The philosophy developed by Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) takes some ethical ideas from Buddhism, but those don’t affect the theory of the will (“life force”), which constitutes the essence of Schopenhauer’s work.
Buddhism was created by Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) in the sixth century before our era. Buddha was born into a Nepalese royal family, grew disillusioned with his aristocratic lifestyle, and began to search the meaning of life. Some of his ethical views were taken over by Schopenhauer twenty-five centuries later.
At age twenty-nine, Buddha embraced an ascetic lifestyle in which meditation and poverty played the central role. Buddha thought that asceticism would lead him to enlightenment.
Buddhist tradition tells us that, after six years of asceticism, Buddha attained enlightenment, that is, he figured out that the best way to live is to pursue liberation from suffering. In the next years, Buddha travelled through India to preach his ideas.
Different purposes in Schopenhauer and Buddhism
He emphasized empathy and compassion, which are the two virtues taken over by Schopenhauer in his philosophy. He gave great weight to those virtues in his books “The world as will and representation” (1818) and “Two fundamental problems of ethics” (1842).
Despite a partial ethical overlapping, Schopenhauer’s goal is different from the goal pursued by Buddha. Schopenhauer was recommending empathy and compassion as means of escaping or minimizing the impact of the will. He argued that, if you do not adopt countermeasures, the will is going to take control of your life and drive you into destructive action.
For Buddha, the philosophical purpose was to eliminate as much as possible suffering. Thus, he advised his disciples to refrain from dwelling in the past or dreaming about the future, so that they would concentrate the present moment.
His goal was complete spiritual peace by means of profound mediation. Buddha preached that the mind is everything. In his view, spiritual peace comes solely from within, and only then can it spread in the outside world.
In contrast to Schopenhauer, Buddhism is fond of paradoxes and puzzling statements. For instance, Buddha said that there is no path to happiness but happiness is the path. Perhaps you’ll regard this statement as profound and enlightening, but I fail to see that it provides any kind of practical guidance.
Ethical virtues in Schopenhauer and Buddhism
Empathy was important to Schopenhauer because it enables people to escape the influence of the will. If you understand in detail how other persons think, your perception and judgement are going to grow more accurate and effective.
For Buddha, empathy was a tool to achieve peace of mind. I must quote Buddha in this respect when he said that to grasp everything is to forgive everything. He believed that, once you perceive someone else’s feelings, you are much more likely to behave honestly and lovingly.
While Schopenhauer called for empathy and compassion in order to improve one’s life, Buddha recommended those two virtues in order to improve the world in general. In this sense, Buddha preached that the only way to find yourself is to place yourself at the service of others.
The large differences between Schopenhauer and Buddhism become more apparent when we take a look at great Buddhists from later centuries. For example Bodhidharma (also called Da Mo) lived in the sixth century of our era and devoted his life to teaching meditation.
Meditation in Schopenhauer and Buddhism
Bodhidharma believed that deep prolonged meditation is the only way to achieve enlightenment. Schopenhauer didn’t view meditation as an essential tool for improving one’s life because it is hard to escape the influence of the will by sheer focusing on one’s mind.
Schopenhauer placed artistic contemplation (for example by playing a musical instrument or listening to music) higher than quiet Buddhist meditation. Why did he argued so? Because it’s much easier to focus your mind on music than to practise deep meditation according to Buddhist traditions.
Paradoxes in Schopenhauer and Buddhism
Like Siddhartha Gautama, Bodhidharma employed poetry, paradoxes, and metaphors to illustrate his philosophy. He told his disciples to value living entities, including plants, because of their potential. If you love flowers, argued Bodhidharma, it’s desirable to love seeds because they contain future flowers.
In contrast to Schopenhauer’s focus on self-reliance to break away from the influence of the will, Bodhidharma condemned all passions as fundamentally evil. He regarded as ignorant all those who are driven by afflictions, passions, greed and anger.
If you want to escape suffering, argued Bodhidharma, you’ll have to escape ignorance. How do you become enlightened? In the words of Bodhidharma, you escape ignorance by seeking nothing. He stated that, when you seek nothing, you are on the right path.
Schopenhauer was very familiar with Buddhist literature but did not hold paradoxes in high regard. He never recommended readers to escape ignorance by seeking nothing because there’s no practical guidance to be gained from paradoxes.
I can only praise Schopenhauer for studying Buddhism and drawing practical recommendations from it, leaving aside the poetry and the paradoxes. Like Schopenhauer, I assign higher value to practicality than I assign to linguistic games.
If you are interested in applying rational principles today in real-life situations, I recommend you my book “Sequentiality: The amazing power of finding the right sequence of steps.”
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