Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

Archive

Volume 6 Number 3, December 2005

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Concepts of Liberation: Schopenhauer between Freud, the Buddha and Idealist Aesthetics.

By

Stephan Atzert

The University of Queensland

Introduction

     In Schopenhauer's philosophy a model of the unconscious is conceptualised, developed into an aesthetic theory and – among other trajectories – set in relation to his appreciation of Indian religious thinking. Despite the fact that Schopenhauer's ideas do not hold a place in the current philosophical canon which would be comparable to that of Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche, they have been very influential. In order to trace the scope as well as the impact of Schopenhauer's model of the unconscious, this article discusses Schopenhauer's reception by Sigmund Freud, as well as parallels between Schopenhauer and Buddhism. The topic of liberation from suffering provides a thematic focus for our enquiry, which ranges from Freud's eclectic use of the term nirvana to Schopenhauerian and Buddhist conceptualisations of liberation and of aesthetic appreciation. It will be shown that Buddhist concepts are helpful to critically understand Schopenhauer's ideas, just as the texts of Schopenhauer serve to historicise Freud's theories. Even though the bases of the two comparisons differ significantly, Schopenhauer's comprehensive and systematic description of the human experience provides their unifying framework.

     Schopenhauer's concepts were a decisive and largely unacknowledged influence on Freud's metapsychology. This will be outlined in “Schopenhauer and Freud”, the next section, followed by a discussion of Freud's use of the term “nirvana principle”, which led de Silva to believe that “in the philosophy of Schopenhauer may be present, a link between Buddhism and Freud” (de Silva, 1973, 187). The second section of this article, “Parallels between Schopenhauer and Buddhism”, takes as its focus Schopenhauer's explanation of liberation from the will, in which he refers to nirvana. In his aesthetic theory, Schopenhauer advocates a certain qualitative similarity of the experiences of aesthetic absorption and spiritual liberation. This assumption inspired many artists, notably Richard Wagner and Thomas Mann. The third section, “Aesthetics and Transcendence”, contrasts this view with Buddhist sources. Where necessary, German sources have been translated by the author.

Schopenhauer and Freud

     As far as psychoanalytic theory is concerned, Schopenhauer critically influenced Sigmund Freud (Becker 1971, Zentner 1995, Gödde 1999). To understand the importance of Schopenhauer for the generation of Freud's mentors, Schopenhauer's very significant impact on the intellectual life of the second half of the 19^th century has to be taken into account. This took place largely outside academic institutions, though Schopenhauer's philosophy had reached some universities by the late 1850s (Abendroth, 1967, 114). Its popularity is evident from the following statement by the German novelist Theodor Fontane, who noted in 1873: "We delve into the depth of Schopenhauer's writings, and will and imagination, instinct and intellect are almost common household terms, even children use them."[1] One reason for this popularity with the general public is Schopenhauer's crisp and accessible literary style. Another reason lies in the fact that Schopenhauer offered a language to describe inner phenomena. Zentner suggests

that the function which today at the end of the 20^th century is served by psychoanalysis was served at the end of the 19^th century by the philosophy of Schopenhauer. What Schopenhauer represented for philosophy then is represented by psychoanalysis today (and by Eastern esoterics): a way of contrasting the pragmatic, rational approach to human nature with our subjective experience consisting of love, desire, aggression, emotions, fantasies and, last not least, the need for transcendence. (Zentner, 1995, XI)[2]

It should also be considered that Schopenhauer employed modern, descriptive methods. His understanding of mental illness, for example, was based on empirical data from a series of meetings and conversations with patients of the Berlin asylum. In an environment dominated by physiological theories of mental illness, this was a very unusual approach (Zentner, 1995, 16f.).

