A Platonist "precept"/"vow" of monastic poverty

 Given here is an explicit statement of philosophos conduct/practice that could be added to a list of such surviving explicit "regulations" compiled from the extant written Platonist texts, from the Dialogs to the end of Platonism in antiquity, though so much appears to be lost or never committed to writing, though the Phaedo also enjoins voluntary monastic poverty, I think, pretty explicitly, and it is also at least implied, if not outright stated, in the Politea:

 

"O both dear Pan and how many other gods (are) here, give to me to become/be beautiful/noble inside: but how much I have outside to be friendly with the things inside for me.  And may I consider the wise person rich: and may the quantity of gold for me be how much no one other than the one having control over sensual desires, the sane person, would be able to bear or manage/observe."  (Phaedrus, 279 b9-c3)

 

The above is my own rendering, which may differ noticeably from other translations of the Phaedrus.

 

Here are a few other explicit  statements for a list for a philosophos’ “rule” from some surviving fragments (all in my own quick, rough draft, off the cuff translations):

From Olympiodorus' commentary on the Phaedo:

" "The philosopher, as far as is not absolutely necessary, looks down upon/disdains the care of the body"...The are three (kinds of) activities:  either natural and necessary, as taking nourishment and sleeping; or natural, but not necessary, as sexual intercourse; or neither natural nor necessary, as finery and how many things there are of variegated clothing--there being these three (kinds of) activities, therefore, the philosopher will have nothing at all to do with the natural but not necessary and the neither natural nor necessary, but will thrust them away from himself/reject/despise them (for nocturnal emissions will suffice for him in regard to secretion of semen), but he will make use of the first (i.e., the natural and necessary) a little bit perfunctorily/pro forma, as not to take his fill/make much of them.  "If, then, these things are thus, the philosopher, as far as is not absolutely necessary, disdains the body; such a one is willing to die; the philosopher therefore practices death."..."

This is a clear and explicit statement that the Platonist philosophos is a celibate ascetic. 

From Damascius' commentary on the Phaedo:

"...the contemplative philosopher is one wanting as his goal having been made one with the (hypostases) above himself and to be theirs rather than of himself:  on which account (Plato) says "(it is not lawful) for the not pure to touch the pure".

It is necessary for the one being purified and hastening to be made like the Pure first to reject pleasures and pains as far as he is able; second, he must nourish himself with plain, simple food without luxury, but also food that is righteous and temperate (but this is untainted with blood and spotless) and that is holy and in accord with ancestral practice (for the food that is unholy and harming animals and coarsening the spirit makes the body intractable to the soul and unfit for contact with God); third, he must cut off the unharmonious wrong motion of the appetitive irrationality (for what would one standing aloof from all external things desire and with what would he be angry?), but if ever such a sort of thing would be moved either awake or asleep, it is most quickly put down by the reason; fourth, he must keep away from all sense-perceptions and imaginations, as far as it is not necessary to use them; fifth, the one wanting to be released from the multiplicity of becoming is to be separated from the opinions of all various sorts; the sixth precept out of all of them, is to escape the variegated complexity of thought and pursue the simpler expositions and distinctions with a view to becoming accustomed to the undivided intelligence."

This is an injunction to vegetarianism. 

The Timaeus is explicitly vegan, as is the Epinomis.

Of course, Porphyry tells us in the "Life" that Plotinus "didn't abide to take medicines made from wild animals, saying that neither did he allow foods from the bodies of domesticated animals" and Porphyry, of course, wrote his whole book on the necessity of vegetarianism, and with it philosophical asceticism.

Though it is not directly from Platonism, but from Neo-Pythagoreanism, which is likely more derived from Platonism, in Philostratus' LIfe of Apollonius of Tyana, Apollonius is given as explicitly and in detail setting forth as necessary 'precepts' 'the big three':  celibacy in all respects,  vegetarianism and probably veganism (including not wearing leather, etc.), and teetotalling:

“For if someone has come to my standards of conduct, he would choose to get rid of all food (lit., how much of a table) of (i.e., coming from) animals; and he would utterly forget wine and not make turbid the vessel of wisdom that stands in the souls of those abstaining from wine; neither a cloak will warm him, nor wool, that has been shorn from an animal, and I give to him shoes of papyrus, and to lie down to sleep as it chances; and if I perceive him giving way to sexual desire and love, I have pits of perdition down into which Righteousness, the attendant of Wisdom, bears such people and thrusts them (into them)...”

