Sayings of Publilius Syrus 69

It is a happy disgrace that saves from a greater peril. 

Vanitas 60

Pieter Boel, Allegory of the Vanities of the World (1663) 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 165

Vanity is like a heap of rubbish or ashes on which the water, as soon as it falls, dries away. 

Prayers and contemplations produce no effect upon the heart puffed up with vanity. 

Chuang Tzu 2.9

Khü Tshiâo-tsze asked Khang-wû Tsze, saying, "I heard the Master speaking of such language as the following:

"'The sagely man does not occupy himself with worldly affairs. He does not put himself in the way of what is profitable, nor try to avoid what is hurtful; he has no pleasure in seeking for anything from any one; he does not care to be found in any established Way; he speaks without speaking; he does not speak when he speaks; thus finding his enjoyment outside the dust and dirt of the world.' 

"The Master considered all this to be a shoreless flow of mere words, and I consider it to describe the course of the Mysterious Way. What do you, Sir, think of it?" 

Khang-wû Tsze replied, "The hearing of such words would have perplexed even Hwang-Tì, and how should Khiû be competent to understand them? And you, moreover, are too hasty in forming your estimate of their meaning. 

"You see the egg, and immediately look out for the cock that is to be hatched from it; you see the bow, and immediately look out for the dove that is to be brought down by it being roasted. I will try to explain the thing to you in a rough way; do you in the same way listen to me. 

"How could any one stand by the side of the sun and moon, and hold under his arm all space and all time? Such language only means that the sagely man keeps his mouth shut, and puts aside questions that are uncertain and dark; making his inferior capacities unite with him in honoring the One Lord. 

"Men in general bustle about and toil; the sagely man seems stupid and to know nothing. He blends ten thousand years together in the one conception of time; the myriad things all pursue their spontaneous course, and they are all before him as doing so. 

"How do I know that the love of life is not a delusion? And that the dislike of death is not like a young person's losing his way, and not knowing that he is really going home? Lì Kì was a daughter of the border Warden of Âi. When the ruler of the state of Tsin first got possession of her, she wept until the tears wetted all the front of her dress. But when she came to the place of the king, shared with him his luxurious couch, and ate his grain-and-grass-fed meat, then she regretted that she had wept. How do I know that the dead do not repent of their former craving for life? 

"Those who dream of the pleasures of drinking may in the morning wail and weep; those who dream of wailing and weeping may in the morning be going out to hunt. When they were dreaming they did not know it was a dream; in their dream they may even have tried to interpret it; but when they awoke they knew that it was a dream. And there is the great awaking, after which we shall know that this life was a great dream. 

"All the while, the stupid think they are awake, and with nice discrimination insist on their knowledge; now playing the part of rulers, and now of grooms. Bigoted was that Khiû! He and you are both dreaming. I who say that you are dreaming am dreaming myself. These words seem very strange; but if after ten thousand ages we once meet with a great sage who knows how to explain them, it will be as if we met him unexpectedly some morning or evening." 

IMAGE: Jusepe de Ribera, Jacob's Dream (1639) 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.24.4

“But he will not leave me as his heir.” 

 

What? Did I forget that none of these things was mine? In what sense do we call them “mine”? Only as we call “mine” the pallet in an inn. If then the innkeeper dies and leaves you the pallets, well and good; if he leaves them to another, that man will have them, and you will look for another. 

 

If you do not find one you will sleep on the ground, only do so with a good cheer, snoring the while, and remembering that it is among rich men and kings and emperors that tragedies find room, and that no poor man fills a part in a tragedy except as one of the chorus. 

 

But kings begin with a prelude of good things: 

 

“Crown high the halls.”

 

and then about the third or fourth act comes—

 

“O Cithaeron, why didst thou receive me?” —from Epictetus, Discourses 1.24 

 

I recall several times when people kindly warned me about how all our worst wounds are self-inflicted, the result of wanting to possess things we never had a right to claim. Rather than cursing the gods, they suggested, it would be better to reflect upon ourselves. 

 

I would nod politely, at some level aware that they were right, and yet I couldn’t get around the practical obstacle of having to abandon my worldly pretensions. Sometimes the school of hard knocks must press home the lessons first offered by sound advice.

 

Wherever my happiness relies on anything I expect to be granted through my circumstances, I’m setting myself up for the fall. Whether I am flattering a Caesar or sucking up to the boss, the act of seeking advancement by currying favor only reflects poorly on my own integrity and puts my life at the mercy of another’s whims. 

 

The trouble starts when I demand to be gratified. It grows while I scheme and squabble. It reaches its disastrous conclusion as the very conditions I crave have now swept me away. 

