Six Ideas From Eastern Philosophy

this video is sponsored by Skillshare click the link in the description for more information Eastern philosophy has always had very similar goals to Western philosophy that of making us wiser less agitated more thoughtful and ready to appreciate our lives however the way that Eastern philosophy has gone about this has been intriguingly different in the east philosophy has taught its lessons via tea drinking ceremonies walks in bamboo forests or contemplations of rivers here are a few ideas to offer us the distinctive wisdom of a continent and enrich our notions of what philosophy might really be this is the first and central noble truth of the Buddha and it states that life is unavoidably about misery the Buddha continually seeks to adjust our expectations so that we will know what to expect sex will disappoint us youth will disappear money won't spare us pain for the Buddha the wise person should take care to grow completely at home with the ordinary shambles of existence they should understand that they are living on a dung Hill when baseness and malice rear their heads as they will it should be against a backdrop of fully vanquished hope so there will be no sense of having been unfairly let down and one's credulity betrayed that said the Buddha was often surprisingly cheerful and generally sported an inviting warm smile this was because anything nice sweet or amusing that came his way was immediately experienced as a bonus a deeply gratifying addition to his original bleak premise by keeping the dark backdrop of life always in mind the Buddha sharpened his appreciation of whatever stood out against it he teaches us the art of cheerful despair Mehta is a word which in the Indian language of poly means benevolence kindness or tenderness it is one of the most important ideas in Buddhism Buddhism recommends a daily ritual meditation to foster this attitude what is known as met Bhuvana the meditation begins with a call to think very carefully every morning of a particular individual with whom one tends to get irritated or to whom one feels aggressive or cold and in place of one's normal hostile impulses to rehearse kindly messages like I hope you will find peace or I wish you to be free from suffering this practice can be extended outwards ultimately to include pretty much everyone on earth the background assumption is that our feelings towards people are not fixed and unalterable but are open to deliberate change an improvement with the right encouragement compassion is a learner bull skill the Buddhists tell us and we need to direct it as much towards those whom we love as those we are tempted to dismiss and detest one Yin is a saintly female figure in East Asian Buddhism strongly associated with mercy compassion and kindness she occupies a similar role within Buddhism as the Virgin Mary does within Catholicism there are shrines and temples to her all over China one in the province of Hainan has a hundred and eighty meters statue of her when he ins popularity speaks of the extent to which the needs of childhood endure within us she is in the noblest sense mummy across China adults allow themselves to be weak in her presence her gaze as a habit of making people cry for the moment one breaks down isn't so much when things are hard as when one finally encounters kindness and a chance to admit to sorrows one has been harboring in silence for too long when Yin doesn't judge she understands that you're tired that you've been betrayed that things aren't easy that you're fed up she has a measure of the difficulties involved in trying to lead a remotely adequate adult life Wu Wei is a Chinese term at the heart of the philosophy of Taoism it is first described in the Tao Te Ching written by the sage Lao Tzu in the sixth century BC Wu Wei means not making an effort going with the flow but it doesn't in any way imply laziness or sloth it suggests rather an intentional surrender of the will based on a wise recognition of the need at points to accede to rather than protest against the demands of reality as loud sue puts it to be wise is to have learned how one must sometimes surrender to the whole universe reason allows us to calculate when our wishes are in irrevocable conflict with reality and then bids us to submit ourselves willingly rather than angrily or bitterly to certain necessities we may be powerless to alter some events but for loud sue we remain free to choose our attitude towards them and it is in an unprotected acceptance of what is truly necessary that we find the distinctive serenity and freedom characteristic of a taoist east asia has been called the bamboo civilization not mainly because bamboo has been widely used in daily life but also because it's symbolic qualities have been described and celebrated for hundreds of years in the philosophy of Taoism bamboo is surprisingly classified as a grass rather than a tree yet it's tall and strong enough to create groves and forests unlike a tree trunk the stems of bamboo are hollow but its inner emptiness is a source of its vigor it bends in storms sometimes almost to the ground but then springs back resilient Li we should as as loud sue become as bamboo already is the greatest painter of bamboo was a Taoist poet artist and philosopher Genji of the Qin Dynasty Genji is said to have painted 800 pictures of bamboo forests and saw in them a perfect model of how a wise person might behave beside one pen and ink drawing of bamboos he wrote an elegant script hold fast to the mountain take root in a broken up Bluff grows stronger after tribulations and withstand the buffeting wind from all directions it was a message addressed to bamboo but meant of course for all of since the 16th century Zen Buddhist philosophy in Japan has been alive to the particular beauty and wisdom of things which have been repaired kansui is a compound word made up of two ideas kin meaning in Japanese golden and tsuki meaning joinery in Zen aesthetics the broken pieces of an accidentally smashed pot should never just be tossed away they should be carefully picked up reassembled and then glued together with lacquer inflected with a luxuriant gold powder there should be no attempt to disguise the damage the point is to render the fault lines beautiful and strong the precious veins of gold are there to emphasize that breaks have a rich merit all of their own it's a profoundly poignant idea because we are all in some ways broken creatures it's not shameful to need repair amended bowl is a symbol of hope that we too can be put together again and still be loved despite our many evident flaws we partnered with Skillshare today and they have given us an amazing offer to pass on to you the first 500 people to sign up using the link in the description will receive a 2 month free trial if you haven't heard of Skillshare before it's home to thousands of classes in graphic design animation web development music photography design and more you can 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Channel: The School of Life

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Keywords: the school of life, relationships, alain de botton, philosophy, talk, big questions, wellness, mindfullness, schooloflife, eastern philosophy, eastern philosophy vs western philosophy, eastern philosophy lao tzu, eastern philosophy the buddha, eastern philosophy confucius, six ideas, 来自东方哲学的六个观点, Seis idéias da filosofia oriental, Six idées de la philosophie orientale, Sechs Ideen aus der östlichen Philosophie, Seis ideas de la filosofía oriental, पूर्वी दर्शन से छह विचार, PL-PHILOSOPHY

Id: 5yZ8a_zAEl0

Length: 8min 32sec (512 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 24 2018