     As stated above, the influence on Freud was exercised largely through his peers (Adler, Lipiner, Paneth) and mentors (Volkelt, Rokitansky, Meynert) in the “Leseverein der deutschen Studenten Wiens”, which Freud joined in 1873 (Zentner, 1995, 161, 165f; Gödde, 1999, 99, 105f). In this “Reading Club of the German Students of Vienna” Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were discussed regularly. Later Schopenhauer's ideas on bisexuality were taken up by Weininger, Fließ and Freud (Zentner, 1995, 231) and his model of madness as a result of psychological repression preempts Freud's discovery (Zentner, 1995, 47). Both Schopenhauer and Freud devised dual models of self (i.e. unconscious and conscious, or Id and Ego in Freud's terminology, Will and Intellect in Schopenhauer's). The following table lists nine of 41 examples from Zentner's comparison between the Will and the Id (Zentner, 1995, 87,88):

     The similarities, evident even in the literary expression, show clearly how decisive Schopenhauer was for Freud's metapsychological theory.

     A specific example of Freud's reception of Schopenhauer's ideas is discussed by de Silva in the appendix to his work Buddhist and Freudian Psychology (1973). There de Silva sets out “to determine the relationship between Freud and Schopenhauer against the backdrop of Buddhist influence on Schopenhauer” (de Silva, 1973, 182), based on Freud's reference to a “nirvana principle” in “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”. Before de Silva's conclusions can be interrogated, it will be necessary to highlight the central points of Freud's essay and their relation to Schopenhauer. “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” was written in 1920, after Freud read Schopenhauer in 1919, as is apparent from a letter to Lou Salome (Freud and Andreas-Salome, 1966, 109). Freud initially concedes that psychoanalytic theory needs to explain why many forces in the psychological life of the individual run counter to the pleasure principle (Freud, 1922, 4). To account for these forces, Freud introduces the term “death drives” [often translated as “death instincts”, S.A.] (Freud, 1922, 63). This concept is based on Freud's understanding that the dynamic pleasure principle seeks an equilibrium; but this signifies a return to a form of stasis, hence stasis must be an expression of an older, primary drive, to which the pleasure principle is subordinate. Freud explains the duality of pleasure principle and death drives as an evolutionary inheritance, based on the conflict between organic and inorganic matter, between dynamic impulse and stasis. At this point he states the similarity of his model to Schopenhauer's: “...thus, without realizing it, we sailed into the harbour of Schopenhauer's philosophy, for whom death is the “result” and thus the purpose of life and the sexual urge the embodiment of the will to live.” (Freud, 1922, 63) The footnote which Freud inserted at this point references Schopenhauer's “Transcendent Speculation on the Apparent Deliberateness in the Fate of the Individual”, the 4^th chapter of his most popular work, Parerga and Paralipomena (1851). In his treatise, Schopenhauer notes that life events often appear significant or purposeful in hindsight (Schopenhauer, 1851, 207). This constitutes the “apparent deliberateness in the fate of the individual”, but the intention is not obvious to the individual at the time. Schopenhauer's tentative explanation suggests that a part of the unconscious mind is aware of the inevitability of death. It therefore arranges fateful events – and particularly the unpleasant ones – to compel the individual away from the identification with the pleasant and the unpleasant, as a preparation for death, in which the individual is severed from all objects (Schopenhauer, 1851, 222). The individual significance of the events in hindsight is really a fallacy: by necessity the unconscious will has to intervene in accordance with the law of cause and effect to manifest in the individual circumstances.

