Stoic Snippets 209

As you yourself are a component part of a social system, so let every act of yours be a component part of social life. 

Whatever act of yours then has no reference either immediately or remotely to a social end, this tears asunder your life, and does not allow it to be one, and it is of the nature of a mutiny, just as when in a popular assembly a man acting by himself stands apart from the general agreement. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.23 

Dhammapada 334-337

The thirst of a thoughtless man grows like a creeper; he runs from life to life, like a monkey seeking fruit in the forest. 

Whomsoever this fierce thirst overcomes, full of poison, in this world, his sufferings increase like the abounding Birana grass. 

He who overcomes this fierce thirst, difficult to be conquered in this world, sufferings fall off from him, like water-drops from a lotus leaf. 

This salutary word I tell you, "Do you, as many as are here assembled, dig up the root of thirst, as he who wants the sweet-scented Usira root must dig up the Birana grass, that Mara, the tempter, may not crush you again and again, as the stream crushes the reeds." 

The Wisdom of Solomon 18:20-25

[20] The experience of death touched also the righteous,
and a plague came upon the multitude in the desert,
but the wrath did not long continue. 
[21] For a blameless man was quick to act as their champion;
he brought forward the shield of his ministry,
prayer and propitiation by incense;
he withstood the anger and put an end to the disaster,
showing that he was your servant. 
[22] He conquered the wrath not by strength of body,
and not by force of arms,
but by his word he subdued the punisher,
appealing to the oaths and covenants given to our fathers. 
[23] For when the dead had already fallen on one another in heaps,
he intervened and held back the wrath,
and cut off its way to the living. 
[24] For upon his long robe the whole world was depicted,
and the glories of the fathers were engraved
on the four rows of stones, 
and your majesty on the diadem upon his head. 
[25] To these the destroyer yielded, these he feared;
for merely to test the wrath was enough. 

IMAGE: Jacques Bergé, Aaron (c. 1740) 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 3.13

M. Do you, then, think that it can befall a wise man to be oppressed with grief, that is to say, with misery? For, as all perturbation is misery, grief is the rack itself. 
 
Lust is attended with heat, exulting joy with levity, fear with meanness, but grief with something greater than these; it consumes, torments, afflicts, and disgraces a man; it tears him, preys upon his mind, and utterly destroys him: if we do not so divest ourselves of it as to throw it completely off, we cannot be free from misery. 
 
And it is clear that there must be grief where anything has the appearance of a present sore and oppressing evil. 
 
Epicurus is of opinion that grief arises naturally from the imagination of any evil; so that whosoever is eyewitness of any great misfortune, if he conceives that the like may possibly befall himself, becomes sad instantly from such an idea. 
 
The Cyrenaics think that grief is not engendered by every kind of evil, but only by unexpected, unforeseen evil; and that circumstance is, indeed, of no small effect on the heightening of grief; for whatsoever comes of a sudden appears more formidable. Hence these lines are deservedly commended:
 
“I knew my son, when first he drew his breath,
Destined by fate to an untimely death;
And when I sent him to defend the Greeks,
War was his business, not your sportive freaks." 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 3.13 
 
When you catch me in a particularly romantic and melancholic mood, I will not only agree with the Auditor that a wise man must suffer grief, but I will even insist that those who cling to the true, the good, and the beautiful are inevitably all the more prone to misery, because the sensitivity that comes from reflection simply highlights the many miseries of the world. 
 
This is the sort of tendency that has brought me years and years of trouble, and I stand no chance of recovering my sanity until I nip it in the bud. My sadness is a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, where an assumption that wickedness lurks everywhere is the actual origin of my sorrow. If I chose to consider with greater clarity, and to recognize the true source of good and evil, I would cease to blame my circumstances. 
 
It is my attitude, and not the world, that breeds my misery. Cicero is hardly on board with everything the Stoics have to say, but he does understand how sick thinking brings about sick feelings. 
 
As I read along, I begin to see how I’ve gotten my wires crossed. If understanding is the essential property of human nature, and should therefore be the key to happiness, it makes little sense for me to say that greater understanding brings greater sadness. Indeed, I shouldn’t even say that it can bring sadness, since a healthy mind is incompatible with unhealthy passions. 
 
