The Refuge of Platonism

2 December 2024

The Refuge of Platonism

As I have mentioned before, I was directly involved with Western Buddhism for over 30 years.  One of the teachings in Buddhism is called ‘Taking Refuge.’  It is both a teaching and a ceremony.  As a ceremony taking refuge consists of reciting a simple formula, “I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha.”  This formula appears somewhere, often at the beginning, of nearly every Buddhist ceremony.

As a teaching, the basic idea is that people behave the way they do in large part because they are seeking some kind of refuge from the difficulties of material existence.  These difficulties are summed up in the word ‘suffering/dukkha’ which permeates our lives.  The Buddhist view is that suffering is of the nature of material existence and therefore it cannot be overcome through material means; even moments of pleasure are embedded in suffering due to the fleeting nature of such moments.

Thinking about this, I think it is helpful to view Platonism as offering a refuge from the difficulties of life.  This is a singularly important function of spirituality, but in our activist centered culture, it tends to be overlooked.  It is very difficult for people to find a refuge from the difficulties that the world constantly assaults us with. 

As a teaching, taking refuge has many facets.  The refuge of Platonism also has multiple facets.  Here are a few of these facets that have come to mind for me:

1. Refuge from the Material World 

A good example of how Philosophy in general, and Platonism in particular, is a refuge is The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius.  This book is an extended teaching on how Philosophy, personified as a Goddess, guides us on a path that ends in the cessation of sorrow even in very difficult circumstances.  The Consolation teaches us that the material world is unsafe, insecure, and unreliable and that even so, it is possible to go beyond what the material world has to offer and find a safe harbor, a true refuge.   

Another example is Plato’s dialogue Phaedo which has a similar emphasis on guiding people to that which transcends the difficulties, and just plain craziness, of the material world that we are trapped in.  In Phaedo the emphasis is on the immortality of the soul and the reality of rebirth as teachings that guide us away from material concerns.  The entire situation in which Phaedo is embedded demonstrates, again, that the material world is unsafe, insecure, and unreliable.

This is important to internalize because often people think of taking refuge in material terms; that is to say people take refuge in money, fame, power, wealth, possessions, and so forth.  None of these are a true refuge.  When this is clearly understood, then fascination with activities that lead us to these material circumstances begins to diminish and there is the possibility of turning to a genuine refuge which is the ultimate transcendental reality beyond the sense domains.

2. Refuge from the Human World

We would like to think that we could take refuge with our fellow human beings, but this is rarely the case.  (The only exceptions are those who offer guidance to the transcendental.)  As we grow older, and we accumulate negative experiences with other human beings, or we find that we are actual participants in these negativities, we find that human beings are as unreliable as the material world as a whole.  Malice, deceit, selfishness, greed, envy, rage, and so forth, dominate human behavior both at the individual and social levels.  In such circumstances it is very difficult to trust others which means that others cannot act as a refuge.

The dialogues of Plato present this unfortunate reality in a steady, sometimes subtle, way.  The interactions Socrates has with others, centered on philosophical questions, often show us how people are evasive, misguided, and unwilling to be honest with themselves and others.  Ultimately this results in the execution of Socrates.

3. Refuge from the Nature of the World (Suffering, Deceit, and Impermanence)

This growing understanding of the world in which we live, its fickle nature, its instability, its constant dangers, its conclusion in destruction and death, leads some to want to distance themselves from the world.  This distancing is mostly emotional, but it can also be thoughtful.  If someone thinking along these lines is a materialist such ponderings can lead to nihilism and, sometimes, to depression.  If someone in this condition has managed to not succumb to materialism, they are in a much better position to turn to a path that guides them beyond the material.

The first three refuges are ‘refuges from.’  The following six refuges are ‘refuges in.’  We seek a refuge from the condition of the world and the human condition.  And we seek refuge in that which will guide us to ‘another country.’  In a sense we become refugees who are seeking safety which cannot be found in our present situation.  In a sense we are aliens in the world, strangers in a strange land.

