A personal letter on the use of meditation in the Stoic sources, and elsewhere.
S.R.,
I’ve recently, in the past month, gotten into the habit of meditation, though not the kind advised by the Stoics, but rather a vaguely Eastern iteration – a kind of mindfulness.
There is a passage in the Meditations wherein Marcus Aurelius describes something akin (I think) to a meditative practice.
Allow me to quote it here:
“[H]e has within him [i.e., the philosopher] such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquillity; and I affirm that tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind…
This then remains: Remember to retire into this little territory of your own, and above all do not distract or strain yourself, but be free, and look at things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a mortal…”
Meditations 4.3, Trans. by George Long (Updated)
I find this a particularly special passage in that it isn’t at all unlike what we in the West have adopted from the Buddhist traditions as “mindfulness.”
(The term and the practice, I think, are, however, problematic.)
“Mindfulness” as we conceive of it is, admittedly, an exercise which has been largely detached from its philosophical and theological roots (i.e., that Buddhist meditation, which itself isn’t a singular thing but contains several different styles each with different ends, serves the purpose of cultivating insight into the nature of things – i.e., the emptiness of all physical phenomena – and non-attachment or tranquility).
Marcus’ sentiment does positively, if but superficially, describe some sort of spiritual practice that would (I imagine) have been employed by the Stoics to a similar end as that of the Buddhists – the cultivation of virtue and equanimity.
This is perhaps a bold and ill-founded claim (as even scholars such as Pierre Hadot admit the dearth of evidence in ancient texts for spiritual practices), and yet one that I would like to have a little faith in.
I think that it naturally shares some similarity to the praemeditatio malorum (the visualization of potential evils) which Seneca the Younger describes:
“Gentle comes the blow of misfortune that has been anticipated. But to fools who trust fortune every prospect seems ‘new and unexpected’. For the inexperienced a great part of the misfortune lies in the novelty. To understand this, reflect that people can endure what they thought were hardships more bravely when they have gotten used to them.
And so a wise person gets used to future misfortunes and what other people make bearable by long suffering he makes bearable by prolonged thinking.Sometimes we hear the voices of inexperienced people saying, ‘I knew this was in store for me.’ The wise person knows that everything is in store for him. Whatever happened, he says ‘I knew it.’“
Letter 76.34–35, Trans. by Brad Inwood
Or that described by Epictetus:
“Your duty is to prepare for death and imprisonment, torture and exile – and all such evils— with confidence, because you have faith in the one who has called on you to face them, having judged you worthy of the role.”
Discourses 2.1.39–40, Trans. by R. Dobbins
The key to the praemeditatio, if I might suggest as much, is the visualization of events and images from a distance – with a degree of restraint, if you would. The distance itself can only be enacted when the mind is made still, and, simultaneously, when it is most plastic.
If you don’t believe me, try it for yourself.
Rehearse, as Seneca advises, the common ills of human life (e.g., death, loss, separation, the whole host of burdens we suffer) and yet, in picturing them, place yourself ‘away’ from them (there is an odd physicality to mental images).
Carve, as it were, a gap between the consciousness which experiences these things as if they were real and immediate (as we do in everyday life, when an impression first arises, e.g., in the case of physical sensations or the phenomenology of the emotions), and the consciousness which is itself aware of that experience – the experience of that which experiences.
All the while repeat some of the maxims which one is wont to hear from the Stoics, e.g.,
” I am not eternal, but a man; a part of the whole, as an hour is part of a day. I must come on as the hour and like an hour pass away.”
Epictetus, Discourses II.5.13–14, Trans. by W.A. Oldfather
This is the stage, I imagine, where the reformation of ourselves begins; impressions are difficult to assuage amongst the clamor of things in everyday life, and so we must begin to prune the passions at the level at which they arise – to pull them up from the roots.
There is, if you’ll bear with me, a portion of our conscious experience that we can access that is beyond thought and sense perception. Admittedly, this is something I’ve gleaned from my recent ventures into Neoplatonism (through the work of Brian Hines and his Return to the One), though this notion isn’t foreign to the Stoics.
It can be accessed, so the Neoplatonists say (i.e., Plotinus), by a meditative or contemplative or prayerful practice.
If you’re skeptical, close your eyes and sit still for a moment, and let the thoughts cede until it seems as if you’ve forgotten yourself, as if you were asleep.
A step further and it would seem as if you didn’t exist, and that I imagine is only possible, if at all, after years of practice.
And isn’t that the goal of philosophy – to forget yourself?
Marcus seems to utilize this access for the unravelling of the passions; it seems an attempt at engraining philosophical insights at the level where the passions first develop, i.e., precognitively.
He continues:
“But among the things readiest at hand to which you turn, let there be these two. One is that things do not touch the soul, for they are external and remain immovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which is within. The other is that all these things which you see change immediately and will no longer be; and constantly bear in mind how many of these changes you have already witnessed. The universe is transformation: life is opinion.”
Meditations 4.3, Trans. by George Long (Updated)
Cognitive impressions (i.e., phantasiai) only skirt the soul, and while the passions (i.e., pathe) have roots which run deep down into it, there is a part of us which is beyond the reach of both, and may, if you will, be called the ground of our consciousness.
So says Socrates in the Phaedo:
“But it [the soul]reasons best when none of these things troubles it, neither hearing nor sight, nor pain nor any pleasure, but it is, so far as possible, alone by itself, taking leave of the body, and avoiding, so far as it can, all association or contact with the body, and does not reach out toward the external world.”
Phaedo 65c (Trans. by Harold North Fowler, redacted)
It ought to be called into question what Socrates means by “reasons best,” and while the Neoplatonists have much to say about the internal world of the self and divine-realization, let’s take a pragmatic approach.
There is a part of us to which we can retreat, to which we always have access, wherein we find a tranquility like no other, and which recursion to has the capability for great change in our daily lives, if approached correctly.
All with a little effort and practice.
And yet today I’ve broken that habit I’ve been trying to build this past month.
Farewell.
Sincerely,
George
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