Athens c. 350 BC
Plato unwritten doctrines
Was Plato a Buddhist meditation teacher?
Plato: The Philosopher, Epinomis
The outlines of the meditation system as taught by the Buddha were described in The Philosopher, Epinomis: the dialectics of philosophy. The meditation techniques, unwritten doctrines, are still taught, following the same order as described by Plato, unchanged after 2,500 years.
Plato: The Republic
Were Plato’s dialogues Buddhist Dhamma Talks, packed with details about the 6th sense (hadaya vatthu in Pali), how to see Ultimate Reality on mind-materiality (5 clinging aggregates) and liberation from rebirth through practice of Dependent Origination- metempsychosis in Greek – and Vipassanā, to “see the truth with the mind’s eye”?
Ogham hand signs and Elder Futhark rune scripts
The meditation techniques spread through Europe and were practiced for up to 1,800 years. Systems of abstract symbols were developed in the 4-5th century when sacred sites were destroyed, its source can be traced to the writings of Plato and the clay tablets and Phaistos found in Crete.
Plato Philosopher – Dante Divine Comedy
Dante’s Divine Comedy is a complex text, considered to be one of the world’s greatest literary treasures (1308-1320). Did Dante copy the structure of his text from the 1,900-year-old system of knowledge well known in Europe?
When Dante wrote a letter to his patron Cangrande della Scala of Verona in 1319, a year before he finished the Divine Comedy, he described Plato in words which conform that the “unwritten doctrines” were meditation methods based on the 6th sense:
“29. …For we see many things with our mind for which vocal signs are lacking, as Plato tells us well in his books by taking on metaphors, for he saw many things with the light of his mind which he was not able to express in his own words.”
James Marchand of the University of Illinois https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/cangrande.english.html