Meditation 1: The Art of Living

The art of living is a skill in negotiating the opportunities and pitfalls of life. It comprehends how to work with whatever comes one's way and make the best of the challenges, joys and setbacks that come with living and dying. This art is not just a way of thinking, not just maintaining a positive attitude, though that is important; it is an art of finding a path through life that avoids or turns aside what is bad and makes something better of it.

Circumstances vary, but it is possible to live artfully in all of them. This includes trying to change what can be changed for the better, and not to lament, but accept, what can not be changed. The art of living is distinguished from all the trappings of an outwardly successful life. Possessions and financial successes may not prevent profound unhappiness for an individual, failure in personal relationships, or unawareness of the beauties of the physical world.

To live artfully is to live thoughtfully, act justly, and to speak the truth, recognizing what is of genuine value, and ignoring what is trivial. It is to be in the habit of doing and saying the right things in the right manner, with good timing and a realistic appraisal of the circumstances.

The Greeks called this "sophrosuné", soundness of mind, discretion, moderation in feelings and actions, and self-control. These character traits, as Aristotle said, come to us not by nature, but by training and habit. Since we live by nature, but act through character, there can be an art of living-well or badly, of making the best or worst of life. We can learn from those who have gone before us, and, if we are lucky, from a few of those now living who display the art of living. It is an interesting question whether we could learn it by ourselves, without any role models to guide us.

Meditation 2: The Fiction of Forevermore

Everyone knows that things change.  Nothing much seems to stay the same.  Nevertheless, the mountains in whose shadow you were born, or the ocean in which you swam, remain much as they were.  People may build up towns in the mountains and resorts by the beach, but compared to comings and goings of humans and their creations, the sea and the mountains are forever.

Metaphors of forever abound in our common language.  Especially where love is concerned, the songs sing of it outlasting the sea and the mountains.  When the lover pledges love that will last until the mountains run into the sea, we are to think that they never will.  We have the idea of forevermore.  Also, when we hear of the eternal renown of great poets, artists, philosophers, or political or military leaders, we think they will be remembered forever. And when people speak of their children as a gift to the future, there is an idea of forevermore in the back of their minds.

These are fictions, but endearing ones and enduring ones.  There is no such thing as forevermore.  The mountains will erode.  The sea will dry up or freeze, the river change its course.  The artists and the generals will be forgotten.  It is only because our lives are so short that we imagine that there are some things that never change.  When you start listening for the phrases of forevermore, you will hear them in many places, but if they are just fictions, then why do we need them so much?

Meditation 3: Is Happiness Overrated?

It seems to be a given that people want to be happy.  But is it?  If that were the case, why do people hurt themselves?  Why do they make war against one another and bring unspeakable terror on each other's heads?  Why do they commit murder, suicide or find slower ways to kill themselves?  Isn't it because they all want to be happy?

This might seem paradoxical at first.  However, a little reflection reveals that for most people happiness is matter of moments, and most always in the past.  It is sometimes hard to realize that you are living through the good times, the happy times, until they are over.  Only after the golden age has passed is it recognized as having been made of gold, somewhat as in the old lament that youth is wasted on the young.

Maybe happiness is overrated.  Maybe if people forgot about happiness with a capital AH@, they would be much happier.  Comparing reality to happiness that is out of reach can lead to depression and sometimes even suicide.  Despair follows the realization that a certain conception of happiness is unattainable in this world.  At this point philosophy ends and religion begins.  The alternative is to live without longing for the unattainable.

Meditation 4: Having, Doing, Being

It is hard to be a shadow flitting across the face of the sun and disappearing from sight.  This flight of life is slowed by Having and Doing, but stopped by Being.  Our need to acquire "things" and to surround ourselves with mementos of the past is an attempt to Be someone, a person with an identity and a history.  We give ourselves a property qualification.  At the end of life all our possessions pass into other hands, just as our Being itself passes into the memories of others.

