| Summary: | <p>The objective of the present article is to support the idea that Machado de Assis’ work conforms well to what may be called a non-religious spirituality. For that, the article’s main focus is the analysis of the short story “O Segredo do Bonzo: Capítulo Inédito de Fernão Mendes Pinto”, published in 1882’s collection titled <em>Papéis Avulsos</em>, where the main principles of that spirituality, which is spread all over his work, are given in a nutshell. In a first moment, we analise the intertextuality between Machado’s short story “O Segredo do Bonzo” and Portuguese Renaissance writer’s travelogue <em>Peregrinação</em> and the Machado’s nineteen century critique of the west’s main universalizing proposals: Christianity, scientificity and Enlightenment. In a second moment, we analise the philosophical implications of the primacy given to ‘opinion’ as an existential foundation and as a constitutive element of reality, in a context of close proximity with the soteriological traditions of ancient Greek skepticism, on the one hand, and Buddhism, on the other. A critic of religion, specially of Christian religion, Machado’s ‘accidental’ association with Buddhism is symptomatic of a very peculiar form of non-religious spirituality.</p>
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