We now reach the final meta-category: personal development, the primary means by which well-being is cultivated. Before turning to the relevant words, let’s consider why development is important for human flourishing.
At the close of the last chapter, we encountered the tension between community-mindedness and individualism. A strong sense of community enhances well-being by enabling accretion of social capital, but at the risk of enforcing conformity. Indeed, some models of mental health suggest that well-being consists in being attuned to one’s culture precisely in this way, that is, fitting in not only socially, but also ideologically.1 Critical theorists have questioned this vision of well-being though. What if the culture itself is problematic?2 As Jiddu Krishnamurti puts it, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”3
Experience suggests it is probably best to dissolve this tension, rather than attempt to resolve it, by pursuing both communality and individuality: don’t give up on community, but also pursue one’s agency and resist excessive obedience in the face of social pressure. For just as there are many good reasons to promote communality, there are also sound reasons to be wary of groupthink. In Being and Time, Martin Heidegger attempted to square the circle through the concept of Das Man, often rendered as “they-self” or “the they.”4 On this view, common ideas and values help to make us human, but we should also not fail to live authentically—to make our own choices and take responsibility for them.5
David Bakan makes the case for two basic modes of being along these lines: agency and communion.6 Relatedly, Ken Wilber’s vision is of people as separate entities, with their own needs, thoughts, and wills, but nevertheless “nestled in systems of cultural and social networks” that sustain them.7 Recall Arthur Koestler’s “holon”—the idea that everything is simultaneously a whole and a part. A person is a whole being but also part of a family and wider community. If well-being involves both community and agency, then it also demands both social life and personal development.
The notion of personal—that is, psychological—development has some parallels with physical development, in that both occur through an age-dependent process of maturation. One difference, though, is that psychological development is more likely to continue throughout the lifespan, or through a greater portion of it. If you graphed physical development, it would look like an inverted U.8 Physical capacities mature up to some peak and then gradually decline.9 Psychological capacities can also decline due, for instance, to aging-related cortical thinning.10 But qualities such as spirituality and wisdom may build unto death, possibly making up for what is lost physically. Indeed, some studies suggest that overall well-being, incorporating all of the physical and psychological factors that make people feel well, tends to fall in middle age before rising again as people enter old age.11 It is a testament to the power and possibility of lifelong psychological development that subjective well-being may improve even as the body is diminished.
Although there are many theories of personal development—some argue that it happens in discrete, well-defined stages, others see more diversity in developmental pathways—virtually everyone in the field considers it essential to well-being.12 In this chapter, we will use untranslatable words to get to know this area in more depth and detail. As before, the aim is twofold: to enhance our conceptual knowledge of this relatively poorly understood area, charting the contours of growth with greater granularity and specificity; and to enrich our own experiential maps. We may learn to better appraise where we stand developmentally, and furthermore to venture into new existential regions, to see potentialities we previously couldn’t.
This meta-category comprises two categories: character and spirituality. The first collects ideas about personal qualities and the fulfillment of potential. The second involves more rarefied or esoteric territory, reflective of the widespread view that, to truly attain life’s peaks, one must cultivate some mode of spirituality.
Character receives considerable attention in PP. In particular, it is generally regarded as a form of eudaimonic well-being. Recall that PP, albeit with some dissenting voices,13 distinguishes between two main forms of well-being: hedonic and eudaimonic. The former, also known as subjective well-being, is constituted by positive feelings and cognitive appraisals of life satisfaction. Eudaimonic, or psychological, well-being encompasses rather different territory, being more about phenomena like meaning, virtue, wisdom, and fulfilment, such that a person who possesses these qualities would be deemed to enjoy high levels of eudaimonic well-being.14 These are the kinds of qualities we shall be concerned with in this first category.
One of the most influential models of psychological well-being (PWB) comes from Carol Ryff.15 Ryff draws on Aristotle’s conception of eudaimonia as the “activity of the soul in accordance with virtue,”16 as well as modern developmental theory, to conceptualize PWB as a dynamic process of psychological growth.17 On this view, achieving PWB means working toward purpose in life, autonomy, positive relations, environmental mastery, self-acceptance, and personal growth.18
Although there is much to learn from Ryff’s model, I believe it could yet be even more comprehensive. As critics have noted, the model omits spirituality specifically19—even if aspects of spirituality are encompassed by the other six components—despite this being an important trajectory of life pursuit for billions of people. And, like many of the theories we have encountered, Ryff’s was conceptualized in a Western context mainly on the basis of work of Western research participants. Cross-cultural inquiry and input might expand Western psychology’s perspective on what PWB can be. And particularly with respect to our aims in this chapter, there is room to look into elements of character beyond PWB,* important though it is.
The “values-in-action” (VIA) framework perhaps represents a more culturally encompassing paradigm. VIA focuses on the cultivation of “character strengths,” defined as “positive traits that a person owns, celebrates, and frequently uses.”20 Instead of asserting that there are a handful of strengths everyone should have, the theory holds that people are most likely to flourish when they use and develop their particular strengths.21 This hypothesis has been borne out in numerous studies, some cross-cultural, leading to a comprehensive and inclusive taxonomy of strengths.22
The current taxonomy features twenty-four such strengths, aggregated into six broad “virtues”: (1) wisdom and knowledge (comprising creativity, judgment, perspective, curiosity, and love of learning); (2) courage (bravery, perseverance, honesty, and zest); (3) humanity (love, kindness, and social intelligence); (4) justice (teamwork, fairness, and leadership); (5) temperance (forgiveness, humility, prudence, and self-regulation); and (6) transcendence (appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope, humor, and spirituality). Although this taxonomy is interesting in its own right—even if it has been criticized for its presumptions of universality and of the accultural nature of character23—especially pertinent for us is the way it was created.
The genesis of VIA is in the study of qualities celebrated throughout history and across cultures. Researchers assembled their taxonomy by studying some of the world’s foundational religious and philosophical texts,24 such as the Upaniṣads, Analects of Confucius, Tao Te Ching, Tanakh, New Testament, Quran, and Plato’s Republic. From the Analects, for instance, rén (roughly, humaneness, benevolence), yì (duty, justice), lǐ (etiquette, decorum), zhì (wisdom, perspicacity), and xìn (truthfulness, sincerity) all have their imprint on the VIA framework.
