More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age
Last read December 30, 2021
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Highlights
4 highlights.
Their way of dealing with suffering rests not on the promise of a blissful afterlife but on a deep suspicion of the urge to find fulfilment in worldly goods and activities. It’s not by pursuing but by abandoning our desires that real satisfaction can be found.
Location: 337
a universal feature of life: whether we are actively suffering or not, no worldly thing or pleasure can give us lasting satisfaction.
Location: 361
At the end of the Buddha’s first discourse, one of the monks has an insight that is expressed succinctly as: ‘Whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation’,
Location: 377
When walking along a street, remind yourself that there was a time when none of these buildings stood, and that none will last forever. When you admire a beautiful flower, remember that you are seeing only one moment in the life course of the plant. More awesome still is the experience of looking at a mountainous landscape, knowing that every contour was carved by millennia of ice, rain and wind.
Location: 380