The Age of the Sages

by Mark W Muesse

  These examples remind us that distinctions between religions and other aspects of culture cannot always be sharply drawn. The Chinese and Indian kings employed astrologers and sages as state officials. Daoist thought was the basis for Chinese medicine. Greek aesthetic ideals shaped the first anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha. It is not really until modernity that religion and the rest of culture came to be thought of as sharply separated. That dichotomy, our study proves, is clearly misguided.

  Nor should we think of religions as isolated from one another. They constantly interact in positive and negative ways. The negative ways that religions interact—crusades, pogroms, jihads—are quite familiar, but the constructive dimensions of those interactions are less well known. Our study of the Axial Age has brought to light some of the creative aspects of interreligious encounter. Daoism developed in dialogue with Confucianism, and Buddhism in dialogue with what came to be called Hinduism. Both Daoism and Buddhism adopted many of the ideas and practices of their counterparts and reinterpreted and rejected others. Then, centuries later, the encounter of Buddhism and Daoism helped produce another form of spirituality, Ch’an (or Zen, to use its better-known Japanese name).

  It is also evident that different religions functioned differently in different cultures. Not only was there a general shift in religious function from cosmic maintenance to personal transformation in the Axial Age; we have also seen how different axial religions functioned differently within their societies. Throughout much of South Asia, Buddhists have relied on the teachings of the Buddha to guide them toward the ultimate goal of release from samsara, but these same Buddhists prayed to the gods of Hinduism for everyday favors such as healing and protection from evil. A Chinese bureaucrat might have practiced Confucianism during his work hours and come home to enjoy life as a Daoist. Recognizing the ways that different religions affect an individual’s life differently challenges our modern Western ways of thinking about religions as being mutually exclusive of one another. A principal identification with one religious perspective is no reason a person cannot participate in some fashion in other religions.

  This fact, which we observed in the Axial Age, still has contemporary resonance. In India today, some Hindus worship at the tombs of Muslim saints, and some Muslims celebrate the Hindu and Jain festival of Diwali. One Hindu acquaintance of mine, an immigrant to the United States, began to attend a local Roman Catholic church to worship her goddess through the church’s image of the Virgin Mary when there was no Hindu temple in her area. In the West, we are now seeing an increasing incorporation of features from other religions into some forms of Christianity and Judaism. A growing number of churches and synagogues in Europe and North America have begun to offer courses in yoga, tai chi, and meditation, although they tend to downplay the religious connections of these disciplines by calling them “exercise,” “relaxation,” and “stress reduction” classes. It is inevitable that we will continue to see more of this kind of borrowing between religions in the future. Whether such appropriation will have an effect on the substantive aspects of Christianity and other religions that have traditionally tried to remain exclusive is yet to be seen. But sharing ideas and practices among religions is a fact of history.

  The Theology of the Axial Age

  To begin our examination of the theological importance of the Axial Age, let us review the dynamics of this era in broad strokes. As these driving impulses come into greater relief, we begin to see the lessons of the Axial Age that we are still learning to learn, as well as the ways this epoch fails to speak to us.

  As we have seen, 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 did indeed mark a turn in the way human beings thought about being human. Of course, this change in thinking did not occur all at once. There were intimations of individual selfhood in very rare instances in the preaxial period, but in the Axial Age, the experience of the self became increasingly common in the axial centers. That the sense of selfhood was becoming more extensive is reflected in the way certain sages democratized spiritual attainment. The Buddha and Mahavira, in particular, contended that perfection and liberation were possible for anyone, not simply the men of upper castes, as had traditionally been assumed. And although Confucius oriented his teachings toward the ruling elites and thought the abilities of common people were rather limited, he nonetheless believed that ordinary folk had an important role in fostering the harmony of family and society. He even welcomed into his school men of all social and economic classes, provided they were passionate about learning. The movement toward spiritual equality was reflected in the debate surrounding the true meaning of nobility. Against the tide of their culture’s history, the Indian shramanas, the Buddha, Mahavira, and Confucius all argued that nobility was not a matter of birth but of spiritual quality.

  Yet as the sense of self became more widespread, it also became more problematic. Human self-consciousness brought with it a feeling of greater freedom as well as greater responsibility. Both aspects of selfhood were reflected in new conceptual developments of the axial sages. Zoroaster’s call for people to choose between the principle of good and the powers of evil assumed that humans had the freedom to make this choice and that they were accountable for the choice they made. The doctrine of karma, espoused by all the Indian sages presented here, was based on this same principle of freedom and accountability. Karma implied that everything the individual did, thought, or said could be significant. That fact could promote a sense of liberating power through knowing that one’s destiny is in one’s own hands, or it could generate a tremendous feeling of burden through knowing that one’s destiny is in one’s own hands! The Confucian discipline of moral self-cultivation also assumed this fundamental dynamic of freedom and responsibility. As individual persons, the axial sages tell us, we can and should behave morally because our welfare as individuals and the welfare of society depend on it.