This chapter complements the VIA approach, hopefully filling in some of its gaps. For, VIA’s priority is to appreciate what is shared across cultures. Mine is to explore precisely what has not been: those ideas unique to a particular culture that might nonetheless be fruitfully integrated into others. I follow VIA and the like in choosing broad organizing themes, of which five main ones were identified: virtue, considerateness, understanding, self-determination, and skill.
It behooves us to begin with virtue, since to an extent this theme is interwoven throughout all the others in this category. By virtue I don’t mean its different types, in the plural—such as the six identified in the VIA schema—but rather the notion of virtue in itself.
Virtue per se is often thought of in terms of moral uprightness. A pivotal concept here is the classical Greek areté, denoting excellence or quality. This not only pertained to human beings, but anything that excelled at its purpose; a fast or strong horse, say, might be said to possess areté.25 Applied to men specifically, areté could refer to “manliness.”26 More generally though, it often indicated moral excellence in people. This speaks to a conviction central to our purposes in this chapter: that fulfilling one’s potential—a key component of well-being—means, in part, living virtuously.
As to how a person might cultivate virtue, Aristotle recommends mesos, denoting the mean or middle.27 Virtue is embodied in the middle path between opposing vices of excess and deficiency.28 Courage represents the optimal point between rashness and cowardice, generosity the balance between profligacy and miserliness, and so on. This is not simply an appeal to moderation or an argument for splitting the difference, though. Aristotle did not advocate, say, being moderately truthful in order to occupy some middle ground between honesty and lies. Rather, he believed that the appropriateness of given actions was based on context and that virtue, therefore, was not a matter of behaving according to some rigid conception of right and wrong. Rather, the virtuous person would take stock of his internal state and of the social world in order to reach the best possible choices.29
Besides words pertaining to the nature and dynamics of virtue, this theme also includes descriptors used to commend people who are deemed virtuous in various ways. One well-known example is the Yiddish mensch, derived from the generic German term for “person” and denoting a “good human being in its fullest sense,” as Sherry Blumberg puts it.30 Related, but not identical, are terms that speak to overall good bearing but with some emphasis on particular, albeit broad, qualities belonging to people of good character. An example is the German adjective fein, which Goethe considered untranslatable. This conveys bearing and grace, and more specifically nobility, honor, tenderness, and uniqueness.31
Some descriptors identify people who have reached certain psychological or spiritual peaks (and hence who, correspondingly, are perceived as exemplars of virtue). For instance, in Buddhism, virtue is associated with bodhi or awakening, hence the honorific Buddha. The Buddha himself adopted the label tathāgata-garbha32—usually rendered as “Buddha nature”—deriving from garbha, meaning womb or embryo, and tathāgata, which translates as “one who has thus come/gone” (i.e., to enlightenment). A related appellation is arhat, which denotes a worthy or “perfected” person. As described in the Dhammapada (the collected sayings of the Buddha), an arhat is as “firm as a high pillar and as pure as a deep pool free from mud … perfectly tranquil and wise.”33
Finally, there is a range of usually well-intentioned and complimentary adjectives pertaining to virtue that can, under some circumstances, be ambiguous or even pejorative. Consider the German brav, sometimes translated as “well-behaved.” The term is often used to commend pleasant, earnest, and rule-abiding children. However, it can take on a patronizing air if applied to adults.34 Similarly double-edged is the Japanese majime, which acknowledges people who are reliable and responsible but can also imply a sense of excessive seriousness or formality.35 The Latin pius and English “pious” offer parallels, implying upright, faithful, and conscientious behavior, but also a lack of conviviality and spontaneity.36
Different cultures celebrate virtue in different ways. Having considered some of them, let’s turn to three essential questions about living virtuously, and fulfilling one’s potential more broadly. First, why would a person be virtuous, and cultivate self-development generally? Second, how would she know what virtue and self-development consist of? Third, how can she maintain virtue, and commit to self-development, despite pressures to behave otherwise? Broadly speaking, the answers are considerateness, understanding, and self-determination—all concepts to which non-English languages bring nuance.
One could argue that to be virtuous—and to flourish as a human being—one must first be considerate. That is, a precondition of virtue and self-development is caring about the quality and impact of one’s actions. Without this basic sense of care—whether it be intuitive and implicitly felt, or conscious and explicitly reasoned—virtue and excellence would not arise. One would not even begin to strive toward the good, since one would have the nihilistic or apathetic perception that one’s actions do not matter.
This precondition of virtue, and of flourishing more generally, is captured by the term “considerateness,” which derives from the Latin consîderâtus and comprises two fundamental qualities: awareness and care. That is, considerate people are mindful of the impact of their actions on other people and themselves, and they moreover care about this impact.
Regarding awareness, I have already touched upon once concept from which English speakers can learn a great deal, namely smṛti. Apramāda, another Sanskrit term relating to awareness, contains an even stronger moral dimension. Variously understood as earnestness, vigilant care, unremitting alertness, diligence, moral watchfulness, and “awareness … with regard to the sphere of qualities of good conduct,”37 apramāda describes an awareness that is inherently and explicitly imbued with an ethical sensibility.38 This is in contrast to smṛti, which is more morally neutral, and carries no specific connotation of ethics.
As for care, one important general principle is the “golden rule,” which articulates an ideal of reciprocity developed and exalted by many philosophical and religious traditions, from Confucianism to Judaism.39 In the Analects, for instance, Confucius is asked whether there is a “single word that can serve as a guide to conduct throughout one’s life?” He replies with shù, a noun and verb conveying mercy and forgiveness, which he defines as “Do not do to others what you would not want others to do to you.”40 Elsewhere he also describes this reciprocity as the essence of the aforementioned rén (humaneness). Similarly, Rabbi Hillel (ca. 30 BCE–10 CE) emphasized the importance of reciprocity. Tradition has it that, asked to teach the entire Torah while standing on one foot, Hillel said, “What is hateful to yourself, do not do unto your fellow man. That is the whole of the Torah and the remainder is but commentary.”41
Implicit in the terms above is a sense of why one should be considerate in this way. Rén describes a moral sensibility in which other people are deemed inherently worthy of being treated well. For its part, apramāda embeds awareness of the dynamics of karma, whereby right actions are regarded as benefiting both recipient and actor. As Kang puts it, “Volitional action rooted in non-greed, non-hatred and non-delusion … gives rise to virtuous or positive imprints in the mind that would subsequently result in experiences of happiness and pleasure.”42 A person with a well-developed sense of apramāda would not only recognize the importance of treating other people well for their own sake but also, from a perspective of enlightened self-interest, realize that he, too, stands to benefit.
