The Surprising Lessons that Buddhism and Cynicism Can Teach You About Being Present and Happy
By: Sebastian Purcell
Tags: Happiness, Life Lessons, Mindfulness, Buddhism, Philosophy

One of the paradoxes of life is that to be happier you don’t have to get more stuff or do new things. You only have to live the life you already have and be more fully present in it. I can give you a story to explain.

After planning for more than a decade, my wife and I finally travelled to St. Lucia in the Caribbean. While there, we thought to visit one gorgeous waterfall. The problem?

Everyone else had the same idea.

There were literal lines of people to take photos in front of the falls. So we fidgeted, waited, and pushed a little to get up to the front. When our turn came, we entered the cold mountain water in front of the falls and took our photos quickly. Then, wet, cold, and irritated, we left.

It was only when we were back in our vehicle that I realized we had traded a photo opportunity for tranquility, a mere sign that we had been somewhere for the opportunity to stand in the presence of rare natural beauty.

That waterfall experience is unfortunately typical in contemporary life. It offered both the perfect opportunity to be present, and, on account of packed crowds and commercialization, made it difficult to achieve that presence.

So, what are we to do about it?

Surprisingly ancient Buddhism and ancient Cynicism converge on a reply. Both recognize this experience as typical of human life. Both philosophies urge that being present is needed to live well — to achieve “happiness” in contemporary lingo. And both develop practices to help us in achieving that stillness.

Yet, both philosophies are also misunderstood.

Buddhism has found an enduring place in “Western” culture. Yet, even though being present is a common topic, the path of Right Concentration is not focal in many “Western” discussions of Buddhism. Alan Watts, for example, barely discusses the path in his book The Way of Zen.

Cynicism is almost completely misunderstood. Once the most widely discussed philosophy of the ancient Greek and Roman world, having started around 400 BCE, Cynicism is today reduced to mean-spiritedness, or to a person who thinks only of themselves.

Theoretically, I forward the claim that these two philosophies share this outlook because their views of happiness require a certain amount of minimalism in life.

Practically, I hope to show you how to coordinate their very different practices to live a better, happier life in five main lessons.

To organize those differences we’re going to start with the Cynics’ more misunderstood path by simplicity before turning to the Buddhist path by concentration.

Presence by Simplicity

Crates of Thebes (360–280 BCE) was among the founding members of Cynicism in ancient Greece. His most famous pupil was Zeno of Citium, who founded Stoicism. This connection explains why both schools share an emphasis on the need to address the sources of your shame and to embrace vulnerability to be happy.

But if we can accept the portrait that the ancient historian Diogenes Laertius draws in his Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Crates’ life is most like Siddartha Gautama (the Buddha). Crates was born into a rich, landowning family and, like Gautama, gave up everything for philosophy. Unlike Gautama, he did not change because he saw death and disease, but because he witnessed the tragedy of Telephus (DL 6.87).

In the tragedy, Telephus is wounded by Achilles. The wound does not heal, and an oracle tells him that only the spear that smote him can heal the wound. Telephus thus disguises himself as a beggar, enters the Greek camp, and begs for Achilles’ help.

Inspired by the play, Crates sold his lands and distributed his money to the people of Thebes, in a characteristic act of renunciation. Cynicism, then, is demanding but it also makes sense.

At its heart, Cynicism is a philosophical view that holds to three key points:

The right way to live is to follow the path of nature (physis DL 6.71). Society and its conventions (nomos) distract from that path. That the solution is to break free from those conventions by living according to reason.

What we can know with certainty for the Cynics, moreover, is only the present moment (DL 6.18).

We should therefore learn to live in the present, not distracted by memories, anticipations of the future, or concern with what other people think.

And to do that, to be here now, you must simplify your life — though perhaps not as drastically as Crates did. For example, another Cynic, Antisthenes, owned a modest home. Even Crates eventually married and had children.

In any case, the shocking actions of the early Cynics earned them an inaccurate reputation for urging that humans should live (only) as dogs. In Greek “Cyon” is a dog, and the name of the school was meant to be an insult.

What in fact they urged was a path to living in the present by simplification — they were the first minimalists. What follows are two of their key practices, two ways to apply this wisdom.

1. The Way of Elimination

In his Republic, Plato has Socrates develop a thought experiment about freedom (578e). It goes like this.

Suppose that a man manages to become a tyrant of a city. He rules by fear and everyone does what he says. Is the tyrant free? Well, imagine that a god were to drop him outside his city without his guards. Surely, if any citizen found him in that state, he would kill the tyrant.

But doesn’t that mean that the tyrant is actually a slave to his possessions, his office, and his guards? Has he not traded the freedom of a simple life for a pair of golden handcuffs?

The thought experiment illustrates the idea behind the Cynical practice of elimination: our stuff (generally) makes us unfree.

It does this by distracting you from what really matters. You’ll worry about how to pay the bills for a recent purchase, or take on a “side hustle” to get a little extra money, and so on. And you’ll do that instead of spending time with those you love.

