Book 4, Letter 3, Part 1 of 3 To Epictetus, on a full moon night.

Dear Epictetus,

A man cannot learn what he thinks he already knows.

My dear friend, my teacher from beyond the grave, how I long to spend an hour with you. A moment in your company would allow me the opportunity to listen, to absorb the presence of your living wisdom. There is only so much I can gain from the written word, and so in my mind I have planted a garden.

In my mind I have built a seat.

In my mind I find you sitting there among the students and teachers, the young and old, women and men, the children too. I look for you among the crowd and I hear you say something that arrests my heart and mind and I feel as though I am a deer caught in the yellow eyed stare of a wolf.

I am a guilty man caught in flagrante by the grip of your words.

A man cannot learn what he thinks he already knows.

Everyone falls silent in the shadow of your voice.

Yet, I can hear Socrates murmur beside me, another of his unanswerable questions.

Can a man really know what he thinks he knows?

Someone in the crowd laughs...Shut up Socrates!

I stop, caught up in the rebellion of questioning Socrates. Does Socrates assume that he he knows nothing, and thereby, can he never know the truth of his own knowledge?

If Socrates thinks that he knows that he already knows nothing.......then really, he cannot know anything at all about nothing.

I stop and look around for Aspasia; if Socrates is here, then surely she must be somewhere nearby.

Ryokan, the Japanese Zen monk, who can read my mind, laughs quietly. He was sitting only a few feet away, but he was so unobtrusive with his head bowed and fingers fiddling with a glass marble, that I did not see him, did not recognise him.

I look up and see, shining down upon us all, a beautiful, full moon.

It is crowded in my garden tonight, Epictetus. I came here to speak to you, but I find that I have nothing to say.  I only wish to listen...