     Both Freud and Schopenhauer seek to explain the purpose of unpleasant experiences, only to arrive at the primordial position of death in relation to life. Atzert's (2005) comparison of the two essays highlights striking similarities in content and argumentative structure, to which a few observations are added here. Freud replicates Schopenhauer's concept of death as an active force, as a momentum  in the unconscious. Apparently he does so without the explicit metaphysical significance accorded to it by Schopenhauer. However, this first impression is inaccurate, because even the metaphysical aspect is retained by Freud in an oblique way: in relation to the death drive Freud uses the term “nirvana principle” (a term coined by Barbara Low for “the struggle for reduction, keeping at a constant level, or removal of the inner stimulus tension.”) (Freud, 1920, 71).  For de Silva this is evidence that Freud's thinking appears to have been “nourished by a drop of alien blood (via the route of ... Schopenhauer)” (de Silva, 1973, 186). But Schopenhauer's essay – while providing important clues for the concept of death drives – does not mention nirvana. The term is found elsewhere in Schopenhauer's work (W I, 1859, 411), but Freud's conflation of death drives and a “nirvana principle” cannot be attributed to Schopenhauer, for whom the “apparent deliberateness” was not a characteristic of nirvana, but an expression of the unconscious will. A vague link – and the only conceptual link possible between a “nirvana principle” and death drives – can be construed, if we suppose that the preparation for death is a preparation for, or results in, nirvana. But this is not made explicit by Schopenhauer and is completely absent in Freud's exposition. The resulting incongruity is noted by de Silva: “The concept of equilibrium can conceptualise some aspects of nirvana, a state free from tension and conflict. On the other hand, as an expression of the death instinct, it can be misleading. Nirvana cannot be described as an inorganic state of pure quiescence.” (de Silva, 1973, 186) De Silva compares Freud's use of the term with its religious significance in Buddhism. But even if we take Schopenhauer as our point of reference, we find the preformation of, on the one hand, the death drives and, on the other hand, of nirvana as a fundamentally different experience. Freud's disjointed use of the term nirvana in the context of death drives may be yet another example of concealed conceptual indebtedness to Schopenhauer, or it may be indicative of Freud's syncretism. But either view calls into question de Silva's overall assessment. In keeping with the simile given by de Silva, it may be more correct to state that there may well be a drop of foreign influence, but one which Freud was not able to assimilate.

     After this discussion of Freud's use of nirvana in the light of Schopenhauer's influence, Schopenhauer's conceptualisation of liberation with be outlined in the next section.

Parallels between Schopenhauer and Buddhism

     Schopenhauer's concept of liberation is inseparable from his notion of the will, which has been mentioned above with reference to Freud's Id and the death drives. Even though descriptive psychological observations form an important aspect of Schopenhauer's work, the will is less a psychological than a metaphysical concept. It is the term Schopenhauer chose to signify the continuous becoming inherent in everything, a "willing" which for the subject has the characteristic of "being willed", as in "being driven". The striving of the individual – the motives and goals of which may vary considerably – is one manifestation of this impersonal drive. But the will is not limited to the subjective experience of the individual. Schopenhauer transposes it onto the world by way of an anthropomorphic projection and states that it is the force at play everywhere in the world: “It is the innermost essence, the kernel, of every particular thing and also of the whole. It appears in every blindly acting force of nature, and in the deliberate conduct of man, and the great difference between the two concerns only the degree of the manifestation, not the inner nature of what is manifested.” (Schopenhauer, 1859, 110)

     For the individual, the subjugation under the blind will inevitably results in suffering.  Therefore Schopenhauer conceives liberation as liberation from the will and takes this to be the true focus of all spiritual practices. He does not prescribe a course of spiritual discipline, but he conceptualises liberation in great detail, both psychologically and philosophically. Psychologically he describes it as an attitude devoid of the conditionings of craving and aversion, as an indifference towards like and dislike:

From this [the elation experienced through pure contemplation of the beautiful, S.A.] we can infer how blessed must be the life of a man whose will is silenced not for a few moments, as in the enjoyment of the beautiful, but for ever, indeed completely extinguished, except for the last glimmering spark that maintains the body and is extinguished with it. Such a man who, after many bitter struggles with his own nature, has at last completely conquered, is then left only as pure knowing being, as the undimmed mirror of the world. Nothing can distress or alarm him any more; nothing can any longer move him; for he has cut all the thousand threads of willing which hold us bound to the world, and which as craving, fear, envy, and anger drag us here and there in constant pain. (Schopenhauer, 1859, 390)

Here Schopenhauer compares an aesthetic experience, to which he refers as the “enjoyment of the beautiful”, with a more lasting positive experience of someone who has “conquered her inner nature”. Liberation is given the attributes of a “pure knowing being” and “undimmed mirror of the world”, but otherwise it is described only negatively, as liberation from “distress”, “alarm”, “craving, fear, envy, and anger”. Schopenhauer repeatedly stresses that the experience of liberation “cannot really be called knowledge, since it no longer has the form of subject and object; moreover, it is accessible only to one's own experience that cannot be further communicated” (Schopenhauer, 1859, 410). Due to this hermetic quality of liberation Schopenhauer insists that its qualities cannot be described:

On the contrary, we freely acknowledge that what remains after the complete abolition of the will is, for all who are still full of the will, assuredly nothing. But also conversely, to those in whom the will has turned and denied itself, this very real world of ours with all its suns and galaxies is – nothing. (Schopenhauer, 1859, 411)

Given that liberation is from the will, it results in nothingness, but only as far as the will is concerned. It is therefore a relative nothingness, rather than an absolute nothingness or annihilation. In the preceding sentence Schopenhauer – with his characteristic lack of modesty – claims to have gone beyond Indian concepts of liberation: “We must not even evade it [nothingness, S.A.], as the Indians do, by myth and meaningless words, such as reabsorption in Brahman, or the Nirvana of the Buddhists.” [emphasis in the original, S.A.] (Schopenhauer, 1859, 411) His concept of liberation from the will enabled him to interpret the term nirvana much more correctly than the Orientalists of his time. In The Buddhist Nirvana and its Western Interpreters, Welbon provides a fascinating account of this aspect of Orientalism. Throughout the 19^th century it was a subject of much scholarly controversy whether nirvana – according to the texts preserved in Tibetan, Sanskrit and Pali [Pali is a middle Indic dialect, S.A.] – was to be regarded as annihilation, everlasting bliss, both or neither. A balanced account of the different descriptions of nirvana in the Pali Canon and an examination “of the nature and significance of the Buddha's reticence” (Welbon, 1968, 140) were provided in 1881 for the first time by Hermann Oldenberg in Der Buddha, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde, 63 years after Schopenhauer wrote The World as Will and Representation. Welbon highlights the accuracy of Schopenhauer's intuitive grasp of nirvana when he comments on Schopenhauer's account of relative nothingness quoted above: “Seldom during the century and a half since those words were written have the meaning of nirvana and the motive forces undergirding classical Indian speculation been approached more closely by Westerners. The parallels between this creative philosophical effort and much of the Indian moksa [spiritual liberation, S.A.] literature are remarkable.” [emphasis in the original, S.A.] (Welbon, 1968, 165) In the Pali Canon were collected the discourses attributed to the Buddha by the Theravada School of Buddhism. In it we find the following definition of nirvana:

There is a sphere of experience that is beyond the entire field of matter, the entire field of mind, that is neither this world nor another world, nor both, neither moon nor sun. This I call neither arising, nor passing away, nor abiding, neither dying nor rebirth. It is without support, without development, without foundation. This is the end of suffering. (from the Udaana Sutta, in: Nyanatiloka, 1987, 106)

Schopenhauer's description of the state of liberation quoted earlier contains obvious parallels to the above excerpt, most notably the insistence on another sphere, which is described negatively, but with an emphasis on the cessation of suffering. But this similarity of Schopenhauer's understanding with the definitions given in the Pali Canon was not necessarily appreciated in Schopenhauer's time. Albrecht Weber, in 1856, interpreted Buddhism primarily as a social reform movement, with a confused metaphysical system that advocated the practice of virtue to achieve annihilation: “And one must ajudge it all [the Buddha's teaching] to be an aberration even though recently in our midst the ingenious but confused philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer has come forth as a new herald of the same thing.” (Weber, in Welbon, 1968, 65) Here it is noteworthy how strongly Schopenhauer was associated with Buddhism. Indeed, Schopenhauer's reception of Indian thought and the parallels between his philosophy, Vedanta and Buddhism have continued to engage – with increasing levels of hermeneutial reflection – Orientalists and Comparativists to the present day (Von Glasenapp 1960, Halbfass 1981, Conze 1967, Dauer 1969, Sedlar 1986, Meyer 1994, Scholz 1996, App 1998, Son 2001, Cross 2003, Berger 2004).