This is true of any disordered or imbalanced emotions, though it is especially true of grief, which consumes us to the very core. Other perturbations of the soul can be accompanied by certain satisfying qualities, while grief has absolutely no redeeming features. At least lust has its longing, gratification has its frenzy, and fear has its resentment. 
 
What excitement does the pain of loss bring to the table? As much as I wish to say self-pity, that is really little more than a desperate attempt to find meaning in despair—there is absolutely no pleasure in it. 
 
I will feel grief whenever I perceive the presence of something bad, and so the question then becomes if I am judging my standards of benefit or harm correctly. Whereas fear is an expectation, grief is about the here and now, and so I might believe that such a gloom depends upon the events as they occur. 
 
The Stoics turn this around by pointing out that the situation is never an evil, but rather an indifferent, leaving my own estimation as the cause of the grief. My thoughts, however, are within my power, which is why the Stoics argue that there can be no such thing as rational despair: if I don’t wish to feel it, I can still decide to modify my habits of opinion. 
 
For the Epicureans, grief would seem to arise instinctively from thinking about bad things in relation to ourselves. The Cyrenaics at least had a greater stress on how we have a conscious control over the pain that comes to us, by preparing ourselves for future hardships. This is why, for example, Telamon’s sorrow at the death of his son, Ajax, was lightened by his foresight. 

In any case, the philosophy of so many schools is always reminding me why heartache is less a consequence of the circumstances, and more from the form of my response to the circumstances. 

—Reflection written in 10/1996 

IMAGE: The suicide of Ajax 

The Art of Peace 101

The techniques of the Way of Peace change constantly; every encounter is unique, and the appropriate response should emerge naturally. 

Today's techniques will be different tommorrow. Do not get caught up with the form and appearance of a challenge. The Art of Peace has no form—it is the study of the spirit. 

Sayings of Heraclitus 74

It scatters and it gathers; it advances and retires. 

The Paris Dance of Death 6

Guyot Marchant, The Paris Dance of Death: The Archbishop and the Knight (1485) 

The Paris Dance of Death 5

Guyot Marchant, The Paris Dance of Death: The Patriarch and the Constable (1485) 

The Paris Dance of Death 4

Guyot Marchant, The Paris Dance of Death: The Legate and the Duke (1485) 

Tidbits from Montaigne 57

Not because Socrates said so, but because it is in truth my own disposition—and perchance to some excess—I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace a Pole as a Frenchman, making less account of the national than of the universal and common bond. 

—Michel de Montaigne, Essays 3.9 

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 123

The tongue of the condemned can speak, but cannot avert the doom. 

IMAGE: Gustave Moreau, Fate and the Angel of Death (1890) 

Epictetus, Discourses 2.4.4

“Yes, but I am a scholar and understand Archedemus.”
 
Well then, understand Archedemus, be an adulterer and a man of broken trust, a wolf or an ape instead of a man; for what is there to hinder you? 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.4 
 
I immediately think of when children are given advice or direction, and they angrily respond with cries of “I know! I know!” 
 
Whenever I said that, I was feeling insecure about the fact that I didn’t know at all, and I was ashamed by my inability to make my thinking inform my deeds. The scholar/adulterer insists that he understands so very much, and yet he still manages to live so very poorly. If he truly knew anything about the good, it would reveal itself by his acting for the good. 
 
Instead, he divorces his mind from his will, and he treats the world of his thoughts as a playground for his vanities. There is a perfectly good reason why many people, including some of the best people, are so dismissive of intellectuals. It isn’t that theory itself is useless, but rather that theory isolated from practice is such a complete waste. 
 
I do not believe I could manage it through a single day without the comfort that philosophy grants me, though I must be constantly on my guard against the temptation of using philosophy to put on a self-indulgent show. 
 
If I somehow had the chance to do this all over again, I would find a way to exercise my mind without the ridiculous fantasy of pretending it needs to be a career. I will not deny others their professional pretensions, but I cannot risk becoming a charlatan—too much is at stake. 
 
