Anaximander

Anaximander was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Miletus in 610 BC. He is best known for replacing his teacher Thales‘s belief that everything is made up of water with his own concept of an eternal, unlimited entity known as the apeiron. He is also known for creating the first sphere (a celestial globe or map of the heavens), predicted an earthquake, being the first Greek map maker, and being the author of the first surviving lines of Western philosophy.

Anaximander was the first Greek speculative astronomer which means he made guesses about things he couldn’t see based on what he could. For example, he realized that the planets make full circles and in doing so they pass beneath the earth. He also believed that the earth stayed still and sat at the center of the universe. While we now know this is not true, this theory was maintained until 1543 when Copernicus proved otherwise. He also was the first Greek philosopher to realize that the planets and stars are not all at the same distance from earth (what was known as the “celestial vault.”) As such, he was the first to conceptualize the depths of space.

He used his knowledge of Babylonian astronomy to introduce to Greece the gnomen (a raised sundial that allows you to tell the time of day as well as the distance from the solstices and equinoxes). He famously put one up in Sparta. He also successfully predicted an earthquake, and was able to warn the Spartans in time for them to leave the city and instead sleep in the fields.

Anaximander’s teacher Thales came up with the notion that there is one fundamental principle (arche) that explains how the world came into being and how it operates. While Anaximander also saw the world as having one fundamental principle, he didn’t think it was an element such as water. How could things that are not water come from water? Instead, Anaximander proposed an indefinite principle without any limits that he called the apeiron. Eternal and always in motion, he considered the apeiron divine and therefore capable of creating the world and all living things. In this way, he broke with the Greek mythological tradition of relying on the Olympic Gods to explain the world.

Anaximander needed to explain how his apeiron could produce all the diverse things of the world. He explains that while the apeiron does not have any elemental properties itself, there is a “separating off” process which allows something new to be created that does have properties. The first separation was that of a sphere of flame and dark mist and with it the opposites hot and cold. From this, the rest of the world including the earth, stars and planets also came into being. In this way, Anaximander provided a logical explanation for how a diverse world can have come into being from an initial principle.

Anaximander intriguingly describes the interplay of opposites as involving the one committing an act of injustice on the other. For example, he believed that when winter came, the cold was committing an act of injustice against the summer heat for which it would need to pay reparations. This ensured that winter would again become summer, and the world moved forward in an endless cyclical cycle.

In addition to being one of the earliest natural philosophers (i.e. scientists), he is also seen as the “Father of Cosmology” (the study of the cosmos). Through reasoning and experience, he created the first mechanical model of the universe. He understood the world as being symmetrical, assuming the earth and the heavenly bodies to be the same size. This led him to realize that the since the sun must be really far away if it looks so small to us. He believed the planets and stars were made of fire, and that the planets moved in an elliptical motion due to wind.

He saw the weather as exhibiting the same patterns as those found in the heavens. Clouds were formed when fine vapor heated leaving behind the thicker contents. Meanwhile thunder and lightning no longer came from Zeus, but rather were understood as the clashing of elements. Anaximander not only connected heaven and earth, the past and the present, with his understanding of the apieron, his process of “separating off,” and his understanding of the interplay of opposites such as hot and cold, he also used this understanding to make predictions about the future. Living in Miletus, he noticed the harbor was building up silt. From this, he predicted that just as the world had been flooded, it was currently drying up.

Anaximander believed the earth didn’t move and sat at the center of the universe. He was critical of Thales belief that the earth rests on water. If that was true, what does the water rest on? Instead, Anaximander daringly claimed the earth was unsupported, being in “equal relation to the extremes.” This seems to be the first instance of what Leibniz will later call the Principle of Sufficient Reason which states that “no fact can be real or existent… unless it has a sufficient reason why it should be thus and not otherwise.” Additionally, this belief contains the germ of the concept of gravity, which would have to wait until Newton to be recognized. Due to it’s positioning and his observations of the horizons, Anaximander concluded the earth was therefore flat and circular on top, and therefore was the shape of a cylinder.

Anaximander accounts for human life since his original substance, the apeiron, is divine and therefore infuses the world with vitality. In the “separating off” process, some things received greater concentrations of this life-force than others such as humans and animals. He also explains how it is possible for human beings to have survived initially if the first generation was born as babies. He explains that this first generation of humans was raised by other animals. He also believed all animals came from the ocean, and as such, humans came from fish. Although not an evolutionary theory, it is “proto-evolutionary” in that he is trying to account for the diversity of life forms on earth philosophically.