     Another significant parallel between Schopenhauer's philosophy and Buddhism is their ethical foundation, which results from the understanding that there is kinship in universal suffering; this promotes compassion. This ethical component of Schopenhauer's philosophy alone has had a profound influence on German thought, as is evident from the following statement by the social philosopher and founder of the influential Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer:

Schopenhauer's pessimistic teaching is a comfort. In contrast to the convictions today his metaphysics offers the deepest justification of morals. At the same time it is not in conflict with the results of exact investigation and it is free from the supernatural, holy ghosts, good and bad spirits. The notion of death is not associated with the certain extinction of the "I" alone, but with the concern [...] to return as a being, a plant [...] in accordance with the non-extinct desire to live. This notion refers to the identity of all life and enables solidarity with all creatures long before death. (Horkheimer, 1972, 154)[3]

According to Horkheimer, the “deepest justification of morals” lies in the appreciation of the “identity of all life”. Horkheimer's description supports the assessment of the Orientalists and Comparativists listed above and is summarised by Welbon: “In its constant ethical and soteriological drive, Schopenhauer's presentation is in absolute accord with the Buddhist outlook.” (Welbon, 1968, 161) Yet Welbon's reference to Schopenhauer's soteriology is true only if we consider as “constant drive” Schopenhauer's insistence on suffering and the necessity to aspire towards liberation by negation of the will. If soteriology is taken to mean a practical system or a mystical path to achieve liberation, then a fundamental difference between early forms of Buddhism and Schopenhauer becomes apparent: the teachings in the Pali Canon focus on a soteriology, i.e. on a detailed practical discipline. The discursive explanations of numerous points and their later philosophical systematisation are only facets of an essentially contemplative, mystical approach. Schopenhauer's effort, on the other hand, is that of philosophical explanation, even though asceticism and self-torture are referred to as valid means for “negating the will” in the fourth part of The World as Will and Representation. But these crude self-mortifications are more sensibly understood as explicit metaphors for the negation of the will (Neeley, 1994, 123). Schopenhauer sought to provide a consistent explanation of the human experience in the world, not a soteriology or a path of mystical yoga. Indeed, Schopenhauer was convinced that he had provided the one philosophical systematisation which can account for all aspects of human experiences, including those of mysticism and saintliness. However, Schopenhauer does link the concept of liberation from the will to the special role he accords to art, in terms of both production and reception. In fact, Schopenhauer's theory of art contains a more concrete soteriology than his descriptions of ascetic practices. But in that respect Schopenhauer also differs greatly from the teachings of the Buddha. This will be discussed in the next section.

Aesthetics and Transcendence

     Earlier it was stated that Schopenhauer conceptualised liberation as a relative nothingness, not as annihilation. The following passage from The World as Will and Representation, which relates liberation to the appreciation of art, explicitly rejects annihilation:

...instead of the constant transition from desire to apprehension and from joy to sorrow; instead of the never-satisfied and never-dying hope that constitutes the life-dream of the man who wills, we see that peace that is higher than all reason, that ocean-like calmness of the spirit, that deep tranquillity, that unshakeable confidence and serenity, whose mere reflection in the countenance, as depicted by Raphael and Correggio, is a complete and certain gospel. [...] In this way, therefore, by contemplating the life and conduct of saints, to meet with whom is of course rarely granted to us in our own experience, but who are brought to our notice by their recorded history, and vouched for with the stamp of truth by art, we have to banish the dark impression of that nothingness, which as the final goal hovers behind all virtue and holiness, and which we fear as children fear darkness. (Schopenhauer, 1859, 411)

Religious art and hagiography show that the liberation from the will is a positive state, marked by peace and tranquillity. But art does not only reflect that state. According to Schopenhauer, an immersion in the appreciation of art or nature contains a quality similar to that of liberation:

We lose ourselves entirely in this object, to use a pregnant expression; in other words, we forget our individuality, our will, and continue to exist only as pure subject, as clear mirror of the object [...] Thus at the same time, the person who is involved in this perception is no longer an individual, for in such perception the individual has lost himself; he is pure will-less, painless, timeless subject of knowledge [emphasis in the orginal, S.A.]. (Schopenhauer, 1859, 178f.)

