Cultivating a Limitless Heart: Stoic Oikeisis and Metta Meditation DRAFT: Questions or Comments Welcome Michael Goerger GoergerM@cwu.

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Abstract: There exists little consensus among contemporary philosophers about whether affective states such as love can be willfully altered or cultivated. In contrast, many ancient philosophers and religious figures thought that our affective relationships with others were capable of being altered. In this paper, I explore Buddhist metta meditation as well as Stoic oikeisis and argue that these practices do enable one to cultivate love. By engaging in these practices over an extended period of time, one can expand one's love for others and begin to cultivate a universally loving state.

1. There is little philosophical consensus about whether one can willfully cultivate love for another. Harry Frankfurt, to take an example of a contemporary figure writing about love, appears to think that that love cannot willfully be cultivated when he claims that love is not voluntary. He says, it is a necessary feature of love that it is not under our direct and immediate voluntary control,1 and then, what we love and what we fail to love is not up to us. 2 While he later admits that it may at times be within our power to control them [our loves] indirectly. We are sometimes capable of bringing about conditions that would cause us to stop loving what we love, or to love other things,3 he apparently does not consider 'bringing about conditions' to be the voluntary cultivation of love. Nel Noddings also seems to think that love cannot willfully be cultivated. On her account, caring about about another requires that one be engrossed in the other. Engrossment is a form of attention that makes the one who cares spontaneously and immediately receptive to the needs of the one who is cared for. Noddings argues that if engrossment is not present one will not possess the impulse to act in the beneficial ways characteristic of loving and caring. While she admits that one can fetch [the impulse to care] out of recalcitrant slumber when it fails to
1 2 3

Frankfurt (2004), p. 44. Ibid., p. 46. Ibid., p. 49.

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awaken spontaneously,4 it is unclear if she intends to say that this impulse can be created or if she means that the impulse pre-exists in one and must be recalled from the depths of ones psyche. In the end, engrossment is critical to caring on Noddings account, and she seems to believe that in most cases one does not have control over that impulse. 5 In this essay I will argue that love for others can be cultivated, viz. one who does not love another can come to love him if she devotes sufficient effort to the task. In order to show this, I will explore two ancient methods of cultivating love and concern for others - Stoic oikeisis and Buddhist metta meditation. I argue that the existence and success of these practices gives one reason to believe that love for others can be expanded. If there are individuals to whom one is negatively disposed, one can, through practice and effort, come to love them. 2. I will begin by exploring a Buddhist practice intended to generate moral concern. In a Pali discourse traditionally attributed to him, the Buddha claims that one should cultivate a limitless heart and love all living beings. 6 Metta meditation developed in the years following the death of the Buddha as a way to accomplish this goal. Metta is a Pali word most-commonly translated as loving-kindness. The word is also translated as friendliness, benevolence, or love. Central to the sense of the word is a love that is entirely altruistic and not self-seeking. 7 The practice of metta meditation requires concerted effort and dedication, and cannot be accomplished by simply embracing a thesis. It is a spiritual and moral exercise which will, over

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Noddings (1984)., p. 84. Noddings paradigmatic caring relationship is that which exists between a mother and her infant child. Many of the claims she makes about love and caring stem from her reflections on this case. As love in this case is sudden and uncontrollable, it is understandable that she arrives at her conclusion that caring cannot be controlled or must be awoken. Given this emphasis on parenting, it is no surprise that Noddings has titled her most recent (2010) book, The Maternal Factor. c.f. Kiraniya Metta Sutta (Snp 1.8) (2004). Salzberg (1995). I use Pali rather than Sanskrit vocabulary throughout this essay because Pali is the language of the Theravadan scriptures from which I quote. Metta expresses the same concept as the Sanskrit maitri.

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time, develop and improve the character of the practitioner. In the Metta Sutta, his Hymn of Universal Love, the Buddha instructs his followers to cultivate metta for all creatures of the earth. After describing the all-encompassing nature of this task, which will not exclude, weak or strong without exception, long, large, middling, short, subtle, blatant, seen & unseen, near & far, born & seeking birth8 the Buddha says that, As a mother would risk her life to protect her child, her only child, so should one cultivate a limitless heart with regard to all beings.9 The wise person who wants to break through to the state of peace, 10 and achieve sublime abiding11 must take on the task of cultivating love for all living beings. Those following the Buddha quickly realized that cultivating a limitless heart would require practice rather than a simple intellectual commitment. Metta meditation is the practice that was developed to achieve this goal. The process was codified around 430 CE by Buddhaghosa, an important commentator on the scriptures collected in the Pali canon, in the Visuddhimagga or Path to Purification.12 As we will see, the existence of this text stands in marked contrast to the Stoic tradition, which does not in any text detail any actual exercises used to practice oikeisis. Buddhaghosa instructs the practitioner to purify his or her mind of hostility
8 9 10 11 12

Karaniya Metta Sutta (2004), lines 14 - 20. Ibid., lines 26 - 29. Ibid., line 2. Ibid., line 38. See Buddhaghosa (1976), Chapter 9.

