This post is the seventh in our Stoic Philosophy book club series on Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Participants expressing interest are tagged at the end of the post, let us know if you're new and would like to join and be tagged!

Prior posts for context:

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Book 7

Summary and Highlights

My rather speedy read through Book 7 has me realizing that many of Marcus' entries are the same Stoic ideas we've visited in prior "books". Book 7 is lengthy with 75 entries. The fact that we revisit the same ideas doesn't degrade in any way the experience of reading it. In fact, it actually makes it feel like a real, practical meditation, in that we are coming back to these Truths over and over again, as if we were sitting and returning our attention to the breath whenever the mind wanders off in distraction. Furthermore, although the Stoic ideas are fundamentally the same, Marcus' insights repackage them in a unique fashion for each entry. Just like in sitting, each breath is qualitatively different and each moment of insight, or realization of the Truth is also fundamentally unique.

I guess I'm engaging in this meta-analysis in part to support the my decision to skip reflection of some of the good entries which feel a little too familiar. These postings might become a little shorter and target only the entries which feel especially pertinent to me. We'll see.

Some topics that stuck out to me initially were familiarization and pain.

You cannot quench understanding unless you put out the insights that compose it. But you can rekindle those at will, like glowing coals. I can control my thoughts as necessary; then how can I be troubled?

I found this passage insightful and surprising because that experience of "insight" is usually interpreted as a breakthrough and feels good. However, it's also a dopamine hit and we can become sort of addicted to it. For example, today I was walking my dog with a friend and she was excited because she had a major breakthrough in understanding some things that have caused her a lot of pain an trauma. She had discovered or accepted a diagnosis for her condition, but also shared that there is often a "honeymoon period" after receiving a diagnosis. That could be this feeling, like finding an answer to the question "why?". I was happy for her, but I was also remembering that that feeling of satisfaction of having an answer has always been temporary in my own life, and these insights usually require practice and integration to have a lasting impact. I think Marcus is suggesting here that the mind can get trapped in going down a rabbit hole of desiring and seeking insights, and perhaps that rabbit hole is endless. The way he describes a mastery over the mind is both concise and poetic, something I haven't managed to "achieve", but a target described well enough that one can get an idea of how to apply the mind as a tool, instead of getting dominated by it.

When describing the constant activity of the natural world around us in #3, humans included, Marcus says,

Surrounded as we are by all of this, we need to practice acceptance. Without disdain. But remembering that our own worth is measured by what we devote our energy to.

The "without disdain" part caught me here. Why is it so easy to write off everything that is going on around us? Perhaps it's a defense mechanism to protect our nervous system and awareness from being overloaded? In some sense, it's funny Marcus throws this in there so naturally, but in another, it's completely natural because I catch myself in that attitude when I go out in public. I think evolution is fundamentally about growing in consciousness, and awareness, and that mean expanding perception. However, when our perceptions expand, so do our boundaries, and perhaps this attitude of disdain or aversion represent a boundary of consciousness, that we are challenged to integrate. Marcus urges us to practice acceptance, to make peace at that boundary. Over and over in other entries, he suggest that doing so helps us see how we are connected to others and the world around us and doing so enables us to see more of our place in the world.

Focus on what is said when you speak and on what results from each action. Know what the one aims at, and what the other means.

Good, practical advice. Easier read than done. I also find it interesting that organizationally, the speech == aim and action == meaning. Speech comes before action, like a blueprint, and acts can be reflected upon to derive meaning. Sort of like a hypothesis and the result of the scientific experiment. Where, then, does thought factor into all this? Perhaps we're looking at a layered approach of causation from the subtle to the gross...

Don't be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you've been wounded, you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?

This stands out because it's hard for me. I'm patterned to refuse help and take on everything myself. A good reminder for me, but also I have more questions than insights. If we're talking about a "spiritual path" of sorts in life, where does this help come from? How to ask? And how do I know when I'm wounded? Something I'll need to keep practicing.

Straight, but not straightened.

This one sounds like a sly little reminder from Marcus to himself. I have absolutely no idea what he's referring to, but I like the feel of it.

What is rational in different beings is related, like the individual limbs of a single being, and meant to function as a unit. This will be clearer to you if you remind yourself: I am a single limb (melos) of a larger body -- a rational one. Or you could say "a part" (meros) -- only a letter's difference. But then you're not really embracing other people. Helping them isn't yet it's own reward. You're still seeing it as The Right Thing To Do. You don't yet realize who you're really helping.

I think the conclusion here is that if you really see things as they are, you realize that you are One with Nature and other people around you. When one can live with this awareness, they are helping themselves as well as others. Doing what is best for others is doing what is best for ourselves, and this can become a Natural way of life -- perhaps it is the truly Natural way of life. Aside from the depth here, it's just a beautiful passage and I like that the reader is left to draw their own conclusion.

#22 and #26 are great injunctions for compassion between fellow humans, I'll refrain from quoting them here.

