Ecclesiastes 12:1-7

[1] Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, when you will say, "I have no pleasure in them";
[2] before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain;
[3] in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look through the windows are dimmed,
[4] and the doors on the street are shut; when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low;
[5] they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along and desire fails; because man goes to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets;
[6] before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern,
[7] and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. 

Stanley Clarke, Bass Solo

As a reference for Musonius Rufus, Lectures 2.1:

It speaks for itself. . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVmSgMNnplk

Musonius Rufus, Lectures 2.1

Lecture 2: That man is born with an inclination towards virtue.

All of us, he used to say, are so fashioned by nature that we can live our lives free from error and nobly; not that one can and another cannot, but all.

The clearest evidence of this is the fact that lawgivers lay down for all alike what may be done and forbid what may not be done, exempting from punishment no one who disobeys or does wrong, not the young nor the old, not the strong nor the weak, not anyone whomsoever.

And yet if the whole notion of virtue were something that came to us from without, and we shared no part of it by birth, just as in activities pertaining to the other arts no one who has not learned the art is expected to be free from error, so in like manner in things pertaining to the conduct of life it would not be reasonable to expect anyone to be free from error who had not learned virtue, seeing that virtue is the only thing that saves us from error in daily living. 

Look at all the different abilities and skills certain people have, and you are right to be amazed by so many of them. Some of us are born with certain strengths and gifts, and others seem to lack them completely. This man appears to be able to do it with ease, another struggles to approximate the same, and yet another cannot master it at all.

I would sit in my room practicing the bass for countless hours, and all that time spent made me barely competent.

Then I would come across some fellow, for whom the bass wasn’t even his first instrument, and he would manage what I couldn’t, while simultaneously chatting up a girl and smoking a cigarette. I couldn’t even make sense of what his fingers were doing. My hands were awkward, sore, and blistered, while his moved with a complete lack of effort.

I suspect natural talent has something to do with it, as does the true commitment of practice; there is both nature and nurture at work here. There must also be a certain acceptance of the fact that we all have talents, but that they are not evenly distributed.

I would try to be smart, but there was always someone who made me look the fool. I would try to be witty and charming, but I always ended up like potted meat instead of steak. I would try to play music, to write fine words, to create something beautiful, but it was always like straw.

So I assumed that since I was good at nothing that people thought mattered, I was good for nothing that mattered at all. That, my friends, is one of the biggest mistakes you can ever make.

Do you have a knack for this or that skill? That is wonderful, and you should pursue it, if it brings you peace and you can do good with it. Do you feel like you have absolutely no knacks at all? You probably do, even if others don’t appreciate them, but even if you didn’t, you still have one power that is always yours.

Whether you are big or small, tall or short, brilliant or a bit dim, you are still a human being. Everything else pales in comparison to the glory of that. Can you pass that ball all the way down the field? Can you run the most complex figures in your sleep? Can your smile make others melt in an instant? Wonderful.

Now can you be kind, generous, thoughtful, respectful, loving, and forgiving? All other talents aside, every singly one of us can do these things, if only we so decide. Not everyone can be an architect, or an astronaut, or a surgeon, but everyone can live in truth and love. The talent for virtue is indeed equally distributed.

This is because humanity is universal, and therefore what is right and wrong for all of us is universal. No aptitude is required, beyond having reason and will. No fancy learning is required, beyond the most basic common sense. No clever skills are required, beyond an open mind and a willing heart.

Anyone can do it, and everyone should.

Musonius Rufus observes that the very idea of the moral law requires that we think of it as applying to all, allowing for no exceptions, and without any special treatment for some at the expense of others. This is why justice wears her blindfold, as she has no preference for one or another; she treats every one of us equally. It isn’t that she is uncaring, but that she cares without conditions.

No one else will make me good, and nothing else will give me the gift of my character. I will make it, or break it, entirely through myself. Cleverness, or money, or influence will never make me a good man, just as dullness, or poverty, or insignificance will never make me a bad man.

Can’t play the bass like Stanley Clarke? No fault in that. Won’t be a decent man, like anyone can? There is my fault.

Written in 4/1999

The Art of Peace 41

Day after day  
Train your heart out,  
Refining your technique:  
Use the One to strike the Many!  
That is the discipline of the Warrior. 

Wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita 2

Sanjaya said:

1. To him who was thus overwhelmed with pity and sorrowing, and whose eyes were dimmed with tears, Madhusudana spoke these words: 

The Blessed Lord said:

2. In such a crisis, whence comes upon you, O Arjuna, this dejection, un-Aryalike, disgraceful and contrary to the attainment of heaven? 


