The Wisdom of Hypatia: Ancient Spiritual Practices for a More Meaningful Life (9 page)

In this chapter you will learn the Epicurean way of life, which provides a background for more advanced spiritual practices. You’ll learn how to analyze your desires so that you can decide which are worth pursuing and which less so. You will get help deciding how much is enough (of anything you want). You will get aid eliminating fear of death and fear of the gods, in case they trouble you. Finally, you will learn the Epicurean ways of dealing with ambition, justice, and friendship. All of this will help you live your life more tranquilly to promote your spiritual progress.

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44 seeking tranquility in the garden

According to the study plan, you should take about a month learning the Epicurean

way of life and making it a habit. Of course it won’t take you long to read the chapter, but that won’t do much good unless you
practice
the philosophy. That may come quickly (you might be doing much of it already) or it might take more than a month, especially if it is a very different way of looking at the world for you. You’re not a race, so keep returning to the practices until they become habitual; practice them whenever tranquility and contentment seem out of reach.

The Garden

Nowadays “Epicurean” is nearly synonymous with “gourmet,” and Epicurean philosophy

would seem to be about indulging in pleasure above all else, but it is not. The ultimate goal is in fact pleasure, but this is achieved largely by avoiding pain and seeking tranquility.

Something of what Epicurus had in mind can be learned from a letter in which he wrote, I am thrilled with pleasure in the body, when I live on bread and water, and

I spit upon luxurious pleasures not for their own sake, but because of the

inconveniences that follow them.25

His philosophy is not so ascetic as this quote suggests, but it shows just how far the meaning of “Epicurean” has drifted! Rather, Epicurus taught how to live happily without too much effort, but before we get to the techniques, let me tell you a little about him.

Epicurus was born in 341 BCE of Athenian parents on the island of Samos (just off

the coast of modern Turkey), where Pythagoras too was born; this was when Alexander

the Great was sixteen years old and seven years after Plato’s death. He first became interested in philosophy in his early teens after he had become disenchanted with mythology.

His grammar teacher was presenting Hesiod’s
Theogony
, which describes the origin of the universe:

First, Chaos, next broad-breasted Earth was made …

Epicurus asked if everything came from Chaos, then where did Chaos come from?

His teacher said that if he wanted answers to this kind of question, he would have to go to the philosophers. “Then I most go to them,” said the boy, “for they know the truth of being.”26 In other words, Epicurus wasn’t satisfied with simply accepting the traditional stories about the gods; he wanted to know the
reasons
for things. He had a
desire
for
wisdom
, which made him a philosopher (lover of wisdom).

seeking tranquility in the garden 45

He studied with various philosophers in various cities but later claimed that he was largely self-taught. He started his own school at the age of 32, and after about five years he moved it to Athens, where he established the Garden. It adjoined a temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty, and joy, who had a famous statue there. The Garden was renowned for the friendship among its members, as were other Epicurean communities,

so that “his friends were so numerous that they could hardly be reckoned by entire cities.”27 Women as well as men, slaves as well as free people, the rich and the poor were all admitted and treated as equals. They came from all over the Greek world, including the Middle East and Egypt. The Master of the Garden, who had a weak constitution, died in his seventy-second year (270 BCE), as I’ll discuss later. We have his will, which reveals his kindness and generosity.

Epicurus’ school continued to exist, under an unbroken succession of “Masters” or

“Presidents” for six hundred years, until the time of Hypatia. “In a word, so long as Learning flourished in Greece, and Rome was preserved from the Barbarians, the School and discipline of Epicurus continued eminent.”28

Epicurus required his students to memorize his maxims, and he worked to make them

very clear, which is important if they are to be psychologically potent. In ancient times he was considered an exceptionally prolific author; he wrote over 300 “books” (scrolls) and we have the titles of more than forty works. Unfortunately almost everything has been lost (or destroyed). We have only three letters, two collections of maxims, and several dozen fragments (most only a sentence or two in length), a total of less than fifty pages.

Fortunately some of his writings are among the 1785 charred scrolls from the Villa

of the Papyri in Herculaneum (the sister city of Pompeii, both of which were destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE). These scrolls belonged to a philosophical library, probably originally assembled by Philodemus, an influential Epicurean philosopher of the first century BCE. With the volcano rumbling above the villa, the scrolls were being crated so they could be moved to safety, when the pyroclastic flow—1800º gas and rocks moving at 450 mph—engulfed the library, instantly burning the scrolls nearly to charcoal and thus preserving them from decay. The carbonized scrolls cannot be unrolled because they crumble so easily, and in the more than 200 years since they were discovered, scholars have been trying to find a way to read them. Fortunately the latest technology is proving successful, and we may hope some valuable lost works will be reclaimed soon. Herculaneum’s loss may be our gain.

46 seeking tranquility in the garden

One of the most important Epicureans was Lucretius (c.94–55 BCE), a contemporary

of Philodemus. His long poem
On the Nature of Things
popularized Epicurean ideas in the Roman world, and influenced many other poets, including Virgil, Ovid, and Horace.

There is a story (dating from the beginning of the second century CE) that he wrote the poem between spells of insanity caused by a love potion his wife gave him, and that he eventually killed himself. Historians doubt the story, but it inspired Tennyson’s poem “Lucretius,” which imagines his erotic dreams, despair, and consequent suicide.

On the Nature of Things
was lost for a thousand years, but after it was rediscovered in 1417 CE, it had a significant influence in European intellectual circles, and stimulated the development of scientific atomic theory in the seventeenth century. Thus it is the direct ancestor of the contemporary scientific worldview.