The “subject of knowledge” is capable of “will-less or objective knowledge”, the perception of an individual free from the tinge of self-interest. In such moments the idea of an object can be perceived. The idea is a concept taken from Plato, a concept Schopenhauer appropriates and subjugates to his own ends. It refers to “an eternally existing pattern of any class [of phenomena or formations or beings, S.A.], of which the individual members are imperfect copies.” (OSD, 1993, 1303) According to Schopenhauer, various relations may exist between Platonic ideas and the “pure subject of knowledge”, depending on the art form and the inclination of the observer: the main part of the third section of The World as Will and Representation argues that different forms of art represent different levels of abstraction.

     In the context of art as liberation, Schopenhauer's view needs to be emphasised that the aesthetic experience allows only for a brief temporary respite from the will. Schopenhauer even explicitly states that an artist is bound to the world by virtue of this engagement with abstraction:

...all this is due to the fact that, as we shall see later on, the in-itself of life, the will, existence itself, is a constant suffering, and is partly woeful, partly fearful. The same thing, on the other hand, as representation alone, purely contemplated, or repeated through art, free from pain, presents us with a significant spectacle. This purely knowable side of the world and its repetition in any art is the element  of the artist. He is captivated by a consideration of the spectacle of the will's objectification. [...] That pure, true and profound knowledge of the inner nature of the world now becomes for him an end in itself; at it he stops. (Schopenhauer, 1859, 267)

It could be inferred from the first sentence that the cognizing faculty has to be directed at the will, i.e. feeling, in order to perceive universal suffering and to be purified by that perception. Certainly the opposite is true: Schopenhauer states that the artist focusses on the form or abstraction, rather than the content, a focus which does not avail itself of the emotionally transformative power of suffering. Moreover, the artist is bound to the will by the creation of abstractions, which become for her “an end in itself”.

     Despite these qualifications, the potential link between aesthetics and transcendence was an aspect of Schopenhauer's metaphysics which greatly appealed to artists. Abendroth writes about Richard Wagner that “no one else imbibed Schopenhauer's metaphysics of music as deeply and stood up for it with such dedication.” (Abendroth, 1993, 111) This may be an oversimplification of the complex relationship between Wagner and Schopenhauer, which included the outright rejection of Wagner as composer by Schopenhauer and Wagner's written suggestions for improving Schopenhauer's philosophy by including romantic love as a means for liberation of the individual. (Estermann, 2000, 27f., 31) For literature, Thomas Mann's essay Schopenhauer emphasises the relationship between “beauty and truth” (Mann, 1938, 87), and is representative for Mann's reading of Schopenhauer, which suggests a gradual progression from artist to saint: “Human alone is the possibility of the aesthetic state which engages with the ideas, free from the will; human, and human alone is the possibility of the ultimately redemptive denial of the will to live in the progression of the artist to the ascetic saint.”[4] (Mann, 1938, 124) Obviously Mann took literally the continuation of the above passage by Schopenhauer, which reads:

Therefore it does not become for him [the artist, S.A.] a quieter of the will, as we shall see in the following book in the case of the saint who has attained resignation; [...] For him it is not the way out of life, but only an occasional consolation in it, until his power, enhanced by this contemplation, finally becomes tired of the spectacle, and seizes the serious side of things. (Schopenhauer, 1859, 267)

Of course this does not necessarily imply a gradual ascent of artist to saint, but merely states that the “pure subject of knowledge” is present in both, as “power, enhanced by this contemplation”. The main thrust of this passage implies that the climax of aesthetic immersion is less a precursor than a dim reflection of an experience of a different order, i.e. of the liberation from the will.

     Yet the model of progression, as understood by Mann, is typical of the way Schopenhauer's views on art have been interpreted. John E. Atwell conflates liberation and aesthetic experience by stripping several elements of Schopenhauer's enquiry of their distinctions: "Aesthetic contemplation, and particularly a sensitive reaction to tragedy, can serve as a means to this Buddha-like awakening – but thereof we must be silent" (Atwell, 1986, 103). This liberal interpretation reflects Schopenhauer's view insofar as the notion of a common quality is concerned. Schopenhauer's category of the “pure subject of knowledge” is present – to different degrees – in liberation and in aesthetic experience. But when this view is compared to the relevant passages on concentration and meditation in the Pali Canon and its commentaries, it appears that the notion of a qualitative similarity itself may be a conjecture. We shall now examine this complex issue point by point.

