Chuang Tzu 6.12

Yen Hui asked Kung-nì, saying, "When the mother of Mang-sun Tshâi died, in all his wailing for her he did not shed a tear; in the core of his heart he felt no distress; during all the mourning rites, he exhibited no sorrow. 

"Without these three things, he was considered to have discharged his mourning well—is it that in the state of Lû one who has not the reality may yet get the reputation of having it? I think the matter very strange." 

Kung-nì said, "That Mang-sun carried out his views to the utmost. He was advanced in knowledge; but in this case it was not possible for him to appear to be negligent in his ceremonial observances, but he succeeded in being really so to himself. 

"Mang-sun does not know either what purposes life serves, or what death serves; he does not know which should be first sought, and which last. If he is to be transformed into something else, he will simply await the transformation which he does not yet know. This is all he does.

"And moreover, when one is about to undergo his change, how does he know that it has not taken place? And when he is not about to undergo his change, how does he know that it has taken place? Take the case of me and you—are we in a dream from which we have not begun to awake? 

"Moreover, Mang-sun presented in his body the appearance of being agitated, but in his mind he was conscious of no loss. The death was to him like the issuing from one's dwelling at dawn, and no more terrible reality. 

"He was more awake than others were. When they wailed, he also wailed, having in himself the reason why he did so. And we all have our individuality which makes us what we are as compared together; but how do we know that we determine in any case correctly that individuality? 

"Moreover, you dream that you are a bird, and seem to be soaring to the sky; or that you are a fish, and seem to be diving in the deep. But you do not know whether we that are now speaking are awake or in a dream. 

"It is not the meeting with what is pleasurable that produces the smile; it is not the smile suddenly produced that produces the arrangement of the person. When one rests in what has been arranged, and puts away all thought of the transformation, he is in unity with the mysterious Heaven." 

IMAGE: Zhu Da, Fish and Birds (17th century) 

Vivekachudamani 136-153

BONDAGE AND FREEDOM 

Then, holding firmly mind, with knowing soul at rest, know your self within yourself face to face saying, "This am I" The life-ocean, whose waves are birth and dying, is shoreless; cross over it, fulfilling the end of being, resting firm in the Eternal. 

Thinking things not self are "I"—this is bondage for a man; this, arising from unwisdom, is the cause of falling into the weariness of birth and dying; this is the cause that he feeds and anoints and guards this form, thinking it the Self; the unreal, real; wrapping himself in sensuous things as a silkworm in his own threads. 

The thought that what is not That is That grows up in the fool through darkness; because no discernment is there, it wells up, as the thought that a rope is a snake; thereupon a mighty multitude of fatuities fall on him who accepts this error, for he who grasps the unreal is bound; mark this, my companion. 

By the power of wakefulness, partless, external, secondless, the Self wells up with its endless lordship; but this enveloping power wraps it round, born of Darkness, as the dragon of eclipse envelops the rayed sun. 

When the real Self with its stainless light recedes, a man thinking "this body is I," calls it the Self; then by lust and hate and all the potencies of bondage, the great power of Force that they call extension greatly afflicts him. 

Torn by the gnawing of the toothed beast of great delusion; wandered from the Self, accepting every changing mood of mind as himself, through this potency, in the shoreless ocean of birth and death, full of the poison of sensuous things, sinking and rising, he wanders, mean-minded, despicable-minded. 

As a line of clouds, born of the sun's strong shining, expands before the sun and hides it from sight, so self-assertion, that has come into being through the Self, expands before the Self and hides it from sight. 

As when on an evil day the lord of day is swallowed up in thick, dark clouds, an ice-cold hurricane of wind, very terrible, afflicts the clouds in turns; so when the Self is enveloped in impenetrable Darkness, the keen power of extension drives with many afflictions the man whose soul is deluded. 

From those two powers a man's bondage comes; deluded by them he errs, thinking the body is the Self. 

Of the plant of birth and death, the seed is Darkness, the sprout is the thought that body is Self, the shoot is rage, the sap is deeds, the body is the stem, the life-breaths are the branches, the tops are the bodily powers, sensuous things are the flowers, sorrow is the fruit, born of varied deeds and manifold; and the Life is the bird that eats the fruit. 

This bondage to what is not Self, rooted in unwisdom, innate, made manifest without beginning or end, gives life to the falling torrent of sorrow, of birth and death, of sickness and old age. 

Not by weapons nor arms, not by storm nor fire nor by a myriad deeds can this be cut off, without the sword of discernment and knowledge, very sharp and bright, through the grace of the guiding power. 