I think that probably the above examples could be expanded and multiplied many times through searching the fragmentary surviving texts and probably there were many more such explicit prescriptions in the likely much greater bulk of Platonist literature that is lost to us (for example, because of the Muslims burning the great ancient library of Alexandria and the Christians burning whatever may have escaped the Muslims!), but just the above, with, of course, the Phaedo, Republic, and Timaeus and others, may perhaps be enough to obviate concern about any lack of structure or definite prescriptions in Platonism.  It seems that the ascetic Path of Platonism is pretty clear, it's just that it is left to the individual, who is one of the few not the many and is presumed to have some spiritual discernment himself, to work out the exact details in each particular circumstance, without, for instance, the sort of long lists of silly, absurd, and neurotic details given in, for example, the Buddhist Vinayas and the sort of attempts criticized in the Republic to endlessly create detailed rules for every particular circumstance to try to make up for a lack of actual righteousness, renunciation, asceticism, and spiritual discernment and informed-ness and intelligence enabling the ascetic to decide more correctly what to do in each case in accordance with the actual principles of the contemplative ascetic life and practice and the single-minded striving for release and the telos without worldly concerns and desires. 

 

I might make another suggestion of a resolution to feeling a want of a set of formal precepts or regulations for Platonist contemplative ascetics/philosophoi in the extant texts--in fact, a more really Platonist, perhaps, and ultimately more satisfactory and definitive solution.  It is, though, one that is not necessarily easy to implement and hardly anyone now could do it or even try to do it.  If one can manage to clearly and fully "see" or "touch" or "know" or come in contact with in contemplation, having ascended to the noetic realm, to the level of Nous, and entering into it, the actual Form/Idea of "contemplative-ascetic-in itself" or "contemplative-asceticism-in-itself" or "philosophos-in-itself" or "Platonist-renunciant/yogi-in-itself" or etc.--however, one might choose to label it just as a means of focussing on that one particular Form as it truly and really and paradigmatically exists in Nous--one will find that it contains in itself, is the higher source of, (in unity and interpenetration with the separate Forms of the individual virtues, etc.) all the practices/"precepts"/necessary prescriptions/standards of conduct/"regulations”, etc. that we talk about--celibacy, veganism, teetotaling, monastic poverty, abstaining from worldly entertainments, simplicity of food, drink, and clothing, world-renunciation, solitude, sitting in contemplation practice, etc., etc.  All are there, though, of course, not in a series or list of statements in English(!) at the level of discursive thought, but as the actual really existing aspects of the complex level Form.  After thoroughly contemplating this Form at the level of Nous, when the soul is not even really, in a sense, itself but has entered into a degree of unity with Nous, when the soul returns to this level the logoi corresponding to or emanating from the Form will appear clearly in the soul as the statements of necessary practice or conduct at the discursive verbal level.  Hard for me to put the matter into words and a hard thing to do, but I think this is a much more ultimately satisfactory source of and point of reliance for, the real thing, what constitutes ascetic practice and conduct than feeling dependent on karmically appearing sensory experience, which is, after all, really what any text we have is.  As Platonist contemplative ascetics, we have a great advantage and freedom in that our "regulations" of renunciant/ascetic conduct are eternally there and always accessible and real and unerring and not a matter of opinion in the realm of being, in the noetic realm, and we don't have to depend on karmically chancing to encounter teachings of such in the uncertain, always changing, impermanent, only the object of opinion not actual knowledge, sensory realm of becoming like practitioners of other systems.  (And, ultimately, even further, our askesis comes from the source of all knowledge, the Good Itself, and direct contact and union with the Good will also, even more, upon the return, lead to all the logoi of contemplative ascetic practice being present at the discursive level in the soul.)  All the prescriptions and ideas of ascetic practice that we read about in Platonist texts and/or in the texts of other systems can then serve as reminders to help the soul recollect the real ascetic standards that it once knew in itself and now recontacts or remembers or learns in contemplation.  (The Platonist teaching of learning being recollection solves a multitude of difficulties!)

 

Plotinus regularly attained the unio mystica, not just "four times"

 Q. We had a conversation about the experiences that Plotinus had of ultimacy.  There is a passage in Porphyry's biography that suggests that Plotinus had such complete experiences four times, or roughly four times, in Plotinus's life.  As I recall you argued against that kind of reading and suggested a more steady and complete realization.  I hope I remember your views correctly.

