Tao Te Ching 79

When a reconciliation is effected between two parties after a great animosity, there is sure to be a grudge remaining in the mind of the one who was wrong. And how can this be beneficial to the other?

Therefore to guard against this, the sage keeps the left-hand portion of the record of the engagement, and does not insist on the speedy fulfillment of it by the other party. 

So, he who has the attributes of the Tao regards only the conditions of the engagement, while he who has not those attributes regards only the conditions favorable to himself.

In the Way of Heaven, there is no partiality of love; it is always on the side of the good man.

Dhammapada 124

He who has no wound on his hand, may touch poison with his hand; poison does not affect one who has no wound, nor is there evil for one who does not commit evil.

Epictetus, Discourses 1.6.2

Who is it then that has adapted this to that, and that to this? Who is it that has fitted the sword to the scabbard and the scabbard to the sword? Is there no one? Surely the very structure of such finished products leads us commonly to infer that they must be the work of some craftsman, and are not constructed at random. 

 

Are we to say then that each of these products points to the craftsman, but that things visible and vision and light do not? 

 

Do not male and female and the desire of union and the power to use the organs adapted for it—do not these point to the craftsman? 

 

But if these things are so, then the fact that the intellect is so framed that we are not merely the passive subjects of sensations, but select and subtract from them and add to them, and by this means construct particular objects, nay more, that we pass from them to others which are not in mere juxtaposition—I say are not these facts sufficient to rouse men's attention and to deter them from leaving out the craftsman? 

 

I am quick to deny the possibility of any certainty when I do not wish to be held accountable, and I will cast aside the grand design of Nature when I prefer to make myself the center of all things. 

 

I can learn to get beyond such weaknesses if I look with a bare honesty and judge with an open humility. I should find myself within the order of the whole, not in trying to excuse myself from it. 

 

The sword and the scabbard will fit because someone made them to go together, the one to be held within the other. 

 

The male and the female are complementary because they strengthen one another, and out of their union produce new life. 

 

Light reflects from objects, and the eye is carefully attuned to its reception. 

 

I can discover countless similar connections and interdependencies, everywhere that I turn, whatever the level of agency that produces the design. 

 

Perhaps it is all random, a series of coincidences? Maybe the patterns are the result of wishful thinking? There is, however, far more at work here than my own habitual associations, since the principle of causality is a necessity, not an option. 

 

To say that something is the result of chance shows only my current ignorance of the causes, and not the absence of causes. It is a contradiction to suggest that something comes from nothing, much like saying that it simultaneously is and is not. I shouldn’t let myself be fooled by “scientists” who deny the consistency of reason, because that clearly can’t be science. 

 

There can be no arguing with what deliberately defies understanding. How often have I now heard the currently fashionable claim that humans are not rational animals, and quite incapable of understanding, even as that claim is itself presented as a rational statement of understanding? 

 

Epictetus here points to the one of the most wondrous examples in the order in Nature, so deeply relevant to us because we are inexorably bound to it by our own particular nature. 

 

To “know” is not just to passively receive an image or an impression, as if pictures were being projected onto a screen. No, the mind is itself an active principle, abstracting and engaging with the inherent identity of things, constantly composing and dividing, demonstrating from what is proximate to what is ultimate, working backwards from effects to causes. 

 

The human mind, the essence of a certain kind of creature, practices a subtle craftsmanship with the fundamental building blocks of reality. There is no accident in this, and there is no power of mind in an imperfect creature if it does not proceed from the perfect mind of a Creator. What is relative depends upon what is Absolute. 

 

It may not be popular this week, though it must still be true. 

Written in 10/2000

Mystical Conversation

Odilon Redon, Mystical Conversation (1896)

The Wisdom of Solomon 9:13-18

[13] "For what man can learn the counsel of God?
Or who can discern what the Lord wills?
[14] For the reasoning of mortals is worthless,
and our designs are likely to fail,
[15] for a perishable body weighs down the soul,
and this earthy tent burdens the thoughtful mind.
[16] We can hardly guess at what is on earth,
and what is at hand we find with labor;
but who has traced out what is in the heavens?
[17] Who has learned your counsel, unless you have given wisdom
and sent your Holy Spirit from on high?
[18] And thus the paths of those on earth were set right,
and men were taught what pleases you,
and were saved by wisdom."

