My lovely sister Marilyn told me about a letter written by a man with a terminal illness, Simon Boas, which has gone viral. She thought I would be interested as it embodies the principles of Stoicism, which she knows I am keen on.
Some people see Stoicism as a somewhat gloomy philosophy, not least because they did talk about death quite a bit. However, the reason they spoke about death was because they could see how so many of us are wilfully blind to the fact that we are not going to live forever, and therefore need to crack on and make the most of our brief lives before it is too late. As Marcus Aurelius put it:
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
Sometimes it takes someone who is on the brink of death to remind us of this. Simon Boas’s letter, “A Beginner’s Guide to Dying”, first published in the Jersey Evening Post, is reprinted on the Telegraph’s website and you can read the full letter and an accompanying article here.
It is a wonderful writing piece—funny, warm, insightful and full of love for the world and his life.
He opens with this:
“My favourite bit of understatement ever comes not from a Brit or a Spartan but from the Japanese Emperor Hirohito. In August 1945, following Japan’s defeats in every recent battle and the obliteration of two cities with nuclear bombs, he broadcast that “the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage.
Well, I’m sorry to have to announce that my cancer situation has also developed not necessarily to my advantage.”
Simon has throat cancer which has spread to his lungs and he knows he has a limited time left on this Earth, but he has chosen to celebrate what he has had, rather than dwell on what he has lost:
“At 46, I have lived far longer than most of the humans in the 300,000-year history of our species. So have you, probably. And if the book of my life is shorter than many modern people’s, it doesn’t make it any less of a good read. Length and quality are not correlated in lives any more than they are in novels or films. So carpe that diem and keep it carped. And enjoy the tiny ways you can make other people a little happier. That’s actually the secret of being happy oneself.”
Simon has studied the work of the Stoic philosophers as well as Buddhism and other contemplative traditions. I am often struck by the congruence between Buddhism and Stoicism. Although there are some differences between the two philosophies, there is much in common. Buddhism pre-dates Stoicism by two or three hundred years but we know that Pyrrho, the founder of skepticism (which forms part of the foundation of Stoicism) travelled with Alexander the Great to India, and was said to have studied philosophy there, so there may have been direct influences on the philosophy.[i] Of course, it is also possible that both philosophies came to similar conclusions independently of each other.
Most people are probably aware that mindfulness is an important concept in Buddhism, but would, perhaps, be surprised to hear that the Stoics were equally aware of its importance. The Roman Emperor and Stoic Marcus Aurelius said:
“Give yourself a gift. The present moment.”
Simon’s approach to life fully reflects this, quoted in the Telegraph article he says:
“A life of meaning is about small acts, not big achievements. So it doesn’t matter if you’ve lived a quiet life in the suburbs or been president of the USA. It’s about looking for happiness and kindness.”
While the Stoics did not speculate on what happens after we die, it does seem that they had some belief that people are more than just their earthly bodies. Epictetus said:
“You are a little soul carrying around a corpse”
However, their emphasis was on living a good life and appreciating it to the full. Marcus Aurelius said:
“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars and see yourself running with them”.
And
“Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it”.
This isn't the place to delve into the Stoics' view of metaphysics, and frankly, most of that would go over my head! Their general approach was that man should live "in accord with nature" and believed that there was a distinction between animate and inanimate objects; this is described as a 'vitalist' understanding of nature, which I think is reflected in the quotes above. However, the Stoics recognised that we cannot know what lies beyond, but saw the importance of living a good life whatever the outcome. Marcus Aurelius again:
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
Here, of course, the Buddhists have different beliefs, conceiving of a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth (Samsara) with the possibility of escape from the cycle by achieving Nirvana.
Simon Boas’s thoughts are similar to those expressed by Marcus Aurelius:
“My second comforting thought is this: Nobody knows whether there’s a God, or an afterlife, but it seems unlikely to me that our existence is merely a brief and random flash of consciousness between two eternities of nothing. A benevolent creator strikes me as no more far-fetched than the latest efforts of physics to make sense of our world: for example that volume is illusory and the universe is really a hologram, or that there are infinitely many universes all existing in parallel. Our almost-instinct may well be almost true: What will survive of us is love.”
Like Simon, I used to call myself an atheist, and like Simon, my views have changed in recent years. I, too, embrace uncertainty but my reading has taken me more in the direction of non-dual philosophy Advaita Vedanta, based on ancient Indian texts. According to this philosophy, there is one universal ‘truth’ called the Brahman. The Brahman goes beyond the god or the creator. The core belief is that “I am The Universe and, The Universe resides within me”.
I love that Simon acknowledges that we are extraordinarily lucky to have lived at all. Every morning, as part of my meditation practice, I bring to mind some of the things that had to happen for my existence to have happened. Even just the existence of our planet, with a liveable ecosphere, is incredibly improbable and when I start to think about all of our ancestors and what needed to happen for them to have children that lived, and all the sacrifices made through the generations, it is an incredible source of gratitude.
Simon’s wonderful letter serves to remind us all how lucky we are and to celebrate our sacred lives. I will leave you with a final word from Marcus Aurelius again:
“Death smiles at us all, all a man can do is to smile back.”
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