, the \u00dcbermensch<\/em>, is someone, so Nietzsche thinks, who is willing to embrace the whole<\/em> of life in this way. \u00dcbermensch<\/em> is a term that has various translations, the most common being \u2018superman\u2019 \u2013 shades of a \u2018blond beast\u2019 in lycra are suggested by this translation! The \u2018Overman\/ Over person\u2019 are other suggestions that get closer to some sense of the German term but are still unsatisfactory. The \u00dcbermensch<\/em> can embrace the thought of the eternal return because she\/ he has overcome the powerful feelings of ressentiment<\/em>, and all the other petty reactivities that go with a disparaging, and hatred of what life has offered, or is offering. As an authentic individual the \u00dcbermensch<\/em> has overcome themselves and their reactivities. Is Gotama, the Buddha, a candidate for being a Nietzschean \u00dcbermensch<\/em>? And did Nietzsche have the Buddha in mind when he conceived of the \u00dcbermensch<\/em>? Certainly, the \u00dcbermensch<\/em>, so Nietzsche thought, was a goal that humanity should set itself, just as the Buddha thought the goal we should aspire to was to \u2018wake up\u2019 and overcome our reactive tendencies. However, does Nietzsche\u2019s conception of the \u00dcbermensch<\/em> surpass the claims made about the Buddha, and those that follow his path?<\/p>\n

Human beings, according to Gotama, have the capacity to wake up from their animal like consciousness \u2013 tiracch\u0101na vijj\u0101 \u2013 <\/em>and take up a path to moral and ethical excellence. Nevertheless, again and again the Buddha speaks of following the way or path that he teaches as \u2018going against the current,\u2019 and that his path represents a \u2018crossing over\u2019 and standing on the further shore of freedom. Similarly, Nietzsche conceives of human being as the potentiality for a \u2018crossing over,\u2019<\/p>\n

Zarathustra looked at the people and wondered. Then he said: Man is a rope, stretched between beast and \u00dcbermensch<\/em> across an abyss.<\/p>\n

A dangerous crossing over, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping.<\/p>\n

The meaning of the future, the journey from beast to \u00dcbermensch<\/em> is a journey fraught with danger, and those on that journey across the abyss \u2013 the abyss (abgrund<\/em>) is the lack of any solid ground that humans can stand upon, as there is no metaphysical underpinning to human existence \u2013 God, for Nietzsche, is dead, and with the death of the certainty guaranteed by God, all things are ungrounded, including our values and ethics. The danger represented by the abyss is that there is the constant peril of falling into a bovine complacency and mediocrity, which is represented by the \u2018marketplace.\u2019 Those that inhabit this marketplace are the contented majority whose \u2018souls,\u2019 Nietzsche claims, \u2018will be dead before their bodies.\u2019 This danger is further symbolized by Nietzsche in the figure of the \u2018Last Human,\u2019 who is meant to engender a fear within us regarding humanity\u2019s destiny \u2013 arising out of this fear is the urgency to make the \u00dcbermensch<\/em> the meaning of the future. \u00a0Zarathustra says to the assembled listeners in the marketplace:<\/p>\n

\u2018Behold! I show to you the ast human.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018\u201c<\/em>What is love? What is creation? What is yearning? What is a star?\u201d thus asks the last human and then blinks.\u2019<\/p>\n

For the earth has now become small, and upon it hops the last human, who makes everything small. Its race is as inexterminable as the ground-flea; the last human lives the longest.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018\u201d We have contrived happiness\u201d \u2013 say the last humans and they blink (augenblick<\/em>).<\/p>\n

\u2026 \u2018No herdsman and one herd! Everyone wants the same thing; everyone is the same: whoever feels differently goes voluntarily into the madhouse. (TSZ, 16)<\/p>\n

