陶渊明诗全集网站：
http://www.dx.pte.sh.cn/xsly/xingqu/shige/gushi/gushi013.htm
陶渊明(365—427)，字元亮，一说名潜，字渊明，晋宋时期诗人、辞赋家、散文家, 浔阳柴桑(今江西九江市西南)人。他的祖父、父亲均做过太守一类官职，但到了陶渊明，家境早已破败。因为有这样的家世背景，陶渊明少年时代既好读六经，有大济苍生的宏愿，又厌恶世俗，热爱纯静的自然。他自29岁入仕，做过州祭酒、参军一类小官。后因仕途坎坷，又不耐烦“为五斗米折腰向乡里小人”，于41岁毅然辞去在任仅80余日的彭泽县令，回柴桑归隐。此后直至他逝世的23年间，以耕读自娱，未再入仕。
陶诗沿袭了魏晋诗歌的古朴作风，像一座里程碑标志着古朴的歌诗所能达到的高度。陶渊明又是一位创新的先锋。他成功地将“自然”提升为一种美的至境；将老庄所表达的玄理，改为日常生活中的哲理；使诗歌与日常生活相结合，并开创了田园诗这种新的 题材。他被尊称为隐逸诗人之宗。从他的事迹可以看出他是个生性热爱自然，不喜拘束的人。当他真正抛弃了所谓的“功名利禄”之后，一个无限舒展的世界向他敞开了。从他的诗里，我们不难看出他精神世界的层次。
东晋是乱世之末，又是佛教风行、崇尚名士风度的时代，因此，才会造就出陶渊明这样超越世俗的田园诗人。唐以来的许多大诗人，像李白、杜甫、白居易、苏轼、 陆游，都是非常推崇陶渊明的，在艺术创作和人生态度上也深受其影响。陶渊明的诗文代表了关于“人的觉醒”，也就是说，人不光要有物质生活，精神生活也非常重要。当我们再次念到“采菊东篱下，悠然见南山”这样的诗的时候，便感到了一 种来自灵魂深处的自由与舒展。
陶渊明诗今存125首 ，多为五言诗，从内容上可分为饮酒诗 、咏怀诗和田园诗三大类。
① 饮酒诗。 陶渊明是中国文学史上第一个大量写饮酒诗的诗人。他的《饮酒》20首以“醉人”的语态或指责是非颠倒、毁誉雷同的上流社会；或揭露世俗的腐朽黑暗；或反映 仕途的险恶；或表现诗人退出官场后怡然陶醉的心情；或表现诗人在困顿中的牢骚不平。从诗的情趣和笔调看 ，可能不是同一时期的作品 。东晋元熙二年（420），刘裕废晋恭帝为零陵王，次年杀之自立，建刘宋王朝。《述酒》即以比喻手法隐晦曲折地记录了这一篡权易代的过程 。对晋恭帝以及晋王朝的覆灭流露了无限的哀惋之情，此时陶渊明已躬耕隐居多年，乱世也看惯了，篡权也看惯了。但这首诗仍透露出他对世事不能忘怀的精神。
② 咏怀诗。以《杂诗》12首、《读山海经》13首为代表。《杂诗》12首多表现了自己归隐后有志难骋的政治苦闷，抒发了自己不与世俗同流合污的高洁人格 。 可见诗人内心无限深广的忧愤情绪。《读山海经》13首借吟咏《山海经》中的奇异事物表达了同样的内容，如第十首借歌颂精卫、刑天的“猛志固常在”来抒发 和表明自己济世志向永不熄灭。
③田园诗。陶渊明的田园诗数量最多，成就最高。这类诗充分表现了诗人鄙夷功名利禄的高远志趣和守志不阿的高尚节操；充分表现了诗人对黑暗官场的极端憎恶和彻底决裂；充分表现了诗人对淳朴的田园生活的热爱，对劳动的认识和对劳动人民的友好感 情；充分表现了诗人对理想世界的追求和向往。作为一个文人士大夫，这样的思想感情，这样的内容，出现在文学史上，是前所未有的，尤其是在门阀制度和观念森严的社会里显得特别可贵。陶渊明的田园诗中也有一些是反映自己晚年困顿状况的，可使我们间接地了解到当时农民阶级的悲惨生活。陶渊明的《桃花源诗并记》大约作于南朝宋初年。它描绘了一个乌托邦式 的理想社会。表现了诗人对现存社会制度彻底否定与对理想世界的无限追慕之情。它标志着陶渊明的思想达到了一个崭新的高度。陶渊明是田园诗的开创者。它以纯 朴自然的语言 、高远拔俗的 意境 ，为中国诗坛开辟了新天地，并直接影响到唐代田园诗派。
不戚戚于贫贱,不汲汲于富贵。
陶渊明诗挑选：
杂诗八首
其一∶
人生无根蒂，飘如陌上尘。
分散逐风转，此已非常身。
落地为兄弟，何必骨肉亲！
得欢当作乐，斗酒聚比邻。
盛年不重来，一日难再晨。
及时当勉励，岁月不待人。
饮酒二十首
其三∶
道丧向千载，人人惜其情。
有酒不肯饮，但顾世间名。
所以贵我身，岂不在一生？
一生复能几，倏如流电惊。
鼎鼎百年内，持此欲何成！
其五∶
结庐在人境， 而无车马喧。
问君何能尔？心远地自偏。
采菊东篱下， 悠然见南山。
山气日夕佳， 飞鸟相与还。
此中有真意， 欲辨已忘言
归园田居五首
其一∶
少无适俗韵，性本爱丘山。
误落尘网中，一去十三年。
羁鸟恋旧林，池鱼思故渊。
开荒南野际，抱拙归园田。
方宅十馀亩，草屋八九间。
榆柳荫後檐，桃李罗堂前。
暧暧远人村，依依墟里烟。
狗吠深巷中，鸡鸣桑树颠。
户庭无尘杂，虚室有馀闲。
久在樊笼里，复得返自然。
其二∶
野外罕人事，穷巷寡轮鞅。
白日掩荆扉，虚室绝尘想。
时复墟曲中，披草共来往。
相见无杂言，但道桑麻长。
桑麻日已长，我土日已广。
常恐霜霰至，零落同草莽。
其三∶
种豆南山下，草盛豆苗稀。
晨兴理荒秽，带月荷锄归。
道狭草木长，夕露沾我衣。
衣沾不足惜，但使愿无违。
其四∶
久去山泽游，浪莽林野娱。
试携子侄辈，披榛步荒墟。
徘徊丘陇间，依依昔人居。
井灶有遗处，桑竹残朽株。
借问采薪者，此人皆焉如？
薪者向我言∶“死殁无复馀”。
“一世异朝市”，此语真不虚！
人生似幻化，终当归空无。
挽歌诗三首
其一∶
千秋万岁後，谁知荣与辱。
但恨在世时，饮酒不得足。
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
真正活过的人不怕死
昨天晚上小宋把我们几个不常见的老朋友叫去她家包饺子，蒋波去了，丽蕾也去了，还有吴正。小宋备好的饺子馅有三种：韭菜、茴香、白菜，她还拌了五六盘凉菜，另外还有啤酒、烤地瓜、月饼。她做的凉拌豇豆丝特别受欢迎，这是过去她北京家里配酒的特长小菜。小宋是我认识的人当中最热心最勤劳最慷慨的一个，朋友当中，我在她那里吃饭的次数最多。如果一个人不占了别人很多的便宜，是不会随便说别人好话的。惭愧！
聚餐的目的是为了庆祝中秋节，所以才有月饼在桌上。不管国内国外，天下月亮只有一个，它在八月十五要圆，谁也拦不住，地上的事儿当然要和它联系在一起。只不过月亮未变，人却已经不同。到了小宋家里没有多长时间，她就告诉我，她在国内的妹夫得了肺癌，刚刚动了手术，一边肺被切掉了三分之一。据说癌细胞已经转移到了淋巴。听她一说，我就知道他妹夫的烟量一定不小，不然年纪轻轻，不会这么早就得了癌症。她说他不仅抽烟，还喝酒，而且属于嗜酒一类，每天必喝，喝下去的还都是烈性酒。 原本很好脾气的一个人，因为得了病，性情都变了。小宋很为她的妹妹担心，不知接下去的日子会是怎样。
蒋波一家晚到了一会儿。饺子煮好了，大家也饿了，小宋的饺子个头儿特别小，包起来费劲，但吃起来上口，我特别喜欢韭菜馅的。大家吃得正开心，聊天的话题却又转到了她妹夫的病上。谁也没想到，蒋波的母亲也突然得了肺癌，而且上个月已经去世了，发现的时候肺癌已经转移到了肝脏，从发病到死只用了一个多月的时间。因为蒋波没有回去，我问她有没有和她妈妈讲话，她眼圈红红地说没有，因为她妈妈知道了自己的病之后，就拒绝和她说话了，和周围的亲人也不肯说什么了。她最后的十几天是在昏迷中度过的，肝昏迷。
中秋节是团圆的日子，我们却在谈论死。死不再是一个空洞的话题，它已经离我们很近，很现实。读哲学，是离不开一个“死”字的。苏格拉底说人一辈子所有的努力和工作都是在为死而做准备。没有死，也就没有什么人生的哲学。学哲学，首先要学通死的意义。孔子说，“不知生，焉知死”，我觉得反之亦成立，“不知死，焉知生”，生和死永远是联系在一起的，没人能把它们分开，只是平常人多讲究生，而不重视死，平日一言一行好像都与死无关，谈到死，不是恐惧，就是渺茫，缺乏正眼直视的大胆，更不想认真地思考研究一下，把自己准备好，所以一旦死之来临，就不知道怎么去应付了。
看一个人如何死，便知他的一生事。死是生命的最高潮，死是一个人对生命的最后一个亮相。
聚餐的目的是为了庆祝中秋节，所以才有月饼在桌上。不管国内国外，天下月亮只有一个，它在八月十五要圆，谁也拦不住，地上的事儿当然要和它联系在一起。只不过月亮未变，人却已经不同。到了小宋家里没有多长时间，她就告诉我，她在国内的妹夫得了肺癌，刚刚动了手术，一边肺被切掉了三分之一。据说癌细胞已经转移到了淋巴。听她一说，我就知道他妹夫的烟量一定不小，不然年纪轻轻，不会这么早就得了癌症。她说他不仅抽烟，还喝酒，而且属于嗜酒一类，每天必喝，喝下去的还都是烈性酒。 原本很好脾气的一个人，因为得了病，性情都变了。小宋很为她的妹妹担心，不知接下去的日子会是怎样。
蒋波一家晚到了一会儿。饺子煮好了，大家也饿了，小宋的饺子个头儿特别小，包起来费劲，但吃起来上口，我特别喜欢韭菜馅的。大家吃得正开心，聊天的话题却又转到了她妹夫的病上。谁也没想到，蒋波的母亲也突然得了肺癌，而且上个月已经去世了，发现的时候肺癌已经转移到了肝脏，从发病到死只用了一个多月的时间。因为蒋波没有回去，我问她有没有和她妈妈讲话，她眼圈红红地说没有，因为她妈妈知道了自己的病之后，就拒绝和她说话了，和周围的亲人也不肯说什么了。她最后的十几天是在昏迷中度过的，肝昏迷。
中秋节是团圆的日子，我们却在谈论死。死不再是一个空洞的话题，它已经离我们很近，很现实。读哲学，是离不开一个“死”字的。苏格拉底说人一辈子所有的努力和工作都是在为死而做准备。没有死，也就没有什么人生的哲学。学哲学，首先要学通死的意义。孔子说，“不知生，焉知死”，我觉得反之亦成立，“不知死，焉知生”，生和死永远是联系在一起的，没人能把它们分开，只是平常人多讲究生，而不重视死，平日一言一行好像都与死无关，谈到死，不是恐惧，就是渺茫，缺乏正眼直视的大胆，更不想认真地思考研究一下，把自己准备好，所以一旦死之来临，就不知道怎么去应付了。
看一个人如何死，便知他的一生事。死是生命的最高潮，死是一个人对生命的最后一个亮相。
秋风的音乐
秋天真的来了，躺在床上，开着窗，外面的风就不请自到地刮了进来，声音跟夏天的完全不一样，内容突然间丰富了起来，多了一些“风扫落叶”的呼啸成分在里面，速度时而急时而缓，温柔和大胆交织了在一起，曲调韵律变化莫测，好像一群军队的战士们正在窗外排练一场风的合唱，中间还加进了口哨声和鼓声，让人忍不住闭上眼睛，把耳朵竖起来去听。听着听着，心就静了下来，等深深地吸一口秋天的湿润和凉爽之后，脑子就醉掉了，整个身子也好像随着歌声飘了起来。
风的声音是秋天的歌，是世上最美的音乐。大自然的音乐，丰富多彩，天下共赏，不需要花一分钱，卖任何力气，足不出户就可以享受到了。雨后听风，就好像参加秋天的神灵摆下的一桌盛宴一样，看看天地是它的殿堂，无边的空间任它摆设，天上的每一朵云彩，地上的每一棵树木，都是一份美味佳肴。世人不分国界，不分贵贱，不分男女，这里那里，每个人都可以尽情享用。想到大自然的富饶，大自然的魅力，还有大自然的自然，所有人工的雕琢，人为的努力，都显得如此渺小无力。假如能够把自己融汇到大自然中去，能够体会到原来我们拥有风，拥有雨，拥有太阳和月亮，拥有晨光和夜色，还有原处的高山大海和茂密的原始森林，当我们的视野扩大的时候，世界原来就在每一个人的脚下。我们可以每天为了自己家的一栋小楼辛劳，为我们的儿女奔波，但是低头劳作之余，别忘了直起腰来，看一看自然赋予我们的财富到底有多少。其实就是我们真的失去了所有的私人财产，。生命中最宝贵最完美的东西，真的就在我们身边，取之不尽，用之不绝。
秋天的音乐，是生命的歌声，听风听雨的时候，自己的脉搏找到了它起动的能源，跳到了它的最佳状态，节奏坚定而沉着，轻松而流畅，如果顺着风的方向，好像可以一直跳下去，跳得如风一般潇洒，如雨一般活跃。共鸣的感觉，是和秋天在一起的感觉，希望自己在有生之年永远别忘了自然，别忘了自然是我们的宝库，是我们精神的食量，别忘了自己也是自然的一部分，死了之后会回归到大自然中去，可以让一棵小树长高，让它变得更旺盛，更粗壮，等秋风来的时候，它上面茂密的树叶也会随风摆动，唱出最美最欢快的歌曲，让我们的子孙也像我们一样，有一天上午，能把窗打开，躺在床上，尽兴地倾听外面的风声，那秋天里最销魂的音乐。
生命的意义不过如此。
风的声音是秋天的歌，是世上最美的音乐。大自然的音乐，丰富多彩，天下共赏，不需要花一分钱，卖任何力气，足不出户就可以享受到了。雨后听风，就好像参加秋天的神灵摆下的一桌盛宴一样，看看天地是它的殿堂，无边的空间任它摆设，天上的每一朵云彩，地上的每一棵树木，都是一份美味佳肴。世人不分国界，不分贵贱，不分男女，这里那里，每个人都可以尽情享用。想到大自然的富饶，大自然的魅力，还有大自然的自然，所有人工的雕琢，人为的努力，都显得如此渺小无力。假如能够把自己融汇到大自然中去，能够体会到原来我们拥有风，拥有雨，拥有太阳和月亮，拥有晨光和夜色，还有原处的高山大海和茂密的原始森林，当我们的视野扩大的时候，世界原来就在每一个人的脚下。我们可以每天为了自己家的一栋小楼辛劳，为我们的儿女奔波，但是低头劳作之余，别忘了直起腰来，看一看自然赋予我们的财富到底有多少。其实就是我们真的失去了所有的私人财产，。生命中最宝贵最完美的东西，真的就在我们身边，取之不尽，用之不绝。
秋天的音乐，是生命的歌声，听风听雨的时候，自己的脉搏找到了它起动的能源，跳到了它的最佳状态，节奏坚定而沉着，轻松而流畅，如果顺着风的方向，好像可以一直跳下去，跳得如风一般潇洒，如雨一般活跃。共鸣的感觉，是和秋天在一起的感觉，希望自己在有生之年永远别忘了自然，别忘了自然是我们的宝库，是我们精神的食量，别忘了自己也是自然的一部分，死了之后会回归到大自然中去，可以让一棵小树长高，让它变得更旺盛，更粗壮，等秋风来的时候，它上面茂密的树叶也会随风摆动，唱出最美最欢快的歌曲，让我们的子孙也像我们一样，有一天上午，能把窗打开，躺在床上，尽兴地倾听外面的风声，那秋天里最销魂的音乐。
生命的意义不过如此。
Saturday, September 26, 2009
我们的公园
这个星期下了一周的雨，老天爷好像在提醒我们秋天到了，看看家门前果树上的苹果真的已经熟了，树叶中间也夹上了黄的颜色，而前院的喇叭花却突然变得有气无力，连着多日的雨也没能使他们再抖起精神，敢情它们最旺盛的时候已经过去了。几日前和好友约定了这个周五去东边的植物园看花，但因为有雨的关系，她的备用方案就用上了，地点换在了一处市公园，因为那里有棚子可以避雨。她说以前试过，坐在棚子里赏雨别有一番情趣，所以我倒是盼着这雨一直下下去。
因为离家较远的关系，平日很少跑去市级公园转转，偶尔去一次，耳目自然会有焕然一新的感觉。城市公园比较壮观，跟街区公园们相比，人工雕琢的成分较少，属于自然保护区性质的，里面树木也高，林子茂盛，到处都开满了野花，车道两边的都有齐肩那么高，以黄绿紫三种颜色为主，随意搭配着，一点拘束都不肯接受的样子，似乎不晓得外面的野花可没有它们那么神气。过了公园正门之后，里面的直路就少了，弯弯曲曲的，岔道很多，间或有步行的自然小径，可以通到密林深去，外边的闹市好象一下子就被它们隔离开了。顺着柏油路开车过去，会看到左右两边出现的大片草地，望眼过去，视野开阔极了，空旷的大自然，把人的心也弄得一下子宽大和舒畅了。
约好了各自带午饭在公园一起吃，这样我的小狗Jackie就也可以参加了，他比我更喜欢上
因为离家较远的关系，平日很少跑去市级公园转转，偶尔去一次，耳目自然会有焕然一新的感觉。城市公园比较壮观，跟街区公园们相比，人工雕琢的成分较少，属于自然保护区性质的，里面树木也高，林子茂盛，到处都开满了野花，车道两边的都有齐肩那么高，以黄绿紫三种颜色为主，随意搭配着，一点拘束都不肯接受的样子，似乎不晓得外面的野花可没有它们那么神气。过了公园正门之后，里面的直路就少了，弯弯曲曲的，岔道很多，间或有步行的自然小径，可以通到密林深去，外边的闹市好象一下子就被它们隔离开了。顺着柏油路开车过去，会看到左右两边出现的大片草地，望眼过去，视野开阔极了，空旷的大自然，把人的心也弄得一下子宽大和舒畅了。
约好了各自带午饭在公园一起吃，这样我的小狗Jackie就也可以参加了，他比我更喜欢上
Friday, September 25, 2009
论友情
海内存知己，天涯若比邻。－ (唐)王勃
同是天涯沦落人，相逢何必曾相识。 － (唐)白居易
莫愁前路无知已，天下谁人不识君。 － (唐)高适
天下快意之事莫若友，快友之事莫若谈。 － (清)蒲松龄
人之相识，贵在相知，人之相知，贵在知心。 － (春秋)孟子
君子之交淡若水，小人之交甘若醴。 － (战国)庄子
与朋友交，言而有信。 － (春秋）子夏
君子上交不诌，下交不渎。 －《周易》
人生所贵在知已，四海相逢骨肉亲。 －《雁门集》
同是天涯沦落人，相逢何必曾相识。 － (唐)白居易
莫愁前路无知已，天下谁人不识君。 － (唐)高适
天下快意之事莫若友，快友之事莫若谈。 － (清)蒲松龄
人之相识，贵在相知，人之相知，贵在知心。 － (春秋)孟子
君子之交淡若水，小人之交甘若醴。 － (战国)庄子
与朋友交，言而有信。 － (春秋）子夏
君子上交不诌，下交不渎。 －《周易》
人生所贵在知已，四海相逢骨肉亲。 －《雁门集》
Nietzsche - 尼采
Ecce Homo (behold the men):
I cannot remember that I ever tried hard--no trace of struggle can be demonstrated in my life; I'm the opposite a heroic nature. "Willing" something, "striving" for something, envisaging a "purpose," a "wish"---I know non of this from experience. At this very moment I still look upon my future---an ample future!---as upon calm seas: there is no ripple of desire. I do not want in the least that anything should become different than it is. I myself do not want to become different.
But that is how I have always lived. I had no wishes. A man over 44 who can say that he never stove for honors, for women, for money!
All the problems of politics, of social organization, and of education have been falsified through and through because one mistook the most harmful men for great men---because one learned to despise "little" things, which means the basic concerns of life itself.
