Contentment

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Yesterday I began by translating a chapter from La Belle Nivemaise and writing down vocabulary words. Then I worked on an awful math problem and translated three pages of French grammar besides. Today, French grammar and history. I simply refuse to do that wretched math every day. Daddy thinks it’s awful too. I’m almost better at it than he is, though in fact neither of us is any good, so we always have to call on Margot’s help. I’m also working away at my shorthand, which I enjoy. Of the three of us, I’ve made the most progress. I’ve read The Storm Family. It’s quite good, but doesn’t compare to Joop ter Heul. Anyway, the same words can be found in both books, which makes sense because they’re written by the same author. Cissy van Marxveldt is a terrific writer. I’m definitely going to let my own children read her books too. Moreover, I’ve read a lot of Korner plays. I like the way he writes. For example, Hedwig, The Cousin from Bremen, The Governess, The Green Domino, etc. Mother, Margot and I are once again the best of buddies. It’s actually a lot nicer that way. Last night Margot and I were lying side by side in my bed. It was incredibly cramped, but that’s what made it fun. She asked if she could read my diary once in a while. “Parts of it,” I said, and asked about hers. She gave me permission to read her diary as well. The conversation turned to the future, and I asked what she wanted to be when she was older. But she wouldn’t say and was quite mysterious about it. I gathered it had something to do with teaching; of course, I’m not absolutely sure, but I suspect it’s something along those lines. I really shouldn’t be so nosy. This morning I’lay on Peter’s bed, after first having chased him off it. He was furious, but I didn’t care. He might consider being a little more friendly to me from time to time. After all, I did give him an apple last night. I once asked Margot if she thought I was ugly. She said that I was cute and had nice eyes. A little vague, don’t you think? Well, until next time! Anne Frank PS. This morning we all took turns on the scale. Margot now weighs 132 pounds, Mother 136, Father 155, Anne 96, Peter 14g, Mrs. van Daan 117, Mr. van Daan 165. In the three months since I’ve been here, I’ve gained 19 pounds. A lot, huh? TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1942 Dearest Kitty, My hand’s still shaking, though it’s been two hours since we had the scare. I should explain that there are five fire extinguishers in the building. The office staff stupidly forgot to warn us that the carpenter, or whatever he’s called, was coming to fill the extinguishers.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Now our Secret Annex has truly become secret. Because so many houses are being searched for hidden bicycles, Mr. Kugler thought it would be better to have a bookcase built in front of the entrance to our hiding place. It swings out on its hinges and opens like a door. Mr. Voskuijl did the carpentry work. (Mr. Voskuijl has been told that the seven of us are in hiding, and he’s been most helpful.) Now whenever we want to go downstairs we have to duck and then jump. After the first three days we were all walking around with bumps on our foreheads from banging our heads against the low doorway. Then Peter cushioned it by nailing a towel stuffed with wood shavings to the doorframe. Let’s see if it helps! I’m not doing much schoolwork. I’ve given myself a vacation until September. Father wants to start tutoring me then, but we have to buy all the books first. There’s little change in our lives here. Peter’s hair was washed today, but that’s nothing special. Mr. van Daan and I are always at loggerheads with each other. Mama always treats me like a baby, which I can’t stand. For the rest, things are going better. I don’t think Peter’s gotten any nicer. He’s an obnoxious boy who lies around on his bed all day, only rousing himself to do a little carpentry work before returning to his nap. What a dope! Mama gave me another one of her dreadful sermons this morning. We take the opposite view of everything. Daddy’s a sweetheart; he may get mad at me, but it never lasts longer than five minutes. It’s a beautiful day outside, nice and hot, and in spite of everything, we make the most of the weather by lounging on the folding bed in the attic. Yours, Anne COMMENT ADDED BY ANNE ON SEPTEMBER 21, 1942: Mr. van Daan has been as nice as pie to me recently. I’ve said nothina, but have been enjoyina it while it lasts. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1942 Dearest Kitty, Mr. and Mrs. van Daan have had a terrible fight. I’ve never seen anything like it, since Mother and Father wouldn’t dream of shouting at each other like that. The

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  In his human disguise as the stranger, he seemed uncanny. Dionysus had always been the masked god—the mask a constant reminder that he was other than he appeared. His supreme epiphany was not an anthropomorphic apparition but a sudden disappearance when, hiding himself from all who believed only in what they could see, he vanished abruptly from the stage. A great silence immediately descended upon earth, in which his presence was felt more strongly than ever before. 44 The older Olympian vision was reaching beyond itself to the ineffable reality behind the symbols. The second great tragedy of this period was the death of Socrates in 399. At his trial, he was accused of failing to recognize the gods of the state, of introducing new gods, and of corrupting the young. The young Plato was at the trial, and it made a profound impression upon him. From a legal point of view, Socrates’ defense was inept. He could not have corrupted the young, he said. He did not know enough to teach anybody anything. He had worked for the good of Athens, but the polis had failed to appreciate this. Yet he could not abandon his mission. The very best thing a man could do was “to let no day pass without discussing goodness and all the other subjects about which you hear me talking.” 