What's up, everybody? I've been studying both Western and Eastern philosophy, both quite intently, and I've noticed a number of things that have been said similarly across multiple traditions that don't seem to have a common origin. Since I don't know the real word for this type of similarity, let's use the term memetic homoplasy (analogous to genetic homoplasy), or just homoplasy for short.
I've read somewhere that there are actually a lot of books and other writings catalogging these similarities. Personally, I haven't seen any, but I don't doubt that they're out there. I'm actually not enthusiastically interested in generating anything more comprehensive of that sort, but since I've noticed some of these similarities in the course of my own readings that seem to turn no google results, I figured I might as well list some that I've noticed. I am enthusiastically interested in other ways of working with philosophy, including: writing better exposition about Chinese philosophy, doing original translations of Chinese philosophy, doing other things related to translation (such as writing specifications for software that can make the work of making "matching translations" and other things more efficient), and writing my own original philosophical-type stuff (which seems always to turn out 'zhuangist'). Here, though, some examples of homoplasy.
In the classical Greek philosophical tradition, there are three main schools: the Cynics, the Stoics, and the Epicureans. In the classical Chinese philosophical tradition, there are three main schools: the Confucians, the Daoists, and the Buddhists. These trios can be mapped one-to-one somewhat. Epicureanism and Buddhism are similar in that the main goal of Epicureanism is a pursuit of mild pleasures in moderation and the main goal of Buddhism is a pursuit of mild avoision of pain in moderation. Cynicism and Daoism are similar in that they both assert that a philosopher is a type of hobo who avoids all serious committments (this is to take a common, but arguably mistaken interpretation of Daoism. Indeed, a lot of the main Daoism scripture argues for this, but plenty contradicts it, too). The last match is much more approximate in that a lot of the main players in Stoicism and Confucianism were high government officials and other people with serious and powerful jobs (unlike the other four schools, to an approximation), but I don't know much about Confucianism for now, but I plan to study more of it, and I suspect I'll find more of these for this pair.
Comparing further Cynicism and Daoism, I've noticed a pair of stories that are remarkably similar in plot and theme. In the Zhuangzi (the second-most popular classic of Daoism), there's a story that goes as follows. A friend group of philosophers flew over to some rural area and wandered along a dirt path and came upon a farmer drawing water from a well, but doing it the inefficient way. One of the philosophers explained to him how to use a lever in a way that makes the work of drawing water more efficient The farmer told him that he knew that trick but does it the inefficient way because contrivances such as labor-saving levers twist the mind and distract from one's experience of real reality. The philosopher was bedridden for several weeks with disappoitment toward himself, for the farmer was more wise than he. It's a silly story that makes a farce of saying categorically that pursuit of luxuries detracts from enjoyment of reality. In the Western tradition, there is a story that goes as follows, Diogenes the Cynic went to a fountain to acquire some water to drink. As he was filling his cup at the fountain he saw a boy using his hands as a cup to catch the water to drink it. Diogenes then threw away his cup, one of his few possessions, because it was an unnecessary contrivance and therefore a thing that detracts from one's experience of real reality. The story is just as silly, and the point is the exact same. Both the Daoist writer and the Cynic writer used a weird, parody-like story about drawing water to make the same point comically.
Next example.
In The Apologia (AKA The Apology) by Plato, Socrates mentions that the playwright Aritosthenes wrote and produced a play, The Clouds, wherein Socrates is depicted as flying, and the point of the play was to parody that philosophers "have their heads in the clouds", so to speak (i.e. have an excessively high opinion of themselves or think about excessively lofty ideas). In the Zhuangzi and the Liezi, philosophers are depicted as flying around a lot of the time: it's their mode of fast-travel. The difference here is that the followers and writers of the ancient Chinese tradition knew much earlier not to take themselves too seriously, so they got around to self-parody way early in their scriptures, and readers can enjoy the Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Liezi without any real self-conflict. To clarify: Laozi is basically the Socrates of the Chinese tradition, and is more serious than Zhuangzi and Liezi whereas Zhuangzi and Liezi are largely sequels to the Laozi (or Dao De Jing or Tao Te Ching) that sometimes parody but always respect the older classic. This is in contrast to the Western tradition where The Clouds by Aritosthenes was a harsh polemic that was instrumental in getting Socrates executed.
Next example.
There are a lot of writings in the old traditions that point to some thing in nature or technology and compare something about it to some other aspect of life. One of those goes "Hey, you know about dyeing cloths? You have a bucket of dye and then you dip a white cloth into it and then the cloth turns into the color of the dye. Hey, isn't life sorta like that in terms of what things you figuratively immerse yourself in?" Wait, did I say "one of those things"? I meant two. Marcus Aurelius said that 18 centuries ago in Rome and Mozi also said that 26 centuries ago in China.
I have some more of these listed in point-form somewhere. I might expand this article some time. I also haven't done nearly enough reading on any of these bodies of classics and should totally get around to reading more of those in the future.
I'm working on a book about philosophy and other stuff. It's a 70,000-word manuscript already. When I'm done hacking away at it, it might be a 25,000-word book out later in 3188.