Life was easy for me---easiest when it made the hardest demands on me.
I cannot remember that I ever tried hard--no trace of struggle can be demonstrated in my life; I'm the opposite a heroic nature. "Willing" something, "striving" for something, envisaging a "purpose," a "wish"---I know non of this from experience. At this very moment I still look upon my future---an ample future!---as upon calm seas: there is no ripple of desire. I do not want in the least that anything should become different than it is. I myself do not want to become different.
But that is how I have always lived. I had no wishes. A man over 44 who can say that he never stove for honors, for women, for money!
All the problems of politics, of social organization, and of education have been falsified through and through because one mistook the most harmful men for great men---because one learned to despise "little" things, which means the basic concerns of life itself.
Life was easy for me---easiest when it made the hardest demands on me.
Excellence - 优秀
What is truly valuable is acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said.
How to Raise a Child
We think only of protecting our child, but this is not enough. We ought to teach him to protect himself when he has become a man; to bear the blows of destiny; to brave opulence and misery; to live; if need be, amid snows of Iceland or on the burning rocks of Malta.
谈哲学
一个人喜欢哲学还是不喜欢哲学是天生的，和性格和爱好有直接联系，就象有人喜欢音乐，有人喜欢数学一样，能否学得进去，学出一点名堂出来，天资起决定的作用。哲学一词来于古希腊，字面上就是热爱智慧两个词，定义我看到很多人，博士也好，硕士也好，知识很多，智慧却很少，跟哲学似乎永远无缘的架势。对某一个学科的学习，虽然最后拿到所以我们可以说，一个人或者本来就是或者永远不是哲学家。
The youth who is capable of becoming a philosopher will be distinguished among his fellows as just and gentle, fond of learning, possessed of a good memory and a naturally harmonious mind.
The youth who is capable of becoming a philosopher will be distinguished among his fellows as just and gentle, fond of learning, possessed of a good memory and a naturally harmonious mind.
Plato
It has always been correct to praise Plato, but not to understand him. This is the common fate of great men.
Socrates
The Apology gives a clear picture of a man of a certain type: a man very sure of himself, high-minded, indifferent to worldly success, believing that he is guided by a divine voice, and persuaded that clear thinking is the most important requisite for right living.
In the dualism of heavenly soul and earthly body, Socrates had achieved the complete mastery of the soul over the body. His indifference to death at the last is the final proof of this mastery.
In the dualism of heavenly soul and earthly body, Socrates had achieved the complete mastery of the soul over the body. His indifference to death at the last is the final proof of this mastery.
Persian Poet Saadi: Garden of Roses
Since that time,
We have taken leave of society,
Preferring the path of seclusion;
For there is safety in solitude.
I disgust with my friends at Damascus,
I withdraw into the desert about Jerusalem,
To seek the society of the beast of the field.
We have taken leave of society,
Preferring the path of seclusion;
For there is safety in solitude.
I disgust with my friends at Damascus,
I withdraw into the desert about Jerusalem,
To seek the society of the beast of the field.
The Fable of Porcupines
The moderate distance, which they at last discovered, is the only tolerable condition of intercourse by the code of politeness and fine manners. A man who has some heat in himself prefers to remain outside where he will neither prick other people nor get pricked himself.
Schopenhauer - 叔本华
Reading Schopenhauer again, I have to say that he still is my favorite philosopher.
From him we have the following ideas:
No man can be in perfect accord with anyone but himself--not even with a friend or the partner of his life.
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom.
Solitude will be welcomed or endured or avoided accordingly as a man's personal value is large or small.
That genuine, profound peace of mind, that perfect tranquility of soul, which next to health, is the highest blessing the earth can give, is to be attained only in solitude, and, as a permanent mood, only in complete retirement; and then, if there is anything great and rich in the man's own self, this way of life is the happiest that may be found in this wretched world.
A man is best off if he be thrown upon his own resources and can be all in all to himself. And Cicero goes so far as to say that a man who is in this condition cannot fail to be very happy.
The more a man has himself, the less others can be of him.
Ordinary people are sociable and complaisant just from the very opposite feeling: to bear others' company is easier for them than to bear their own.
A man, in the full sense of the word--a man par excellence--does not represent a fraction, but a whole number; he is complete in himself.
It is the monotony of his own nature that makes a man find solitude intolerable.
Almost all our sufferings spring from having to do with other people and that destroys peace of mind.
Peace of mind is impossible without a considerable amount of solitude.
The love of solitude is not an original characteristic of human nature; it is rather the results of experience and reflection, and these in their turn depend upon the development of intellectual power, and increase of the years.
Speaking generally, sociability stands in inverse ratio with age.
From him we have the following ideas:
No man can be in perfect accord with anyone but himself--not even with a friend or the partner of his life.
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom.
Solitude will be welcomed or endured or avoided accordingly as a man's personal value is large or small.
That genuine, profound peace of mind, that perfect tranquility of soul, which next to health, is the highest blessing the earth can give, is to be attained only in solitude, and, as a permanent mood, only in complete retirement; and then, if there is anything great and rich in the man's own self, this way of life is the happiest that may be found in this wretched world.
A man is best off if he be thrown upon his own resources and can be all in all to himself. And Cicero goes so far as to say that a man who is in this condition cannot fail to be very happy.
The more a man has himself, the less others can be of him.
Ordinary people are sociable and complaisant just from the very opposite feeling: to bear others' company is easier for them than to bear their own.
A man, in the full sense of the word--a man par excellence--does not represent a fraction, but a whole number; he is complete in himself.
It is the monotony of his own nature that makes a man find solitude intolerable.
Almost all our sufferings spring from having to do with other people and that destroys peace of mind.
Peace of mind is impossible without a considerable amount of solitude.
The love of solitude is not an original characteristic of human nature; it is rather the results of experience and reflection, and these in their turn depend upon the development of intellectual power, and increase of the years.
Speaking generally, sociability stands in inverse ratio with age.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Robert Burton
For Burton's life is told in two words: he read. His empire is a room.
"No torment is so bad as love, " so he said.
Robert Burton (1577-1640) was an English scholar and vicar at Oxford University, beest known for writing The Anatomy of Melancholy.
He wrote the book largely to write himself out of being a lifelong sufferer from depression. From the preface of the book: "I write of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy. There is no greater cause of melancholy than idleness, no better cure than business."
A spectator and student of life. Burton, another such a man who understood the folly of life, and love it before all else. His language, for all that it is has to squeeze itself in between the words of philosophy and poetry.