 

As it turns out, the difficulties I must contend with are about my unwillingness to take charge of myself, not about defeating anyone else. 

 

Some read up on their Greek tragedies so they can make clever comments at cocktail parties, when the best reason to become familiar with the stories about Agamemnon, Oedipus, or Medea might be to question our motives for even going to those cocktail parties. 

 

What is there to win by playing these games of fortune? More importantly, what do we stand to lose by being so puffed up with pride? 

 

I take note at what kind of people fall foul of fate, and I steer myself in another direction. I refer again to one of my favorite passages from Boethius: 

 

You are shuddering now at the thought of club and knife, but if you had set out on the path of this life with empty pockets, you would whistle your way past any highwayman. 

—Reflection written in 3/2001 

IMAGE: Benigne Gagneraux, The Blind Oedipus Commending his Children to the Gods (1784) 

King's X, "Mission"

I stumbled across this song at just around the same time I was becoming acutely aware of just how clever people could be in their hypocrisy. 

If someone told me he was a Christian, for example, I would assume this meant he was at least trying to put his love of God and his love of neighbor above all else. I had a few deeply unpleasant experiences before I stopped naively taking people at their word, and I learned to look deeper into the motives behind their actions. 

As Marcus Aurelius says, I won't be surprised at how a man lives if I take the time to understand something about his judgments. I will also not need to be consumed by resentment, because I can then see how he is a slave to the limits of his thinking. 

I spent too many years angry at a girl for breaking my heart, but what did I think was going to happen? I let myself be fooled by her insistence that she was a woman of faith, and yet I never once saw her at prayer or, for that matter, actually take heed of any one of the Ten Commandments. 

From blaming her I turned to blaming myself, and then I even stopped blaming myself, instead finding some peace in appreciating a hard lesson. I don't imagine it will ever stop hurting, but it does confirm how Providence never acts in vain. 

Indeed, "some are true, some do lie." 

Serious musicians always praised King's X, and they were a thinking man's hard rock band, but they never quite made it big. From what I know of them, I imagine they were fine with that. 

Their early albums were full of Christian imagery, and yet they staunchly refused to be labeled as a "Christian" band. This song may explain something about why. 

When their singer and bassist, Doug Pinnick, spoke openly about his sexual orientation, their records were immediately removed from the shelves of Christian bookshops, and I then made it a deliberate point to buy any of their albums I didn't already own. 

No, not because I happen to agree or disagree with any lifestyle, but because I think it right to treat people with some basic human decency rather than tossing them into the trash. 

What, pray tell, would all those pious prigs do to Mary Magdalene these days? Just listen to the gossip at your local church picnic and you'll have a sense of what I mean. 

Compassion is always a surefire sign that virtue is present. 

—12/2016 

King's X, "Mission" from Gretchen Goes to Nebraska (1989) 

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

A broken body its joints at war
Religious vipers sucking royal blood
The price is paid
The final score
The truth exists even through pious mud

Who are these people behind the stained glass windows? 
Have they forgotten just what they came here for? 
Was it salvation or "scared of hell"
Or an assembly of a social get-together? 

What's the mission of the preacher man? 
Some are true some do lie
What's the mission of the preacher man? 
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

A threat of justice the lazy judge
The governess teaches his son to scream
Adopted child
True path to trudge
No minor plot to undermine his dream

Who are these people behind the stained glass windows? 
Have they forgotten just what they came here for? 
Was it salvation or "scared of hell"
Or an assembly of a social get-together? 

What's the mission of the preacher man? 
Some are true some do lie
What's the mission of the preacher man? 
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

(Bless God! The more I think about it the more I think I was preaching the truth.

 I went down to the Cadillac agency and one hour later I drove out a new Cadillac. 

Hallelujah, say praise the Lord! 

Bless God I'm gonna drive that Cadillac down here and get it dusty and dirty and use it for God. 

Hallelujah! Thank you Jesus!) 

Who are these people behind the stained glass windows? 
Have they forgotten just what they came here for? 
Was it salvation or "scared of hell"
Or an assembly of a social get-together? 

What's the mission of the preacher man? 
Some are true some do lie
What's the mission of the preacher man? 
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah 

Stoic Snippets 153

Whatever man you meet with, immediately say to yourself: What opinions has this man about good and bad? 

For if with respect to pleasure and pain and the causes of each, and with respect to fame and ignominy, death and life, he has such and such opinions, it will seem nothing wonderful or strange to me if he does such and such things; and I shall bear in mind that he is compelled to do so. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.14 

IMAGE: Andrea della Robbia, Prudence (c. 1475) 

Dhammapada 224

Speak the truth. 