IMAGE: Titian, Wisdom (1560)

Sayings of Ramakrishna 85

When a man is in the plains, he sees the lowly grass and the mighty pine tree and says, "How big is the tree and how small is the grass!"

But when he ascends the mountain and looks from its high peak to the plain below, the mighty pine tree and the lowly grass blend into one indistinct mass of green verdure. 

So in the sight of worldly men there are differences of rank and position, but when the Divine sight is opened there remains no distinction of high and low.

Epictetus, Discourses 1.6.1

Chapter 6: On Providence.

Each single thing that comes into being in the Universe affords a ready ground for praising Providence, if one possesses these two qualities—a power to see clearly the circumstances of each, and the spirit of gratitude therewith. 

 

Without these, one man will fail to see the usefulness of Nature's products and another, though he sees it, will not give thanks for them. 

 

If God had created colors and, in general, all visible things, but had not created a faculty to behold them, of what use would they be? None at all. 

 

I,f on the other hand, He had created this faculty, but had not created objects of such a nature as to fall under the faculty of vision, even so of what use would it be? None at all.

 

If again He had created both these, and had not created light, even so there would be no use in them. 

 

I still have the unfortunate tendency to divide the world into the things that I like and the thing that I don’t like, and so I will thoughtlessly assume that something only makes sense if it is immediately convenient or gratifying for me. 

 

What I fail to remember is that everything, simply by being in its own way, is good and worthy, and it plays a necessary part in the unfolding of the whole. 

 

Just as the extreme skeptic will refuse to see what he doesn’t want to see, it is similarly my own narrow and selfish attitude that makes me closed to the meaning and value in Providence. 

 

What is dragging me down? Perhaps I am not looking to the identity of things in themselves, and how they then work in such close and complex relationships with one another. Or perhaps I am not thankful for the existence of all these different creatures, unwilling to honor the importance of what they are made to do. 

 

There is a failure in accepting, or a failure in respecting. I will need to both accept and respect, to have an open mind and an open heart, if I am to find my own proper place. 

 

I can readily look most anywhere around me, and I can discern the presence of an order and purpose inherent in what I observe. Action flows from causes to effects, always for the sake of a certain function or goal. Remove this step, or that component, and the entire process might fail, but when it is all put together just so, there will be the most beautiful harmony. 

 

This comes and that goes, one side rises and the other side falls, and through it all Nature will move with balance and complementarity. Everything has its role, and nothing is in vain. The most revered orchestra in the world can’t get close to such a performance. 

 

How do I do not grasp this? Why am I not filled with awe and reverence?

 

Vision, for example, is only possible by the concurrence of different conditions. The eye is made to see in a certain way, and objects are made to be visible in a certain way, and the medium of light joins them together in a certain way. Take away any one of these, or knock them ever so slightly out of accord with one another, and the world is blind. Yet sight is so widely distributed across the animal kingdom. 

 

Do I wish to insist that this is all pointless and haphazard? 

 

Where there is purpose, there is design. Where there is aim, there is intention. 

Written in 10/2000

Stoic Snippets 74

Does another do me wrong? Let him look to it. He has his own disposition, his own activity. I now have what the Universal Nature wills me to have; and I do what my nature now wills me to do.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.25

The Art of Peace 70

Do not look upon this world with fear and loathing. Bravely face whatever the gods offer.

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.4

But, as Aristotle, a man of the greatest genius, and of the most various knowledge, being excited by the glory of the rhetorician Isocrates, commenced teaching young men to speak, and joined philosophy with eloquence: so it is my design not to lay aside my former study of oratory, and yet to employ myself at the same time in this greater and more fruitful art; for I have always thought that to be able to speak copiously and elegantly on the most important questions was the most perfect philosophy. 