So, considerateness helps explain why people might want to be virtuous. But how does one know how to act virtuously, and more generally—since this category is not only about virtue—to live well and fulfil one’s potential? That requires understanding.
Recall that Aristotle’s golden mean requires skillfully judging the best course of action in a given context. How does one judge? Here we come to another vital concept from classical Greece, phrónêsis, which is usually thought of as “practical” wisdom—determining ends to be pursued and ascertaining the best means of attaining them.43 Aristotle regarded phrónêsis as one of two intellectual virtues,44 along with sophia, which refers to a more abstract, theoretical, even “transcendent” wisdom.* Indeed, many terms in this arena arise from classical Greece—from logos to prâxis—which reflects that culture’s pioneering role in forging new ways of understanding the nature and potential of human beings.
Of course, terms relating to wisdom—and understanding more broadly—are found across the world’s cultures and languages, many with distinctive nuances. Another language particularly rich in this regard is German, whose philosophical tradition has developed a unique lexicon pertaining to the way in which people understand the world. Some of these terms were used in common discourse before taking on specialized scholarly meanings that themselves became widely adopted as loanwords. Take Weltanschauung, which refers to a worldview, outlook, or overarching philosophy of life.45 Besides its more general usage, it has been deployed by scholars, most prominently the psychologist Wilhelm Dilthey in the late nineteenth century, to articulate the epistemological claim that people necessarily appraise the world from a particular standpoint—that there is no objective “view from nowhere,” in Thomas Nagel’s terminology.46 Weltanschauung played a key role in the development of fields such as psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, and critical thought, and is now widely used in English.47
Similarly influential are Gestalt and Ganzheit, which further elucidate the dynamics of how people understand their world, and which have provided the foundation for entire fields and paradigms within psychology. The former literally means “form” or “shape” and was harnessed in a philosophical context by Christian von Ehrenfels, who used it to denote the overall configuration of something and to convey a sense of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.48 He saw Gestalt processing as a fundamental feature of the mind, enabling people to grasp patterns. The concept has led to practices such as Fritz Perls’s Gestalt psychotherapy—concerned with “the total existence of a person”—and to conceptual paradigms like Gestalt theories of perception.49 Relatedly, Ganzheit connotes unity, an “integrated whole.”50 This concept undergirds the field of Ganzheit psychology, which is described as the “holistic study of human nature.”51 Indeed, students of Wilhelm Wundt, widely regarded as one of the first modern psychologists, often referred to his work specifically as Ganzheit psychology.52
More recently, Heidegger has added to this lexicon terms such as Dasein and Geworfenheit. For him, wisdom consists in understanding the reality of these concepts in our lives. Dasein, which literally means “being here/there,” is Heidegger’s preferred nomenclature for human beings. Somewhat akin to the psychological understanding of Weltanschauung, this captures the idea that people always exist in, and interpret the world on the basis of, a pre-given context. Moreover we inevitably come to the world with a certain mood (Stimmung in German)—that is, a state of mind, with specific intentions, priorities, feelings, and so on—which shapes how this context is engaged with.53 Furthermore, Geworfenheit, often translated as “thrownness,” articulates the notion that we inevitably find ourselves “thrown” into situations and contexts that are not of our choosing, whether unexpected encounters or the time and place of our birth.54
Heidegger approaches the phenomenon of understanding directly with two more innovatively deployed terms, Ereignis and Erschlossenheit, both of which relate to truth. The former means event, unfolding, or “coming into view,” and conveys the idea that truth is something that “happens” or is revealed to us.55 This connects to Erschlossenheit, often rendered as “world disclosure.”56 Heidegger relates Erschlossenheit to the Greek alétheia, which can be translated as truth or truthfulness, but which likewise carries connotations of revelation or disclosure.57 Thus, Heidegger used Erschlossenheit to describe the process by which life becomes intelligible, meaningful, and relevant to human beings.
One could expand at length on Heidegger, but even this brief sample shows the potential for finding and developing terms that add nuance to our appreciation of understanding.
With that, we can turn to our third theme with respect to the cultivation of virtue, and of character more broadly: self-determination—the capacity to realize one’s goals. For the desire to be virtuous and to live well, and the understanding to know what these consist of, count for little if one cannot actually manage to put these into action.
The analysis so far suggests that considerateness and understanding may be necessary conditions for virtue and personal development more broadly. However, they are not sufficient. It is vital that one be able to live virtuously and fully.
This capacity, which I call self-determination, has been articulated in numerous studies and theories. Perhaps the best known is Richard Ryan and Edward Deci’s model, which conceptualizes self-determination in terms of autonomy, relatedness (i.e., being connected to others), and competence.58 Outside of psychology, self-determination is more commonly associated with autonomy and competence in particular, denoting the freedom and capacity to make and pursue one’s own choices.
It is the autonomy-centered concept of self-determination that I am most concerned with here. I see underlying it two key factors, which complement each other: the will to be virtuous, that is, the motivation to do right; and the self-control to carry out one’s will by restraining oneself from doing wrong and instead skillfully cleaving to a righteous path.
Will itself is a complicated idea; a number of related words shed light on its meaning. These words fall into three broad areas: energy, grit, and independence. Taking energy first, many terms convey nuanced conceptions of vitality. One of the earliest and most important is thymós, which we encountered in chapter 3 in relation to epithymía. Sometimes rendered as “spiritedness,” in classical Greece it carried many important meanings, including soul, will, and courage and was described as “the principle of life.”59 Other terms speak to energy in relation to tasks that needs completing, such as the Swedish verb orka, defined as “to have enough energy to be able to.”60
Some terms offer explanations as to the source of people’s energy. For instance, rather than conceiving of energy as a purely internal phenomenon, generated to varying degrees by individuals themselves, some cultures depict it as having suprapersonal provenance. These notions include orenda, formulated by the Huron people indigenous to North America, and the aforementioned mana, found in Polynesian languages. Both ideas are rooted in the conviction that the cosmos is suffused with a spiritual energy that exists outside people—as a nonpersonal divine force—and yet can be harnessed by individuals (such as shamans).61 We shall further explore spiritual themes in the second part of the chapter below.