While I don’t know any experts on Archedemus, I travel in a circle of experts on Aristotle and Aquinas, and I am now quite familiar with the trappings of their image. They grow large beards, often with waxed mustaches, and they wear lots of tweed. They practice an appearance of refined collegiality, and yet it does not take long to discover the depths of their cattiness and shiftiness. 
 
If they actually followed the teachings of their heroes, they could be truly noble men, and yet they are sadly little more than gossipy church ladies. It might be good to be G.K. Chesterton, but it is perverse to pretend at being G.K. Chesterton. I wish to finally move beyond the games. 
 
The simple fact is that others will do what they think is best, and I must do what I think is best. I. for one, will take a breather under that tree instead of registering for the next conference, where the fur will fly, and virtue will be the last thing on anyone’s mind. I have a marriage to nurture and children to raise, and little time to write a book on the academic subtleties of trust and fidelity. 

—Reflection written in 6/2001 

Epictetus, Golden Sayings 171

In company avoid frequent and undue talk about your own actions and dangers. However pleasant it may be to you to enlarge upon the risks you have run, others may not find such pleasure in listening to your adventures. 

Avoid provoking laughter also: it is a habit from which one easily slides into the ways of the foolish, and apt to diminish the respect which your neighbors feel for you. 

To border on coarse talk is also dangerous. On such occasions, if a convenient opportunity offer, rebuke the speaker. If not, at least by relapsing into silence, coloring, and looking annoyed, show that you are displeased with the subject. 

Maxims of Goethe 21

If I am to listen to another man's opinion, it must be expressed positively. Of things problematical I have enough in myself. 

Epictetus, Discourses 2.4.3

What then? Is it not true that “women are common property by Nature”? I agree, for the sucking-pig is the common property of those who are bidden to the feast. Very well, when it has been cut into portions, come, if you see fit, and snatch the portion of the guest who sits next you, steal it secretly or slip your hand over it and taste it, or if you cannot snatch any of the flesh rub your fingers on the fat and lick them. A fine companion you are for a feast or a dinner, worthy of Socrates indeed!
 
Again, is not the theater common to all citizens? When they are seated there, come, if you see fit, and turn one of them out. In the same way you may say that women are common property by Nature. But when the lawgiver, like the giver of the feast, has apportioned them, will you not look for your own portion instead of stealing what is another's and guzzling that? 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.4 
 
Ouch! 
 
I never cease to be amazed at the way “philosophers” will contort grand theories in order to satisfy their base desires. I am old enough to have seen the last remaining “free love” professors from the 1960’s doing their thing around campus, all of whom would dispose of a young lady with a broken heart, on the grounds that she was too young to understand how their brand of freedom really meant the complete absence of accountability or respect. 
 
Currently there is no need to even make any arguments, because sex is presumed to be about gratification through brute pleasure, not fulfillment through joyful character. The Nietzschean will has completely replaced the Socratic mind in public discourse. 
 
How often have I now heard appeals to Plato’s Republic in defense of promiscuity? We all know precisely what Plato meant about common families, but we continue to pretend otherwise. I just recently read a scholarly article referencing this very chapter as proof that Epictetus approved of polygamy. No, I kid you not. 
 
The passage is, of course, dripping with sarcasm, for it demands that we reflect upon what it truly means for things to be held in common. For their many differences, the capitalist and the socialist perversely agree that anything they happen to touch is rightfully theirs to possess. 
 
The modernists, or the post-modernists, are always working from false premises, that subjective longing overrides objective cooperation, and that the communal is subject to their particular preferences. Even when we have a joint responsibility, it does not mean we erase a personal commitment. 
 
What sort of monster walks into a party, and then drinks all the booze or eats all the food? What kind of beast attends a concert and kicks another fellow out of his seat? It is the very sort of man, loosely defined, who thinks it acceptable to sleep with your wife, or to “have his way” with anyone he happens to meet. 
 
That we are all called by Nature to love one another does not mean we are all intended to make love to one another. A basic course in logic would clarify the confusion of these terms. 
 
