Marcus Aurelius Morning Preparation: Stoic Affirmations from the Meditations

During the 170s of the common era, while ruling an empire and often away from Rome, Marcus Aurelius wrote notes to himself in Greek. What survived is not a public book. It is a private notebook, the Meditations, sentences a man wrote to remind himself how to live.

This is a short morning practice built from eight lines drawn from the Meditations. Some are close to verbatim, others are rendered in modern English to be repeatable in the mouth and the mind. Between each line there is a little silence. At the end, one quiet commitment for the day ahead.

These were notes he wrote to himself. We are not the first to need them.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Good morning. Settle for a moment, feet on the floor, hands resting. Notice the weight of your body where it meets the ground.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

During the one seventies of the Common Era, while ruling an empire, and often away from Rome, Marcus Aurelius wrote notes to himself in Greek. What survived is not a public book, it is a private notebook, reminders to himself, sentences to keep ready to hand. We don't know the exact form of his daily practice. What we know is that he wrote more than once about the difficulty of getting out of bed in the morning, and the kind of person he was trying to be when he did. So this is what we'll do eight lines from the meditations, then one quiet plan for the day.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

First the body. Three slow breaths. Breathe in for four and out for six again in four out six one more in and out slowly. You've woken up. That, Marcus thought, was already a kind of privilege. One from Book five The Getting Out of Bed Passage. I am rising to do the work of a human being. Not the work of someone trying to be impressive, not the work of someone trying to win, the work of a human being.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

two From Book two, one of his best known morning reminders. The people I meet today may be ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

But we were born to work together. three from Book Five.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Marcus, who could have anyone in the Empire killed, asked his own mind to stay open to being wrong. Most of us could try a little harder.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Six from Book Seven Confine yourself to the present seven from Book two.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

This is the heavy one. You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Not morbid, clarifying. If today were the last, what would matter? What would fall away? eight.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

From book ten The Line That Lands Hardest. Waste no more time arguing about what a good person should be.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Be one.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Marcus did this next bit too. He rehearsed the day before it began. Picture one difficulty you actually expect today. A meeting, a conversation, a temptation you keep losing to. What would the version of you that took these eight lines seriously actually do?

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Make one quiet plan. If this happens, then I will one sentence keep it. That's the practice.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Eight lines from a man who by all accounts had reasons to lose his temper every single day of his life, and tried in his notebook to remind himself not to.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Take a slow breath in. Out. Notice your hands, the weight of them. Go gently.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

And if you'd like more from the meditations, return to this track tomorrow. The lines tend to work better the more familiar they become. And if this helped, please leave a rating. It helps other listeners find the track. Thank you for practicing with me.