Udana 1.3

Thus have I heard. On a certain occasion the Exalted One, soon after the attainment of Buddhahood, dwelt at Uruvela on the banks of the stream Neranjara, at the foot of the tree of Enlightenment. At that time the Exalted One, after remaining in a sitting posture for seven days, experienced the bliss of Emancipation. 

When the seven days had come to a close, the Exalted One arose from the state of trance and in the last watch of the night thoroughly thought out the chain of cause and effect in both the direct and indirect orders. 

Now by the complete destruction of Ignorance, there is cessation of Conformations. And the Exalted One in this connection, on that occasion, breathed forth this solemn utterance: 

"When the conditions of existence dawn upon the strenuous, meditative Brahmana, 

He stands, scattering the hosts of the Tempter, as the Sun, diffusing its rays through space." 

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 202

Vain are his prayers who cannot grant a prayer. 

IMAGE: Jacques-Laurent Agasse, Androcles and the Lion (c. 1810) 

Plutarch, The Life of Cato the Younger 33

Elated by this success, Caesar introduced another law, which provided that almost the whole of Campania be divided among the poor and needy. 

No one spoke against the law except Cato, and him Caesar ordered to be dragged from the rostra to prison. Cato did not any the more remit his bold utterances, but as he walked along discoursed about the law and advised the people to put a stop to such legislation. 

Moreover, the senate followed him with downcast looks, as well as the best part of the people in silence, though they looked annoyed and troubled, so that Caesar could not fail to see that they were displeased; but he was obstinate, and expected that Cato would resort to appeal or entreaty, and therefore had him led along. 

However, when it was clear that Cato did not so much as think of doing anything of the sort, Caesar was overcome by the shame and infamy of his course, and by his own secret persuasions induced one of the tribunes of the people to rescue Cato. 

Nevertheless, by these laws and by other favors Caesar's party so cajoled the people as to get a vote passed giving to Caesar the government of Illyria and all Gaul, with an army of four legions, for five years, although Cato warned the people that they themselves by their own votes were establishing a tyrant in their citadel. 

They also unlawfully transferred Publius Clodius from patrician to plebeian rank and got him elected tribune of the people, a man who, in order to secure Cicero's banishment as his reward, was using all his political influence for the gratification of the people. 

For consuls, too, they secured the election⁠ of Calpurnius Piso, who was Caesar's father-in‑law, and Aulus Gabinius, a man from the lap of Pompey, as those say who knew his ways of life. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 87.9

Hence, good does not spring from evil, any more than figs grow from olive trees. Things which grow correspond to their seed; and goods cannot depart from their class. As that which is honorable does not grow from that which is base, so neither does good grow from evil. For the honorable and the good are identical.
 
Certain of our school oppose this statement as follows: “Let us suppose that money taken from any source whatsoever is a good; even though it is taken by an act of sacrilege, the money does not on that account derive its origin from sacrilege. 
 
“You may get my meaning through the following illustration: In the same jar there is a piece of gold and there is a serpent. If you take the gold from the jar, it is not just because the serpent is there too, I say, that the jar yields me the gold—because it contains the serpent as well—but it yields the gold in spite of containing the serpent also.
 
“Similarly, gain results from sacrilege, not just because sacrilege is a base and accursed act, but because it contains gain also. As the serpent in the jar is an evil, and not the gold which lies there, beside the serpent; so in an act of sacrilege it is the crime, not the profit, that is evil.”
 
But I differ from these men; for the conditions in each case are not at all the same. In the one instance I can take the gold without the serpent, in the other I cannot make the profit without committing the sacrilege. The gain in the latter case does not lie side by side with the crime; it is blended with the crime. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 87 
 
The effect will always be a likeness of the cause. Do not permit the sophists to perplex you, because this is a matter of logical identity, and their usual dilemmas are derived from jumbled accounts of the good. 
 
Go back to the beginning, recognizing why our human good is defined by our human nature, through which any other conditions can thereby become beneficial or harmful to us, and then you will no longer be troubled by the contorted conundrums. 
 
I could go on for pages and pages about the gold and the serpent example, along with dozens of others that are intended to trip us up, but I will resist the temptation. It is enough to know how the problems arise from being distracted, by fiddling about with the circumstances alone, instead of relating them back to the proper measure of our understanding. 
 
The critic’s analogy falls short, since the good or the evil is through the disposition, and not, strictly speaking, in either the snake or the money: I do not have to do anything harmful in order to get at something profitable. 
 
