Live in the present and be myself —— Reflections on meditation
2008-03-22 17:08
"I hope this is it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. It's like a road on the ground; In fact, there is no road on the ground. If there are more people walking, it will become a road. " Mr. Lu Xun gave a surprising definition of the formation of "road" in Hometown. Maybe this is what we call herd mentality. However, the Italian poet Dante splashed ink in the Divine Comedy, "Go your own way and let others say it!" We are in a dilemma, standing at the crossroads, turning left means catching up with the trend and being doomed to mediocrity; Turning right publicizes the personality, but it also bears the strange eyes of the outside world. How to choose? It's not as simple as flipping a coin. Spinning, throwing and landing are just a one-second freeze on both sides. We should also be thinkers under Rodin.
The soul collides with sparks, and the thought ends in awakening. I am me, a unique individual, I am not an angel, I have no wings to fly, I am not an elf, and I sometimes make mistakes. I am who I am. I am born in 1980s, full of passion and vitality, and naturally pursue excitement and different feelings. When I stand at the crossroads, I will turn right, experience different life situations and be myself.
In fact, we are not alone. We have a "past lesson", a new definition of the past lesson.
Bill Gates, the chairman and CEO of Microsoft, the global leading brand of personal computer software, is an outstanding representative who competes with secular vision. His experience is an example to us. He has gained more than one point from the spiritual shackles of society. Gates was different from others since he was a child. When he entered junior high school, his parents decided to send him to a famous private middle school to meet his intellectual development, because his interests were very different from those of children of the same age in grade 6.
1993, Gates entered Harvard University. Just when people thought that Gates was living in a normal state, he made another amazing decision. In his junior year, Gates left Harvard and devoted himself to the work of Microsoft. What does Harvard mean to hundreds of millions of scholars? What's more, what stage of development was Microsoft at that time? It was Gates who insisted on the pursuit in his heart, understood what he wanted, and took a solid step. No matter what others said, he got today's Gates.
Similarly, basketball star Kobe Bryant knows what his life is. He did well in high school and SAT. Most people will choose to go to college, but Kobe is a "second-class". He decided to go directly to the NBA instead of going to college. Here, he will become the top player in the NBA in four years, earning millions of dollars, which will be a grand slam. Kobe is himself, surpassing his ordinary self, so he has gained extraordinary value.
So can we. Living in the world is easy, distinctive and wonderful, but not easy. Be yourself for once, regardless of other people's thoughts and opinions. As long as what you think is right and what you want, no matter how humble or insignificant, persist in doing and practicing, you can realize it and yourself at the same time. Just be yourself. I will always be myself.
Feeling paragraph:
Judge every word and deed that conforms to your nature, and don't be influenced by anyone's condemnation or words. If what you do or say is good, don't think that what he wants to do is worthless to you. Because those people have their special guiding principles and follow their special laws of activities, you should not pay attention to those things, but go straight ahead, follow your own nature and the same nature, and follow the only way to combine them.
I experienced everything that happened according to my nature, until I fell to rest, until my breath became the element I inhaled every day, until I fell on this land-my father collected seeds from it, my mother got blood from it, my wet nurse sucked milk from it, and I got food and drink from it for many years; When I trample on it for many purposes and abuse it, it silently bears me.
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Selected excerpts from meditation
I said to myself at the beginning of the day: I will meet people who are nosy, ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, jealous and withdrawn.
Don't dwell on what you don't have and what you have, but think about what you think is the best, and then think about how eager you are to pursue them if you don't have it yet. At the same time, however, it should be noted that you haven't loved them enough to get used to respecting them, which makes you feel uneasy when you can't get them.
-This cucumber is bitter. -Then throw it away. -there are thorns on the road. -Then avoid it. That's enough. Without adding anything, ask why there is such a thing in this world.
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Meditation of the philosopher emperor
Text: Wang Pei
Do you want to enjoy the same dignity as the emperor? You don't have to expect a person to win a 100 million prize or live in a garden house, you just need to spend 20 yuan or less money to buy a meditation.
The author of Meditation is the ancient Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 12 1 ~ 180). Unlike the dissolute tyrant in ancient and modern times, he didn't have three palaces and six courtyards, and spent most of his life on horseback and beside a bonfire. When he was in a hurry in the army, he wrote himself a book, and the 12-volume book * *, that is, this meditation record, was suddenly translated into a meditation record.
This is the desk book of many national leaders. It is said that Clinton likes reading. I don't know if it's because it says, "Well, live happily." Leave it alone. For us ordinary people, the value of this book lies in pouring a pot of cold water on our heads, just like drinking a cup of bitter coffee. It turns out that the troubles of two thousand years ago are no different from those of today. The emperor of a powerful empire is as confused as the office workers today. Aurelius seems to reach out and pat us on the shoulder, with burning eyes, and say to us: Mind your own business, you can't change the world. Life is like a rotten cabbage soup, and no one can drink it with his neck upturned and his eyes closed. Do your best, but realize your limitations.