To free oneself from the spectre of the last human, becoming authentic, one must \u2018live dangerously\u2019 \u2013 always with the possibility of a \u2018fall\u2019 in mind – by becoming the creator of values that potentially enhance our ways of living. Hitherto, humans have, according to Nietzsche, been the receivers of values. These values originate with the mores of the herd \u2013 associated with the nihilism of Christianity – and culminate in the \u2018last human.\u2019 Yet, the received moralities of our cultures may not be fit for the contemporary world, with its unique challenges, and simply induce a complacency that passes for contentment. God\u2019s death \u2013 announced in The Gay Science <\/em>and reiterated at the beginning of Zarathustra<\/em> has left secular human beings in a nihilistic moral vacuum. In an unawareness of the dangers of nihilism people are left struggling to ascertain a \u2018meaning of life,\u2019 and often do so within the spiritual supermarket of \u2018New Ageism\u2019; here there is something for everyone. Alternatively, they seek for their \u2018good life,\u2019 to cover up the \u2018spiritual\u2019 pain of nihilism with the \u2018religion\u2019 of capitalist materialism. Without some shared consensus as to what constitutes authentic living, people flounder in what Nietzsche refers to as \u2018decadence culture\u2019 \u2013 both the spirituality of new age religious movements and the religion of materialism are \u2018decadent,\u2019 for Nietzsche.<\/p>\n

There is an urgency to Nietzsche\u2019s message in Also sprach Zarathustra<\/em> that I find strangely absent in the early Pali texts of Buddhism \u2013 there are infrequent references to sa\u1e43vega, <\/em>but these are never really investigated thoroughly – with their language of mental cultivation spoken in a supremely measured tone.\u00a0 Nevertheless, despite the differences in tone and style (an important concept for Nietzsche) there is much within Zarathustra<\/em> that almost leaps off the page as having its origins in an understanding of Buddhism. I stress the word \u2018origins,\u2019 because if Nietzsche is using Buddhist thought, he is using it in a way to stimulate his own thought, rather than simply reiterating what he discovers within Buddhism. Overall, his attitude to Buddhism remains critical. And yet, he discovers in Buddhist thought a therapeutic ethic of freedom. In The Anti-Christ<\/em> he states that,<\/p>\n

Buddhism is the only positivistic \u2018religion\u2019 history has to show us, even in its epistemology (a strict phenomenalism) it no longer speaks of \u2018the struggle against sin\u2019, but quite in accordance with actuality of the struggle against suffering \u2026 against a state of depression that has arisen, the Buddha takes hygienic measures. The Anti- Christ<\/em>, 20.<\/p>\n

What Nietzsche is applauding here is that Buddhism takes suffering as its existential starting point. In doing so it avoids the language of \u2018sin\u2019 and \u2018guilt,\u2019 that is so prevalent in theistic religion, opting instead for psychologically \u2018hygienic\u2019 measures as a means of dealing with the suffering and distress of human existence.<\/p>\n

Instead of parroting Buddhist concepts, what we discover when reading Nietzsche is that he thinks like a Buddhist but eschews the conservative dogmatism that insidiously creeps into Buddhist thinking, all too soon after Gotama\u2019s death. He does this in a way that is certainly more original and authentic than many early Buddhist scholars for whom \u2018thinking\u2019 is simply offering commentary and exegesis on canonical texts \u2013 Buddhaghosa ia a good example within the Therav\u0101da tradition, whose very name proclaims him to be \u2018The voice of the Buddha!\u2019<\/p>\n

I asked the question earlier as to whether Gotama \u2013 \u2018The Buddha\u2019 \u2013 could have been an exemplar for Nietzsche\u2019s concept of the \u00dcbermensch. <\/em>This is not so far-fetched as we may think as within the Pali Canon we find the term uttarimanussa<\/em>, which refers to a being with \u2018superhuman\u2019 qualities \u2013 you could almost literally translate uttarimanussa<\/em> by the German \u00dcbermensch –<\/em> and in the Uttarimanussadhamma Sutta<\/em> (AN. 6. 77) we find the following descriptor:<\/p>\n

\u2026 without giving up six things, one is incapable of realizing any superhuman distinction in knowledge and vision worthy of the noble ones. What six? Lack of mindfulness and situational awareness, not guarding the sense doors, lack of moderation in eating, duplicity, and flattery. Without having abandoned these six things one is incapable of realizing any superhuman distinction in knowledge and vision worthy of the noble ones.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2026 having abandoned six things, one can realize a superhuman distinction in knowledge and vision worthy of the noble ones. What six? \u2026 <\/em>(repeat of passage above).<\/p>\n

