{"id":132742,"date":"2024-11-08T05:35:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-08T10:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/?p=132742"},"modified":"2024-11-08T12:22:17","modified_gmt":"2024-11-08T17:22:17","slug":"5-stoic-zen-practices-that-i-believe-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/08\/5-stoic-zen-practices-that-i-believe-in\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Stoic & Zen Practices That I Believe In"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Leo Babauta<\/a><\/h4>\n

I believe in finding powerful practices for transformation wherever we can find them. And the Stoic philosophers Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca are huge inspirations for me.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve found there to be a huge overlap between Stoicism and Zen Buddhism, even if there are also some key differences. The overlap between Zen & Stoicism are things I share below, and they are powerful practices.<\/p>\n

1. What We Control<\/h3>\n

One of the main Stoic principles is to focus on what you can control, and let go of what you can\u2019t. And most of life is what we can\u2019t control: other people\u2019s opinions and actions, the weather, world events for the most part, accidents, loss. Too often we let those things affect our happiness, even if we can\u2019t do anything about them.<\/p>\n

Think about how often you get frustrated or stressed by something you can\u2019t control. What if you declared that that was none of your business \u2014 your business instead is focusing on doing your best in the present moment.<\/p>\n

Zen also focuses on doing your best in the present moment, from a place of compassion. I find this focus to be simple, powerful, and liberating.<\/p>\n

2. Reminder of Death<\/h3>\n

The Stoics would remind themselves that they were going to die, on a regular basis. Buddhists do this too \u2014 one branch of Buddhists will meditate in a graveyard for this purpose, something that I do as well.<\/p>\n

Life is short and precious, and we take it for granted. We need to remind ourselves of this often, so that we can make the most of each day, and each moment.<\/p>\n

3. Loving What Is<\/h3>\n

The Stoics didn\u2019t use the term \u201c\u200bamor fati\u200b<\/a>\u201d (that was Nietzsche) but Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus definitely espoused the idea that we should embrace what is actually happening rather than what we wish things would be.<\/p>\n

Epictetus: \u201cDon\u2019t seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a Zen idea as well, to embrace reality as it is, and the ways we suffer are based on wanting things to be different.<\/p>\n

What if you could learn to love each moment, exactly as it is? To do this, you have to find the beauty in life as it happens. Start with the easy moments (a quiet morning, a nice cup of tea, seeing the face of someone you love) and then slowly work towards more difficult ones (someone is being negative, you have a difficult task before you). Leave the hardest things as an advanced challenge for later (death, illness, war).<\/p>\n

4. Contemplate Misfortune<\/h3>\n

Seneca had a practice called \u201cpremeditatio malorum,\u201d or contemplating adversity in advance, where you would visualize all the bad things that would happen to you, as a rehearsal.<\/p>\n

For example, if you\u2019re about to take a trip, you might imagine all the things that could go wrong \u2014 you forgot your passport, you lost your luggage, you got robbed, you got lost, you got sick. Actually visualize all of these things happening. And imagine that they aren\u2019t traumatic, but neutral \u2014 there\u2019s no problem. Maybe you actually loved the experience!<\/p>\n

Then, if any of them actually did happen \u2026 then you\u2019re prepared. Nothing can happen to you that\u2019s worse than what you\u2019ve already experienced in the contemplation! You\u2019ve already gone through it all.<\/p>\n

In this way, we have prepared ourselves, like putting ourselves into ice cold water to prepare for swimming in the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

The Zen tradition is more about present-moment meditation \u2026 but in a way, when we meditate, we are facing everything that comes up for us in the present moment (boredom, distraction, discomfort, frustration, etc.) and so when the same things (inevitably) come up for us later, we\u2019ve already faced them.<\/p>\n

5. A Higher Perspective<\/h3>\n

There\u2019s a way I like to visualize taking a \u201cGod\u2019s-eye view\u201d of humanity \u2014 looking down on all of humankind, like we\u2019re the size of ants.<\/p>\n

This kind of bigger perspective reminds me that:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. My problems are actually small, even if they seem big; and<\/li>\n
  2. We are all interconnected, even if it feels we\u2019re alone.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This makes my life easier.<\/p>\n

    The Stoics called this the \u201chigher view.\u201d In Zen, we practice reminding ourselves of our interconnectedness. It\u2019s the \u201ctruth\u201d of reality (as opposed to having a separate self) that helps us to feel connected and compassionate.<\/p>\n

    These practices help me tremendously in my life. They are liberating and motivating at the same time. And they take practice \u2014 a lifetime\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n

    The post 5 Stoic & Zen Practices That I Believe In<\/a> appeared first on zen habits<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Leo Babauta I believe in finding powerful practices for transformation wherever we can find them. And the Stoic philosophers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[176],"tags":[179],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132742"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132742"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132743,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132742\/revisions\/132743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}