Saturday, February 16, 2019

Seneca - It's not a bad life if you know how to live it.

Every Saturday, UU A Way Of Life publishes an article on stoic philosophy.


The last few weeks we have been discussing quotes from Seneca's essay, "On The Shortness Of Life." This week, we note that Seneca tells us that life is long enough; the problem is that we waste much of it.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles the fourth of which is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This principle reminds me of Socrates saying that the unexamined life is not worth living. In psychology this examining is called "reflective functioning" and is considered one of the important components of emotional intelligence.

Examining one's life and engaging in reflective functioning contributes to one's self knowledge. Do you know what makes you tick? Do you know what and who you are?

We are told in A Course In Miracles that our function is forgiveness: first ourselves and then our brothers and sisters. And what are we to forgive? The misguided notion that we are the illusions that we project onto ourselves and the so called "world."

Bottom line is that what we think we know is mostly bull shit. It is impermanent as Buddha pointed out to us and the cause of our suffering.

Seneca shares with us the idea that it is a not a bad life if we know how to live it. Fact is that most of us are struggling to find our way back to our source. Having found it, life is plenty long enough.

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