Leonardo Vittorio Arena
q:it:Leonardo Vittorio Arena (born in 1953) is an Italian philosopher, historian of religions, orientalist and essayist.
Quotes
[edit]- The right-thinking are irritated by the nonconformist's lack of predictability, even by his occasional failure to show himself as such.
- Il sogno della farfalla: incursioni nel non pensiero, Edizioni Pendragon, 2003, p. 113. ISBN 88-8342-220-1
Buddha
[edit]- Leonardo Vittorio Arena, Buddha, Tascabili Economici Newton, Roma, 1996. ISBN 88-8183-394-8
- The Buddha was a proponent of simple, direct teaching aimed at liberation and free of theoretical frills: his intent was purely pragmatic. His distrust of various speculative positions, which could be reduced to mere opinions, is well known. (p. 26)
- If one wanted to summarise the essence of Buddhism in one sentence, it could only be this: everything that is transient is painful.
In fact, after all, suffering (“”dukkha“”) is nothing more than transience. (p. 27) - The Doctrine (“”Dhamma“”) allows one to attain a state in which suffering can no longer take root, because one embraces eternity. “”nibbàna“”, liberation, is nothing more than this imperishable state, removed from the becoming of things. (p. 27)
- After all, “'nibbàna”' is not a concept: this is why attempts to illustrate it through language and logic lend themselves to various misunderstandings. Some Buddhists understand it literally: as a state of “extinction”, comparable to the extinguishing of a flame. Yet the Buddha often criticised proponents of the nihilistic interpretation: “nibbàna” should not be conceived as pure nothingness. [...] It does not designate the abyss of a void, nor a worldly dimension comparable to those that exist: it can simply be said that pain is definitively eliminated there. (pp. 72-73)
- [The Buddha] advised bhikkhus to be an island (“'dìpa”') or a refuge for themselves. After his passing, their only support or bulwark would be the Dhamma. His legitimate successors would ultimately be only those who had managed to take refuge in the Dhamma, that is, in themselves. (p. 75)
- The Master wanted to provoke our critical spirit so that, by studying his doctrine, we could probe ourselves. [...] In Great Vehicle Buddhism, the need for such an orientation was recognised. For example, an important passage from a collection of Ch'an, a school of Chinese Buddhism, points to the need to free oneself from attachment to the Dhamma as well. Until one forgets even the Dharma, one still cultivates a sense of self, that is, the illusion of constituting a separate individuality in relation to other creatures. One becomes attached to a vision, an opinion, and is incapable of uniting, in perfect compassion, with all beings. (p. 88)
Foreword and comment ot Yogasutra
[edit]- Patañjali, Yogasutra, a cura di Leonardo Vittorio Arena, BUR, Milano, 2014. ISBN 978-88-17-07586-2
- Patañjali, or whoever wrote on his behalf, seems to follow a “Kantian” line of thought: it is necessary to understand that knowledge is attributable to a subject; but this activity is not creative, and must take into account an objectively existing world. (pp. 10-11)
- In Yoga there is a precise correspondence between theory and practice. This is far from the case with those European philosophers who admired India, such as Schopenhauer, who limited himself to ethical indications, while Yoga goes into the details of a method of the body and mind, of consciousness. (p. 17)
- Yoga implies objectless subjectivism, calling into question the transpersonal components of being. The self, the centre of an identity that is not only ours, is naked. (p. 44)
- The entire work is a treatise on perception, on optimal cognitive modes that replace erroneous ones. (p. 55)