ARKCODEX
Meditations
1The ruling center within you, when it is in its natural state, stands ready before whatever happens. It easily shifts to meet whatever is possible and given. It has no attachment to any particular material. It pursues its preferred aims with reservation. Whatever is substituted instead, it turns into fuel for itself. Like fire when it overpowers what falls upon it. A small lamp would be snuffed out by the same things. But a blazing fire quickly claims what is thrown on it as its own. It consumes it. And from those very things, it rises higher.
2Do nothing at random. Do nothing without a guiding principle that completes your craft.
3People seek retreats for themselves in the countryside, at the seashore, in the mountains. You too have longed deeply for such places. But this is entirely foolish. You can retreat into yourself whenever you wish. Nowhere can a person find a retreat more quiet or undisturbed than in his own soul. Especially if he has within him the kind of thoughts that bring instant peace when he turns to them. By peace I mean nothing other than a well-ordered mind. So grant yourself this retreat often. Renew yourself. Keep brief and basic the principles that will meet you there. Let them be enough to wash away all distress and send you back without resentment toward whatever you must return to. What will you resent? Human wickedness? Consider the judgment that rational beings exist for one another. That forbearance is part of justice. That people do wrong unwillingly. That countless men who feuded, suspected, hated, and fought now lie stretched out and turned to ash. Let it go. Or will you resent what the universe assigns you? Recall the alternatives: either providence or atoms. And all the proofs that the cosmos is like a city. Or will bodily things still touch you? Recognize that the mind does not mingle with the breath whether it moves smoothly or roughly, once it has reclaimed itself and knows its own power. Remember all you have heard and accepted about pain and pleasure. Or will petty fame distract you? Look at how swiftly all things are forgotten. Look at the chasm of infinite time on either side. Look at the emptiness of applause. Look at how fickle and undiscerning your admirers are. Look at the narrow space where fame is confined. The whole earth is a point. And this dwelling place is what tiny corner of it? And here, how many will praise you, and what sort of people are they? Remember then to retreat to this little plot of land within yourself. Above all, do not strain or struggle. Be free. See things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a mortal creature. Among the readiest principles to turn to, let these two stand first. One: external things do not touch the soul. They stand outside, unmoved. Disturbance comes only from the judgment within. Two: everything you see will change in a moment and be gone. Think constantly of how many changes you yourself have witnessed. The cosmos is change. Life is judgment.
4If we share the power of thought, we also share reason, which makes us rational beings. If so, we also share the reason that commands what we should or should not do. If so, we share a common law. If so, we are citizens together. If so, we belong to a single community. If so, the universe is like a city. For what other common government could all humanity be said to share? From there, from this common city, comes our capacity for thought, reason, and law. Where else could it come from? Just as the earthy part of me was portioned off from some earth, and the moist from another element, and the breath from some source, and the hot and fiery from its own source—since nothing comes from nothing, and nothing passes into nothing—so too our mind must come from somewhere.
5Death is like birth. It is a mystery of nature. Elements come together. Then they dissolve into the same elements again. There is nothing shameful in this. It does not contradict reason. It does not violate the design of a thinking being.
6These things happen by necessity from such people. It is their nature. To wish otherwise is to wish the fig tree had no sap. Above all, remember this: in a very short time both you and this person will be dead. Soon after, not even your names will remain.
7Remove the judgment. The feeling of harm is gone. Remove the feeling of harm. The harm itself is gone.
8What does not make a person worse cannot make his life worse. It cannot harm him from outside or from within.
9The nature of self-interest compels this.
10Everything that happens, happens justly. Watch closely and you will find this true. I do not mean merely that events follow in sequence. I mean they follow what is right. As if someone were assigning to each what it deserves. So keep watching as you have begun. And whatever you do, do it with this: with being good. Good in the truest sense. Hold to this in every action.
11Don't see things the way your abuser sees them. Don't see them the way he wants you to see them. See them as they truly are.