 

Apropos this discussion, Ennead 4.8 begins with a rare autobiographical comment by Plotinus on just this topic (Gerson translation, page 512):

 

"Often, after waking up to myself from the body, that is, externalizing myself in relation to all other things, while entering into myself, I behold a beauty of wondrous quality, and believe then that I am most to be identified with my better part, that I enjoy the best quality of life, and have become united with the divine and situated within it, actualizing myself at that level, and situating myself above all else in the intelligible world.  Following on this repose within the divine, and descending from Intellect into acts of calculative reasoning, I ask myself in bewilderment, how on earth did I ever come down here, and how ever did my soul come to be enclosed in a body, being such as it has revealed itself to be, even while in a body?"

 

I looked up the MacKenna translation (page 410) and I think it brings out some points with different emphases:

 

"Many times it has happened: lifted out of the body into myself; becoming external to all other things and self-encentred; beholding a marvelous beauty; then, more than ever, assured of community with the loftiest order; enacting the noblest life, acquiring identity with the divine; stationing within It by having attained that activity; poised above whatsoever within the Intellectual is less than the Supreme: yet, there comes the moment of descent from intellection to reasoning, and after that sojourn in the divine, I ask myself how it happens that I can now be descending, and how did the soul ever enter into my body, the Soul which, even within the body, is the high thing it has shown itself to be."

 

I think this passage gives definitive evidence that, at the very least, Plotinus entered into supreme union 'many times' or 'often'.  And the implication is that Plotinus did this regularly, not haphazardly.  I would infer that contemplation was likely a daily practice for Plotinus.

 

The differences between MacKenna and Gerson are intriguing; particularly in the opening passage.  MacKenna speaks of a process of 'lifting up' 'out of the body', and this seems consistent with the path of 'ascent' to the divine.  In contrast, Gerson's translation speaks of 'externalizing myself' and 'waking up to myself'.  Gerson's translation is, I think, a little more opaque; but I would be interested in your own understanding of this opening passage -- perhaps it is difficult to interpret though the general gist seems clear.

 

 

A. Yes, I mentioned that the usual and oft repeated interpretation of Porphyry's statement in the Life is absurd from a practitioner's standpoint and simply reflects the ignorance of the usual translators and scholars.  I also cited that very opening passage of Ennead 4.8 as direct contrary evidence that the more common interpretation is incorrect.  I did also say that I had no doubt that Plotinus entered into union with the One, into the Good/One samadhi, so to speak, regularly and daily each time he sat down to his regular contemplation practice.

 

First of all, Porphyry's statement simply says (in my own rough, quick, off the cuff rendering):  "But he attained four times, I suppose, when I was with him, this goal in unspeakable actuality and not in potentiality."  There is nothing at all in it to suggest that Plotinus only attained it four times in his life--I don't know where the silly interpreters got that idea from.  Further, while it is possible to take the Greek as meaning 'with him' in the sense of the years in which Porphyry was with Plotinus in Rome, it certainly doesn't have to be, and can just mean while he was literally 'with him', i.e., happened to be in the same room with him when he was or went into contemplation.  So really all it tells us is that Porphyry observed his union four times--nothing more about Plotinus' number of times or frequency of union or his regular contemplation practice.  Besides, how would the unaccomplished and relatively unperceptive Porphyry know if Plotinus was in union or not?  It is hardly likely or even proper that Plotinus would tell him every time he entered into the divine union!

 

As regards the Ennead 4.8 passage itself, I'm afraid that neither the Gerson et al. nor the MacKenna translations that you cite are very good or faithful.  (Armstrong's is a bit better.)  I would give, again, a quick, rough, off the cuff rendering as follows:

"Often (/many times) waking to myself from the body and becoming outside of the other things, but inside of myself, seeing a beauty marvelous how great, and trusting then especially (myself) to be of the better part, and effecting the best life and having become the same thing with the Divine and being seated in it coming to that actuality beyond all the other noetical seating myself (therein), after this state in the Divine coming down to discursive reasoning from Nous, I am at a loss how I ever even came down now, and how ever for me the soul has become within the body being this, of such a sort as it has appeared in itself, even though being in a body."  I have rendered it as it is in the Greek, as one long sentence with lots of participles and clauses, and pretty literally, but hopefully it is clear enough.  I don't think the differences in the translations reflect difficulty in interpreting and rendering the Greek, but rather just the lack of skill of the translators and the usual refusal to literally and faithfully render what the original actually says.  In any case, I think it is completely clear, especially in the original, that Plotinus is stating clearly that he frequently and regularly attained the contemplative union with the One, and that this was his regular contemplation practice.  In fact, I would tend to read it as indicating that his attainment of the unio mystica, as it were, in contemplation was such a regular daily occurrence that he didn't even need to mention or specify it per se, but just say that often afterwards he would wonder what he was doing here having fallen into individuated sensate existence in space-time in the first place.  In other words, the "often/many times" might refer to the wondering, rather than to the contemplative union that was so regular and invariable an occurrence in his practice as to be taken for granted, that happened every day, every time he sat in contemplation, it just being that often he would later wonder or think about it, but not always, just practicing it and assuming it the other times.  Further, a statement of Porphyry's in the Life just before the "four times"sentence supports and, in fact, makes obvious my interpretation of the latter, contra the professors and as confirmed by the beginning of 4.8.  (I don’t know why this statement is usually ignored in the interpretation of the “four times” sentence.)  Here is a quick, rough, off the cuff rendering of my own:  