What a vast contrast there is between the man who says, “I like it, so I want it!” and the man who says, “I love it, so I revere it!" 

—Reflection written in 6/2001 

Delphic Maxims 32

Κοινὸς γίνου 

Become impartial 

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel 1

Genesis 32:22-32: 

The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. 

And Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and Jacob’s thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 

Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” 

But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 

And he said to him, “What is your name?” 

And he said, “Jacob.” 

Then he said, “Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 

Then Jacob asked him, “Tell me, I pray, your name.” 

But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 

So Jacob called the name of the place Peni′el, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved." 

The sun rose upon him as he passed Penu'el, limping because of his thigh. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the sinew of the hip which is upon the hollow of the thigh, because he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh on the sinew of the hip. 

Gustave Doré, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (1855) 

Epictetus, Discourses 2.4.2

Will you complain, “No man pays any attention to me, a man and a scholar”?
 
Of course, for you are bad and useless. Wasps might as well be indignant because no one heeds them, but all avoid them and anyone who can strikes and crushes them. Your sting is such that you cause pain and trouble to any one you strike with it. What would you have us do to you? There is no place to put you. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.4 
 
I always know I am straying from the path when I start feeling the urge to complain about how poorly everyone else is treating me, and how the world is denying me what I believe to be rightfully mine. I suppose I think I will somehow feel better about myself if I can point to the wrongs of others. 
 
This is one of the hardest habits to break, and I often catch myself in mid-sentence. I need to go all the way back to the source, to my confusion about where to find the goods of life. If only I choose to improve my own thoughts and deeds, there will be no grounds for grievances. 
 
Why is a wicked man so worried about whether anyone bothers to pay attention to him? Is he not confident enough in his own merits? Does it not occur to him that if he stopped craving and demanding respect, he might actually begin receiving some respect, from the right sort of people? 
 
Why does the so-called scholar expect his learning to give him any greater standing? If he were truly wise, would he not cease to confuse his outer status with his inner worth? When will he realize that becoming more learned would entail being at peace, both with himself and with others? 
 
These are indeed uncomfortable questions, and while they are part of a story about a visitor to Epictetus, I am really directing them back at myself, as I imagine was intended. While I demand to be trusted, I am forgetting how I myself have failed to act in good faith, and my sense of isolation is a direct consequence of my own breaking of the social bonds. 
 
If I no longer wish to be avoided or swatted like a wasp, I might begin by not behaving so much like a wasp. Such Stoic solutions appear so radical, yet they are so incredibly simple. I have no proper place precisely because I have chosen to neglect my proper place. 
 
Whenever someone gives me a nasty verbal thrashing, I will still feel angry, but then I might consider whether the message, however severe, should be taken as an opportunity for self-improvement. If Epictetus is right to fume, then let me heed his advice. If I am sure he is wrong, I need not become enraged at his error. 
 
I’m afraid I thrive on references others find rather obscure, so this passage brings to my mind a painting by Lucas Cranach, Cupid Complaining to Venus. Having taken a honeycomb out of a tree, he is then upset about being attacked by the bees. The story comes from the poet Theocritus: 
 
As Cupid was stealing honey from the hive,
A bee stung the thief on the finger. 
And so do we seek transitory and dangerous pleasures, 

That are mixed with sadness and bring us pain. 

Like Cupid, I am busy shooting my arrows at everyone else, though I am indignant when I’m the one who gets hurt. My own desires produce my many losses. 

—Reflection written in 6/2001 

IMAGE: Lucas Cranach the Elder, Cupid Complaining to Venus (c. 1527) 

Aesop's Fables 69

The Old Man and Death  

An old laborer, bent double with age and toil, was gathering sticks in a forest. 

At last he grew so tired and hopeless that he threw down the bundle of sticks, and cried out: "I cannot bear this life any longer. Ah, I wish Death would only come and take me!"

As he spoke, Death, a grisly skeleton, appeared and said to him: "What wouldst thou, Mortal? I heard thee call me." 

"Please, sir," replied the woodcutter, "would you kindly help me to lift this faggot of sticks on to my shoulder?"

