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The Age of the Sages
By setting traditions and thinkers such as Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha, and Confucius and others side by side, we are able to see more clearly the questions with which they struggled, their similarities and differences, and how their ideas have influenced religious thought down to our day.
224 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2013
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About the author
Mark W. Muesse
14 books19 followersMark William Muesse is an American philosopher, theologian, and teacher. Muesse was born in Waco, Texas and attended University High School. He received a B.A. in English, summa cum laude, from Baylor University and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 15, 2021
The Axial Age refers to the pivotal period from roughly 800 to 300 BCE when there was a blossoming of new religious and philosophical thought in Greece, Palestine, Persia, India and China. Especially remarkable is the cross-cultural transformation of thinking about man's role in the universe, with apparently very little actual direct cultural contact. I've had an interest in this period for years, kindled by reading Gore Vidal's excellent Creation back when I was in school. Muesse has created a very good overview of the history, people and key texts of the Axial Age in Asia and the Near East. Seems like it would make a great companion book to an overview course on the history of religious and philosophical development. Engaging and straightforward reading, he does an excellent job of summarizing the core beliefs of the various philosophies without resorting to a lot of obtuse metaphysics. I thought he did an especially good job here clarifying Buddhist philosophy and teaching.
This text limited itself to the Eastern and Near Eastern philosophies of Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism. I guess it is pretty challenging to cover everything in such a big topic, but I really wish he would have included the Mediterranean developments of the Hebraic prophets, and classical Greek philosophy from the same period. Perhaps that is for another volume? Also, while it is striking how much similarity there was in some of the ideas that developed during this time, he tends to discuss them somewhat in silos, and doesn't spend a lot of time addressing the intriguing question of why and how this explosion of thought occurred across so many cultures almost simultaneously.
Muesse's summarizing thought:
"Against the cheap grace propounded by many modern religious institutions, the teachers of the Axial Age extolled the necessity of hard work and self-discipline in matters of virtue. Simply expecting humaneness to appear because it may be innate to our nature or because we think we ought to be nicer to others is insufficient. Whether compassion and mindfulness are intrinsic to what we are, as the Buddha and Mencius thought, or are qualities that must be formed out of an inchoate nature, as Xunzi believed, the Axial Age thinkers all considered specific practices to be essential to becoming good and happy people. What our world still has not learned is that the disciplined cultivation of compassion and wisdom must become the central pursuit of our lives. "
Some of the core ideas:
- The Axial Age was the historical moment in which the “self” makes its appearance. Prior to the axial period, human beings did not experience themselves as autonomous individuals with agency and moral responsibility in the way most of us now do. The Axial Age marked a turn in the way human beings thought about being human.
- There was a general shift in religious function from cosmic maintenance to personal transformation in the Axial Age. We have the development of the idea that humans actually had a destiny beyond this life. Pre-axial religion focused on praise of the gods and performance of rituals. During the Axial Age, focus shifted to analysis of humans and systematic self-understanding.
- Pre-axial - time was mostly viewed as cyclical, repeating itself, but ultimately going nowhere. During this period, a more linear view of time developed, where cosmic history has a beginning, middle and end.
- Pre-axial - individual destiny was rarely thought to be determined by moral decisions. Zoroaster was the first to believe that one's final end as a human being depended on your choice to follow good or evil. That humans had the freedom to make this choice and were accountable for the choice they made. Seems like this probably influenced the Genesis story.
Buddhism:
- Because the Buddha viewed truth as liberating, it is not enough for a belief or idea to be “merely” reasonable. According to him, a view or belief must be tested by the results it yields when put into practice. The Buddha would have us ask: Does this belief accord with reality, and is it conducive to one’s own and others’ happiness and freedom? This is a form of what philosophers call the pragmatic criterion of truth. - Seems like we have been seriously veering away from that paradigm in recent years.
- The Buddha encouraged his followers to subject their beliefs and ideas to rigorous personal testing and not to accept anything—even the Buddha’s own teaching—on the mere basis of authority, antiquity, or rationality.
- The soul or self is simply an illusion, an unsubstantiated belief. Yet it certainly seems real, and most of the time we act as if it were real. We can compare the Buddha’s view of self to the appearance of a rainbow. A rainbow is not a substantial reality in the way it appears. It is an optical illusion, created by the convergence of various conditions including sunlight, moisture in the air, and the physical position of the observer. When these conditions change, the rainbow disappears. No one can ever reach the end of a rainbow, because the observer’s position will change, and the illusion will dissipate. To the Buddha, the atman is the same thing: an illusion supported by various changing conditions. This is why no one is able to identify or pinpoint the essential self.
- To believe in a real self sets in motion a series of thoughts, words, and deeds that precipitate anguish, misery, and disappointment. When I think this “self” is ultimately real, rather than a habitual construct of the imagination, I begin to identify with it and make it the center of the universe.
- “Simply stated, nirvana is the end of suffering. It is the point at which one stops craving for reality to be other than it is. It is the radical acceptance of the way things are.”
- Unbridled sense of self leads to devastating consequences for the individual, society, and the world. The solution: practice self-awareness and compassion.
Confucius/Daoism:
- Confucius believed that the key to human harmony—that fundamental aspiration of the dozens of philosophers of this age—lay in good government and, even more pointedly, in the moral character of the ruler and other public servants. Moral behavior must begin at the top, and from there, virtue trickles down, as it were, to the lower rungs of society. - How is that working out for us?
- “When you understand something, to recognize that you understand it; but when you do not understand something, to recognize that you do not understand it—that is wisdom.” -- Confucius. Sounds very Socratic.
- One of the major themes of the Axial Age religions: Happiness has nothing to do with wealth, recognition, or comfort but everything to do with righteousness.
- Extremely interesting chapter in the Tao Te Ching. Think about things in a different way, not in terms of what is there, but what is not there. Four walls, a ceiling, and a floor form the boundaries of the room. The room is actually the empty space within the boundaries. The true usefulness of the room is its emptiness.
- Daoist art, revered the warped, twisted, imperfect, indistinct, impermanent, and asymmetrical. Like the metaphor of emptiness, the Daoist aesthetic was intended to challenge ordinary perceptions and modes of thinking. The strategy was subtly subversive because it drew attention to the fact that values were human constructions and not necessarily absolute, and perhaps not necessarily the best we are capable of.
Some interesting quotes:
- “The soul never thinks without an image.” - Aristotle. Most religious people need symbols and words to guide their spirits.
- “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” - T.S. Eliot. We are constantly seeking new ways to put our vulnerabilities out of mind.
This text limited itself to the Eastern and Near Eastern philosophies of Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism. I guess it is pretty challenging to cover everything in such a big topic, but I really wish he would have included the Mediterranean developments of the Hebraic prophets, and classical Greek philosophy from the same period. Perhaps that is for another volume? Also, while it is striking how much similarity there was in some of the ideas that developed during this time, he tends to discuss them somewhat in silos, and doesn't spend a lot of time addressing the intriguing question of why and how this explosion of thought occurred across so many cultures almost simultaneously.
Muesse's summarizing thought:
"Against the cheap grace propounded by many modern religious institutions, the teachers of the Axial Age extolled the necessity of hard work and self-discipline in matters of virtue. Simply expecting humaneness to appear because it may be innate to our nature or because we think we ought to be nicer to others is insufficient. Whether compassion and mindfulness are intrinsic to what we are, as the Buddha and Mencius thought, or are qualities that must be formed out of an inchoate nature, as Xunzi believed, the Axial Age thinkers all considered specific practices to be essential to becoming good and happy people. What our world still has not learned is that the disciplined cultivation of compassion and wisdom must become the central pursuit of our lives. "
Some of the core ideas:
- The Axial Age was the historical moment in which the “self” makes its appearance. Prior to the axial period, human beings did not experience themselves as autonomous individuals with agency and moral responsibility in the way most of us now do. The Axial Age marked a turn in the way human beings thought about being human.
- There was a general shift in religious function from cosmic maintenance to personal transformation in the Axial Age. We have the development of the idea that humans actually had a destiny beyond this life. Pre-axial religion focused on praise of the gods and performance of rituals. During the Axial Age, focus shifted to analysis of humans and systematic self-understanding.
