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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Il Saggiatore ('The Assayer')' and 'Buddhacarita'

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5 ideas

29. Religion / B. Monotheistic Religion / 1. Monotheistic Religion
Stoics teach that God is a unity, variously known as Mind, or Fate, or Jupiter [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Stoics teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind, and Fate, and Jupiter, and by many names besides.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.68
29. Religion / C. Spiritual Disciplines / 3. Buddhism
The first stage of trance is calm amidst applied and discursive thinking [Ashvaghosha]
     Full Idea: The first stage of trance is calm amidst applied and discursive thinking.
     From: Ashvaghosha (Buddhacarita [c.50], V.11)
     A reaction: Personally I am not sure that I would want to go any further that the first stage, since the elimination of discursive thinking seems to me to be approaching death. To pursue intense thinking very calmly I take to be the ideal of all western philosophers.
The Buddha sought ultimate reality and the final goal of existence in his meditations [Ashvaghosha]
     Full Idea: Next the Boddhisatva, possessed of great skill in Transic meditation, put himself into a trance, intent on discerning both the ultimate reality of things and the final goal of existence.
     From: Ashvaghosha (Buddhacarita [c.50], XIV.2)
     A reaction: The ontological and teleological goals of the Buddha were identical to the goals of the ancient Greek philosophers, and even we have teleological aims in our study of evolution. I would expect better results from the western approach.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / b. Soul
Death can't separate soul from body, because incorporeal soul can't unite with body [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: Death is a separation of soul from body. But nothing incorporeal can be separated from a body. For neither does anything incorporeal touch a body, and the soul touches and is separated from the body. Therefore the soul is not incorporeal.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Tertullian - The Soul as an 'Astral Body' 5.3
     A reaction: This is the classic interaction difficulty for substance dualist theories of mind.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / d. Natural Evil
There is a rationale in terrible disasters; they are useful to the whole, and make good possible [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: The evil which occurs in terrible disasters has a rationale [logos] peculiar to itself: for in a sense it occurs in accordance with universal reason, and is not without usefulness in relation to the whole. For without it there could be no good.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.4.5
     A reaction: [a quotation from Chrysippus. Plutarch, Comm Not 1065b] A nice question about any terrible disaster is whether it is in some way 'useful', if we take a broader view of things. Almost everything has a good aspect, from that perspective.