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before beginning to "break down the barriers by practicing lovingkindness over and over again, accomplishing mental impartiality towards the four persons, that is to say, himself, the dear person, the neutral person, and the hostile person." 13 Contemporary Buddhist teachers14 generally follow Buddhaghosa and describe the practice as follows: After achieving a state of meditative awareness the practitioner imagines someone whom she already loves. This is most often the practitioner herself. She then repeats a mantra which bestows metta upon herself such as May I be happy. May I be safe from internal and external dangers. She visualizes herself and Repeat[s] these phrases over and over again, letting the feelings permeate [her] body and mind. 15 This meditation is practiced daily for several weeks. When the practitioner feels that her bestowal of metta is genuine and that she really does wish happiness and safety unto herself, she begins the exercise again with a benefactor, some other person toward whom she already has feelings of love and kindness. Traditionally, the benefactor is the practitioners dharma teacher. Again, she repeats the mantra and continues to do so for several weeks until her bestowal of metta is genuine. Slowly, one person at a time, the process is continued. Next comes metta toward friends, then community members, and then strangers. Finally, one extends metta toward ones enemies. Throughout the meditation, the practitioner must work hard to genuinely extend a compassionate wish to the person on whom she is focusing. This may require her to analyze and consider the barriers to love that must be broken through if love is to be cultivated. The purpose of the meditation is not
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Ibid., IX.40. Metta mediation is a popular topic among contemporary Buddhist teachers. For the sake of clarity, my discussion here will focus mainly on the meditations described in Kornfield (2002), pp. 117-120. Other sources include the Dalai Lamas (2005) text, How to Expand Love: Widening the Circle of Loving Relationships. Salzbergs (1995) text, Loving-kindness: the Revolutionary Art of Happiness provides a more extensive overview of metta and its role within the Theravadan Buddhist tradition. Kornfield (2002), p. 119. I have altered the quotation to fit the third person.

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to merely repeat the words, but to focus the mind on the task of developing compassion for the subject. In How to Expand Love His Holiness the Dalai Lama takes this meditation a step further. Recognizing that the beings who are the objects of these feelings are still suffering, 16 he instructs practitioners to begin to develop a strong intention to actually help those beings who are suffering. He believes that this intention must be formed through meditation and that doing so will prepare one for when one encounters suffering individuals. He recommends that one continue the metta meditation described above with the mantra I will do whatever I can to cause her to be imbued with happiness and all the causes of happiness. 17 Again the process progresses through friends, benefactors, neutral persons, and enemies. The Dalai Lama argues that, over a long period of time, the intention to help those individuals will become active in ones life. 18 There are many forms of metta meditation, but each employs the general techniques of visualizing an individual and then wishing that person happiness, health, safety and well-being. The aim, only rarely achieved after a lifetime of practice, is to to possess the same positive disposition toward all living beings that a mother possesses toward her child. In fact, one common strategy for wishing metta on those toward whom one is negatively disposed is to imagine that person as a child or as a parent. 19 This removes the focal person from the context in which one normally encounters him and forces the practitioner to see him as a someone who is capable of loving and being loved. The initial beneficiary of Metta meditation need not be oneself. Dharma talks are replete
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Dalai Lama (2005), p. 127. Ibid., p. 128. This will be considered in Section 8 of this essay. This practice is central to the Dalai Lamas technique, which is grounded in the belief that in the infinite cycle of birth and rebirth all person have been ones child and ones parent. See Dalai Lama (2005), p. 51-65.

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with stories of practitioners who find that meditating on self-love is difficult because they do not already possess love for themselves because there are too many barriers in the way. 20 Such a person is encouraged to begin her efforts with someone or something, sometimes the family dog, for whom she does have unconditional positive regard. As the meditation continues, the practitioner can begin to direct metta toward herself when she feels she has reached the proper point in her practice. Even if one is an enemy to oneself, perhaps because of character flaws or past mistakes, one is encouraged to try to achieve a loving state. Pre-existing love is not necessary in order to conduct the meditation. The love one already has is merely used as a way of coming to understand the kind of love and compassion one can have for others. By understanding and feeling the love one has for oneself during the meditation, one has an experience against which one can judge the love one cultivates toward others. 3. Let us now turn to Stoic writings on the expansion and cultivation of love. In addition to their infamous theory of the emotions the Stoics are remembered for advocating cosmopolitanism. Seneca writes, There are two commonwealths - the one, a vast and truly common state, which embraces alike gods and men, in which we look neither to this corner of the earth nor to that, but measure the bounds of our citizenship by the path of the sun; the other, the one to which we have been assigned by the accident of birth. 21 Seneca goes on to argue that one should serve both communities. The Stoic is bound not only to those who belong to the same polis or region as he, but to all those who fall under the path of the sun. An individual should spend his or her life benefiting humanity, serving the greatest community when possible and serving those nearest to one when serving the greater community
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Gil Fronsdal gives such advice in his dharma talks on loving-kindness (4/7/08-4/26/08) available at audiodharma.org. Seneca (1932), De Otio, 4.1 translated by John W. Bassore. Anthony Appiah (2006) and especially Martha Nussbaum (2007) have both been influenced by Stoic thinking about cosmopolitanism.

