Ataraxia

"A lucid state of robust equanimity characterized by ongoing freedom from distress and worry." [Wiki]

How important/ feasible/ desirable/ useful/ appropriate/ relevant is experiencing this state to you in your life?

@FMF

With aging and health issues – and my wife’s heart attack – I became more aware of how much stress/distress I was generating much of the time, sometimes compulsively. Not just for myself, but for those around me. Therefore, finding ways to inhabit and extend a greater sense of calm, or serenity, have become more important.

I don’t know about how “lucid or robust” – although with more calmness seems to come a bit more clarity. I don’t know if the state described can – or ought to be – permanent in any and all circumstances (a Zen master might say so).

It’s a practice in progress: I'm working on it. I still get triggered. When I do, that’s on me.

@fmf said
"A lucid state of robust equanimity characterized by ongoing freedom from distress and worry." [Wiki]

How important/ feasible/ desirable/ useful/ appropriate/ relevant is experiencing this state to you in your life?

How important/ feasible/ desirable/ useful/ appropriate/ relevant is experiencing this state to you in your life?

This is a rare thing with me, usually experienced when something traumatic occurs such as the unexpected death of a loved one, or a serious car accident. People tell me "I'm the calm one in these events" when in reality my mind simply goes into partial shutdown until I can process what just happened and can begin to get an idea of what to do next. This "lucid state" is not something I look forward to.

@mchill said
This is a rare thing with me, usually experienced when something traumatic occurs such as the unexpected death of a loved one, or a serious car accident. People tell me "I'm the calm one in these events" when in reality my mind simply goes into partial shutdown until I can process what just happened and can begin to get an idea of what to do next.

Perhaps the conscious pursuit of lucid equanimity characterized by freedom from distress ~ plus a large dollop of sometimes-overshadowed celebration of the life of the deceased ~ is a good approach to take to the grieving process? I have tried that; it doesn't always come so easily, though.

@fmf said
Perhaps the conscious pursuit of lucid equanimity characterized by freedom from distress ~ plus a large dollop of sometimes-overshadowed celebration of the life of the deceased ~ is a good approach to take to the grieving process? I have tried that; it doesn't always come so easily, though.

Perhaps the conscious pursuit of lucid equanimity characterized by freedom from distress.

Maybe and maybe not. All I know is I'd prefer to avoid it.

@fmf said
"A lucid state of robust equanimity characterized by ongoing freedom from distress and worry." [Wiki]

How important/ feasible/ desirable/ useful/ appropriate/ relevant is experiencing this state to you in your life?

It is told that the Greek philosopher Pyrrho traveled to India and there met Buddhist monks. Pyrrho’s philosophy shows Buddhist influences. This was the philosophy which most spoke to me when I was an undergraduate. Ataraxia is basically the Greek version of the state of nirvana, without the past-life mythology.

@moonbus

Yes. I was first introduced to Pyrrhonism via Adrian Kuzminski’s Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism. I also read Christopher Beckwith’s The Greek Buddha (which is more an attempt to show that Pyrrho probably derived his philosophy from encounters with Indian Buddhists – via historical/linguistic sources – than a thorough discussion of the philosophy).

The word samadhi seems to have many different translations/interpretations (some of which seem hardly related to one another at all), but “In the oldest Buddhist suttas, on which several contemporary western Theravada teachers rely, it refers to the development of a luminous mind which is equanimous and mindful.” [Wiki] That, too, would seem akin to the definition that FMF provided for ataraxia, and what Kuzminksi and other neo-Pyrrhonians talk about.

Nirvana often implies, I think, the extinction of all desires – as well as a state of nondual awareness. I don’t think that ataraxia necessarily carries those implications. But, again, many interpretations which can make exact cross-language comparisons difficult. (Other interpretations of samadhi would also seem problematic to me.)