Such a person, as the text says, is \u2018worthy of the noble ones,\u2019 and yet in Nietzsche\u2019s terms are they the creators of new values, and an ethics responsive to modern dilemmas? What Nietzsche gives us in the \u00dcbermensch<\/em> is a version of the Uttarimanussa<\/em> who is responsive to the problems and dilemmas of the modern world, and less narrowly focused on the relinquishment of a range of unskillful individualistic qualities. However, the Uttarimanussa<\/em>, as mentioned in the passage from the Numerical Discourses<\/em>, does describe some aspects of the morally transfigured human being \u2013 one who has given up six things \u2013 who has crossed to the shore of freedom. The Buddha described his teaching as an Uttarimanussadhamma \u2013 a crossing over to the further shore of freedom, or authenticity.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>As we have seen, \u2018\u00dcbermensch\u2019<\/em> is almost a literal translation of Uttarimanussa, <\/em>and delineates this \u2018crossing over\u2019 and relinquishment of all that is petty and to be overcome \u2013 an \u00dcbermensch <\/em>is thus someone who has succeeded in overcoming everything that is petty within themselves. Does the giving up of a lack of mindfulness and situational awareness, and not guarding the sense door etc., as described in the Uttarimanussadhamma Sutta, <\/em>constitute the overcoming of all that is petty within oneself? In Nietzschean terms, we could perhaps say that this is start!<\/p>\n

Buddhism since is very inception has had the accusation directed at it of being nihilistic. This complaint has echoed down through the ages, and yet we see no direct attention being given to the question<\/em> of nihilism and its dangers. \u00a0Nihilism is certainly identified. The first text of the D\u012bgha Nik\u0101ya<\/em>, the \u2018Brahmaj\u0101la Sutta, for example, details out various species of nihilistic thought amongst contemporaries of the Buddha, and critiques them as not being conducive to liberation. Nietzsche, however, sees nihilism as the supreme<\/em> danger that we are confronted by, in the wake of the death of God. When Buddhism does direct its attention to a critique of nihilism \u2013 usually in the later schools of Buddhism (Mah\u0101y\u0101na) that grew up after the Buddha\u2019s death – it usually veers doctrinally toward the shore of metaphysical eternalism.<\/p>\n

Nietzsche, howver, stridently challenges us to confront the terrifying spectre of modern nihilism by embracing the sheer contingency and un-grounded-ness of life \u2013 using the thought of the eternal return as a way of authenticating and embracing our lives.\u00a0 He does so, not by formulating an alternative metaphysical ground (on my reading the eternal return is not<\/em> another metaphysical starting point) that we can base our existence and actions upon, but by putting us into the position of the creators of affirmative values. As creators<\/em> of values, we do not cling to what has been delivered to us from the past. This means that we must, under an imperative, test the teachings, and values that we receive from the past, as one would test a bell \u2013 Nietzsche\u2019s subtitle to his Twilight of the Idols<\/em>, is \u2018how to philosophize with a hammer.\u2019 This indicates that we should \u2018sound\u2019 each value to see whether it \u2018rings true\u2019 or hollow. Similarly, those that follow the path of liberation have this kind of \u2018testing\u2019 placed upon them both as a burden, and a liberating movement. As I have already suggested, to thoroughly test the teaching with our \u2018hammer\u2019 is the greatest honour that we can accord a thinker who lived two and a half millennia ago. In thoroughly examining those insights that have been received from the past, without treating them as mere metaphysical doctrine, is to revivify what may be ailing but not quite dead yet. If, however, we engage in treating these insights as historical artifacts, we are in danger of becoming those that are simply handling the mummified relics of a past civilization and passing on the \u2018corpse\u2019 of a tradition.<\/p>\n