"And thus most of all to this godlike man many times/often bringing himself to the first and transcendent God in reflection and according to the ways having been expounded in the Symposium by Plato, that God appeared who has neither shape nor any aspect, but is seated above nous and all the noetical."

This seems to me at least to clearly say that Porphyry himself thought that Plotinus regularly realized the One/Good in contemplation and that this was a regular practice of his, not just something attained only "four times", and supports my interpretation of the Greek of the "four times" statement that Porphyry is only saying there that he happened to be physically in the same room, for whatever reason, with Plotinus four time when this happened, not at all that it was restricted to just those four times and was not a regular occurence and practice for Plotinus.  Presumably, Plotinus did his daily contemplation alone by himself, as is only to be expected and is only proper, but Porphyry happened to barge in on him in contemplation those four times.

 

Why do people think they are Buddhists, Platonists, etc. when they don't do anything or change their behavior?

 Q. I wanted to bring something up; a few calls ago we talked about 'Buddhists' who don't follow a vegetarian regime and you commented that you would say 'they aren't really Buddhists'.  This is a sentiment I concur with, but I was wondering why most people don't see this kind of connection?  The question arises because if someone says they are a piano player one infers that they regularly play the piano.  If someone says they play poker, we assume that means that they sit down with others and play poker.  If someone says they are a gardener, again we assume that they spend time planting, trimming, and cultivating plants.  

 

So why do people not assume that there is a specific behavioral component when it comes to following a spiritual tradition?  When it comes to spirituality people do not infer that there are specific behavioral commitments that they follow.  Your view that unless someone is a vegetarian they are not really a Buddhist is similar to saying that unless someone actually plays a piano they are not a piano player.  

 

In the realm of spirituality it seems that people consider spirituality to mean only dealing with the realm of ideas; it would be like someone saying that they are a baseball player because they like to watch baseball games.  Such a person is a baseball fan, but not a baseball player.  Similarly, someone who does not enter into the behavioral component of Buddhism might be a 'fan' of Buddhism, but they are not a Buddhist.  

 

In Platonism, almost all Platonists today are what I would consider to be 'fans' of Platonism, but not Platonists.  They might accept the view of actually existing ideas, but unless they instantiate behavioral components I would not consider that to be sufficient.  I base that on the necessity of purification for experiencing higher hypostases.

 

I'm not sure why this kind of separation exists in religion, philosophy, and spirituality and I wonder if others have observed this dichotomy.  Perhaps it is a feature of modernity.  I'm not sure.

 