Kuzminksi seems to allow either nirvana or samadhi as quasi-synonyms for ataraxia. Beckwith mentions only nirvana as equivalent to ataraxia. But he also translates Pyrrho’s follower Timon as saying that ataraxia must be preceded by apatheia: “lack of passion/emotion.” But apatheia often meant freedom just from negative or deleterious/distressing passions (pathe) – such as anxiety – but not from the eupathe: “good or happy passions” –such as cheerfulness. That is the way the Stoics used the term, not as a lack of all feeling or emotion, nor as indifference (a lack of interest or concern) – as with our modern definitions of apathy.

I’ve started a reading paper relating Pyrrhonism to Zen Buddhism. Will take me awhile to wade through it.

@vistesd2

Addendum to my last post above, on some further research:

Sextus Empiricus said: “the Skeptic [in the Pyrrhonian sense of one who keeps inquiry open] does not conduct his life according to philosophical theory … but as regards the non-philosophical regulation of life he is capable of desiring some things and avoiding others.” Thus extinction of everyday desires would not be something attributable to the Pyrrhonian.

I suggest that one attribute of the Pyrrhonian would be quite similar to the Buddhist idea of non-attachment/non-clinging.

Also, apparently the transmitted text quoting Timon has the word aphasia rather than apatheia; Beckwith simply thought this must be an error. Aphasia, in context, would have meant “non-assertion” or an “inability to say” (i.e., one way or the other); as in “I really can’t say whether x or y is the correct view.” [It did not have the modern understanding of being a language disorder.]

@fmf said
"A lucid state of robust equanimity characterized by ongoing freedom from distress and worry." [Wiki]

How important/ feasible/ desirable/ useful/ appropriate/ relevant is experiencing this state to you in your life?

I think one would have to leave the planet to achieve a " lucid state of robust equanimity".

@josephw said
I think one would have to leave the planet to achieve a " lucid state of robust equanimity".

It's a pity if that is true for you. I hope your faith in Jesus provides you with something akin to it.

@fmf said
It's a pity if that is true for you. I hope your faith in Jesus provides you with something akin to it.

Ataraxia, and the effort to achieve it, is based on human ingenuity.
Someone, such as yourself, and evidently wiki, defines the terms and applies the principles in hopes of acquiring the benefits.

Philippians 4:7
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Save the pity for yourself. God provides a peace not understood in human generated terms. It's everlasting, and not dependent on self.

@josephw said
Save the pity for yourself. God provides a peace not understood in human generated terms. It's everlasting, and not dependent on self.

I don't need to pity myself, though, josephw. If your faith in your God figure provides you with something akin to ataraxia, then that is a good thing. If you are not able to describe the "peace" that you feel in "human-generated terms", that's also fine. If you believe it is "everlasting", that's a nice thing for you, too.

@josephw said
Ataraxia, and the effort to achieve it, is based on human ingenuity.Someone, such as yourself, and evidently wiki, defines the terms and applies the principles in hopes of acquiring the benefits.

EITHER God/Jesus provides you with a "peace" that is something akin to ataraxia OR it does not, and you "would have to leave the planet to achieve it".

You can't have it both ways.

Of course, I know full well that you were just blurting out the first contrarian thing that came into your mind, and you hadn't comprehended the thing I had explicitly acknowledged about your faith.

@fmf said
I don't need to pity myself, though, josephw. If your faith in your God figure provides you with something akin to ataraxia, then that is a good thing. If you are not able to describe the "peace" that you feel in "human-generated terms", that's also fine. If you believe it is "everlasting", that's a nice thing for you, too.

I didn't say pity yourself. Though you may have interpreted what I said that way.

As to the rest of what you said, you look within yourself for what you believe will give you what "ataraxia", as you define it, can provide, but, evidently, you understand what I mean when I say peace is given.

@josephw said
As to the rest of what you said, you look within yourself for what you believe will give you what "ataraxia", as you define it, can provide, but, evidently, you understand what I mean when I say peace is given.

So why do you think one would have to leave the planet to achieve a sense of peace akin to ataraxia?