2,000 years ago, a book written by an ancient Roman emperor to himself has been circulated to this day. If humanity can still have 2,000 years of history, it is foreseeable that at that time, there will still be people reading this book. This book is The Meditations, which is the personal philosophical reflection of Marco Aurelius.
As an imperial philosopher, he reigned for 20 years. This vast empire is plagued by wars and disasters. The larger the territory, the more people of different faiths and races in the country, and the more unstable factors. He spent most of his time in the barracks and on the march. During the day, he was a decisive emperor who took it as his duty to defeat the enemy, and at night, he was under the lamp, holding a scroll in his hand, reflecting on himself.
Plato's ideal was that a philosopher becoming an emperor, or an emperor studying philosophy, would bring justice, peace, and tranquility to the world. Mark. Aurelius tried to achieve his ideals, but did not do so quite. Emperors and philosophers are not only two identities, two faces, but also two completely different ways of thinking and acting.
Mark. Aurelius longed for peace, but he could not ignore foreign invasions and military mutinies, and he had to exercise his military command skills to effectively kill the enemy. He longed for peace, but natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes and plagues came many times, and he could not live in the palace, he needed to tour the territory and observe the people's feelings. He himself was well educated and a very talented and wise emperor, but his children failed to inherit his mind and were incompetent.
When he was a child, he had a strong interest in philosophy, and from the age of 11, he began to imitate the simple way of life of the Stoic school, and when he became an adult, he devoted himself to promoting the Stoic school. However, his personal simplicity and tightness could not fill the treasury, and successive civil strife and conquests finally hollowed out the empire that was no longer prosperous. His wisdom, diligence and self-discipline could not save the building that was about to fall. In 180 AD, that is, Mark. In the year of Aurelius' death, the Roman Empire began to gradually disintegrate.
The Meditations written by Ole in Kurama Lawton were not his name, and his manuscript had no title or title, only a footnote to "for himself.". Formally, this work can be seen as a collection of proverbs or as an essay on philosophy. In terms of content, this is a compilation of his life insights and philosophical reflections, involving ethics and morality, cosmic celestial bodies, gods, love, and the way of dealing with the world, but rarely talks about politics, military, and almost no private life and the public events that occurred at that time.
In ancient China, the highest demand for the emperor was the inner saint and the outer king, and there is no doubt that Aurelius did this. If we put aside the identity of the emperor and observe as a Stoic philosopher, to see how much he has achieved, it seems that there are some regrets, his only masterpiece" "Meditations", there is not much creative philosophical proposition, he talked about the topic, the predecessors have long begun to talk about, but he has a lot of his own unique insights.
His greatest contribution to the Stoics was the practice of this philosophy, in which he achieved the unity of knowledge and action. This was not easy, and this masochistic ascetic life accompanied him almost all his life. This emperor, who had the conditions for extravagance, set strict demands on himself by the standards of a saint.
Let's take a look at the Stoics. The ancient Greek philosopher Zeno founded the school of philosophy in Athens around 300 BC. Origins was a trip to Zeno. On the way to Athens, the ship he was riding sank into the Aegean Sea, and he lost all his belongings, but he found his body and mental qualities intact. So he tried to live that minimalist and simple life. He believed that man should abandon external material and physical pleasures in order to perfect his soul. I didn't expect this kind of sage philosophy to be all the rage. Aurelius also longed for this noble way of life.
The Meditations are divided into 12 volumes, with a total of 487 articles, the long one can be regarded as a broken chapter, and the short one can be regarded as a proverb.
Premier Wen Jiabao once said: "This book is placed at the head of my bed every day, and I may have read it 100 times, and I read it every day." "Meditations" is also my pillow book, and I have read it many times, but so far I have not been able to see it from the beginning to the end, and I have seen it wherever I turn it. This book is a bit boring and twisted to read, and I prefer to believe that there is a problem with my comprehension, or that there is a problem with the translation of this book, and the original should not be rejected thousands of miles away. Someone suggested buying the version translated by Liang Shiqiu, but I haven't bought it yet.
Although this book is difficult to read, after reading it, through those obscure words, we can still see this book, simple and unpretentious and sincere. There is speculation in the book, but it is not so profound; there is preaching, but it is not so long and tedious dogma, more like a dialogue between oneself and oneself.
Aurelius did not strive to establish a systematic philosophy, and we do not have to seek a complete system in the Meditations. He is not doing philosophical discussions, but has a strong interest in ethics and morality, and he is also good at self-reflection and trying to find a way of sainthood that can be universal. Curiously, though, the content of this book seems to convey the most of the wisdom of the mundane and the sophisticated.
The influence of the Stoics on him was profound, and the Meditations is hailed as the last major work of the school. This school advocates pantheism, in which divinity is the master of the world and that the individual is but part of the totality of God. Emphasize obedience to the Mandate of Heaven, be content with your position in society, and be indifferent, only in this way can you get happiness. Aurelius' understanding of the world and fate is also the same.
If we set aside the claims of this school of thought and look only at the contents of this book, you will find that Aurelius devotes more ink to the topic of "man", his philosophy, which can be called the philosophy of man, or the philosophy of life. He values boldness, humility, benevolence... These excellent qualities, he hopes that people love to work, understand the nature of life and the art of life, respect the public interest and work for it.
After all, he was not a pure philosopher, and his imperial status also determined the angle of his thinking. We wonder how much he wanted his subjects to practice these principles as he did, to be personally respected. It is a pity that there is only one Aurelius in the world, and it is a pity that his subjects did not have the opportunity to see the results of his thoughts, but fortunately, we did.