Zen Pencils by Gavin Aung Than for September 21, 2015
September 14, 2015
September 28, 2015
Transcript:
A MEDITATION MARCUS AURELIUS Begin each day by telling yourself… Today I shall be meeting with interference… …ingratitude… …insolence… …disloyalty… …ill-will… …and selfishness. All of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil. But for my part… …I have long perceived the nature of good and its nobility… …the nature of evil and its meanness… ..and also the nature of the culprit himself… …who is my brother, not in the physical sense… …but as a fellow-creature similarly endowed with reason and a share of the divine. SHOPMART FOOD AND SUPPLIES Therefore none of those things can injure me… …for nobody can implicate me in what is degrading. Neither can I be angry with my brother or fall foul of him… …for he and I were born to work together… …like a man’s two hands, feet, or eyelids… …or like the upper and lower rows of his teeth. To obstruct each other is against nature’s law… …and what is irritation or aversion but a form of obstruction? - Marcus Aurelius
As Emperor, Marcus Aurelius’ legions, in three separate wars, killed thousands and enslaved tens of thousands, sacking and looting cities with abandon and raping and murdering the populace.
Some Zen ideal, eh? Field Marshall von Rundstedt would be better. I postulate than Aurelius’ legions killed, raped and enslaved a greater percentage of enemy populations than the Nazis did.