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is not possible,22 because all human beings are meant to live in a community ruled by kindness and concord. An individuals purpose on Earth is to help bring this community about. 23 However, embracing the fellowship of all human beings intellectually need not lead to acting as though one is bound in concord with all others. It is easy to claim that all human beings are equally important, but not so easy to treat all human beings equally. This has been a problem in the United States, which for the last two hundred years has explicitly avowed a form of cosmopolitanism while excluding large groups of people from equal treatment. The American founding fathers had little problem claiming that all men are created equal while many men and all women were not treated equally. The Stoics, in contrast to many modern advocates of cosmopolitan equality, were particularly aware of this problem. Indeed, much of their subsequent ethical thinking was a direct response to it. 24 Oikeisis is a theory and practice by which one moves toward the cosmopolitan ideal. 25 The term is notoriously difficult to translate. 26 The closest word, oikeios, is often translated as the verb 'appropriate,' and it indicates that an object now belongs to a person. The root word, oikos, means house or 'household' and includes those persons who are a part of ones household. As a verb, the word was frequently used to suggest that one had appropriated an object or person into ones household or that one had created a relationship with another through marriage or
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Seneca (1932), 3.5 c.f. Seneca, (1995), De Ira, 1.5.3. Also see Ep. Mor. 90, in which he describes the first community of human beings. He claims that they existed in natural concord with one another until they invented the notion of property. Then avarice and greed destroyed the community. The Stoics, like most everyone in the ancient world, approved of owning slaves. Seneca discusses slavery in Ep. Mor. 47 saying, They are slaves, people declare. Nay, rather they are men. Slaves! No, comrades. Slaves! No, they are unpretentious friends. Slaves! No, they are our fellow-slaves, if one reflects that Fortune has equal rights over slaves and free men alike. (Ep. Mor. 47.1). Seneca recognizes that slaves are human beings, and he sees them as participants in the moral life of human beings. However, at no point does he consider that, perhaps, the best way to treat his slaves as comrades would be to free them. Oikeisis is traditionally viewed as solely a theoretical ethical position by scholars studying it. By viewing it not only as a theory but as a practice, I take a slightly different approach to the topic. See Pembroke (1971).

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friendship.27 The idea central to oikeisis is that one should attempt to expand ones metaphorical household (oikos) to include those who are normally excluded from it. At the center of this household is ones self. Oikeisis involves coming to include others in ones 'household' by recognizing that ones own well-being is tied to the well-being of others. Unlike metta meditation which is a moral exercise that is still widely practiced today, it is unclear if oikeisis was viewed simply as a theory or if it was practiced as a moral exercise. It seems clear to me that to whatever extent oikeisis was actually practiced, the practices probably looked quite similar to contemporary Buddhist meditation techniques. The theoretical justification of oikeisis is explored in Book III of Ciceros De Finibus. The view is presented in the dialogue by Marcus Cato. He begins, Every animal, as soon as it is born (this is where one should start), is concerned with itself, and takes care to preserve itself. It favors its constitution and whatever preserves its constitution, whereas it recoils from its destruction and whatever appears to promote its destruction. 28 Natural concern for self-preservation develops as the individual grows older. Over time, she begins to understand that she is a rational person. Thus, what is good for her is to act as a rational person would act. Reason instructs one to pursue virtue, and thus one engages in virtuous action because it is good for oneself.29 At this point in the developmental story the individual is still acting only for her own good as a rational person. As an individual continues to develop morally, she realizes that, the very fact of being human requires that no human being be a stranger to others. 30 In order to make this point, Cato utilizes a popular metaphor. He says,
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Here I follow Pembroke (1971) closely. Cicero (2001), De Finibus, 3.16. Ibid., 3.21. Ibid., 3.63.

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Some of our body parts - for example our eyes and ears - are as it were created just for themselves. Others - for example legs and hands - also enhance the utility of the other parts . . . Yet the ties between human beings are far closer. Hence we are fitted by nature to form associations, assemblies, and states. 31 Nature has created human beings such that they come together to work for common aims. This is true of associations, assemblies, and states, as well as the entire human community. Working against one another is not productive, because it essentially involves working against oneself. Thus, each of us should work for the common advantage and welfare of all. 32 In claiming that one should serve all others, the Stoics are not proposing that one do something that goes against ones natural inclinations, but rather that one return oneself to a natural state in which those inclinations may surface. Says Cato, Nature has given bulls the instinct to defend their calves against lions with immense passion and force. In the same way, those with great talent and the capacity for achievement . . . have a natural inclination to help the human race.33 Just as a mother naturally loves the child she bears, human beings are drawn together by bonds of sympathy and mutual regard. Our most natural state, the Stoic contends, is one in which we exist in communities of concord and fellowship. 34 Such is the theoretical rationale for the developmental process that leads the sage, or wise person, to live a life devoted to the common good rather than to only her own personal good. She realizes that all human beings are part of the divine plan for the universe and so she comes to regard them all as part of herself. She no longer sees herself as an individual working exclusively for her own ends, but as a part of the human community. Thus, she acts on behalf of the needs of the human community rather than her own needs.
31 32 33 34