     The aesthetic experience, as defined by Atwell, depends on an imaginary object: "Anyone capable of aesthetic contemplation has to possess some degree of imagination, hence will-less or objective knowledge by itself is not sufficient to bring out an object's Idea" (Atwell, 1986, 96). Thus the Platonic ideas are not inherent in the object, they are created in the observer's perception: the Platonic idea is the projection of an idealised abstraction, hence a form of auto-suggestion. The Buddhist literature on the topic of concentration contains approaches based on a similar premise. The Buddhist monk Henepola Gunaratna writes about the projection of infinity as a method to achieve a state of prolonged concentration (called “absorption concentration”):

The method for attaining this first formless jhana (absorption concentration, S.A.) is to mentally extend the kasina (object of concentration, S.A.) "to the limit of the world-sphere or as far as he likes", and then to remove the kasina by attending exclusively to the space it covered without adverting to the kasina. [...] He cultivates this practice again and again, repeatedly developing it until the concept reaches maturity. [emphasis in the original, S.A.] (Gunaratna, 1985, 110)

The above practice of the so-called "formless jhanas" refers to states of absorption concentration. They are described in detail in the Pali Canon and were systematised in the Abidhamma Pitaka. The Yoga Sutras, a key Hindu text on the practice of concentration, also lists a number of such absorption concentrations along with their imaginary objects (in the third section, the Vibhuti Pada of the Yoga Sutras). 

     Of course the practice of absorption concentration must not be confused with the mental state associated with the appreciation of art. The development of jhanas or yogic samadhis is a rigorous mental discipline, maintained over long periods of time (often years) in seclusion. Nevertheless, there is only a quantitative difference between absorption concentration and Schopenhauer's immersion into the Platonic idea of the object, be it of nature or a work of art; the structural similarity lies in the imagination. Just as the object of absorption concentration (such as infinity, mind without base, etc.) is imagined, the Platonic ideas are ideal, i.e. imagined. They are abstractions, not principles which lie at the basis of the formation of the world. While they are valid artistically or may serve as objects of concentration, they have the mind as their base. The earlier quotations from the discourse on nirvana and from Schopenhauer have shown that the end of suffering is signified by an experience that is not of the world of the body, mind and senses. Hence a qualitative similarity of the immersion in Platonic ideas with the realm of liberation – of a fundamentally different order – is impossible. The Buddhist literature leaves no doubt that the practice of absorption concentration does not lead to liberation, but only to a refined mental state which is still part of the process of becoming, full of change and therefore of suffering – in contrast to nirvana, which is not subject to change. Gunaratna writes: “Throughout the following discussion it should be borne in mind that the attainment of the immaterial jhanas and the exercise of supernormal powers are not essential to achieving the ultimate Buddhist goal, the realisation of nibbana.” [Pali for nirvana; emphasis in the original, S.A.] (Gunaratna, 1985, 107) In effect, the practice of absorption concentration has its own dangers:

Concentration of the absorptive level, no matter how deeply it might be developed, only induces a suppression of the defilements, not their radical extirpation. [...] it can even help perpetuate the round [of rebirth, S.A.]. For each fine material and immaterial jhana attained, if held to with an attitude of clinging, brings about a rebirth in that particular plane of existence corresponding to its own karmic potency, which can then be followed by a rebirth in some lower realm. [emphasis in the original, S.A.] (Gunaratna, 1985, 143)

Moreover there is no linear connection between absorption concentration and the path of insight, as it is possible to develop insight without recourse to absorption concentration (Gunaratna, 1985, 147).