  To say that the self becomes a problem, however, means more than simply a greater sense of responsibility and the burden that entails. The problem of the self is also its imperialism, the tendency to imagine that one’s self is at the center of the world and has the right to arrogate unto itself whatever it pleases. This egocentrism was a vital concern of every axial sage we have encountered, and each one of them proposed a solution. This fundamental concern accounts for why the basic function of religion during this era (as well as in the postaxial age) is characterized as personal transformation. The self-centered individual poses a problem that requires some manner of change. Zoroaster saw the problem of the self in the lawlessness of the drujvants, the ones whose arrogance led them to follow the god of the Lie and slay other human beings to gain wealth and power. His solution was for people to orient their lives to the power of good, which involved subordinating oneself to will of Ahura Mazda.

  In the Upanishads, acting out of selfish desires with attachment to the results of one’s actions created the negative karma that kept one bound to incessant reincarnation. One of the solutions offered for this problem of selfhood was identifying with a “higher” sense of self, that is, with Brahman or the atman. In so doing, one could overcome the fears and attachments that resulted from regarding the self as a transient body, an unstable mind, or a separate and lonely individual by recasting the self as eternal and consubstantial with ultimate reality. While the Buddha saw virtually the same problems in selfhood that the Upanishadic sages did, his solution was not to create a larger, more permanent sense of self but to eliminate the concept of selfhood altogether. “Self,” he said, is an illusion and an unwholesome way of thinking about human life. He promoted a comprehensive slate of practices for eradicating the misapprehension of separate selfhood that was at the root of all suffering.

  The Chinese thinkers also had concerns with the self. Confucius advo
cated “subduing the self,” that is, not destroying the sense of self altogether but subordinating its wishes to the welfare of the greater human community. His practices of li were specifically tailored to instill the virtues of reverence, humility, and gratitude. Daoism fostered an even greater form of self-effacement. “Blending into the world” was the Daoist ideal. Although philosophical Daoism was essentially an individualist religion, especially as it was interpreted by Zhuangzi, its ideal was a greatly diminished sense of self. The Daoist sage was one who gave up all attempts to control the world and society and tried to let go and let be, trusting in the way of nature.

  If there is anything on which one could say the Axial Age religions seemed to agree, it may be this point: that an unbridled sense of self leads to devastating consequences for the individual, society, and the world. And although they proposed many different ways of understanding and addressing this concern, the response of the axial sages seems equally unanimous: practice self-awareness and compassion.

  Ironically perhaps, the axial teachers contended that a central component of relinquishing self-centeredness was attaining greater self-consciousness. One of the hallmarks of the Axial Age, especially in South and East Asia, was the development and refinement of practices intended to enhance awareness of interior experience. The meditative techniques of the Indian shramanas, the Buddha, and Mahavira, as well as the contemplative exercises of Confucianists and Daoists, are perhaps the clearest instances of this inward turn. Yet the same focus on interiority is witnessed in the traditions that emphasized ritual. Whereas the early Indo-Aryans concentrated on the outward dimensions of their rites, in the later Vedas, we find a growing concern with the sacrificer’s mental state and self-consciousness. Throughout their teachings, the axial sages urged methodical and disciplined activity oriented toward discovering the truth about the self.

  The quest for self-understanding was always coupled in the minds of the axial sages with the practice of compassionate behavior. Buddhism identified wisdom (the virtue of seeing things as they are) and compassion (willing the happiness of all beings) as the two wings of the tradition. The great Sage of China put it this way: “The humane person, wanting to establish himself, helps others establish themselves, and wanting to be successful, helps others to be successful. Taking one’s own feelings as a guide may be called the method of humaneness.”[1] Knowing oneself is the essential guide to the exercise of compassion. And compassion, we learn from the sages, is the way we keep our overweening self in check. Not only does compassion rein in our selfish desires through thoughts and acts of generosity, but when compassion is self-directed—as the axial teachers said it must be—we cultivate the quality of humility, because we understand that the self-centered life is an unhappy one.

  Insights of the Axial Age for Today

  The sages of the Axial Age forged and taught their wisdom in a time of great cultural and social turmoil, not unlike our own turbulent era. In the face of change and uncertainty, conflict and dissension, they professed a vision of mindfulness and humaneness. For us today, this message is more relevant than ever.