Anaximander was fortunate to live in Miletus where he engaged in critical discussions about the nature of things with his teacher Thales as well as his student Anaximenes. His interest in the origins of the world (cosmogony) is well rooted in ancient Greek thought. Anaximenes, his student, will go on to put forth his own system of natural philosophy in which he substitutes air for the apeiron as the fundamental principle of existence.

Nagarjuna

Nagarjuna was an ancient Indian philosopher born in Southern India in the second century CE and is considered to be the most important Buddhist philosopher after Buddha. He embraced the belief that everything in the world is interconnected (known as the doctrine of “dependent origination”) and based on this principle concluded the impossibility for anything to have an independent existence or essence. Rather, for Nagarjuna, every “thing” is empty (sunyata), and it is our minds that differentiate “it” from everything else. Because everything is empty of independent existence, Nagarjuna shows the unreality of things such as causality, identity and motion. To do this, he differentiates between what is “conventionally” true and what is “ultimately” true.

Originally born as a Hindu in Southern India, Nagarjuna made his way North. There, Buddhists and Brahmanists (Hindu philosophers) would debate theoretical questions about the nature of being, God, and the soul. Here, Nagarjuna embraced became a part of what is known as Mahayana (“Greater Vehicle”) Buddhism. He believed that these theorists were creating fancy intellectual positions that were getting in the way of achieving enlightenment, and were deviating from the Buddha’s true teachings. In the Mulamadhyamakakarika (“Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way”), he uses their styles of argument in order to disprove their positions. In doing so, he became the founder of his own school of Buddhist philosophy known as the Madhyamika (Doctrine of the Middle Position).

The Buddha taught the doctrine of “dependent arising” (pratityasamutpada) which sees the world as fundamentally interconnected. He also taught that the world is in a constant state of flux, and that there is no true self. The “I” which we experience is in reality the result of the temporary unity of different physical and mental processes (anatta). Nagarjuna understands the world’s transient and impermanent nature to mean that nothing has its own essence or independent existence. Everything is “empty” (sunyata) in so far as it depends on other things in order to exist. For example, a table can only be said to exist in so far as four pieces of wood are connected to a base. If the legs are taken off, it is no longer a table. Therefore, it has no independent existence.

In demonstrating how everything in the world is “empty,” Nagarjuna differentiates between conventional and ultimate truth. It is a conventional truth that something exists, in so far as we are making a statement based on common sense, experience, and the relative meaning of language. For example, if I say that “I” exist, this is conventionally true. But ultimately, since there is no “I” but merely a temporary combination of physical and mental processes, this statement is untrue.

Using this distinction, Nagarjuna shows that causality is only conventionally true. For something to cause an effect, it would have to have it’s own independent existence. Since Nagarjuna denies that anything has it’s own independent existence, causality is only a conventional truth, and not an ultimately true. To say “this causes that” is to use language to communicate in a way that is not accurate with ultimate truth. Instead of causes, Nagarjuna explains that things are the result of conditions. For example, a candle is burning because it is lit. It’s not that lighting the candle caused it to burn, but rather that the candle’s burning is the result of the condition of it being lit. Likewise, the candle is burning because it is made out of wax. The “candle is burning” because of a number of different conditions which together allow us to understand it in this way.

Likewise, Nagarjuna explains that motion is only a conventional truth. He explains that motion can only exist if there is a mover, and for this reason, motion does not exist independently. Motion and the mover are dependent on each other. He says “If without a mover, it would not be correct to say that there is motion, then if there were no motion, how could there be a mover?” In this way, Nagarjuna uses logical reasoning, and in particular the method of reductio ad absurdum (“reducing to the absurd”) to support the Buddha‘s beliefs in the fundamental interconnectedness of reality and the impermanence and transience of the world, which he defines with his concept of “emptiness” (sunyata).

Nagarjuna’s principle of “emptiness” allowed him to defend Buddhist teachings against the new Buddhist and Brahmanic (Hindu) theories concerning the nature of reality. His epistemology (theory of knowledge), use of logic and analytic reasoning, understanding of the relative nature of language, and his critique of the metaphysics (understanding of reality) underlying common sense would greatly influence developments in Buddhist thought since.

