Vanitas 91

Antonio de Pereda, The Knight's Dream (c. 1650) 

Aeterne pungit, cito volat et occidit. 

"Eternally it stings, swiftly it flies and it kills." 

Seneca, Moral Letters 76.10

I also said that if those things which dumb animals possess equally with man are goods, then dumb animals also will lead a happy life; which is of course impossible. One must endure all things in defense of that which is honorable; but this would not be necessary if there existed any other good besides that which is honorable. 
 
Although this question was discussed by me pretty extensively in a previous letter, I have discussed it summarily and briefly run through the argument. But an opinion of this kind will never seem true to you unless you exalt your mind and ask yourself whether, at the call of duty, you would be willing to die for your country, and buy the safety of all your fellow citizens at the price of your own; whether you would offer your neck not only with patience, but also with gladness. 
 
If you would do this, there is no other good in your eyes. For you are giving up everything in order to acquire this good. Consider how great is the power of that which is honorable: you will die for your country, even at a moment’s notice, when you know that you ought to do so. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 76 
 
I have always adored animals, to the point where my childhood was filled with grand tales about talking beasts who lived secretly in our nearby woods, including a kingdom of mischievous dormice, an immortal kitten who was a radio DJ, and the stern yet caring Father Badger. Among my best friends was a quixotic rabbit from the Austrian alps, named Moonwood after the Narnia books, and Bruno, a tough French-Canadian racoon who ran all sorts of shady rackets around the neighborhood. 
 
With that kind of baggage, people are shocked, sometimes offended, when I agree with Seneca that animals cannot, properly speaking, be “happy”. If the creatures out in the forest could actually build a village, or write poetry, or have tea parties, as they do in the Beatrix Potter stories, then their end would be much the same as the human, but animals have their own distinct natures, and these should not be confused with our own. 
 
This is more than a matter of petty semantics; for all of his glory, my cat Jack is bound by his instincts and appetites, while I possess the further capacities of reason and will. It is no insult to the rock that it is not a tree, and the cat is not diminished for failing to be a man. I might say that Jack is “satisfied”, but not that he is “happy”, since his pleasurable feelings are on a different level than virtuous actions. 
 
When Jack catches a rabbit out back, he is totally pleased with his prize for the rest of the day. If you serve me a bowl of fine rabbit stew, it will hardly inform the content of my character for the rest of the day, however much my senses have been gratified. The animal is fulfilled by his desires, even as the man is fulfilled by his judgments, and treating one as if he were like the other will bring us all nothing but grief. 
 
To know myself will lead me to recognize the source of my excellence, such that the external conditions will then bow to the internal convictions. Though I have long appreciated the theory, I am still hard at work on the practice: words are cheap, deeds are priceless. It starts to make more sense when I approach the duty as a privilege, not as a burden, as something that perfects my freedom instead of smothering it. 
 
I have never been an epic hero, and it is likely that I will never be, so I find my meaning in the little things, which actually end up being not so little, if they are charged with a purity of purpose. I have not yet been called to die for my friends, and yet I am offered dozens of opportunities, on each and every day, to show them kindness, patience, and forgiveness. This can cost me my comfort, my property, or my reputation, and I should still give of myself gladly, until I have nothing left except the joy that comes from my peace of mind. I have then thrived according to my nature, requiring no further reward. 
 
I pay a student a compliment, and he mocks me behind my back. I leave a waiter a tip, and he scolds me for being cheap. I ask the boss to be honest, and I lose my job. My virtue is now in how well I respond to such obstacles, without permitting the circumstances to intimidate me. Let it be what it will be, and I will choose a simple honor. There is the difference between the mouse and the man. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

The Way of Things . . .

Who I wanted to be . . . 

. . . and who I became. 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 261

Greed brings woe, while contentment is all happiness. 

A barber was once passing under a haunted tree, when he heard a voice say, "Will you accept of seven jars of gold?"  

The barber looked round, but could see no one. The mysterious voice again repeated the words, and the cupidity of the barber being greatly roused by the spontaneous offer of such vast wealth, he spoke aloud, "When the merciful God is so good as to take pity even on a poor barber like me, is there anything to be said as to my accepting the kind offer so generously made?"

