I first explored similarities between Montaigne’s Essays (1580-88) and the ancient Buddhist texts called the Pali Canon (particularly the “Chapter of Eights”) on this blog in August 2024. I have been developing these ideas into a longer article or perhaps a portion of a book. One shared theme (among several) is that we should be committed to other people rather than to our own ideas. We can be unattached to our opinions while still deeply caring.

Last week, I discovered and read Stephen Batchelor’s The Art of Solitude (2022), which emphasizes precisely the same pair of texts. He translates the whole Chapter of Eights and discusses Montaigne at length.

Batchelor is a great writer on solitude. He does not define it as being alone, but rather as being deeply attentive to what’s going on inside yourself. In fact, you can hide away in your room or retreat to a forest and yet be mentally consumed by other people and events, or you can genuinely talk and listen to others while retaining an inner space. Montaigne makes these points well, as does the Pali Canon.

Montaigne, a Renaissance European, knew nothing of Buddhism, but he was impressed–at least during a phase of his life–by the Skeptical philosophy of the Greco-Roman author Sextus. The Skeptical School traced its origins to Pyrrho of Ellis, who had visited India with Alexander the Great in 327-326 BCE and may even have become a Buddhist. In my view, the strongest evidence of Buddhism’s influence on Greek Skepticism is this passage, which purports to represent Pyrrho’s teaching:

Whoever reflects on how to attain happiness must see three things: First, what are matters like by nature? Second, in what state should we approach matters? And last, what happens to those who are in this state? … Matters are without an essential nature, unmeasurable, and unfixed, and for this reason neither our senses nor our opinions are true or false. For this reason, therefore, do not believe them, but be without opinions and without biases and without agitation. …

Eusebius of Caesarea, Praeparatio Evangelica, 14.18.1-4 (my trans)

Christopher Beckwith (2017, p. 32) shows that this text “is so close to” a specific, early Indian Buddhist text “that it is virtually a translation of it,” and he argues that some of the Greek words were coined to translate Sanskrit words that were important in early Buddhism, such as anatman (without an essential nature) and duhkha (unsteady or unstable).

At any rate, Greek Skepticism developed during a period when Greeks were in dialogue with Indian Buddhists in a large region where many schools and sects taught overlapping ideas. And Montaigne was strongly influenced by Greek Skepticism.

Batchelor is less interested in such historical links and influences than in sheer similarities. He presents Montaigne as having rediscovered principles of solitude, meditation and compassion from personal experience and experimentation, which is how Montaigne describes his own journey.

Montaigne is far more empathetic and compassionate than Sextus, who often tries to attain inner peace by ridiculing the various views of past philosophers. There are more than 1,300 quotations from Latin alone in Montaigne’s Essays (Selevold 2010), and his usual mode is to demonstrate that he appreciates the quoted author’s stance without necessarily endorsing it. By introducing compassion to Sextus’ Skepticism, Montaigne actually moves closer to Buddhism (without knowing anything about that tradition).

There is pretty good evidence that Montaigne also remained a believing Catholic, in private as well as public life, which means that some of his deepest commitments were incompatible with Buddhism. But he could write long passages in which his religious commitments appear irrelevant and he is fully guided by ideals that we could call compassion and mindfulness. Just for example:

When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep; and when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts have been absorbed by external events for part of the time, I bring them back to the walk, to the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude and to myself.

Montaigne, 3:13 (“On Experience”), my trans.

Batchelor beautifully translates this and other relevant passages–as I can attest, since I have been translating an overlapping set of excerpts from Montaigne for my own use. (I do wish, however, that the Yale Press book provided notes or other references, because it is quite a task to locate Batchelor’s original texts.)

Batchelor also writes about meditation and his own experiments with hallucinogens. Those sections are engaging and interesting but beyond my capacity to evaluate.

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Sources: Stephen Batchelor’s The Art of Solitude (Yale University Press 2022); Christopher I. Beckwith, Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia (Princeton, 2017); Sellevold, Kirsti. “Quotation in Montaigne’s Essais: communication across time and contexts–A case study,” Symbolae Osloenses 84.1 (2010).

See also: Montaigne and Buddhism; three takes on the good life: Aristotle, Buddha, Montaigne; Montaigne the bodhisattva?; does skepticism promote a tranquil mind?