12Keep two attitudes ready at all times. First, act only as reason directs—the kind that rules and legislates for the good of humanity. Second, be willing to change course when someone sets you straight and shifts you from a false assumption. But any shift must come from genuine conviction. It must seem just or beneficial to others. These must be your only preferred reasons. Never change simply because something appears pleasant or popular.
13"Do you have reason?" "I do." "Then why don't you use it? When reason does its work, what else could you want?"
14You emerged as a part. You will vanish into what brought you forth. Or rather, you will be taken back into its generative reason through transformation.
15Many grains of incense fall on the same altar. One falls first. Another falls later. It makes no difference.
16Within ten days you will seem like a god to these very people who now see you as a beast and an ape. If you return to your principles and your reverence for reason.
17Don't live as if you have ten thousand years ahead. Death hangs over you. While you live, while you still can, become good.
18Think how much peace you gain when you ignore what your neighbor said or did or thought. Focus only on what you yourself are doing. Make sure it is just and good. Do not look around at the dark character of others. Run straight along the line. Do not swerve.
19The one obsessed with future fame fails to picture this: everyone who remembers him will also die very soon. Then the next one after that. Until all memory is extinguished. It passes through hands that kindle and go dark. But suppose those who remember you were immortal. Suppose memory itself could never die. What is that to you? I do not only mean it is nothing to the dead. What is praise to the living? Unless it serves some practical purpose. Set aside for now nature's gift in this regard. That belongs to another discussion.
20Whatever is genuinely beautiful is beautiful in itself. It finds completion in itself alone. Praise forms no part of its nature. What is praised becomes neither worse nor better through that praise. This applies even to things we commonly call beautiful. I mean material objects and works of craftsmanship. True beauty needs nothing beyond itself. No more than law does. No more than truth. No more than goodwill or reverence. Which of these is beautiful because it is praised? Which is destroyed by blame? Does an emerald become inferior if no one praises it? What of gold? Ivory? Purple dye? A lyre? A knife? A flower? A tree?
21If souls persist, how does the air contain them throughout eternity? And how does the earth contain the bodies of all those buried across the ages? Consider this. Here on earth, bodies remain for a time. Then they change and dissolve. This makes room for other dead. So too with souls that pass into the air. They persist for a while. Then they transform and disperse and kindle into flame. They are taken back into the generative reason of the whole. In this way they make room for those who come after. This would be one answer. It assumes that souls persist. But consider not only the multitude of bodies buried in this way. Consider also the living creatures consumed each day by us and by other animals. What a vast number is devoured. What a vast number is buried, so to speak, in the bodies of those who feed on them. Yet the world receives them all. It transforms them into blood. It changes them into air or fire. What is the truth of this matter? It is the division into matter and cause.
22Don't let your mind wander. With every impulse, do what is right. With every impression, hold fast to what is true.
23Whatever fits your design fits me perfectly, O universe. Nothing comes too early or too late for me if it comes in your time. Whatever your seasons bring is fruit to me, O nature. All things come from you. All things exist in you. All things return to you. That poet says, "Dear city of Cecrops." Will you not say, "Dear city of God"?
24"Do few things if you want peace of mind." But perhaps it is better to do only what is necessary. And only what reason chooses for a being born to live with others. And only in the way reason chooses. This brings not only the peace that comes from doing things well. It also brings the peace that comes from doing few things. Most of what we say and do is not necessary. Cut it away and you will have more time and less turmoil. So at each moment remind yourself: Is this one of the unnecessary things? And you must cut away not only unnecessary actions but unnecessary thoughts. For then no unnecessary actions will follow.
25Try on the life of a good person and see how it fits. Such a person welcomes whatever the universe assigns. Such a person finds fulfillment in acting justly and thinking kindly.
26You have seen those things. Now see these. Do not trouble yourself. Open yourself fully. Does someone do wrong? He wrongs himself. Has something happened to you? Good. From the beginning of all things, whatever happens was fated and woven together with you. In short, life is brief. Gain what you can from the present moment through clear thinking and right action. Be sober, yet at ease.
27Either the universe is an ordered whole or a chaos thrown together at random. But surely it is ordered. Or can order exist within you while disorder reigns in the whole? This cannot be. For all things are distinguished from one another. Yet they are spread throughout the same space. And they respond to one another as one.
28A dark character. A soft character. A rigid character. Brutal. Sheepish. Childish. Stupid. False. Crude. Cheap. Tyrannical.
29If you are a stranger to the world when you do not know what exists in it, you are no less a stranger when you do not know what happens in it. The one who flees from reason is an exile. The one who shuts the eye of the mind is blind. The one who depends on another and lacks within himself everything useful for life is a beggar. The one who withdraws and separates himself from the rational order of our shared nature by resenting what happens is an abscess on the world. For the same nature that produced you also produces this. The one who tears his own soul away from the soul of all rational beings, which is one, is a fragment cut off from the city.
30One man practices philosophy without a tunic. Another does so without a book. Here is yet another, half-naked. "I have no bread," he says, "and still I hold to reason." But I lack the nourishment that comes from learning. And still I hold.
31Love the craft you have learned. Find your rest in it. Live out the remainder of your life as one who has entrusted all that is yours to the gods with your whole soul. Make yourself neither tyrant nor slave to any person.
32Think back to the days of Vespasian. You will see all the same things. People marrying. Raising children. Falling sick. Dying. Waging war. Celebrating festivals. Trading. Farming. Flattering. Acting arrogant. Suspecting. Scheming. Wishing others dead. Complaining about the present. Falling in love. Hoarding wealth. Craving consulships and thrones. That whole life of theirs is now nowhere to be found. Move forward to the days of Trajan. Again, all the same things. That life too is dead. Look at the other chapters of time and whole nations in the same way. See how many people strained with great effort, then quickly fell and dissolved back into the elements. But most of all, call to mind those you yourself have known. People who chased after empty things. People who failed to act according to their own nature. Who failed to hold fast to that and find it enough. Here it is essential to remember this: the attention you give each action has its own proper weight and measure. This way you will not grow discouraged. So long as you do not spend more time on lesser things than they deserve.
33Words that were once common are now archaic. So too the names of those once celebrated have become, in a way, archaic. Camillus. Caeso. Volesus. Dentatus. Soon after, Scipio and Cato. Then Augustus. Then Hadrian and Antoninus. All things fade quickly into legend. Soon complete oblivion buries them. And I speak here of those who shone with extraordinary brilliance. The rest, the moment they breathe their last, are gone and forgotten. What is everlasting remembrance, anyway? Utter emptiness. What then deserves our dedication? This alone. A just mind. Actions that serve others. Speech that never deceives. A disposition that welcomes whatever happens as necessary. As familiar. As flowing from the same source and origin.
34Willingly offer yourself to Clotho. Let her weave you into whatever circumstances she chooses.
35Everything is fleeting. Both the one who remembers and the one remembered.
36Observe constantly how all things arise through change. Train yourself to understand this: the nature of the universe loves nothing more than to transform what exists and create new things like them. Everything that exists is in some way a seed of what will come from it. But you imagine that only what falls into earth or womb can be a seed. That is far too narrow a view.
37You will die soon. And still you are not simple. Still you are not calm. Still you suspect that outside things can harm you. Still you are not kind to everyone. Still you do not see that wisdom lies in right action alone.
38Look closely at what governs their minds. Even the wise. See what they run from. See what they chase.
39Your harm does not reside in another person's mind. Nor does it exist in any change or alteration of your circumstances. Where then? Only where your judgment about harm resides. So let that part make no such judgment. Then all is well. Even if the body closest to it is cut. Or burned. Or festering. Or rotting. Still let the judging part remain at peace. Let it decide that nothing is truly bad or good if it can happen equally to a bad person or a good one. For whatever befalls both those who live against nature and those who live according to it cannot itself be against nature or according to it.
40Constantly picture the universe as a single living being. One body. One soul. Notice how everything feeds into one shared awareness. Notice how everything moves by one shared impulse. Notice how everything plays a part in causing everything else. See the web of connection. See how all things are woven together.
41You are a little soul carrying a corpse. So Epictetus used to say.
42Nothing is bad for those undergoing change. Just as nothing is good for those who emerge from it.
43Time is a river of passing events. A violent current. Each thing no sooner appears than it is swept away. Another takes its place. It too will be swept away.
44Everything that happens is as natural and familiar as roses in spring and fruit in summer. This includes sickness and death. It includes slander and betrayal. It includes everything that delights or grieves the foolish.
45What follows always arises in kinship with what came before. This is no mere counting of disconnected things bound only by necessity. It is a rational connection. And just as existing things are arranged in harmony, so too do unfolding events reveal not bare succession but a wondrous kinship.
46Always remember what Heraclitus said. The death of earth is to become water. The death of water is to become air. The death of air is to become fire. And back again. Remember too the one who forgets where the road leads. People quarrel with the very thing they live with most constantly—the reason that governs all things. What they encounter every day seems foreign to them. We must not act and speak like sleepers. Even in dreams we think we act and speak. We must not be like children of our parents. That is, we must not accept things simply because we inherited them.
47Imagine a god told you that you will die tomorrow, or at the very latest the day after. You would not care much whether it was tomorrow or the day after. Not unless you were utterly base. For what is the difference? So think the same way about dying many years from now versus tomorrow. It is nothing.
48Think constantly of how many doctors have died, who spent their lives frowning over the sick. How many astrologers, who proudly predicted the deaths of others. How many philosophers, who wrote endless treatises on death and immortality. How many warriors, who killed so many. How many tyrants, who wielded power over lives with terrible arrogance, as though they themselves were immortal. How many entire cities have perished. Helice. Pompeii. Herculaneum. And countless others. Now go through everyone you have known. One by one. This man buried that man. Then he himself was laid out. Another buried him. All in a brief span. The point is this. Always see human affairs for what they are. Fleeting. Cheap. Yesterday a bit of mucus. Tomorrow ashes or embalming fluid. So pass through this brief moment of time in harmony with nature. And end your journey content. Like a ripe olive falling from the branch. Blessing the earth that bore it. Grateful to the tree that gave it life.
49Be like the rocky headland. Waves crash against it without end. Yet it stands firm. And around it the churning waters grow still. "How unlucky I am that this happened to me." No. Say rather: "How lucky I am that this happened and I remain untroubled." The present does not crush me. The future does not frighten me. This could happen to anyone. But not everyone could endure it without distress. So why call the event misfortune rather than my response good fortune? Can you really call something a human misfortune if it does not violate human nature? Can it violate human nature if it does not go against nature's will? You have learned what that will requires. Does this circumstance prevent you from being just? Generous in spirit? Self-controlled? Wise? Careful in judgment? Honest? Humble? Free? Does it block any quality that lets human nature fulfill itself? Remember this principle whenever something tempts you toward grief: The event is not the misfortune. Bearing it nobly is the good fortune.
50Here is a personal but effective aid for despising death: reflect on those who clung desperately to life. What did they gain over those who died young? They all lie somewhere now. Cadicianus. Fabius. Julianus. Lepidus. Others like them. They carried many to the grave. Then they were carried out themselves. The whole span is brief. And through what hardships it must be endured. With what companions. In what a frail body. So do not treat it as something of weight. Look behind you at the yawning abyss of time. Look ahead at another infinity. Against this vastness, what difference is there between one who lives three days and one who lives three generations?
51Always take the shortest path. The shortest path is the one aligned with nature. So let everything you say and do be guided by what is most sound. This approach frees you from exhaustion and struggle. It frees you from calculation and pretense.