45 He failed to convince his judges and was condemned to death. Socrates had long been the object of suspicion and fear. Some of his associates, such as Alcibiades, had been involved in Athens’s military disasters, and Socrates became a scapegoat. He had said the right things at the wrong time. Devoted to Athens, he obeyed its laws to the end, refusing to escape from prison, even though the sentence was unjust, and turning down the option of exile: he was almost seventy years old, he said simply, and did not wish to live anywhere else. He was a champion of truth, and would die a witness (martys) to the untruth that was currently in the ascendant. Yet he died without anger or blame. There was nothing tragic about death, he told his pupils. Nobody knew what it was; it might even be a great good. Throughout his life, he believed that he had been accompanied by a daimon, a divine presence, which had spoken to him at crucial moments. It had never told him what to do, but had only warned him against a particular action. He found it encouraging that his inner voice had not spoken to him during his trial. He must be on the right track and going to the Good. His friends gathered around his bed while he drank the prescribed poison.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Now God has sent someone to help me: Peter. I fondle my pendant, press it to my lips and think, “What do I care! Petel is mine and nobody knows it!” With this in mind, I can rise above every nasty remark. Which of the people here would suspect that so much is going on in the mind of a teenage girl? SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1944 My dearest Kitty, There’s no reason for me to go on describing all our quarrels and arguments down to the last detail. It’s enough to tell you that we’ve divided many things like meat and fats and oils and are frying our own potatoes. Recently we’ve been eating a little extra rye bread because by four o’clock we’re so hungry for dinner we can barely control our rumbling stomachs. Mother’s birthday is rapidly approaching. She received some extra sugar from Mr. Kugler, which sparked off jealousy on the part of the van Daans, because Mrs. van D. didn’t receive any on her birthday. But what’s the point of boring you with harsh words, spiteful conversations and tears when you know they bore us even more? Mother has expressed a wish, which isn’t likely to come true any time soon: not to have to see Mr. van Daan’s face for two whole weeks. I wonder if everyone who shares a house sooner or later ends up at odds with their fellow residents. Or have we just had a stroke of bad luck? At mealtime, when Dussel helps himself to a quarter of the half-filled gravy boat and leaves the rest of us to do without, I lose my appetite and feel like jumping to my feet, knocking him off his chair and throwing him out the door. Are most people so stingy and selfish? I’ve gained some insight into human nature since I came here, which is good, but I’ve had enough for the present. Peter says the same. The war is going to go on despite our quarrels and our longing for freedom and fresh air, so we should try to make the best of our stay here. I’m preaching, but I also believe that if I live here much longer, I’ll turn into a dried-up old beanstalk. And all I really want is to be an honest-to-goodness teenager! Yours, Anne WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 19, 1944 Dearest Kitty, I (there I go again!) don’t know what’s happened, but since my dream I keep noticing how I’ve changed. By the way, I dreamed about Peter again last night and once again I felt his eyes penetrate mine, but this dream was less vivid and not quite as beautiful as the last. You know that I always used to be jealous of Margot’s relationship with Father. There’s not a trace of my jealousy left now; I still feel hurt when Father’s nerves cause him to be unreasonable toward me, but then I think, “I can’t blame you for being the way you are.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  The ideal family scene has now reached its high point. I want to read or study and Margot does too. Father and Mother ditto. Father is sitting (with Dickens and the dictionary, of course) on the edge of the sagging, squeaky bed, which doesn’t even have a decent mattress. Two bolsters can be piled on top of each other. “I don’t need these,” he thinks. “I can manage without them!” Once he starts reading, he doesn’t look up. He laughs now and then and tries to get Mother to read a story. “I don’t have the time right now!” He looks disappointed, but then continues to read. A little while later, when he comes across another good passage, he tries again: “You have to read this, Mother!” Mother sits on the folding bed, either reading, sewing, knitting or studying, whichever is next on her list. An idea suddenly occurs to her, and she quickly says, so as not to forget, “Anne, remember to . . . Margot, jot this down. . . “ After a while it’s quiet again. Margot slams her book shut; Father knits his forehead, his eyebrows forming a funny curve and his wrinkle of concentration reappearing I at the back of his head, and he buries himself in his book 1 again; Mother starts chatting with Margot; and I get curious and listen too. Pim is drawn into the conversation . . . Nine o’clock. Breakfast! FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1943 Dearest Kitty, Every time I write to you, something special has happened, usually unpleasant rather than pleasant. This time, however, something wonderful is going on. On Wednesday, September 8, we were listening to the seven o’clock news when we heard an announcement: “Here is some of the best news of the war so far: Italy has capitulated.” Italy has unconditionally surrendered! The Dutch broadcast from England began at eight-fifteen with the news: “Listeners, an hour and fifteen minutes ago, just as I finished writing my daily report, we received the wonderful news of Italy’s capitulation. I tell you, I never tossed my notes into the wastepaper basket with more delight than I did today!”

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  These were not simply logical reflections. Gotama was a very skilled yogin, and practiced this mindfulness with the disciplined concentration that enabled him to see these truths more “directly,” without the filter of self-protecting egotism that distorts them. But he did not stop at contemplating these negative truths; he also fostered the more “skillful” (kusala) states while performing his yogic exercises, sitting cross-legged, and practicing the breathing rituals of pranayama. He was not only eliminating hatred from his mind, but making sure that it was also “full of compassion, desiring the welfare of all living beings.” He was not only freeing him-self of laziness and inertia, but cultivating “a mind that is lucid, conscious of itself, and completely alert.” By systematically banishing one anxious thought after another, he found that his mind became “calm and still . . . had outgrown debilitating doubt,” and was no longer plagued by “unprofitable [akusala] mental states.”81 If performed at sufficient depth, in the yogic manner, these mental exertions could, he believed, transform the restless and destructive tendencies of the unconscious and conscious mind. In later years, Gotama claimed that this yogic mindfulness brought to birth a different kind of human being, one that was not dominated by craving, greed, and selfishness. He had almost killed himself by undergoing excessive mortification, and was convinced that disciplined, systematically acquired compassion could take the place of the old punitive asceticism, and give the aspirant access to hitherto unknown dimensions of his humanity. Every day, while practicing yoga, he entered into an alternative state of consciousness, fusing each successive trance with a feeling of positive benevolence toward the entire world.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Thus the king had to plow the first furrow after the winter rest; only then could the peasants begin their work of cultivation. In the spring, his wives ceremonially presented themselves to the king, so that he could open the matrimonial season. At the end of autumn, the king rode out to the northern suburbs, with his ministers and officers, to greet winter and bring back the cold. There he announced that the season of rest and darkness had begun, and ordered the peasants to return to their villages. As usual, he led the way, offering sacrifice and sealing his own palace gates. Then townsfolk and peasants followed his example, and retired to their homes. Our information about the royal rites comes from the ancient Chinese classics . We do not know how historical these descriptions were; they could be largely utopian, but the ideals they expressed were deeply embedded in the Chinese imagination and would be crucial to the Axial Age. In the other cities, the princes, the local sons of Heaven, probably officiated at similar ceremonies. They served as retainers at the royal court and ate at the king’s table; by sharing the food that he gave them, they absorbed some of his daode. In the capital, the king revered the deceased Shang and Zhou monarchs in elaborate, dramatic rites, while in the principalities the princes honored their own forebears, the founding fathers of the city, in the ancestral temple next to their residence. Like the Shang, the Zhou held a special “hosting” ( bin ) sacrifice every five years and invited the nature gods and ancestors to a great banquet. For ten days, the court made elaborate preparations, fasting, cleaning the temple, and bringing the memorial tablets of the ancestors from their niches and setting them up in the palace courtyard. On the day of the feast, the king and queen processed separately to the courtyard; then the younger members of the royal family, each impersonating an ancestor, were led in by a priest, greeted reverently, and escorted to their places. Animals were slaughtered in their honor, and while the meat was cooking, priests ran through the streets calling any stray gods to the feast, crying, “Are you here? Are you here?” There was beautiful music, stately feasting, and everybody played their roles with the utmost decorum. After the banquet—a holy communion with the ancestors, who were mystically present in their young descendants—hymns celebrated the perfect performance of the rite: “Every custom and rite is observed,” the participants sang; “every smile, every word is in place.” 50 Every single facial gesture, every movement of their bodies, and every word that they uttered during the bin was prescribed. The participants left their individuality behind to conform to the ideal world of the ritual. “We have striven very hard,” they continued, “that the rites may be without mistake.”

