Perennial Meditations

📩 Want ancient lessons for modern life delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the Perennial Meditations newsletter.Strangely, many of us know the feeling of loneliness all too well. We all have parts of ourselves that no one will truly understand. In my interview with Dr. Kelly Flanagan (author of True Companions), he explained: “Loneliness is one of the most misunderstood words in the English language, and it is one of the most misunderstood experiences in the human condition.”The theologian and psychologist Henri Nouwen put it this way, To live a spiritual life, we must first find the courage to enter the desert of our loneliness and change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. […]Support the show:Subscribe to Perennial Meditations on SubstackRead articles on Medium, and become a memberRecord a studio-quality podcast on Squadcast (start a free trial today) Follow us: Instagram | Twitter | Youtube | Website This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to Sundays with the Stoics on the Perennial Meditations podcast. Join us as we search for ancient lessons for modern life in Stoic philosophy.📩 Sign up for the Perennial Meditations newsletter to receive ancient lessons for modern life right to your inbox daily. In a letter titled, On True and False Friendship, Seneca wrote, “You have sent a letter to me through the hand of a “friend” of yours, as you call him. And in your very next sentence, you warn me not to discuss with him all the matters that concern you, saying that even you yourself are not accustomed to doing this; in other words, you have in the same letter affirmed and denied that he is your friend.If you consider any man a friend whom you do not trust as you trust yourself, you are mightily mistaken, and you do not sufficiently understand what true friendship means. Indeed, I would have you discuss everything with a friend; but first of all, discuss the man himself. When friendship is settled, you must trust; before friendship is formed, you must pass judgment.Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship, but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul. Speak as boldly with him as with yourself. [...]Support the show:Subscribe to Perennial Meditations on SubstackRead articles on Medium, and become a memberRecord a studio-quality podcast on Squadcast (start a free trial today)👉 Follow us: Instagram | Twitter | Youtube | Website  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

📩 Want ancient lessons for modern life delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the Perennial Meditations newsletter. All of us want to find happiness and many books, teachers, and resources attempt to help us become happier. Yet we all continue to suffer in some form or fashion. What if happiness is available right now, but this happiness cannot be without suffering?In his classic book No Mud, No Lotus, the late Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh explained, The art of happiness is also the art of suffering well. When we learn to acknowledge, embrace and understand our suffering, we suffer much less. Not only that, but we can also go further and transform our suffering into understanding, compassion, and joy for ourselves and others. One of the most challenging things to accept is the idea that there is no place where there’s only happiness and no suffering. […]Support the show:Subscribe to Perennial Meditations on SubstackRead articles on Medium, and become a memberRecord a studio-quality podcast on Squadcast (start a free trial today) Follow us: Instagram | Twitter | Youtube | Website This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to Sundays with Seneca on the Perennial Meditations podcast. Join us as we search for ancient lessons for modern life in Seneca’s timeless classic Letters from a Stoic. In a letter titled On Discursiveness in Reading, Seneca wrote, “Be careful, however, lest this reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady. You must linger among a limited number of master thinkers and digest their works if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind.”Seneca advised, So you should always read standard authors, and when you crave a change, fall back upon those whom you read before. Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well, and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day.“This is my own custom,” explained Seneca, “from the many things which I have read, I claim one part for myself.” […]Support the show:* Subscribe to Perennial Meditations on Substack* Read articles on Medium; become a member* Record a studio-quality podcast on Squadcast; start a free trial todayFollow us: Instagram | Twitter | Youtube | Website This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

📩 Want philosophical and spiritual lessons delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the Perennial Meditations newsletter: Immanuel Kant once said, “It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.” Similarly, the Buddha stressed that there is no need for dogmas or blind faith — one should experience the teachings firsthand.Buddhist scripture tells the story of the Buddha and a large sangha of monks going on a wandering tour. During this tour, the Buddha is met with perplexity and doubt, to which he responded,“It is fitting for you to be perplexed, it is fitting for you to be in doubt. Doubt has arisen in you about a perplexing matter. Do not go by oral tradition, by lineage of teaching, by hearsay, by a collection of texts, by logic, by inferential reasoning, by reasoned cogitation, by the acceptance of a view after pondering it, by the seeming competence of a speaker, or because you think, ‘The ascetic (or practice) is our teacher.’” […]Support the show:* Subscribe to Perennial Meditations on Substack* Read articles on Medium, and become a member* Record a studio-quality podcast on Squadcast (start a free trial today)Follow us: Instagram | Twitter | Youtube | Website This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to Sundays with Seneca on the Perennial Meditations podcast. Join us as we explore Seneca’s timeless classic Letters from a Stoic in search of wisdom for modern life. In the letter titled On Saving Time, Seneca wrote, “Continue to act thus, my dear Lucilius—set yourself free for your own sake; gather and save your time, which until lately has been forced from you, or filched away, or has merely slipped from your hands.” Seneca urges us to remember that time is our most valuable resource. He asked Lucilius: “What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily?”For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years be behind us are in death’s hands. Therefore, Lucilius, do as you write me that you are doing: hold every hour in your grasp. Lay hold of today’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow’s. While we are postponing, life speeds by. — SenecaNothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time. We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single thing, so fleeting and slippery […]Support the show: * Subscribe to the Perennial Meditations newsletter on Substack* Read my articles on Medium, and become a member* Record a studio-quality podcast on Squadcast; start a free trial todayFollow us: Instagram | Twitter | Youtube This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Perennial Meditations is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.What if there is more going on within us than we realize? The philosopher Kierkegaard once asked, “What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding, what if laughter were really tears?”In The Stranger, philosopher Albert Camus wrote,In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love. In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile. In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm. I realized, through it all, that… In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger — something better, pushing right back.Do you feel “something stronger” pushing back against the world?In his classic War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy explained that pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. It seems our emotions are often more intertwined and complex than we understand. But, what if the distance from hate to love or chaos to calm is shorter than we think?Can one simply decide to choose love, joy, or calm…?In the final chapter of The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus compares the absurdity of man’s life with the situation of Sisyphus, a figure of Greek mythology condemned to repeat the same meaningless task of forever pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again. […]Follow us: Instagram | Twitter | YoutubePerennial Meditations is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Sign up for 📩 The PATH Newsletter (our FREE weekly email) and receive a free 3-DAY Introduction to Ancient Lessons for Modern Life.How comfortable are you with questions that have no answer? The psychologist Carl Jung suggested, “The greatest and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble.” There are questions in life that can never be solved — only outgrown. This ‘outgrowing,’ observed Jung, consists of a new level of consciousness. [...]***If you're interested in a deeper dive, you can subscribe to In Search of Wisdom, a conversational podcast that interviews leading thinkers in search of timeless lessons for daily life. You can also read articles on ancient lessons for modern life at the PERENNIAL publication on Medium.Follow Perennial Leader Project:Twitter: twitter.com/searchwisdompodInstagram: instagram.com/searchwisdompodCheck out our YouTube ChannelSign-up for The PATH, our free newsletter (short reflections on wisdom). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Sign up for 📩 The PATH Newsletter (our FREE weekly email) and receive a free 3-DAY Introduction to Ancient Lessons for Modern Life. An essential practice of any philosophy of life is examing your actions. A century before Socrates famously proclaimed that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” the philosopher Pythagoras stressed the practice of self-reflection. [...]***If you're interested in a deeper dive, you can subscribe to In Search of Wisdom, a conversational podcast that interviews leading thinkers in search of timeless lessons for daily life. You can also read articles on ancient lessons for modern life at the PERENNIAL publication on Medium.Follow Perennial Leader Project:Twitter: twitter.com/searchwisdompodInstagram: instagram.com/searchwisdompodCheck out our YouTube ChannelSign-up for The PATH, our free newsletter (short reflections on wisdom). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Is practice or theory more important in acquiring virtue? The Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus was asked this very question 2,000 years ago. Theory teaches what we ought to do, and practice demonstrates it. Musonius taught that although understanding the theory behind the action enables one to speak, it is practice that enables one to act. [...]***If you're interested in a deeper dive, you can subscribe to In Search of Wisdom, a conversational podcast that interviews leading thinkers in search of timeless lessons for daily life. You can also read articles on ancient lessons for modern life at the PERENNIAL publication on Medium.Follow Perennial Leader Project:Twitter: twitter.com/searchwisdompodInstagram: instagram.com/searchwisdompodCheck out our YouTube ChannelSign-up for The PATH, our free newsletter (short reflections on wisdom). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe