Marcus Aurelius Meditations (Book 12

2 meditations by the great philosopher, Marcus Aurelius.

As with most of Aurelius’s musings, these are meant to be marinated in the psyche.

As always, his words are relevant even today.

True wisdom is timeless.

These meditations were taken from a new translation of his work by Gregory Hayes

Marcus Aurelius (Book 12 – Meditation #2);

“God sees all our souls freed from their fleshly containers, stripped clean of their bark, cleansed of their grime.

He grasps with his intelligence alone what was poured and channeled from himself into them.

If you learn to do the same, you can avoid a great deal of distress.

When you see through the flesh that covers you, will you be unsettled by clothing, mansions, celebrity —the painted sets, the costume cupboard?”

Marcus Aurelius (Book 12 – Meditation #3);

“Your three components: body, breath, mind. Two are yours in trust; to the third alone you have clear title.

If you can cut yourself—your mind—free of what other people do and say, of what you’ve said or done, of the things that you’re afraid will happen, the impositions of the body that contains you and the breath within, and what the whirling chaos sweeps in from outside, so that the mind is freed from fate, brought to clarity, and lives life on its own recognizance— doing what’s right, accepting what happens, and speaking the truth—

If you can cut free of impressions that cling to the mind, free of the future and the past—can make yourself, as Empedocles says, “a sphere rejoicing in its perfect stillness,” and concentrate on living what can be lived (which means the present) . . . then you can spend the time you have left in tranquillity. And in kindness. And at peace with the spirit within you.”