by Tang Huyen

Stoicism and Daoism share a basic orientation with the Buddha's teaching, namely non-resistance — and if that is practiced, it will lead to the ending of suffering, regardless whether the practitioner has ever heard of Buddhism or not.

"True teaching" or "true method" would translate sad-dharma, as in the title of the Lotus.

The Buddha heartily dismisses the teachings that are current in his time and place as useless
and worse than useless, and in many places in the early canon claims that only his teaching
can lead to the ending of suffering.

I think that Stoicism and Daoism share a basic orientation (a basic expedient means) with the
Buddha's teaching, namely non-resistance, and that if that is practiced, it will lead to the
ending of suffering, regardless whether the practitioner has ever heard of Buddhism or not.

By the way, non-resistance is very badly practiced on these boards, as people who are
supposed to be experts at Buddhist cultivation with years and decades of Buddhist cultivation
under their belt blow up all over when criticised and put up strenuous resistance to
criticisms, real or imagined, which consist of mere words on the screen. Whatever it is that
they practice will not lead to the ending of suffering.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on January 29, 2005, in a thread on expedient means. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

A compact post making a large claim: that the functional core of the Buddha's teaching — non-resistance, the willingness to receive without pushing away — is not unique to Buddhism. Tang Huyen locates the same basic orientation in Stoicism and Daoism, and argues that its practice leads to the ending of suffering regardless of the practitioner's tradition. Sad-dharma is glossed from the title of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka (Lotus Sutra of the True Dharma), grounding the cross-traditional point in the Mahāyāna's own terminology for what is ultimately real in a teaching. The closing behavioral test is characteristically blunt: the proof of cultivation is not technical mastery but equanimity under criticism — a test most practitioners fail.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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