In addition to energy, the will involves qualities of grit. Grit has attracted much attention in PP recently through the work of Angela Duckworth, who characterizes it as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.”62 Numerous terms pertain to this idea. Some are culturally vital, viewed as integral to or characteristic of certain groups. For instance, Finnish celebrates sisu, which has been defined as an extraordinary “inner determination,” particularly in the face of extreme adversity.63 Going beyond mere perseverance or resilience—according to analyses by Emilia Lahti, the scholar whose work on this concept inspired this lexicographic project—sisu is often exalted as a nation-defining quality that has enabled the country to thrive in the face of adversity.64 Somewhat similarly, the Arabic noun sumud describes a determined struggle to survive, involving qualities including self-preservation, dignity, persistence, and forbearance. As Hala Nassar explains, this quality is valued particularly amid recent geopolitical turmoil in the Middle East, communicating a resolute desire and commitment to continue living in a particular location or in a certain way.65
Related to grit are terms pertaining to patience and stubbornness. The New Testament provides some good examples. No fewer than three Greek words, each with different nuances, describe the legendary forbearance of Job: hypomonē (cheerful endurance, constancy, standing firm); kartería (stubbornness, toughness, perseverance); and makrothumeó (being long-suffering, slow to anger and avenge).66 These nuances are reflected across other words, too. For example, there is the evocative Dutch noun engelengeduld, which translates as “angelic patience” and refers to great forbearance, even “infinite” patience.67 With a similar emphasis on extraordinary levels of forbearance, Japanese gaman has been described as “enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity.”68 With roots in Zen Buddhism, it emphasizes poise, equanimity, self-restraint, and stoic self-denial in the face of events outside of one’s control.69
Relatedly, the commonly used injunction ganbaru, which literally means to stand firm, exhorts others to do their best—and indeed to “exceed” their best, going beyond what they believe themselves to be capable of—and to stick with a task until it is finished.70 Similarly, the descriptive German Sitzfleisch conveys a stoical willingness to persevere with tasks that are hard or even just boring. More specifically, literally meaning “sitting flesh,” it refers to a person who is “good at sitting it out.” Also known as “chair-glue,” it particularly denotes tenacity with respect to tasks that require physical inactivity and self-restraint, such as studious endeavours.71 For instance, it has been described as the difference between a writer and an aspiring writer.
Finally, in addition to energy and grit, the will involves autonomy and related concepts such as freedom and independence. These qualities are reflected in a range of words, some with more positive connotations than others. Wanderlust, which we have previously encountered, is a more benign, possibly even romantic, example. Another is the Latin solivagant, which denotes a lone wanderer—someone whose freedom consists in being untethered to other people—and as such is used in astronomy to describe free-floating planetary objects.72
Other terms walk a fine-line between admiration of autonomy and wariness toward excessive free-spiritedness. Consider for instance the Yiddish loanword chutzpah. Although typically used to chastise a person who has overstepped the bounds of acceptable behavior, chutzpah has evolved to mean something akin to audacity, an ambiguous idea. One might therefore potentially commend another’s chutzpah—having the guts to do something which one would not personally dare.73 Similarly, the German noun Willkür may convey free-spiritedness and following one’s own priorities, yet can also carry a disparaging notion of capriciousness and the disregard for rules and conventions.74
Thus, many cultures do not view autonomy and independence as unqualified goods. There is recognition that these can be problematic, and may lead to a willfulness that can be unhelpful or even destructive. This suggests that adaptive self-determination demands not only will but also the restraining hand of self-control. This was in some ways the essence of the Freudian conception of the psyche, which posited a continual tension between the id (elemental, instinctual drives), superego (internalized cultural norms and rules), and ego (the self-construct that must navigate between these).
Theories such as Freud’s therefore identify the importance of restraining our more harmful impulses. This recognition is found in other languages too, with various words celebrating self-control or lamenting its absence. In the latter vein, Aristotle suggested that immoral people above all suffer from akrásia, or weakness of the will, which prevents them from acting in their best interests and instead leads to indulgence of wayward impulses. More positively, Greek thinkers exalted the ideal of sóphrosuné, which is associated with self-restraining qualities such as temperance, prudence, and self-control.75 Finally, covering similar ground, the adjective aútexoúsios describes “mastery of oneself,” the ability to exercise agency independently of one’s emotions.76
The foregoing discussion has considered a wealth of terms relating to character, spanning qualities of virtue, considerateness, understanding, and self-determination. Most of these are not considered within their cultures as static traits but rather skills that can and should be cultivated. Naturally, there is some variation in this regard. Although Greek thinkers tended to depict admirable qualities as amenable to development, in some cases that possibility was limited to men of particular social standing, reflecting wider cultural prejudices of the time.77 By contrast, it has been suggested that other traditions—such as Buddhism—offer paths of psychospiritual development that are more accessible, if not perfectly so.78
A wealth of words celebrates the skill needed to achieve personal development. To structure the discussion, I will draw on a trio of French nouns based around the verb savoir, meaning “to know”—that is, in the sense of know-how, not familiarity with some object. These are savoir-faire, savoir-être, and savoir-vivre.
Each of these compound terms traces different nuances of skillfulness. Perhaps best-known is savoir-faire, already a loanword. This describes knowing how to behave in a given situation, understanding how to speak and act appropriately.79 As such, it is often described using terms such as diplomacy, finesse, poise, accomplishment, and adroitness (itself a loanword adapted from the French adroit, meaning “according to right”). Savoir-faire can also refer to the possession of practical, technical, or problem-solving abilities.