The Garden has remained an inspiration and source of wisdom for many people over

the centuries. For example Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter:

As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not

the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in

moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.29

Atoms and the Void

Epicurus founded his ethical theory on the atomic theories of Leucippus (fl. 440 BCE) and Democritus (460–370 BCE). In this he was following the pattern, first established in Plato’s Academy, of many ancient philosophies, which were divided into three disciplines:
Logic
,
Physics
(Natural Science), and
Ethics
. Logic specified the criteria of truth and how it might be discovered; its goal was
right discourse
(saying what is true, the rules of discourse).

Physics, which was based on Logic, studied nature (
physis
) in all its aspects, including cos-mology, theology, and psychology; its goal was
right thought
(knowing the laws of nature).

Ethics used the knowledge obtained from Logic and Physics to understand how people

should live; its goal was
right action
(the norms of conduct).

According to Epicurus’ atomic philosophy, the universe is made of
atoms
and the
void
through which they move. The atoms are the smallest bits into which things can be divided, for in ancient Greek,
atomon
means an indivisible (
a-tomon
) thing. Since we have split the atom, a more accurate translation would be
elementary particle
. The way in which the microscopic atoms connect and interact determines the properties of ordinary things, seeking tranquility in the garden 47

such as their color, hardness, and chemical properties. Epicurus’ system was not completely deterministic, for he said that the atoms occasionally swerved for no reason.

The details of Epicurus’ physics are not especially relevant to our purpose here. What is important is that his worldview is qualitatively very similar to contemporary scientific materialism in that everything, including the human mind, is made of elementary particles. The atoms of the soul, said Epicurus, are finer and subtler than those of the body, but they are atoms nonetheless. This is similar to the contemporary scientific view that the mind is nothing but the electrochemical activity of the brain. Thus Epicurus’ ethics does not require any particular spiritual commitments and it is quite applicable in our secular world. It’s a good starting place for us. We can take up matters of the spirit later.

Epicurus insisted that his atomism did not exclude free will. Although, as we will see, he was no friend of the traditional Greek religion, he said, “It would be better, indeed, to accept the legends of the gods than to bow beneath destiny that the natural philosophers have imposed.”30 Exactly how free will fit into his atomic theory is not entirely clear from the surviving texts, but his position is similar to the modern philosophical theory of
compatibilism
, which argues that if you understand free will correctly, then you see that it is consistent with both (nondeterministic) modern physics and (deterministic) classical physics. The basic idea is that if
my
choices are a result of
my
beliefs, desires, purposes, values, etc., then my will is free, in the only meaningful sense of “free,” regardless of what the particles constituting me are doing.31

Classifying Desires

We can imagine a meeting between Epicurus and a dozen of his favorite students

in the Garden.32 They recline on couches, talking and enjoying olives, figs, nuts, and a little wine mixed with chilled water. On several of the couches couples recline together, including Metrodorus, one of Epicurus’ most distinguished friends, and his wife Leontion, a former courtesan.

“Epicurus,” says Metrodorus, “surely what separates wisdom from folly is the way

we make our free choices, and so this issue is central to philosophy, which is the love of wisdom. Now, you teach us that everything in the universe is atoms and void, but how does that help us decide what to
choose
and what to
avoid
?”

Epicurus replies, “All animals choose pleasure and avoid pain; that is the way we

are made—the way our atoms are put together. In fact, we can say that pain is nature’s 48 seeking tranquility in the garden

signal to avoid something and pleasure is the signal to choose it. Pain and pleasure are not matters of opinion; they are facts of nature.”

Timocrates, Metrodorus’ older brother, waves his goblet and sighs, “It’s all so sim-

ple, isn’t it? Pleasure is the only good, and we should always pursue pleasure. Everything that Socrates and Plato said is just hot air.”

“My brother, you know that’s false. If that were all there were to it, our master’s

philosophy would be the crassest kind of hedonism—and I’ve heard that you some-

times spread that slander—but it is not. For example, he’s taught us that it’s often wise to avoid pleasures if they will lead to greater pain, and that it may be wise to endure pains in order to gain a greater pleasure.”

“That is correct,” Epicurus replies. “We must apply reason to the direct experience

of pleasure and pain, which includes mental pleasure or pain as well as physical pleasure or pain. Both are a result of the way the soul atoms are bouncing around with the body atoms and interacting with the atoms of things outside the body. The jostling

of the soul atoms is the source of the pleasure and pain. In this sense these pleasures and pains are
real
and
true
; you cannot be mistaken about the fact that you are feeling pleasure or feeling pain. Therefore pleasure and pain provide a secure basis for choice and avoidance, but it must be subjected to judgment in order to act wisely.”

“Teacher, how can we make such choices?” asks Mys, a female slave and one of

Epicurus’ best students.

“As a basis for judgment, here is a useful way to classify your desires. First, some desires are
natural
, that is, a function of our biological natures, including normal human psychology, whereas other desires are
non-natural
in the sense that they do not follow from our biological nature. Of course, the term “non-natural” does not imply that these desires are in some way deviant or perverted! Of the natural desires, some are
necessary
, others are not. Of the necessary natural desires, some are necessary for life, such as the desire for food; some are necessary to remove bodily stress, such as the desire for rest when we are tired; some are necessary for happiness, such as freedom from

anxiety and fear. That is, these desires are necessary either for survival or to remove bodily pain and mental discomfort.

“Why is it important to make this distinction?” asks Mys.

“The crucial point is that necessary natural desires are self-limiting, for the pleasure is maximized when the corresponding pain or discomfort is eliminated. For example,

if you are thirsty and desire drink, when you have had enough, you will not be thirsty seeking tranquility in the garden 49

anymore. The pleasure is maximal because you cannot have
less
thirst than
no
thirst.