Death among ordinary things

See to it that you secure this present time for yourself. Those who chase after fame after death don't consider that the people of the future will be exactly like the ones they can't stand now—and both are mortal. What is it to you, in any case, if these future people make this or that sound, or hold this or that opinion about you?

Take me and throw me wherever you like—there too I will keep my divine part tranquil, that is, content, as long as it can feel and act in keeping with its own constitution. Is a mere change of place sufficient reason for my soul to become unhappy, worse than it was, weighed down, swollen, shrinking, terrified? What could you find that would be sufficient reason for that?

Nothing can happen to any person that isn't a human occurrence, nor to an ox that isn't according to the nature of an ox, nor to a vine that isn't according to the nature of a vine, nor to a stone that isn't proper to a stone. If then what happens to each thing is both usual and natural, why should you complain? The common nature brings nothing that you cannot bear.

If you're pained by some external thing, it isn't the thing itself that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it—and it's in your power to erase that judgment right now. But if something in your own disposition causes you pain, who's stopping you from correcting your opinion? And even if you're pained because you're not doing some particular thing that seems right to you, why not act instead of complaining? Some insuperable obstacle stands in the way, you say? Then don't grieve, for the reason it isn't done doesn't depend on you. But it isn't worth living if this can't be done? Then take your leave from life contentedly, just as one dies who is fully engaged in life, and even well pleased with the very things standing in the way.

Remember that the ruling faculty is unconquerable when, gathered into itself, it is satisfied with itself—doing nothing it doesn't choose to do, even if it resists out of mere stubbornness. How much more, then, when it forms its judgment on something with the aid of reason and deliberation? For this reason a mind free of passions is a fortress: a person has nothing more secure to flee to for refuge, and once there, is unassailable ever after. Whoever hasn't seen this is ignorant; whoever has seen it and doesn't flee to this refuge is unfortunate.

Say nothing more to yourself than what the first impressions report. Suppose it has been reported to you that someone is speaking ill of you—this has been reported, but that you've been harmed, that hasn't been reported. I see that my child is sick—I do see that; but that he's in danger, I don't see. So always hold to the first impressions, and add nothing to them yourself from within, and then nothing happens to you. Or rather, add something—like a person who understands everything that happens in the world.

A cucumber is bitter—throw it away. There are briars in the road—step around them. That's enough. Don't add: why do such things even exist in the world? A person who understands nature would laugh at you for that, just as a carpenter or shoemaker would laugh at you for complaining upon seeing shavings and cuttings in their workshop, left over from what they make. Yet they have places to throw those shavings and cuttings, while universal nature has no space outside itself. Still, the wonder of her craft is this: though she has bounded herself in, she takes everything within her that seems to decay, grow old, and become useless, and turns it into herself, and makes other new things out of that very material—so that she needs no substance from outside, nor any place to cast off what decays. She is content, then, with her own space, her own matter, and her own craft.

Don't be sluggish in your actions, nor disordered in your speech, nor wandering in your thoughts; don't let there be inward strain in your soul or outward excess; and don't be so busy in life that you have no leisure. Suppose people kill you, cut you to pieces, curse you—what can any of that do to keep your mind from remaining pure, wise, sober, just? It's as if someone stood by a clear, pure spring and cursed it: the spring never stops sending up drinkable water; and if he throws mud or filth into it, it will quickly disperse and wash it out, and remain unpolluted. How, then, will you possess a perpetual spring, and not a mere well? By forming yourself, hour by hour, toward freedom joined with contentment, simplicity, and modesty.

Whoever doesn't know what the world is doesn't know where he is. And whoever doesn't know for what purpose the world exists doesn't know who he is, nor what the world is. But whoever has failed in even one of these couldn't even say for what purpose he himself exists. What, then, do you make of someone who avoids—or, on another reading, seeks—the praise of applauding people, who know neither where they are nor who they are?

Do you want to be praised by a man who curses himself three times an hour? Would you want to please a man who doesn't please himself? Does a man please himself who regrets almost everything he does?

No longer let only your breathing act in concert with the surrounding air—let your intelligence, too, now be in harmony with the intelligence that embraces all things. For the intelligent power is no less spread through all things and pervasive for whoever is willing to draw on it, than the air is for whoever is able to breathe it.

Generally speaking, wickedness does no harm at all to the universe, and in particular one person's wickedness does no harm to another. It harms only the one who has it in his power to be rid of it the moment he chooses.

To my own free will, my neighbor's free will is just as indifferent as his poor breath and flesh. For though we exist especially for one another's sake, still each of our ruling faculties has its own office—otherwise my neighbor's wickedness would become my harm, which God has not willed, so that my unhappiness might not depend on someone else.

The sun appears to pour down, and indeed it is spread in all directions, yet it is not poured out and lost—this diffusion is extension, which is why its rays are called extensions, from the way they are stretched out. One can see what sort of thing a ray is by watching sunlight pass through a narrow opening into a darkened room: it extends in a straight line, and is, so to speak, cut off when it meets some solid body blocking it and shutting out the air beyond—yet there the light stays fixed and doesn't slide or fall away. Such, then, should be the pouring out and spreading of the understanding: not a dissipation but an extension, making no violent or forceful collision with the obstacles in its way, nor falling away, but staying fixed and lighting up whatever receives it. For a body will deprive itself of illumination if it refuses to admit the light.

Whoever fears death fears either the loss of all sensation or a different kind of sensation. But if you'll have no sensation at all, you won't feel any harm either; and if you acquire a different kind of sensation, you'll be a different kind of living being, and you won't have ceased to live.

People exist for one another's sake. So either teach them, or bear with them.

An arrow moves one way, the mind another. The mind, whether it is exercising caution or engaged in inquiry, still moves straight ahead, and toward its object.

Enter into every person's ruling faculty, and let every other person enter into yours.