What we need to do is take on the ponos (Greek for “work” and “pain”) of eliminating as much as we can from our lives (D. Chr. 8.16). Again, some Cynics were homeless, others not. So there doesn’t seem to be an exact rule at work here. The Cynics’ challenge that follows is:

what can you eliminate today? What can you donate today?

What you can do is start by picking one area of your life, maybe a room or closet, and get rid of as much as you can.

Of course, there is a reciprocal problem: you need to restrict the inflow of junk into your life.

2. The Way of Restriction

Have you ever bought something that you actively hated? My wife and I were given a large television that, for a time, was great, but eventually became “the grey beast.”

This was more than a decade ago when flat-screen TVs were new but not thin. It weighed more than 100 pounds, was bulky, and had sharp edges. Every time we moved — which was frequent — someone got injured.

Eventually, a student agreed to take it off my hands for free! I think he wanted to turn it into an aquarium, but his purpose mattered not. To this day I still think fondly of my last moments with the beast: stuffing the monstrosity into his car and watching him drive away.

The story illustrates another Cynical point: many of the things that we have make us actively unhappy. Often, however, we don’t even recognize it. Crates described a utopia in a poem as follows:

There is a city, Pera, in the middle of wine-dark smoke, beautiful and rich with soil. … To it sail no fools or parasites … Instead, it brings forth thyme and garlic and figs and loaves of bread. For such things nobody fights wars (DL 6.85).

Crates’ point is straightforward: to live in the present, you need to restrict unnecessary things from cluttering your life. “Pera” in Greek is a “handbag,” so the suggestion is that you only really need a handbag’s worth of stuff to live well.

Before you get something, then, ask yourself: what would collapse if you didn’t get this thing? To slow yourself down, especially with luxuries, try donating a comparable amount of money first — it’ll be good for you and the world.

Cynical philosophy thus aims to guide us towards presence by eliminating what distracts us. Buddhism, by contrast, develops practices that turn our attention away from our surroundings and towards our mind’s own activities.

Presence by Concentration

Buddhism is a tradition of philosophy with many forms. My experience as a university professor suggests a favorite source: Thich Nhat Hanh.

Nominated for the Nobel Peace prize by Martin Luther King Jr., Nhat Hanh is a Zen Buddhist who innovates in that path by developing it towards “engaged” Buddhism — a form that seeks to transform the world through loving action.

In Old Path White Clouds, an introduction to Buddhism by stories, a king comes to visit Gautama to ask him about the practice of detachment and love. Gautama, the Buddha, distinguishes between needy attachment, a problematic love, and compassionate attachment, which is wholesome.

This compassionate love is what Gautama urges for political rule. He tells the king:

Majesty, last year I visited my family in the kingdom of Sakya. … There I spent much time reflecting on a politics based on nonviolence. I saw that … a ruler who nourishes his compassion does not need to depend on violent means (247).

Yet to have a compassionate love that radiates outward, you’ll first need understanding. And that understanding cannot be had unless you follow the eightfold path to liberation.

Right Concentration (samyak samadhi) is a staple on that path. In The Heart of the Buddha’s Teachings, Nhat Hanh writes that the reason “we concentrate [is] to make ourselves deeply present” (106). When we practice Right Concentration, in short, we learn to be here now.

Though there are innumerable practices to help us to develop presence, Nhat Hanh distinguishes three primary ways to concentrate: active, selective, and interpersonal concentration.

3. Active Concentration

In active concentration

the mind dwells on whatever is happening in the present moment, even as it changes (105).

The idea is just to notice whatever enters your mind and then to let it pass by.

When I began to practice Buddhist principles in my own life, my childhood friend Kyle, who is also a yoga instructor and philosopher, took me with him to a hot yoga class. We arrived early and he told me that while waiting we should lie on our backs in mountain pose. My job was to let my thoughts come and go. In brief, we were going to practice active concentration.

Yet, while Kyle lay on the floor placidly, I fidgeted in the hot room trying to “be comfortable.” When I wasn’t concerned with the people slowly filling the room — Kyle and I were the only men — my mind got caught up in specific topics rather than letting the ideas come and go.

Nhat Hanh wrote a short poem that can help you return to the activity of letting thoughts go. It runs:

In, out Deep, slow Calm, ease Smile, release Present moment, wonderful moment (71).

If you only repeat this poem, you will in fact be doing selective concentration, but it can help you in active concentration by bringing your thoughts back if they get away from you.

And since we just brought up selective concentration, let’s turn to its practice now.

4. Selective Concentration

The idea at work is the opposite of active concentration. Nhat Hanh writes:

When we practice “selective concentration,” we choose one object and hold onto it (106).

You could focus only on your breath, but you could also focus only on repeating a poem, or on repeating a single mantra, or even a single philosophical idea.

