Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Logos refers to our reason/purpose/God, and our events are determined by it
- A physical substance in life
“Cause and material” refers to substance (logos) and pneuma
- Pneuma is the vital breath that animates living organisms
  - On death, the pneuma gets reabsorbed by the logos
We are connected to a certain fate, and the more we resist it, the stronger the consequences become
There are three disciplines: perception, action, and will
Action
- Logos is like a city full of people, and it is our duty to use ourselves to the best of our ability to contribute to a greater cause
- The human population is an organism, and different people represent the different cells
  - Not everyone is equal, nor do they have the same purpose, but they are still important
Will
- Counterpart of action
- Governs our attitude to things not in our control
  - Acts of immorality harm the agent rather than the victim
  - Something is only harmful if we percieve it as harmful
  - The logos has a plan, so there must be a reason for “suffering”
    - Thus, we must accept what happens and continue in our lives
Everywhere at each moment, you have the option to:
- Accept this event with humility (will)
- Treat this person as he should be treated (action)
- Approach this thought with care, so that nothing irrational creeps in (perception)
After death, there is no “us” to suffer harm

Book

Had no absolute title
Written like a diary to himself, but it is more like a refreshment and refinement of previous ideas
A self-help book
Has a variety of writings, from essays to imperatives/aphorisms/analogies/comparisons/quotations/dialogue

Themes

Accepting mortality
Dealing with suffering
- Resisting pain
Natural imagery
Pessimism

Book 1 - Debts and Lessons

Talks about the different traits he admired regarding the different people in his life

Book 2 - On the River Gran, Among the Quadi

Concentrate every minute like a Roman—like a man—on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can—if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable. You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that’s all even the gods can ask of you.

Put’s importance on the importance of the present
If it’s a part of nature, it must be good (death)

Book 3 - In Carnuntum

Worry less about other people to focus on your own mind
- Prime yourself to think with purpose, for you can confidently speak the truth when someone asks
If things appear that are not as important as yourself, then you don’t need to conform or abide by it
The only time we live is right now in the present

Book 4 -

ii. That everything you see will soon alter and cease to exist. Think of how many changes you’ve already seen. 7. Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed.

Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been. 19. People who are excited by posthumous fame forget that the people who remember them will soon die too. And those after them in turn. Until their memory, passed from one to another like a candle flame, gutters and goes out. What use is praise, except to make your lifestyle a little more comfortable?

We will be gone forgotten in this world, but we should still aim to work for proper understnaidng, unselfish avtion, and truthful speech
Knowing we will die some day is the same is just the same as knowing that we will die the following day, considering the insignificance of such years in comparison to the earth’s evolution
Pain is imaginary and has no misfortune, but to endure it and prevail is of good fortune

Book 5

To reject our fate is to go against the fulfillment of the universe

When you think you’ve been injured, apply this rule: If the community isn’t injured by it, neither am I. And if it is, anger is not the answer. Show the offender where he went wrong.
Accept things, but don’t add judgements
ii. To locate goodness in thinking and doing the right thing, and to limit your desires to that.
If it is not caused by us, or creates us, or harms the community, don’t worry about it

Book 6

Perceptions like that—latching onto things and piercing through them, so we see what they really are. That’s what we need to do all the time—all through our lives when things lay claim to our trust—to lay them bare and see how pointless they are, to strip away the legend that encrusts them.
We are designed to do what we are created to do
- By focusing on it, we won’t be tempted by other ideas
  - By being distracted with other things, we will never be free because we will always be jealous
If we don’t interpret the actions of other people, then we would never form enemies
What happens to us is for the benefit of ourselves, others, and the world
Encouragement can be found in the people around us and their admirable traits
It doesn’t bother you that you weigh only x or y pounds and not three hundred. Why should it bother you that you have only x or y years to live and not more? You accept the limits placed on your body. Accept those placed on your time.

Book 7

So many who were remembered already forgotten, and those who remembered them long gone.
Limit yourself to the present
Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.

Book 8

To do good, we must practice fairness, self-control, courage, and free will
If blaming does not solve anything, then why do it?
What dies doesn’t vanish. It stays here in the world, transformed, dissolved, as parts of the world, and of you. Which are transformed in turn—without grumbling.
Everything is here for a purpose…why were you born? For pleasure? See if that answer will stand up to questioning.
To accept it without arrogance, to let it go with indifference.
Stick with first impressions. Don’t extrapolate solely for the bad outcomes, but for all of them.
Don’t demand to know “why such things exist.”

Book 9

Objective judgment, now, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now, at this very moment. Willing acceptance—now, at this very moment—of all external events. That’s all you need.
View the transition of dying just like our transformations from stages of life.
Instead of praying to wish for something to happen, pray to be indifferent to what happens
When we call someone untrustworthy, it is our fault for assuming that they deserved our trust in the first plave.

Book 10

Everything that happens is either endurable or not.

If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining.

If it’s unendurable . . . then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well. 4. Upright. Modest. Straightforward. Sane. Cooperative. Disinterested. 11. What people say or think about him, or how they treat him, isn’t something he worries about. Only these two questions: Is what he’s doing now the right thing to be doing? Does he accept and welcome what he’s been assigned? He has stripped away all other occupations, all other tasks. He wants only to travel a straight path—to God, by way of law. 15. Only a short time left. Live as if you were alone—out in the wilderness. No difference between here and there: the city that you live in is the world. 28. People who feel hurt and resentment: picture them as the pig at the sacrifice, kicking and squealing all the way.

Like the man alone in his bed, silently weeping over the chains that bind us.

That everything has to submit. But only rational beings can do so voluntarily.

Stop whatever you’re doing for a moment and ask yourself: Am I afraid of death because I won’t be able to do this anymore? Let people see someone living naturally, and understand what that means. Let them kill him if they can’t stand it. (Better than living like this.)
When faced with people’s bad behavior, turn around and ask when you have acted like that. When you saw money as a good, or pleasure, or social position. Your anger will subside as soon as you recognize that they acted under compulsion (what else could they do?).
Be true to who you are: caring, sympathetic, kind. And not as if you were being torn away from life. But the way it is when someone dies peacefully, how the soul is released from the body—that’s how you should leave them. It was nature that bound you to them—that tied the knot. And nature that now unties you.

I am released from those around me. Not dragged against my will, but unresisting.

There are things that nature demands. And this is one of them.

Book 11

A rational soul:
- surveys the world and the empty space around it, and the way it’s put together
- reaches its intended goal, no matter where the limit of its life is set.
- Affection for its neighbors
- By practicing mindfulness, we are able to better understand what makes no differencen
The best way to dispell hatred and anger is to show sincere affection
• This thought is unnecessary.

• This one is destructive to the people around you.

• This wouldn’t be what you really think (to say what you don’t think—the definition of absurdity).
The Pythagoreans tell us to look at the stars at daybreak. To remind ourselves how they complete the tasks assigned them—always the same tasks, the same way. And their order, purity, nakedness. Stars wear no concealment.

Book 12

At all times, look at the thing itself—the thing behind the appearance—and unpack it by analysis:
- cause
- substance
- purpose
- life duration
To be angry at something means you’ve forgotten:
- That everything that happens is natural, and that the responsibility is theirs, not yours. That the present is all we have to live in. Or to lose.
What is it you want? To keep on breathing? What about feeling? desiring? growing? ceasing to grow? using your voice? thinking? Which of them seems worth having?

But if you can do without them all, then continue to follow the logos, and God. To the end. To prize those other things—to grieve because death deprives us of them—is an obstacle.

References:

John Mavrick's Garden