Philosophically speaking, Aurelius is a descendant of Stoicism, and I'm not going to "Google" a bunch of doctrines of ancient Greek philosophy to pretend to be an intellectual here. In meditation, I read the thoughts of Buddha, Confucius, Laozi and the Bible. It can be seen that wisdom transcends the times, regions, religions and races. That's exactly what I said: sages from the East and sages from the West have the same heart and the same reason.
To sum up briefly, meditation goes like this: treat yourself as a part of nature; Accept your fate and don't complain; Don't make a fuss about having annoying people around you; Accept change, and death is a part of it; Everything is repetitive. There is no difference between a person living to 40 and a chitose. When alive, pursue simplicity, virtue and happiness; Stress is normal and a part of the universe, and patience is also a kind of justice; We are not born to pursue our own greatness, we are born for others; Since peace and happiness are in our hearts, why should we ask for them from outside?
Of course, if Ole writes like me, it is not "thinking at once", but "taxi aria", and perhaps the words "moaning without illness" will be added. Like countless sages, Olelium's writing is beautiful and elegant, full of poetry and metaphor. For example, he said—
"Suppose people kill you, cut you into pieces and curse you. So how can these things stop your mind from becoming pure, wise, sober and just? For example, if a person stands beside a clear and pure spring and curses it, the spring will never stop emitting drinkable spring water. If this person really throws dirty things or garbage into it, the spring water will quickly disperse them, wash them clean and will not be polluted. So what will you do as an eternal spring, not just a well? Create yourself all the time and realize the freedom of integration with satisfaction, simplicity and modesty. "
However, China's version of meditation may not be suitable for reading aloud. It is adapted from George Long's English version. However, there is a problem in Lang's translation: elegance is more than elegance, and Cinda is not enough. Chinese translators like to use long sentences for literal translation, and occasionally there are overlapping bedsteads and unintelligible places. This is a pity. As translator He Huaihong said, I look forward to a book directly translated from Greek in the future, so that the existing version can fulfill its historical mission.
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Marcus Aurelius: The Imperial Philosopher in Turbulent Times
Marcus Aurelius: (Marcus Aurelius, A.D. 12 1 ~ 180), born in Rome, his father's family is Spanish, and he obtained the noble status from Emperor Wei Pa Mi (reigned from 69 to 79). Marcus Aurelius has been in power for nearly twenty years, which is a period of constant wars and frequent disasters. Floods, earthquakes, plagues, coupled with wars with other eastern regions, led to a sharp decline in Rome's population, deepening poverty and declining economy. Even if Marcus Aurelius worked hard all night with his firm spirit and wisdom, he could not stop the decline of the Roman Empire. During most of his reign, especially in the last ten years, he rarely stayed in Rome, but spent it in the frontiers of the empire or in military camps in various provinces. Meditation, 12, the dialogue between me and myself is mostly written in this kind of pommel horse fatigue.
Marcus Aurelius received a good education in Greek literature and Latin literature, rhetoric, philosophy, law and painting, and became one of the representatives of Stoicism. Aurelius may be the only philosopher and emperor in western history.
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Reading meditation
3# 2008-5-3 12:05 x2 Read only the author's article: Zhang Zhi Source: Reading Weekly, April 2008.
Marco Anthony Aurelius was a monarch of the Andun Dynasty (97- 192) in the Roman Empire. His real name is Kyle Annius Katilius Severus. After his father died, Emperor Hadrian changed his name to Annius Verisimus and appointed him as the heir to the throne. After the death of Augustus the Great, Roman culture entered the so-called "Silver Age", and most emperors of Claudius and Flaviu dynasties advocated luxury and had perverse personalities, which laid a hidden danger for the Roman Empire to turn from prosperity to decline. However, the emperor of Andun Dynasty was more honest and carefree, and respected literature and frugality, which brought a relatively peaceful and quiet century to his subjects in the empire, so that later generations called the second century "the Roman Peace Period". During this period, the imperial territory reached the widest range in history, and its influence was as far away as China in the Far East. The name "An Dun" was originally translated by Han people. See "Biography of the Western Regions in the Later Han Dynasty": "In the ninth year of Yan Xi, King Andun of Daqin sent an envoy to offer ivory, rhinoceros horn and tortoise shells from Japan, which began with an exchange." According to Zhang's textual research, the king of Andun is Marcus Aurelius. From 162 to 165, he ordered a crusade to rest in peace, and he won many battles. Mesopotamia was restored to the territory of the Roman Empire and the Persian Gulf was reopened. There was no obstacle to the eastward passage, so his envoy was able to reach China in A.D. 166.