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The conventual establishment was intended to be a self-sufficient corporation, a sort of socialistic community doing all its own work and supplying all its own stuffs and food.569 The altruistic principle was supposed to rule. They had their orchards and fields, and owned their own cattle. Some of them gathered honey from their own hives, had the fattest fish ponds, sheared and spun their own wool, made their own wine, and brewed their own beer. In their best days the monks set a good example of thrift. The list of minor officials in a convent was complete, from the cellarer to look after the cooking and the chamberlain to look after the dress of the brethren, to the cantor to direct the singing and the sacristan to care for the church ornaments. In the eleventh century the custom was introduced of associating lay brethren with the monasteries, so that in all particulars these institutions might be completely independent. Nor was the convent always indifferent to the poor.570 But the tendency was for it to centre attention upon itself, rather than to seek the regeneration and prosperity of those outside its walls. Like many other earthly ideals, the ideal of peace, virtue, and happy contentment aimed at by the convent was not reached, or, if approached in the first moments of overflowing ardor, was soon forfeited. For the method of monasticism is radically wrong. Here and there the cloister was the "audience chamber of God." But it was well understood that convent walls did not of themselves make holy. As, before, Jerome, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine had borne testimony to that effect, so now also did different voices. Ivo of Chartres (d. 1116) condemns the monks who were filled with the leaven of pride and boast of their ascetic practices and refers to such passages as 1 Tim. 4:8 and Rom. 14:17. The solitudes of the mountains and forests, he says, will not make men holy, who do not carry with them rest of soul, the Sabbath of the heart, and elevation of mind. Peter of Cluny wrote to a hermit that his separation from the world would not profit unless he built a strong wall against evil in his own heart, and that wall was Christ the Saviour. Without this protection, retirement to solitude, mortifications of the body, and journeyings in distant lands, instead of availing, would bring temptations yet more violent. Every mode of life, lay and clerical, monastic and eremitic, has its own temptations.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  CHAPTER VIII. CHRISTIAN ART. § 102. Religion and Art. Man is a being intellectual, or thinking and knowing, moral, or willing and acting, and aesthetic, or feeling and enjoying. To these three cardinal faculties corresponds the old trilogy of the true, the good, and the beautiful, and the three provinces of science, or knowledge of the truth, virtue, or practice of the good, and art, or the representation of the beautiful, the harmony of the ideal and the real. These three elements are of equally divine origin and destiny. Religion is not so much a separate province besides these three, as the elevation and sanctification of all to the glory of God. It represents the idea of holiness, or of union with God, who is the original of all that is true, good, and beautiful. Christianity, as perfect religion, is also perfect humanity. It hates only sin; and this belongs not originally to human nature, but has invaded it from without. It is a leaven which pervades the whole lump. It aims at a harmonious unfolding of all the gifts and powers of the soul. It would redeem and regenerate the whole man, and bring him into blessed fellowship with God. It enlightens the understanding, sanctifies the will, gives peace to the heart, and consecrates even the body a temple of the Holy Ghost. The ancient word: "Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto," is fully true only of the Christian. "All things are yours," says the Apostle. All things are of God, and for God. Of these truths we must never lose sight, notwithstanding the manifold abuses or imperfect and premature applications of them. Hence there is a Christian art, as well as a Christian science, a spiritual eloquence, a Christian virtue. Feeling and imagination are as much in need of redemption, and capable of sanctification, as reason and will. The proper and highest mission of art lies in the worship of God. We are to worship God "in the beauty of holiness." All science culminates in theology and theosophy, all art becomes perfect in cultus. Holy Scripture gives it this position, and brings it into the closest connection with religion, from the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of the Revelation, from the paradise of innocence to the new glorified earth. This is especially true of the two most spiritual and noble arts, of poetry and music, which proclaim the praise of God—in all the great epochs of the history of his kingdom from the beginning to the consummation. A considerable part of the Bible: the Psalms, the book of Job, the song of Solomon, the parables, the Revelation, and many portions of the historical, prophetical, and didactic books, are poetical, and that in the purest and highest sense of the word.