 

And I have so diligently applied myself to this pursuit, that I have already ventured to have a school like the Greeks. And lately when you left us, having many of my friends about me, I attempted at my Tusculan villa what I could do in that way; for as I formerly used to practice declaiming, which nobody continued longer than myself, so this is now to be the declamation of my old age. 

 

I desired anyone to propose a question which he wished to have discussed, and then I argued that point either sitting or walking; and so I have compiled the scholae, as the Greeks call them, of five days, in as many books. 

 

We proceeded in this manner: when he who had proposed the subject for discussion had said what he thought proper, I spoke against him; for this is, you know, the old and Socratic method of arguing against another’s opinion, for Socrates thought that thus the truth would more easily be arrived at. 

 

But to give you a better notion of our disputations, I will not barely send you an account of them, but represent them to you as they were carried on; therefore, let the introduction be thus: . . . 

 

I can hardly claim to understand all the subtle agreements and disagreements between the different Ancient thinkers, but one can hardly avoid the common tension between the philosophers and the rhetoricians about the merits of their respective trades. 

 

What Cicero suggests, however, is that we should rather see these two endeavors as being complementary instead of contradictory, and that the love of wisdom can only be strengthened through the beauty of words. Rightly understood, the medium will glorify the message. 

 

In this way, Cicero can attempt to join together the best of Greece and Rome, the gifts of thinking and speaking, and the needs of both theory and practice. What he offered then is just as necessary for us now. 

 

At his villa in Tusculum, Cicero followed the example of Socrates by engaging in philosophical conversations with his companions, in which the interplay of questions and answers can better help us to grasp the many sides of a problem, as well as follow the chains of reasoning by which we may arrive at a conclusion. 

 

I do not know to what degree these dialogues are accounts of the actual discussions Cicero describes above, or if they are rather offered more as symbolic literary devices, but in either case they get right to heart of the matter about critical life questions. 

 

One of the guests (“A”, the auditor) opens with a statement, and the host (”M”, Marcus Tullius Cicero himself) offers a response. The topics are certainly not as abstract or obscure as they may seem at first, because no one can really struggle through a day without making some meaningful sense of them. 

 

On the contempt of death. We may assume that dying is to be avoided at all costs, but a closer understanding of what makes life worth living might allow us to conquer such a fear. 

 

On bearing pain. We run after pleasure, and run away from pain, and yet we overlook our far deeper dignity and worth as creatures of moral action. 

 

On grief of mind. Loss seems the greatest pain, to the point where it can feel unbearable. Can consolation perhaps follow from reconsidering where the true gains and losses are to be found?

 

On other perturbations of the mind. All sorts of passions try to push us this way and that, though a proper judgment of good and evil provides a context for taming them. 

 

Whether virtue alone be sufficient for a happy life. If we want to be happy, we need to know what is worth possessing. Of all the things we might believe to be beneficial, is anything really necessary beyond the excellence of our own thoughts and deeds?

 

Cicero draws a very strong influence from Stoicism in these Disputations, though he also makes use of a wide variety of other traditions, and he by no means limits himself to the teachings of this or that school. He is broad and eclectic in this regard, as I would humbly propose we should all try to be in this life.

 

The truth is not exclusively Greek or Roman, and it does not belong to either the academics or the politicians, but it remains universally human. 

Written in 2/1996

IMAGE: Pieter Isaacsz, Rhetoric (c. 1620)

Sayings of Heraclitus 44

Self-conceit is a falling sickness, and eyesight is a lying sense.

Dhammapada 123

Let a man avoid evil deeds, as a merchant, if he has few companions and carries much wealth, avoids a dangerous road; as a man who loves life avoids poison.

IMAGE: Francisco Goya, Attack on a Coach (c. 1787)

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.3

But, on the contrary, we early entertained an esteem for the orator, though he was not at first a man of learning, but only quick at speaking. In subsequent times he became learned; for it is reported that Galba, Africanus, and Laelius were men of learning, and that even Cato, who preceded them in point of time, was a studious man. Then succeeded the Lepidi, Carbo, and Gracchi, and so many great orators after them, down to our own times, that we were very little, if at all, inferior to the Greeks. 