  Although their message of compassionate and mindful virtue was revolutionary for its time, few today would take issue with it. Since our lives have been decisively shaped by the insights of axial thinkers, it is not surprising that we take much of their teachings as normative. Yet though we profess admiration for the qualities of self-awareness and humaneness, what our times lack is a broad and deeply rooted commitment to their cultivation. “Know thyself.” “Love thy neighbor.” We believe in these precepts, but we find it difficult to practice them. What the ancient teachers tell us is that accepting the truth of the message is merely the first step on the long path of implementation and perfection. We have taken the first step, no doubt. Yet after more than two thousand years, we still falter as we try to tread the way of virtue. Perhaps because religion in the modern age has too often become a matter of intellectual assent to beliefs about god, we find it too difficult to practice virtue in the dedicated and risky fashion taught by the sages millennia ago. Perhaps we have been so schooled in the theology of salvation by faith that we have wrongly concluded that deeds have little place in our spirituality.

  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. Yet more than simply urging us to nurture virtue, they showed us how. Our study has revealed a wellspring of techniques that can be appropriated in modern life. What our world still has not learned is that the disciplined cultivation of compassion and wisdom must become the central pursuit of our lives.

  Yet while the axial sages were on the mark with this insight, their teachings were not complete, and we would be wrong to think that the lessons of this era contain everything needed to bring happiness to the modern world. For in the transition to the Axial Age, something profoundly important was lost, and something else had yet to be fully grasped.

  The shift in religious function from cosmic maintenance to personal transformation was a positive change in the sense that human beings no longer needed to shoulder the burden of supplying the gods with food or performing ceremonies in order to keep the sun coming up or the cattle fertile. The downside of relieving this burden, however, was the fact that humans began to lose the sense of needing to collaborate in the maintenance of the world. The turn toward self-transformation ultimately resulted in a loss of concern with keeping the world in good working order. Postaxial humans have generally adopted the attitude that the world can take care of itself, allowing us to do whatever we wish to it and with it. At least now, over the last half century, we have become increasingly aware of the problems caused by such violence to the earth. One lesson to be gained from our study, then, is the need to reincorporate cosmic maintenance into postaxial religion in ways that go beyond preaxial theology and yet strengthen the human sense of connectedness with the natural world.

  Another deficiency of the axial transformation has not become evident until modernity. In the modern era, especially within the last 150 years, human beings have become more sensitive to the corporate dimension of our existence. Due largely in part to the insights of Western social sciences, we have started to appreciate more fully the role of society in shaping human experience. Today, we readily speak of the “social construction of reality” and are more aware than ever of the manner in which structural injustices—racism, sexism, genocide, slavery, economic disparity, global hunger, and the like—perpetuate the unhappiness that the axial sages sought to address. But during their era, these sorts of structural injustices were poorly understood, if at all. The thinker whose ideas seem most attuned to the social dimension of human experience was Confucius. Yet there is nothing in the Analects, for example, to suggest that Confucius had any awareness of the destructive nature of sexism (although he seems fully aware of the problems of economic inequality). We cannot fault the axial sages for not being far enough ahead of their times. But we can recognize that appropriating the message of awareness and compassion must not be limited to the goal of personal transformation alone. Personal discipline is essential, even fundamental, to the insights of the axial sages, yet it must be complemented with the unique discernments of the modern period. It would, in fact, violate the critical spirit of the Axial Age to believe we should adopt the teachings of that era wholesale. The Buddha reminds us never to accept anything as true simply because it is traditional or is professed by well-respected teachers.

  Taking seriously the social dimension of human experience would mean se
eking ways to apply the practices of mindfulness and humaneness in institutional, commercial, and political settings. Perhaps it is time for us to begin to ask ourselves what it would mean to practice compassion at the level of international and national governance. Perhaps it would mean discovering ways to use our educational institutions to teach ways of being more kindhearted and more self-aware. Perhaps businesses and corporations might learn to measure their successes not in terms of profit but in terms of how well they promote universal well-being. The possibilities for imagining humaneness at the corporate and institutional levels are prodigious. But at this moment in history, we have barely begun to explore these opportunities. What is required is an extensive recognition that the virtues of mindfulness and compassion should inform not only personal transformation but social reform as well.

  If axial thinkers seem most closely to converge on the matter of practice, then belief is the area where they seem most sharply to diverge. The Axial Age offered a wide array of ways to conceptualize ultimate reality. Zoroaster taught a theology centered upon one supreme divine being. The Indian shramanas imagined a reality beyond the gods that they called Brahman. The Buddha termed the absolute reality nibbana, and the Chinese called it the Dao or sometimes Heaven. The development of these conceptions was a product of what Eisenstadt calls transcendental consciousness, the effort to grasp the world in a comprehensive sense by reflecting on the powers that might ground and explain it.[2] These transcendental concepts, however, did not necessarily supplant preaxial images of and ideas about the divine. Usually, concepts like Brahman and the Dao simply took their place alongside the more ancient ways of thinking of the divine anthropomorphically or in other forms. Hence, Confucius acknowledged the importance of sacrificing to the gods and ancestors, but he was reticent about them, to the chagrin of some of his protégés. Likewise, the Buddha did not dispute the existence of the devas; he merely thought they were of no benefit for realizing ultimate bliss.