He who is single-minded, fixed on the word divine, his steadfast fulfillment of duty will make the knowing soul within him pure; to him whose knowing soul is pure, a knowing of the Self supreme shall come; and through this knowledge of the Self supreme he shall destroy this circle of birth and death and its root together. 

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6.3

For as we see that they who make an honest livelihood by commerce, by industry, by forming the public revenue, have occasion for their earnings; so, whoever sees at your house the crowds of accusers and judges together; whoever sees rich and guilty criminals plotting the corruption of trials with you as their adviser, and your bargainings for pay for the distribution of patronage, your pecuniary interventions in the contests of candidates, your dispatching your freedmen to fleece and plunder the provinces; whoever calls to mind your dispossessing your neighbors, your depopulating the country by your oppressions, your confederacies with slaves, with freedmen, and with clients; the vacating of estates; the proscriptions of the wealthy; the corporations massacred, and the harvest of the times of Sylla; the wills you have forged, and the many men you have made away with; in short, that all things were venal with you in your levies, your decrees, your own votes, and the votes of others; the forum, your house, your speaking, and your silence; who must not think that such a man confesses he has occasion for all he has acquired? 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6 

Even though I have learned to live with very little, I would not necessarily object to becoming rich, as long as it was the fruit of my own labors, and as long as I could maintain such a lifestyle with a clear conscience. I will respectfully refuse, however, once you ask me to profit from another’s work, or to treat my neighbor unfairly so I can get ahead. 
 
You laugh, of course, because it sounds like a pipe dream. Perhaps you will have to look a little harder before you find a man of integrity who also happens to be prosperous, but never say that money is the problem—how we choose to earn it, and what we choose to do with it, is what will make or break us. Judge by the measure of integrity, not by that of property, whether the pot is overflowing with gold or turns out to be completely empty. 
 
Though I have seen enough of corruption in business and in government, I have the most experience of graft in the lofty institutions of the Church, which has become expert at paying out the most to those who achieve the least, all under the guise of holiness. Yet whether they are bankers, lawyers, or bishops, those who are consumed by avarice are fairly easy to recognize, if only you look past the clever marketing. 
 
What they all share in common is the tragic state of affairs that Cicero describes: their lives are filled with all sorts of intrigue, deceit, exploitation, and betrayal. I could surely go on for pages and pages, describing the nastiness I have seen behind closed doors, where the schemers believe no one can expose their offenses, but I can hardly top Cicero’s biting account of a day in the life of Crassus. I find a good number of passages from Charles Dickens have much the same rousing effect. 
 
You might say that the moneygrubber doesn’t deserve all the benefits he receives, and yet perhaps we should pity him, since whatever fortune he claims to acquire still leaves him in abject misery. Instead of having everything he needs, he will never have enough to meet his demands. The proof is in that constant conniving, a crippling anxiety that never gives him a moment’s rest. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

IMAGE: Quentin Matsys, The Purchase Agreement (1515) 

Wisdom from the Early Cynics, Diogenes 42

Diogenes was gathering figs, and was told by the keeper that not long before a man had hanged himself on that very fig tree. 

"Then," said he, "I will now purge it." 

Seeing an Olympian victor casting repeated glances at a courtesan, "See," he said, "yonder ram frenzied for battle, how he is held fast by the neck fascinated by a common minx." 

Handsome courtesans he would compare to a deadly honeyed potion. 

He was breakfasting in the marketplace, and the bystanders gathered round him with cries of "dog!"

"It is you who are dogs," cried he, "when you stand round and watch me at my breakfast." 

When two cowards hid away from him, he called out, "Don't be afraid, a hound is not fond of beetroot." 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 6.61 

IMAGE: John Charles Dollman, Table d'Hote at a Dogs' Home (1879) 

Wisdom from the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 82

The Stoic definition of love is an effort toward friendliness due to visible beauty appearing, its sole end being friendship, not bodily enjoyment. 

At all events, they allege that Thrasonides, although he had his mistress in his power, abstained from her because she hated him. 

By which it is shown, they think, that love depends upon regard, as Chrysippus says in his treatise Of Love, and is not sent by the gods. 

And beauty they describe as the bloom or flower of virtue. 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.130 

IMAGE: Alessandro Rosi, Love of Virtue (c. 1660) 

Owls 18

The Building and Loan

As a reference for Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6.2: 

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6.2

It is the mind, and not the coffers of a man, that is to be accounted rich. For though the latter be full, when I see yourself empty, I shall not think you rich; because men measure the amount of riches by that which is sufficient for each individual. 
 
