📩 Want daily wisdom? Sign up for Perennial Meditations to receive ancient lessons for modern life: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to Sundays with Seneca on the Perennial Meditations podcast. Join the search for ancient lessons on the art of living from the writings and Stoic philosophy of Lucius Annaeus Seneca.

In a letter known today as On Ill-Health and Endurance of Suffering, Seneca wrote, "If I may begin with a commonplace remark, spring is gradually disclosing itself; but though it is rounding into summer, when you would expect hot weather, it has kept rather cool, and one cannot yet be sure of it. For it often slides back into winter weather. Do you wish to know how uncertain it still is? I do not yet trust myself to a bath that is absolutely cold; even at this time, I break its chill. You may say that this is no way to show the endurance either of heat or of cold; very true, dear Lucilius, but at my time of life, one is at length contented with the natural chill of the body. I can scarcely thaw out in the middle of summer. Accordingly, I spend most of the time bundled up; and I thank old age for keeping me fastened to my bed. Why should I not thank old age on this account? That which I ought not to wish to do, I lack the ability to do. Most of my converse is with books. Whenever your letters arrive, I imagine that I am with you, and I have the feeling that I am about to speak my answer instead of writing it. Therefore let us together investigate the nature of this problem of yours, just as if we were conversing with one another." [...]

STAY CONNECTED:

 Twitter: https://twitter.com/PerennialPods

 Instagram: https://instagram.com/PerennialPods

 Website: https://www.perennialleader.com/

📩 Want daily wisdom? Sign up for Perennial Meditations to receive ancient lessons for modern life: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to Sundays with Seneca on the Perennial Meditations podcast. Join the search for ancient lessons on the art of living from the writings and Stoic philosophy of Lucius Annaeus Seneca.

In a letter known today as On Meeting Death Cheerfully, Seneca wrote, "Let us cease to desire that which we have been desiring. I, at least, am doing this: in my old age, I have ceased to desire what I desired when a boy. To this single end, my days and my nights are passed; this is my task, this the object of my thoughts—to put an end to my chronic ills. I am endeavoring to live every day as if it were a complete life. I do not indeed snatch it up as if it were my last; I do regard it, however, as if it might even be my last." [...]

STAY CONNECTED:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PerennialPods

Instagram: https://instagram.com/PerennialPods

Website: https://www.perennialleader.com/

📩 Want daily wisdom? Sign up for Perennial Meditations to receive ancient lessons for modern life: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s episode is a follow-up to a previous meditation titled; The Sun is Always Shining and Three Ways to Say “Yes” to Life. One reader raised a thoughtful and essential question: How should we think about happiness, suffering, or gratitude amid physical pain and illness?

***Friday episodes are typically for paid members, but I’m making this one available to all subscribers. If you find something useful, please consider becoming one.

Is it even appropriate to think (or say) words like happiness and suffering in the same sentence? To start, let’s distinguish physical pain from suffering. We’ll turn to a well-known Buddhist parable (The Dart of Painful Feeling).

The Buddha taught his followers, “Monks, when the uninstructed worldling experiences a painful feeling, he sorrows, grieves, and laments; he weeps, beating his breast and becomes distraught. He feels two feelings—a bodily one and a mental one.” [...]

STAY CONNECTED:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PerennialPods

Instagram: https://instagram.com/PerennialPods

Website: https://www.perennialleader.com/

📩 Want daily wisdom? Sign up for Perennial Meditations to receive ancient lessons for modern life: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribe

The devotional Remember Your Death, by Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble, opens with the words, “You are going to die.” Sr. Noble writes, "The moment you are born you begin dying. You may die in fifty years, ten years, perhaps tomorrow — or even today. But whenever it happens, death awaits every person, whether rich or poor, young or old, believer or nonbeliever."

As many of you know, I am interested in principles and practices that reveal themselves across wisdom traditions. One of those practices is remembering your death (or Memento Mori). Many people rightfully connect the practice of Memento Mori with Stoicism, but it is also part of Buddhism and Christianity. [...]

STAY CONNECTED:

 Twitter: https://twitter.com/PerennialPods

 Instagram: https://instagram.com/PerennialPods

 Website: https://www.perennialleader.com/

Do you have someone in your life (past or present) that you look to as an example of virtue in action? The Stoics did. They turned to the life of figures like Socrates and Cato. Similarly, many spiritual traditions have great Saints and theologians as models or guides to follow.

In a passage from the Enchiridion, Epictetus says, “From now on, then, resolve to live as a grown-up who is making progress, and make whatever you think best a law that you never set aside. And whenever you encounter anything that is difficult or pleasurable, or highly or lowly regarded, remember that the contest is now: you are at the Olympic Games, you cannot wait any longer, and that your progress is wrecked or preserved by a single day and a single event. That is how Socrates fulfilled himself by attending to nothing except reason in everything he encountered. And you, although you are not yet a Socrates, should live as someone who at least wants to be a Socrates.”

📩 Want daily wisdom? Sign up for Perennial Meditations to receive ancient lessons for modern life: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to Sundays with Seneca on the Perennial Meditations podcast. Join the search for ancient lessons for modern living in the writing and Stoic philosophy of Lucius Annaeus Seneca.

In a letter known today as On the Shortness of Life, Seneca wrote, "Infinitely swift is the flight of time, as those see more clearly who are looking backwards. For when we are intent on the present, we do not notice it, so gentle is the passage of time’s headlong flight.

Do you ask the reason for this? All past time is in the same place; it all presents the same aspect to us, it lies together. Everything slips into the same abyss. Besides, an event which in its entirety is of brief compass cannot contain long intervals. The time which we spend in living is but a point, nay, even less than a point. But this point of time, infinitesimal as it is, nature has mocked by making it seem outwardly of longer duration; she has taken one portion thereof and made it infancy, another childhood, another youth, another the gradual slope, so to speak, from youth to old age, and old age itself is still another. How many steps for how short a climb!" [...]

📩 Want daily wisdom? Sign up for Perennial Meditations to receive ancient lessons for modern life: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribe

The Stoic philosopher Epictetus once asked, “How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?” But what does it actually mean to demand the best for yourself? What is the path to peace, tranquility, or happiness? How does one become a better parent, leader, friend, or anything else? The answer to these types of questions generally points to wisdom.

In a Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus wrote, "Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul." [..]

As many of you know, I have an interest in the topic of wisdom. I started a podcast called In Search of Wisdom a couple of years ago. I believe, like Epicurus (and many others), that there is no time like the present to begin the search for wisdom.

***For this reason, I’m offering a free 5-Week Wisdom 101 Course (for Perennial Meditations members). It’s going to be an informal exploration of timeless perspectives, principles, and practices (based on a previous article called The Timeless Art of Leading a Life) to help us live our highest good. The course will consist of an email meditation every Monday (beginning on 16 Jan) and a live meetup every Wednesday at Noon EST (ending on 15 Feb).

📩 Want daily wisdom? Sign up for Perennial Meditations to receive ancient lessons for modern life: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to Sundays with Seneca on the Perennial Meditations podcast. Join the search for ancient lessons for modern living in the writing and Stoic philosophy of Lucius Annaeus Seneca.

In a letter known today as On the God Within Us, Seneca wrote, "You are doing an excellent thing, one which will be wholesome for you, if, as you write me, you are persisting in your effort to attain sound understanding; it is foolish to pray for this when you can acquire it from yourself. We do not need to uplift our hands towards heaven, or to beg the keeper of a temple to let us approach his idol’s ear, as if in this way our prayers were more likely to be heard. God is near you, he is with you, he is within you." [...]

STAY CONNECTED:  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/searchwisdompod

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/searchwisdompod

Website: https://www.perennialleader.com/

📩 Want daily wisdom? Sign up for Perennial Meditations to receive ancient lessons for modern life: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to Sundays with Seneca on the Perennial Meditations podcast. Join the search for ancient lessons for modern living in the writing and Stoic philosophy of Lucius Annaeus Seneca.

In a letter known today as On Noble Aspirations, Seneca wrote,

"I shall indeed arrange for you, in careful order and narrow compass, the notes which you request. But consider whether you may not get more help from the customary method than from that which is now commonly called a “breviary,” though in the good old days, when real Latin was spoken, it was called a “summary.” The former is more necessary to one who is learning a subject, the latter to one who knows it. For the one teaches, the other stirs the memory. But I shall give you abundant opportunity for both. A man like you should not ask me for this authority or that; he who furnishes a voucher for his statements argues himself unknown." [...]

STAY CONNECTED:  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/searchwisdompod

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/searchwisdompod

Website: https://www.perennialleader.com/

📩 Want daily wisdom? Sign up for Perennial Meditations to receive ancient lessons for modern life: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Do you ever have trouble getting out of bed in the morning? If so, you’re in good company; the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius did as well. In his personal journal, known as Meditations, he wrote, “At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work — as a human being.” [...]

STAY CONNECTED:  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/searchwisdompod

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/searchwisdompod

Website: https://www.perennialleader.com/