ARKCODEX
Meditations
1This too serves to cure your vanity. You can no longer claim to have lived as a philosopher your whole life. Or even since your youth. It is clear to many others and to yourself that you are far from philosophy. You have made a mess of things. The reputation of a philosopher is no longer easy for you to win. And your position in life works against it. So if you have truly seen where the matter lies, let go of what others will think. Be content if you can live the rest of your life, however long it may be, as your nature wills. Consider then what your nature wills. Let nothing else distract you. You have wandered through many things and found the good life nowhere. Not in logic. Not in wealth. Not in fame. Not in pleasure. Nowhere. Where then is it? In doing what human nature demands. How will you do this? By holding principles that guide your impulses and actions. What principles? Those concerning good and evil. Nothing is good for a person unless it makes them just, self-controlled, courageous, and free. Nothing is evil unless it produces the opposite of these.
2Before every action, ask yourself: How does this sit with me? Will I regret it? Soon I will be dead. All things will be swept away. What more can I seek than this? That my present work be worthy of a rational being. A social being. An equal under the same law as God.
3What are Alexander, Caesar, and Pompey compared to Diogenes, Heraclitus, and Socrates? The philosophers saw things as they truly are. They understood causes and elements. Their ruling minds were their own. But the conquerors? Endless scheming. Endless servitude.
4They will do the same things regardless. Even if you burst with frustration.
5First, do not be troubled. Everything happens according to the nature of the whole. In a short time you will be no one and nowhere. Just like Hadrian. Just like Augustus. Then look directly at the matter and see it clearly. Remember that you must be a good person. Remember what human nature demands. Do this without turning back. Say what seems most just to you. Only do so with kindness. With humility. Without pretense.
6The nature of the universe has this work: to shift what is here to there. To transform. To lift things up from one place and carry them to another. Everything is change. But there is nothing to fear in this. Nothing new. Everything follows familiar patterns. And the portions given out are always equal.
7Every nature finds contentment when it flourishes. A rational nature flourishes when it gives assent to no impression that is false or unclear. When it directs its impulses only toward actions that serve the common good. When it limits its desires and aversions to what lies within its own power. When it welcomes everything assigned by universal nature. For it is part of that greater whole. Just as the leaf is part of the plant. Yet the leaf belongs to a nature without sensation or reason. A nature that can be blocked and hindered. But human nature belongs to something unobstructed. Something intelligent and just. For universal nature assigns to each thing its fair and fitting share of time, substance, cause, activity, and circumstance. Do not look for equality by comparing one thing to another point by point. Look instead at the whole of one life compared with the whole of another.
8You cannot read. But you can restrain your arrogance. You can rise above pleasure and pain. You can stand higher than petty fame. You can refuse to rage at the senseless and ungrateful. You can even care for them.
9Let no one ever hear you complaining about life at court. Not even yourself.
10Regret is a kind of self-blame for having let something useful slip away. But what is useful must be something good. It must be worth the attention of a noble person. Yet no noble person would ever regret having passed up a pleasure. Therefore pleasure is neither useful nor good.
11What is this thing in itself, in its own nature? What is its substance and material? What is its cause? What does it do in the world? How long does it last?
12When you struggle to get out of bed, remind yourself of this. You were made to do meaningful work with others. That is your nature as a human being. Sleep is something even animals do. What aligns with your nature is more fitting. More natural. And ultimately more satisfying.
13Constantly, and with every impression if possible, analyze its nature, examine its emotional effect, and test its logic.
14Whenever you meet someone, ask yourself at once: What beliefs does this person hold about good and evil? For if they hold certain beliefs about pleasure and pain and what causes each, about reputation and disgrace, about death and life, then nothing they do will surprise me. I will remember that they are compelled to act as they do.
15Remember this. It would be shameful to act surprised that a fig tree produces figs. Just as shameful to be shocked when the world produces what it naturally produces. And for a doctor to be surprised by a fever? For a helmsman to be surprised by a headwind? Disgraceful.
16Remember that changing your mind and following someone who corrects you is just as free an act. The action is still yours. It proceeds from your own impulse. Your own judgment. Your own understanding.