"No torment is so bad as love, " so he said.
Robert Burton (1577-1640) was an English scholar and vicar at Oxford University, beest known for writing The Anatomy of Melancholy.
He wrote the book largely to write himself out of being a lifelong sufferer from depression. From the preface of the book: "I write of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy. There is no greater cause of melancholy than idleness, no better cure than business."
A spectator and student of life. Burton, another such a man who understood the folly of life, and love it before all else. His language, for all that it is has to squeeze itself in between the words of philosophy and poetry.
Friedrich Schiller
Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright.
His famous saying: A human being is wholly human only when he plays.
Schiller's central concern was with being "wholly human," with freedom and autonomy, and he considered art is this context.
His famous saying: A human being is wholly human only when he plays.
Schiller's central concern was with being "wholly human," with freedom and autonomy, and he considered art is this context.
Goethe's Autonomy
Socrates inspired ever so many philosophers who believed as the Stoics did, partly under his influence, that happiness requires the subjugation of emotion and passion. To quote Nietzsche once more, Goethe could "dare to afford the whole range and wealth of being natural, being strong enough for such freedom" because he knew "how to use to his advantage even that from which the average nature would perish." To enjoy and explore the passions without becoming their slave, to employ them creatively instead of being either dominated by them or trying to resist them, was of the essence of Goethe's autonomy.
Goethe's style kept changing, but the changes were not gratuitous. He was no chameleon, no weather vane, and did not bow to fashion. His development gave every appearance of being organic, and his contemporaries witnessed it with their own eyes, with growing fascination.
Goether did not write to please others or to enhance his status, but to satisfy himself.
Goethe's style kept changing, but the changes were not gratuitous. He was no chameleon, no weather vane, and did not bow to fashion. His development gave every appearance of being organic, and his contemporaries witnessed it with their own eyes, with growing fascination.
Goether did not write to please others or to enhance his status, but to satisfy himself.
Existentialism
Existentialism pursues the meaning in existence and seek values for the existing individuals. It emphasizes action, freedom, and decision as fundamental factors to human existence. Existential philosophy is the "explicit conceptual manifestation of an existential attitude" that begins with a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world.
Existentialists:
Soren Kierkegaard
Franz Kafla
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Friedrich Nietzsche
Edmund Husserl
Martin Heidegger
Jean-Paul Sartre
Simone de Beauvoir
Albert Camus
Karl Jaspers
Existentialists:
Soren Kierkegaard
Franz Kafla
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Friedrich Nietzsche
Edmund Husserl
Martin Heidegger
Jean-Paul Sartre
Simone de Beauvoir
Albert Camus
Karl Jaspers
If You Hate a Person
If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us. --Hermann Hesse
Exercise - 锻炼
Don't be concerned if running or exercise will add years to your life, be concerned with adding life to your years. The strenuous life tastes better. --Dr. George Sheehan
John A. Kelley (old John) won Boston 1935 and 1945. He first run Boston in 1928 at the age of 20 and the last in 1992 at the age of 84 (5:58:00). Kelley died in 2004 at the age of 97.
I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life. --Theodore Roosevelt
John A. Kelley (old John) won Boston 1935 and 1945. He first run Boston in 1928 at the age of 20 and the last in 1992 at the age of 84 (5:58:00). Kelley died in 2004 at the age of 97.
I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life. --Theodore Roosevelt
George Berkeley: An Empiricist
George Berkeley (1685-1753) has basically one point to make: Physical objects are nothing but ideas in the mind. In fact, there are no objects beyond our ideas.
An idea is just a mental entity. There is a mind. There is an external object. Sensation translates real properties of object into ideas in the mind.
An idea is just a mental entity. There is a mind. There is an external object. Sensation translates real properties of object into ideas in the mind.
George Berkeley: An Empiricist
George Berkeley (1685-1753) has basically one point to make: Physical objects are nothing but ideas in the mind. In fact, there are no objects beyond our ideas.
An idea is just a mental entity. There is a mind. There is an external object. Sensation translates real properties of object into ideas in the mind.
An idea is just a mental entity. There is a mind. There is an external object. Sensation translates real properties of object into ideas in the mind.
From Aristotle: A Good Life
In Aristotle's words, the good life is the "activity of soul in conformity with excellence." He meant conducting all aspects of our life in a superior way.
Aristotle's "golden mean": to know our middle point, we must know ourselves well, act in moderation and reason, and live a virtuous life.
Aristotle counts the man braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is the victory over self.
Aristotle's "golden mean": to know our middle point, we must know ourselves well, act in moderation and reason, and live a virtuous life.
Aristotle counts the man braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is the victory over self.
Trouble & Anxiety
Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you.
The natural role of 20th century man is anxiety. --Norman Mailer
How much have cost us the evils that never happened! --Thomas Jefferson
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. --William Shakespeare
The natural role of 20th century man is anxiety. --Norman Mailer
How much have cost us the evils that never happened! --Thomas Jefferson
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. --William Shakespeare
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Reason - 理念
Every man's own reason must be his own oracle.
Man is the beast endowed with reason. Reason is the perception of what is, which always means also what can and ought to be.
Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. --Thomas Jefferson
Man is the beast endowed with reason. Reason is the perception of what is, which always means also what can and ought to be.
Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. --Thomas Jefferson
Agnosticism
Carl Sagan was proud to be an agnostic when asked whether there was life elsewhere in the universe. When he refused to commit himself, his interlocutor pressed him for "gut feeling" and he immortally replied: "But I try not to think with my gut. Really, it's okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in." --Richard Dawkins
Two types Agnosticism: TAP---Temporary Agnosticism in Practice; PAP---Permanent Agnosticism in Principle.
That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keeps whole and undefiled, he shall not be shamed to look the universe in the face, no matter what the future may have in store for him. --T. H. Huxley (inventor of the Agnostic)
Two types Agnosticism: TAP---Temporary Agnosticism in Practice; PAP---Permanent Agnosticism in Principle.
That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keeps whole and undefiled, he shall not be shamed to look the universe in the face, no matter what the future may have in store for him. --T. H. Huxley (inventor of the Agnostic)
Agnosticism
Carl Sagan was proud to be an agnostic when asked whether there was life elsewhere in the universe. When he refused to commit himself, his interlocutor pressed him for "gut feeling" and he immortally replied: "But I try not to think with my gut. Really, it's okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in." --Richard Dawkins
Two types Agnosticism: TAP---Temporary Agnosticism in Practice; PAP---Permanent Agnosticism in Principle.
That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keeps whole and undefiled, he shall not be shamed to look the universe in the face, no matter what the future may have in store for him. --T. H. Huxley (inventor of the Agnostic)
Two types Agnosticism: TAP---Temporary Agnosticism in Practice; PAP---Permanent Agnosticism in Principle.
That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keeps whole and undefiled, he shall not be shamed to look the universe in the face, no matter what the future may have in store for him. --T. H. Huxley (inventor of the Agnostic)
Truth - 真理
We need the truth and love it and seek it. And yet it is just as easy to demonstrate that we are also simultaneously afraid to know the truth.
Peak Experience
Peak experience contains two components: an emotional one of ecstasy and an intellectual one of illumination.
A peak experience is what you feel and perhaps "know" when you gain authentic elevation as a human being. It is like the promise of the rainbow. It comes and it goes and it cannot be forgotten.
It is empirically characteristic of the self-actualizing people that they have less doubt about right and wrong than average people do. They do not get confused just because 95% of the population disagrees with them.
A state of subjective well-being is a pretty good guide to what is best for the person.
Self-actualizing people involved in a cause outside their own skin: pursuing truth, beauty, and goodness of the ancients and perfection, simplicit, comprehensiveness...
A peak experience is what you feel and perhaps "know" when you gain authentic elevation as a human being. It is like the promise of the rainbow. It comes and it goes and it cannot be forgotten.
It is empirically characteristic of the self-actualizing people that they have less doubt about right and wrong than average people do. They do not get confused just because 95% of the population disagrees with them.
A state of subjective well-being is a pretty good guide to what is best for the person.
Self-actualizing people involved in a cause outside their own skin: pursuing truth, beauty, and goodness of the ancients and perfection, simplicit, comprehensiveness...
Peak Experience
Peak experience contains two components: an emotional one of ecstasy and an intellectual one of illumination.
A peak experience is what you feel and perhaps "know" when you gain authentic elevation as a human being. It is like the promise of the rainbow. It comes and it goes and it cannot be forgotten.
It is empirically characteristic of the self-actualizing people that they have less doubt about right and wrong than average people do. They do not get confused just because 95% of the population disagrees with them.
A state of subjective well-being is a pretty good guide to what is best for the person.
Self-actualizing people involved in a cause outside their own skin: pursuing truth, beauty, and goodness of the ancients and perfection, simplicit, comprehensiveness...
A peak experience is what you feel and perhaps "know" when you gain authentic elevation as a human being. It is like the promise of the rainbow. It comes and it goes and it cannot be forgotten.
It is empirically characteristic of the self-actualizing people that they have less doubt about right and wrong than average people do. They do not get confused just because 95% of the population disagrees with them.
A state of subjective well-being is a pretty good guide to what is best for the person.
Self-actualizing people involved in a cause outside their own skin: pursuing truth, beauty, and goodness of the ancients and perfection, simplicit, comprehensiveness...
Optimism - 乐观主义
An optimist stays up to see the New Year in. A pessimist waits to make sure the old one leaves. --Bill Vaughan
Buddism - 佛教
Buddhism is a psychological religion. The escape of sorrow is Nirvana--which is a state of mind or consciousness, not a place somewhere like heaven. It is the state you find when you are no longer driven to live by compelling desires, fears, and social commitments, when you have found your center of freedom and can act by choice out that.
Soul - 灵魂
The soul grows according to it own law. --Heracleitos
The soul, too, has virginity and must bleed a little before bearing fruit. --George Santayana
The seat of the soul is there where the inner and outer worlds meet.
"The Conference of the Birds" by Fariduddin Attar is no accident a story about birds, for the bird is an ancient symbol of the human soul, which can be either caged or set free.
The soul, too, has virginity and must bleed a little before bearing fruit. --George Santayana
The seat of the soul is there where the inner and outer worlds meet.
"The Conference of the Birds" by Fariduddin Attar is no accident a story about birds, for the bird is an ancient symbol of the human soul, which can be either caged or set free.
Wisdom - 智慧
True wisdom lives far from mankind, out in the great loneliness, and can be reached only through suffering. Privation and suffering alone open the mind to all that is hidden to others. --Joseph Campbell
Love - 爱
In true love it is the soul that embraces the body. --De Maupassant
Eros is a biological urge.
Agape is spiritual love--love thy neighbor as thyself kind of love.
The love of beauty and our uneasiness with it. Our love of good man and our irritation with him. Our search for excellence and our tendency to destroy it.
Eros is a biological urge.
Agape is spiritual love--love thy neighbor as thyself kind of love.
The love of beauty and our uneasiness with it. Our love of good man and our irritation with him. Our search for excellence and our tendency to destroy it.
Vanity - 虚荣
Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead, more than the living which are yet alive... A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of one's birth... A man has no pre-eminence over a beast... All go unto one place, all turn to dust again... All is vanity. --Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes studies history and concludes that this, too, is vanity, for history in the large repeats itself and, like the family Bible, is a record of births and deaths.
Ecclesiastes studies history and concludes that this, too, is vanity, for history in the large repeats itself and, like the family Bible, is a record of births and deaths.
What Is Philosophy?
百科百度网站： 哲学
http://baike.baidu.com/view/3330.htm
Philosophy is the devotion to freedom.
There is no distance between the philosopher and the person.
The good life is the morally defensible life and to live such a life is the proper role of the philosopher.
Philosophy is a study of the part in the light of the whole, and its first lesson is that we are very small parts of a very large whole. The harmony of the part with the whole may be the best definition of health, beauty, truth, wisdom, morality, and happiness. --Will Durant
Philosophy is a higher occupation of the spirit, a luxury and diversion from often monotonous and arduous procedure of the science.
Is philosophy an opportunity, of which we occasionally avail ourselves, to widen our view out from the narrow field of a particular science for a picture of whole? Does this mean that we just create a vantage point for ourselves, so that we can be better placed as observers?
Schopenhauer actually indicates as the criterion of philosophical ability the occasional ability to view men and things as mere phantoms or dream image. He is a close and willing observer, for these images afford him an interpretation of life, and by reflecting on these processes, he train himself for life.
最早使用philosophia（爱智慧）和philosophos（爱智者）这两个词语的是毕达戈拉斯（Pythagoras)。据蓬托斯的赫拉克利德在《论无生物》中记载，当 毕达戈拉斯在同西库翁或弗里阿西亚的僭主勒翁交谈时，第一次使用了philosophia（爱智慧）的词语，并且把他自己称作philosophos（爱智者）。毕达戈拉斯还说，在生活中，一些奴性的人生来是名利的猎手，而philosophos（爱智者）生来寻求真理。他明确地把爱智者归到了自由人的行列，也把自由和真理联系在了一起。追求真理的人，也就是追求智慧的人。
中国的哲人把哲学定义为：关于宇宙和人生的基本思考。
胡适在他的《中国哲学史大纲》指出：“凡研究人生且要的问题，从根本上着想，要寻求一个且要的解决”，这样的学问叫做哲学。
冯友兰在《中国哲学简史》中提出自己的哲学定义：“就是对于人生的有系统的反思的思想”。
中外哲学的产生皆起源于疑虑与惊讶。
http://baike.baidu.com/view/3330.htm
Philosophy is the devotion to freedom.
There is no distance between the philosopher and the person.
The good life is the morally defensible life and to live such a life is the proper role of the philosopher.