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Peter swears; I laugh and slip out of the room. Freedom in the Annex Five-thirty. Bep’s arrival signals the beginning of our nightly freedom. Things get going right away. I go upstairs with Bep, who usually has her dessert before the rest of us. The moment she sits down, Mrs. van D. begins stating her wishes. Her list usually starts with “Oh, by the way, Bep, something else I’d like. . .” Bep winks at me. Mrs. van D. doesn’t miss a chance to make her wishes known to whoever comes upstairs. It must be one of the reasons none of them like to go up there. Five forty-five. Bep leaves. I go down two floors to have a look around: first to the kitchen, then to the private office and then to the coal bin to open the cat door for Mouschi. After a long tour of inspection, I wind up in Mr. Kugler’s office. Mr. van Daan is combing all the drawers and files for today’s mail. Peter picks up Boche and the warehouse key; Pim lugs the typewriters upstairs; Margot looks around for a quiet place to do her office work; Mrs. van D. puts a kettle of water on the stove; Mother comes down the stairs with a pan of potatoes; we all know our jobs. Soon Peter comes back from the warehouse. The first question they ask him is whether he’s remembered the bread. No, he hasn’t. He crouches before the door to the front office to make himself as small as possible and crawls on his hands and knees to the steel cabinet, takes out the bread and starts to leave. At any rate, that’s what he intends to do, but before he knows what’s happened, Mouschi has jumped over him and gone to sit under the desk. Peter looks all around him. Aha, there’s the cat! He crawls back into the office and grabs the cat by the tail. Mouschi hisses, Peter sighs. What has he accomplished? Mouschi’s now sitting by the window licking herself, very pleased at having escaped Peter’s clutches. Peter has no choice but to lure her with a piece of bread. Mouschi takes the bait, follows him out, and the door closes. I watch the entire scene through a crack in the door. Mr. van Daan is angry and slams the door. Margot and I exchange looks and think the same thing: he must have worked himself into a rage again because of

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  I have plenty of dreams, but the reality is that we’ll have to stay here until the war is over. We can’t ever go outside, and the only visitors we can have are Miep, her husband Jan, Bep Voskuijl, Mr. Voskuijl, Mr. Kugler, Mr. Kleiman and Mrs. Kleiman, though she hasn’t come because she thinks it’s too dangerous. COMMENT ADDED BY ANNE IN SEPTEMBER 1942: Daddy’s always so nice. He understands me perfectly, and I wish we could have a heart-to-heart talk sometime without my bursting instantly into tears. But apparently that has to do with my age. I’d like to spend all my time writing, but that would probably get boring. Up to now I’ve only confided my thoughts to my diary. I still haven’t gotten around to writing amusing sketches that I could read aloud at a later date. In the future I’m going to devote less time to sentimentality and more time to reality. FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 1942 Dear Kitty, I’ve deserted you for an entire month, but so little has happened that I can’t find a newsworthy item to relate every single day. The van Daans arrived on July 13. We thought they were coming on the fourteenth, but from the thirteenth to sixteenth the Germans were sending out call-up notices right and left and causing a lot of unrest, so they decided it would be safer to leave a day too early than a day too late. Peter van Daan arrived at nine-thirty in the morning (while we were still at breakfast). Peter’s going on sixteen, a shy, awkward boy whose company won’t amount to much. Mr. and Mrs. van Daan came half an hour later. Much to our amusement, Mrs. van Daan was carrying a hatbox with a large chamber pot inside. “I just don’t feel at home without my chamber pot,” she exclaimed, and it was the first item to find a permanent place under the divan. Instead of a chamber pot, Mr. van D. was lugging a collapsible tea table under his arm. From the first, we ate our meals together, and after three days it felt as if the seven of us had become one big family. Naturally, the van Daans had much to tell about the week we’d been away from civilization. We were especially interested in what had happened to our apartment and to Mr. Goldschmidt. Mr. van Daan filled us in: “Monday morning at nine, Mr. Goldschmidt phoned and asked if I could come over. I went straightaway and found a very distraught Mr. Goldschmidt. He showed me a note that the Frank family had left behind. As instructed, he was planning to bring the cat to the neighbors, which I agreed was a good idea. He was afraid the house was going to be searched, so we w=nt through all the rooms, straightening up here and there and clearing the breakfast things off the table. Suddenly I saw a notepad on Mrs.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  He was behaving like a great power, which was forcibly bringing peace to the region by destroying the destructive weapons of his enemies: All over the world he puts an end to wars He breaks the bow, he snaps the spear, He gives shields to the flames. 47 The other nations would be compelled to accept the kingship of Yahweh and to hammer their swords into plowshares, their spears into sickles. 48 To achieve the final triumph, Ahaz should not engage in worldly politics, but put his faith in Yahweh alone. In the Zion cult, Jerusalem was a city of the “poor.” But poverty did not mean material deprivation. The obverse of “poor” was not “rich” but “proud.” As they climbed up Mount Zion to the temple, the people used to sing this psalm: Yahweh, my heart has no lofty ambitions, My eyes do not look too high. I am not concerned with great affairs Or marvels beyond my scope. Enough for me to keep my soul tranquil and quiet Like a child in its mother’s arms, as content as a child that has been weaned. Israel, rely on Yahweh, Now and for always! 