Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  #248 (Deng Ming-Dao) I want to, but haven't. I know I don't meditate enough. What should I put in my empty room? Nothing. Isn't that the whole point? To not need anything to feel while and one?

Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  #244 (Deng Ming-Dao) Know who one is, or .  . .  know thyself . All my shit is pretentious. It's real, but experienced from a place of likely security. And little of it earned. I'm privileged enough to study philosophy as a hobby ferfucksakes. Though I know it is a path people of any means can pursue, I literally studied it academically. Twice. Not that those have meant as much to me as these past few years. These years I have done more to change my character for the better. By leaps and bounds more.

Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  #243 (Deng Ming-Dao) It's hard to quiet my mind. I don't know that I ever have. I need to try more often and intently.

Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  #242 (Deng Ming-Dao) Lost. So hard to find the inner child. The one who still wonders about wonders and who still awes over awesome things.

Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  #240 (Deng Ming-Dao) All cultivation is personal. I do good and make some small piece of the world better for it. I do what I can. I cannot rid the world of pains. The world's evils remain unabated. I need continue because there is always more to do.

Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  #240 (Deng Ming-Dao) I must act for all this to be worth it. Pondering my belly button is one thing, but precious little if it doesn't translate into my doing good for others.

Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  #238 (Deng Ming-Dao) Just because I am not my body doesn't mean I should ignore my body. Through it I know the world. It's fitness bolsters or limits my potency. Its neglect stunts my capacities. Today is a good day to begin its reformation.

Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  #237 (Deng Ming-Dao) Tao understands that the body is not up to me. My hegemonikon is my true self. My internal rational center, our governing capacity is all I can call truly mine. Through it, I receive  phantasia ; judge them; assent / withhold / deny them. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  #235 (Deng Ming-Dao) It can be hard to find the Tao, follow Nature per the Stoics, when distracted by the ten thousand things. The Tao that is the true Tao cannot be be found be straining. Effort is not what I need. Peace. Acceptance. Flow. Curiosity. Contentment. Allowance. Amor fati. These thing I need in my quest.

Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  #234 (Deng Ming-Dao) The spider knows its purpose. It knows its nature. It knows its limits. It knows what is up to it and what is not up to it. I need to be like that. To accept my nature, follow Nature, bring reason with me. And be content.

Today's Meditation(s): As quoted in Right Thing, Right Now  by Ryan Holiday "It's not fair!," The cry of the weak! Right? Nah. Fairness is real and, usually, obvious. When it's not, my principles are tested. Thats why I study and practice.

Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  #233 (Deng Ming-Dao) I am no prophet. Hells, I don't know my own mind, much less the secrets of the universe, of the world, or of life. Call me only student. I am studying. I am practicing. I am not finished. That is all. 

Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  #232 (Deng Ming-Dao) Reject what separates me from unity with the world and everything in it.

Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  #231 (Deng Ming-Dao) What I do tomorrow is based on what I do today. Do well today that I may do well tomorrow.

Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  #230 (Deng Ming-Dao) I have so much to learn. I'm trying to teach my child about relationships and love. About how love can take many forms and behaviors and that our ideal, romantic love, is a poor foundation upon which to build that base. In doing so, I've engaged  others in my family to explore a book about it, but I have a problem.... The book uses a Jungian psychological model which they feel is too simplistic.  Because of this, they feel smarter than the lesson I am trying to teach. The lesson is a basic lesson, a simple idea they feel too sophisticated to require. They do not see any value in it. They cannot overcome the language used to explain it. (In some ways it reminds me of my philosophical training, all about words instead of concepts.)

Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  #229 (Deng Ming-Dao) And that's why I have to keep coming back every morning. 

Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  #227 (Deng Ming-Dao) No kidding. I find myself drifting from the path of wisdom all the time, letting myself become entangled with desires and aversions or failing in my job of granting only proper assent. I understand the psychological benefit of not always being 'on', but that doesn't mean that, like a runner training for a marathon, I can't build up endurance and, if I commit, keep myself on the straight and narrow more and more often.

Today's Meditation(s): Seneca,  Consolation to Marcia , 10.4 (Anderson) Stoicism allows me to focus on what's important now. I know my children may die. One has. It makes me constantly aware of the fragility of life, the temporary nature of those I love. I do my best to love them every day, to thank the Fates I got another with them. I know it will not last so I must love them now.

Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  #226 (Deng Ming-Dao) Sounds like a Zen version of amor fati . What comes, comes. What happens, happens. What is, is. I can fight it. I can accept it. But I can't escape it. And if I do this daily, moving on to the next bead in my daily prayers and trials, I will get better at it, learning more from it, loving it as I should. It's all part of me.

Today's Meditation(s): 365 Tao: Daily Meditations #225 (Deng Ming-Dao) So long as I place importance on things not up to me, I am susceptible to prejudice. I will pursue external things to the detriment of myself and others. I will fail in my duty to be a citizen of the world.

Today's Meditation(s): Epictetus, Fragments , 24 (Waterfield) I complain about this and that and the other in my life, yet, were someone to threaten to take it away, I would guard it jealously, defend it most zealously. Things will never be perfect. At least, not until I perfect my soul by training my assent, desires, aversions, judgments, and other thoughts. Still a long way to go. Don't despair about the length in front of me. Put out the first step and get to it. The door is always open. 

Today's Meditation(s): Fragments , 7 (Waterfield) I get the overall sentiment, but I am really confused by the first inability up there. I understand the converse, that an inability to do good for others would be a defining characteristic of a despicable person. That make sense.  But the idea that the mark of a despicable person is commonly said to be his in ability to cause harm? ===== I've mentioned before that I try to phrase things positively for my kids — what do I want them to do rather than what do I want them not to do. I remember writing about shifting from my old phrase, don't sell past the close,  to a positive version I read somewhere with the same idea behind it: take the win . This passage from Epictetus seems to be in that vein. I realize it's different, but it feels the same: it's not about the bad I might do; it's about the good I neglect.