Has a man a daughter? then he has need of money. But he has two, then he ought to have a greater fortune; he has more, then he ought to have more fortune still; and if, as we are told of Danaus, he has fifty daughters, so many fortunes require a great estate. 
 
For, as I said before, the degree of wealth is dependent on how much each individual has need of. He therefore who has not a great many daughters, but innumerable passions, which are enough to consume a very great estate in a very short time, how can I call such a man rich, when he himself is conscious that he is poor? 
 
Many have heard you say, that no man is rich who cannot with his income maintain an army; a thing which the people of Rome some time ago, with their so great revenues, could scarcely do. 
 
Therefore, according to your maxim, you never can be rich, until so much is brought in to you from your estates, that out of it you can maintain six legions, and large auxiliaries of home and foot. 
 
You therefore, in fact, confess yourself not to be rich, who are so far short of fulfilling what you desire; you, therefore, have never concealed your poverty, your neediness, and your beggary. 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6 
 
The Greeks had their Croesus, and the Romans had their Crassus, as I am sure that the people of any time or place can identify the moguls in their midst who are obsessed with hoarding money. 
 
While my students will sometimes challenge me to openly condemn our contemporary billionaires, I refuse to bite. I do not know what goes on inside their heads, even if I have a few sneaking suspicions, and I always remain hopeful that those to whom much is given might still work out how much will be required. 
 
I cannot be certain how to separate the fact from the fiction, but I have long found a sobering lesson in the story of Croesus and Solon. The wealthy king was hoping for the wise statesman to name him as the happiest man on earth, only to discover that Solon was far more impressed by the virtues of the humble. Croesus would remember this a few years later, after fortune had turned against him, and he finally understood where genuine happiness could be found. 
 
In the end, how much property should a fellow really have? If I say that he should limit his wants to however much he truly needs, the covetous crowd will just take this as an excuse to consume more and more, because their desires know no limit. No, an accurate judgment about the necessities of life must begin with an honest appreciation of our human nature, where character comes before convenience. 
 
I am also suspicious of anyone who dabbles in social engineering, convinced that he can dicate a universal budget for the rank and file. We all have certain gifts, and so we all have various degrees of responsibilities; I do not begrudge the landlord more money, not because he deserves to be pampered, but because he has a special duty to care for his tenants. Cicero’s example of raising a family is a wonderful one: if it can be within your means to have many children, no one should deny you this glorious opportunity. 
 
What made Crassus different, however, was an enslavement to his passions, to the point where nothing the world had to offer could every satisfy him. Once someone says he requires a personal army in order to be significant, you may safely conclude that he has a seriously distorted sense of self-worth. 
 
In my own peculiar way of looking at things, I often think of why George Bailey was the richest man in town, and why Mr. Potter was just a warped, frustrated old man. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

IMAGE: Johann Georg Platzer, Croesus and Solon (c. 1750) 

Stoic Snippets 284

How does the ruling faculty make use of itself? For all lies in this. 

But everything else, whether it is in the power of your will or not, is only lifeless ashes and smoke. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.33 

IMAGE: David Roberts, The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem (1850) 

Songs of Innocence 12

The Divine Image (1789) 

William Blake (1757-1827) 

To Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
All pray in their distress; 
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
Is God our father dear; 
And Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
Is Man his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face; 
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine
Love Mercy Pity Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk or jew.
Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell,
There God is dwelling too. 

Cosmos 25

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6.1

Paradox 6: That the Wise Man Alone Is Rich 

 
[Translator's note: This paradox is addressed to Marcus Crassus.] 
 
What means this unbecoming ostentation in making mention of your money? 
 
You are the only rich man! Immortal gods! Ought I not to rejoice that I have heard and learned something? 
 
You the only rich man! What if you are not rich at all? What if you even are a beggar? For whom are we to understand to be a rich man? 
 
To what kind of a man do we apply the term? To the man as I suppose, whose possessions are such that he may be well contented to live liberally, who has no desire, no hankering after, no wish for more. 
 
It is your own mind, and not the talk of others, nor your possessions, that must pronounce you to be rich; for it ought to think that nothing is wanting to it, and care for nothing beyond. 
 
Is it satiated, or even contented with your money? I admit that you are rich; but if for the greed of money you think no source of profit disgraceful (though your order cannot make any honest profits), if you every day are cheating, deceiving, craving, jobbing, poaching, and pilfering; if you rob the allies and plunder the treasury; if you are forever longing for the bequests of friends, or not even waiting for them, but forging them yourself, are such practices the indications of a rich or a needy man? 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6 
 
I regularly get myself into trouble when I talk about money, such that those on the right call me a bleeding-heart socialist, and those on left call me a running dog of capitalism. I am neither, however, since I do not believe that this or that system for distributing property can ever redeem us. 
 