17If it's within your control, why are you doing it? If it's in someone else's control, who do you blame? Atoms? Gods? Either is madness. Blame no one. If you can, fix it. If you cannot fix it, fix how you respond to it. If you cannot do even that, what good does blaming do? Nothing should be done without purpose.
18Nothing that dies falls outside the universe. It remains here. It changes here. It dissolves into its own elements, which belong to the universe and to you. These elements also change. And they do not complain.
19Everything exists for a purpose. The horse. The vine. Why be surprised? Even the Sun would say, "I exist for a task." So would the other gods. What then is your purpose? Pleasure? See if reason can accept that.
20Nature aims at the ending of each thing no less than at its beginning and middle. Like someone tossing a ball. What good does the ball gain by rising? What harm by falling or lying on the ground? What good does the bubble gain by forming? What harm by bursting? The same is true of a lamp.
21Turn it inside out and see what it really is. See what it becomes when it ages. When it sickens. When it whores itself out. Brief is the life of the one who praises. Brief too the life of the one who is praised. Brief the one who remembers. Brief the one who is remembered. And all this happens in one corner of one region. Even here not everyone agrees. No one even agrees with himself. And the whole earth is but a point.
22Focus on the thing itself. Or the principle. Or the action. Or the meaning. You deserve what you're going through. You would rather become good tomorrow than be good today.
23What am I doing? I am acting for the benefit of humanity. What happens to me? I accept it. I refer it to the gods and to the source of all things. From that source everything that occurs is woven together.
24Think about what a bath really is: oil, sweat, filth, greasy water. All of it disgusting. Every part of life is like this. Everything we encounter is the same.
25Lucilla buried Verus. Then Lucilla was buried. Secunda buried Maximus. Then Secunda was buried. Epitynchanos buried Diotimos. Then Epitynchanos was buried. Antoninus buried Faustina. Then Antoninus was buried. So it goes with all. Celer buried Hadrian. Then Celer was buried. And where now are those sharp minds? The prophets? The proud? Where are men like Charax? Demetrius the Platonist? Eudaemon? And others like them? All creatures of a day. Long dead. Some were forgotten almost at once. Others passed into legend. Others have faded even from legend. Remember this. Your little compound of flesh must scatter. Your little spark of breath must be quenched. Or it must move on and be stationed elsewhere.
26A person's joy comes from doing what is distinctly human. What is distinctly human is this: goodwill toward your fellow beings. Rising above the pull of the senses. Distinguishing reliable impressions from false ones. Contemplating the nature of the universe and all that unfolds within it.
27Three relationships. One with the body that surrounds you. One with the divine cause from which all things flow to all. One with those who share your life.
28Pain is either an evil to the body or to the soul. If to the body, let the body declare it. If to the soul, the soul has power to preserve its own clear sky and calm. It need not judge pain to be an evil. For every judgment, impulse, desire, and aversion arises from within. Nothing from outside can reach that place.
29Wipe away your mental impressions. Keep telling yourself: right now it is in my power to keep this soul free from any wickedness. Free from any craving. Free from any disturbance at all. Instead I can see things as they truly are. And deal with each according to its worth. Remember this power that nature gave you.
30Speak with dignity, whether in the senate or to anyone at all. Never be shrill. Use words that are sound.
31The court of Augustus. His wife. His daughter. His grandsons. His ancestors. His sister. Agrippa. His relatives. His household. His friends. Arius. Maecenas. His doctors. His priests. The entire court is dead. Then consider the other courts. Not the death of one person. The death of whole families. Like the Pompeians. Think of the inscriptions on tombs. "Last of his line." Consider how hard those before him struggled to leave an heir. Yet someone must be the last. Here again: the death of an entire family.
32You must compose your life one action at a time. If each action achieves its purpose as far as possible, be satisfied. No one can prevent it from achieving its purpose. "But some external obstacle will arise." Nothing can obstruct acting justly, temperately, and with sound judgment. Perhaps some other activity will be blocked. But by accepting the obstacle itself with grace and shifting wisely to what is given, another action immediately takes its place. One that fits the composition we are speaking of.
33Receive without pride. Release without struggle.
34Have you ever seen a severed hand or foot or head lying somewhere apart from the rest of the body? That is what a person makes of himself when he refuses to accept what happens. Or when he cuts himself off. Or when he acts against the common good. You have thrown yourself out of the unity of nature. You were born to be a part. But now you have cut yourself off. Yet here is the beautiful thing. You can rejoin yourself to the whole again. God has granted this to no other part. No other thing once separated and cut away can come together again. But consider the kindness with which he has honored humanity. He made it so that we need never be torn from the whole in the first place. And even if we are torn away, we can return. We can grow back. We can take our place as a part once more.
35Just as we receive every other capacity from universal Nature, we rational beings receive this power as well. For Nature takes whatever stands in her way or resists her and turns it around. She assigns it a place in the order of fate. She makes it part of herself. In the same way, a rational being can turn every obstacle into raw material. And use it to pursue whatever aim it had set out to achieve.
36Don't let the vision of your whole life overwhelm you. Don't pile up in your mind all the troubles that have come or may yet come. Instead, ask yourself about each present moment: What is truly unbearable here? What is unendurable? You will be ashamed to answer. Then remind yourself: neither the future nor the past weighs on you. Only the present. And the present shrinks to almost nothing when you isolate it. When you challenge your mind and ask whether it cannot endure even this one thing alone.
37Does Pantheia still sit by the coffin of Verus? Does Chabrias or Diotimus keep watch at Hadrian's tomb? Ridiculous. And if they did sit there, would the dead even know it? And if they knew, would it bring them pleasure? And if it brought them pleasure, would these mourners live forever? Were they not also fated to grow old and then to die? And after they died, what would become of those they mourned? The whole thing is stench and rotting blood in a sack.
38If you can see sharply, then see by judging with the wisest.
39I see no virtue in our rational nature that opposes justice. But I do see self-control opposing pleasure.
40If you remove your judgment about what seems to hurt you, you yourself stand on the safest ground. "What self?" The rational mind. "But I am not my rational mind." So be it. Then let your rational mind not trouble itself. And if something else in you suffers, let it form its own judgment about itself.
41Blocking the senses harms the animal nature. Blocking impulse likewise harms the animal nature. Something else similarly blocks and harms the plant-like constitution. So too blocking the mind harms the rational nature. Apply all this to yourself. Pain or pleasure touches you? Let the senses deal with it. You set out to act and met resistance? If you acted without reservation, then yes, this harms you as a rational being. But if you accept the common condition of things, you have not been harmed or blocked. The mind's own workings no one else can block. Fire cannot touch it. Iron cannot touch it. Tyrants cannot touch it. Slander cannot touch it. Nothing can. Not when it becomes a sphere perfectly rounded in its stillness.
42I am not worth tormenting myself over. I have never willingly caused pain to anyone else.
43Different things bring joy to different people. But what brings me joy is keeping my ruling mind healthy. It turns away from no one. It rejects nothing that happens to human beings. It sees all things with kind eyes. It welcomes everything. It meets each thing according to its worth.
44Give yourself this present moment as a gift. Those who chase after fame with future generations fail to realize something. The people who will remember them will be just like the people who burden them now. And those future people will also die. What does it matter to you if they echo certain words about you? What does it matter if they hold certain opinions of you?
45Pick me up and throw me wherever you wish. Even there my spirit will remain at peace. It will be content if it can act according to its own nature. Is any external thing worth this: that my soul should suffer and become worse than itself? Humiliated. Grasping. Entangled. Terrified. What could possibly be worth that?
46Nothing can happen to any person that is not a human experience. Nothing can happen to an ox that is not proper to oxen. Nothing can happen to a vine that is not proper to vines. Nothing can happen to a stone that is not proper to stones. If what happens to each thing is what it is made for and used to, why would you complain? The common nature brings you nothing you cannot bear.
47If something external causes you pain, it is not the thing itself that troubles you. It is your judgment about it. And that judgment you have the power to erase right now. If something in your own character causes you pain, who is stopping you from correcting your thinking? If you are pained because you are not doing something that seems right to you, why not simply do it instead of grieving? "But some obstacle is too strong for me." Then do not grieve. The fault for not acting does not lie with you. "But life is not worth living if I cannot do this." Then depart from life. Go with goodwill, as one who accomplishes their purpose also dies. And go with grace toward the very obstacles that stand in your way.