Philosophy is a study of the part in the light of the whole, and its first lesson is that we are very small parts of a very large whole. The harmony of the part with the whole may be the best definition of health, beauty, truth, wisdom, morality, and happiness. --Will Durant
Philosophy is a higher occupation of the spirit, a luxury and diversion from often monotonous and arduous procedure of the science.
Is philosophy an opportunity, of which we occasionally avail ourselves, to widen our view out from the narrow field of a particular science for a picture of whole? Does this mean that we just create a vantage point for ourselves, so that we can be better placed as observers?
Schopenhauer actually indicates as the criterion of philosophical ability the occasional ability to view men and things as mere phantoms or dream image. He is a close and willing observer, for these images afford him an interpretation of life, and by reflecting on these processes, he train himself for life.
最早使用philosophia（爱智慧）和philosophos（爱智者）这两个词语的是毕达戈拉斯（Pythagoras)。据蓬托斯的赫拉克利德在《论无生物》中记载，当 毕达戈拉斯在同西库翁或弗里阿西亚的僭主勒翁交谈时，第一次使用了philosophia（爱智慧）的词语，并且把他自己称作philosophos（爱智者）。毕达戈拉斯还说，在生活中，一些奴性的人生来是名利的猎手，而philosophos（爱智者）生来寻求真理。他明确地把爱智者归到了自由人的行列，也把自由和真理联系在了一起。追求真理的人，也就是追求智慧的人。
中国的哲人把哲学定义为：关于宇宙和人生的基本思考。
胡适在他的《中国哲学史大纲》指出：“凡研究人生且要的问题，从根本上着想，要寻求一个且要的解决”，这样的学问叫做哲学。
冯友兰在《中国哲学简史》中提出自己的哲学定义：“就是对于人生的有系统的反思的思想”。
中外哲学的产生皆起源于疑虑与惊讶。
Power - 力量/能力/权利
There are three powers in the world: sagacity, strength, and luck.
It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. --David Brin
Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.--Thomas Jefferson
I have seen enough of political honors to know that they are but splendid torments. The little spice of ambition which I had in my younger days has long since evaporated, and I set still less store by a posthumous than present time. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.--Thomas Jefferson.
Never did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall shake off the shackles of power. Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science by rendering them my supreme delight. --Thomas Jefferson
It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. --David Brin
Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.--Thomas Jefferson
I have seen enough of political honors to know that they are but splendid torments. The little spice of ambition which I had in my younger days has long since evaporated, and I set still less store by a posthumous than present time. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.--Thomas Jefferson.
Never did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall shake off the shackles of power. Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science by rendering them my supreme delight. --Thomas Jefferson
Movie： “The Matrix Revolutions”
The conversations between Smith and Neo at the near end:
"Why Mr. Anderson
Why do you do it?
Why get up?
Why keep fighting?
Do you believe that you're fighting for something?
For more than your survival?
Can you tell me what it is?
Do you even know?
Is it freedom or truth?
Perhaps peace?
Could it be for love?
Illusion, Mr. Anderson,
Vagary of perception, temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect
Trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose
And all of them are as artificial as the matrix itself
Although only a human mind can invent something as insipid as love
You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson,
You must know it by now that you can't win
It is pointless to keep fighting
Why, Mr. Anderson. Why? Why?
Why do you persist?"
"Because I choose to," Neo answered.
"Why Mr. Anderson
Why do you do it?
Why get up?
Why keep fighting?
Do you believe that you're fighting for something?
For more than your survival?
Can you tell me what it is?
Do you even know?
Is it freedom or truth?
Perhaps peace?
Could it be for love?
Illusion, Mr. Anderson,
Vagary of perception, temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect
Trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose
And all of them are as artificial as the matrix itself
Although only a human mind can invent something as insipid as love
You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson,
You must know it by now that you can't win
It is pointless to keep fighting
Why, Mr. Anderson. Why? Why?
Why do you persist?"
"Because I choose to," Neo answered.
Movie： “Prince & Me”
The speech made by Prince Edvard:
Today marks a profound though bittersweet milestone for all of us
As we bear witness both an end and a beginning
And while we must continue on
We should be grateful to be blessed with someone
Who are so able to guide us to where we are today
When there has been so much love and happiness for someone
It is natural to be reluctant to close such a wonderful chapter in our lives
For moving forward is rarely
Accomplished without considerably grief and sadness
And while our sorrow may be profound
The clouds will clear and the sun will shine on us again
Today marks a profound though bittersweet milestone for all of us
As we bear witness both an end and a beginning
And while we must continue on
We should be grateful to be blessed with someone
Who are so able to guide us to where we are today
When there has been so much love and happiness for someone
It is natural to be reluctant to close such a wonderful chapter in our lives
For moving forward is rarely
Accomplished without considerably grief and sadness
And while our sorrow may be profound
The clouds will clear and the sun will shine on us again
Growth - 成长
Always try to seek growth, not perfection.
From Priscilla Welch:
I don't know whether I've got my head in the sand or not. But I believe there's a lot you can get out of yourself at 45.
Gosh, if I've got to do this until I retire, it will be damned boring. There must be something else I can do with my life.
Running was making me a lot perkier, and a better person to live with. My exterior is a bit worn now, but the inside feels very young.
Priscilla Welch (born 1944) was a British marathon runner. She had a most unlikely career in international athletics, having been a smoker of a pack a day until she began running competitively at age 35. An officer in the British Army, Welch met her husband Dave while serving in Norway. She quit smoking, and under his tutelage, she ran in the 1980 London Marathon at age 35.
Four years later, she qualified for the British Olympic team at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. In the first women's Olympic marathon, Welch finished sixth, remarkable for someone who was nearly 40 years old. On her 40th birthday, Welsh qualified for the masters division and began setting age group world records.
In 1987, she won the New York Marathon with a 2:30:17. This was coupled with her second place finish in London where she set an age group world record running a 2:26:51, good for the sixth fastest time in the world for 1987. She was criticised for passing up the chance to win a medal at the World Championships in Rome that year. Welch set the age group world record in Boston by running a 2:30:48 in 1988. This record stood for 14 years.
The Jonah Complex: the evasion of growth, fear of one's own greatness, or evasion of one's destiny.
We fear our best as well as our worst.
Many of us evade our constitutionally suggested vocations--call, destiny, task in life, mission... We are just not strong enough to endure too much of peak experience. Our organisms are just too weak for any large doses of greatness.
From Priscilla Welch:
I don't know whether I've got my head in the sand or not. But I believe there's a lot you can get out of yourself at 45.
Gosh, if I've got to do this until I retire, it will be damned boring. There must be something else I can do with my life.
Running was making me a lot perkier, and a better person to live with. My exterior is a bit worn now, but the inside feels very young.
Priscilla Welch (born 1944) was a British marathon runner. She had a most unlikely career in international athletics, having been a smoker of a pack a day until she began running competitively at age 35. An officer in the British Army, Welch met her husband Dave while serving in Norway. She quit smoking, and under his tutelage, she ran in the 1980 London Marathon at age 35.
Four years later, she qualified for the British Olympic team at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. In the first women's Olympic marathon, Welch finished sixth, remarkable for someone who was nearly 40 years old. On her 40th birthday, Welsh qualified for the masters division and began setting age group world records.
In 1987, she won the New York Marathon with a 2:30:17. This was coupled with her second place finish in London where she set an age group world record running a 2:26:51, good for the sixth fastest time in the world for 1987. She was criticised for passing up the chance to win a medal at the World Championships in Rome that year. Welch set the age group world record in Boston by running a 2:30:48 in 1988. This record stood for 14 years.
The Jonah Complex: the evasion of growth, fear of one's own greatness, or evasion of one's destiny.
We fear our best as well as our worst.
Many of us evade our constitutionally suggested vocations--call, destiny, task in life, mission... We are just not strong enough to endure too much of peak experience. Our organisms are just too weak for any large doses of greatness.
Material Possession - 物欲
There must be more in life than having it all. --Maurice Sendak
Human nature--satisfaction from any purchase is always short-lived, if experienced at all. So we yearn for more. Enough is never enough.
In our quest to have it all, we end up experiencing less peace, happiness, and satisfaction than we would if we learned how to be satisfied with much less.
We are not going to be the richest people in the cemetery. We are, however, very rich. We have time--I call it the most expensive commodity of them all.
Human nature--satisfaction from any purchase is always short-lived, if experienced at all. So we yearn for more. Enough is never enough.
In our quest to have it all, we end up experiencing less peace, happiness, and satisfaction than we would if we learned how to be satisfied with much less.
We are not going to be the richest people in the cemetery. We are, however, very rich. We have time--I call it the most expensive commodity of them all.
Security - 安全感
The word "security" comes from the Latin word securus, which means "without care." In this regard, true security is an internal state of being, not determined by how much money an individual is able to acquire.
Security based on external possessions is, in fact, one of life's greatest illusions. Paradoxically, people pursuing security are among the most insecure, and people who least care about security are the most secure.
Security is a kind of death.
Security is the manifestation of depth.
Security based on external possessions is, in fact, one of life's greatest illusions. Paradoxically, people pursuing security are among the most insecure, and people who least care about security are the most secure.
Security is a kind of death.
Security is the manifestation of depth.
Leisure - 闲暇
Leisure is essential to wisdom.
Now the object of all, so I believe, is the same--to live more at leisure and at ease. But we do not always intelligently seek the pathway to this end. --Montaigne
Now the object of all, so I believe, is the same--to live more at leisure and at ease. But we do not always intelligently seek the pathway to this end. --Montaigne
Creativity - 创造
Of three precious resources in life--time, money, and creativity, the only unlimited one is your creativity. Make it your no.1 resource, and time and money won't be as scarce.
To invent or create you must have the "arrogance of creativeness" which so many investigators have noticed. But, of course, if you have only the arrogance without the humility, then you're in fact paranoid.
To invent or create you must have the "arrogance of creativeness" which so many investigators have noticed. But, of course, if you have only the arrogance without the humility, then you're in fact paranoid.
Religion - 宗教
As it was, his [Mill's father] aversion to religion in the sense usually attached to the term. He regarded it with the feelings due not to a mere mental delusion, but to a great moral evil. --John Stuart Mill
Old Age - 老年
He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age. But to him who is of an opposite disposition, youth and age are equally a burden. --Plato
What compensate of the old age in human is the gain of wisdom, something you don't see much in the kingdom of animals.
Life has got to be lived--that's all there is to it. At seventy, I would say the advantage is that you take life more calmly. You know that this too shall pass. --Eleanor Roosevelt
These crowded hours have been interesting and stimulating. They have, I hope, been useful. They have, at least, been lived to the hilt. --Eleanor Roosevelt
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life,
For which the first was made. --Robert Browning
Most of us believe that aging is accompanied by a sharp decline in our physical and mental abilities. We think getting older means getting sick. But, as you'll soon discover, disease is not an inevitable part of aging. In fact, it is even possible to become biologically younger while you become chronologically older.
Luella Tyra was 92 in 1984, when she competed in five categories at the U. S. Swimming Nationals in Mission Viejo, California.
What compensate of the old age in human is the gain of wisdom, something you don't see much in the kingdom of animals.
Life has got to be lived--that's all there is to it. At seventy, I would say the advantage is that you take life more calmly. You know that this too shall pass. --Eleanor Roosevelt
These crowded hours have been interesting and stimulating. They have, I hope, been useful. They have, at least, been lived to the hilt. --Eleanor Roosevelt
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life,
For which the first was made. --Robert Browning
Most of us believe that aging is accompanied by a sharp decline in our physical and mental abilities. We think getting older means getting sick. But, as you'll soon discover, disease is not an inevitable part of aging. In fact, it is even possible to become biologically younger while you become chronologically older.
Luella Tyra was 92 in 1984, when she competed in five categories at the U. S. Swimming Nationals in Mission Viejo, California.
Life - 生活
Life is like shoes, we have to choose the ones that fit our feet, and ours only.
Much of what we carry around with us belongs to someone else.
We can't live backwards, but we can always think backwards.
From his [Mill's father]own intercourse with me I could derive none but a very humble opinion of myself; and the standard of comparison he always held up to me was not what other people did, but what a man could and ought to do. --John Stuart Mill
Our life is like a a journey on which, as we advance, the landscape takes a different view from that which it presented at first, and change again, as we come nearer.
The ultimate aid of Dakota life, stripped of accessories, was quite simple: One must obey kinship rules, one must be a good relatives. Thus only was it possible to live communally with success, with a minimum of friction and maximum of good will.
How ridiculous and how much of a stranger in the universe is he who is surprised at anything which happens in his life. --Marcus Aurelius
A deep principle of life is not about a searching for the meaning of life but for the experience of being alive. --Joseph Campbell
When we turn outward, we see all of these little problems here and there. But, if we look inward we see that we are the source of them all.
Now God must have known very well that man was going to eat the forbidden fruit. But it was by doing that that man became the initiator of his own life. Life really began with that act of disobedience. --Joseph Campbell
The greater life's pain, the greater life's reply.
生活，对某一个个体来说，好象是说不清楚的，所以我们才最后有了哲学，哲学把世人对宇宙对人生的问题归拢在一起。逐渐地，能够说清楚的问题从哲学中分支出去变成了科学，似懂非懂的也分出去了一些，诸如神学宗教等等，最原始的最基本的回答不了的问题仍旧留在哲学那里。等有一天哲学消失了，那就说明人们所有的疑问都解决了。不过，也许那一天的到来就是人从地球上消失的日子。
Much of what we carry around with us belongs to someone else.
We can't live backwards, but we can always think backwards.
From his [Mill's father]own intercourse with me I could derive none but a very humble opinion of myself; and the standard of comparison he always held up to me was not what other people did, but what a man could and ought to do. --John Stuart Mill
Our life is like a a journey on which, as we advance, the landscape takes a different view from that which it presented at first, and change again, as we come nearer.