Let a man be as rich or as poor as he wishes, but it is the content of his character that will define him. Crassus was flawed because of his insatiable greed, not because he happened to be so immensely wealthy. This is why the story has it that the Parthians poured molten gold down his throat. 
 
Remember, money is not the root of all evil; it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. All the problems of economics would instantly disappear if we could just manage to be virtuous first and foremost. 
 
A proper understanding of being rich would involve being content with what we have, instead of constantly wanting more and more. By such a definition, Crassus was downright impoverished, since he was never satisfied with what his abundance, and was always looking to increase his fortune. 
 
I have noticed much the same in so many of the affluent people I have known, who work on the assumption that something is wrong is their profits aren’t constantly increasing. While it may sound naïve, why can’t a business be considered a success if it manages to break even by providing a useful service? That way one man makes a living by helping another man to make his living, with no further bells and whistles required. 
 
I would further suggest that any problems in the disparity of wealth will arise from people being so desperately confused about how much is enough, and I will probably shock you when I say that the prevalent practice of usury, the act of making money from money, is at the root of so many of our social evils. No, Mr. Gekko, greed is not good. If we are modest in our desires, we can always make certain there is enough to go around. 
 
What is the use in having so much property, if I lack the wisdom to use it well? Indeed, it turns out that the more I understand about my nature, the more I also realize how little is necessary to live with excellence. If I can become richer in spirit, I will not demand to have such a fat wallet, or feel the urge to divert myself with so many superfluous luxuries. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

Frames of Mind

Michael Leunig 84

Dhammapada 419

Him I call indeed a Brahmana who knows the destruction and the return of beings everywhere, who is free from bondage, welfaring, and awakened. 

Xenophon, Memorabilia of Socrates 45

There was once in the city a fair woman named Theodote. She was not only fair, but ready to consort with any suitor who might win her favor. 

Now it chanced that some one of the company mentioned her, saying that her beauty beggared description. "So fair is she," he added, "that painters flock to draw her portrait, to whom, within the limits of decorum, she displays the marvels of her beauty." 

"Then there is nothing for it but to go and see her," answered Socrates, "since to comprehend by hearsay what is beyond description is clearly impossible." 

Then he who had introduced the matter replied: "Be quick then to follow me"; and on this wise they set off to seek Theodote. They found her "posing" to a certain painter; and they took their stand as spectators. Presently the painter had ceased his work; whereupon Socrates: 

"Do you think, sirs, that we ought to thank Theodote for displaying her beauty to us, or she us for coming to gaze at her? . . . It would seem, would it not, that if the exhibition of her charms is the more profitable to her, the debt is on her side; but if the spectacle of her beauty confers the greater benefit on us, then we are her debtors."

Someone answered that "was an equitable statement of the case."

"Well then," he continued, "as far as she is concerned, the praise we bestow on her is an immediate gain; and presently, when we have spread her fame abroad, she will be further benefited; but for ourselves the immediate effect on us is a strong desire to touch what we have seen; by and by, too, we shall go away with a sting inside us, and when we are fairly gone we shall be consumed with longing. Consequently it seems that we should do her service and she accept our court."

Whereupon Theodote: "Oh dear! If that is how the matter stands, it is I who am your debtor for the spectacle." 

At this point, seeing that the lady herself was expensively attired, and that she had with her her mother also, whose dress and style of attendance were out of the common, not to speak of the waiting-women—many and fair to look upon, who presented anything but a forlorn appearance; while in every respect the whole house itself was sumptuously furnished—Socrates put a question: 

"Pray tell me, Theodote, have you an estate in the country?" 

Theodote: "Not I indeed." 

Socrates: "Then perhaps you possess a house and large revenues along with it?" 

Theodote: "No, nor yet a house." 

Socrates: "You are not an employer of labor on a large scale?" 

Theodote: "No, nor yet an employer of labor." 

Socrates: "From what source, then, do you get your means of subsistence?" 

Theodote: "My friends are my life and fortune, when they care to be kind to me." 

Socrates: "By heaven, Theodote, a very fine property indeed, and far better worth possessing than a multitude of sheep or goats or cattle. A flock of friends! . . . But do you leave it to fortune whether a friend lights like a fly on your hand at random, or do you use any artifice yourself to attract him?" 

Theodote: "And how might I hit upon any artifice to attract him?" 