Ibid., 3.63. Ibid., 3.65. Ibid., 3.66. Cicero (2001), De Finibus, 3.62. Seneca (1917) Ep. 90 makes a similar claim.

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The 2nd century CE Stoic philosopher Hierocles provides an image in order to elucidate oikeisis in a fragment collected by Stobaeus. I believe that his image is best understood as describing a meditative process. Hierocles imagines that individuals exist in concentric circles extending outward from the self, which sits at the center of the rings. 35 Ones family and friends occupy the circles nearest to one, while countrymen, strangers, and barbarians occupy the circles that sit farther out. One is expected to observe that as one moves away from the center of this circle, the level of concern which one has for an individual is lessened. Hierocles instructs the would-be cosmopolitan to "draw the circles somehow towards the center, making all human beings more like our fellow city dwellers, and so forth. 36 Many contemporary philosophers have found Hierocles' way of conceptualizing the cosmopolitan project useful. Philosophers as disparate as Martha Nussbaum and Peter Singer have utilized his image in their work. 37 Hierocles does not explain how one is supposed to draw the circles inward. However, the image that he provides suggests a meditative technique that would have appealed to the Stoics. The Stoics frequently emphasize the use of spiritual and meditative exercises to help one achieve the ends for which they argue. Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius all recommend practices to cultivate the Stoic life. 38 One imagines that oikeisis would have been effected through some similar form of meditative practice. Simply reflecting on the varying levels of concern that one shows to others depending on where they sit in the circle would be a good start. One could then meditate on key facts common to all individuals in order to break down the
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Collected in Stobaeus, Florilegium, 4.671 ff. Ibid. The image plays a role in Nussbaums essay on patriotism in Nussbaum (2002), For Love of Country. Peter Singer (2011) utilizes the image in his recently revised work, The Expanding Circle. These exercises, as well as those outside of Stoicism, are the topic of Pierre Hadots (1995) work, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault.

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difference that relational distance suggests. Consider, for example, the features that Marcus Aurelius suggests that one reflect upon each morning. In a famous passage he says, Say to thyself at daybreak: I shall come across the busy-body, the thankless, the overbearing, the treacherous, the envious, the unneighborly. All this has befallen them because they know not good from evil. But I . . . can neither be injured by them - for no one can involve me in what is debasing - nor can I be angry with my kinsman and hate him. For we have come into being for co-operation, as have the feet, the hands, the eyelids, the rows of upper and lower teeth. To thwart one another is against nature; and we do thwart one another by showing resentment and aversion.39 One is to remind oneself that all human beings seek what is good and that some are woefully confused about what the good is. Marcus calls not for condemnation but for compassion, and by recommending this morning ritual he is recommending something like oikeisis. Constantly reaffirming such mantras cannot but change the way in which one relates to others. Human beings have the ability to expand relationships and the concern that goes with them to individuals who would not otherwise be given that level of concern. One expands one's relationships, for example, when one says that a close friend is like a brother to one. One who makes such a claim is not merely assigning an honorific title. He means that his relationship is such that the level of concern and trust that would normally be reserved only for his brothers is being accorded to this individual. One can also say, Youre dead to me. which indicates that one no longer has any concern for the person who is now thought of as dead. In both cases, love and concern is shown to be fluid and changeable. The Stoics capitalized on this fluidity in the process of oikeisis. Rather than reserving moral concern for a few choice individuals, they claim that this attitude should be extended to all via membership in one's oikos. The result is a
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Marcus Aurelius (1916), Meditations, II.1. Emphasis mine.

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growing web of moral concern. As one includes another in ones metaphorical household, one comes to have a new kind of concern for that person. By drawing the circles inward, one comes to show the barbarian the same kind of concern one shows a fellow Greek. The coworker, in a more modern scenario, is shown the same level of concern that one might show a friend. For the Stoic cosmopolitan, the goal is to expand ones self - the oikos - to include all of human kind. She comes to see herself as merely one part of the rational whole of the universe. 40 In this way, she is no more important and no more valuable than any other person. As she begins to identify with the whole human community rather than viewing herself as independent of that whole, she begins to have concern for all those who are also a part of the whole. The theory of oikeisis incorporates into the overall theory of moral development the fact that individuals are often willing to set aside self-interest when a group to which they belong is in need of assistance. How many human beings have died for King and Country, religious ideals, or their families? The process capitalizes on this natural tendency and shifts ones identification away from the local community and toward the cosmic community. Our patria - our fatherland is now the whole human race and our common enemies are those things which ail all human beings. If one can effect this change in group identification, the petty wars and conflicts that take one away from serving human kind are avoided. Whether the process of oikeisis is best thought of as an expansion of love is a difficult question to answer. Blundell points out that oikeisis and philia raise similar concerns, and at some points she speaks of oikeisis in ways that suggest that it expands love. For instance, she says, "The other regarding face of oikeisis goes beyond this, however, to embrace concern for
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Blundell (1990), p. 233.