Do not yield to anger. 

Give, if you are asked for little. 

By these three steps you will go near the gods. 

Wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita 49

24. Some by meditation behold the Self in their own intelligence by the purified heart, others by the path of knowledge, others again by Karma Yoga. 

25. Others again not knowing thus, worship as they have heard from others. Even these go beyond death, regarding what they have heard as the Supreme Refuge. 

26. Whatever being is born, the moving or the unmoving, O bull of the Bhâratas, know it to be from the union of Kshetra and Kshetrajna.

27. He sees, who sees the Lord Supreme, existing equally in all beings, deathless in the dying.

28. Since seeing the Lord equally existent everywhere, he injures not Self by self, and so goes to the highest Goal. 

29. He sees, who sees that all actions are done by Prakriti alone and that the Self is actionless. 

30. When he sees the separate existence of all beings inherent in the One, and their expansion from That One alone, he then becomes Brahman. 

31. Being without beginning and devoid of Gunas, this Supreme Self, immutable, O son of Kunti, though existing in the body neither acts nor is affected. 

32. As the all-pervading Akâsha (Aether), because of its subtlety, is not tainted, so the Self existent in the body everywhere is not tainted. 

33. As the one sun illumines all this world, so does He who abides in the Kshetra, O descendant of Bharata, illumine the whole Kshetra. 

34. They who thus with the eye of knowledge perceive the distinction between the Kshetra and the Kshetrajna, and also the emancipation from the Prakriti of beings, they go to the Supreme. 

—Bhagavad Gita, 13:24-34 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.24.3

“What am I to do then?” 

 

What do you do, when you disembark from a ship? Do you take the helm and the oars with you? What do you take then? You take what is yours, oil-flask and wallet. So now if you remember what is yours, you will never claim what is another's. 

 

The emperor says to you, “Lay aside your purple hem.” 

 

See, I wear the narrow one. 

 

“Lay aside this also.” 

 

See, I wear the toga only. 

 

“Lay aside the toga.” 

 

See, I take that off too. 

 

“Ay, but you still rouse my envy.” 

 

Then take my poor body, every bit of it. The man to whom I can throw away my body has no fears for me. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.24 

 

Here is the challenge no spoiled intellectual or entitled aristocrat can ever face. Indeed, any who wrap themselves up in their trappings and titles have no chance against it. 

 

Strip all of it away, and now consider who you are. What is left after the job, the house, the car, and the wardrobe are removed? Even this body is revealed to be a feeble bag of bones, hidden behind a fantasy of cosmetics and coiffures. 

 

Only bare character remains, and far too many of us will have to blush in shame at out moral nakedness. 

 

Must you kill another man in the service of your country in order to be brave? Sometimes it is a sad necessity, though I see no purpose in bragging about it. 

 

Might you consider slaying your own pride in order to be brave? I don’t recall the last time they held a parade for the humble and the kind-hearted.

 

What Epictetus asks of us here is the work of a lifetime, the rejection of looking good for the sake of being good. If we’re not up to the task of fully discarding the accessories, we are best advised to at least stop pretending we are ruled by decency. 

 

Don’t think that the bully wants your property—he wants you to submit your will to him, and he will hate you as long as you remain yourself. By denying him you affirm yourself, as well as clearly but gently showing him a better way. 

 

Back in the age of the steamships, the first-class passengers would surely have looked down their noses at the proles in steerage. Some had trunks full of luxuries, and others had only the clothes on their backs. They all departed the ship as complete equals in their humanity, however, and it was simply the illusion of privilege that got in the way. 

 

A person is a who, not a what. 

Leave behind everything else—take hold of yourself. Now you are a hero. 

—Reflection written in 3/2001 

IMAGE: Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage (1907) 

Wisdom from the Early Cynics, Diogenes 9

And Diogenes would wonder that the grammarians should investigate the ills of Odysseus, while they were ignorant of their own. 

Or that the musicians should tune the strings of the lyre, while leaving the dispositions of their own souls discordant; that the mathematicians should gaze at the sun and the moon, but overlook matters close at hand; that the orators should make a fuss about justice in their speeches, but never practice it; or that the avaricious should cry out against money, while inordinately fond of it. 

He used also to condemn those who praised honest men for being superior to money, while themselves envying the very rich. 

He was moved to anger that men should sacrifice to the gods to ensure health, and in the midst of the sacrifice should feast to the detriment of health. 

He was astonished that when slaves saw their masters were gluttons, they did not steal some of the viands. 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 6.28 

Wisdom from the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 49

Further, arguments may be divided into true and false. 