49 Now Isaiah told Ahaz that he should not depend on human strength, foreign alliances, or military superiority, but on Yahweh. It was idolatry to depend arrogantly upon mere human armies and fortifications. This reliance on Yahweh alone was a Judean version of the northern cultic movement to worship Yahweh exclusively, and Isaiah’s insistence on humility and surrender seems at first sight similar to the Axial spirituality of kenosis. Yet it also inflated the national ego of Judah at a perilous juncture of history. Isaiah’s revolutionary idea that Yahweh was not simply the patronal god of Israel, but could control the gods of other nations, was based upon a defiant patriotism. In many ways, Isaiah belonged to the old cultic world. He preached a violent, agonistic vision, which absorbed and endorsed the aggressive politics of the time. It was also an essentially magical theology, which encouraged people to believe that a divine potency made Jerusalem invincible. Reliance upon Yahweh alone would prove to be a very dangerous basis for foreign policy. The northern kingdom did not wish to leave everything in Yahweh’s hands. When Tiglath-pileser died, in 724, King Hoshea of Israel joined other vassals in a resistance movement, refused to pay tribute, and appealed to Egypt for support. Immediately, the new Assyrian king, Shalmaneser V, threw Hoshea into prison and besieged Samaria. The city capitulated in 722, the ruling class was deported to Assyria, and new settlers were drafted in to rebuild the region according to the Assyrian worldview. Now, instead of two official Yahweh traditions, there was only one.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  No, the Buddha replied. He had simply revealed a new potential in human nature. It was possible to live in this world of pain at peace, in control, and in harmony with one’s fellow creatures. Once people had cut the roots of their egotism, they lived at the peak of their capacity and would activate parts of their beings that were normally dormant. How should the Brahmin describe him? “Remember me,” the Buddha told him, “as one who is awake.” 109 8 ALL IS ONE (c. 400 to 300 BCE) By the fourth century, the economic and political transformation of China was progressing at astonishing speed. The wars continued and the princes needed to fund their expensive campaigns, so they encouraged the development of the new mercantile economy. 1 In the late fifth century, the Chinese had discovered how to cast iron, and with their strong iron tools were able to clear an immense amount of forest land. By the end of the fourth century, the Wei Valley, the Chengdu basin, and the central plain were under continuous cultivation. Farmers learned to use manure, to distinguish different kinds of soil, and the best times to plow, sow, or drain the land. Harvests improved, and despite the destructive warfare, there was a rapid growth in population. A new class of merchants arose, who worked closely with the princes, building foundries and developing mines. The most enterprising merchants established large trading empires and took their goods to north Korea, the steppes, and even as far as India, trading in textiles, cereals, salt, metals, hides, and leather, and employing an ever-growing number of artisans, agents, and fleets of carts and boats. The cities were no longer simply political and religious capitals, but had become centers of trade and industry, accommodating thousands of citizens. In the feudal period, the walls of the little palace towns had measured a mere five hundred yards; now some city walls were over two miles long. In the fourth century, Linzi, the capital of Qi, was the largest city in China, with three hundred thousand inhabitants. An urban class of craftsmen and artisans, no longer tied to the royal palace, had emerged there, and the wealthy enjoyed the new luxuries and the thriving entertainment industry. The princes of Qi became patrons of the leading scholars of China, and in 357 founded the Jixia Academy beside the western gate of Linzi, where shi literati lived in well- appointed apartments on generous stipends. 2 Many enjoyed these changes, but others were becoming uneasily aware that their lives were very different from the ritualized existence of their forefathers.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Ataraxia was also the goal of Pyrrho of Elis (c. 365–275), founder of the Skeptics. We know very little about him. He wrote nothing and indeed no Skeptical texts were produced until about five hundred years after his death. Pyrrho seems to have insisted that it was impossible to be certain about anything, so the best way to live at peace was to suspend judgment. People who were dogmatic and self-assertive were doomed to unhappiness. “Nothing is honourable or base or just or unjust,” he is reported to have said. “Convention and habit are the basis of everything that men do, for each thing is no more this than that.”61 This was inconsistent, of course. If it was true that we knew nothing, how could Pyrrho know that even this was true—or evolve a philosophy at all? But Pyrrho apparently saw Skepticism as a therapy, not as an epistemological theory. People became too agitated by their strong opinions; they were too anxious to discover the truth. So a Skeptic would kindly undermine their certainty, flushing all this intellectual turmoil out of their systems. Sextus Empiricus, the first Skeptical writer, who lived in the third century CE, explained that Pyrrho and his disciples began by trying to find truth in order to gain peace of mind. But when they were unable to achieve this to their satisfaction, they gave up and immediately felt much better. “When they suspended judgement, tranquillity followed as it were fortuitously, as a shadow follows a body.”62 So they became known as skeptikoi (“inquirers”) because they were still looking, had not closed their minds, but had learned that an uncluttered attitude, open to all possibilities, was the secret of happiness.