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other for their own sake. That is, we should be concerned for others . . . out of a disinterested concern for their well-being."41 Many philosophers have argued that a disinterested concern for well-being just is loving that person.42 While oikeisis is meant to be a process by which one can expand moral concern and though the Stoics never identified the expansion of love as the goal of oikeisis, if the common analysis of love is correct, then the Stoics were advocating the expansion of love. If a disinterested concern for the well-being of the other is the result of oikeisis than it does seem that oikeisis expands love even if this is not the way in which the Stoics conceptualized and defined their theory. The surviving Stoic sources are not clear on how the process was effected nor do they say if it was effective. My concern for now is just to show that the Stoics believed that an expansion of concern was possible. Taken together with the insights derived from the discussion of metta meditation the existence of these practices indicates that the view that love can be cultivated was once a common view. 4. One might object to the process of oikeisis because it is strongly steeped in the notion that moral concern is expanded by expanding ones conception of the self. Perhaps the best way to formulate this objection is to say that one should have concern for others for their own sake and not because one sees them as extensions of oneself. Practices like oikeisis which emphasize expanding the self, the objection might go, miss this crucial aspect of moral thought. Oikeisis begins with the self. The Stoics thought that all individuals had concern for their own well-being though someone today might disagree with this key assumption. 43 Selfconcern is used as a reason to expand ones moral concern to all those in the cosmos. The thesis
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Blundell (1990), p. 222. This is a theme explored in my work own work on love. See also Frankfurt (2004), Helm (2010), and Nouwen (1983) for a nuanced and diverse set of views that share this basic commitment in some form. Some advocates of metta meditation dispute this claim. See footnote 20 for more information.

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is simple: what is best for oneself is the good of all human beings. However, this should not be interpreted as a Hobbsian claim that morality is really just a matter of enlightened self-interest. Hobbes goal was to reinterpret which actions and policies are in ones best interest, and the morality that results is a morality that Hobbes believes serves one's own interests as well as those of others. The Stoics, to contrast, reinterpret the self. While Hobbes tells one what is in ones interest, the Stoics tell one who one is. One is a rational creature and as such one is a part of the rational community. The problem is not that people do not know what is in their best interest, as Hobbes would have us believe, but that people do not know what they are. Stoicism is meant to teach one what one is - a part of a greater whole - and this should, or so they claim, lead one to embrace universal citizenship. 44 The objection is worrisome, but it confuses the notion of a self with the notion of an ego. When one speaks of selfishness, or when Hobbes speaks of self-interest, one is speaking of the ego. This is the form of the self that arises when one views oneself as distinct from and independent of all others - as an island separate from and unconnected to all other land. But one need not think of the self in this way. Consider a few famous lines from John Donnes seventeenth meditation: No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were: any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. 45 Donnes words are a rejection of the ego based self, and everyday examples of non-ego based self-reference are common. If I ask you what you did this past weekend, and it happens that you
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The Stoics were fans of Diogenes storied response to the question, Where do you come from? He replied, I am a citizen of the world. See Epictetus (1925), Disc. 3.24.66 ff. Donne (1926), p. 108-9.

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went to the beach with your family, it would not be strange for you to answer, We went to the beach. I have asked you a question that addresses you in the singular, and you have replied in the plural voice. While one is, of course, capable of thinking of oneself as an ego, one is also capable of thinking of oneself as bound up with and tied to other people. Stoic oikeisis confronts the ego based understanding of the self, the sense crucial to the objection, head on. The Stoic recognizes that relational distance is a barrier to ones moral concern. He does not run from this fact nor does he ignore or deny it. Instead he embraces it as a fact of human psychology. Individuals are self-oriented, and this inclination must be overcome. While the Stoic exercises may begin in a morally corrupt place a place of ego based selfconcern they do not embrace this attitude. Morality, for the Stoics, is not possible unless the ego-based self is overcome. Thus, while the process can seem self-oriented, this is only the initial state. Oikeisis uses self-concern as a means of eroding and eventually expelling the primacy of the self as ego, replacing it with a form of the self that incorporates the entire rational community. The claim that Stoic oikeisis treats individuals as extensions of the self is true but misleading. The Stoic does not treat others as extensions of his ego-based self, mere instruments to be used in the pursuit of his rational self-interest. Rather, he comes to see others as parts of a whole of which he is himself a part. Others are an extension of himself, just as he is an extension of others. Together, all make up the rational community. Thus, they are not treated as mere extensions of the self, but as equal participants in the rational whole of the universe. One who sets out only to pursue his own self-interest makes a mistake, for he fails to know who he is and thus fails to act in the most rational way. 46
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c.f. Epictetus, Disc. III.23, First know who you are, then do accordingly what you are doing.