We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified. 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 220

When a wound is perfectly healed, the slough falls off of itself; but if the slough be taken off earlier, it bleeds. 

Similarly, when the perfection of knowledge is reached by a man, the distinctions of caste fall off from him, but it is wrong for the ignorant to break such distinctions. 

Epictetus, Discourses 2.4.1

Chapter 4: To the man caught in adultery.
 
When Epictetus was saying that man is born for mutual trust, and he who overthrows this overthrows the quality peculiar to man, there came in one of those who are reputed scholars, a man who had once been caught committing adultery in the city. 
 
If, said Epictetus, we put away this trust, for which we are born, and plot against our neighbor’s wife, what are we doing? Are we not pulling down and destroying? Whom? The man of trust, of honor, of piety. Is this all? Are we not overthrowing neighborly feeling, friendship, the city itself? What position are we taking up?
 
How am I to treat you, my fellow man? As a neighbor? As a friend? Of what kind? As a citizen? What trust am I to put in you? 
 
No doubt, if you were a piece of pottery, so cracked that you could not be used for anything, you would be cast out on the dunghill, and no one would stoop to take you thence: what shall we do with you then, if being a man you can fill no place becoming to a man? 
 
Granted that you cannot hold the position of a friend, can you hold that of a slave? And who will trust you? Will you not then consent to be cast upon a dunghill yourself as a useless vessel, as a thing for the dunghill? 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.4 
 
This chapter can serve as a very practical warning about what will happen when I wish to be one person in public, and another in private, when grooming my professional image matters far more to me than nurturing my personal character. Socrates had long ago told us to avoid such a moral hypocrisy, and the lesson remains as true today as it was way back then. 
 
It further reminds me that Stoicism, while deeply sympathetic about the errors we commit out of our own ignorance, has no place for moral relativism. Hiding behind credentials does not provide any sort of free pass for abusing our neighbors to fit our selfish desires. 
 
Epictetus does not hold back in calling out the vices of this esteemed scholar, and in our current climate of permissiveness his words may sound terribly rude and harsh. I’m afraid I find, however, that I only feel deeply “offended” when I know full well that I have failed to be as I should. The outrage is of my own making, not brough about by anyone else. 
 
When it comes to sexual morality, there can be little reasoning when the fashion assumes the premise that any urge is good merely because we happen to feel it. I cannot argue for love over lust, or for commitment over gratification, if the human person is taken to be a creature ruled by appetite instead of by understanding. This too shall pass, though I fear there will be much pain and confusion along the way. 
 
If a man cheats on his wife, what does that say about his deeper values, or his willingness to be the master of his own passions? He is certainly no philosopher, but he is also a sorry excuse for a man to begin with, one who treats his fellows as objects for gratification rather than subjects to be respected. In breaking the trust of one human relationship, he shows his disregard for the dignity of all human relationships. 
 
I have grappled with many temptations, and I have chosen poorly far too often, yet what keeps me from turning into a complete savage is still that awareness that I am made to be a part of the whole, and that the world does not exist for me, but I exist for the world. What good am I if my soul is broken? If I am unwilling to fix myself, I might as well throw myself on the trash heap and be done with it. 
 
Epictetus will no longer appear like such a prude if we can appreciate why rejecting the bonds of marriage is hardly a trivial matter, for in choosing to lie and cheat we deny the very rationality and sociability that makes us human. We act unjustly toward those we ought to love, and thereby we do the greatest damage to ourselves. There are no “victimless” crimes. 

—Reflection written in 6/2001 

Abandoned Places 48

Romain Veillon, The View 

 

Nature 50

IMAGE by Clive Kim (2020) 

Stoic Snippets 208

Hasten to examine your own ruling faculty, and that of the Universe, and that of your neighbor. 

Your own, that you may make it just; and that of the Universe, that you may remember of what you are a part; and that of your neighbor, that you may know whether he has acted ignorantly or with knowledge, and you may also consider that his ruling faculty is akin to yours. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.22 

Stockdale on Stoicism 37

On September 9, 1965, I flew at 500 knots right into a flak trap, at treetop level, in a little A-4 airplane that I suddenly couldn't steer because it was on fire, its control system shot out. 