A.  I have certainly also observed the same peculiar phenomena that you wonder about.  I believe that the observation you refer to was actually made in the context of discussion of people who profess to be Buddhists but don’t abstain from alcohol, but, of course, it applies equally well to vegetarianism and other required behaviors.  (Somewhat related, you will recall that just recently  I wrote that I couldn't understand how people could profess to adopt the weltanschauung of one or more of these systems and read all the time about it, but not establish a meditation or sadhana practice--not to mention making the necessary behavioral changes.)  I don't really know if it is worse or more common in modernity than in traditional times (though it wouldn't surprise me--everything being worse and more adverse in modernity), nor can I necessarily off hand identify any particular circumstantial factors.  Really, though, whether proximal environmental factors can be identified or not, I think it is the nature of samsara and the cause is ultimately the deluded souls of most people, the obscuration of their knowing, wisdom, and vision by being sunk in the body and "matter" (hule or, as the Greek is more often incorrectly transliterated, hyle), and their heavy karma.  Your analogies are quite good, and I have used similar ones myself in the past in trying, futilely, to remonstrate with silly pseudo-Buddhists and the like, but perhaps it is not surprising or is only to be expected that people, deluded beings/souls, would have more clarity regarding such worldly activities and things that are only the pursuit of worldly desires--after all, their darkened, twisted souls are already turned entirely in that direction, towards the darkness of the sensory world and worldliness--than they do about spiritual matters and what it means to understand and embrace and practice them.  To understand and implement these latter requires turning their souls at least a little towards the light and reality, which is just the opposite of how they are turned now, and requires resisting and loosening from their heavy deluded karma and the bodily and material obscuration of their souls.  The dim eyes of their soul can better see the darkness of worldly desires and activities, but are quite blind when trying to look at the light of spiritual matters in the direction of actual being and reality.  Such, again, is the nature of samsara.  To understand what it means to be a piano or baseball player doesn't require much more than looking at and guessing about the shadows on the cave wall.  To understand what it means to be a Buddhist or Platonist--let alone to do it--requires at least a little start to loosening of the bonds and turning the head towards the light.  To understand about worldly matters and activities only requires deluded base worldly cleverness.  To understand about spiritual matters requires lightening of karma, depends on the closeness or distance of the soul from the Good, regardless of mundane logic or reasoning, even though it seems so clear to us.  Since, in general, most souls are more deluded and have heavier karma now in modernity, which is essentially for most people a rebirth in one of the lower sub-human type realms, it may be then that perhaps this weird phenomenon is more common now than in the past.

 

I hope this helps at least somewhat with your wondering about the issue.  Alas, as I always lament, for me at least, our circumstances being alone or so few among all these crazy deluded vulgar worldly souls is really scary, like the human being fallen in among wild beasts in the analogy in Book 6 of the Politiea.

 

A Q. and A. on the Dialectic and Analogical Reasoning

 Q.  To better understand how Plato thought, I want to learn more about how the Greeks in general thought about metaphor and analogy.  Plato's philosophical style I characterize as heavily analogical. The way the dialectic in general unfolds is never linear or logical.  What are your thoughts?  Are there any texts on analogical reasoning that can help me get a better grasp on the dialectic?

 

 

A.  I’m afraid that this is one that I can't help much with.  I don't know of any texts on analogical reasoning, and have never looked for any such, nor any works on the way the Greeks in general used metaphor and analogy since, again, I have never looked for or been interested in such.  I don't know how many of my works you have read or watched on my internet venues, but you will see that I view Platonism and Plato's own teaching as spiritual teaching for the contemplative ascetic practice and ascent, not as 'thinking' or 'thought' in the modern sense or the modern idea of 'philosophy'.  The dialectic is not a matter of discursive thinking or reasoning based on sense data, but rather is the contemplative ascetic practice of placing the soul in direct contact with Nous and the Forms therein in meditation/contemplation.  The purpose of the 'dialectic' in the dialogs and the 'reasoning' in the Enneads is to facilitate this and help prepare the mind and soul for being able, after long great effort both in asceticism and contemplation/meditation, to make the ascent and enter this condition of contact with and assimilation to Nous, the Divine Mind-Thought--to enter the 'dialectical samadhi', as it were, to borrow a Sanskrit word from the Indian and derivative systems.  (In general, by far, I think, the closest analogies or systems most useful for the Platonic practitioner for comparison are the Indian origin systems of certain schools of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, rather than Aristotelianism or the later modern Western systems of 'philosophy' based solely on thinking about things without yogic practice.)  I have, if it is of any help, translated, quite literally, Plotinus' (short) Ennead 1.3, On Dialectic at my internet venues and in my book.  I don't know if you have a translation of Plotinus/the Enneads, but some of the more accessible Enneads, such as 5.1, 1.6, and 6.9 might be helpful to you in general, along with the Phaedo, as I have mentioned, and the core books of the Republic, which add more explicitly about the Good/One to the teaching of the Phaedo.  Today, I was rereading Ennead 1.6, On Beauty, in Greek, as I have many times, and was particularly struck by the statement, "But wisdom is the mental act in turning away from the things below and bringing the soul towards the things above."  That is, it is principally and authentically attained in contemplation turning the soul away from the senses and their objects and towards the higher hypostases.  And to do this requires renunciant and ascetic practice and this is as necessary as thinking to understand how things are and Plato's teaching.  Just as an example, as incomprehensible as it may be to most moderns and particularly professor types, being a vegetarian/vegan is as essential to being able to understand Plato as any degree of knowledge of later 'philosophical' systems or historical knowledge!