The quality of skillful problem-solving in savoir-faire is reflected in other languages, too. For example, the Portuguese notion of desenrascanço, roughly translatable as disentanglement, describes an imaginative resourcefulness in the face of new or unexpected situations—thus enabling one to extricate oneself from a tricky entanglement—particularly if one lacks the tools or techniques usually used in such cases.80 Portuguese also features jeito, which can imply finding a way by any means, often circumventing rules or social conventions.81 Similarly, the Italian verb arrangiarsi—which is often prefixed by l’arte di (the art of)—means to resourcefully make do, get by, or get along, though it may potentially also indicate that something is being achieved through underhanded methods.82
The second term involving savoir is savoir-être, which appends the verb “to be,” implying a quality of knowing how to carry oneself. It has connotations similar to those of savoir-faire, but, where savoir-faire emphasizes practical skills, savoir-être celebrates social ones.83 It can also convey grace, charm, and elegance, articulating the notion of a beautiful character, as opposed to simply physical beauty. The Greek concept of eunoia—created from eû (good, well, beautiful), and noia (mind, thinking)—is closely related, referring to goodwill, empathy, and the tendency to bestow approval on others. It also describes the capacity to evoke these qualities in others: one possessed of eunoia encourages similar benevolence in return.84 Good interpersonal skills are likewise conveyed by the German term Konfliktfähigkeit, which denotes an ability to manage interpersonal conflict constructively, for instance, without becoming personally embroiled or affected.85
Relatedly, German also features the intriguing concept of Fingerspitzengefühl. Translatable as “fingertip feeling,” it describes an overarching situational awareness, including an instinct for knowing how to act with tact and skill in a given situation. A Japanese variant of savoir-être is captured in the term kokusaijin. Literally meaning an “international person,” kokusaijin describes someone who is cosmopolitan, usually well-traveled, and generally adept and comfortable at engaging with other cultures.86
The final French term is savoir-vivre, which refers to knowledge of how to live well.87 France’s reputation for good living is reflected in several terms that embody this ideal. These include joie de vivre, as mentioned in chapter 2, which articulates a zest for life, the “knack of knowing how to live.”88 This is no mere passing mood of positivity; it is a more general capacity to cultivate and savor the good things in life. It constitutes, as Susan Harrow and Timothy Unwin put it, “a Weltanschauung, a behavioral mode and form of practice. It is joy generalized, a result of many experiences, a sustained and boundless enjoyment of the here and now.”89
Of course, the idea of savoring life is not limited to French culture, and expressions such as joie de vivre have their near equivalents in other languages (such as livsnjutare, also included in chapter 2). Such sentiments are further reflected in sayings that encourage people to live fully and/or have a good time. Particularly well known in that respect is the Hebrew phrase l’chaim, which literally means “to life” and is often used in social functions as a toast to health and life.90
These general terms are augmented by more specific ones that articulate what flourishing actually entails, which, according to much literature in PP, includes meaning and purpose in life.91 The Japanese ikigai, which can be translated as a “reason for being,” appraises life as “good and meaningful.”92 The experience of ikigai has been linked to psychological well-being and physical health and longevity.93 Japanese also features the notion of genki, articulating another dimension of flourishing. The term literally means “origins of ki,” where ki denotes a type of energy or life force (discussed further below as qi, the Chinese cognate of ki).94 Genki thus implies being healthy, energetic, and full of life.
Finally, articulating the vital possibility that one can learn to live well, the German noun Bildung encompasses education, cultivation, and development. This in turn gives rise to compound terms such as Bildungsroman, describing a genre of novel depicting this celebrated process of personal development, as for instance in the works of Herman Hesse.95
Hesse provides a neat bridge to the second main category, concerning spirituality. Perhaps his best-known novel is Siddhartha, a poetic account of a spiritual seeker set around the time and place of the historical Siddhārtha Gautama, the Buddha.96 Indeed, the very name Siddhārtha describes a person who has successfully achieved a valued aim, which in the case of this novel is ultimate self-fulfillment and liberation. Hesse’s work reflects the idea, upheld in many cultures, that it is only possible to reach the peaks of development if one cultivates a sense of spirituality.
The preceding chapters have touched upon numerous topics, such as wisdom and morality, associated with spiritual and religious traditions. However, although such phenomena are associated with spirituality, they are not inherently spiritual.97 As such, this final category goes to the heart of spirituality, to that which could be regarded as intrinsically spiritual. An important aspect of this section will be exploring just what spirituality is. As we shall see, it arguably hinges above all on the concept of the sacred. Before I examine this term, though, let’s take a moment to differentiate spirituality and religion.
Throughout much of history, religion and spirituality have been inextricably intertwined, and often treated as synonymous.98 Etymologically, spirituality derives from the Latin spiritualis, which in turn is an adaptation of the Greek pneumatikós, an adjective that conveys a sense of being with or of the spirit of God.99 A spiritual person was thus one in whom this spirit dwelt, or who was receptive to it, and often referred to a particularly devout subset of the religious community such as clergy. The term “religion,” by contrast, has been used to describe the social institutions that formed around revered spiritual exemplars and their followers.100 The term entered English in the twelfth century, via French, as an adaptation of the Latin religio, which connotes obligation and reverence and may in turn derive from the verb religare, meaning to bind.101 Initially, religion usually referred to monastic communities, and to the spiritual ideas and practices that emerged within these, before more generally describing traditions that could unite people across multiple locales.102
In the wake of centuries of secularizing trends, spirituality has become increasingly differentiated from religion and from theism. Even as many people eschew traditional religion, large numbers report being drawn to spirituality.103 Thus, spirituality as widely conceived today does not necessarily involve religious traditions or depend on theistic beliefs. As Harold Koenig puts it, spirituality is “something individuals define for themselves that is largely free of the rules, regulations and responsibilities associated with religion.”104 And note the non-theistic way in which Westerners have embraced Buddhism. Although some cultures bring theistic elements to Buddhism—such as pantheons of deities in Tibet105—research on Western “converts” suggests that many do not regard or interpret Buddhism as theistic, but nevertheless see it as spiritual in some way.106
If spirituality is not necessarily religious or theistic, what is it? Perhaps the most common way to understand spirituality is in terms of the sacred. This word is thought to have entered English via French in the twelfth century, derived from the Latin sacrare, which encompasses consecration, anointment, dedication, immortalization, and making holy.107 Following the pioneering work of Emile Durkheim, the sacred is often understood in contrast to the profane: the latter pertains to ordinary everyday life, the former to “things set apart and forbidden.”108 A similar distinction is made in Russian: byt denotes everyday, domestic life, and bytie implies a spiritual or “authentic” existence.109
Thus, the term “sacred” signifies phenomena regarded as qualitatively “other” and out of the ordinary. This can encompass deities, places of worship, and relics, as well as any nontheistic yet mystical, supernatural, or sublime phenomena.110 Indeed, the sacred could be anything meaningful to a person, such as a precious possession, memory, or value.111
In various ways, all the terms in this category of spirituality pertain to the sacred. These fall into three broad themes: the sacred itself (phenomena regarded as sacred, and their properties); contemplative practices (enabling people to engage with the sacred); and transcendence (experiences of the sacred). By putting these three categories together, a possible definition of spirituality suggests itself—namely, engagement with the sacred, usually through contemplative practices, with the aim of self-transcendence.