Much of Zen Buddhist training centers on selective concentration, which divides into nine different levels of activity. Different practices also suggest just on what you are to concentrate. This is how Nhat Hanh explains concentration on impermanence — one of many topics:

To practice Concentration on Impermanence, every time you look at your beloved, see him as impermanent, and do your best to make him happy today. If you think he is permanent, you may believe that he will never improve (110).

Impermanence in the “West” is often associated with death, but the Buddhist focus is always on liberation.

Of course, some people do go to their graves unchanged. The Buddist point is double: people always can change, and people sometimes do become redeemable despite not changing in the ways you’d expect.

My paternal grandfather was one such man. He was a handsome man, born into relative wealth, and he was intelligent — graduating from university as a mathematician. Yet he was haunted by a gnawing sense of shame and inadequacy.

He spent his life, as a result, seeking validation from others. With men, he sought above all to best them in athletic competitions. With women, he sought to persuade them into his bed.

His life’s story, then, was one of mismanagement. My fondest memories with him are those spent in a bowling alley that he owned. Yet I only did that until about age 9, since he lost the business through poor administration of its finances. He was also a life-long philanderer, unsurprisingly divorced several times, and died married to a woman 40 years his junior who was also an alcoholic.

When he tried to stop his young wife from going on another bender, she called the police and accused him of abuse. He then spent a night in jail.

Though nothing came of the incident legally, when my father picked my grandfather up, the older man changed a little — recognizing who mattered in his life. He rewrote his will, designated his youngest son (my father) the executor of his estate, and then began to reconnect with the family he had neglected for 60 years of his life.

It wasn’t enough to cure all wounds, but he did not die alone. His sons, their wives, and his grandchildren visited him at his bed. No one is a total lost cause, even if they don’t change in the way that you expect.

Of course, we often change the most because we are present with people, which brings the discussion to its last practice.

5. Interpersonal Concentration

Nhat Hanh introduces the topic of interpersonal concentration with an incident in the Vietnamese epic poem Tale of Kieu. He writes:

Kieu returns to the apartment of her beloved, Kim Trong, and finds him fast asleep at his desk … Kim Trong hears Kieu’s footsteps, but, not quite awake, he asks, “Are you really there, or am I dreaming?” Kieu replies, “Now we have the opportunity to see each other clearly. But if we do not live deeply this moment, it will only be a dream” (65).

The point is well taken: if you are not fully present with a person, then you will be with them only in the way that you are “with” people while dreaming. Being present is what allows us to have relationships with each other at all.

The key to this practice is simple: just listen.

Do it earnestly and without judgment, just as you are not to judge your thoughts when you are practicing Active Concentration.

The actor Matthew McConaughey relates a story in his memoir Greenlights that illustrates the point well. Apparently, he had a difficult time with celebrity status. In the course of a single weekend he went from an almost unknown actor to international acclaim for his role in A Time To Kill.

He couldn’t reconcile the adulation people had for him with his own self-image, and he knew that while his acting was good, no one could earn what he had now received.

To cope, he went on a retreat to The Monastery of Christ in the desert of New Mexico. On his first full day there, he met with a mentor, Brother Christian, who helped him by listening patiently for hours. In McConaughey’s words:

At hour four we found ourselves back at the chapel sitting on a bench just outside the entrance. Now weeping, I eventually came to the end of my confession. We sat in silence while I awaited Christian’s judgment. Nothing. Finally, in the unrest of the stillness, I looked up. Brother Christian, who hadn’t said one word to me this entire time, looked me in the eyes and in almost a whisper, said to me: ‘Me, too’” (149).

To connect with other people, you only need to be there and be present with them. Practice by listening to what they say and what they really mean — not what you think they mean or for what you would like to say next. That is the key to living well.

The Good Life

Nhat Hanh begins his section on Right Concentration by explaining that learning this practice is crucial for a good life, because only if you remain present in life can you escape a craving “for status or a desire to keep more than you need” (Heart of the Buddha, 106).

Being present leads to right action. This is true for ancient Greek Cynicism and Zen Buddhism. Interestingly, this practical convergence follows from a deeper theoretical convergence.

Antisthenes (445–365 BCE), often considered the first Cynic, held that you can only really say “A is A” and not “A is B” (DL 6.18). This is a logical way of claiming that only the present can be understood, that even language is a distraction from the truth of nature. Zen Buddhists, similarly, hold that language distracts from the truth that can only be grasped by an intuition — one often gained in meditation.

For Cynics, however, the path to living in the present follows the way of simplification, of de-cluttering your circumstances. For Buddhists, the path follows the way of concentration, of focusing your mind on what really matters.

Each of these lessons is surprising, for they tell you how to live better at no cost at all. They urge: do your life as you live it now, but in a simpler way and with a present mind.

This wisdom changes everything without touching anything. When my wife and I were in St. Lucia, we didn’t need a different experience, but the same one with a different point of view.

I’ll leave you with a final quote from Nhat Hanh that encapsulates the lesson: