For the ancient fathers, a basic prerequisite for genuine growth in the spiritual life involves a constant attitude of nepsis or watchfulness. The word nepsis (νήψις)in antiquity literally meant to drink no wine, but by extension it also included the metaphorical sense of being sober-minded, sane, alert, and finally vigilant. If one desires to not be under the influence of the passions, if one wishes to not be drunk with anger, with envy, or with desire, one must spiritually speaking drink no wine. The ascetic fathers are also referred to as the neptic fathers. This watchfulness is paramount because as Saint Peter warns in his epistle, “Be sober (νήψατε), be vigilant (γρηγορήσατε meaning stay awake); because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” If you are drunk or asleep, you are obviously defenseless in the face of an attack.
In chapter eight of Ancient Christian Wisdom, I note that Saint Hesychius the Presbyter distinguishes between four types of watchfulness or of not drinking the fermented juices of the passions: (1) calling out to Christ for help, (2) remaining silent and still in prayer, (3) ruminating on the thought of death, and (4) scrutinizing the thoughts of fanciful notions.
(--from, The Therapeutic Strategy of Nepsis, in, Ancient Christian Wisdom), http://ancientchristianwisdom.com/2012/11/06/the-therapeutic-strategy-of-nepsis/
The non-dualist elements in Stoicism appear to be primarily related to the prevalence of spiritual exercises in Hellenistic philosophy in general, of which [Pierre] Hadot gives a detailed account. Important among these exercises as they appeared in Stoicism was prosoche or mindfulness, preparation for death, and the flight of the soul, all of which can suggest a non- dualist perspective.
Prosoche seems to have been very similar to the Buddhist practice of mindfulness (sati) (though not nearly so fully developed), involving a deliberate and systematic cultivation of awareness of the present moment. Hadot quotes from Marcus Aurelius:
Everywhere and at all times, it is up to you to rejoice piously at what is occurring at the present moment, to conduct yourself with justice towards the people who are present here and now, and to apply rules of discernment to your present representations, so that nothing slips in that is not objective.1Hadot goes on to explain the ways in which prosoche is a fundamental preparation for other practices: it frees us from passions associated with the past or future, increases vigilance, and “allows us to accede to cosmic consciousness”2. As I shall argue later, this type of practice may work on a psychological level to reduce identification with the ego, provided it is performed in a balanced fashion, avoiding alienation3: but it is impossible to tell from purely textual or historical evidence whether or not this was the case.
(--from, p.77, in, A Buddhist theory of moral objectivity, by Robert Ellis, 2001)What are we looking at? Looking for? Looking as?
To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities — I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not — that one endures.
(--in brainpickings.org, Maria Popova), https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/15/nietzsche-on-difficulty/
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.
Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-speech.html
One could say that in case of need, every normal and healthy woman is able to hold a position. And there is no profession which cannot be practiced by a woman. (--Edith Stein)What do Republican men need?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us, “…the whole life of the Church benefits from the mysterious and powerful help of angels.” John Paul II, in a General Audience, reminds us that the name of each Archangel reflects a facet of the nature of God. St. Michael’s name means ‘Who is like God?,’ St. Gabriel’s ‘power of God,’ and St. Raphael’s ‘God heals.’ To angels, God has entrusted a special mission with human beings at the center.
(--from, Divine Office, September 29, Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels, Feast)
Heidegger begins his “Letter on Humanism” by noting that our notion of action is too often narrowly thought in terms of cause and effect. Consequently, the human being is conceived as only an acting agent. By action or activity one simply means the power to cause an effect—i.e., a causality. As such, the value we attach to any being or activity is construed only in terms of utility, that is to say, what an act does or can do for a particular end or purpose. Action in this sense is merely a means toward the actualization of mechanical, utilitarian ends. According to Heidegger, we are in the habit of thinking of action within the heteronomy of means-ends, a habit whose genealogy can be traced in the evolution of the idea of making-actual from ενεργεια (energeia) to actualitas to Wirklichkeit, and so forth. One recalls here Hegel’s famous dictum: “Action is the clearest revelation of the individual, of his temperament as well as his aims—what a man is at bottom and in his inmost being comes into actuality only by his action” (See Hegel, Aesthetics, Vol 1, p. 219).
(--from, Be Late. A blog by Paul Nadal, Thinking Being Human: Notes on Heidegger’s “Letter on Humanism" https://belate.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/heidegger-letter-on-humanism/Whatever the explanation, I'm tired. I understand the Pope is in the United States. I hope he has a good time. He seems a thoughtful and kindly fellow.
In the realm of reality we have so much to strive for, so much conflict, so much complexity. In actuality we have nothing, there is nothing to achieve, there is the simplicity of nonexistence.
Where we have the illusion of living is in reality, and where we appear to have nonexistence is in actuality, but where we have actual life is in what is next. We are neither the construction of the relative reality nor the nonexistence of the actual, but the crackling release of quantum potential, the fact of manifestation, the relentless energetic movement of becoming.
The quantum expression is the actual come alive, an acausal, aqualitative occurrence. If we are to live fully in this new actualism, we must first abandon any belief in reality as we have known it by abandoning belief itself, and our belief in belief is anchored in the superstition that the known tells us what is next. This belief in the known is reinforced because we reside in reality, which is known, and in reality, the known informs us what is next, because what is next is more of what we know. The belief in the known, the belief in belief, cannot step outside what it knows. Once outside the known, we must face that all our beliefs and all of what we know tell us nothing at all about an acausal universe.
(--p.66, in What's Next After Now? Post-Spirituality and the Creative Life, by Steven Harrison)Pope Francis talked about Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton.
(in ancient Greece) a person who received
free meals in return for amusing or impudent
conversation, flattering remarks, etc. 1530-40;
Latin parasītus < Greek parásītos one who
eats at another’s table, orig. adj.:
feeding beside, equivalent to para-
para-1+ sît (os) grain,food + -os adj. suffix
(--Dictionary.com)How we go on.
Once there was a way,
