This podcast episode refers to the blog post on The Discipline of Action, which is currently being updated. If you are looking for an exceptional way to jump-start your Stoic practice, consider the Theory & Practice Course offered by The College of Stoic Philosophers. This course is a mentor-guided, four-month-long course that provides an excellent foundation in both Stoic theory and practice.
This podcast episode refers to the blog post on The Discipline of Action, which is being completely updated. Blog posts referenced in this episode: The Connection Between Physics and Ethics Retaining the Soul of Stoicism
Today’s podcast is an introduction to the concept of Stoic spiritual exercises. Over the next few episodes, I will be covering three Stoic spiritual exercises: the discipline of assent, the discipline of desire, and the discipline of action. These three exercises or disciplines are the core of what I call the path of the prokopton. In episode 5, I covered the concepts of attention (prosoche). In episode 6, I covered what is and is not “up to us,” which is commonly called...
Epictetus, the freed slave turned Stoic philosopher and teacher, said the following: Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing. (Enchiridion 1) In episode 5 of the Stoicism On Fire podcast, I covered the practice of attention (prosoche),...
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. ~ Robert Frost[1] I have always loved those lines from Frost’s famous poem. They highlight the importance of the choices we make in life as the road ahead of us inevitably diverges into...
Note: An updated version of this post is now available as Episode 24 of the Stoicism On Fire podcast. People seek retreats for themselves in the countryside, by the seashore, in the hills; and you too have made it your habit to long for that above all else. But this is altogether unphilosophical, when it is possible for you to retreat into yourself whenever you please. (Meditations 4.3.1) The modern world is bursting with angst. News of an impending environmental...
UPDATE: This topic is also covered in Episode 6 of the Stoicism On Fire podcast Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing. (Enchiridion 1) The Stoic Dichotomy of Control (DOC) is simultaneously the most intuitively simple aspect...
What defined a Stoic above all else was the choice of a life in which every thought, every desire, and every action would be guided by no other law than that of universal Reason. ~ Pierre Hadot[1] The Stoics placed a rational, divine, and providential cosmos at the center of their philosophical system and relied on it as a guide for their every thought, desire, and action. For the Stoic, Nature is the measure of all things. As an expression...
Say to yourself at the start of the day, I shall meet with meddling, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, and unsociable people. They are subject to all these defects because they have no knowledge of good and bad. But I, who have observed the nature of the good, and seen that it is the right; and of the bad, and seen that it is the wrong; and of the wrongdoer himself, and seen that his nature is akin to my own—not...
[T]rue education consists precisely in this, in learning to wish that everything should come about just as it does. And how do things come about? As the one who ordains them has ordained… It is with this order of things in mind that we should approach our education, and not so as to change the existing order of things (for that has not been permitted to us, nor would it be better that it should be), but rather, things around...
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