Some time ago, I was deeply frustrated by a friend—I use the term loosely—who refused to tell his girlfriend that he was also seeing someone else on the side. I nagged him incessantly to come clean, to be honest about his intentions, on the grounds that nothing would go well for him if he failed to uphold his own integrity.
 
“What use is the outcome—whether you end up with both of the girls, or one of them, or neither—without the knowledge that you have been a stand-up guy?” 
 
He resisted, of course, and offered many reasons why he could continue to maintain the deception, without any painful consequences. Indeed, he seemed to have convinced himself that he was doing the kindest thing, by not allowing a revelation of the truth to upset anyone’s feelings. 
 
“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.” 
 
“Is it your call to decide what she should or shouldn’t know? The best way to help her make the right choice is for you to make the right choice. It will end poorly, not because you will cease to be gratified, but because you will have failed to take any responsibility for yourself.” 
 
He’s a very successful sort of fellow now, though I fear he has yet to learn anything about being a decent sort of fellow. I unfortunately know he is still lying, when he brags about how happy he is. 
 
A few years later, I was on the receiving end of a similar subterfuge, and while I felt great agony from being tricked, there was a far greater sadness from seeing someone I loved turn into a person who was unwilling to love. The good in your life comes from how you choose to give of yourself, not from what you can conspire to receive for yourself. 
 
I cannot isolate the circumstances from one another, based merely upon my preferences, or act as if committing a sin is somehow necessary for getting ahead. It is a conscience, whether informed or deficient, that will bind it all together or tear it all apart. 

—Reflection written in 2/2014 

IMAGE: Vincent van Gogh, Olive Trees in a Mountainous Landscape (1889) 

Storm on the Sea 35

Henry Ossawa Tanner, Ship in a Storm (1879) 

Ruins 25

Hubert Robert, Fantasy Ruins with Fountain and Figures (c. 1780) 

Memento Mori 18

Anonymous Dutch, Memento Mori (c. 1530) 

Vanitas 103

Damien L'homme, Vanitas (1641) 

Chuang Tzu 6.15

Tsze-yü and Tsze-sang were friends. 

Once, when it had rained continuously for ten days, Tsze-yü said, "I fear that Tsze-sang may be in distress." So he wrapped up some rice, and went to give it to him to eat. 

When he came to Tsze-sang's door, there issued from it sounds between singing and wailing; a lute was struck, and there came the words, "O Father! O Mother! O Heaven! O Men!" 

The voice could not sustain itself, and the line was hurriedly pronounced. Tsze-yü entered and said, "Why are you singing, Sir, this line of poetry in such a way?" 

The other replied, "I was thinking, and thinking in vain, how it was that I was brought to such extremity. Would my parents have wished me to be so poor? 

"Heaven overspreads all without any partial feeling, and so does Earth sustain all—would Heaven and Earth make me so poor with any unkindly feeling? 

"I was trying to find out who had done it, and I could not do so. But here I am in this extremity! It is what was appointed for me!" 

IMAGE: Ma Yuan, The Yellow River Breaches Its Course (c. 1200) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 87.8

“Good does not result from evil. But riches result from greed; therefore, riches are not a good.” 
 
“It is not true,” they say, “that good does not result from evil. For money comes from sacrilege and theft. Accordingly, although sacrilege and theft are evil, yet they are evil only because they work more evil than good. For they bring gain; but the gain is accompanied by fear, anxiety, and torture of mind and body.”
 
Whoever says this must perforce admit that sacrilege, though it be an evil because it works much evil, is yet partly good because it accomplishes a certain amount of good. What can be more monstrous than this? We have, to be sure, actually convinced the world that sacrilege, theft, and adultery are to be regarded as among the goods. 
 
How many men there are who do not blush at theft, how many who boast of having committed adultery! For petty sacrilege is punished, but sacrilege on a grand scale is honored by a triumphal procession. Besides, sacrilege, if it is wholly good in some respect, will also be honorable and will be called right conduct; for it is conduct which concerns ourselves. But no human being, on serious consideration, admits this idea. 
 
Therefore, goods cannot spring from evil. For if, as you object, sacrilege is an evil for the single reason that it brings on much evil, if you but absolve sacrilege of its punishment and pledge it immunity, sacrilege will be wholly good. 
 
And yet the worst punishment for crime lies in the crime itself. You are mistaken, I maintain, if you propose to reserve your punishments for the hangman or the prison; the crime is punished immediately after it is committed; nay, rather, at the moment when it is committed. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 87 
 
I must tread lightly here, since I have little patience for those who compromise their supposed principles in order to achieve the most convenient results. They nobly claim they are being pragmatic, when they are really just looking for the easiest way out. 
 
