Today’s set
PhilosophyA philosophical argument
About this passageAddressed to Paulinus, who managed Rome's grain supply. Seneca opens by reporting the common complaint — that nature gave us too little time — and then refuses it. The list that follows is of ways people spend a life without noticing, and it is worth saying that Seneca was among the wealthiest men in Rome and held office under Nero; readers have argued since antiquity about how the argument sits with the life.
The greater part of mankind, my Paulinus, complains of the unkindness of Nature, because we are born only for a short space of time, and that this allotted period of life runs away so swiftly, nay so hurriedly, that with but few exceptions men's life comes to an end just as they are preparing to enjoy it: nor is it only the common herd and the ignorant vulgar who mourn over this universal misfortune, as they consider it to be: this reflection has wrung complaints even from great men. Hence comes that well-known saying of physicians, that art is long but life is short.
Why do we complain of Nature? she has dealt kindly with us. Life is long enough, if you know how to use it. One man is possessed by an avarice which nothing can satisfy, another by a laborious diligence in doing what is totally useless: another is sodden by wine: another is benumbed by sloth: one man is exhausted by an ambition which makes him court the good will of others.
ScriptureRead as scripture by its tradition
About this passageThe Katha Upanishad is a conversation between a boy, Nachiketas, and Yama, the ruler of death, who has offered him any boon he asks and has been refused three times over. These two verses open Yama's teaching. The distinction is between shreyas, what is good, and preyas, what is pleasant — not between right and wrong but between two things that both genuinely attract, and that lead to different places.
Yama said: The good is one thing and the pleasant another. These two, having different ends, bind a man. It is well with him who chooses the good. He who chooses the pleasant misses the true end.
The good and the pleasant approach man; the wise examines both and discriminates between them; the wise prefers the good to the pleasant, but the foolish man chooses the pleasant through love of bodily pleasure.
A situation
When my mind will not settle
8 traditions are shelved here, each stating the question in its own words.
Open itPhilosophyA philosophical argument
About this passageFrom a dialogue that opens with Seneca's friend Serenus describing his own unsettled state in unusual detail, and asking what to do about it. This is part of the answer. The Latin title is De Tranquillitate Animi, and the tranquillity it describes is treated throughout as something maintained rather than achieved — the dialogue ends by saying none of the advice holds without continual attention.
It also proves a fertile source of troubles if you take pains to conceal your feelings and never show yourself to anyone undisguised, but, as many men do, live an artificial life, in order to impose upon others: for the constant watching of himself becomes a torment to a man, and he dreads being caught doing something at variance with his usual habits.
And, indeed, we never can be at our ease if we imagine that everyone who looks at us is weighing our real value: for many things occur which strip people of their disguise, however reluctantly they may part with it, and even if all this trouble about oneself is successful, still life is neither happy nor safe when one always has to wear a mask.
But what pleasure there is in that honest straightforwardness which is its own ornament, and which conceals no part of its character?
ScriptureRead as scripture by its tradition
About this passageThe second verse addresses the reader who cannot take the first one — who does want the hundred years, and the house, and the work. It does not withdraw the offer. It gives a second route: keep acting, but perform the action for its own sake rather than for what it will bring you, and the results have no hold on you. Karma here means the deed and its consequence together, which is why the verse can say the consequence will not stick.
If one should desire to live in this world a hundred years, one should live performing Karma (righteous deeds). Thus thou mayest live; there is no other way. By doing this, Karma (the fruits of thy actions) will not defile thee.
A concept
Provision
Having what you need, worrying about whether you will, and where that worry actually comes from.
See who wrote about itPracticeAn instruction for practice
About this passageA rehearsal, given as a method rather than an argument. Epictetus takes the most ordinary errand he can think of — going to the public baths, which in Rome meant crowds, shoving and petty theft — and has the reader run through what will go wrong before setting out. The second half is the part that does the work: the intention is stated twice, once as the errand and once as the thing that cannot be taken from you, so that the errand failing does not take the day with it.
When you set about any action, remind yourself of what nature the action is. If you are going to bathe, represent to yourself the incidents usual in the bath—some persons pouring out, others pushing in, others scolding, others pilfering. And thus you will more safely go about this action if you say to yourself, "I will now go to bathe and keep my own will in harmony with nature." And so with regard to every other action. For thus, if any impediment arises in bathing, you will be able to say, "It was not only to bathe that I desired, but to keep my will in harmony with nature; and I shall not keep it thus if I am out of humor at things that happen."
DivinationA divination practice
Your sign
Pick one and today’s reading appears here.
The end
That is today.
There is no more here. Tomorrow brings a different set — and the whole library is open in the meantime, if you would rather choose for yourself.
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