 At once the reply came, "Go home, I have already carried the jars thither." 

The barber ran in hot haste to his house, and was transported to see the promised jars there. He opened them one after another and saw them all filled, save one which was half filled. 

Now arose the desire of filling this last jar in the heart of the barber. So he sold all his gold and silver ornaments and converted them into coins and threw them into the jar. But the jar still remained empty. 

He now began to starve himself and his family by living upon insufficient, coarse, and cheap food, throwing all his savings into the jar, but the jar remained as empty as ever. 

The barber then requested the King to increase his pay, as it was not sufficient to maintain him and his family. As he was a favorite of the King, the latter granted his request. 

The barber now began to save all his pay and emoluments, and throw them all into the jar, but the greedy jar showed no sign of being filled. He now began to live by begging, and became as wretched and miserable as ever. 

One day the King seeing his sad plight, inquired of him by saying, "Hallo! when your pay was half of what you get now, you were far happier and more cheerful, contented, and healthy, but with double that pay I see you morose, careworn, and dejected. Now what is the matter with you? Have you accepted the seven jars of gold?"

The barber was taken aback by this home thrust, and with clasped hands asked the King as to who had informed his majesty about the matter. 

The King answered, "Whosoever accepts the riches of a Yaksha is sure to be reduced to such an abject and wretched plight. I have known you through this invariable sign. Do away with the money at once. You cannot spend a farthing of it. That money is for hoarding and not for spending." 

The barber was brought to his senses by this advice and went to the haunted tree and said, "O Yaksha, take back your gold," and he returned home to find the seven jars vanished, taking with them his lifelong savings. 

Nevertheless, he began to live happily after it. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 76.9

A good man, you will admit, must have the highest sense of duty toward the gods. Hence, he will endure with an unruffled spirit whatever happens to him; for he will know that it has happened as a result of the divine law, by which the whole creation moves. 
 
This being so, there will be for him one good, and only one, namely, that which is honorable; for one of its dictates is that we shall obey the gods and not blaze forth in anger at sudden misfortunes or deplore our lot, but rather patiently accept fate and obey its commands.
 
If anything except the honorable is good, we shall be hounded by greed for life, and by greed for the things which provide life with its furnishings—an intolerable state, subject to no limits, unstable. The only good, therefore, is that which is honorable, that which is subject to bounds. 
 
I have declared that man’s life would be more blessed than that of the gods, if those things which the gods do not enjoy are goods—such as money and offices of dignity. 
 
There is this further consideration: if only it is true that our souls, when released from the body, still abide, a happier condition is in store for them than is theirs while they dwell in the body. 

 
And yet, if those things are goods which we make use of for our bodies’ sake, our souls will be worse off when set free; and that is contrary to our belief, to say that the soul is happier when it is cabined and confined than when it is free and has betaken itself to the Universe. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 76 
 

Even a few years ago, I would have gladly gone on a rant about the tragic absence of piety in the modern world, though I am now more inclined to sit silently, reflecting on how often I have neglected that tiny spark of the divine within me throughout the day. I hope this is a sort of progress, because I can hardly expect others to show reverence, when I can’t manage to practice respect myself. 

 

I no longer assume that people were any more devout in the past, though I do suspect they were more adept at putting on a holy show. In any case, sanity must always precede sanctity, for without the wisdom to understand one’s place within the whole, there can be no humility to serve Providence. The man who rages against God is still too full of his own self-pity, which is really a form of self-loathing, to offer anyone else an unconditional love. 

 

I have been there, and I have done that. It doesn’t end well. It was compassion that helped me out of the hole, not censure, so I try to return what I was once given. To embrace how absolutely everything, big or small, gratifying or offensive, serves a purpose for the good is the first step toward discovering the harmony between the law that rules me and the law that rules the Universe. The one in the many, not the one or the many. 

A part of the grueling process involves chiseling away at the things I claim to want, until I am at last left with only the things I need. As much as I may resist, it invariably turns out that the virtues are what I need, and all the other qualities or circumstances are negotiable. When I can manage to be honorable, the pains become far more bearable, and the pleasures become far less bewitching; with self-awareness and self-mastery, I am no longer bound by the extremes, forever demanding either less or more. 