The ultimate aid of Dakota life, stripped of accessories, was quite simple: One must obey kinship rules, one must be a good relatives. Thus only was it possible to live communally with success, with a minimum of friction and maximum of good will.
How ridiculous and how much of a stranger in the universe is he who is surprised at anything which happens in his life. --Marcus Aurelius
Quiescence, a kind of philosophical inaction, a refusal to interfere with the natural courses of things, is the mark of the wise man in every field. --Will Durant
A deep principle of life is not about a searching for the meaning of life but for the experience of being alive. --Joseph Campbell
When we turn outward, we see all of these little problems here and there. But, if we look inward we see that we are the source of them all.
Now God must have known very well that man was going to eat the forbidden fruit. But it was by doing that that man became the initiator of his own life. Life really began with that act of disobedience. --Joseph Campbell
The greater life's pain, the greater life's reply.
生活，对某一个个体来说，好象是说不清楚的，所以我们才最后有了哲学，哲学把世人对宇宙对人生的问题归拢在一起。逐渐地，能够说清楚的问题从哲学中分支出去变成了科学，似懂非懂的也分出去了一些，诸如神学宗教等等，最原始的最基本的回答不了的问题仍旧留在哲学那里。等有一天哲学消失了，那就说明人们所有的疑问都解决了。不过，也许那一天的到来就是人从地球上消失的日子。
Friendship - 友谊
The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one. --Joan Baez
There is little friendship in the world, and least of all between equals. --Francis Bacon
In the misfortune of our best friends, we find something which is not displeasing to us. --Rochefoucauld
There is little friendship in the world, and least of all between equals. --Francis Bacon
In the misfortune of our best friends, we find something which is not displeasing to us. --Rochefoucauld
Solitude - 孤独
No one talks better about solitude than Thoreau. Making friend with oneself is a mission of life, sooner accomplished the better. We have to be alone if we want to enjoy ourselves to the utmost.
I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. -- Thoreau
I was never less alone than by myself. --Edward Gibbon
Content thyself to be obscurely good.
When vice prevails,
And impious men bear away,
The post of honor is a private station. --Joseph Addison
Can you enjoy being alone? If you can't, it's probably a sign that you aren't able to discover quality in your own character. Put another way, you have low self-esteem, a sense of feeling unworthy and undeserving of your own company.
One of the pleasantest thing in the world is going a journey; but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone. --William Hazilitt
I must desire solitude if I dare to exist out of my own primal sources and thus to enter into the deepest communication.
The yardstick for a human being is how long and to what degree he can bear to be alone, devoid of understanding with others. A man who could bear being alone during a whole lifetime, and alone in decisions of eternal significance, is farthest removed from the infant and the society-person who represent the animal definition of a human being. --Kierkegaard
分析起来，孤独感的出现，很多时候并不是因为身边缺乏人的存在，而基本上是内心恐惧或空虚的一种反应，跟周围环境并没有什么太大的联系。有时候，闹市和喧哗反而会给人带来强烈的孤独感，而世上最孤独的人往往就是那些整日生活在人群当中的人。孤独当然跟性格有关，有的人天生喜欢清静，有的人天生喜欢热闹，但是真正的孤独感跟性格没有关系。
I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. -- Thoreau
I was never less alone than by myself. --Edward Gibbon
Content thyself to be obscurely good.
When vice prevails,
And impious men bear away,
The post of honor is a private station. --Joseph Addison
Can you enjoy being alone? If you can't, it's probably a sign that you aren't able to discover quality in your own character. Put another way, you have low self-esteem, a sense of feeling unworthy and undeserving of your own company.
One of the pleasantest thing in the world is going a journey; but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone. --William Hazilitt
I must desire solitude if I dare to exist out of my own primal sources and thus to enter into the deepest communication.
The yardstick for a human being is how long and to what degree he can bear to be alone, devoid of understanding with others. A man who could bear being alone during a whole lifetime, and alone in decisions of eternal significance, is farthest removed from the infant and the society-person who represent the animal definition of a human being. --Kierkegaard
分析起来，孤独感的出现，很多时候并不是因为身边缺乏人的存在，而基本上是内心恐惧或空虚的一种反应，跟周围环境并没有什么太大的联系。有时候，闹市和喧哗反而会给人带来强烈的孤独感，而世上最孤独的人往往就是那些整日生活在人群当中的人。孤独当然跟性格有关，有的人天生喜欢清静，有的人天生喜欢热闹，但是真正的孤独感跟性格没有关系。
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Stoicism
It is the view of Zeno and his Stoic followers that there are two races of men, that of the worthwhile, and that of the worthless. The race of the worthwhile employ the virtues through all of their lives, while the race of the worthless employ the vices. Hence the worthwhile always do the right thing on which they embark, while the worthless do wrong. --Arius Didymus
According to stoicism, while worldly success is achieved by getting what we want, happiness can be attained only by finding contentment in what we get.
智者的概念
禁欲派对智者一说情有独钟，给什么是智者下了一个定义。
智者和平常人的区别是，智者是那些能够做到自己的言行不被外界环境左右、不受身外之物影响的人。他们善于面对生活中出现的种种困难，懂得如何面对命运带来的挑战和冲击。在一般人眼中难以化解的一些问题，诸如地位、荣誉、竞争、贫困、疾病、死亡等等，对他们来说都不算什么，因为他们对世人最喜欢追崇的几样东西，财富、权势、名誉、健康，智者的快乐来自于内心，来自于品德的高尚，
According to stoicism, while worldly success is achieved by getting what we want, happiness can be attained only by finding contentment in what we get.
智者的概念
禁欲派对智者一说情有独钟，给什么是智者下了一个定义。
智者和平常人的区别是，智者是那些能够做到自己的言行不被外界环境左右、不受身外之物影响的人。他们善于面对生活中出现的种种困难，懂得如何面对命运带来的挑战和冲击。在一般人眼中难以化解的一些问题，诸如地位、荣誉、竞争、贫困、疾病、死亡等等，对他们来说都不算什么，因为他们对世人最喜欢追崇的几样东西，财富、权势、名誉、健康，智者的快乐来自于内心，来自于品德的高尚，
Marcus Aurelius
古罗马公元161年，Marcus Aurelius继位称皇。
玛克斯·奥勒留（Marcus Aurelitrs，公元121-180年），古罗马帝国皇帝，最重要的斯多亚派学家之一，世间唯一存在过的“哲人皇帝”，真正意义上的“帝王哲学家”。 他在鞍马劳顿中写成的《沉思录》，不仅成为西方历史上最打动人心的巨著，还被世界名人视为人间至宝，曾被译成拉丁文、英文、法文、意大利文、西班牙文、俄 文、捷克文、波兰文、波斯文等。奥勒留自幼受到良好的教育，学习过希腊文学、修辞、哲学、法律与绘画等，是一个比他的帝国还要完美的人。他勤奋工作，力挽 大势已去的古罗马，成为古罗马历史上最令人感动的皇帝之一。
沉思录
梁实秋（1903～1987），二十世纪中国最重要的文学评论家、散文 家、翻译家。他学贯中西，著作无数，堪称二十世纪中国文学史上的泰斗之一，是世界上第一个完整翻译《莎士比亚全集》（40个剧本）的人，也是华语世界最早 翻译出《沉思录》之人。梁实秋翻译的作品多被誉为经典之作，《沉思录》更是经典之最，它是梁实秋平生翻译最吃力、最受益、最接近原著的一部作品，也是梁实 秋着重推荐过的一部作品。
马可斯·奥勒留
自古以来，有操守、有修养的哲学家历代不乏其人，位居至尊、叱咤风云的皇帝也是史不绝书的，但是以一世英主而身兼苦修哲学家者则除了玛克斯·奥勒留恐怕没 有第二人。这位一千八百年前的旷世奇才于无意中给我们留下了这一部《沉思录》，我们籍此可以想见其为人，窥察其内心，从而对于为人处世律己待人之道有所领 悟，这部书不能不说是人间至宝。——梁实秋
经参阅后，决定选用Haines的对照本为根据，因为这一译本最实于原文，最能保持原文的面貌。——梁实秋
The Meditations
第一篇
第二篇
整个自然宇宙是一个完整的体系，我们应该保护这个整体，维护这个整体的秩序，因为对整体有利的，对个体也会有利。 机遇不会同自然隔离开来。把手头的书放下，放下心中的烦乱，想象死亡就在你的眼前，然后对你自己说：“你现在已经很老了，不要再做私欲的奴隶了，不要被身外的一切所迷惑，不要被过去和现在的状况所烦恼，对未来也不要抱着怀疑的眼光了。”
古罗马时代的思想以理性和实用为主，禁欲派是此期间的主流哲学。It became more religion than a philosophy. 与其说是哲学，比成宗教更为恰当。禁欲派倡导遵从自然规律，理解自然规律，相信只有通过道德和理念才能找到幸福，而生活的目地是为了最后能到达到精神和内心和谐的一种平静状态，“in agreement with nature,” 而别的任何东西都不重要。理念和自然贯通了禁欲主义的思想，人有理念是因为人本身具备发现自然、发现自己天性的能力，有辨别好坏、掌握和控制自己的行为的能力。
玛克斯·奥勒留（Marcus Aurelitrs，公元121-180年），古罗马帝国皇帝，最重要的斯多亚派学家之一，世间唯一存在过的“哲人皇帝”，真正意义上的“帝王哲学家”。 他在鞍马劳顿中写成的《沉思录》，不仅成为西方历史上最打动人心的巨著，还被世界名人视为人间至宝，曾被译成拉丁文、英文、法文、意大利文、西班牙文、俄 文、捷克文、波兰文、波斯文等。奥勒留自幼受到良好的教育，学习过希腊文学、修辞、哲学、法律与绘画等，是一个比他的帝国还要完美的人。他勤奋工作，力挽 大势已去的古罗马，成为古罗马历史上最令人感动的皇帝之一。
沉思录
梁实秋（1903～1987），二十世纪中国最重要的文学评论家、散文 家、翻译家。他学贯中西，著作无数，堪称二十世纪中国文学史上的泰斗之一，是世界上第一个完整翻译《莎士比亚全集》（40个剧本）的人，也是华语世界最早 翻译出《沉思录》之人。梁实秋翻译的作品多被誉为经典之作，《沉思录》更是经典之最，它是梁实秋平生翻译最吃力、最受益、最接近原著的一部作品，也是梁实 秋着重推荐过的一部作品。
马可斯·奥勒留
《沉思录》是马可•奥勒留写与自己的十二卷笔记，内容大部分是他在鞍马劳顿中所写，是斯多葛派哲学的一个里程碑。《沉思录》来自于作者对身羁宫廷的自身和自 己所处混乱世界的感受，追求一种摆脱了激情和欲望、冷静而达观的生活。马可•奥勒留在书中阐述了灵魂与死亡的关系，解析了个人的德行、个人的解脱以及个人 对社会的责任，要求常常自省以达到内心的平静，要摈弃一切无用和琐屑的思想、正直地思考。而且，不仅要思考善、思考光明磊落的事情，还要付诸行动。马可• 奥勒留把一切对他发生的事情都不看成是恶，认为痛苦和不安仅仅是来自内心的意见，并且是可以由心灵加以消除的。他对人生进行了深刻的哲学思考，热诚地从其 他人身上学习他们最优秀的品质，果敢、谦逊、仁爱……他希望人们热爱劳作、了解生命的本质和生活的艺术、尊重公共利益并为之努力。《沉思录》是一些从灵魂 深处流淌出来的文字，朴实却直抵人心。
自古以来，有操守、有修养的哲学家历代不乏其人，位居至尊、叱咤风云的皇帝也是史不绝书的，但是以一世英主而身兼苦修哲学家者则除了玛克斯·奥勒留恐怕没 有第二人。这位一千八百年前的旷世奇才于无意中给我们留下了这一部《沉思录》，我们籍此可以想见其为人，窥察其内心，从而对于为人处世律己待人之道有所领 悟，这部书不能不说是人间至宝。——梁实秋
经参阅后，决定选用Haines的对照本为根据，因为这一译本最实于原文，最能保持原文的面貌。——梁实秋
The Meditations
第一篇
第二篇
整个自然宇宙是一个完整的体系，我们应该保护这个整体，维护这个整体的秩序，因为对整体有利的，对个体也会有利。 机遇不会同自然隔离开来。把手头的书放下，放下心中的烦乱，想象死亡就在你的眼前，然后对你自己说：“你现在已经很老了，不要再做私欲的奴隶了，不要被身外的一切所迷惑，不要被过去和现在的状况所烦恼，对未来也不要抱着怀疑的眼光了。”
古罗马时代的思想以理性和实用为主，禁欲派是此期间的主流哲学。It became more religion than a philosophy. 与其说是哲学，比成宗教更为恰当。禁欲派倡导遵从自然规律，理解自然规律，相信只有通过道德和理念才能找到幸福，而生活的目地是为了最后能到达到精神和内心和谐的一种平静状态，“in agreement with nature,” 而别的任何东西都不重要。理念和自然贯通了禁欲主义的思想，人有理念是因为人本身具备发现自然、发现自己天性的能力，有辨别好坏、掌握和控制自己的行为的能力。
Ancient Philosophers
Classical Greek philosophers
- Socrates (469-399 BC)
- Euclid of Megara (450-380 BC)
- Antisthenes (445-360 BC)
- Aristippus (435-356 BC)
- Plato (428-347 BC)
- Speusippus (407-339 BC)
- Diogenes of Sinope (400-325 BC)
- Xenocrates (396-314 BC)
- Aristotle (384-322 BC)
- Stilpo (380-300 BC)
- Theophrastus (370-288 BC)
Hellenistic philosophy
- Pyrrho (365-275 BC)
- Epicurus (341-270 BC)
- Metrodorus of Lampsacus (the younger) (331–278 BC)
- Zeno of Citium (333-263 BC)
- Cleanthes (331-232 BC)
- Timon (320-230 BC)
- Arcesilaus (316-232 BC)
- Menippus (3rd century BC)
- Archimedes (c. 287-212 BC)
- Chrysippus (280-207 BC)
- Carneades (214-129 BC)
- Clitomachus (187-109 BC)
- Metrodorus of Stratonicea (late 2nd century BC)
- Philo of Larissa (160-80 BC)
- Posidonius (135-51 BC)
- Antiochus of Ascalon (130-68 BC)
- Aenesidemus (1st century BC)
- Philo of Alexandria (30 BC - 45 AD)
- Agrippa (1st century AD)
Hellenistic schools of thought
Philosophers during Roman times
- Cicero (106-43 BC)
- Lucretius (94-55 BC)
- Seneca (4 BC - 65 AD)
- Musonius Rufus (30 AD - 100 AD)
- Plutarch (45-120 AD)
- Epictetus (55-135 AD)
- Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD)
- Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD)
- Alcinous_(philosopher) (2nd century AD)
- Sextus Empiricus (3rd century AD)
- Alexander of Aphrodisias (3rd century AD)
- Ammonius Saccas (3rd century AD)
- Plotinus (205-270 AD)
- Porphyry (232-304 AD)
- Iamblichus (242-327 AD)
- Themistius (317-388 AD)
- Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD)
- Proclus (411-485 AD)
- Philoponus of Alexandria (490-570 AD)
- Damascius (462-540 AD)
- Boethius (472-524 AD)
- Simplicius of Cilicia (490-560 AD)
Monday, September 21, 2009
Mediocre & Intelligence
To realize that one is mediocre is a great jump into intelligence.
