Thales and Buddha

"Your comment about the Jains is on point, though this insight is perhaps not limited to them." Indeed. Even as I was posting I was thinking of the Greek materialists. Thales of Miletus: the loadstone has a psyche (ψυχή) because it can move iron. Not to mention the ascription to him of the saying 'All things are full of gods.' Cf. Chiron in Pasolini's Medea: "Wherever you glance, a god is hidden." "The blind pushing on of existence [...] obtained its own eye with which to examine itself." This reminds me of Schopenhauer's Will, that takes various forms modelled on the Platonic Ideas until, at the highest level, it becomes aware of itself and the world, and seeks its own negation; the world-in-itself (=will) having self-annihilation as its telos. (Not that I personally accept this philosophy, but it has interesting parallels with Buddhist thought.)