At the heart of it is a confusion about the very nature of the good, treating our moral worth as if it could be calculated in a bank ledger. It’s all fine, they say, as long as we end up in the black, where the profits outweigh the losses, and we can therefore overlook having done a few vicious things, in order to achieve a far greater number of virtuous things. 
 
With the Peripatetics, I do not doubt that goodness admits of degrees, but this does not override a more fundamental distinction of kind. As clever as it sounds, the ends cannot justify the means, because any evil act, however small it may appear, is inherently opposed to any good act, however big it may appear. It is just as illogical when the schemers insist that two wrongs can make a right, when they now are left with only two wrongs. 
 
I believe Marcus Aurelius put it best: “If it is not right, do not do it. If it is not true, do not say it.” The Stoic knows full well why fudging it is a form of cowardice. Wickedness takes us in one direction, and righteousness takes us in the other. 
 
“Yes, I admit that stealing the money wasn’t terribly nice, but I now intend to use that money to do a whole bunch of much nicer things. Stop being such a goody two-shoes!” 
 
It isn’t merely about being nice, and it isn’t simply about getting the preferred results. Each and every one of my thoughts, words, and deeds reflects my whole character, such that my integrity as a person depends upon living with prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice, in each and every situation. Anything less is to act in bad faith, to abandon my human dignity. 
 
“Well, it’s not like I burned down the whole church or anything! Does it make such a big difference that I snatched a handful of bills out of the collection plate?” 
 
Even if the quantity happens to be more or less, the quality of the offense remains exactly the same. The true harm is in the soul, not in the circumstances. The real rewards and punishments proceed from the inside, not from the outside. I have gained nothing if I have accumulated more stuff, and I have lost nothing if I have maintained my character. Why would I sell my conscience for the sake of a few comforts? 
 
Once again, the Thomists taught me properly: a good can never come from committing an evil, though a good can always come from suffering an evil. The distinction is a critical one: we are defined by whatever we do, as an efficient cause, which includes transforming whatever might be done to us, as a material cause. 
 
If we start to excuse ourselves from some of the sins, it won’t be too long before we excuse ourselves from all of the sins. When we dodge any of our responsibilities, both to ourselves and to others, we engage in the perverse practice of painting over the rot. Forgive, but do not condone. 

—Reflection written in 2/2014 

Vivekachudamani 165-166

THE VESTURE FORMED OF VITAL BREATH

The breath-formed vesture is formed by the life-breath determined by the five powers of action; through its power the food-formed vesture, guided by the Self and sustained by food, moves in all bodily acts. 

Nor is this breath-formed vesture the Self, since it is formed of the vital airs, coming and going like the wind, moving within and without; since it can in no wise discern between right and wrong, between oneself and another, but is ever dependent. 

Maxims of Goethe 94

The world is a bell with a crack in it; it rattles, but does not ring. 

Wisdom from the Early Cynics, Diogenes 45

When Diogenes was dining in a temple, and in the course of the meal loaves not free from dirt were put on the table, he took them up and threw them away, declaring that nothing unclean ought to enter a temple. 

To the man who said to him, "You don't know anything, although you are a philosopher," he replied, "Even if I am but a pretender to wisdom, that in itself is philosophy." 

When someone brought a child to Diogenes and declared him to be highly gifted and of excellent character, "What need then," said he, "has he of me?" 

Those who say admirable things, but fail to do them, he compared to a harp; for the harp, like them, he said, has neither hearing nor perception. 

Diogenes was going into a theater, meeting face to face those who were coming out, and being asked why, "This," he said, "is what I practice doing all my life." 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 6.64 

IMAGE: Taras Shevchenko, Diogenes (1856) 

Wisdom from the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 85

Their physical doctrine the Stoics divide into sections (1) about bodies; (2) about principles; (3) about elements; (4) about the gods; (5) about bounding surfaces and space whether filled or empty. 

This is a division into species; but the generic division is into three parts, dealing with (i.) the universe; (ii.) the elements; (iii.) the subject of causation.

The part dealing with the universe admits, they say, of division into two: for with one aspect of it the mathematicians also are concerned, in so far as they treat questions relating to the fixed stars and the planets, e.g. whether the sun is or is not just so large as it appears to be, and the same about the moon, the question of their revolutions, and other inquiries of the same sort. 

