bodhi tree swaying

I’ve been reading a little about the Stoics recently. They were a Greek/Roman school of philosophers who started about 300 BCE and who continued teaching until 529 CE, when the Christian emperor Justinian I banned pagan philosophies.

There are a lot of similarities between Stoicism and Buddhism. Here are two quotes that parallel each other very closely.

“…as the material of the carpenter is wood, and that of statuary bronze, so the subject-matter of the art of living is each person’s own life.”
– Epictetus

“Irrigators guide water; fletchers shape arrows; carpenters bend wood; the wise control themselves.”
– The Buddha

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. Then, go out and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Harold Whitman, cited in Ben-shahar (2007)

“The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.” (Le moindre mouvement importe à toute la nature, la mer entière change pour une pierre.)

~ Blaise Pascal (Pensées)

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought."

~ Basho

“The roots of all living things are tied together. Deep in the ground of being, they tangle and embrace. This understanding is expressed in the term nonduality. If we look deeply, we find that we do not have a separate self-identity, a self that does not include sun and wind, earth and water, creatures and plants, and one another.”

Joan Halifax Roshi, Essential Zen (Harper Collins)