3. Yield not to unmanliness, O son of Prithâ! Ill does it become you. Cast off this mean faint-heartedness and arise, O scorcher of your enemies!

Arjuna said:

4. —But how can I, in battle, O slayer of Madhu, fight with arrows against Bhishma and Drona, who are rather worthy to be worshipped, O destroyer of foes!

5. Surely it would be better even to eat the bread of beggary in this life than to slay these great-souled masters. But if I kill them, even in this world, all my enjoyment of wealth and desires will be stained with blood.

6. And indeed I can scarcely tell which will be better, that we should conquer them, or that they should conquer us. The very sons of Dhritarâshtra—after slaying whom we should not care to live—stand facing us.

7. With my nature overpowered by weak commiseration, with a mind in confusion about duty, I supplicate You. Say decidedly what is good for me. I am Your disciple. Instruct me who have taken refuge in You.

8. I do not see anything to remove this sorrow which blasts my senses, even were I to obtain unrivaled and flourishing dominion over the earth, and mastery over the gods.

Sanjaya said:

9. Having spoken thus to the Lord of the senses, Gudâkesha, the scorcher of foes, said to Govinda, "I shall not fight," and became silent.

—Bhagavad Gita, 2:1-9

Wisdom From the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 2

He was shipwrecked on a voyage from Phoenicia to Peiraeus with a cargo of purple. He went up into Athens and sat down in a bookseller's shop, being then a man of thirty. As he went on reading the second book of Xenophon's Memorabilia, he was so pleased that he inquired where men like Socrates were to be found. Crates passed by in the nick of time, so the bookseller pointed to him and said, "Follow yonder man." 

From that day he became Crates's pupil, showing in other respects a strong bent for philosophy, though with too much native modesty to assimilate Cynic shamelessness. 

Hence Crates, desirous of curing this defect in him, gave him a potful of lentil-soup to carry through the Ceramicus; and when he saw that he was ashamed and tried to keep it out of sight, with a blow of his staff he broke the pot. 

As Zeno took to flight with the lentil-soup flowing down his legs, "Why run away, my little Phoenician?" said Crates, "nothing terrible has befallen you." 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.2-3

Seneca, On Peace of Mind 1.9

"No one," I say, "that will give me no compensation worth such a loss shall ever rob me of a day. Let my mind be contained within itself and improve itself. Let it take no part with other men's affairs, and do nothing that depends on the approval of others. Let me enjoy a tranquility undisturbed by either public or private troubles."

But whenever my spirit is roused by reading some brave words, or some noble example spurs me into action, I want to rush into the law courts, to place my voice at one man's disposal, my services at another's, and to try to help him even though I may not succeed, or to quell the pride of some lawyer who is puffed up by ill-deserved success.

At one moment I want to crawl down into a little hole, and then at another I feel ready to charge out and fix all the ills of society. I may attribute this to being discouraged or encouraged by the changing circumstances around me, though I fear it has far more to do with the uncertain convictions within me.

If a single obstacle forces me to run away, or an inspiring appeal then has me protesting in the streets, that says far more about my own vagaries than those of the world. It isn’t this or that situation that is dragging me down or raising me up, it is my own unwillingness to make good of this or that situation.

I know, and I am sure Serenus knows, that the problem is somehow in our own thinking, even if we are not quite sure how to pinpoint the problem.

We say we know, but then we don’t do. We make commitments, and then we don’t keep them. Our circumstances toss us this way and that, such that we can no longer tell up from down. We alternate between crying, “I give up!” to yelling, “I’ll show you!”

I can hardly say there is anything stable in my life if my whole outlook changes whenever something is inconvenient or convenient, unpleasant or pleasant. I should see the warning signs when I violently flip from one extreme to another, from the lowest low to the highest high and then right back again, and I should be quite wary if this can even happen from one part of the day to another.

I do recognize a certain pattern here, and it is that this almost invariably happens when I have allowed my passions to run ahead of my understanding. I am doing quite a bit of feeling, as is quite natural, but I am not doing terribly much thinking, and that is quite unnatural.

There is a problem when the dog walks the man, instead of the man walking the dog.

It can be deeply troubling to find myself in such an uncertain state. I may blame the world, or I may blame myself, but blame alone achieves nothing. I was given the power of reason to learn to be accountable for myself, and that is where I need to slowly and carefully build my strength.