     In summary, the difference between aesthetic contemplation and absorption concentration is one of degree only, not one of substance, but neither is intrinsically related to liberation. There possibly exists a fundamental difference between the aesthetic experience and liberation, a distinction at best partially realised by Schopenhauer. This also calls into question the validity of the way in which Schopenhauer's views on art have been interpreted by artists. Last but not least, this important differentiation qualifies Conze's approach, which sees the origin of Schopenhauer's identification of art and liberation in his ignorance of meditation:

He fails to appreciate the importance of disciplined meditation. Educated non-Catholic Germans of the nineteenth century were quite unfamiliar with the tradition of spiritual contemplation. On the other hand, for relaxation they habitually visited art galleries and went for walks in the countryside. It is no wonder, therefore, that Schopenhauer sees the foretaste of “the exalted peace” of Nirvana, not in the trances (dhyana [a Sanskrit term denoting preliminary stages of concentration, which lead to yogic samadhis or Buddhist jhanas, S.A.]), but in “pure esthetic contemplation.” Although the contemplation of beauty has some analogy to the conditions prevailing in trance, it is on the whole an undisciplined faculty, and its results are rather fleeting and have little power to transmute the personality. In this respect, the German bourgeois town-dweller was a lesser man than the Indian man in the forest. [emphasis in the original, S.A.] (Conze, 1967, 223)

As Conze rightly points out, Schopenhauer's aesthetics are rooted in the cultural practices of his time, but Conze's criticsm should more appropriately be directed at his readership among artists. Schopenhauer himself did not claim that more than a fleeting glimpse of transcendence would result from aesthetic contemplation. Conze, however, believes in the art-trance-liberation triad, just like the artists who made it their gospel. Taking into account the differentiation between the different types of meditation recorded by Gunaratna, we noted that trance does not in itself produce insight. In keeping with Conze's expression, we may conclude that there were many men and women who held various views and followed various practices in the forests of the lands we now call India. And while important parallels exist to Schopenhauer's ethics and his conceptualisation of nirvana, the conflation of art, trance and liberation cannot be successfully reconciled with the teachings in the Pali Canon.

Summary

     As emphasised in the introduction, Schopenhauer's comprehensive and relatively systematic description of the human experience provided the unifying framework of the comparisons presented here. This paper has shown important aspects of the scope of Schopenhauer's philosophical project and its impact in a number of fields. The parallels between Schopenhauer and Freud go beyond psychological observations. Freud derived inspiration for his metapsychology from Schopenhauer's metaphysics, made creative use of Schopenhauer's insights and in some instances – as with the death drives – recast them in his own mould. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle this historical aspect is intertwined with a textual aspect: Freud made extensive use of Schopenhauer's argumentative structures and terms. But the concept of nirvana did not come to Freud from the Buddha via Schopenhauer. Freud uses the term – coined by one of his students – to signify an aspect of the death drives, and – if there was any merit in such a comparison – this signification could only be aligned with that of the early Orientalists who conceived nirvana as annihilation. Therefore an influence of Buddhism upon Freud by way of Schopenhauer cannot be established, even though – as was shown in the second part – Schopenhauer's psychology is embedded in his metaphysical system, which – with its focus on suffering and in its ethical principles – shows strong parallels to the teachings of the Buddha. But Schopenhauer did not adapt Buddhist teaching or appropriate its terminology. By contrast, he makes discursive use of his Indian sources, in order to clarify his own concepts (Halbfass, 1990, 117).

     The third part of this essay highlighted the significant soteriological differences between Schopenhauer's theory of art and the teachings of the Buddha contained in the Pali Canon. Given the importance of Schopenhauer's aesthetics in art and music – echoed by Mann and Atwell – , the interrogation of Schopenhauer from the the point of view of Buddhist literature has provided a productive historical reference point for reviewing the way in which Schopenhauer's aesthetics have been interpreted. Schopenhauer finds confirmation of his concept of liberation from the will in the Buddhist nirvana, in particular in its the negative expression as freedom from suffering. However, the qualitative similarity which he perceives in this freedom from suffering and the aesthetic experience is not in accordance with Buddhist sources. This very last part of the essay shows that the nexus of art, trance (preliminary to absorption concentration) and liberation is perhaps more complex than earlier commentators would admit. Yet this section cannot claim to be complete, if we take the works of Berger (2004) and Cross (2003) as the standard for using Schopenhauer in an intercultural comparison. However, such a more complete historicisation of Schopenhauer's idealist aesthetics and Theravada Buddhism lies outside the scope of this article and would need to be pursued separately.
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