Thales

Thales was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Miletus in 620 BC best known for his belief that water is the fundamental principle of the world. Thales broke with the traditional view in Greece that events were caused by the will of the Olympic Gods, instead putting forth his water-based principle. In doing so, he was the first in ancient Greece to choose rationality and experience instead of myth to explain the past, present and future. For this reason, he is seen as both the first “philosopher” as well as the first “scientist” (i.e. natural philosophy) in the Western tradition.

Thales traveled throughout the ancient world gaining knowledge of Egyptian geometry as well as Babylonian astronomy. He is famously credited for five geometric theorems including the observation that a triangle inscribed in a semi-circle will always have a right angle. His wisdom was legendary and he is the only philosopher to be deemed one of the Seven Sages of Greece. He used his knowledge of astronomy to predict the eclipse of 585 BC, where the Lydians and the Medes who had been fighting for five years straight suddenly stopped due to the sun being blacked out in the middle of the day during a battle.

Thales recognized the importance of water for sustaining life. He saw that water could easily change from one state to the next, becoming vapor when heated, and ice when cooled. He reasoned that water is the ultimate principle (arche) of existence. In doing so, he was the first person in ancient Greece to break with the tradition that the Olympic Gods were responsible for creating the world and the events of the natural world. For example, instead of Poseidon, he saw the motion of subterranean water as responsible for earthquakes.

Thales saw water, not the Olympian Gods, as being divine. In ancient Greece, anything that can cause motion has a soul and is therefore living. Because water causes motion and is also eternal, Thales considered it the divine life-force of the world, responsible for its creation as well as all change. As such, he believed that “everything is full of Gods.” Likewise, because magnets cause motion in iron, as does amber when heated, he believed they have souls as well. This belief that things not normally considered to be alive are alive is called hylomorphism.

Due to his interest in astronomy, Thales also developed the legend of being the first “absent minded professor” in history. Plato tells us “Once while Thales was gazing upwards while doing astronomy, he fell into a well. A clever and delightful Thracian serving-girl is said to have made fun of him, since he was so eager to know the things in the heavens but failed to notice what was in front of him and right next to his feet.” (written in his dialogue Theaetetus)

He is also seen as the first person to show that philosophy is useful. Aristotle tells us “The story goes that when they found fault with him for his poverty, supposing that philosophy is useless, he learned from his astronomy that there would be a large crop of olives. Then, while it was still winter, he obtained a little money and made deposits on all the olive presses both in Miletus and in Chios. Since no one bid against him, he rented them cheaply. When the right time came, suddenly many tried to get the presses all at once, and he rented them out on whatever terms he wished, and so made a great deal of money. In this way he proved that philosophers can easily be wealthy if they desire, but this is not what they are interested in.” (written in his work Politics)

Thales is also considered the first person in ancient Greece to practice “natural philosophy.” He asked questions about nature of the earth and the heavens. He recognized the year can be divided into seasons, figured out dates for the solstices, and realized the year can be divided into 365 days. He is said to have recognized that the earth is shaped like a sphere, and to have proposed diameters for the sun and moon. He helped his fellow Milesian sailors and maritime traders by recognizing that it would be better to navigate by Ursa Minor instead of Ursa Major since it’s position in the sky changes less.

Five geometric theorems have been credited to Thales about the nature of circles and triangles. He is said to have been the first to introduce geometry to Greece, and that he learned geometry while traveling in Egypt. He observed the way they would remeasure land after flooding, and it is said that he figured out the height of a pyramid by measuring it’s shadow at a time of day when the two would be the same height. The five geometric theorems are:

1. that a circle is cut in half by its diameter;
2. that when a triangle has two opposite sides of equal length their angles will also be equal;
3. the intersection of two straight lines creates equal and opposite angles;
4. a triangle inscribed in a semicircle creates a right angle; and
5. if the base of a triangle and the two angles at its base are known, then the triangle is known.

And while Thales was unable to provide “formal” mathematical proofs, he could have easily proven these theorems through direct observation.

Thales benefited from living in a time and place which allowed for a good amount of freedom of thought and expression. As a city (polis), Miletus was aristocratic and secular, independent of large centralized religious and political institutions. Here, Thales was able to engage in a new way of thinking and discussion with other philosophers, notably Anaximander and Anaximenes, that encouraged asking questions, being critical, providing evidence or justification for one’s beliefs, and explaining things in a rational way. Together, Thales and the other Milesian philosophers sought to find explanations for nature in underlying principles rather than mythology. Thales was so revered, of a wise person it was exclaimed “The man’s a Thales!”

