Meditations
Marcus Aurelius (121-180)
Translation and Introduction by Gregory Hays
191 pages
I don’t recall now how many years ago I first heard about Marcus Aurelius’s collected writings, Mediations. Coming across an edition in a bookstore a few months ago, however, I decided the time had come to read it. The wait turns out to have paid dividends, both for my understanding, as well as for more fortuitous, personal reasons.
This edition was translated by Gregory Hays, associate professor of classics at the University of Virginia, and he provides an extremely helpful Introduction, in which he discusses what is known about Marcus’s life, the present understanding of what these writings might have represented for Marcus, and the Stoic philosophy at their heart. He notes that while Marcus’s writing contains other philosophical influences, Stoicism was “the most important philosophical tradition both for Romans in general and for Marcus in particular.” Hays points out that, “of the doctrines central to the Stoic worldview, perhaps the most important is the unwavering conviction that the world is organized in a rational and coherent way. … a deterministic system that appears to leave no room for human free will or moral responsibility.” (xix-xx)
The text consists of a series of entries, grouped into 12 books that “represent the individual papyrus rolls of Marcus’s original, or perhaps of a later copy.” (xxxix) Begin to read, and it immediately becomes evident that, as Hays notes
Marcus … did not think of [the collected entries] as an organic whole …. Not only … not written for publication, but [he] clearly had no expectation that anyone but himself would ever read it. (xxxvi)
The entries vary in length from a few lines to perhaps a page. Most, if not all, seem to have an implicit Remember: in front of them, as though Marcus captured private notes or reminders of how he should live his life. Hays seems most convinced by one scholar’s suggestion that the entries represented for Marcus “ ‘spiritual exercises’ composed to provide a momentary stay against the stress and confusion of everyday life … a means of practicing and reinforcing his own philosophical convictions.” (xxxvii) Such an interpretation is reinforced by the repetition one encounters in the entries, both within and across books, as Marcus returns again and again to certain key themes and ideas, sometimes almost verbatim.
Summarizing these entries risks trivializing the profound, if stark, depths that Marcus explores; trying to select among them for which to share means ignoring so many one would want to include. But a few comments, admittedly focused on entries that had the most impact for me, will give a new reader an idea of what to expect.
Broadly, the entries emphasize the importance of living in the present moment, but with a depth far beyond the simple kinds of mindfulness one encounters in present-day popular culture.
Concentrate every minute … on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can – if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable. You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? (2.5)
He reminds himself, here and throughout, to recognize the possibility – and benefit – of living within a mind that does not allow itself to be distracted by either painful experiences – whether external from the actions of others or internal such as from bodily pain – nor, importantly, by pleasurable ones.
Ultimately, he seeks a mind having engaged equanimity, in the face of whatever goes on around it. Thus, “choose not to be harmed – and you won’t feel harmed,” (4.7) and recognizing that your mind can stand above and outside that which is painful such that “things have no hold on the soul. They stand there unmoving, outside it. Disturbance comes only from within – from our own perceptions.” (4.3)
One theme that recurs, and that held particular resonance for me, relates to developing an understanding that everyone has their own problems – to quote a peasant in Ignazio Silones wonderful novel Bread and Wine: “everyone has his fleas … probably even the government has them,” (136) so why complain. Marcus repeatedly reminds himself that
When people injure you, ask yourself what good or harm they thought would come of it. If you understand that, you’ll feel sympathy rather than outrage or anger. Your sense of good and evil may be the same as theirs, or near it, in which case you have to excuse them. Or your sense of good and evil may differ from theirs. In which case they’re misguided and deserve your compassion. Is that so hard? (7.26)
Later, more concisely, he gives a simple prescription for helping himself (and us) avoid the distracting and self-destructive path of anger:
Learn to ask of all actions, “Why are they doing that?”
Starting with your own.” (10.43)
Although many of the entries speak across the millennia to our present-day concerns, one seemed directly intended for those on both sides of our fraught present moment of (self-) destructive hyper-partisanship:
How cruel – to forbid people to want what they think is good for them. And yet that’s just what you won’t let them do when you get angry at their misbehavior. They’re drawn toward that they think is good for them.
– But it’s not good for them.
Then show them that. Prove it to them. Instead of losing your temper. (6.27)
As I mentioned above, reading this book came at a fortunate moment for me in a very personal sense. I’ve dealt with back pain for several decades and was in the middle of a period of significant pain as I read this book. In conjunction with the training I’ve had from Harris’s app, the direct reminder of Marcus’s words helped me, at least for periods, compartmentalize the pain – not ignore it, precisely, but not have it overwhelm my thoughts. In that context, he observes that
“The mind is the ruler of the soul. It should remain unstirred by agitations of the flesh – gentle and violent ones alike.” (5.26) And, he recommends:
Unendurable pain brings its own end with it. Chronic pain is always endurable: the intelligence maintains serenity by cutting itself off from the body, the mind remains undiminished. (7.33)
I can’t say I managed to face the pain with complete equanimity, but for moments, periods, I did find a bit of serenity – feeling the pain as something that was happening, but not having it impact my mind, my thoughts.
As much as I find sensible and helpful in these entries, I will say that the starkness of Marcus’s vision gave me pause at points. I recognize that pleasure can be as capable as pain of distracting our minds from focusing on the moment, on “justice, honesty, self-control, courage” (3.6); but I struggle with several of Marcus’s appeals, such as “throw away your books; stop letting yourself be distracted” (2.2) and “discard your thirst for books” (2.3), or when he proposes that
to acquire indifference to pretty singing … Analyze the melody into the notes that form it, and as you hear each one, ask yourself whether you’re powerless against that. That should be enough to deter you. (11.2)
As Hays notes, “there is a persistent strain of pessimism in the work;” he quotes a scholar as having observed that “reading the Meditations for long periods can be conducive of Melancholy.” (xlv)
But if one guards against such feelings – perhaps by following Marcus’s own advice to protect “your mind from false perceptions” (3.9) – there is much wisdom to be found here. Understanding his entries can be enhanced by having some prior meditation training; such preparation is not, however, absolutely necessary, if one enters open to the concept of a complete separation between the mind and what is external to it.
I can certainly understand why, as Hays mentions in his Introduction, so many return to re-read Meditations. Instead of a long and deep tome on how to live one’s life, Marcus’s entries guide a reader in short, direct, concrete observations. I look forward to revisiting Marcus’s text.
Other notes and information:
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
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