48Remember this: the ruling mind becomes unconquerable when it gathers itself inward and rests content with itself. It refuses to do what it does not will. This holds true even when its resistance is irrational. How much stronger, then, when it judges with reason and careful thought? This is why a mind free from passions is a fortress. No stronghold is more secure. Flee to it and you become untouchable. The one who has never seen this is ignorant. The one who has seen it but will not take refuge there is unfortunate.
49Never tell yourself more than your first impressions actually report. Someone says you've been criticized. That much is reported. That you've been harmed is not reported. I see that my child is sick. I see that. That he is in danger I do not see. So always stay with your first impressions. Add nothing from within yourself. Then nothing can touch you. Or rather, add only this: the recognition that everything in the world unfolds as it must.
50A cucumber is bitter? Set it aside. Thorns block the path? Step around them. That is enough. Do not add, "Why do such things exist in the world?" A student of nature would laugh at you. Just as a carpenter or cobbler would mock you for complaining about the shavings and scraps you see in their workshop. Yet they at least have somewhere to throw their waste. But universal nature has no outside. Here is the marvel of her craft. She has set her own boundaries. Everything within that seems to decay, grow old, or become useless she transforms back into herself. From these very things she makes new creations. She needs no material from beyond. She requires no place to cast her refuse. Her own space is enough. Her own matter is enough. Her own art is enough.
51Do not rush through your actions. Do not muddle your conversations. Do not let your thoughts wander aimlessly. Do not let your soul be pulled inward or burst outward. Do not lose yourself in busyness. They kill. They butcher. They drive others out with curses. What does any of this have to do with keeping your mind pure, sound, temperate, and just? Imagine someone standing beside a clear, sweet spring and cursing it. The spring does not stop flowing with fresh water. Throw mud into it. Throw dung. It will scatter and wash them away in an instant. It will not be stained. How then can you have an ever-flowing spring and not a stagnant well? Guard yourself at every hour toward freedom. Do this with kindness. Do this with simplicity. Do this with humility.
52If you do not know what the universe is, you do not know where you are. If you do not know what you were born for, you do not know who you are. Nor do you know what the universe is. Anyone who fails to grasp either of these cannot say what he himself was born for. Consider then the person who flees or chases the applause of the crowd. These are people who know neither where they are nor who they are. How does such a person appear to you?
53Do you want praise from someone who curses himself three times an hour? Do you want to please someone who does not please himself? Can anyone please himself who regrets nearly everything he does?
54No longer merely breathe together with the air that surrounds you. Now also think together with the Mind that surrounds all things. For the power of Mind is poured out everywhere. It pervades all things for those who can draw it in. Just as air pervades all things for those who can breathe.
55Evil in general does no harm to the universe. Evil in particular does no harm to another person. It harms only the one who has been given the power to be free of it. And he can be free whenever he chooses.
56My neighbor's will is as indifferent to my own will as his breath and his flesh. For even though we exist very much for one another, still each of our ruling minds has its own authority. Otherwise my neighbor's vice would be my own misfortune. But God did not will it so. My unhappiness must not lie in another's hands.
57The sun seems to pour itself out. And it does spread everywhere. Yet it is not emptied. For this pouring is really a stretching. Its beams are called rays because they extend outward. You can see what a ray truly is if you watch sunlight entering a darkened room through a narrow opening. It stretches in a straight line. It presses firmly against whatever solid thing blocks its path. There it stands. It does not slide off. It does not fall. So let your mind spread and extend in this same way. Never let it pour out and drain away. Let it stretch with purpose. When obstacles arise, do not force against them violently or harshly. Do not collapse before them. Stand firm. Illuminate whatever receives you. Whatever refuses to let your light pass through deprives only itself.
58If you fear death, you fear one of two things: feeling nothing at all, or feeling something different. But if you will have no sensation, you will sense nothing bad. And if you gain a different kind of awareness, you will become a different kind of living being. You will not cease to live.
59Human beings exist for each other. So teach them or endure them.
60An arrow flies one way. The mind flies another. Yet even when the mind moves with caution, even when it circles around a problem, it still travels straight toward its mark.
61Enter into the ruling mind of every person. And allow everyone else to enter into yours.