The former draw their conclusions by means of true premises; e.g. "If virtue does good, vice does harm; but virtue does good, therefore vice does harm." 

Those are false which have error in the premises or are inconclusive; e.g. "If it is day, it is light; but it is day, therefore Dion is alive." 

Arguments may also be divided into possible and impossible, necessary and not necessary. 

Further, there are statements which are indemonstrable because they do not need demonstration; they are employed in the construction of every argument. As to the number of these, authorities differ; Chrysippus makes them five. 

These are assumed alike in reasoning specifically conclusive and in syllogisms both categorical and hypothetical. 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.79 

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 68

We must master our good fortune, or it will master us. 

IMAGE: Lorenzo Lippi, Allegory of Fortune (c. 1640) 

Fractals 29

Epictetus, Discourses 1.24.2

Diogenes, who was sent scouting before you, has brought us back a different report: he says, “Death is not evil, for it is not dishonor”; he says, “Glory is a vain noise made by madmen.” 

 

And what a message this scout brought us about pain and pleasure and poverty! “To wear no raiment,” he says, “is better than any robe with purple hem”; “to sleep on the ground without a bed,” he says, “is the softest couch.” 

 

Moreover he proves each point by showing his own confidence, his tranquility of mind, his freedom, and withal his body well knit, and in good condition. “No enemy is near,” he says, “all is full of peace.” 

 

What do you mean, Diogenes? 

 

“See,” he says, “have I suffered shot or wound or rout?” 

 

That is the right kind of scouting: but you come back to us and talk at random. Drop your cowardice and go back again, and take a more accurate observation. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.24 

 

The usual assumption is that the brave man will identify some terrible danger, and then he will fight tooth and nail to crush his enemies, or at the very least he will perish nobly in the face of overwhelming odds. 

 

The model is built upon a premise of life as defined by conflict, and of stubbornness and brute strength as being the only remedies in a world that offends us. Too often overlooked is the other option, where we can choose to examine the intimidating impression, and conclude how it is not so much of a menace at all. 

 

Do I truly need to destroy it, or to run away from it if I don’t have the muscle to beat it into submission? Are fight or flight the only possibilities? Could a deep peace of mind prove invulnerable to any appearance of peril? 

 

Observe how the second spy, aptly named Diogenes, sees the very same situation in Rome, and yet he reacts so very differently than the first spy. Perhaps the Romans are busy abusing and murdering one another, and yet death is not itself to be taken as an affliction. Perhaps the Romans are caught up in all sorts of schemes of character assassination, and yet true honor has nothing to do with popular acclaim. 

 

The few with the money continue to bleed the many with a pittance, only because they do not comprehend what it means to be rich in spirit. The tax collector hinders me from owning fancy clothes, and the landlord forces me to sleep in a hovel, and through all of that it remains completely within my power to appreciate whatever is given and to act with understanding and with love. 

 

Where there is a peace within me, I do not have to be at war with my neighbors. Once I have identified the genuine source of benefit and harm, as the Stoic or any follower of the perennial Wisdom Traditions does, there is no longer a misguided perception of injury. 

 

You say you can take everything from me—it turns out you can take nothing from me that ultimately matters for my happiness. 

 

It is the chapters like this one that remind me how I cannot just pay lip service to the calling of philosophy. If I go on with the same old daily grind, where the pursuit of fortune and fame continue to occupy me day and night, my efforts are sadly misdirected, and what I am calling steadfastness is merely a cover for greed and lust. 

 

Look at the city of Rome, or the circumstances of any time and place, from many angles, and treat each snapshot as an opportunity for virtue. Then the anxiety begins to melt away. 

—Reflection written in 3/2001 

IMAGE: Giovanni Paolo Panini, Gallery of Views of Ancient Rome (1758) 

Michael Leunig 38

Xenophon, Memorabilia of Socrates 11

. . . To this the poet is a witness, who says: 

"From the noble thou shalt be instructed in nobleness; but, and if thou minglest with the base, thou wilt destroy what wisdom thou hast now." 

And he who says: 

"But the good man has his hour of baseness as well as his hour of virtue." 

To whose testimony I would add my own. For I see that it is impossible to remember a long poem without practice and repetition; so is forgetfulness of the words of instruction engendered in the heart that has ceased to value them. 

With the words of warning fades the recollection of the very condition of mind in which the soul yearned after holiness; and once forgetting this, what wonder that the man should let slip also the memory of virtue itself! 

Again I see that a man who falls into habits of drunkenness or plunges headlong into licentious love, loses his old power of practising the right and abstaining from the wrong. 

Many a man who has found frugality easy whilst passion was cold, no sooner falls in love than he loses the faculty at once, and in his prodigal expenditure of riches he will no longer withhold his hand from gains which in former days were too base to invite his touch. 