 

Philosophy has been at a low ebb even to this present time, and has had no assistance from our own language, and so now I have undertaken to raise and illustrate it, in order that, as I have been of service to my countrymen, when employed on public affairs, I may, if possible, be so likewise in my retirement.

 

And in this I must take the more pains, because there are already many books in the Latin language which are said to be written inaccurately, having been composed by excellent men, only not of sufficient learning. 

 

For, indeed, it is possible that a man may think well, and yet not be able to express his thoughts elegantly; but for anyone to publish thoughts which he can neither arrange skillfully nor illustrate so as to entertain his reader, is an unpardonable abuse of letters and retirement. They, therefore, read their books to one another, and no one ever takes them up but those who wish to have the same license for careless writing allowed to themselves. 

 

Wherefore, if oratory has acquired any reputation from my industry, I shall take the more pains to open the fountains of philosophy, from which all my eloquence has taken its rise.

 

There is a difference between speaking well and thinking well, and though the two may well be joined together, they are just as often set apart. We can readily confuse eloquence and charm with wisdom and insight, being drawn to what is appealing on the outside while neglecting what is meaningful on the inside. 

 

This is, I imagine, a problem in most any time or place, whether it be the Athens of Socrates, or the Rome of Cicero, or the playground that is contemporary politics.

 

Sophists, wherever they may be found, get caught up in the style at the expense of the substance, and so they tickle the passions instead of inspiring the mind. We will find ourselves in some trouble when the lure of words is separated from the truth in things. 

 

Think of how often you will see someone trying to sell you a plan for becoming a more convincing speaker, and then how often you will stumble across someone offering to help you genuinely develop the depth of your understanding. 

 

In this way, philosophy will often lag behind rhetoric, perhaps because we think it more important to make a good impression that to possess a sound comprehension. I’m sure that I’m considered an oddball to think that this priority should be reversed. 

 

I have known several people who had profound ideas, and yet they struggled with finding a way to express them. That is far more easily remedied, however, than the obstacle of wanting to say much while having little of value to say. The first problem requires learning a new skill, and the second problem requires unlearning a whole attitude of vanity. 

 

It can get even worse when both the speaking and the thinking are downright sloppy; far too much professional scholarship falls into this pitiful category. Still, the solution can only begin with turning to philosophy before worrying about any further bells and whistles. 

 

Cicero wishes to do something that very few of us can manage, though he is more eminently qualified than most. His life has, until this point, been dedicated to political work, and now, in his retirement, he hopes to give more attention to philosophical work. In particular, he is concerned with applying the skills acquired in the former to the dignity demanded in the latter. 

 

I shouldn’t think, however, that Cicero’s life has been somehow lagging. I am not a gifted speaker or writer, and my own philosophical journey has been characterized by more blunders than I can count, but I would venture to claim that what allowed him to touch greatness during his years in the Senate was precisely the way he bound his rhetoric to virtuous principles. 

 

When Cicero stood against Verres, or Cataline, or Julius Caesar, or Mark Antony, it wasn’t just a mastery of language that gave him strength. He built on a moral foundation, a willingness to first and foremost distinguish the true from the false and the right from the wrong. We can argue all we like about whether he always made the most expedient choices in his support of the Republic, but his conscience and his integrity were his primary guides. 

 

I invariably walk away from one of his texts with an appreciation that the only worthy rhetoric springs forth from worthy convictions. 

Written in 2/1996

The Evening

Gustave Moreau, The Evening (1887)

Tidbits from Montaigne 26

It is a thorny undertaking, and more so than it seems, to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind, to penetrate the opaque depths of its innermost folds, to pick out and immobilize the innumerable flutterings that agitate it.

—Michel de Montaigne, Essays 2.6

Sayings of Ramakrishna 84

She who has a king for her lover will not accept the homage of a street beggar. 

So the soul that has once found favor in the sight of the Lord does not want the paltry things of this world.