Hesiod

Hesiod was a famous poet of Ancient Greece who wrote around the same time as Homer in the late 8^th and early 7^th centuries BC. His poems are a part of Greek mythology, and are considered to be “pre-philosophical” in that they serve as a transition from the traditional mythological understanding of the world to what will soon be a new “philosophical” and “scientific” way of understanding things.

Hesiod’s most famous works are the Theogony (which means “birth of the gods”) and Works and Practices. In the Theogony, Hesiod presents to us a picture of how the world was created that is similar to the Babylonian creation story Enuma Elish (which was written 1000 years earlier). In this poem, the traditional Olympic Greek gods are born, have children, and grandchildren which make up the features of the world: Gaia (Earth), Tartaros (the Underworld), and Ouranos (Heaven).

What is unique about the Theogony, in contrast to Homer’s poems, is that more than just retelling Greek mythological stories, Hesiod combines mythological elements to create a new understanding of the world. Traditionally, the world and human beings are seen as ruled over by the Olympic Gods. The Gods are powerful, immortal beings that do whatever they want. This understanding of the Gods allowed the ancient Greeks to understand the events going on around them (for example: if your house burnt down, it was the will of the Gods).

While maintaining this traditional notion of the Olympic Gods, Hesiod also makes the Gods into the geographic features of the universe (Oceans, Hills, Darkness) and explains how they came into being. The Gods are still immortal, powerful beings doing whatever they want, but now they are in an ordered relationship to one another with Zeus at the top. Since the world is made up of all these Gods, and the Gods in an ordered relationship, this means that the world is structured. This idea of the world as being ordered and structured in a way that we can understand is known in Greek as a cosmos. This idea of the world as a cosmos is going to lead to the development of Greek philosophy and science, who will break with tradition, replacing the Olympic Gods with underlying principles in order to understand the ways in which the cosmos is ordered.

In Works and Days, Hesiod gives practical advice as to how the Greeks can be successful through hard work. However, he acknowledges that sometimes there is injustice when a hard working person suffers hardship, or a lazy person becomes successful. This is similar to in the Book of Job, where the question is posed “Why do good things happen to bad people?” Because Hesiod’s thinking is still “pre-philosophical” and mythological, he will answer that ultimately “Not hard work but Demeter fills one’s bar with food.” The Milesian philosophers Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes will try to find more compelling, philosophical, and scientific answers to such moral and physical questions.

Pythagoras

Pythagoras was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Samos (an island near Miletus, the famed “birthplace of Greek philosophy”) in 570 BC. He was famous throughout Greece as the leader of a religious community (the Pythagoreans), for his belief that the soul is immortal and in the possibility of reincarnation, as well as for maintaining that numbers are the fundamental principle of the world. He was a charismatic figure who combined mathematics, mysticism, science and religion together to create a way of life with a devoted following. Today, he is best known for his theory about the hypotenuse of a triangle (a² + b² = c²), what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem.

In Samos, Pythagoras studied the astronomy of Anaximander as well as the geometry of Thales, until leaving at the age of 40 when the tyrant Polycrates came to power. He traveled to Egypt and Babylonia, learning the belief of the immortality of the soul as well as the secret teachings and rituals of the Egyptian priests. He settled in Croton, a city in Southern Italy, where he would found his own religious community based on what he had learned.

Pythagoras’s belief in the immortality of the soul and the possibility of reincarnation was a huge break from tradition. The Greeks believed in the tradition of the 8^th century poet Homer who believed that after you die, you go on to live an unfriendly, shadowy existence in the underworld (Tartarus). In contarst, Pythagoras optimistically believed that the soul does not go to the underworld, but instead is reincarnated in another life form (an animal or human). Based on this belief, it would be possible to have a good life after you die. With this belief along with his charisma, Pythagoras was able to both attract a devoted following as well as establish an influential position for himself in the political life of his new city.

