Welcome to the Perennial Meditations (Saturday Review) — A weekly recap and reflection of ancient lessons for modern life. Below you’ll find notable quotes, transcript summaries, and a passage to ponder.
1. The Art of Contemplation (Read here)
In our Monday Meditation (The PATH), we reflected on the art of contemplation. Specifically, the insights of Stillness, Awareness, and Thinking Well.
Stillness — “In Buddhism, we talk about cultivating three types of wisdom; those arising through listening to teachings, contemplating their meaning, and meditating on the ascertained meaning,” writes the Dalai Lama.
Awareness — According to the theologian Thomas Merton, “The life of contemplation implies two levels of awareness: first, awareness of the question, and second, awareness of the answer.”
Thinking Well — The Buddha observed, “I do not see even one other thing that, when tamed, guarded, protected, and restrained, leads to such great good as the mind.”
2. How to Think Big and Small (Read here)
The theologian Thomas Merton said, “The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.” Wisdom is seeing our true potential while at the same time seeing the power of small acts. The founder of Stoicism, Zeno of Citium, stressed, “Well-being is attained by little and little and nevertheless is no little thing itself.”
The Chinese philosopher Confucius taught,
The journey of the wise to virtue is a journey to a remote land or the ascent of a high mountain. People who travel to a faraway place start with a single step, and those who climb a high mountain start from the bottom.
3. The One You Feed with Eric Zimmer (Listen here)
This week's In Search of Wisdom podcast episode explored how to integrate wisdom into daily life. How do we close the gap between defining wisdom and integrating it into our daily lives? Why is discernment essential to navigating life with wisdom? What role do community and friendship play in living an intentional life? These are just a few questions I posed to my guest Eric Zimmer from the One You Feed podcast.
How do you think about or define wisdom in daily life?
I think about wisdom as being able to see as close to the truth of reality as possible. And then actually be able to implement that into our day-to-day life for that to actually influence how we act for that to be able to weigh in, in moments of our lives, where we're able to reflect and think and adjust and change and then act as us we could use the word wisely as possible. […]
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