The first three refuges, the refuges ‘from,’ are shared by many spiritual traditions, especially Dharmic traditions.  The six refuges ‘in’ are specifically Platonic and philosophical and for that reason differ from what Buddhists take refuge in (and what Jains pay homage to in a ritual similar to the Buddhist taking refuge.)  

4. The Refuge of Wisdom

The name of the Platonic tradition, philosophy, says it clearly; philosophy is love of wisdom and it is wisdom that Platonists take refuge in.  This differs from the Buddhist tradition which takes as its first refuge that of the Buddha.  It’s the difference between taking refuge in a person and taking refuge in an understanding, or procedures that lead to understanding such as dialectic.  

I like to say that wisdom is the practice of making careful distinctions.  This sounds academic but it is not making distinctions simply for the sake of making distinctions.  It is making distinctions for the purpose of leading us away from materiality and its inherent suffering to that which transcends materiality.  I just finished rereading the dialogue Theaetetus which is a good example of the kind of wisdom I am referring to.  There is a section in the dialogue where Socrates, Theodorus, and Theaetetus are trying to clarify the teachings of Heraclitus who argued that all things are in a state of flux, of always coming to be, but never actually being (I like to say they are becoming and begonning.)  They are examining if this makes sense, if there is anything that is stable, or if Heraclitus is right.  The conversation moves forward by trying out various understandings and seeing if they hold up.  There are many other examples in the dialogues of this kind of wisdom; for example, Euthyphro and the discussion about piety found therein.

For some (perhaps many) philosophy as a wisdom tradition appears dry and difficult to understand; meaning that the arguments are hard to follow.  I am sympathetic to this reaction; some of the arguments are hard to follow.  In other words, wisdom can be a demanding path.  The solution to this is to be patient and to allow this lack of understanding to have its time.  Eventually, clarity will dawn, but it may take a long time for the sun to rise.

But for Platonists, this kind of approach is something that they love.  I use the word ‘love’ because there is an emotional aspect to the path of wisdom that, I think, people who find the wisdom approach unappealing may miss.  But for those who love wisdom, the truths revealed by wisdom are uplifting, lasting, and satisfying.

4.1 While rereading this, it occurred to me that the section of Phaedo where Socrates discusses misology directly illuminates this point (this takes place roughly from 89b - 91c.)  Misology is the hatred of reason and specifically philosophical discussion.  In Phaedo Socrates refers to misology by saying that “there is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.” (89d)  This indicates how central wisdom as found in dialectic is for Platonism and how such discussion is a refuge in a spiritual sense.

5. The Refuge of the Good

In spite of the negativities found in the world at large, and in the world of humans, there are times when good appears.  When that happens it seems to come out of nowhere; the good is unexpected.

Given the negativities of our existence, and that these negatives dominate existence, it is difficult to understand how that which is good finds any room in the material domain.  What Platonism points to is the source of these appearances of that which is good.  In other words there is that which is good by its very nature, not just circumstantially good, or partially good.  It is from this source that the good appears in the material world, but the good that appears in the material world is muted.  

If there were nothing that was good by nature there would be nothing at all in the material realm that was good or even resembled good.  The Platonic path is to follow the appearance of good back to its source and there the practitioner encounters goodness as such.  

We take refuge in the Good because without it the material realm would be void of any notion of the good.  

6. The Refuge of the One

The world we live in is a world of things; stars, rivers, people, dogs, deserts, oak trees, goldfish, hawks, cactus, gods, mountains, people, and so forth.  But as some metaphysicians have asked, why is there not nothing instead of things?

All these existing things have a sense of unity; a thing is a certain thing and not other things.  Where does that unity come from?  

As in the source of the Good that appears in the world is due to the Good as such, so also the unity of things is due to the One itself, that which by its very nature is Unity as such.  If there was not this transcendent unity, there would not be any things; but there are things and therefore the One exists as the source for unity in the material realm.

7. The Refuge of the Beautiful

There is beauty in the material world.  We all know it.  We see it at sunset.  We hear it in music.  In spite of the ugliness of human life somehow beauty presents itself.  How does this happen?