Because of his belief in reincarnation, Pythagoras also maintained that what you do in this life will determine what happens to you after you die. As such, he created a way of life for himself and his followers that would allow the soul to be purified so that it could have the best reincarnation, and ideally would be able to break from the cycle of reincarnation altogether by uniting with the divine. This way of life brought about another important break from tradition. Instead of honoring the Gods with prayers and gifts, now the focus was on purifying oneself in order to influence what will happen to you when you die.

The way of life Pythagoras created involved a great deal of discipline and adherence to many rituals. For example, initiates had to complete a 5-year period of silence before being admitted into the select group of followers. Once inside, the akousmatikoi (“listeners”) had to keep silent about what they learned. The Pythagoreans were admired for their silence and self-control, which contrasted sharply with the Greek tradition of public speaking. The community was very loyal to one another, performing may rituals as well as not doing many things that were considered taboo. For example, they performed sacrifices but were not to sacrifice a white cock. They would enter the temple barefoot, and there were restrictions on what you could wear and what you could eat, most famously the restriction on eating beans. The respect for animal life included vegetarianism. Many of these rituals (the acusmata, “heard things”) had also been performed in other places in the ancient world, and in particular in the Greek mystery religion known as Orphism.

Pythagoreas believed ritual alone was not enough to guarantee the best possible reincarnation. Along with his inner circle of his followers, the mathematikoi, they sought to understand the nature of reality. Pythagoras understood the soul to be made up of several parts that were in harmony (harmonia) with one another. Unfortunately, this harmony is negatively affected by the body. For this reason, since the soul is different than the body, instead being made up of the divine substance of the world, by coming to an understanding of the world one is able to purify the soul in preparation for its next life.

Pythagoras’s understanding of the world was rooted in his interest in numbers and belief that all things participate in simple, yet profound mathematical relationships. Pythagoras recognized that the concordant intervals of the music scale (octave, fifth and fourth) correspond to ratios of whole numbers, specifically 2:1, 3:2, and 4:3. He therefore saw mathematics and the relationship between numbers as the basis for harmony in the world. Just as music was harmonious, so was the soul, and so too was the entire world. He believed the planets were in harmony too, what is known as “the music of the spheres.”

Along with his followers, Pythagoras revered numbers as things in and of themselves. The Greeks used arithmetic in trade, for example: 2 ships + 2 ships = 4 ships. But what Pythagoras did is he recognized mathematical relationships like this outside of a practical context. He thought about them abstractly: 2 + 2 = 4. He therefore viewed numbers as things. The pythagoreans would investigate the properties of numbers (“number theory”) such as even and odd, triangular, and prime numbers. Pythagoras even gave numbers personalities, considering them masculine or feminine, perfect or imperfect, and beautiful or ugly. The first 4 whole numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4 (tetraktys, coming from the concords sung by the Sirens of Greek mythology) were favored as well as most prominently the number 10 since 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10. Pythagoras is also credited for recognizing the existence of irrational numbers (ex: the square root of 2).

Pythagoras’s understanding of the world (cosmology) believed everything participates in numerical relationships. He saw all of reality, the One, as being comprised of odd and even. His teacher Anaximander believed the fundamental principle of the world was what he called the apeiron (meaning “unlimited”). Pythagoras believed that in addition to the unlimited there is also the limited, and it’s the limiting of the unlimited that helps us understand the world. Odd and even, limited and unlimited, as well as other pairs (10 in total) allow us to account for how all the things of the world relate. Medicine, for example, was an understanding of how the opposites hot and cold affect the body.

Unlike his teacher, Pythagoras did not believe the earth was the center of the universe. He held that the center is the most respected place, and therefore the sun should be there and not the earth since fire is purer than earth. While we know Pythagoras was correct, the earth was still believed to be the center of the universe until the Copernican revolution of the 16th century.

Pythagoras’s teachings have been very influential on later developments in philosophy. He influenced Plato’s understanding of the soul as distinct from the body and his understanding of the soul’s ability to unite with the divine, his understanding of a “tight organized community of like-minded thinkers” that Plato describes in the Republic, his tri-partite division of the soul in the Phaedo, the cosmological mythologies included at the end of the Gorgias, Republic and Phaedo as well as in the Timaeus, as well his emphasis on math and the use of abstract thinking as a basis for thinking philosophically, scientifically, and morally.

Additionally, Pythagoras’s followers continued for a 100 years after his death, as well as would inspire a neo-pythagorean movement and deeply influence the neoplatonic movement. Him and his community would also inspire future esoteric traditions that emphasized the study of mathematics including the Roiscurians and Freemasons. Pythagoras demonstrated the unity between myth and philosophy, religion and science, and mysticism and mathematics possible in his time.