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5. Both Stoic oikeisis and metta meditation urge the cultivation of moral concern of some form and both incorporate similar reflections, assumptions, and beliefs. Here, I will consider three crucial ways in which the practices are similar. First, both practices rely on the belief that reflecting on shared features of humanity changes the way in which one relates to others. These features need not be metaphysically robust, but must emphasize the fact that individuals have features in common which aid in understanding the motivations and mindset of others. Other individuals face problems and suffer just as oneself does, and it is common for one to ignore or discount these facts when interacting with others. By reflecting on the fact that anothers motivations for acting are as complex as ones own, one will begin to sympathize with and have compassion for the other. The power of reminding oneself of the humanity of another is beautifully illustrated at the end of the Iliad when Achilles and Priam grieve together. Priam begs Achilles to remember his own father and to take pity on Priam, who is an old man wearied by warfare. The men are mortal enemies, but Now in Achilles, the evocation of his father stirred new longing, and an ache of grief. He lifted the old mans hand and gently put him by. Then both were overborne as they remembered: the old king, huddled at Achilles feet wept, and wept for Hector, killer of men, while great Achilles wept for his own father as for Patroklos once again; and sobbing filled the room.47 The invocation of his fathers memory brings Achilles to tears, and he thus welcomes into his
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Homer (1974), translated by Robert Fitzgerald, Chapter 24, lines 609-617. This passage has been analyzed by many studying the history of forgiveness. For example, see Konstan (2010), Chapter 3 and Griswold (2007), Chapter 2, Section 5. My use here is meant to show that barriers to pity and compassion can be overcome by reflecting on commonality.

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camp the father of the man who killed his closest friend. A similar story is told by Bud Welch, whose daughter was killed in the Oklahoma City bombing. During a meeting with Timothy McVeighs father, Welch saw McVeighs high school graduation photo on the mantel. He suddenly realized that Bill McVeigh, whose child would soon be executed, was also a grieving father and that Timothy McVeigh was not evil, but a very misguided young person. 48 While contemplation of the common plight of humanity may not lead to forgiveness, redemption, or reconciliation, it commonly elicits empathy and compassion. Second, both oikeisis and metta meditation utilize ones pre-existing love as a model, and in the Stoic case as the basis, of how one should love others. Critical to these practices is the view that pre-existing love can serve as an exemplar by which one can cultivate new love for others. The Dalai Lama makes this explicit. When describing the ease with which one generates concern for a friend in the first stages of metta meditation, he says, Though this will be easy to do with such a good friend, take your time and notice your feelings: they will be a model to extend to others.49 The love that one already feels serves as a standard against which the feelings which one cultivates later in the meditative exercise can be judged. Neither the Stoic nor Buddhist process expect one to cultivate feelings that are in some way foreign to one or a state that one has never experienced. In both cases pre-existing love is used to support the development of new love. Finally, both practices acknowledge that there are genuine barriers that must be overcome if love is to take root.50 Prior to going to Achilles, Priams wife asks him where his much
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Welch has given many interviews and appeared in many documentaries. His story can be read at The Forgiveness Project (theforgivenessproject.com). He is also one of the focal stories in Jacque Lofaros (2010) documentary, 70 x 7: The Forgiveness Equation. Dalai Lama (2005), p. 123. C.f. Buddhaghosa (1976) IX.14-40. Salzberg (1995) provides a detailed examination of the barriers to love and proposes several exercises to overcome them.

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celebrated wisdom has gone saying, Where is the wisdom that made you famous in the old days, near and far? . . . If he sees you, takes you, savage and wayward as the man is, hell have no mercy and no shame.51 Priam, with some help from the gods, overcomes his fear. Certainly Bud Welch recognized that he would be ridiculed and criticized for fighting against the execution of the murderer of his daughter. The moral exercises help one to confront and overcome these barriers. The Stoic practice encourages one to stop thinking of the barbarian as a barbarian and to instead think of him as a countryman, father, and human-being, thus eliminating the barriers created by a lack of political and familial identification. Similarly, by reflecting on the humaneness of the other and wishing the other safety and well-being no matter the barriers that exist, the Buddhist is able to work past these barriers. Barriers to love do exist and if universal love is to be possible - if one is to cultivate a limitless heart - these barriers must be acknowledged. In both practices we see a sensitivity to the reality of our moral situation and an honest appraisal of our moral capabilities and handicaps. Because both schools advocate moral philosophy as a way of life there is a need to make their teachings practicable. Neither the Buddhists nor the later Stoics were particularly interested in the grounding of moral life as such. They pursued and developed that grounding in order that they could instruct individuals as to how they should live their life. With this goal in mind, it was necessary that they acknowledge and work around the practical barriers to doing and being good in everyday life. 6. An important and difficult criticism can be leveled at both of these practices. Neither practice explicitly asks one to do something for the one toward whom the compassionate or
51

Homer (1973), Chapter 24, lines 241-249.

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loving feelings are being generated. Both practices have as one of their stated goals the serenity, perfection, or enlightenment of the practitioner. My concern is not that there is something wrong with pursuing this kind of good, but that the practitioner may purchase her serenity at the cost of no longer being involved with the worlds ills. One way to find tranquility and serenity is to withdraw from ordinary life to form a planned community as many Epicureans once did. Because love necessarily involves acting in a loving way, it is important that these spiritual exercises lead to activity on behalf of those toward whom one is cultivating concern. This criticism is not without merit. During the Vietnam war, Thich Nhat Hanh gained recognition for advocating a politically engaged form of Buddhism. At the time, many Buddhist monks were uninvolved in their communities and unconcerned with the various social ills that affected their countries. In his early work Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire, Hanh advocates a form of Buddhism that incorporates active and mindful engagement with the world. 52 He himself contributed to this aim by founding the School of Youth for Social Services in Saigon to rebuild villages, schools, and clinics that were destroyed during the war. Hanhs advocacy was subversive and revolutionary. He was exiled from Vietnam and nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr. Had there not been some truth to the claim that many monks were wishing others well without doing anything to improve the lives of those persons, Hanhs teachings would not have had such an impact. If the practices I described are to lead to love, the final step must be a call out of the cloisters and into action. Our positive feelings for others must not become the excuse we give after we have ignored the cries of those in need. It is reasonable to worry that the goal of cultivating compassion in order to obtain

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Hanh (1967). Engaged Buddhism is also the subject of Hanh's Interbeing: Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism (1987).

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tranquility might obscure or overshadow the need to act on the love one is cultivating. The exercises that we are examining do not always have action as their expressed goal. Moreover, even in those cases where action is the expressed goal, as it is with the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh, it is unclear whether the recommended practices will lead to action. 7. If one practices metta meditation or oikeisis and does not act in ways that demonstrate a concern for the well-being of others, then despite ones possibly having a compassionate mental state, one is not loving others. In order to show that love can be expanded, it must be shown that there is reason to believe that the exercises I am exploring lead to a disposition to act on behalf of others. Numerous empirical studies have demonstrated the ability to expand love to varying degrees. I will briefly focus on two bodies of research in order to show that there are good reasons to believe that exercises such as those described can lead to an expansion of love. I will not argue that theses studies prove that the practices explored above expand love, but only that the studies support that conclusion. To date, no study has been structured so as to prove the thesis for which I am arguing. That meditation enables practitioners to achieve greater states of relaxation and a reduction in anxiety is well-established. 53 However, very little research has been conducted to analyze whether meditation that focuses on compassion enables practitioners to achieve the stated goals of that meditation. 54 There are some exceptions. For example, one study has found that women with long-term eating disorders who were instructed to practice metta meditation showed a significant reduction in disordered eating. 55 However, in studies such as this one it is
53 54 55

See, for example, the work of neurologist Jon Kabat-Zinn (2005), Coming to Our Senses. C.f. Kristeller & Johnson (2005). Kristeller & Hallet (1999).

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difficult to discern whether the behavior was changed by an increase in mindfulness and awareness or was a direct result of the metta meditation. Jeanne Tsai, a psychologist at Stanford, is currently trying to eliminate this possibility by maintaining a control group that practices mindfulness meditation but does not attempt to cultivate love. In her study, participants engage either in metta meditation, mindfulness meditation, or take a dance class. The number of positive and negative events each participant experiences in a day and overall changes in altruistic behavior will then be measured. Tsais study will prove important in establishing or disproving the link between meditation and loving-activity. At the time of writing, Tsais data has not been fully analyzed but the results look promising. 56 However, while there are strong reasons to think that there is a connection between metta meditation and loving-activity, no definitive link has been shown. A second group of helpful results comes from Robert Enright, a psychologist who investigates forgiveness. In one study, Enright had victims of childhood sexual abuse by a relative (incest survivors) participate in a forgiveness intervention. 57 The intervention included components that mimic Buddhist and Stoic exercises. The participants were encouraged to reflect on their shared humanity, especially the fact that it was very likely that the person who abused them was him or herself abused as a child. They were also encouraged to direct positive wishes toward the offender and imagine him or her as a child both components of metta meditation. The stated goal of the forgiveness intervention was to enable the victim to forgive the offender. Compared to a control group that attended standard talk-therapy sessions, those who participated in the forgiveness intervention had significantly less negative affect toward the abuser
56 57

See http://compassion.stanford.edu/programs/researchProjects.html. Accessed September 1, 2011. Enrights work on the subject is vast. See his 2001 book, Forgiveness is a Choice. See also Reed & Enright (2006) for his work with survivors of spousal abuse. The study involving incest survivors is found in Freedman & Enright (1996).

