Greetings Friends,
I hope this finds you well! Here is your Perennial Meditations (Saturday Review) — A weekly recap and reflection of meditations on the art of living. Below are links, notable quotes, and a Saturday Meditation.
Making Sense of Suffering (and Life)
This week’s Saturday Meditation comes from Viktor Frankl’s classic Man’s Search for Meaning (our upcoming book for Reading & the Good Life). In one of my favorite passages, Frankl explains,
Once, an elderly general practitioner consulted me because of his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss of his wife who had died two years before and whom he had loved above all else. Now, how can I help him? What should I tell him?
Well, I refrained from telling him anything but instead confronted him with the question, “What would have happened, Doctor, if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you?” “Oh,” he said, “for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!” Whereupon I replied, “You see, Doctor, such a suffering has been spared her, and it was you who have spared her this suffering — to be sure, at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her.”
He said no word but shook my hand and calmly left my office. In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Making meaning is a perennial task. The art of living requires one to consistently make meaning of the mundane and the mysterious. “What is demanded of us is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life,” writes Frankl, “but rather to bear the incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms.”
Reflection Questions (Pick one or create your own):
How can you begin to make meaning in daily life?
What helps you (or stands in the way) make meaning of life’s challenges?
This Week’s Videos…
This Week’s Meditations…
1. Seneca | On Choosing Our Teachers (Listen here)
In a letter known today as On Choosing Our Teachers, Seneca wrote,
What is this force, Lucilius, that drags us in one direction when we are aiming in another, urging us on to the exact place from which we long to withdraw? What is it that wrestles with our spirit, and does not allow us to desire anything once and for all? We veer from plan to plan. None of our wishes is free, none is unqualified, none is lasting.
“But it is the fool,” you say, “who is inconsistent; nothing suits him for long.” But how or when can we tear ourselves away from this folly? No man by himself has sufficient strength to rise above it; he needs a helping hand, and some one to extricate him. […]
2. The Wisdom of Connection (Read here)
Pierre Hadot observed that philosophy deepens and transforms habitual perception, forcing us to become aware that we perceive the world. Therefore, one must ask themselves whether or not they are perceiving the world accurately. The notion of interconnectedness appears throughout many philosophical and spiritual traditions.
In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius put it this way,
In a way, all things are interwoven and therefore have a family feeling for each other: one thing follows another in due order through the tension of movement, the common spirit inspiring them, and the unity of all beings.
Marcus Aurelius advised himself to “meditate often on the connection of all things.” And in many passages throughout Meditations, he utilizes the wisdom of connection to act with kindness and virtue. […]
3. How to Want Less — Like Diogenes (Read here)
Imagine the most powerful person in the world asking if there is anything they could do for you. How would you respond? What would you want?
As legend has it, when Diogenes was living in Corinth, Alexander the Great came to the city and was interested in meeting the philosopher. He found Diogenes resting in the sunlight, introduced himself, and asked if there was anything he could do for him. Diogenes replied, "Yes. Get out of my sunlight." Alexander admired his spirit and said,
"If I were not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes."
Diogenes did not need much. He believed in self-control and rejecting everything considered unnecessary in life. Seeing a child drinking from his hands, Diogenes threw away his cup and remarked, "A child has beaten me in plainness of living." […]
4. On Seeing the World — Like a Zen Master (Read here)
How are you seeing yourself, others, and the world around you?
It is interesting to consider the notion that we are seeing and experiencing life from different perspectives. The late Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh once wrote about the idea of seeing the world in a sheet of paper.
Thich Nhat Hanh wrote,
If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow: and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are.
Consider taking a moment to see it yourself. Contemplate (or look thoughtfully for a long time) at a sheet of paper. According to Hanh, “If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine.” […]
5. Reading & the Good Life (Read here)
On Reading & the Good Life this week (our Friday meetup at Noon EST), we continued our exploration of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations.
Selected passages for this week:
To live a good life: We have the potential for it. If we can learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference. This is how we learn: by looking at each thing, both the parts and the whole. Keeping in mind that none of them can dictate how we perceive it. They don’t impose themselves on us. They hover before us, unmoving. It is we who generate the judgments—inscribing them on ourselves. And we don’t have to. We could leave the page blank—and if a mark slips through, erase it instantly. […]
— Meditations, 11.16
6. The Paradox of Death (Listen here)
The devotional Remember Your Death, by Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble, opens with the words, “You are going to die.” Sr. Noble writes,
The moment you are born you begin dying. You may die in fifty years, ten years, perhaps tomorrow — or even today. But whenever it happens, death awaits every person, whether rich or poor, young or old, believer or nonbeliever.
As many of you know, I am interested in principles and practices that reveal themselves across wisdom traditions. One of those practices is remembering your death (or Memento Mori). Many people rightfully connect the practice of Memento Mori with Stoicism, but it is also part of Buddhism and Christianity.
In his Rule, Saint Benedict urged his monk to “keep death daily before your eyes.” According to St. Benedict, remembering death helps us live better in this life and is most effective when done daily. […]
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Thank you for reading (and Listening) this week; I hope you found something useful for daily life.
Until next week, be wise and be well,
P.S. As always, feel free to comment, ask questions, or make suggestions.