Book 2, letter 15

Part 2 of 2

To Marcus Aurelius on meditation, compassion and laying down in the long grass...

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Dear Marcus,

I apologise for interrupting my letter to you, the funeral of my friend seemed too important to pass over. I have had some time to think, and to read more of your book.

Sometimes, just sometimes, my questions disappear, and in their place is a certain empty feeling, where my mind ceases spinning and...well... I will quote from you again, Marcus, from Book Two of your Meditations, this time from the 1862 George Long translation.

“Of human life the time is a point, and the substance is in flux, and the perception is dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgement. And, to say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, and that which belongs to the soul is a dream and vapour, and life is warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and after fame is oblivion. What then is that which is able to conduct a man? One thing and one only, philosophy.

But this consists in keeping the daemon (spirit, essence, power) within a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing nothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy, not feeling the need of another man's doing or not doing anything; and besides, accepting all that happens, and all that is allotted, as coming from thence, wherever it is, from whence he himself came; and finally, waiting for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than a dissolution of the elements of which every being is compounded.

But is there is no harm to the elements themselves in each continually changing into each other, why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all elements? For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil, which is according to nature.”

So Marcus, or perhaps, more respectfully, Emperor Aurelius, your book is the sort of text that one might carry upon one's person throughout all the stages of life, and refer to it in times of trouble or of happiness. Your book seems very popular in my time, even venerated. A lot of people write about it, and how important it has been in their lives, personally. I read one person comically suggest that they wanted to have your entire book tattooed on their body, another wished that you were their real father, rather than the absent, unknown man who contributed to their actual birth.

I will leave you, Marcus, with this, from the Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam, the Avery/Heath-Stubbs translation, section 50. Written sometime between 1048 and 1131 CE, in north-eastern Persia.

Oh what a long time we shall not be and the world will endure,

Neither name nor sign of us will exist;

Before this we were not and there was no deficiency,

After this, when we are not it will be the same as before.

Does that sound familiar, Marcus?

With gratitude and respect,

Morgan.

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Post Script.

Book VII.

2002, Hays Translation

14 - Let it happen, if it wants, to whatever it can happen to. And what's affected can complain about it if it wants. It doesn't hurt me unless I interpret its happening as harmful. I can choose not to.

15 – No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good. Like gold or emerald or purple repeating to itself, “No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be emerald, my colour undiminished.”

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I thought my letter to you was done, but this afternoon, drinking coffee on my front porch and reading your book, I discovered the above passages.

My life has been quite stressful recently, breathing becomes difficult, my stomach gurgles painfully. It is difficult to remember that my purpose is to be good, to be undiminished by the challenges of my life. It is difficult to choose not to suffer. These are not new ideas to me, I am familiar with many similar principles in Buddhism. Perhaps I should find some sayings of Ryokan the Zen monk, and compare then with your writing. I am not Buddhist (or Roman for that matter). I currently do not practice a religion of any kind, but I am a storyteller and I don't mind where my stories come from. I try to keep an open mind, even though stress makes my muscles clench and my teeth ache and all I want to do is sleep, I say to myself, open, open, and for a time, I breathe a little easier and your words, Marcus, make sense to me.

It is very easy to take suffering personally. Compassion seems to demand it, and quite often I find myself suffering on behalf of others, I feel the anger and helplessness over major cultural events absolutely overwhelm me. This is usually a problem I create for myself in order to worry about something other than my personal problems, which nevertheless, feel insurmountable. One stress compounds upon the other and I find myself sitting on my front porch with your book in my hand, searching for a glimmer of light with which to navigate the murky illness of my soul.

Sometimes I lay down in the tall grass and look up at the sky, the composition of my whole body subject to putrefaction.

I listen to the wind and the distant sound of hunting birds.

Thank you again, Marcus,