My very meaning and purpose should not be drawn into question by whether or not I happen to see my shadow, whenever I poke my head out of my burrow.

Written in 4/2011

Sayings of Heraclitus 15

For if it were not to Dionysus that they made a procession and sang the shameful phallic hymn, they would be acting most shamelessly. But Hades is the same as Dionysus in whose honor they go mad and rave. 

Terrified

Musonius Rufus, Lectures 1.5

To come back to the starting point of my discussion, I repeat that it is mistaken zeal for the teacher, if he is a true philosopher, to rehearse a multitude of arguments and proofs to his pupils. He should rather touch upon each one with just measure, seek to penetrate to the very intellect of his hearer, and present persuasive arguments and such as cannot easily be refuted.

But most of all his treatment should consist in showing himself not only as one who utters words that are most helpful, but also as one who acts consistently with them.

As for the pupil, it is his duty to attend diligently to what is said and to be on his guard lest he accept unwittingly something false. But of what he accepts as truth, his effort should not be directed toward learning numbers of proofs—far from it—but only such as are plain and lucid.

Finally whatever precepts enjoined upon him he is persuaded are true, these must he follow out in his daily life. For only in this way will philosophy be of profit to anyone, if to sound teaching he adds conduct in harmony with it.

I have long been a follower of the classical liberal arts, a method of learning that stresses the power of any individual to become his own master, instead of being merely a slave.

May someone else own his body, in one way or another? Of course. That happens as much nowadays as it always did. Yet no one else can own his soul, if he learns to think for himself, to decide for himself, to live in a way that he knows is true and good. No one can take that away from him. He is free within himself, even if his arms and legs are in chains.

I once started teaching at a school that described itself as “classical” and “based on a liberal arts curriculum”. I was pleased as punch. It took only a moment to see that they were using these terms very differently.

What they meant was skimming over as many old books as possible with students, and then bragging about the glorious achievement. “Have your children read Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Ovid, Augustine, and Aquinas? No? Well, ours have. We know those texts.”

No, the children don’t know them. The teachers don’t even know them. They are given handouts with a few phrases to remember, and then they regurgitate those phrases for the test. At lunch they then stuff their faces with pizza dipped in ranch dressing, forgetting every last bit of it.

I have spent too many hours in meetings, attended by men with bowties and scented beards, discussing what a list of “classic” texts should be. Should there be 138, or maybe just 132? Should we add Voltaire, and take off Hegel? Oh wait, we forgot to include Newton’s Principia Mathematica!

There is nothing classical about such an approach at all; it is, in fact, quite indicative of the current trend, to employ a shotgun method of learning, and to use education as a means to glorify a certain appearance. There is no focus or depth, and there is no real content.

I turn to Musonius Rufus here for some sanity. Dedicate the time you have to understanding one argument well, instead of a vast collection of them poorly. Commit yourself to a learning that transforms the very core of your character, one that changes the way you live, instead of just putting on a show. Embrace clarity over complexity, insight over image.

Both the teacher and the student are called to a rigor and discipline of reasoning that alone can offer certainty of conviction. Platitudes and catch phrases won’t cut it, and political posturing is no replacement for sound proof.

Both the teacher and the student are then also called to practicing what they preach. What good are the finest sounding ideals, or the noblest words, if they do not inspire us to virtue in daily practice?

You will recognize the true teacher, and the true student, because neither will let go of a problem until they have looked at it from every side, and considered its every aspect. They are not easily satisfied, because they demand thoroughness. Do not be annoyed by their insistence, but be grateful for it.

You will further recognize the true teacher, and the true student, because both will become kinder, more respectful, and more just as they grow more aware. The charlatans read or write many books, and they are just as petty and vindictive as they were before. The true philosophers may consider only a single argument, and it can seem as if they are born anew.

Written in 2/1999

Dhammapada 67

That deed is not well done of which a man must repent, and the reward of which he receives crying and with a tearful face. 

Wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita 1

Arjuna is facing the great battle, and he expresses his doubts to Krishna:

29. Seeing, O Krishna, these my kinsmen gathered here, eager for fight, my limbs fail me, and my mouth is parched up. I shiver all over, and my hair stands on end. The bow Gândiva slips from my hand, and my skin burns.

30. Neither, O Keshava, can I stand upright. My mind is in a whirl. And I see adverse omens.

31. Neither, O Krishna, do I see any good in killing these my own people in battle. I desire neither victory nor empire, nor yet pleasure.