Siddhartha Gautama Buddha

Siddhartha Guatama Buddha was an ancient Indian philosopher and spiritual leader born in Northern India in the 6th century BC. After becoming “enlightened” while sitting under a Bodhi tree, Buddha realized that human suffering is caused by the desire for permanence in a world where everything is impermanent and constantly changing. He denied the ancient Indian religious and philosophical belief maintained in Hinduism that we have a soul which is eternal (Atman), and instead taught that we are merely a collection of mental and physical components which are in constant flux. Buddha explaines that there are Four Noble Truths: suffering (dukkha), desire (tanha), annihilation (nirvana), and the eightfold path (marga). He teaches a “Middle Way” for those who seek to escape from the cycle of rebirth (samsara) caused by our actions (karma).

Having grown up as a prince in Nepal, one day at the age of 29 Guatama decided to leave his palace. In the outside world, he saw that people were suffering from old age, disease, and death. He decided to devote himself to figuring out what was the cause of suffering, and so he joined up with different religious groups. He began to practice an ascetic (harsh) lifestyle, where he would eat only one meal a day. Feeling that he had not found what he was looking for, he decided to sit under a Bodhi tree and meditate. Here, he achieved a moment of “enlightenment” and became “awakened” (a buddha). He devoted the rest of his life to teaching what he called the “Middle Way,” a path to overcoming suffering and achieving enlightenment (nirvana).

The Buddha realized that the world is constantly changing. In Hinduism, there is the belief that our true selves (Atman) are eternal, and continue to live after we die. Buddha did not believe this was true. Rather, he saw ourselves as being comprised of different things, such as sensations, perceptions, and thoughts, what he called the Five Aggregates, which are constantly changing. He believed that there is no underlying “I” beneath these things, and that man’s desire for such permanence is the cause of his suffering. This doctrine is known as anatta (No-Soul). By recognizing that everything in the world, including ourselves, is impermanent, we are ready to begin the path of overcoming suffering.

The Buddha recognized Four Noble Truths which he uses to explain reality, why we suffer, and what is the solution. The first Noble Truth is that there is suffering (dukkha). The second Noble Truth is that this suffering is caused by our desires or “thirsts” (tanha). Because we desire things, but everything will ultimately perish or die, we suffer. The third Noble Truth explains that if we can eliminate our desires, we can eliminate our suffering. This is known as annihilation (nirvana). The fourth Noble Truth is that there is a path which we can follow to end our suffering, known as the Eightfold Noble Path (marga).

The Eightfold Noble Path consists of acting properly, having mental disciple and attaining wisdom. In order to act properly, one must have love and compassion for all things. One must be careful with how they speak, act, and what they do for a living. One mustn’t lie, or steal, or kill, and one should also not have a profession which causes harm to oneself or others. Mental discipline comes from cultivating one’s mind to improve awareness and concentration, and to avoid being distracted or having hateful thoughts. The mind can be trained through meditation, for example, by focusing on one’s breathing. Wisdom involves overcoming selfishness and violence and understanding the true impermanent nature of reality.

For the Buddha, everything in the world is interconnected. This is known as the concept of “dependent arising” (pratityasamutpada). Rather than having one cause, the Buddha sees everything in the world as both the cause as well as the effect of everything else. For this reason, he sees one’s actions (karma) and even one’s intents as having an effect on the world. Even though there is no true self or “I,” when we think “self-ishly,” we become embodied as “things.” Only by realizing the true interconnected and impermanent nature of the world will we become enlightened (nirvana), and cease to participate in this cycle of rebirth (samsara).

By following the Middle Way and understanding the Four Noble Truths, we can understand the cause of suffering and how to overcome it. The Buddha encourages us to live in peace and harmony with the world, to avoid causing harm and violence to ourselves and others, and to act with moderation and cultivate our minds and awareness through meditation. By living in the moment and acknowledging reality for what it really is, rather than what we’d like it to be, we will overcome our suffering and be able to achieve happiness. The Buddha’s teachings serve as the basis for Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy, which is practiced in India and Southeast Asia, as well as in China and Japan where it has developed into what is known as Zen. The Buddha’s thoughts continue to inspire people throughout the world today.