But there is another aspect or field of cosmological inquiry, which belongs to the physicists alone: this includes such questions as what the substance of the universe is, whether the sun and the stars are made up of form and matter, whether the world has had a beginning in time or not, whether it is animate or inanimate, whether it is destructible or indestructible, whether it is governed by providence, and all the rest. 

The part concerned with causation, again, is itself subdivided into two. And in one of its aspects medical inquiries have a share in it, in so far as it involves investigation of the ruling principle of the soul and the phenomena of soul, seeds, and the like. 

Whereas the other part is claimed by the mathematicians also, e.g. how vision is to be explained, what causes the image on the mirror, what is the origin of clouds, thunder, rainbows, halos, comets, and the like.

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.132-133 

Songs of Innocence 15

Spring (1789) 

William Blake (1757-1827) 

Sound the Flute!
Now it's mute.
Birds delight
Day and Night.
Nightingale
In the dale
Lark in Sky
Merrily
Merrily Merrily to welcome in the Year.

Little Boy
Full of joy.
Little Girl
Sweet and small,
Cock does crow
So do you.
Merry voice
Infant noise
Merrily Merrily to welcome in the Year. 

Little Lamb
Here I am,
Come and lick
My white neck.
Let me pull
Your soft Wool.
Let me kiss
Your soft face.
Merrily Merrily we welcome in the Year. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 87.7

Why, then, is the wise man great? Because he has a great soul. Accordingly, it is true that that which falls to the lot even of the most despicable person is not a good.
 
Thus, I should never regard inactivity as a good; for even the tree-frog and the flea possess this quality. Nor should I regard rest and freedom from trouble as a good; for what is more at leisure than a worm? 
 
Do you ask what it is that produces the wise man? That which produces a god. You must grant that the wise man has in an element of godliness, heavenliness, grandeur. The good does not come to everyone, nor does it allow any random person to possess it. Behold: 
 
“What fruits each country bears, or will not bear; 
Here corn, and there the vine, grow richlier. 
And elsewhere still the tender tree and grass 
Unbidden clothe themselves in green. Seest thou 
How Tmolus ships its saffron perfumes forth, 
And ivory comes from Ind; soft Sheba sends 
Its incense, and the unclad Chalybes 
Their iron.”
 
These products are apportioned to separate countries in order that human beings may be constrained to traffic among themselves, each seeking something from his neighbor in his turn. 
 
So the Supreme Good has also its own abode. It does not grow where ivory grows, or iron. Do you ask where the Supreme Good dwells? In the soul. And unless the soul be pure and holy, there is no room in it for God. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 87 
 
Do not praise the part as if it were separate from the whole. Do not pursue the means without the dignity of the end. Do not elevate the inferior to the status of the superior. In the absence of a virtuous soul, there can be nothing else that is good in my life. 
 
Money has never made me a better man, though there were times when I did manage to spend it rightly. Fame has never offered me dignity, though there were times when it followed from doing my duty. Luxury has never granted me happiness, though there were times when my principles also happened to be pleasing. 
 
I have little a mantra that helps me to keep it straight: I have known good people who were rich, clever, or charming, but I have yet to meet any people who were good because they were rich, clever, or charming. 
 
“Thank God I have been this fortunate!” That is not a blessing, for it can just as easily be a curse. 
 
“I only need enough so I don’t have to worry!” Circumstances of any sort will leave you anxious. The solution lies in seeking that good which can never be taken away. 
 
“If I’m lucky, one day I won’t have to work at all!” Labor will only appear to be a burden when we are confused about the purpose of living itself. 
 
Back in high school, my friends and I would apply the phrase “like a god” to most anything—yes, teenagers come up with the goofiest expressions. It turned out having the hair of a god, or the car of a god, or the record collection of a god didn’t really make much sense, since a god wouldn’t need any of those things. The divine must be self-sufficient, wanting in nothing beyond itself. 
 
How could a mere mortal approach such a height? By nurturing what is distinctly his own, what lies within his soul, instead of chasing after superficial diversions, which will always leave him begging for more and more. Do not be fooled by the usual routine, the rules they teach you about in school or promote incessantly at the office: you can’t get there from here. 
 
If my nature is indeed to understand and to love, what else could possibly matter? The world is full of trade, of folks seeking to profit from buying and selling every product under the sun, and yet the one thing that remains priceless is always there for the taking, if we just put our minds to it. 
 
By all means, put the many fruits of this world to use, but recognize why the good in their use is derived exclusively from the virtues that stand behind them. I would propose a radically different way of judging between the “haves” and the “have nots”.
 
It isn’t enough to leave room for dessert. Make more room for the God who already dwells inside you. 