To seek one's Being in doing is more fulfilling and more true.  Through action we acquire skills instead of  "things."  These possessions come to life not in the having but the doing itself.  One becomes an accountant, for example, by learning how to read and write, how to handle numbers, how to analyze, judge and evaluate financial data.  It is by jumping through the appropriate hoops that accountants receive their qualification, and similarly for other professionals and skilled workers of all kinds.

Having looks for Being in the past.  Even dreams of making a fortune and buying all kinds of "things" have a backward looking cast, since the satisfaction that comes from possessions is always after he fact.  Doing looks for Being in the future, since actions have aims that the actions are designed to bring about.  Therefore, even though we are more secure in our own abilities than in our material possessions, we are not totally secure in either of them.  Being is something we wish to possess but never can attain completely while we are alive. Sometimes, however, on a sunny or rainy day, when we least expect it, something will appear that is so beautiful or sublime that it takes our selves away.  We forget our possessions and material worries.  We forget what we have to do.  For a moment, time is put away and we are left standing with the ground beneath our feet and the sky over our heads.  This may be as close to Being as we ever get.

Meditation 5: The Art of Conversation

A stock complaint of the last two or three centuries concerns the death of conversation.  This does not mean that no one talks anymore.  Indeed people talk a lot, and when not talking they listen to other people talk.  Talking is not the same as conversation.  It is easy to talk to someone without entering into a genuine relationship with him or her.  Two people can talk at one another and use conversation just to vent their feelings.  They wait their turn to vent, and don't really listen to what the other is saying, and why should they, since the other person is doing the same thing they are?

People speak to each another for many reasons, and they do many things with the words they speak.  Straightforward communication of information is one of the primary uses of speech. Others are to give commands or make requests.  Language is useful in these kinds of speaking.  Think of communication in commercial settings where words are spoken and money changes hands.

When people don't need to use language to accomplish practical ends, then conversation is possible, as well as idle chat and gossip.  What is the difference, and why is conversation an art?  Conversation is a true dialogue that is open to its own horizons and not congested by dogma.  It is a shared exploration of questions and theories.  Idle chat and gossip fill the same non-otherwise-engaged time that conversation fills, but it is merely a way of killing or spending time with someone, and not doing something special in talking together that the art of conversation brings about.  Whereas conversations develop over time, chat and gossip become repetitious and ultimately boring.  Conversation is an art because it takes practice and skill to elicit thought from talk, to share freely the gifts of language to move thoughts and emotions in the education of our lives.

Meditation 6: On Having an Open Mind

We all pride ourselves on having an open mind, but when it comes to dogmatic beliefs, our minds close and become stuck.  A dogmatic mind is like a crashed computer, only the static last image remains on the screen.  It is nothing to do with etymology, but I see a dogmatic mind as a bulldog that never lets go of what it fastens its teeth into. 

So what is so bad having a dogmatic closed mind, and what is so good about having a non-dogmatic open mind?  It is impossible to answer this question without taking sides.  My side is that of the open mind.  Why is this?  It is because dogmatism breeds intolerance.  Like ideology, dogmatism puts blinkers on what its adherents can see, disables their questioning faculties, and breeds fervor and fanaticism. 

Listen to the debates between the political contenders.  The issues involved are contentious enough to get people angry.  It is easy for feelings to run high when the questions touch people's fundamental beliefs, their fundamental likes and dislikes.  It is good that we have politics as a legislated process, for otherwise there would be fighting in the streets.

So what is good about having an open mind?  First, having an open mind does not mean that one never comes to any convictions in life.  It is perfectly possible to have an open mind and live a very principled life, without holding one's beliefs dogmatically.  Having an open mind means being prepared to question even your most central beliefs if there is occasion to do so.  It means being open, when the time comes, to having your mind changed by an argument better than one's own.  It means being able to think both sides of an issue, both the side you think is true and the side you think is false.  It also means being able to suspend your beliefs, to play devil's advocate, and to detach yourself somewhat from your own beliefs, actions and feelings.  Only living with an open mind gives us a chance to grow and change, for change is inevitable, while growth, unfortunately, is not.