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.2

It was, therefore, late before poets were either known or received among us; though we find in Cato’s Origins that the guests used, at their entertainments, to sing the praises of famous men to the sound of the flute; but a speech of Cato’s shows this kind of poetry to have been in no great esteem, as he censures Marcus Nobilior for carrying poets with him into his province; for that consul, as we know, carried Ennius with him into Aetolia. 

 

Therefore, the less esteem poets were in, the less were those studies pursued; though even then those who did display the greatest abilities that way were not very inferior to the Greeks. Do we imagine that if it had been considered commendable in Fabius, a man of the highest rank, to paint, we should not have had many Polycleti and Parrhasii? 

 

Honor nourishes art, and glory is the spur with all to studies; while those studies are always neglected in every nation which are looked upon disparagingly. 

 

The Greeks held skill in vocal and instrumental music as a very important accomplishment, and therefore it is recorded of Epaminondas, who, in my opinion, was the greatest man among the Greeks, that he played excellently on the flute; and Themistocles, some years before, was deemed ignorant because at an entertainment he declined the lyre when it was offered to him. 

 

For this reason, musicians flourished in Greece; music was a general study, and whoever was unacquainted with it was not considered as fully instructed in learning. Geometry was in high esteem with them, therefore none were more honorable than mathematicians. But we have confined this art to bare measuring and calculating.

The Romans came to the arts later than the Greeks, and they developed them more slowly, and yet they still learned to excel at them in their own way. Cicero understood that the quality of their expression could still be admired on its own merits. 

 

Nevertheless, Cicero also recognized that a crop will grow most vigorously in the richest soul, and that the Romans had not always held the arts in as high esteem as the Greeks. Accordingly, the values that a society most honors and respects will directly influence how many individuals choose to pursue vocations like poetry, or music, or mathematics, or philosophy. 

 

Where a love of truth and beauty is encouraged, we will find an outpouring of learning and creativity; where it is discouraged, we will be left with only a trickle. 

 

I do find myself thinking on this matter regularly, and I wonder how the experiences of the Romans can reflect the situations of our modern day and age. I wish to avoid hasty generalizations, but the culture I have grown up in tends, more often than not, to elevate profit in favor of prudence, the goods of the body at the expense of the goods of the soul. It has been quite rare for me to be told that wisdom and virtue matter the most, very common for me to be told that power and wealth matter the most. 

 

Each person ultimately makes his own decisions, and yet the force of popular opinion has a mighty effect. Over the years I have seen so many people, with greatly varied gifts and talents, toss away their hopes and dreams, all because they were convinced that no one was interested in what they had to offer. 

 

Where is the paycheck? Where is the praise? Who will listen or who will look? We give up, because others have assured us that we are wasting our time. 

 

“How is your book, or your painting, or your obscure pondering useful to anyone?” We all know we have heard it, and many of us have also said it. Once a poem is only as good as how much it sells for to a publisher, or a song is only as good as how far it rises up the charts, or scientific research is only as good as how many technological conveniences it can produce, I fear we have grown terribly confused. 

 

What we have perhaps neglected is the fact that even answering the very questions about what is beneficial or useful in this life is already a philosophical concern to begin with, and it requires a sincere willingness to think critically, before we start with all the buying and the selling. 

 

I suppose we will have as many stockbrokers and lawyers as we deserve, and as many poets and philosophers as we deserve. We must be very careful what we wish for, knowing that our principles and priorities will determine the kind of world we must live in, and the kind of world we will pass on to the next generation. 

 

The Muses can only share something noble when we are willing to listen. The noise of shallow diversions is what makes us believe that they don’t matter. 

Written in 2/1996

IMAGE: Roman, The Muses Sarcophagus (c. 150 AD)

Apollo Vanquishing the Serpent Python

Gustave Moreau, Apollo Vanquishing the Serpent Python (1885)

Encounter

M.C. Escher, Encounter (1944)

Time and Fortune

Frans Francken the Younger, Time and Fortune Dominating the World (c. 1630)