The sacred has been conceptualized in diverse ways cross-culturally. The relevant terms appear to fall into two main types: external and internal. Some terms describe phenomena outside the person, others inside. External terms refer to sacred realms or forces, perhaps associated with deities. Internal terms, such as spirit and soul, refer to the spiritual dimension within. We’ll consider these two types in turn.
One of the oldest recorded examples of a sacred realm or force is the aforementioned Brahman. Barbara Holdrege suggests the Vedas, the ancient Hindu scriptures, deploy Brahman in four main ways: as the spiritual power inherent in the words and sounds of the Vedas; as the knowledge contained in the teachings; as the collective body of practices; and perhaps most relevantly here, as the ongoing process of creation itself.112
It has been argued that the earliest Vedic teachings expressed a form of animistic polytheism, conceptualizing the elemental forces of the universe as a pantheon of deities.113 However, there later emerged a movement toward identifying a unifying principle beneath the flux of multiplicity and change, which became referred to as Brahman, described by David Ho as the “ubiquitous, absolute, formless, immaterial, immutable” all-encompassing ground of everything that exists.114 Although there are many ways to interpret Brahman, it is frequently conceived as both transcendent—the source of everything that is, existing beyond the universe—and immanent, being everything that is, existing as the universe.
Similar notions of a universal spiritual force creating and/or permeating existence can be found across many cultures. These ideas have different nuances depending on the traditions and worldviews in question. Some conceptualizations of the sacred are particularly detailed, such as the esoteric Kabbalah tradition within Judaism. Without us delving too far into its complexities here, it begins with the notion of Ein Sof, which means unending or infinite, and in this context refers to God in its pure, transcendent essence, prior to self-manifestation (i.e., before becoming instantiated as the cosmos).115 The tradition then identifies ten Sefirot (emanations), which constitute the way Ein Sof “reveals Himself,” thereby creating the various spiritual and physical realms.116 These are: (1) Keter (crown), which can be interpreted in this context as the initial impulse to become manifest in/as the cosmos; (2) Chokmah (wisdom), the primary force in the process of creation; (3) Binah (understanding), which gives form to creation; (4) Hésed (loving-kindness), the love of creation; (5) Gevurah (power, judgment), the enactment of justice in creation; (6) Tiferet (beauty, balance), integrating Hésed and Gevurah; (7) Netzach (endurance, fortitude, triumph), the maintenance of the act of creation; (8) Hod (majesty, splendor), the glory of creation; (9) Yesod (foundation), the actual creation of reality, based on the preceding Sefirot; and (10) Malchut (realm), the product of the manifest cosmos itself.
In many cultures, divine powers and forces are frequently conceived of theistically. It is common, particularly in older contexts, to find polytheistic belief systems, with multiple deities that often personify certain phenomena. For example, Greek mythology tells a story about three “generations” of divine beings, elaborating upon their lineage and interactions.117 First were the Prōtógonos, literally “first-born.” In Hesiod’s Theogony (ca. 700 BCE), these included Kháos (the void preceding the birth of the cosmos), Gaia (primordial Mother Earth), and Ouranus (sky or heaven).118 Gaia and Ouranus created the second generation of twelve deities, known as the Titânes, who in turn begat the third generation, contemporary with the Greek people themselves. This cohort featured the twelve major Olympian Gods—who were also adopted in Roman mythology with alternate names—including Zeus/Jupiter (sky or thunder God, and supreme deity), Poseidôn/Neptune (the sea), Háidēs/Pluto (the underworld), and Aphrodite/Venus (love and beauty). There were also various lesser figures, such as Érōs/Cupid (desire) and Dēmētēr/Ceres (grain).
In some cultures, polytheistic systems developed into monotheistic frameworks. That said, the distinction between polytheism and monotheism is not always clear. The panoply of deities in Hinduism, for instance, are sometimes regarded as aspects or incarnations of a monotheistic Brahman.119 Christianity has developed the complex concept of the Trinity, conceived as “one God in three Divine Persons.” As elucidated by the Lateran Council IV, “It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds.”120 Judaism is strictly monotheistic, and yet in the Tanakh, Elohim refers not only to God but also to other divine entities, often labeled “angels” in English.121
The foregoing discussion, while obviously not exhaustive, has shown the diverse ways in which the sacred has been conceptualized. I can now broach the second point above: many cultures view the sacred not only as suprapersonal, but also as inhering within people in some way as a spiritual dimension or aspect. In English, these ideas are captured by terms such as soul and spirit. The former is thought to come from the Old English sawol, which in turn derived from the Proto-Germanic saiwala. It has been speculated that saiwala means “of the sea,” describing where spirits were believed to dwell before birth and after death, according to some Northern European mythologies.122 Spirit is less culturally specific. It entered English in the thirteenth century, derived from the Latin spiritus (breath), and was used to denote the supposed animating principle or life force that endows beings with existence.123
This association of the spirit with the breath—and its conceptualization as a life force—is common across languages. Similar terms include pneuma in Greek, qì in Chinese (ki in Japanese), and prāṇa and ātman in Sanskrit. The latter features prominently in the Hindu philosophical school of Védanta, where—as in many other traditions—the spirit is regarded as partaking in, or being a manifestation of, the sacred. This notion is encapsulated in the phrase Tat Tvam Asi, which translates as “Thou Art That,” conveying the idea that ātman is Brahman.124 This philosophy is known as Ádvaita, a label often translated as “nondual,” which expresses the idea that ātman and Brahman are not separate phenomena, but are ultimately one.125 Liberation thus consists in experientially realizing this oneness.