 

I am delighted by Seneca’s arguments about how we compare to the divine: if externals were required to be happy, then the gods would have to be downright miserable, and if worldly comforts were vital to our bliss, then any afterlife would have to be a deprivation, never a liberation. Of course, I know a fair number of “enlightened” folks who would wholeheartedly agree with both points, and yet I can’t help but wonder why they are always so bitter and resentful in the life they insist is best. 

 

We get so terribly disoriented when we assert that something is more perfect when it leans on something else, and less perfect when it stands for itself. How did Orwell put it? 

 

War is peace. 

 

Freedom is slavery. 

Ignorance is strength.

 

But who could be so foolish as to fall for such a ruse? 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

Owls 3

Owls 2

Owls 1

Chuang Tzu 6.3

Being such, their minds were free from all thought; their demeanor was still and unmoved; their foreheads beamed simplicity. 

Whatever coldness came from them was like that of autumn; whatever warmth came from them was like that of spring. Their joy and anger assimilated to what we see in the four seasons. 

They did in regard to all things what was suitable, and no one could know how far their action would go. Therefore the sagely man might, in his conduct of war, destroy a state without losing the hearts of the people; his benefits and favors might extend to a myriad generations without his being a lover of men. 

Hence he who tries to share his joys with others is not a sagely man; he who manifests affection is not benevolent; he who observes times and seasons to regulate his conduct is not a man of wisdom; he to whom profit and injury are not the same is not a superior man; he who acts for the sake of the name of doing so, and loses his proper self is not the right scholar; and he who throws away his person in a way which is not the true way cannot command the service of others. 

Such men as Hû Pû-kieh, Wû Kwang, Po-ì, Shû-khì, the count of Kì, Hsü-yü, Kì Thâ, and Shan-thû Tì, all did service for other men, and sought to secure for them what they desired, not seeking their own pleasure. 

IMAGE: Ambrose McEvoy, The Seasons (c. 1904) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 76.8

You may perhaps remember my saying that the things which have been generally desired and feared have been trampled down by many a man in moments of sudden passion. 
 
There have been found men who would place their hands in the flames, men whose smiles could not be stopped by the torturer, men who would shed not a tear at the funeral of their children, men who would meet death unflinchingly. It is love, for example, anger, lust, which have challenged dangers. 
 
If a momentary stubbornness can accomplish all this when roused by some goad that pricks the spirit, how much more can be accomplished by virtue, which does not act impulsively or suddenly, but uniformly and with a strength that is lasting!
 
It follows that the things which are often scorned by the men who are moved with a sudden passion, and are always scorned by the wise, are neither goods nor evils. Virtue itself is therefore the only good; she marches proudly between the two extremes of fortune, with great scorn for both. 
 
If, however, you accept the view that there is anything good besides that which is honorable, all the virtues will suffer. For it will never be possible for any virtue to be won and held, if there is anything outside itself which virtue must take into consideration. 
 
If there is any such thing, then it is at variance with reason, from which the virtues spring, and with truth also, which cannot exist without reason. Any opinion, however, which is at variance with truth, is wrong. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 76 
 
I hear many claims about the inherent weakness of human nature, and much cynicism about expecting anyone to ever perform any noble deeds. Yet by assuming that people must be base, cowardly, or lazy, we are merely lowering the bar, treating a creature gifted with reason and will as if he were no more than a slave to brute instinct. Yes, a man will be subject to volatile impressions, but he still remains the master of his own judgments. 
 
That many might choose to follow the herd instead of thinking for themselves is hardly a necessity: each one of us makes his own estimation of his own impulses, and each one of us can always decide differently. If I have favored the path of least resistance, it is merely because I have deemed convenience to be greater than character, an error I may begin to correct at this very moment. 
 
We are impressed by deeds committed out of intense passion, though they are hardly extraordinary, since all of us will do most anything for the sake of what we presently perceive to be the greatest reward. Rage, terror, or lust are passing emotions, however, and it is only when an action is supported by the depth of a genuine understanding that we can speak of a conviction as being absolutely indomitable. 
 