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  He died on Wednesday, May 26, 735, of a complaint accompanied with asthma, from which he had long suffered. The circumstances of his death are related by his pupil Cuthbert.1046 During Lent of the year 735 Bede carried on the translation of the Gospel of John and "some collections out of the Book of Notes" of Archbishop Isidore of Seville. The day before he died he spent in dictating his translations, saying now and then, "Go on quickly, I know not how long I shall hold out, and whether my Maker will not soon take me away." He progressed so far with his rendering of John’s Gospel that at the third hour on Wednesday morning only one chapter remained to be done. On being told this he said, "Take your pen, and make ready, and write fast." The scribe did so, but at the ninth hour Bede said to Cuthbert, ’ "I have some little articles of value in my chest, such as pepper, napkins and incense: run quickly, and bring the priests of our monastery to me, that I may distribute among them the gifts which God has bestowed on me. The rich in this world are bent on giving gold and silver and other precious things. But I, in charity, will joyfully give my brothers what God has given unto me." He spoke to every one of them, admonishing and entreating them that they would carefully say masses and prayers for him, which they readily promised; but they all mourned and wept, especially because he said, "they should no more see his face in this world." They rejoiced for that he said, "It is time that I return to Him who formed me out of nothing: I have lived long; my merciful Judge well foresaw my life for me; the time of my dissolution draws nigh; for I desire to die and to be with Christ." Having said much more, he passed the day joyfully till the evening, and the boy [i.e., his scribe] said, "Dear master, there is yet one sentence not written." He answered, "Write quickly." Soon after the boy said, "It is ended." He replied, "It is well, you have said the truth. It is ended. Receive my head into your hands, for it is a great satisfaction to me to sit facing my holy place, where I was wont to pray, that I may also sitting call upon my Father." And thus on the pavement of his little cell, singing, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost," when he had named the Holy Ghost, he breathed his last, and so departed to the heavenly kingdom."

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  In 817 Ratgar was deposed and Raban’s friend Eigil elected in his place.1225 With Eigil a better day dawned for the monastery. Raban was now unhampered in teaching and able once more to write. The school grew so large that it had to be divided. Those scholars who were designed for the secular life were taught in a separate place outside the monastery. The library was also much increased. In 822 Eigil died and Raban was elected his successor. He proved a good leader in spiritual affairs. He took personal interest in the monks, and frequently preached to them. He paid particular attention to the education of the priests. He compiled books for their especial benefit, and as far as possible taught in the school, particularly on Biblical topics. The principal of the school under him was Canadidus, already mentioned as the biographer of Eigil.1226 His most famous pupils belong to this period: Servatus Lupus, Walahfrid Strabo (826–829) and Otfrid. He showed his passion for collecting relics, which he enshrined in a very costly way. He also built churches and extended the influence of Fulda by colonizing his monks in different places, adding six affiliated monasteries to the sixteen already existing.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Other books are optional. Calisthenics: Daily. Singing: Only softly, and after 6 P.M. Movies: Prior arrangements required. Classes: A weekly correspondence course in shorthand. Courses in English, French, math and history offered at any hour of the day or night. Payment in the form of tutoring, e.g., Dutch. Separate department for the care of small household pets (with the exception of vermin, for which special permits are required). Mealtimes: Breakfast: At 9 A.M. daily except holidays and Sundays; at approximately 11:30 A.M. on Sundays and holidays. Lunch: A light meal. From 1:15 P.M. to 1:45 P.M. Dinner: Mayor not be a hot meal. Mealtime depends on news broadcasts. Obligations with respect to the Supply Corps: Residents must be prepared to help with office work at all times. Baths: The washtub is available to all residents after 9 A.M. on Sundays. Residents may bathe in the bathroom, kitchen, private office or front office, as they choose. Alcohol: For medicinal purposes only. The end. Yours, Anne THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1942 Dearest Kitty, Just as we thought, Mr. Dussel is a very nice man. Of course he didn’t mind sharing a room with me; to be honest, I’m not exactly delighted at having a stranger use my things, but you have to make sacrifices for a good cause, and I’m glad I can make this small one. “If we can save even one of our friends, the

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  He wrote nothing and indeed no Skeptical texts were produced until about five hundred years after his death. Pyrrho seems to have insisted that it was impossible to be certain about anything, so the best way to live at peace was to suspend judgment. People who were dogmatic and self-assertive were doomed to unhappiness. “Nothing is honourable or base or just or unjust,” he is reported to have said. “Convention and habit are the basis of everything that men do, for each thing is no more this than that.” 61 This was inconsistent, of course. If it was true that we knew nothing, how could Pyrrho know that even this was true—or evolve a philosophy at all? But Pyrrho apparently saw Skepticism as a therapy, not as an epistemological theory. People became too agitated by their strong opinions; they were too anxious to discover the truth. So a Skeptic would kindly undermine their certainty, flushing all this intellectual turmoil out of their systems. Sextus Empiricus, the first Skeptical writer, who lived in the third century CE, explained that Pyrrho and his disciples began by trying to find truth in order to gain peace of mind. But when they were unable to achieve this to their satisfaction, they gave up and immediately felt much better. “When they