Similar ideas are expressed in other traditions, albeit with slight differences. An interesting point of comparison in this regard is Buddhism. Living in a context suffused with Védanta, the Buddha agreed that liberation from suffering was possible. However, he disavowed the Védanta notion of ātman, an inner essence that would be the recipient of liberation. Instead, he taught the notion of anātman, or “no self.”126 As discussed in chapter 2, anātman—regarded in Buddhism as one of the three lakṣaṇas, that is, intrinsic qualities of existence—refers to the notion that all phenomena lack an intrinsic or fixed identity. Thus, the Buddha held that liberation would come through seeing all forms of selfhood as an illusion, leading to the ultimate and supreme state of nirvāṇa. Moreover, Richard Gombrich suggests that the Buddha extended his anti-essentialism to nirvāṇa itself, viewing it ultimately as also free from all limiting qualities.127
There are furthermore debates about the sacred within traditions, which tend to be heterogeneous. For instance, while Buddhism generally upholds the notion of anātman, this has led to complex doctrinal disputes concerning issues such as karma and reincarnation. If there is no self, then who or what is reincarnated?128 Yet, despite these disagreements, Buddhist teachings generally all hold that the person in some way partakes in, or is a manifestation of, the sacred.
Moreover, Buddhism and many other traditions go further: this spiritual connection to the sacred is not simply an abstract philosophical idea that people are encouraged to believe in. More radically, practitioners are encouraged to cultivate a personal experience of this connection, primarily through contemplative practices, as the next section explores.
Contemplative practices serve many purposes. From a sociological perspective, for example, such activities look like potent social bonding processes.129 From the perspective of spiritual traditions themselves though, many such practices involve engaging with the sacred, however it is conceived. There is such a rich diversity of practices here—and thus of terms relating to these—that I cannot provide more than an indicative sample. However, our understanding of this terrain will be helped if, from a theoretical perspective, we conceptualize these varied practices as forms of meditation.
The term meditation itself derives from the Latin meditatio, meaning to engage in reflection. Originally used in the West to refer to all types of intellectual exercise, it eventually became more of a synonym for contemplation. For instance, in philosophy, it was common to speak of meditations on particular themes, such as Descartes’ reflections on the human mind.130 Similarly, meditation was used in religious contexts to describe reflection on aspects of the tradition, such as on “the sufferings of Christ on the Cross.”131
In more recent years, meditation has been most commonly used in reference to Eastern practices. However, most cultures have developed activities that could be construed, in functional psychological terms, as forms of meditation. One helpful framework for conceptualizing these diverse forms comes from Robert Cardoso and colleagues, who argue that meditation practices can be differentiated according to four main parameters: (1) behaviors of mind (types of attention); (2) object (the focus of contemplation); (3) attitude (the emotional quality of the act); and (4) form (the physical nature of the activity).132 I will use this framework here to guide our exploration of contemplative practices.
Per the first parameter, practices can differ in the way they deploy psychological resources. For instance, Buddhism incorporates two practices, śamatha and vipaśyanā, that are distinguished according to the behavior of mind they encourage. Śamatha is geared toward calming the mind through focused attention on a single stimulus or process, such as breathing.133 By contrast, vipaśyanā refers to insight or “clear seeing,” and is a practice of reflecting on the nature of reality.134 In psychology, the latter has been operationalized as “open-monitoring,” involving the “capacity to detect arising sensory, feeling and thought events within an unrestricted ‘background’ of awareness, without a grasping of these events in an explicitly selected foreground or focus.”135 Mindfulness practices based on smṛti are often cited as examples of vipaśyanā. However, such practices often incorporate elements of śamatha as well. For instance, the practitioner may begin with a period of focused attention on the breath to stabilize her awareness, before proceeding into the more expansive phase of open monitoring.136
The second parameter, object, turns our attention to the varied phenomena on which meditation might focus. One might reflect on bodily processes, such as breathing. One could dwell on ideas. Indeed, there is not much upon which one cannot meditate. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama puts it, meditation is “a deliberate mental activity that involves cultivating familiarity, be it with a chosen object, a fact, a theme, a habit, an outlook or a way of being.”137 For example, one cross-cultural topic of contemplation is death, known as memento mori in Latin, or maraṇa smṛti in Buddhism.138 People may also focus on meaningful phrases or sounds, known in Sanskrit as a mantra, a loanword that translates as “mind tool.”139 And of course, people can reflect on phenomena directly associated with the sacred.140 Often such practices are aided by physical objects such as religions icons.
The third parameter, attitude, relates to the emotions associated with contemplation. As noted, the Buddhist practice of mettā bhāvana is intended to engender maitrī, or loving-kindness.141 Then there are practices that encourage reverence toward divine figures. This is particularly the case in monotheistic traditions. For instance, Judaism and Christianity both frequently invoke the term Hallelujah, Hebrew for “praise God”; when deployed in contemplative contexts (such as communal prayer or hymn), this not only exhorts believers to worship God, but to do so with an emotional spirit of gratitude, devotion, and rejoicing.142 Reverential practices are also found in Buddhism, which encourages an array of deity meditations known as iṣṭadevatā, a compound of iṣṭa (liked, desired, revered) and devatā (divine being).143
The final parameter, form, concerns the various physical postures and actions involved in meditation. Yoga is one example. Derived from the Sanskrit yuj, meaning to bind or yoke, yoga is a system of practices originating in the Indian subcontinent during the third millennium BCE.144 Yoga is designed to bring the different dimensions of the person—physical, psychological, spiritual—into union. There are many branches of yoga, each describing a particular spiritual path.145 These include karma (selfless service to others), jñāna (knowledge and study), and bhakti (devotion and care). Hatha—the branch most commonly found in the West, where it is often mistaken as the only branch—refers to force or effort, and as a path of yoga centers on the practice of āsana (postures) and vinyāsa (dynamic transitions between postures).146 It generally involves sequences of postures, the selection, duration, and speed of which vary by tradition, accompanied by meditative processes such as breathing and focusing techniques. Elsewhere, a wide variety of physically oriented contemplative traditions come from China. These include hundreds of techniques aggregated under the banner of gong fū (anglicized as kung fu), which literally means work, merit, or achievement, but which is used to refer generically to martial arts.147 Some of these practices, such as tài-jí (tai chi),have become popular outside the sphere of martial arts per se.148 Many practices center on qì, including the intricate body-mind techniques of qì gong.149
Despite their diversity, contemplative practices are unified in helping people to transcend conventional experience and thereby reach the peaks of development, according to numerous secular theories and spiritual traditions.