An ordinary person accepts who he is. You don't see competing or cheating in his life. He lives according to nature. He is not a hypocrite. He doesn't pretend for something he is not. From him we see the beauty of simplicity and openness. No deception. No darkness.
An ordinary person accepts who he is. You don't see competing or cheating in his life. He lives according to nature. He is not a hypocrite. He doesn't pretend for something he is not. From him we see the beauty of simplicity and openness. No deception. No darkness.
Ordinary vs. Extraordinary
Everybody is after being extraordinary, so searching for extraordinary is ordinary. It is an ordinary desire. Therefore, being content with ordinariness is in a way extraordinary. To be ordinary is to be yourself, when you not strive to be somebody else. To be yourself is unique in itself. You have no need to become unique. You're unique from the very beginning. You don't need to cultivate it to have it. To become someone else cannot make you unique, but only make you lose your uniqueness. Searching for extraordinary is like holding a candle to search for fire. You already have the fire in your hand. There is no need for the extra work.
To be yourself is to be ordinary, and paradoxically, to be ordinary is the only way in lieu of extraordinary.
To be yourself is to be ordinary, and paradoxically, to be ordinary is the only way in lieu of extraordinary.
Power vs. Force
In the spiritual sense, power and force are different. Power is something that radiates from you, the source is within. Force is violent, a trespass on the freedom of others.
Love is power. Naturally there is no power higher than love. But love is not force. Power never becomes force. It becomes bigger and bigger; it can become universal, but it still remains power.
Love is power. Naturally there is no power higher than love. But love is not force. Power never becomes force. It becomes bigger and bigger; it can become universal, but it still remains power.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Power Corrupts
Lord Acton: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
But power is like a mirror. If you are potentially ready to be corrupted, power gives you the chance; if you are not potentially corruptible, then it is impossible for power to corrupt you. However, human life has many strange aspects to it. Only the potentially corruptible person moves toward power. The potentially good person has no desire for it because good can manifest without power. There is no need for good to have power. The will-to-power is the need of a corrupted being, because he knows that without power he will not be able to do what he wants to do.
Anything that needs power from outside is not good. It is something intrinsically impotent; it will live on borrowed life.
Kahlil Gibran made little story of beauty and ugliness, that ugliness took beauty's clothes and run away Only ugliness needs something to hide itself behind, to help it pretend---to have a false mask.
But power is like a mirror. If you are potentially ready to be corrupted, power gives you the chance; if you are not potentially corruptible, then it is impossible for power to corrupt you. However, human life has many strange aspects to it. Only the potentially corruptible person moves toward power. The potentially good person has no desire for it because good can manifest without power. There is no need for good to have power. The will-to-power is the need of a corrupted being, because he knows that without power he will not be able to do what he wants to do.
Anything that needs power from outside is not good. It is something intrinsically impotent; it will live on borrowed life.
Kahlil Gibran made little story of beauty and ugliness, that ugliness took beauty's clothes and run away Only ugliness needs something to hide itself behind, to help it pretend---to have a false mask.
Truth & Crowd
Truth has nothing to do with the crowd; truth has always been attained by individuals. A Buddha attains it, a Jesus, A Mohammed, a Moses, a Zarathustra. But they attain truth when they are absolutely alone in their deep meditative states, when they forget all about the world and the other, when they are no longer obsessed by the other in any possible way, when they are utterly alone drowning in their own consciousness and reaching the very bottom core of it
A group can have a mind---not a soul. The soul is always individual; the mind is always a group.
A group can have a mind---not a soul. The soul is always individual; the mind is always a group.
Seven Types of Religiousness
1. Ignorance
2. Fear
3. Greed
4. Logic
5. Intelligence
6. Meditation
7. Ecstasy or enlightenment
Peace has to dance and silence has to sing. So unless your innermost realization becomes a laughter, something is still lacking. Something still has to be done.
2. Fear
3. Greed
4. Logic
5. Intelligence
6. Meditation
7. Ecstasy or enlightenment
Peace has to dance and silence has to sing. So unless your innermost realization becomes a laughter, something is still lacking. Something still has to be done.
God & the World
God created the world in six days, just 4,004 years before Jesus Christ was born. Why did he decide, on a certain day, to create the world? What caused the idea of creation? Was there something else that was forcing him to create? Was there some serpent seducing him to create? Why on a certain day, and not before. It is arbitrary, whimsical, whereas evolution is not arbitrary, whimsical.
On one hand God has created you; on the other hand, when you do something wrong you will be punished. But isn't he the responsible person and should be punished?
The very idea that you have been created makes you a thing, it takes away your being. You can be a being only if there is no God. God, and you as a being, cannot coexist. That is why I am sure God does not exist, because I see beings everywhere. The person who starts believing in God unknowingly is losing his being hood: he is becoming a thing.
On one hand God has created you; on the other hand, when you do something wrong you will be punished. But isn't he the responsible person and should be punished?
The very idea that you have been created makes you a thing, it takes away your being. You can be a being only if there is no God. God, and you as a being, cannot coexist. That is why I am sure God does not exist, because I see beings everywhere. The person who starts believing in God unknowingly is losing his being hood: he is becoming a thing.
God & the World
God created the world in six days, just 4,004 years before Jesus Christ was born. Why did he decide, on a certain day, to create the world? What caused the idea of creation? Was there something else that was forcing him to create? Was there some serpent seducing him to create? Why on a certain day, and not before. It is arbitrary, whimsical, whereas evolution is not arbitrary, whimsical.
On one hand God has created you; on the other hand, when you do something wrong you will be punished. But isn't he the responsible person and should be punished?
The very idea that you have been created makes you a thing, it takes away your being. You can be a being only if there is no God. God, and you as a being, cannot coexist. That is why I am sure God does not exist, because I see beings everywhere. The person who starts believing in God unknowingly is losing his being hood: he is becoming a thing.
On one hand God has created you; on the other hand, when you do something wrong you will be punished. But isn't he the responsible person and should be punished?
The very idea that you have been created makes you a thing, it takes away your being. You can be a being only if there is no God. God, and you as a being, cannot coexist. That is why I am sure God does not exist, because I see beings everywhere. The person who starts believing in God unknowingly is losing his being hood: he is becoming a thing.
God Is Dead and Man Is Free
God and freedom are incompatible. If you are free, then there is no God. How can you be free with a creator who is continuously watching you, who is continuously maintaining you and directing you? In the first place he has put everything in you as a fixed program.
But religion has to die too for man to be himself.
(Mohammedans burned the library of Alexandria.)
But religion has to die too for man to be himself.
(Mohammedans burned the library of Alexandria.)
The Truth Does Not Grow
When mind knows, we call it knowledge.
When the heart knows, we call it love.
When being knows, we call it meditation. At the very center of your being there is nothing but silence.
Omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence.
The truth does not grow; only recognition grows, remembrance grows.
The personality has to be dropped so that your individuality can be discovered.
Mind cannot be still. Your brain is created by nature, but your mind is created by the society you live in. Mind is a created phenomenon. Any problem rooted in the mind cannot be solved without transcending the mind. A problem can solved only when you can go beyond it. If you cannot go beyond it, then you are the problem. A problem rightly understood is solved.
When the heart knows, we call it love.
When being knows, we call it meditation. At the very center of your being there is nothing but silence.
Omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence.
The truth does not grow; only recognition grows, remembrance grows.
The personality has to be dropped so that your individuality can be discovered.
Mind cannot be still. Your brain is created by nature, but your mind is created by the society you live in. Mind is a created phenomenon. Any problem rooted in the mind cannot be solved without transcending the mind. A problem can solved only when you can go beyond it. If you cannot go beyond it, then you are the problem. A problem rightly understood is solved.
Greed
Just to understand the nature of greed is enough to get rid of it. You are full if you are in tune with the universe; if you are not in tune with the universe, then you are empty, and out of that emptiness comes greed---greed is to fill it, with money, houses, furniture, with friends, lovers, with anything, because one cannot live as emptiness. You have to do something about coming into communion with the whole, so the inner emptiness disappears. With it, all greed disappears.
Greed is not desire, but inner emptiness.
Greed is not desire, but inner emptiness.
The First Two Phases of Religion
The first phase of religion is magical, which is based on magic rituals of sacrifice to the gods. It is a kind of bribery so that the gods will help you, protect you. The magical religions leave people as they are---so people in it are more natural, primitive, uncultured.
The second phase is pseudo-religion: Hinduism, Christianity, Mohammedanism, Judaism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism. It shifts the focus to people. It wants to mold and change you. People who believe it are more sophisticated , more educated. Religion to them is not just ritual, it is their whole life's philosophy. Repression comes in this phase. No two religions agree on anything except repression---to turn you against yourself. It has condemned everything you love: food, sex, music, art, etc.
Your mind is a mirror, it simply reflects.
Without outer richness nobody becomes aware of the inner discontent. All the Jain masters were from royal families; so was Buddha. Western religions were born in poverty, the eastern religions were born in richness.Poor Indians are being converted to Christianity. Rich Americans are being converted to Buddhism.
The second phase is pseudo-religion: Hinduism, Christianity, Mohammedanism, Judaism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism. It shifts the focus to people. It wants to mold and change you. People who believe it are more sophisticated , more educated. Religion to them is not just ritual, it is their whole life's philosophy. Repression comes in this phase. No two religions agree on anything except repression---to turn you against yourself. It has condemned everything you love: food, sex, music, art, etc.
Your mind is a mirror, it simply reflects.
Without outer richness nobody becomes aware of the inner discontent. All the Jain masters were from royal families; so was Buddha. Western religions were born in poverty, the eastern religions were born in richness.Poor Indians are being converted to Christianity. Rich Americans are being converted to Buddhism.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
The Story of Lao Tzu, Confucius, and Buddha
The Book of Understanding - Osho
In paradise one afternoon, in its most famous cafe, Lao Tzu, Confucius, and Buddha are sitting and chatting. The waiter comes with a tray that holds three glasses of the juice called "Life," and offers them. Buddha immediately closes his eyes and refuses; he says, "Life is misery."
Confucius closes his eyes halfway---he is a a middlist, he used to preach the golden mean---and asks the waiter to give him the glass. He would like to have a sip---but just a sip, because without tasting how can one say whether life is misery or not? Confucius had a scientific mind; he was not much of a mystic, he had a very pragmatic, earthbound mind. He was the first behaviorist the world has known, very logical. And it seems perfectly right---he says, "First I will have a sip, and then I will say what I think." He takes a sip and he says, "Buddha is right---life is misery."
Lao Tzu takes all the three glasses and he says, "Unless one drinks totally, how can one say anything?" He drinks all the three glasses and starts dancing!
Buddha and Confucius ask him, "Are you not going to say anything?" And Lao Tzu says, "This is what I am saying---my dance and my song are speaking for me." Unless you taste totally, you cannot say. And when you taste totally, you still cannot say because what you know is such that no words are adequate.
Buddha is on one extreme, Confucius is in the middle. Lao Tzu has drunk all the three glasses. He has drunk them all; he has lived life in its three-dimensionality.
In paradise one afternoon, in its most famous cafe, Lao Tzu, Confucius, and Buddha are sitting and chatting. The waiter comes with a tray that holds three glasses of the juice called "Life," and offers them. Buddha immediately closes his eyes and refuses; he says, "Life is misery."
Confucius closes his eyes halfway---he is a a middlist, he used to preach the golden mean---and asks the waiter to give him the glass. He would like to have a sip---but just a sip, because without tasting how can one say whether life is misery or not? Confucius had a scientific mind; he was not much of a mystic, he had a very pragmatic, earthbound mind. He was the first behaviorist the world has known, very logical. And it seems perfectly right---he says, "First I will have a sip, and then I will say what I think." He takes a sip and he says, "Buddha is right---life is misery."
Lao Tzu takes all the three glasses and he says, "Unless one drinks totally, how can one say anything?" He drinks all the three glasses and starts dancing!
Buddha and Confucius ask him, "Are you not going to say anything?" And Lao Tzu says, "This is what I am saying---my dance and my song are speaking for me." Unless you taste totally, you cannot say. And when you taste totally, you still cannot say because what you know is such that no words are adequate.