Treat what you don't have as non-existent. Look at what you have, the things you value most, and think of how much you'd crave them if you didn't have them. But be careful. Don't feel such satisfaction that you start to overvalue them -- that it would upset you to lose them.

Hmmmm.... do I overvalue my Bitcoin? Probably :) The passage has me reflecting on the bull market. It's established economics that the "markets" are driven by fear and greed. With virtually no experience with finance, I would never have considered myself a greedy person until I experience my first BTC bull market. It wasn't until I had some skin in the game, that I observed how the excitement changed my behavior, my attention and my focus. I like to be open about this experience because I feel that riding BTC volatility has helped me get in touch with my fear and greed. It's not fun to acknowledge, but now that I know I'm just an ordinary human, an ordinary market participant, I can come to accept these aspects of myself, instead of pretending that I'm above them or something. Also, with more cycles and more experience, I've found that I'm less swept up in the excitement, fear and greed so there is a normalization and healing opportunity with time and awareness. It's vulnerable, but I think its good to acknowledge the darker qualities of humanity with others more often. Here's to staying humble and stacking sats!

[On pain:] Unendurable pain brings its own end with it. Chronic pain is always endurable: the intelligence maintains serenity by cutting itself off from the body, the mind remains undiminished. And the parts that pain affects -- let them speak for themselves, if they can.

This is an expert manual on pain management. I've encountered some chronic body pain and met it in meditation. To let the painful parts "speak for themselves" is to apply deliberate attention to a painful area of the body and maintain an equanimous, inquisitive awareness of the sensation, following and staying with it until it's run it's course. When the pain has said what it needs to say, it's essentially transformed into something else -- maybe even pleasure or bliss. Going through this process over and over has shown me both that pain is neutral phenomenon, but also that beneath each layer of sensational experience lies another, different experience which may, in it's uniqueness, be equally or more difficult to listen to.

"Kingship: to earn a bad reputation by good deeds."

This has got to be a big of a tongue-in-cheek joke by Marcus suggesting you're either damned if you do, or damned if you don't as a ruler, unappreciated. One could dig for more depth, but I just find the comment funny.

But, my good friend, consider the possibility that nobility and virtue are not synonymous with the loss or preservation of one's life.

Marcus implies that virtues including nobility and virtue are immortal qualities. Perhaps these are the things higher than Man the he refers to elsewhere in Book 7, that humans are destined to serve. Either way, to decouple their value from human lifespan is a reflection on both the inevitability of bodily death and the immortality of a virtuous soul.

Look at the past -- empire succeeding empire -- and from that, extrapolate the future: the same thing. No escape from the rhythm of events. Which is why observing life for forty years is a good as a thousand. Would you really see anything new?

This observation rings back to #1, which I haven't quoted in which Marcus describes evil in the world as the "same old thing". Both these entries contribute to the theme of familiarization I find in Book 7 -- that relativizing the things of the world to their fundamentals makes it easier for the mind to transcend its addiction to the material. This passage reminds me of a time in life where I considered that the only thing that could be more scary than death, was the prospect of actually living forever. Imagine being trapped in an eternity of "the same thing", as Marcus puts it. That might truly be a hell. From this perspective, death actually serves an important purpose of resetting and rejuvenating our awareness and perspective. An interesting though experiment, but one I consider seriously.

In #58, Marcus admonition to "live up to your own expectations" caught me. I tend to have unrealistic or over-ambitious expectations for myself. This probably also leads me to suffering self-judgement. I guess growing toward a more realistic view of our own capabilities is part of Knowing Yourself, purifying perceptions and the mind's conception of itself. Evidence that I'm still on the way.

For times when you feel pain: ... pain is neither unbearable nor unending, as long as you keep in mind its limits and don't magnify them in your imagination.

Another commentary highlighting the topic of pain, and a reminder that pain is an interpretive quality of the mind, existing in our imagination and how we relate to a given sensation or emotion.

Take care that you don't treat inhumanity as it treats human beings.

We must not partake of the evil of inhumanity in response to it, otherwise we become it. A short, poetic, kohn-like passage.

... It's possible to be a good man without anybody realizing it. Remember that.

We are beholden only to ourselves and our best conception of what it means to life well.

The gods live forever and yet they don't seem annoyed at having to put up with human beings and their behavior throughout eternity. And not only put up with buy actively care for them. And you -- on the verge of death -- you still refuse to care for them, although you're one of them yourself.

Marcus slyly admits his religious laziness, while simultaneously acknowledging his participation in divinity. Wraps the mind in a circle and makes me smile.

No one objects to what is useful to him. To be of use to others is natural. Then don't object to what is useful to you -- being of use.

:) The thing here for me is coming to a natural realization that being of use to others is natural. To live with this perspective in an embodied way makes for the Stoic life Marcus is constantly describing, but the path to that realization easier said / thought than walked.

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