—Reflection written in 2/2014 

IMAGE: Master of the Dominican Effigies, The Garden of the Virtues (c. 1350) 

Frippisms 9

To try is to fail. 

Cosmos 28

Delphic Maxims 103

Βουλεύου χρόνῳ 

Give a timely counsel 

IMAGE: George Catlin, Sioux Chiefs in Profound Deliberation (c. 1837) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 87.6

“That which can fall to the lot of any man, no matter how base or despised he may be, is not a good. But wealth falls to the lot of the pander and the trainer of gladiators; therefore wealth is not a good.” 
 
“Another wrong premise,” they say, “for we notice that goods fall to the lot of the very lowest sort of men, not only in the scholar’s art, but also in the art of healing or in the art of navigating.”
 
These arts, however, make no profession of greatness of soul; they do not rise to any heights nor do they frown upon what fortune may bring. It is virtue that uplifts man and places him superior to what mortals hold dear; virtue neither craves overmuch nor fears to excess that which is called good or that which is called bad. 
 
Chelidon, one of Cleopatra’s eunuchs, possessed great wealth; and recently Natalis—a man whose tongue was as shameless as it was dirty, a man whose mouth used to perform the vilest offices—was the heir of many, and also made many his heirs. What then? Was it his money that made him unclean, or did he himself besmirch his money? 
 
Money tumbles into the hands of certain men as a shilling tumbles down a sewer. Virtue stands above all such things. It is appraised in coin of its own minting; and it deems none of these random windfalls to be good. 
 
But medicine and navigation do not forbid themselves and their followers to marvel at such things. One who is not a good man can nevertheless be a physician, or a pilot, or a scholar—yes, just as well as he can be a cook! He to whose lot it falls to possess something which is not of a random sort, cannot be called a random sort of man; a person is of the same sort as that which he possesses.
 
A strong box is worth just what it holds; or rather, it is a mere accessory of that which it holds. Whoever sets any price upon a full purse except the price established by the count of the money deposited therein? This also applies to the owners of great estates: they are only accessories and incidentals to their possessions. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 87 
 
I appreciate why the Peripatetics wished to describe the good through its circumstances, and how they sought to explain the virtues within their proper setting, but the danger is that we then conflate our happiness with our conveniences, and we confuse the perfection of our own nature with the perfection of other natures. 
 
While there is no doubt that pebbles, or trees, or dogs have a particular goodness within them, it would be ridiculous to use this as a benchmark for the excellence of a man; look to the essence of the thing itself, not at its accidental relation to outside things. This is why the neighborhood I live in, and the contents of my bank account, and the list of people who happen to send me Christmas cards will never determine my inner worth. 
 
I know full well how a life of poverty, sickness, and loneliness can be an incredible burden, and yet that which is difficult should not be mistaken for that which is impossible. Instead of yearning for a change in my fortune, let me work on an increase of my character, which has the power to transform any obstacle into an opportunity for greater understanding and love. 
 
The Peripatetic can’t have it both ways. Don’t tell me that happiness is defined as the activity of a rational soul, and then add that certain amounts of money, health, and friends are also necessary conditions. It reminds me of those shifty bosses, who keep modifying the terms for a promotion, or those fake Christians, who say that you are justified by faith, except when you don’t put enough cash in the collection basket.
 
The Stoics refused, therefore, to speak of wealth, or any aspect of fortune, as a good. There is no direct connection between property and propriety, whatever the experts might say, because a state of affairs that is largely beyond our power does not reflect the merit of the judgements that are entirely within our power. 
 
Can the circumstances somehow take on a quality of goodness for us? Yes, but only indirectly, insofar as we choose to make an appropriate use of them, in harmony with our natural calling to a life of the virtues. Therefore, you will find some people who employ their money to make themselves better, while you will find others who merely treat their affluence as an excuse to become worse. 
 
This further applies to all of our human skills, so that however gifted a man may be at writing a book, or healing a patient, or sailing across the ocean, his goodness, in the one way that really matters, must proceed from the integrity of his conscience. I once met a fellow who was, by all accounts, one of the most brilliant chefs of our generation, though this did not stop him from simultaneously being one of the biggest scoundrels of our generation. 
 
May I still refer to the “good” in a casual sense, as a general expression of distinction and approval? I suspect there is little harm in it, as long as I never lose sight of the absolute measure. Most anyone can attach himself to riches, but it will take a very special sort of person to stand out as a source of the greatest value. 

—Reflection written in 2/2014 

IMAGE: Jacopo Bassano, Lazarus and the Rich Man (1545)