Buddha is on one extreme, Confucius is in the middle. Lao Tzu has drunk all the three glasses. He has drunk them all; he has lived life in its three-dimensionality.
The Material and the Spritual
The Book of Understanding - Osho
The human being is like a tree, with its roots in the earth and the potential to flower. Science cares the roots, religion, the flower. What we need is a meeting of earth and sky: heaven and earth are united, utterly physical with a great consciousness, no split between matter and spirit, between the mundane and the sacred. Zorba is the root; Buddha is the flowering. It means living life wholeheartedly.
Jesus says, "Man cannot live by bread alone." But you cannot live without bread either. Two dimensions have to be both fulfilled, to be given equal opportunity for growth. The East has chosen consciousness and has condemned matter and everything material as maya. They have Buddha, but they also have millions of poor people. The West, in its pursuit of material abundance, lost its soul. What they have is meaninglessness, boredom, anguish. The house is full of things, but the master of the house is missing. In the East, on the contrary, the master is alive but the house is empty.
Live life undivided. Religions create duality in the human mind. If you are whole, you are beyond their control.
(Zorba the buddha, Kabir-one of the 99 names of God in Islem, Nanak- a guru, Farid)
The human being is like a tree, with its roots in the earth and the potential to flower. Science cares the roots, religion, the flower. What we need is a meeting of earth and sky: heaven and earth are united, utterly physical with a great consciousness, no split between matter and spirit, between the mundane and the sacred. Zorba is the root; Buddha is the flowering. It means living life wholeheartedly.
Jesus says, "Man cannot live by bread alone." But you cannot live without bread either. Two dimensions have to be both fulfilled, to be given equal opportunity for growth. The East has chosen consciousness and has condemned matter and everything material as maya. They have Buddha, but they also have millions of poor people. The West, in its pursuit of material abundance, lost its soul. What they have is meaninglessness, boredom, anguish. The house is full of things, but the master of the house is missing. In the East, on the contrary, the master is alive but the house is empty.
Live life undivided. Religions create duality in the human mind. If you are whole, you are beyond their control.
(Zorba the buddha, Kabir-one of the 99 names of God in Islem, Nanak- a guru, Farid)
Friday, September 11, 2009
Care of the Self--the Requirements
To take care of the self, first, one must have the ability, time and culture to do so; second, one must distinguish himself from the majority, from people who are absorbed in everyday life. Therefore, care of the self only can be carried out by a moral elite and those with the ability to save themselves.
One needs to learn how to take care of himself because it is not provided by any education. One must take care of the self throughout one's life with crucial, decisive age being maturity. An adult must take care of himself to prepare for his old age.
There are expressions that refer to the activity, to the attitude which consists in gathering oneself around oneself, in collecting oneself in the self, again in establishing oneself in the self as in a place of refuge, a well-fortified citadel, a fortress protected by walls. One must treat oneself, cure oneself, conduct amputations on oneself, lance one's own abscesses. One must lay claim to oneself. One must free oneself, emancipate oneself. One must hold one's self sacred, honor oneself, respect oneself, feel shame in front of oneself. One must become the master of oneself. One must have pleasure in oneself, experiencing delight with oneself, being happy to be with oneself, being content with oneself.
One needs to learn how to take care of himself because it is not provided by any education. One must take care of the self throughout one's life with crucial, decisive age being maturity. An adult must take care of himself to prepare for his old age.
There are expressions that refer to the activity, to the attitude which consists in gathering oneself around oneself, in collecting oneself in the self, again in establishing oneself in the self as in a place of refuge, a well-fortified citadel, a fortress protected by walls. One must treat oneself, cure oneself, conduct amputations on oneself, lance one's own abscesses. One must lay claim to oneself. One must free oneself, emancipate oneself. One must hold one's self sacred, honor oneself, respect oneself, feel shame in front of oneself. One must become the master of oneself. One must have pleasure in oneself, experiencing delight with oneself, being happy to be with oneself, being content with oneself.
Plato: Alcibiades - Care of the Soul
Two questions in Alcibiades: What is one's self and what is "taking care of"?
ti esti to hautou epimeleisthai---what is it to take care of oneself?
psukhes epimeleteon---one must take care of one's soul.
"What is this 'oneself' one must care for? ---Well, it is the soul."
Socrates: It's all very well to take care of oneself, but there is a grave danger of going wrong. We risk not really knowing what we should do when we want to take care of ourselves, and instead of blindly obeying the principle.
How to take care oneself? The answer is quite simple, it consists in knowing oneself first. One must know oneself for him to care of himself. gnothi seauton is called upon for one to find out who he (Alcibiades) is, what he is capable of doing, what is his nature, his passion, his abilities, whether his is mortal or immortal...
Ways to know yourself: practices of the concentration of thought on itself, of the consolidation of the soul around its axis, of withdrawal into the self, of endurance...
It is in order to know oneself that one must withdraw into the self; it is in order to know oneself that one must detach oneself from sensations which are the source of illusions; it is in order to know oneself that one must establish one's soul in an immobile fixity which is not open to external events, etc.
The human body is only instrumental. The soul uses language, tools, and the body. But the soul is the prisoner of the body, it must be set free. Socrates does not want to designate an instrumental relationship of the soul to the rest of the world or to the body, but rather the subject's singular, transcendent position with regard to what surrounds him, to the objects available to him, but also to other people with whom he has a relationship, to his body itself, and finally to himself.
The soul is the subject, not substance. Taking care of oneself will be to take care of the self insofar as it is the "subject of" a certain number of things: the subject of instrumental action, of relationships with other people, of behavior and attitudes in general, and the subject also of relationships to oneself.
If the soul is immortal, then epimeleias deitai (it needs that you attend to it, it needs your zeal and care).
Socrates: "We see ourselves better when the mirror is brighter than our own eye, we will see our soul better if we look at it, not in a soul similar to our own, with the same brightness, but if we look at it in a brighter and purer element, that is to say in God." Therefore, to see oneself one must look at oneself in the divine element: one must know the divine in order to see oneself. This knowledge of divine enables the soul to achieve wisdom when the soul is able to think and know the divine as the source of thought and knowledge. Then the soul is able to distinguish good from evil, the true from the false. At this point the soul will be able to conduct itself properly.
Knowledge and access to the truth could only take place on condition of a spiritual movement of the soul with regard to itself and the divine.
Care of the self involves: know yourself---see your soul by looking towards the divine---discover the essence of wisdom---find truth.
ti esti to hautou epimeleisthai---what is it to take care of oneself?
psukhes epimeleteon---one must take care of one's soul.
"What is this 'oneself' one must care for? ---Well, it is the soul."
Socrates: It's all very well to take care of oneself, but there is a grave danger of going wrong. We risk not really knowing what we should do when we want to take care of ourselves, and instead of blindly obeying the principle.
How to take care oneself? The answer is quite simple, it consists in knowing oneself first. One must know oneself for him to care of himself. gnothi seauton is called upon for one to find out who he (Alcibiades) is, what he is capable of doing, what is his nature, his passion, his abilities, whether his is mortal or immortal...
Ways to know yourself: practices of the concentration of thought on itself, of the consolidation of the soul around its axis, of withdrawal into the self, of endurance...
It is in order to know oneself that one must withdraw into the self; it is in order to know oneself that one must detach oneself from sensations which are the source of illusions; it is in order to know oneself that one must establish one's soul in an immobile fixity which is not open to external events, etc.
The human body is only instrumental. The soul uses language, tools, and the body. But the soul is the prisoner of the body, it must be set free. Socrates does not want to designate an instrumental relationship of the soul to the rest of the world or to the body, but rather the subject's singular, transcendent position with regard to what surrounds him, to the objects available to him, but also to other people with whom he has a relationship, to his body itself, and finally to himself.
The soul is the subject, not substance. Taking care of oneself will be to take care of the self insofar as it is the "subject of" a certain number of things: the subject of instrumental action, of relationships with other people, of behavior and attitudes in general, and the subject also of relationships to oneself.
If the soul is immortal, then epimeleias deitai (it needs that you attend to it, it needs your zeal and care).
Socrates: "We see ourselves better when the mirror is brighter than our own eye, we will see our soul better if we look at it, not in a soul similar to our own, with the same brightness, but if we look at it in a brighter and purer element, that is to say in God." Therefore, to see oneself one must look at oneself in the divine element: one must know the divine in order to see oneself. This knowledge of divine enables the soul to achieve wisdom when the soul is able to think and know the divine as the source of thought and knowledge. Then the soul is able to distinguish good from evil, the true from the false. At this point the soul will be able to conduct itself properly.
Knowledge and access to the truth could only take place on condition of a spiritual movement of the soul with regard to itself and the divine.
Care of the self involves: know yourself---see your soul by looking towards the divine---discover the essence of wisdom---find truth.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Techniques in Caring of the Self
From Plato (Phaedo), Pythagoreans, Roman Stoics, and etc.
1. Rites of purification. Without first being purified, you cannot have access to the gods, make sacrifices, hear the oracle and understand the truth, and you cannot benefit from a dream which will enlighten you through ambiguous but decipherable signs.
2. Concentrating of the soul (the breath, the pneuma). The soul is something mobile that can be disturbed and over which the outside can exercise a hold. One must avoid dispersal of the soul. One must concentrate the soul, gather it up, condense it, and unite it in itself in order to give it a mode of existence, a solidity, which will enable it to last, to endure, and hold out throughout life and not be scattered when death comes.
3. The technique of withdrawal (anakhoresis). A particular way of detaching yourself and absenting yourself from the world in which you happen to be, but doing it so "on the spot": somehow breaking contact with the external world, no longer feeling sensations, no longer being disturbed by everything taking place around the self, acting as if you no longer see, and actually no longer seeing what is there before your eyes. A technique of visible absence. You are always there, visible to the eyes of others. But you are absent, elsewhere.
4. Practice of endurance. It enables one either to bear painful and hard ordeals or to resist temptations one may be offered.
5. Th technique of testing. Organize a tempting situation and test your ability to resist it.
Truth cannot be attained without a certain practice which transform the subject's mode of being.
1. Rites of purification. Without first being purified, you cannot have access to the gods, make sacrifices, hear the oracle and understand the truth, and you cannot benefit from a dream which will enlighten you through ambiguous but decipherable signs.
2. Concentrating of the soul (the breath, the pneuma). The soul is something mobile that can be disturbed and over which the outside can exercise a hold. One must avoid dispersal of the soul. One must concentrate the soul, gather it up, condense it, and unite it in itself in order to give it a mode of existence, a solidity, which will enable it to last, to endure, and hold out throughout life and not be scattered when death comes.
3. The technique of withdrawal (anakhoresis). A particular way of detaching yourself and absenting yourself from the world in which you happen to be, but doing it so "on the spot": somehow breaking contact with the external world, no longer feeling sensations, no longer being disturbed by everything taking place around the self, acting as if you no longer see, and actually no longer seeing what is there before your eyes. A technique of visible absence. You are always there, visible to the eyes of others. But you are absent, elsewhere.
4. Practice of endurance. It enables one either to bear painful and hard ordeals or to resist temptations one may be offered.
5. Th technique of testing. Organize a tempting situation and test your ability to resist it.
Truth cannot be attained without a certain practice which transform the subject's mode of being.
Four Fundamental Virtues
Wisdom - sophia
Justice - dikaiosune
Temperance - sophrosune
Courage - andreia
Justice - dikaiosune
Temperance - sophrosune
Courage - andreia
Care of the Self Is a Privilege
Three periods involved the care of the self: the Socratic-Platonic period of philosophical reflection; the golden age period of the cultivation of oneself; and later the transition from pagan philosophical ascesis to Christian asceticism.
"One ought to take care of oneself" was an old maxim of Greek culture. From Plutarch, a Spartan was asked one day: You Spartans really are a bit strange. You have a lot of land and your territory is huge. Why don't you cultivate it yourselves? The Spartan says: we have to take care of ourselves and so we do not have to cultivate our lands. Taking care of themselves was the affirmation of a form of existence linked to a privilege: If we have helots, if we do not cultivate our lands ourselves, if we delegate all these material cares to others, it is so that we can take care of ourselves. We have to look after ourselves, and to be able to do that we have entrusted our work to others.
One cannot govern others well, one cannot transform one's privileges into political action on others, into rational action, if one is not concerned about oneself.
"One ought to take care of oneself" was an old maxim of Greek culture. From Plutarch, a Spartan was asked one day: You Spartans really are a bit strange. You have a lot of land and your territory is huge. Why don't you cultivate it yourselves? The Spartan says: we have to take care of ourselves and so we do not have to cultivate our lands. Taking care of themselves was the affirmation of a form of existence linked to a privilege: If we have helots, if we do not cultivate our lands ourselves, if we delegate all these material cares to others, it is so that we can take care of ourselves. We have to look after ourselves, and to be able to do that we have entrusted our work to others.
One cannot govern others well, one cannot transform one's privileges into political action on others, into rational action, if one is not concerned about oneself.