As alluded to above, cross-cultural surveys suggest that transcendence lies at the heart of most spiritual traditions.150 Although this is a complex concept, a common theme is a shift away from the conventional sense of self—who one commonly perceives oneself to be, with a name, history, personality, occupation, and so on. This sense of self becomes seen in some way as illusory as one comes to identify with some larger experiential context (i.e., with a suprapersonal process or group).151 Transcendence is not innately spiritual. For instance, analyses of crowd behavior at football matches, political rallies, and other events suggest that large groups have the power to subsume people’s individual identities; they are “swept up” by the collective dynamic.152 However, here we focus on transcendent experiences that are specifically spiritual.
Although transcendence does involve identification with some larger whole, it does not usually entail a disconnect from conventional identity. Sometimes this does happen: for instance, in trance states precipitated by psychoactive substances and rituals, a person may experience themselves in an entirely altered way, involving a “loss of self” as it is usually understood.153 However, more commonly, spiritual self-transcendence involves a process whereby the conventional self is still acknowledged, yet “seen through.”154 For instance, in an advanced state or stage of psychospiritual development, one may view the self as a fiction even as one recognizes and takes care of this fiction. Hegel’s formulation of transcendence using the complex verb aufheben (or noun Aufhebung)—rendered variously as to sublate, raise up, abolish, and at once to “negate and preserve”—captures this idea of seeing through.155 As Wilber explains, what is negated is exclusive identification with a particular view of self.156 The old sense of self is preserved but is now set within a more expansive experiential, possibly spiritual, framework.
Forms of transcendence are found across religions traditions. In Christianity, for instance, transcendence is reflected in evocations such as “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”157 However, Buddhism has developed especially detailed theories of self-transcendence, as well as practices designed to inculcate it along several pathways, and so I shall focus in depth on this tradition.
One representative approach is that of the five skandhas. Translatable as “aggregates” or “heaps,” this term refers to the corporeal elements of the person: substances such as flesh and bone, and processes such as circulation and respiration.158 By reflecting on these elements in meditation, the practitioner may “deconstruct” her conventional notion of self. The idea is that one comes to appreciate that the Buddhist principles of anātman (no-self) and anitya (impermanence) apply to oneself, and so the immutable self is an illusion.159 This is not to deny that people actually exist, nor to nihilistically claim that people do not matter, but rather to recognize that the self is an ephemeral mental construct. Similar ideas have been propounded by Western philosophers such as David Hume and William James, who understood the self as an aggregation of successive qualia or the “stream of consciousness.”160
In practice, one reflects on the five skandhas in order to better understand how each, arising in sequence, generates the experience of self. The first skandha, rūpa, refers to matter or form—that is, the material body. Buddhist teachings suggest that rūpa is constructed from four mahābhūta (great elements or forces): pṛthvī (earth), āp (water), tejas (fire), and vāyu (air). Each refers to some aspect of the body:161 pṛthvī encompasses that which is solid or hard, such as bones; āp that which is fluid, such as blood; tejas sensations of hot and cold; and vāyu that which is insubstantial and in motion, such as breath.
The second skandha is vedanā—affect and sensation.162 When something is sensed in the experiential world, it is always already experienced as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. That is, when one’s rūpa detects a stimulus, a feeling arises immediately. This generates the push and pull of aversion (to phenomena that evoke duḥkha vedanā, unpleasantness) and attachment (to phenomena that evoke sukha vedanā, pleasure).
The activation of vedanā gives rise to the third skandha, saṃjñā, which translates as perception and cognition.163 Saṃjñā encompasses the higher-order cognitive mechanisms by which one processes and identifies stimuli.
These mechanisms then generate the fourth skandha, saṃskāra, a complex term rendered variously as “mental formations,” “volition,” and “karmic activities.”164 This skandha refers to psychological processes, such as trains of thought, activated by a stimulus. It also describes the way these processes generate urges to act in response to the stimulating phenomenon. These actions produce karma, with skillful and unskillful actions contributing to positive and negative future outcomes, respectively.165
All this occurs within fractions of a second, leading to the last skandha, vijñāna, which translates as consciousness or discernment. Only after a stimulus has been sensed and processed, and only after it has generated volitional impulses upon which one acts, does one truly become conscious of it.
Deep appreciation of the skandhas enables one to see through one’s self-construct and consequently be liberated. This outcome relies on a perception and realization of what is called śūnyatā. Although often translated as “emptiness,” śūnyatā captures the subtler idea that all phenomena, including the self, are conditional, dependent on conditions, and subject to change. As the Heart Sutra memorably puts it, “Form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form.”166 A person who attains a deep understanding and appreciation of śūnyatā attains enlightenment.167
As a final point, some have suggested that śūnyatā would be better translated as openness, boundlessness, or boundarylessness.168 These terms reflect the notion that human beings tend to perceive, categorize, and experience the world by imposing boundaries on it. This is exactly what languages do, carving up existence into distinctive elements of experience. This book has made the case that our understanding of life can be enriched if we see how other languages have segmented the world. By doing so, we can refine our maps, adding finer-grained boundaries.
Yet, as these forays into Buddhist teachings suggest, we might do even more than refine our maps. By recognizing the constructed nature of our imposed boundaries, we may come to realize that they are useful illusions, that there are no absolute boundaries. This is the essence of śūnyatā: the promise that liberation comes from seeing through the very boundaries we have created.
Well-being is not only a matter of experiencing certain feelings or having nourishing relationships. Well-being is also developed through the cultivation of good character, comprising virtue, considerateness, understanding, self-determination, and skill. For many people, development is also premised on spiritual attainment. This often requires a conception of the sacred, a means of engaging with it through contemplative practice, and a resulting experience of self-transcendence.