Both the lover and the sage will recognize why the circumstances of this life, whether pleasant or painful, are as nothing compared to the glory of the prize: they become indifferent to poverty and riches, sickness and health, torment and luxury. As a boy, I would go through hell or high water for the sake of a girl, and now as a man, I am finally working on doing the same for the sake of my conscience. 
 
Imagine if I had stopped for a beer with the guys on my wedding night. It is now no different if I were to look the other way when I catch the boss with his hand in the till, or the priest with his hand under a skirt. Let the opinion be anchored in a knowledge of the true and the good, and then the hesitation will fall away; equivocation is the mark of the two-faced man. 
 
It is both funny and sad when certain folks speak of compromising one’s principles in the name of utility as being “reasonable”, when it is actually the most unreasonable thing in the world. A sound mind demands integrity and consistency, not feeble duplicity and cheap excuses. If virtue doesn’t come first, it won’t mean much of anything at all, quickly sold off to the highest bidder with the sweetest smile. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

IMAGE: Hans Baldung, Mucius Scaevola Before Porsenna (1531) 

The Travels of the Soul 4

Howard Pyle, The Travels of the Soul 4: At the Gates of Life (1902) 

The Travels of the Soul 3

Howard Pyle, The Travels of the Soul 3: In the Valley of Shadows (1902) 

The Travels of the Soul 2

Howard Pyle, The Travels of the Soul 2: In the Meadows of Youth (1902) 

The Travels of the Soul 1

Howard Pyle, The Travels of the Soul 1: The Wicket of Paradise (1902) 

Stoic Snippets 259

. . . If, then, whatever the time may be when you shall be near to your departure, neglecting everything else you shall respect only your ruling faculty and the divinity within you, and if you shall be afraid not because you must some time cease to live, but if you shall fear never to have begun to live according to Nature—then you will be a man worthy of the Universe which has produced you, and you will cease to be a stranger in your native land, and to wonder at things which happen daily as if they were something unexpected, and to be dependent on this or that. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.1 

IMAGE: Janis Rozentāls, Death (1897) 

Stoic Snippets 258

All those things at which you wish to arrive by a circuitous road you  can have now, if you do not refuse them to yourself. 

And this means, if you will take no notice of all the past, and trust the future to Providence, and direct the present only conformably to piety and justice.  

Conformably to piety that you may be content with the lot which is assigned to you, for Nature designed it for you and you for it. 

Conformably to justice, that you may always speak the truth freely and without disguise, and do the things which are agreeable to law and according to the worth of each. 

And let neither another man's wickedness hinder you, nor opinion nor voice, nor yet the sensations of the poor flesh which has grown about you; for the passive part will look to this. . . . 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.1 

IMAGE: Noël Coypel, The Chariot of Jupiter Between Justice and Piety (c. 1671) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 76.7

If every good is in the soul, then whatever strengthens, uplifts, and enlarges the soul, is a good; virtue, however, does make the soul stronger, loftier, and larger. 
 
For all other things, which arouse our desires, depress the soul and weaken it, and when we think that they are uplifting the soul, they are merely puffing it up and cheating it with much emptiness. Therefore, that alone is good which will make the soul better. 
 
All the actions of life, taken as a whole, are controlled by the consideration of what is honorable or base; it is with reference to these two things that our reason is governed in doing or not doing a particular thing. 
 
I shall explain what I mean: a good man will do what he thinks it will be honorable for him to do, even if it involves toil; he will do it even if it involves harm to him; he will do it even if it involves peril; again, he will not do that which will be base, even if it brings him money, or pleasure, or power. Nothing will deter him from that which is honorable, and nothing will tempt him into baseness.
 
Therefore, if he is determined invariably to follow that which is honorable, invariably to avoid baseness, and in every act of his life to have regard for these two things, deeming nothing else good except that which is honorable, and nothing else bad except that which is base; if virtue alone is unperverted in him and by itself keeps its even course, then virtue is that man’s only good, and nothing can thenceforth happen to it which may make it anything else than good. 
 
It has escaped all risk of change; folly may creep upwards towards wisdom, but wisdom never slips back into folly. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 76 
 
Who would have thought that Plato’s Meno, the first proper text of philosophy I was ever asked to read, ended up containing the most practical lesson I ever needed to learn? 
 