Ancient Greek & Latin works
Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers*
Epictetus: Discourses*
Galen: On the Passions and Errors of the Soul
Gregory of Nyssa: Treatise on Virginity
Hesiod: Works and Days
Iamblichus: Life of Pythagoras
Isocrates: Busiris
Marcus Aurelius: Meditations*
Methodius of Olympus: The Banquest
Musonius Rufus
Philo of Alexandria: On the Contemplative Life
Plato*
Plotinus: The Enneads
Plutarch: Essays*
Porphyry: Letter to Marcella
Quintilian: Institutio Oratoria
Seneca*
Tacitus: Annals
Xenophon: Memorabilia
Epictetus: Discourses*
Galen: On the Passions and Errors of the Soul
Gregory of Nyssa: Treatise on Virginity
Hesiod: Works and Days
Iamblichus: Life of Pythagoras
Isocrates: Busiris
Marcus Aurelius: Meditations*
Methodius of Olympus: The Banquest
Musonius Rufus
Philo of Alexandria: On the Contemplative Life
Plato*
Plotinus: The Enneads
Plutarch: Essays*
Porphyry: Letter to Marcella
Quintilian: Institutio Oratoria
Seneca*
Tacitus: Annals
Xenophon: Memorabilia
Greek & Latin Words in MF's book
epimeleia heautou (cura sui): care of oneself
epimeleia: of care
gnothi seauton: know yourself
connaissance: particular bodies of knowledge
savoir: knowledge
pneuma: breath
retraite: withdrawal
anakhoresis: withdrawal or disengagement from the world)
psukhe: soul
Greek Delphic precepts in the cult of Apollo:
1: neden agan (not too much)
2. eggue (the pledges. do not make vows that you will not be able to honor)
3. gnothi seauton (know yourself)
In general, the precepts demand for prudence: not too much in your requests and hopes and no excess in how you conduct yourself. People who came to the god should always remember that you are only a mortal, not a god, and that you should neither presume too much on your strength nor oppose the powers of the deity.
epimeleia: of care
gnothi seauton: know yourself
connaissance: particular bodies of knowledge
savoir: knowledge
pneuma: breath
retraite: withdrawal
anakhoresis: withdrawal or disengagement from the world)
psukhe: soul
Greek Delphic precepts in the cult of Apollo:
1: neden agan (not too much)
2. eggue (the pledges. do not make vows that you will not be able to honor)
3. gnothi seauton (know yourself)
In general, the precepts demand for prudence: not too much in your requests and hopes and no excess in how you conduct yourself. People who came to the god should always remember that you are only a mortal, not a god, and that you should neither presume too much on your strength nor oppose the powers of the deity.
Care of the Self
Michel Foucault: The Hermeneutics of the Subject
Socrates (in Alcibiades): One must care about oneself.
Different ways to say "care of the self": taking care of the self, withdrawing into oneself, retiring into the self, finding one's pleasure in oneself, seeking no other delight but in the self, remaining in the company of oneself, being the friend of oneself, devoting oneself to oneself, respecting oneself...
epimeleia heautou is an attitude towards the self, others, and world. It is a general standpoint that we should have and a certain ways for us to behave in the world, undertake actions, and have relations with other people.
epimeleia heautou asks us for certain form of attention or looking. Being concerned about oneself implies that we look away from the outside world to the inside towards ourselves, attending to what we think and what takes place in our thought.
epimeleia also designates a number of actions exercised on the self by the self, taking responsibility for oneself and by which changes, purifies, transforms, and transfigures oneself through meditation, memorization of the past, examination of conscience...
Care of the self describes a fundamental philosophical attitude throughout Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman culture. (Plato, Epicurus, Epictetus, Seneca, Plotinus...)
From fifth century B.C. up to fifth century A.D， from the Greek to the first forms of Christian asceticism, with the notion of epimeleia heautou, we have a body of work that defines a way of being, a standpoint, and certain forms of reflections and practices.
Socrates in Apology: "Dear friend, you are an Athenian citizen of the greatest city, more famous than any other for its knowledge and might, yet are you not ashamed for devoting all your care to increasing your wealth, reputation and honors while not caring for or even considering your reason, truth and the constant improvement of your soul?" For Socrates, the care of oneself is a sort of thorn which must be stuck in men's flesh, driven into their existence, and which is a principle of restlessness and movement, of continuous concern throughout life.
Gregory of Nyssa On Virginity: "That the care of oneself begins with freedom from marriage."That has become the matrix of Christian asceticism.
Epicurus: "Every man should take care of his soul day and night and throughout his life."
Philosophy: the form of thought that asks what determines that there is and can be truth and falsehood and whether or not we can separate the true and the false.
Spirituality: the search, practice, and experience through which the subject carries out the necessary transformations on himself in order to have access to the truth.
Spirituality postulates that 1) the truth is never given to the subject by right; 2) for the subject to have right of access to the truth he must be changed, transformed, shifted, and become, to some extent and up to a certain point, other than himself (through love-eros and ascesis), for as he is, the subject is not capable of truth; 3) the truth enlightens the subject, gives beatitude to the subject, the tranquility of the soul.
（In modern sense, if knowledge is the only necessity to truth, then without any request on the subject's being, the truth can't save the subject.)
(The Cartesian moment: know yourself, which overshadowed care of the self.)
Socrates (in Alcibiades): One must care about oneself.
Different ways to say "care of the self": taking care of the self, withdrawing into oneself, retiring into the self, finding one's pleasure in oneself, seeking no other delight but in the self, remaining in the company of oneself, being the friend of oneself, devoting oneself to oneself, respecting oneself...
epimeleia heautou is an attitude towards the self, others, and world. It is a general standpoint that we should have and a certain ways for us to behave in the world, undertake actions, and have relations with other people.
epimeleia heautou asks us for certain form of attention or looking. Being concerned about oneself implies that we look away from the outside world to the inside towards ourselves, attending to what we think and what takes place in our thought.
epimeleia also designates a number of actions exercised on the self by the self, taking responsibility for oneself and by which changes, purifies, transforms, and transfigures oneself through meditation, memorization of the past, examination of conscience...
Care of the self describes a fundamental philosophical attitude throughout Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman culture. (Plato, Epicurus, Epictetus, Seneca, Plotinus...)
From fifth century B.C. up to fifth century A.D， from the Greek to the first forms of Christian asceticism, with the notion of epimeleia heautou, we have a body of work that defines a way of being, a standpoint, and certain forms of reflections and practices.
Socrates in Apology: "Dear friend, you are an Athenian citizen of the greatest city, more famous than any other for its knowledge and might, yet are you not ashamed for devoting all your care to increasing your wealth, reputation and honors while not caring for or even considering your reason, truth and the constant improvement of your soul?" For Socrates, the care of oneself is a sort of thorn which must be stuck in men's flesh, driven into their existence, and which is a principle of restlessness and movement, of continuous concern throughout life.
Gregory of Nyssa On Virginity: "That the care of oneself begins with freedom from marriage."That has become the matrix of Christian asceticism.
Epicurus: "Every man should take care of his soul day and night and throughout his life."
Philosophy: the form of thought that asks what determines that there is and can be truth and falsehood and whether or not we can separate the true and the false.
Spirituality: the search, practice, and experience through which the subject carries out the necessary transformations on himself in order to have access to the truth.
Spirituality postulates that 1) the truth is never given to the subject by right; 2) for the subject to have right of access to the truth he must be changed, transformed, shifted, and become, to some extent and up to a certain point, other than himself (through love-eros and ascesis), for as he is, the subject is not capable of truth; 3) the truth enlightens the subject, gives beatitude to the subject, the tranquility of the soul.
（In modern sense, if knowledge is the only necessity to truth, then without any request on the subject's being, the truth can't save the subject.)
(The Cartesian moment: know yourself, which overshadowed care of the self.)
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault (10/15/1926-6/25/1984), a preeminent philosopher of France in the 70s and 80s, taught at the College de France from 1970 (age 43) until his death. The title of his chair was "The History of Systems of Thought."
Major works: The Order of Things, Madness and Civilization, The History of Sexuality, Discipline and Punish, and The Hermeneutics of the Subject.
Major works: The Order of Things, Madness and Civilization, The History of Sexuality, Discipline and Punish, and The Hermeneutics of the Subject.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Meetings With Remarkable Men - Gurdjieff
Ordered four books today. From Gurdjieff, Meetings with Remarkable Men and Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson. From P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous and The Fourth Way. Library only has two of the four and I only read once Ouspensky's first book. His writing has left a good impression on me. Early this morning I was going through Michel Waldberg's Gurdjieff: An Approach to His Ideas. Haven't finished it yet but have to return it today. Some simple quotes of his from G's Remarkable Men triggered me to make the purchase.
Here is the quotes:
Without salt, no sugar.
If a man is a coward, it proves he has will.
A man is satisfied not by the quantity of food, but by the absence of greed.
No elephant and no horse -- even the donkey is mighty.
In the dark a louse is worse than a tiger.
If there is 'I' in one's presence, the God and Devil are of no account.
Happy is he who sees not his unhappiness.
If you wish to be rich, make friends with the police.
If you wish to be famous, make friends with the reporters.
If you wish to be full -- with your mother-in-law.
If you wish to have peace -- with your neighbor.
If you wish to sleep -- with your wife.
If you wish to lose your faith -- with the priest.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
风景依旧人已不同
Familiarity breeds contempt. 熟悉的地方不但没有风景，有时还会引起反向的情绪。凡所难求皆绝好，一旦到手又平常，人是喜欢新奇的动物，获取和竞争是人的天性，也是生存的手段，所以人们日常生活中的重点多放于此。咎于注意力的有限性，如果没有经过特殊的学习和经历，没有有意识地强化训练自己，随便一个人是没有时间也不会特别去想已有之物的价值。Stoics有一个让人们学会珍惜的办法：幻想自己突然失去了身边非常熟悉的一样东西，亲人也好，财物也好，环境也好，然后分析自己对其之反应。这个办法也许会帮助我们重新评估什么对我们来说重要或不重要。
Friday, September 4, 2009
熟悉的地方没有风景
有朋友今日送下面一篇文章过来，觉得不错，在此转载。
美国《幸福》杂志曾在征答栏中刊登过这么一个题目： 假如让你重新选择，你做什么？一位军界要人的回答，是去乡间开一个杂货铺； 一位女部长的答案，是到哥斯达黎加的海滨经营一个小旅馆； 一位市长的愿望是改行当摄影记者； 一位劳动部长是想做一家饮料公司的经理。
几位商人的回答最是离奇：一位想变成女人； 一位想成为一条狗。更有甚者，想退出人的世界，化为植物。其间也有一般百姓的回答，想做总统的，想做外交官的，想做面包师的，应有尽有。但是，很少有人想做现在的自己。
人有时非常矛盾。本来活得好好的，各方面的环境都不错，然而当事者却常常心存厌倦。对人类这种因生命的平淡和缺少激情而苦恼的心态，有时是不能用不知足来解释的。
我曾对住在森林公园的一对夫妻羡慕不已，因为公园里有清新的空气，有大片的杉树、竹林，有幽静的林间小道，有鸟语和花香。 然而，当这对夫妇知道有人羡慕他们的住所时，却神情诧异。他们认为这儿没有多少值得观光和留恋的景致，远不如城市丰富有趣。
当时，我的感觉是，熟悉的地方没有风景。这对夫妇对这儿太熟悉了，花草树木，清风明月，在他们漫长的日子里，已不再有风景的含义，而是成为习以为常的东西。
《幸福》杂志上的那些部长、商人及平民百姓们，之所以不愿做他们现在的自己，与住在森林公园的那对夫妇一样，是对长期拥有的那片风景，已经习以为常，风景已不再成其为风景了。
在人生的旅途中，最糟糕的境遇往往不是贫困，不是厄运，而是精神和心境处于一
种无知无觉的疲惫状态。感动过你的一切不能再感动你，吸引过你的一切不能再吸引你，甚至激怒过你的一切也不再激怒你，这时，人就需要寻找另一片风景。 工作和生活中，我们追求知识，挣脱旧我，纯洁精神，净化灵魂，升华自己。其实，深究其根源，是不是也因为熟悉的地方已没有风景了呢？
美国《幸福》杂志曾在征答栏中刊登过这么一个题目： 假如让你重新选择，你做什么？一位军界要人的回答，是去乡间开一个杂货铺； 一位女部长的答案，是到哥斯达黎加的海滨经营一个小旅馆； 一位市长的愿望是改行当摄影记者； 一位劳动部长是想做一家饮料公司的经理。
几位商人的回答最是离奇：一位想变成女人； 一位想成为一条狗。更有甚者，想退出人的世界，化为植物。其间也有一般百姓的回答，想做总统的，想做外交官的，想做面包师的，应有尽有。但是，很少有人想做现在的自己。
人有时非常矛盾。本来活得好好的，各方面的环境都不错，然而当事者却常常心存厌倦。对人类这种因生命的平淡和缺少激情而苦恼的心态，有时是不能用不知足来解释的。
我曾对住在森林公园的一对夫妻羡慕不已，因为公园里有清新的空气，有大片的杉树、竹林，有幽静的林间小道，有鸟语和花香。 然而，当这对夫妇知道有人羡慕他们的住所时，却神情诧异。他们认为这儿没有多少值得观光和留恋的景致，远不如城市丰富有趣。
当时，我的感觉是，熟悉的地方没有风景。这对夫妇对这儿太熟悉了，花草树木，清风明月，在他们漫长的日子里，已不再有风景的含义，而是成为习以为常的东西。
《幸福》杂志上的那些部长、商人及平民百姓们，之所以不愿做他们现在的自己，与住在森林公园的那对夫妇一样，是对长期拥有的那片风景，已经习以为常，风景已不再成其为风景了。
在人生的旅途中，最糟糕的境遇往往不是贫困，不是厄运，而是精神和心境处于一
种无知无觉的疲惫状态。感动过你的一切不能再感动你，吸引过你的一切不能再吸引你，甚至激怒过你的一切也不再激怒你，这时，人就需要寻找另一片风景。 工作和生活中，我们追求知识，挣脱旧我，纯洁精神，净化灵魂，升华自己。其实，深究其根源，是不是也因为熟悉的地方已没有风景了呢？
Movie “A Prairie Home Companion”
From the black woman singer:
The day is short,
The night is long,
Why do you work so hard
For something you don't even want?
"You have to lose your life before you get it."
The day is short,
The night is long,
Why do you work so hard
For something you don't even want?
"You have to lose your life before you get it."
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