Where then is the difficulty of supposing that a man may be temperate today, and tomorrow the reverse; or that he who once has had it in his power to act virtuously may not quite lose that power? 

To myself, at all events, it seems that all beautiful and noble things are the result of constant practice and training; and preeminently the virtue of temperance, seeing that in one and the same bodily frame pleasures are planted and spring up side by side with the soul and keep whispering in her ear, "Have done with self-restraint, make haste to gratify us and the body!" 

—from Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.2 

IMAGE: John St. John Long, The Temptation in the Wilderness (1824) 

The Wisdom of Solomon 14:1-7

[1] Again, one preparing to sail and about to voyage
over raging waves
calls upon a piece of wood more fragile than
the ship which carries him.
[2] For it was desire for gain that planned that vessel,
and wisdom was the craftsman who built it;
[3] but it is your providence, O Father, that steers its course,
because you have given it a path in the sea,
and a safe way through the waves,
[4] showing that you can save from every danger,
so that even if a man lacks skill, he may put to sea.
[5] It is your will that works of your wisdom should
not be without effect;
therefore men trust their lives even to the
smallest piece of wood,
and passing through the billows on a raft they
come safely to land.
[6] For even in the beginning, when arrogant giants were perishing,
the hope of the world took refuge on a raft,
and guided by your hand left to the world the
seed of a new generation.
[7] For blessed is the wood by which righteousness comes. 

IMAGE: Simon de Myle, Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat (1570) 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 164

The sun can give heat and light to the whole world, but it can do nothing when the clouds are in the sky and shut out its rays. 

Similarly, so long as egoism is in the soul, God cannot shine upon the heart. 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.24.1

Chapter 24: How one should contend against difficulties.

 

Difficulties are what show men's character. Therefore, when a difficult crisis meets you, remember that you are as the raw youth with whom God the trainer is wrestling. 

 

“To what end?” the hearer asks. 

 

That you may win at Olympia: and that cannot be done without sweating for it. 

 

To my mind no man's difficulties ever gave him a finer trial than yours, if only you will use them for exercise, as the athlete wrestles with the young man. 

 

Even now we are sending you to Rome to spy out the land: and no one sends a coward as a spy, for that means that if he but hears a noise or sees a shadow anywhere, he will come running in confusion and saying that the enemy are close at hand. 

 

So now if you come and tell us “The doings in Rome are fearful, death is terrible, exile is terrible, evil-speaking is terrible, poverty is terrible: fly sirs, the enemy is at hand,” we shall say to you, “Begone, prophesy to yourself, the only mistake we made was in sending a man like you to spy out the land.” 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.24 

 

The opening lines to this chapter are often cited as an inspiration for grappling with hardships, and rightly so. Even though I never managed to be a stellar athlete, I will still turn to this image as representative of any call to courage, where preparation and practice will help me to make it through the struggle. 

 

Yet I rarely find anyone addressing the rest of the argument, and I didn’t bother to pay close enough attention until the third or fourth time I read it. That’s a shame, because the point here isn’t just that we should be brave, but also how we must approach our circumstances in order to be brave. It ends up being a far greater challenge than I could ever have anticipated, and yet it offers far greater rewards than I could ever have imagined.

 

A bit of context is useful for best understanding the chapter. Like so many other bosses who think they can force people to conform by discouraging them from thinking for themselves, the Emperor Domitian had banished all philosophers from Rome. This included the humble Epictetus, hardly a danger to anyone at all, and he lived out the rest of his days in Nicopolis. 

 

Here the exiled philosopher is discussing how his school is sending “spies” back to Rome, to learn how things are faring in the capital. With what sort of report will the students return? If one of them describes the many horrors of the city, is he not simply passing on what he has observed? Why would Epictetus be so quick to condemn the man as a coward? 

 

The insight offered here is that the act of looking is always filtered through the act of estimation. On any given day I will see deceit, betrayal, and cruelty—now what do I make of it? To acknowledge it is one thing, to run away from it is quite another. 

 

It is certainly evil for men to do such things, so at least the student is getting it right in this regard; he takes a misstep, however, when he advises flight as the solution. If there are bad folks in Rome, should the good folks hide in fear? No number of popular vices can deter the convictions of character, as long as they are sincerely and deeply held. 

 

“A man like you?” A man may well look sharply with his eyes, even as he judges poorly with his mind. It gets even better, however, in the following passages, where Epictetus explains why the threat is never from the outside at all. Stay tuned! . . . 

—Reflection written in 3/2001 

IMAGE: Emperor Domitian