32-34. Of what avail is dominion to us, of what avail are pleasures and even life, if these, O Govinda! for whose sake it is desired that empire, enjoyment and pleasure should be ours, themselves stand here in battle, having renounced life and wealth—Teachers, uncles, sons and also grandfathers, maternal uncles, fathers-in-law, grandsons, brothers-in-law, besides other kinsmen.

35. Even though these were to kill me, O slayer of Madhu, I could not wish to kill them, not even for the sake of dominion over the three worlds, how much less for the sake of the earth!

36. What pleasure indeed could be ours, O Jnanârdana, from killing these sons of Dhritarâshtra? Sin only could take hold of us by the slaying of these felons.  

37. Therefore ought we not to kill our kindred, the sons of Dhritarâshtra. For how could we, O Mâdhava, gain happiness by the slaying of our own kinsmen?

—Bhagavad Gita, 1:29-37

—All of these passages are taken from the translation of the Bhagavad Gita by Swami Swarupananda (1909)

Wisdom from the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 1

It is stated by Hecato, and by Apollonius of Tyre in his first book on Zeno of Citium, that he consulted the Oracle to know what he should do to attain the best life, and that the god's response was that he should take on the complexion of the dead. Whereupon, perceiving what this meant, he studied ancient authors. 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.1

—All of these passages are taken from Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Book 7, translated by Robert Drew Hicks (1925)

The Jesus Prayer

I always maintain that not every Stoic must be a Christian, but yet every Christian can be a Stoic.

Integrity

Seneca, On Peace of Mind 1.8

At one time I would obey the maxims of our school and plunge into public life, I would obtain office and become consul, not because the purple robe and lictor's axes attract me, but in order that I may be able to be of use to my friends, my relatives, to all my countrymen, and indeed to all mankind. Ready and determined, I follow the advice of Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus, all of whom bid one take part in public affairs, though none of them ever did so himself.

And then, as soon as something disturbs my mind, which is not used to receiving shocks, as soon as something occurs which is either disgraceful, such as often occurs in all men's lives, or which does not proceed quite easily, or when subjects of very little importance require me to devote a great deal of time to them, I go back to my life of leisure, and, just as even tired cattle go faster when they are going home, I wish to retire and pass my life within the walls of my house.

People may think that philosophers in general are isolated from the real world, and that Stoics in particular have no care or concern for others. Yet the Stoicism I know insists that man must be a social animal, precisely because he is a rational animal, and that he is called to be in service to others, precisely because he is made to live with justice.

Any Stoic worth the name will always hold a bond of kinship with his neighbors, recognizing himself in them, and knowing that each person is an inseparable part of the whole. We are all agents of Providence.

Accordingly, the great Stoics stressed the importance of an active public life, and that we should participate and cooperate with our fellows. My values may be very different than those of the man who desires fame and fortune, but this does not mean I should shun him. I choose to define myself by the character inside of me, while he chooses to define himself by all the things outside of him, yet we share in the very same nature.

So I make a very conscious and deliberate effort, each and every day, to involve myself with others, to pass something good on to them, however paltry it may seem. I shouldn’t attempt this to gain power or influence over them, or to increase my station; I should do it to hopefully improve myself and to help them, in turn, improve themselves.

I try to seek out friends so I can do something for them, not so they can do something for me. I tell myself I should expect no other appreciation or reward, beyond the knowledge of having struggled to live with virtue.

That sounds all nice and well, but then I see once again how poorly other people can actually decide to behave. They will lie, they will steal, they will grovel to one and gossip about another. They will smile at you when you are convenient, and look away when you are no longer of any use. I can hardly tell whether I can trust a man, because I do not know what is really in his heart. Welcome to the seedy side of public life.

Now I suddenly question my values, and I allow myself to become deeply discouraged.

I can remember that I should not look to how others will live, but to how I can live, and I still feel like my efforts are wasted. I can consider that hardships and obstacles offer a necessary opportunity in life, yet I remain despondent. I can repeatedly tell myself not be resentful of anyone’s mistakes, even as they weigh down on me.

The worst part of it is that I know I should choose to love people, while I also find it so difficult to even like them. I know it is within my power to sincerely commit to my neighbors, and all I can think about is running away from them.

I get tired of all the pettiness and the malice. I sometimes just want to go home, and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t even exist. I find that the biggest hindrance to a good life isn’t some other conflicting grand theory, but the accumulation of many little annoyances.

Written in 4/2011

Epictetus, Golden Sayings 109

If what charms you is nothing but abstract principles, sit down and turn them over quietly in your mind, but never dub yourself a Philosopher, nor suffer others to call you so. 