After ejection, I had about 30 seconds to make my last statement in freedom before I landed in the main street of a little village right ahead. 

And, so help me, I whispered to myself: "Five years down there, at least. I'm leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus."

"Ready at hand" from the Enchiridion as I ejected from that airplane was the understanding that a Stoic always kept separate files in his mind for those things that are "up to him" and those things that are "not up to him." 

Another way of saying it is those things which are "within his power" and those things which are "beyond his power." 

Up to me, within my power, within my will, are my opinions, my aims, my aversions, my own grief, my own joy, my attitude about what is going on, my own good, and my own evil. 

To explain why "your own good and your own evil" is on that list, I quote Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago: 

"Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart." 

Long before reading Solzhenitsyn, I learned that good and evil are not abstractions—the only good and evil that mean anything are right in your own heart. 

But a greater realization is that of your own fragility; that you could be reduced as I was from leading over 100 pilots and 1,000 men to "taking the ropes" in a matter of minutes. This is an example of not having control over your station in life. 

—from James B. Stockdale, Master of My Fate: A Stoic Philosopher in a Hanoi Prison 

Epictetus, Discourses 2.3.2

We ought, therefore, to have some faculty to guide us in life, as the assayer has in dealing with silver, that I may be able to say as he does, “Give me any drachma you please, and I will distinguish.” 
 
Now I can deal with a syllogism and say, “Bring anyone you like, and I will distinguish between him who can analyze syllogisms and him who cannot.”
 
 Why? Because I know how to analyze them: I have the faculty a man must have who is to recognize those who can handle syllogisms aright. 
 
But when I have to deal with life, how do I behave? Sometimes I call a thing good, sometimes evil. And the reason is just this, that whereas I have knowledge of syllogisms, I have no knowledge or experience of life. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.3 
 
A good doctor knows how to heal, and a good lawyer knows how to argue, and a good carpenter knows how to build. What does a good philosopher know how to do? He ought to know how to judge human character, and yet that is sadly not what most philosophers do. They are too busy writing syllogisms, preferably of the sort that will get them published. 
 
If, like me, you are familiar with the lofty world of academia, you will either be laughing or crying, perhaps both, along with me right now. We are all broken, in our own peculiar ways, but philosophers are especially broken, because they are meant to recognize both the best and worst in human nature, to be experts on virtue and vice, and instead they somehow sidestep their entire vocation. 
 
What use is there to being fluent in Kant’s Categorical Imperative if I can’t actually treat another man as an end in himself, and never as a means? Where is the merit in pontificating about modus tollens and modus ponens if I am incapable of deducing that I should not hate my brother, but rather love him? I expect a priest to be a master of piety, and I expect a philosopher to at least be struggling toward righteousness. 
 
Yes, you’re laughing or crying again, aren’t you? 
 
I was once in a logic class where the professor would, for some odd reason, always use examples of arguments that involved adultery. It was only much later that I learned he had been sleeping with his teaching assistant. 
 
Let me not be so busy with my syllogisms that I forget to use my power of reason to become a more decent man. It is good for me to distinguish between a proof that is valid or invalid, sound or unsound. It is even better for me to distinguish between a life that is ruled by integrity or fraud, by good or evil. 
 
Simply put, if the philosopher can’t judge about his own moral worth, and thereby the moral worth of others, he isn’t a very good philosopher. 
 
Okay, you can stop with the laughing and the crying now . . . 

—Reflection written in 6/2001 

A Dead Soldier

Anonymous Italian, A Dead Soldier (c. 1630) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 1

The man who renounces himself, comes to himself. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Divinity College Address 

Dhammapada 331-333

If an occasion arises, friends are pleasant; enjoyment is pleasant, whatever be the cause; a good work is pleasant in the hour of death; the giving up of all grief is pleasant. 

Pleasant in the world is the state of a mother, pleasant the state of a father, pleasant the state of a Samana, pleasant the state of a Brahmana. 

Pleasant is virtue lasting to old age, pleasant is a faith firmly rooted; pleasant is attainment of intelligence, pleasant is avoiding of sins.