Reading Nietzsche in conjunction with our reflections on Buddhist thought and practices enables us to put down the kind of reverential attitudes with which we often treat the figure of Gotama the Buddha, and his teaching. In laying down these attitudes, that often hinder genuine thinking, we can engage with them, and subject them to a thorough examination as to their viability in the contemporary world. If we utilize Nietzsche\u2019s test of the eternal return it allows us to put some real \u2018flesh\u2019 on the bones of Buddhist ethical thought. There are many other areas where a Buddhist-Nietzschean dialogue would illuminate both areas of thought, but these must be left until another time \u2026<\/p>\n

John Peacock<\/p>\n

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Buddhism, for Nietzsche in The Anti-Christ<\/em>, was to be understood as a therapeutic ethic to freedom.<\/p>\n

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Buddhist parallels appear on almost every page of Nietzsche\u2019s most famous work Also Sprach Zarathustra <\/em>the title implies the reflex: eva<\/em>\u1e43 me suta\u1e43 <\/em>\u2018I have heard it said\u2019, or in the more common translation \u2018Thus have I heard.\u2019<\/p>\n

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What we find is that Nietzsche thinks like a Buddhist, perhaps more authentically than most Buddhist scholars, who generally do little more than provide commentarial exegesis of canonical texts.]\n

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Transformed is Zarathustra: a child has Zarathustra become: <\/em>wide awake is Zarathustra; what business have you among sleepers?<\/em><\/p>\n

Zarathustra answered, \u2018I love mankind.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Zarathustra looked at the people and wondered. Then he said: Man is a rope, stretched between beast and \u00dcbermensch across an abyss.<\/em><\/p>\n

A dangerous crossing over, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping.<\/em><\/p>\n

Human beings have the capacity to wake up from their animal like consciousness \u2013 tiracch\u0101na vijj\u0101 \u2013 <\/em>and take up a path to moral and ethical excellence. Again, and again the Buddha speaks of taking the way as \u2018going against the current\u2019 (Das Man, mauvais foi?<\/em>) \u2026 a crossing over and standing on the further shore of freedom.<\/p>\n

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Zarathustra\u2019s words of farewell to his disciples remarkably parallels the last conversations the Buddha had with his own [See the Mahaparinibb\u0101na Sutta, D\u012bgha Nik\u0101ya<\/em>]\n

\u2026 One repays a teacher badly if one remains a pupil. And why do you not pluck atm y laurels?<\/em><\/p>\n

You respect me: but how if one day your respect should tumble? Take care that a falling statue does not strike you down.<\/em><\/p>\n

You had not yet sought yourself when you found me. Thus do all believers: therefore, all belief is of little account.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now I did you lose me and find yourselves \u2026 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Is Zarathustra a coded reference to the Buddha?<\/p>\n

Once you said \u2018God\u2019 when you gazed upon the distant seas: but now I have taught you to say <\/em>\u00dcbermensch.<\/p>\n

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Unlike traditional Buddhism, certainly as it was understood in Nietzsche\u2019s time, which views rebirth in a literal sense, Nietzsche transfigures it into the eternal return<\/em>. Everything, \u2018absolutely everything\u2019, that has occurred in your life is going to occur again an infinite number of times. Can we say \u2018Yes\u2019 to such a proposition, rather than being horrified? The \u00dcbermensch<\/em>, the authentic person, is someone who can embrace and affirm such a possibility. The \u2018eternal return\u2019 is a test of our affirmation of life, with all its contingency and suffering.<\/p>\n

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Freedom in Nietzsche hinges on the concept of self-mastery, or \u2018self-overcoming\u2019 and is instantiated in his idea of the \u00dcbermensch.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u02dc\u02dc\u02dc\u02dc\u02dc\u02dc\u02dc\u02dc<\/em><\/p>\n

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What is offered here was meant to be a blog on something that I was thinking about. Sadly, this has turned into an almost full-blown essay, but hopefully does touch on some important issues. What is presented is partly polemical, in the spirit of Nietzsche, and exploratory. The exploratory component is that I attempt to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":240186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"ase":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodhi-college.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodhi-college.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodhi-college.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodhi-college.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodhi-college.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bodhi-college.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239552,"href":"https:\/\/bodhi-college.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77188\/revisions\/239552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodhi-college.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodhi-college.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodhi-college.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodhi-college.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}