Say rather: He is in error; for my desires, my impulses are unaltered. I give in my adhesion to what I did before; nor has my mode of dealing with the things of sense undergone any change. 

Musonius Rufus, Lectures 1.4

The one reluctantly and slowly, and fairly pried loose by a thousand arguments, will perhaps in the end give sign of assent—I mean of course the dullard. The other quickly and readily will accept the argument as cogent and relevant to himself, and will not require many proofs nor a fuller treatment.

Was not just such a lad that Spartan boy who asked Cleanthes the philosopher if toil was not a good? He made it plain that he was so well endowed by nature and by training for the practice of virtue as to consider toil closer to the nature of good than of evil, in that he asked whether toil was not perchance a good, as if it were conceded that it was not an evil. Thereupon Cleanthes in surprise and admiration of the boy replied,

"You are of noble blood, dear child, so noble the words you speak."

Can you doubt that such a lad would have been readily persuaded not to fear poverty nor death nor any of the things which seem terrible, and again, not to seek after wealth nor life nor pleasure?

A rather long and gruesome stretch in the world of education has shown me how much people like to argue about which subjects should be taught, or in what order they should be presented, or whether this or that new fashionable curriculum is best.

Yes indeed, let us ask what should be learned; yet what we sadly neglect is also asking what needs to precede any learning at all, the right conditions for the seeds to take root. There is no point to planting in untilled soil. There will be very little learning if we have not already helped form better learners.

We are also, I suspect, interested in producing obedient followers of this or that ideology, efficient producers and consumers, and young folks who will gladly do what they are told. I’m no longer sure if it is education or indoctrination, on all sides of the spectrum.

There is a great interest in the results, what the education industry likes to call measurable outcomes, and very little interest in the cause of genuine understanding, in asking students to freely think for themselves. Only they can be the measure of that.

Throw a textbook at someone, and then give him a multiple choice test, and you have taught him nothing. Ask him to merely repeat what you have told him, and he has learned nothing. You have groomed him only for conformity, not for being human. Without a foundation for building his own insight and character, you have made him an object, not a subject.

Everyone has very different degrees of disposition for learning, and I would claim that so much of being a teacher is trying to work with what is already given. You will find some brilliantly prepared, and others grossly unprepared. With some, you may begin right away on the straight and narrow, while with others you will need to try undoing years of broadly bad habits.

Some athletes show up for training in a state of ideal fitness, while others appear in a state of terrible neglect. Some recruits enter boot camp as sharp as a knife and full of commitment, while others can’t even manage to get out of bed or do a dozen push-ups.

Building up a physical strength and stamina is quite important, but building up an intellectual and moral strength and stamina is ultimately so much more important. The greater part, the mind and will, should gracefully rule over the lesser part, the body and the passions.

I can only nod when I read the story of Cleanthes and the young Spartan. The lazy, the entitled, and the spoiled will come to you with the assumption that they deserve the most profit with the least effort. I know full well that sense of joy and wonder when I have come across a student who actually wants to learn, who is willing to face difficulty, and who is eagerly in search of something better.

He is ready. He has been well prepared. He will most likely advance in wisdom and character quickly.

Should one then heartlessly cast aside those who are not ready or prepared? Not at all. One should rather help them to first become ready and prepared. Otherwise, no later rigorous and directed study will be of any use to them at all, a fault that will not be theirs, but our own.

I need to remember, of course, that the young Spartan was, from a Stoic perspective, technically mistaken. Hardship is not in and of itself a good, but only when it is employed rightly. Yet his inclinations, whether from nature or from nurture, allowed him to see the very possibility that it could well be a good, and to see that gratification could well be an evil.

He was half way there. He was on his way to focusing in on the truth, instead of hunting and pecking over the whole field.

Written in 2/1999

Aesop's Fables 9

The Sick Lion 

A Lion had come to the end of his days and lay sick unto death at the mouth of his cave, gasping for breath. The animals, his subjects, came round him and drew nearer as he grew more and more helpless. 

When they saw him on the point of death they thought to themselves: "Now is the time to pay off old grudges." 

So the Boar came up and drove at him with his tusks; then a Bull gored him with his horns; still the Lion lay helpless before them: so the Ass, feeling quite safe from danger, came up, and turning his tail to the old Lion kicked up his heels into his face. 

"This is a double death," growled the Lion. 

"Only cowards insult dying Majesty"

 

More Owls!