🖼️ Monday Muse
The Monday Muse is a weekly collection of reminders, insights, and maxims on the art of living. The term “muse” has two meanings: (1) a state of deep thought; and (2) a source of inspiration. May the following (in a small way) be a source of contemplation and wisdom to live your highest good.
📌 Perennial Reminder(s)
The American philosopher Scott Samuelson (a previous podcast guest) on philosophy and life:
To some degree, the ancient practice of philosophy in modernity was transformed into a theoretical discipline intended to clarify the concepts of science and morality. But that’s not the whole story. I believe that philosophy has never lost its character of being a way of life. …
When everyday life is deeply satisfying, philosophy is indeed the leisurely activity… simply a pleasurable exercise of our native desire to know. But when everyday life is less than fully satisfying, there will always be people who set out on a quest for meaning. All of a sudden that leisurely desire to know becomes a pressing desire to find the good life. And when the normal course of everyday life offers very little satisfying to our natures, when we regularly feel the dull aches of bad work, empty leisure, and disoriented politics, then philosophy becomes not just the practice of the few but the need of the many. […]
Source: The Deepest Human Life
📜 Perennial Maxim(s)
The French philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533—1592) on solitude:
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💡 Perennial Insight(s)
The American writer and Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield on the middle way:
Buddhist psychology is neither a path of denial nor of affirmation. It shows us the paradox of the universe, within and beyond the opposites. It teaches us to be in the world but not of the world. This realization is called the middle way. …
If we seek happiness purely through indulgence, we are not free. If we fight against ourselves and reject the world, we are not free. It is the middle path that brings freedom. … The middle way describes the middle ground between attachment and aversion, between being and non-being, between form and emptiness, between free will and determinism. The more we delve into the middle way the more deeply we come to rest between the play of opposites. […]
Source: The Wise Heart
💀 Dying Every Day
The Stoic philosopher Seneca (4 BC—65 AD) on the art of practice:
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
J.W. Bertolotti
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