Judging from the contents of the book, meditation seems to have nothing to do with the outside world when writing. The book has a total of 12 volumes ("articles"). The first volume is my personal speech, expressing my gratitude to Tao Zhu's relatives, friends, teachers and even gods. The next eleven volumes are all personal diaries. At the beginning of the first section of the second volume, I said to myself at the beginning of the day: I will meet people who are nosy, ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, jealous and withdrawn. They have these qualities because they don't know what is good and what is evil. "This can be said to be a summary of Emperor Ole's career. Since then, he has constantly described all kinds of bad qualities of people around him, reflecting his boredom with his environment: "What happened is as kind and widely known as roses in spring and fruits in summer, because of illness, death, slander, betrayal and anything that makes stupid people like or worry" (Volume IV, Section 44). He thinks that he has a clear ability to judge good and evil, which comes from his fickle view of everything in the world (for example, he mentioned that the lives of the former emperors and the personnel who have long disappeared in history have disappeared), which may be regarded as Ole Liu's "homogeneity theory". Therefore, he thinks that nothing can be pursued as a kind of goodness, and nothing can be regarded as a kind of E Lai fear. Therefore, he intends to choose a quiet and unrequited life path. Like Epik Titus, the late Stoic philosopher whom he valued, Aurelius also regarded the "God" in people's minds (different from the personified God in Greek and Roman tradition, with Platonism color, closer to the God in Christian civilization) as the object of worship. People should conform to the life role given by God and should not violate their own nature and responsibilities.
According to the research of westerners, Marcus Aurelius wrote Meditations after AD 170. Why did such an energetic and busy military emperor write such a "monologue" book immediately during his conquest of Lawton, that is, "I was talking to myself" as Mr. He Huaihong said in the preface? In fact, this is related to the social ideological atmosphere and political tradition. On the surface, Nero, Vespami and Emperor Titus Flavius Domitianus all expelled philosophers of various schools from this country, but like Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius, they widely supported Greek learning. In particular, Ole left himself to establish a philosophical school in Athens that allowed academics, Minstrel, Epicurus and Stoics to give lectures, which was quite "inclusive". But in fact, from Augustus to Aurelius, Roman monarchs have always regarded the so-called "public welfare" as the highest standard of their political achievements. Even the tyrant Nero was no exception. During his first five years in power, his teacher seneca was still very influential. According to Cicero's On the Republic, this pursuit actually originated from the spread of Stoic philosophy in the Roman Empire. In other words, the Stoic philosophy, though foreign, can constantly coincide with the founding ideals of the Roman Empire. China people like to say that the arrogance and indulgence of the ancient Romans actually belongs to the erosion of the culture of the eastern provinces, which has a more traditional side, but it is not quite understood by the common people.
After Augustus, three Stoic philosophers appeared in the Roman Empire: Seneca Junior, an important minister in Nero's time, Epik Titus, a free man, and Marcus Aurelius. People often take the origin of Stoicism and Cynicism as the reason. They think that seneca always advocates abstinence, introspection and loneliness, but he monopolizes power in life. He has the dual identity of a cunning rich man and a resourceful politician, and his words and deeds are different. Liu is supreme, so it is not appropriate to examine the practical value of his philosophical thoughts; Only epiktetos, who were born slaves, can be regarded as a complete connection between the two ends of body and use. Seneca can be criticized because his works are explicit and open. However, Ole wrote Meditations, following the attitude that Epik Titus was not interested in the circulation of his works. His writing is hidden and private, with no intention of pretending to show off. Besides, Aurelius was not happy or proud of his identity and destiny, but he did not escape. He believes that Alexander the Great and his groom actually belong to a brief combination of matter in the universe, and they will return to the same place after death. The meaning of being an emperor is to accomplish what he should do: look at and accept everything with welcome eyes and use everything according to value. Therefore, it is at least unfair for Ole to leave his social status to abolish his speech value.
Ole, whose ancestral home is Spain, kept writing Meditations in ancient Greek, both of which reflected the status and role of provinces in the politics and culture of the Roman Empire at that time. The 2nd century was a period of "Greek cultural renaissance" in the Roman world. Famous writers Plutarch and Lucian, such as Epik Totos and Aurelius, both wrote in Greek. Mr. He Huaihong's translation into English is elegant and dignified, but the original text can't be found. I also hope that you can contribute a deeper and deeper new translation in the future.
Original link: http://www.yuedu.org/thread-79590-1-1.html.