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immediately following the completion of the intervention as well as six months later. More important for my purposes, in the six month follow up interview, many expressed that they had since tried to contact the abuser in some way in order to express their forgiveness and begin a new relationship. All reported more hope about the future and many positive life changes. 58 Enrights studies confirm that meditative practices can lead to emotional changes which issue in psychological health as well as positive activity. The serious scientific study of the effects of meditation practice is in its infancy. The general consensus among psychologists and neurologists is that meditation exercises like the ones I have described can lead to changes in the activity of the practitioner. Current studies focus on what those changes are and how they take place. It is reasonable to tentatively conclude that metta meditation can help one to expand ones love. While this claim has not been definitively proven, a growing body of evidence suggests that certain forms of meditative practice lead to loving activity. It is not my belief that meditative practices will necessarily lead one to a more loving life. Other factors, such as a desire to be more loving, probably play a role as well. What can be claimed with confidence is that the practices described contribute to the creation of a life that is more loving. This is in line with the growing body of evidence that shows, empirically for the first time, that the ancient practices, particularly those developed in Buddhism, lead to the changes they purport to bring about. 8. One of my guiding intuitions in this essay is that one can come to love someone whom one does not antecedently love. While the contemporary philosophical literature on the subject is fairly uniform in its rejection of this claim, the empirical evidence is stacking up against philosophical common sense. Through practices such as those described - metta
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Freedman & Enright (1996), p. 989.

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meditation, oikeisis, or Enrights forgiveness intervention - an individual for whom one had no affection can become the target of loving-activity. In daily life one makes friends and extends love quite naturally. The meditations explored help one to accelerate the process through artificial means. Neither of the exercises I've explored are meant to be an instantaneous or easy way to develop love for others, but both offer insight into how one might begin to do so. In this essay, I explored two practices developed by ancient ethical schools which aim at creating moral concern where none already exists. Stoic oikeisis does so by admitting the other into preexisting communities of moral concern. Buddhist metta meditation does so through visualization and the repetition of mantras which are meant to humanize the other and cultivate compassion. Both practices purport to generate moral concern, but it is an empirical question as to whether or not they do so. I briefly explored some current psychological research which indicates that practices like those discussed are capable of generating moral concern for others. Interest in the empirical study of meditation is growing as is interest in love and compassion. As more studies are completed it is likely that they will show an even stronger link between meditation practice and loving-activity. One can come to love more. The exercises outlined by the Buddhist and Stoic thinkers show that this is the case. One need not view oneself as entirely passive to whom one loves and whom one does not love. Love can be cultivated by those who wish to do so.

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 (1987). Interbeing: Fourteen guidlines for engaged Buddhism. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press. Helm, B. W. (2010). Love, friendship, and the self: Intimacy, identification, and the social nature of persons. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Homer, (1974). The Illiad. (R. Fitzgerald, Trans.). New York, NY: Random House. Kabat-Zinn, J. (2005). Coming to our senses: Healing ourselves and the world through mindfulness. New York, NY: Hyperion. Kiraniya Metta sutta (Snp 1.8). (Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Trans.). (2004). Retrieved from Access to Insight, June 8, 2010. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/snp/snp.1.08.than.html. Konstan, D. (2005). Before forgiveness: The origins of a moral idea. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Kornfield, J. (2002). The art of forgiveness, loving-kindness, and peace. New York, NY: Bantam Dell. Kristeller, J. & Hallett, C. B. (1999). An exporatory study of a meditation-based intervention for binge eating disorder. Journal of Health Psychology, 4(3), 357-363. Kristeller, J. & Johnson, T. (2005). Cultivating loving kindness: A two-stage model of the effects of meditation on empathy, compassion, and altruism. Journal of Religion and Science. 40: 391-407. Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. (2010). The maternal factor: Two paths to morality. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Nouwen, H. (1983). Compassion: A reflection on the Christian life. New York, NY: Doubleday. Nussbaum, M. C. (1994). The therapy of desire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (2002). For love of country. (J. Cohen Ed.). Boston, MA: Beacon Press. (2007). Frontiers of justice: Disability, nationality, and species membership. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pembroke, S. G. (1971). Oikieosis. In Long (1971), pp. 114 - 149. Michael Goerger ([email protected]) DRAFT Page 25

Reed, G. & Enright, R. D. (2006). The effects of forgiveness therapy on depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress for women after spousal emotional abuse. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 74, 920-929. Salzberg, S. (1995). Lovingkindness: The revolutionary art of happiness. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications. Seneca (1917). Epistule Morales. (R. Gummere, Trans.). 3 Volumes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library). (1932). Moral Essays. (J. W. Bassore, Trans.). 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library). (1995). Moral and politcal essays (J. M. Cooper & J. F. Procope, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Singer, P. (2011). The expanding circle: Ethics, evolution, and moral progress. Revised Edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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