January 17th, 2009
reposting… november, 2003.
best regards,
ian
—
Nietzsche, Hume and the Buddha
When I first heard of Nietzsche, it was in association with Hitler and the Nazis. I simply dismissed him as a rabid, power-hungry maniac who probably had an unhappy childhood. A classmate in college wrote a paper on this Nietzsche guy and I was silently chuckling on the thought that a comic book idea (“superman”) can be the subject of a scholarly paper.
But when I did get to read him (years later), I was simply won over by this crazy guy! He says provocative things that, when thought about, actually make sense. He’s probably among the few philosophers who doesn’t come across as an insipid intellectual. He’s got style, lots of it. He doesn’t say things just for effect (although sometimes it feels like that). He’s an artist, an artist-philosopher. He’s very passionate and his sincerity comes across. He also has a weird sense of humor. Indeed, he writes with his blood. Indeed, he’s a dynamite.
Because many readers and interpreters have chosen to zero in on his thoughts on “power,” they have lost sight of the impetus that gave birth to his philosophical musings. Here was a very sickly guy who, in spite of everything, simply loved life. To love life is to accept it in all its terror and beauty. Not to resent it, or run away from it. And this is what he sought to do. The greatest expression of power is the ability to love. Amor fati (Love of fate). To accept reality in all its flawed imperfections. Not to disown action or give up responsibility. To fight back, and start again, if need be, without resentment or regrets. To love. Life.
Now, isn’t that beautiful?
Moreover, Nietzsche questioned, like Hume before him, our taken-for-granted notions of “ego,” “substance,” even “causality.” One might say then that Hume was the original “bad boy” of modern philosophy. In questioning these things, he was undermining the very foundations of rationality. Kant would respond to Hume. And in a way, Nietzsche was counter-responding to Kant.
In Jostein Gaarder’s “Sophie’s World,” Sophie’s teacher noted that thousands of years earlier, the same observations about the illusion of the ego and substance were made by Siddharta Gautama Buddha. (I’m not so sure about causality though. It seems that he didn’t question the notion of causality. There is “karma.”)
So, there is a kind of kinship between Nietzsche, Hume, and the Buddha. And what they have to say about the nature of reality is born out by quantum physics. There really is no “thing.” What we have are relations of forces that appear to us as “things.” No thing, no substance, no ego.
Also, Nietzsche who was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, later repudiated Schopenhauer’s pessimism and evaluated it as a kind of “European Buddhism.” Thus, Nietzsche has weighed two great religions of love, and found them wanting. Christianity and Buddhism are both, to his view, religions of decadence, i.e., in the final analysis, “anti-life.”
Of course, the question crops up: was he wrong in his evaluations?
I remember reading in a newspaper about Pope John Paul II’s encycylical about Buddhism wherein he labels it as a “negative soteriology.” I don’t know what exactly he meant by that phrase, but “soter” is greek for savior, so I suppose it could mean that: (1) Buddhism teaches that there is no savior, or (2) Buddhism is a religion that ultimately has a negative “saving-system.”
If (2) was meant, then JP II’s evaluation of Buddhism is not that radically different from Nietzsche’s.
Now why do I bother about these things? Because as one who was reared up a Catholic, became an atheist, agnostic, Buddhist, and now, pantheist, I’m interested in finding the ties that bind them together, as well as the specific differences which make them unique.
My position is this: it doesn’t really matter much what religion one believes in; what matters more is the practice, the kind of life that one sets out to live. Is it ultimately life and love affirming? Then, go on and more power to you. (There’s this story about God asking us at the end of our life not what our religion is, but whether we have loved…)
In 1995, during the World Youth Day festivities at Luneta, I had this dream wherein Jesus under this big tree in front of the Ateneo Cafeteria handed me Nietzsche’s book, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” (Jesus is entrusting me to Nietzsche?)
Weird, no?
What’s even weirder (God, I’m so superstitious!) is that I entered the Vipassana meditation course on October 15, Nietzsche’s birthday. (Nietzsche’s birthday gift to me: the meditation practiced by the Buddha?)
It’s almost a month since I started doing Vipassana meditation. I’m still at it and, as I said before, I’m interested in exploring the possibilities for a Nietzschean Buddhism.
Passion and Compassion…