At that time, as a frenzied teenager, I was mainly struck by what I thought was Socrates’ clever bickering, so I failed to see how the argument was leading me toward an ultimate self-awareness: whatever is good in this life, only becomes good because it is accompanied by virtue, and virtue, in turn, is only acquired through the means of understanding. 
 
And now, decades later, as I once again consider this letter by Seneca, I recollect, with no pun intended, why character is the sole measure of human nature. Every other condition of my life, however pleasant or painful, convenient or frustrating, revolves around this absolute. 
 
If I merely pack this away as a profound abstraction, I will continue to be anxious and miserable, constantly seduced by false promises. It is rather the daily practice of prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice that fulfills my nature, and thereby brings me peace of mind. The naysayers dismiss this as a burden, while I seek it out as a joy, thanks to what Socrates and the Stoics have taught me. 
 
On those days when I fail, it is due to a lack of clarity, simplicity, and focus, having permitted diversions to get in the way of my true calling. An impression may be strong at a certain moment, so I allow myself to get turned around, confusing the lesser for the greater, but this is not an excuse for despair. It is always within my power to change my direction, to return to my conscience as my guide. 
 
Sometimes it feels too difficult, and then I recognize why the drudgery is a consequence of my attitude. A rightly formed habit flows from the exercise of conviction, such that worldly trinkets and facile amusements are not quite so tempting when a nobler purpose is revealed. I have found that a good man never feels disheartened by a sacrifice for the sake of what he truly loves. 
 
The fact that I remain so in awe of someone who will unfailingly stand his ground proves why I remain a work in progress. The Stoic ideal of the sage, the one who will never return to his old vices, is only bewildering to those of us who are still desperately trying to sit on the fence. The sage, however, knows it to be true and good through every fiber of his being, and so he can no longer even conceive of doing otherwise. 
 
On a far more trivial level, it is something like craving processed foods once you’ve eaten straight from the farm. The vanities of wealth, luxury, or fame are just appealing to the poor souls who don’t yet know any better. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

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

A World Split Apart 16

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

BEFORE THE TURN 

I am not examining the case of a disaster brought on by a world war and the changes which it would produce in society. But as long as we wake up every morning under a peaceful sun, we must lead an everyday life. Yet there is a disaster which is already very much with us. I am referring to the calamity of an autonomous, irreligious, humanistic consciousness. 

It has made man the measure of all things on earth—imperfect man, who is never free of pride, self-interest, envy, vanity, and dozens of other defects. We are now paying for the mistakes which were not properly appraised at the beginning of the journey. 

On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility. We have placed too much hope in politics and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. It is trampled by the party mob in the East, by the commercial one in the West. This is the essence of the crisis: the split in the world is less terrifying than the similarity of the disease afflicting its main sections. 

If, as claimed by humanism, man were born only to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to death, his task on earth evidently must be more spiritual: not a total engrossment in everyday life, not the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then their carefree consumption. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one’s life journey may become above all an experience of moral growth: to leave life a better human being than one started it. 

It is imperative to reappraise the scale of the usual human values; its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the president’s performance should be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or to the availability of gasoline. Only by the voluntary nurturing in ourselves of freely accepted and serene self-restraint can mankind rise above the world stream of materialism.  

Today it would be retrogressive to hold on to the ossified formulas of the Enlightenment. Such social dogmatism leaves us helpless before the trials of our times. 

Even if we are spared destruction by war, life will have to change in order not to perish on its own. We cannot avoid reassessing the fundamental definitions of human life and human society. Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior Spirit above him? Is it right that man’s life and society’s activities should be ruled by material expansion above all? Is it permissible to promote such expansion to the detriment of our integral spiritual life? 

If the world has not approached its end, it has reached a major watershed in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will demand from us a spiritual blaze; we shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life, where our physical nature will not be cursed, as in the Middle Ages, but even more importantly, our spiritual being will not be trampled upon, as in the Modern Era. 

This ascension is similar to climbing onto the next anthropological stage. No one on earth has any other way left but—upward.

The Last Journey

Jakub Schikaneder, The Last Journey (c. 1880) 

Dhammapada 395

The man who wears dirty raiments, who is emaciated and covered with veins, who lives alone in the forest, and meditates, him I call indeed a Brahmana.