We must also associate our imagination and affectivity with the training of our thought. Here, we must bring into play all the psychagogic techniques and rhetorical methods of amplification.35 We must formulate the rule of life to ourselves in the most striking and concrete way. We must keep life's events
"before our eyes," 36 and see them in the light of the fundamental rule. This is known as the exercise of memorization (mneme)31 and meditation (me/ete)38
on the rule of life.
The exercise of meditation39 allows us to be ready at the moment when an unexpected - and perhaps dramatic - circumstance occurs. In the exercise called praemeditatio malorum,40 we are to represent to ourselves poverty, suffering, and death. We must confront life's difficulties face to face, remembering that they are not evils, since they do not depend on us. This is why we must engrave striking maxims in our memory,41 so that, when the time comes, they can help us accept such events, which are, after all, part of the course of nature; we will thus have these maxims and sentences "at hand . " 42 What we need are persuasive formulae or arguments (epilogismoi),4l which we can repeat to ourselves in difficult circumstances, so as to check movements of fear, anger, or sadness.
First thing in the morning, we should go over in advance what we have to do during the course of the day, and decide on the principles which will guide and inspire our actions.44 In the evening, we should examine ourselves again, so as to be aware of the faults we have committed or the progress we have made 45 We should also examine our dreams.46
.
As we can see, the exercise of meditation is an attempt to control inner discourse, in an effort to render it coherent. The goal is to arrange it around o simple, universal principle: the distinction between what does and does not depend on us, or between freedom and nature. Whoever wishes to make prnl(rc1111 Ntri vcs, hy means of dialogue with himsclf47 or with others,48 as well 1111 hy writinic,4� to "carry on his rcflcct inn11 in due order" �0 and finally to arrive
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at a complete transformation of his representation of the world, his inner climate, and his outer behavior. These methods testify to a deep knowledge of the therapeutic powers of the world. si
The exercise of meditation and memorization requires nourishment. This is where the more specifically intellectual exercises, as enumerated by Philo, come in: reading, listening, research, and investigation. It is a relatively simple matter to provide food for meditation: one could read the sayings of the poets and philosophers, for instance, or the apoph1hegmata.s2 "Reading," however, could also include the explanation of specifically philosophical texts, works written by teachers in philosophical schools. Such texts could be read or heard within the framework of the philosophical instruction given by a professor.s3
Fortified by such instruction, the disciple would be able to study with precision the entire speculative edifice which sustained and justified the fundamental rule, as well as all the physical and logical research of which this rule was the summary.s4 "Research" and "investigation" were the result of putting instruction into practice. For example, we are to get used to defining objects and events from a physical point of view, that is, we must picture them as they are when situated within the cosmic Whole.ss Alternatively, we can divide or dissect events in order to recognize the elements into which they can be reduced.56
Finally, we come to the practical exercises, intended to create habits. Some of these are very much "interior," and very close to the thought exercises we have just discussed. "Indifference to indifferent things," for example, was nothing other than the application of the fundamental rule. s7 Other exercises, such as self-mastery and fulfilling the duties of social life, entailed practical forms of behavior. Here again, we encounter Friedmann's themes: "Try to get rid of your own passions, vanities, and the itch for talk about your own name
. . . Avoid backbiting. Get rid of pity and hatred. Love all free human beings."
There are a large number of treatises relating to these exercises in Plutarch: On Restraining Anger, On Peace of Mind, On Brotherly Love, On the Love of Children, On Garruli{y, On the Love of Wealth, On False Shame, On Envy and Haired. Seneca also composed works of the same genre: On Anger, On Benefits, On Peace of Mind, On Leisure In this kind of exercise, one very
.
simple principle is always recommended: begin practicing on easier things, so as gradually to acquire a stable, solid habit. 58
For the Stoic, then, doing philosophy meant practicing how to "live": that is, how to live freely and consciously. Consciously, in that we pass beyond the limits of individuality, to recognize ourselves as a part of the reason-animated cosmos. Freely, in that we give up desiring that which does not depend on us and is beyond our control, so as to attach ourselves only to what depends on us: actions which are just and in conformity with reason.
It is easy to understand that a philosophy like Stoicism, which re<1uircs vigilance, energy, and psychic tcm1ion, shoulJ consi111 c1111cntially in Nt>irituol
Spiritual Exercises
87
exercises. But it will perhaps come as a surprise to learn than Epicureanism, usually considered the philosophy of pleasure, gives just as pr,ominent a place as Stoicism to precise practices which are nothing other than spiritual exercises. The reason for this is that, for Epicurus just as much as for the Stoics, philosophy is a therapeutics: "We must concern ourselves with the healing of our own lives." 59 In this context, healing consists in bringing one's soul back from the worries of life to the simple joy of existing. People's unhappiness, for the Epicureans, comes from the fact that they are afraid of things which are not to be feared, and desire things which it is not necessary to desire, and which are beyond their control. Consequently, their life is consumed in worries over unjustified fears and unsatisfied desires. As a result, they are deprived of the only genuine plea.i;ure there is: the pleasure of existing. This is why Epicurean physics can liberate us from fear: it can show us that the gods have no effect on the progress of the world and that death, being complete dissolution, is not a part of life.60 Epicurean ethics: Epicurean, as deliverance from desires can deliver us from our insatiable desires, by distinguishing between desires which are both natural and necessary, desires which are natural but not necessary, and desires which are neither natural nor necessary. It is enough to satisfy the first category of desires, and give up the last and eventually the second as well - in order to ensure the absence of
-
worries,61 and to reveal the sheer joy of existing: "The cries of the flesh are:
'Not to be hungry', 'not to be thirsty', 'not to be cold'. For if one enjoys the possession of this, and the hope of continuing to possess it, he might rival even Zeus in happiness." 62 This is the source of the feeling of gratitude, which one would hardly have expected, which illuminates what one might call Epicurean piety towards all things: "Thanks be to blessed Nature, that she has made what is necessary easy to obtain, and what is not easy unnecessary." 6J