- Pre-axial - time was mostly viewed as cyclical, repeating itself, but ultimately going nowhere. During this period, a more linear view of time developed, where cosmic history has a beginning, middle and end.
- Pre-axial - individual destiny was rarely thought to be determined by moral decisions. Zoroaster was the first to believe that one's final end as a human being depended on your choice to follow good or evil. That humans had the freedom to make this choice and were accountable for the choice they made. Seems like this probably influenced the Genesis story.
Buddhism:
- Because the Buddha viewed truth as liberating, it is not enough for a belief or idea to be “merely” reasonable. According to him, a view or belief must be tested by the results it yields when put into practice. The Buddha would have us ask: Does this belief accord with reality, and is it conducive to one’s own and others’ happiness and freedom? This is a form of what philosophers call the pragmatic criterion of truth. - Seems like we have been seriously veering away from that paradigm in recent years.
- The Buddha encouraged his followers to subject their beliefs and ideas to rigorous personal testing and not to accept anything—even the Buddha’s own teaching—on the mere basis of authority, antiquity, or rationality.
- The soul or self is simply an illusion, an unsubstantiated belief. Yet it certainly seems real, and most of the time we act as if it were real. We can compare the Buddha’s view of self to the appearance of a rainbow. A rainbow is not a substantial reality in the way it appears. It is an optical illusion, created by the convergence of various conditions including sunlight, moisture in the air, and the physical position of the observer. When these conditions change, the rainbow disappears. No one can ever reach the end of a rainbow, because the observer’s position will change, and the illusion will dissipate. To the Buddha, the atman is the same thing: an illusion supported by various changing conditions. This is why no one is able to identify or pinpoint the essential self.
- To believe in a real self sets in motion a series of thoughts, words, and deeds that precipitate anguish, misery, and disappointment. When I think this “self” is ultimately real, rather than a habitual construct of the imagination, I begin to identify with it and make it the center of the universe.
- “Simply stated, nirvana is the end of suffering. It is the point at which one stops craving for reality to be other than it is. It is the radical acceptance of the way things are.”
- Unbridled sense of self leads to devastating consequences for the individual, society, and the world. The solution: practice self-awareness and compassion.
Confucius/Daoism:
- Confucius believed that the key to human harmony—that fundamental aspiration of the dozens of philosophers of this age—lay in good government and, even more pointedly, in the moral character of the ruler and other public servants. Moral behavior must begin at the top, and from there, virtue trickles down, as it were, to the lower rungs of society. - How is that working out for us?
- “When you understand something, to recognize that you understand it; but when you do not understand something, to recognize that you do not understand it—that is wisdom.” -- Confucius. Sounds very Socratic.
- One of the major themes of the Axial Age religions: Happiness has nothing to do with wealth, recognition, or comfort but everything to do with righteousness.
- Extremely interesting chapter in the Tao Te Ching. Think about things in a different way, not in terms of what is there, but what is not there. Four walls, a ceiling, and a floor form the boundaries of the room. The room is actually the empty space within the boundaries. The true usefulness of the room is its emptiness.
- Daoist art, revered the warped, twisted, imperfect, indistinct, impermanent, and asymmetrical. Like the metaphor of emptiness, the Daoist aesthetic was intended to challenge ordinary perceptions and modes of thinking. The strategy was subtly subversive because it drew attention to the fact that values were human constructions and not necessarily absolute, and perhaps not necessarily the best we are capable of.
Some interesting quotes:
- “The soul never thinks without an image.” - Aristotle. Most religious people need symbols and words to guide their spirits.
- “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” - T.S. Eliot. We are constantly seeking new ways to put our vulnerabilities out of mind.
January 1, 2020
This is a brilliant book that clearly shares with the reader the way many Eastern religions and movements became established, evolved and transformed within the nations and within the ages. A reader is able to understand clearly the origins of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism and Daoism. A person can understand how and when some of the various variations in the movements have taken place over the ages. The reader is actually taken on the historical journey of each of the religions and the movements that shaped them. This is a book that is ideal for a person searching for greater understanding, a class that is seeking a general overview of the formation of these religions, and a reference for gaining quick understanding of these religious movements.
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