Socrates: "Bless me! Far more naturally than any spider. You know how they capture the creatures on which they live; by weaving webs of gossamer, is it not? And woe betide the fly that tumbles into their toils! They eat him up." 

Theodote: "So then you would counsel me to weave myself some sort of net?" 

Socrates: "Why, surely you do not suppose you are going to ensnare that noblest of all game—a lover, to wit—in so artless a fashion? Do you not see, to speak of a much less noble sort of game, what a number of devices are needed to bag a hare? 

"The creatures range for their food at night; therefore the hunter must provide himself with night dogs. At peep of dawn they are off as fast as they can run. He must therefore have another pack of dogs to scent out and discover which way they betake them from their grazing ground to their forms; and as they are so fleet of foot that they run and are out of sight in no time, he must once again be provided with other fleet-footed dogs to follow their tracks and overtake them; and as some of them will give even these the slip, he must, last of all, set up nets on the paths at the points of escape, so that they may fall into the meshes and be caught." 

Theodote: "And by what like contrivance would you have me catch my lovers?" 

Socrates: "Well now! What if in place of a dog you can get a man who will hunt up your wealthy lover of beauty and discover his lair, and having found him, will plot and plan to throw him into your meshes?" 

Theodote: "Nay, what sort of meshes have I?" 

Socrates: "One you have, and a close-folding net it is, I trow; to wit, your own person; and inside it sits a soul that teaches you with what looks to please and with what words to cheer; how, too, with smiles you are to welcome true devotion, but to exclude all wantons from your presence. 

"It tells you, you are to visit your beloved in sickness with solicitude, and when he has wrought some noble deed you are greatly to rejoice with him; and to one who passionately cares for you, you are to make surrender of yourself with heart and soul. The secret of true love I am sure you know: not to love softly merely, but devotedly. And of this too I am sure: you can convince your lovers of your fondness for them not by lip phrases, but by acts of love." 

Theodote: "No, upon my word, I have none of these devices." 

Socrates: "And yet it makes all the difference whether you approach a human being in the natural and true way, since it is not by force certainly that you can either catch or keep a friend. Kindness and pleasure are the only means to capture this fearful wild-fowl man and keep him constant." 

Theodote: "You are right." 

Socrates: "In the first place you must make such demands only of your well-wisher as he can grant without repentance; and in the next place you must make requital, dispensing your favors with a like economy. Thus you will best make friends whose love shall last the longest and their generosity know no stint. 

"And for your favors you will best win your friends if you suit your largess to their penury; for, mark you, the sweetest viands presented to a man before he wants them are apt to prove insipid, or, to one already sated, even nauseous; but create hunger, and even coarser stuff seems honey-sweet." 

Theodote: "How then shall I create this hunger in the heart of my friends?" 

Socrates: "In the first place you must not offer or make suggestion of your dainties to jaded appetites until satiety has ceased and starvation cries for alms. Even then shall you make but a faint suggestion to their want, with modest converse—like one who would fain bestow a kindness . . . and lo! The vision fades and she is gone—until the very pinch of hunger; for the same gifts have then a value unknown before the moment of supreme desire." 

Then Theodote: "Oh why, Socrates, why are you not by my side, like the huntsman's assistant, to help me catch my friends and lovers?" 

Socrates: "That will I be in good sooth if only you can woo and win me." 

Theodote: "How shall I woo and win you?" 

Socrates: "Seek and you will find means, if you truly need me." 

Theodote: "Come then in hither and visit me often." 

And Socrates, poking sly fun at his own lack of business occupation, answered: "Nay, Theodote, leisure is not a commodity in which I largely deal. I have a hundred affairs of my own too, private or public, to occupy me; and then there are my lady loves, my dear friends, who will not suffer me day or night to leave them, for ever studying to learn love charms and incantations at my lips." 

Theodote: "Why, are you really versed in those things, Socrates?" 

Socrates: "Of course, or else how is it, do you suppose, that Apollodorus here and Antisthenes never leave me; or why have Cebes and Simmias come all the way from Thebes to stay with me? Be assured these things cannot happen without diverse love charms and incantations and magic wheels." 

Theodote: "I wish you would lend me your magic-wheel, then, and I will set it spinning first of all for you." 

Socrates: "Ah! But I do not wish to be drawn to you. I wish you to come to me." 

Theodote: "Then I will come. Only, will you be 'at home' to me?" 

Socrates: "Yes, I will welcome you, unless someone still dearer holds me engaged, and I must needs be 'not at home'." 

—from Xenophon, Memorabilia 3.11 

IMAGE: John William Godward, The Tease (1901)