Welcome to Perennial Meditations (Saturday Review) — A weekly recap and reflection of ancient lessons for modern life. Below you’ll find links, notable quotes, transcript summaries, and videos below.
1. On Conquering the Conquerer (Listen here)
In a letter known today as On Conquering the Conquerer, Seneca wrote,
Just as in a ship that springs a leak, you can always stop the first or the second crack, but when many holes begin to open and let in water, the gaping hull cannot be saved; similarly, in an old man’s body, there is a certain limit up to which you can sustain and prop its weakness. But when it comes to resemble a decrepit building, when every joint begins to spread and while one is being repaired another falls apart—then it is time for a man to look about him and consider how he may get out.
2. On Becoming Nobody (Read here)
Our Monday Meditation (The PATH) searched for ancient lessons on becoming nobody according to Ram Dass (Potential, Surrender, and Forgetting Yourself).
Potential — Regarding the realization of potential, Ram Dass advised, "Don’t treat yourself so gingerly; you can let go of stuff. Sometimes it takes three breaths instead of two to do it, but you can do it. Be a little tougher, and don’t cling to stuff." […]
Surrender — Ram Dass put it this way, "Early in the journey, you wonder how long the journey will take and whether you will make it in this lifetime. Later you will see where you are going is here, and you will arrive now, so stop asking." […]
Forgetting Yourself — "The game is not about becoming somebody," said Ram Dass, "it's about becoming nobody." Similarly, a thousand years before Ram Dass, the philosopher and Zen Master Dogen wrote, "To study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self." […]
3. Philosophy as Self-Help (Read here)
How does reading traditional self-help differ from a book on philosophy? What can we learn about the good life from exploring the difficult aspects (loneliness and grief) of life? In a recent conversation on In Search of Wisdom with Kieran Setiya, the author of the new book Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help us Find Our Way, I posed several of these types of questions.
Watch a short clip below:
4. The Wisdom of Carl Jung (Listen here)
In this episode, my guest is David Alexander, the co-host of the Between Two Ravens podcast and creator of the Prosoche Project. David is a psychotherapist, a founding member of the Walled Garden, and someone with a deep interest in practical wisdom. Learn more about David’s work in the world at prosocheproject.com and at thewalledgarden.com.
5. The Art of Not Reading (Read here)
In his Essays and Aphorisms, the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer explained,
The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones — life is short.
6. How to Make a Life (Read here)
The sixteenth-century philosopher Michel de Montaigne once proclaimed, “My art and profession are to live.” Today, Montaigne is best known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. He explained that his goal in his Essays was to describe himself with utter frankness and honesty. How might your life change if you adopted a few of Montaigne’s timeless habits for modern living?
1. Focus on Character
The goal is to compose our character, not to write books and to win… but to order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately, stressed Montaigne. […]
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Thank you for reading and listening this week; I hope you found something useful for daily life.
Until next time, be wise and be well,