In the Platonic tradition there is a lot written about beauty and how beauty assists us on the path, or opens the door to the path.  This is discussed in Plato’s Symposium and in Plotinus’s Ennead 1.6, On Beauty, as well as in other dialogues of Plato and Enneads of Plotinus.

As I understand it, the presence of beauty in the world is a symbol of the transcendent, the Good and the One.  The presence of beauty signals to us here on earth that there is a reality beyond, and prior to, what we experience with our senses.  

Plotinus explicitly rejects materialist analyses of beauty that are based, for example, on symmetry.  Plotinus counters that ideas can be beautiful as well as things like laws and virtues.  Virtues are not symmetrical (the concept simply doesn’t apply.)  So there must be a different source for beauty that does not depend on material factors.

Just as the good that appears in our world comes to us from a source that is the Good, goodness as such; and just as the unity of things comes from a source that is the One, or unity itself; so also the beauty experienced in our world comes to us from a source that is Beauty as such.  Because there is Beauty as such there is beauty in our world; such beauty is in our world, but it, the beauty, is not from our world.

The basic means for using beauty to access the transcendental is to follow beauty back to its source, to trace the beautiful to its ultimate origin.  

“How then can you see the sort of beauty a good soul has?  Go back into yourself and look; and if you do not yet see yourself beautiful, then, just as someone making a statue which has to be beautiful cuts away here and polishes there and makes one part smooth and clears another till he has given his statue a beautiful face, so you too must cut away excess and straighten the crooked and clear the dark and make it bright, and never stop ‘working on your statue’ till the divine glory of virtue shines out on you, till you see ‘self-mastery enthroned upon its holy seat.’”

(Plotinus, Ennead 1.6, On Beauty, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1966, page 259, ISBN: 9780674994843)

It is by turning inward that we encounter the source of beauty present in our soul, the source of Beauty as such. 

8. The Refuge of the Transcendent

The transcendent is a category for the names we give to that which is prior to sensory experience.  You could say that a blueprint is transcendent to any and all houses that are built from that blueprint.  Or you could say that the written music is transcendent to any specific performance.  Similarly, the transcendent as such is before, and transcendent to, all existing things.

Note that the transcendent is not marked by the characteristics that flow from it: it is not good and it is not non-good; it is not unity and it is not multiplicity; it is not beauty and it is not ugliness.  It is beyond any affirmation or negation but is the source of all that emerges from any affirmation or negation. 

The transcendent is ineffable.

This is the realm of mysticism and it is at the heart of what Platonism teaches.

9. The Refuge of Eternity

“But now, whenever, concentrating the attention of my soul on something, I am able to say this about it, or rather to see it as a thing of such a kind that nothing at all about it has ever come into being – for if it has, it is not always existing, or not always existing as a whole – is it, therefore, already eternal, if there is not also in it a nature of such a kind as to give an assurance about it that it will stay as it is and never become different, so that, if you look attentively at it again, you will find it as it was?  What then, if one does not depart at all from one’s contemplation of it but stays in its company, wondering at its nature, and able to do so by a natural power which never fails?  Surely one would be (would one not?), oneself on the move towards eternity and never falling away from it at all, that one might be like it and eternal, contemplating eternity and the eternal by the eternal in oneself.”

(Plotinus, Ennead III.7.5, Eternity and Time, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1967, page 311, ISBN: 9780674994874)

This is the final refuge.  To become completely immersed in eternity, this eternity that is both found within and that to which contemplation is drawn.  

But where is it found within?  I like to say that the soul is the presence of eternity in the ephemeral individual.  Eternity is found in the soul because the soul is the eternal, or a fragment of the eternal, or the outshining of eternity itself.  

This is the end of the journey and the unending refuge beyond all time.

“For what understanding could there be [of eternity - translator’s addition] if we were not in contact with it?  But how could we be in contact with what was not our own?  We too, then, must have a share in eternity.”

(Plotinus, Ennead III.7.7, as above, page 319)