suspended judgement, tranquillity followed as it were fortuitously, as a shadow follows a body.” 62 So they became known as skeptikoi (“inquirers”) because they were still looking, had not closed their minds, but had learned that an uncluttered attitude, open to all possibilities, was the secret of happiness. The Axial Age was well and truly over for these Hellenistic philosophers, and yet in their work we find ghostly relics of the great pioneering spiritualities that sages and prophets had been exploring for more than five hundred years. The heroic striving of Confucius, the Buddha, Ezekiel, and Socrates had been replaced by a more modest, attainable, and, as it were, “budget” version. In Zeno’s ideal of a life attuned to nature, there was a hint of Daoism, but instead of yearning to change the world by aligning himself with the natural process, the Stoic simply resigned himself to the status quo. There is a fatalism in all these third-century Greek philosophies that was anathema to the Axial Age. The Buddha had warned his disciples not to become attached to metaphysical opinions; the mystics of the Upanishads had reduced their interlocutors to silence by pointing out the fallacy of rational thought, but they had not simply “suspended judgement” like the Skeptics. They had used the experience of dismantling ordinary habits of thought to give people intimations of a mystery that lay beyond words and conceptual ideas. The renouncers of India had left the world behind, but not to live in the suburban Epicurean Garden, and the Buddha had insisted that his monks must return to the agora and practice compassion for all living beings. Herein lay the difference. These Hellenistic philosophers made no heroic ethical demands.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  In Cheng, the master diviner approached Zichan, the prime minister, and asked him to offer a special sacrifice to appease Heaven. Zichan shook his head. “The Way of Heaven is far removed; it is the Way of man that is near us,” he replied. “We cannot reach the former; what means have we of knowing it?” 89 Since Heaven was beyond our ken, it was better to concentrate on what lay within our grasp. At about this time, a young man called Kong Qiu (551–479) had almost completed his studies and was about to take a minor post in the administration of Lu. His family were newcomers to the principality, since his ancestors had been members of the ducal house of Song, but like so many other aristocrats, the family was forced to emigrate. Kong Qiu was thus brought up in genteel poverty, and had to earn his living. He was drawn to the ritualists and was passionately devoted to the Zhou dynasty, especially the great duke of Zhou, who sometimes visited him in his dreams. Kong Qiu was an avid student. By the age of thirty, he had mastered his study of the li, and by the time he was forty, he says, he had become a learned man. Many of the shi who had been reduced to penury were bitter and resentful, but Kong Qiu understood the deeper meaning of the rites and was convinced that, properly interpreted, they could bring the people of China back to the Way of Heaven. Later Kong Qiu’s disciples would proudly call him Kongfuzi, “our Master Kong.” In the West, we call him Confucius. China’s Axial Age was about to begin. 3 KENOSIS (c. 800 to 700 BCE ) T he eighth century was a period of religious transition in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and at this time we see the first stirrings of the Axial spirituality that would come to fruition there some two hundred years later. Where the Vedic Indians had achieved fresh insight by meditating on the sacrificial rituals, the people of Israel and Judah analyzed the current events of the Middle East, and found that the unfolding history of their region challenged many of their notions of the divine. Some were also beginning to be critical of ritual and wanted a more ethically based religion. During the eighth century, the art of literacy spread through the western Semitic world and the eastern Mediterranean. Hitherto writing had been used chiefly for practical, administrative purposes, but now scribes began to develop a royal archive to preserve the ancient stories and customs. Toward the end of the century, the earliest part of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, was probably committed to writing.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  After the dark age, the old political institutions had been so thoroughly destroyed that the Greeks could start again with a clean slate. 54 The eighth century saw a rapid growth in population and an improvement in agricultural technique, which enabled farmers to produce a surplus of crops. They needed security and some form of social organization to guard their land and crops from rivals. The Greeks could now use their extra produce for trade, could fund civic projects, and from the start, the whole community may have been involved in the decision making. 55 By the end of the century, poleis had been established throughout the Hellenic world, all bearing a marked family resemblance. A polis had to have a city wall, a temple, an assembly, and a harbor. 56 There was no distinction between the countryside, on which the economy depended, and the urban center, the core of social identity. Peasants and city dwellers had the same rights and responsibilities, and sat in the same governing assemblies. All citizens were free to use the public buildings and the agora, an open space at the heart of each city, where they could do business and hold discussions. Each polis had its own patronal deity, and each developed distinctive sacrifices and festivals that helped to bind the citizens together. The polis was an egalitarian society. From a very early date, farmers were highly critical of the old nobility and refused to accept a subservient role. Everybody could become a citizen—except slaves and women. The polis was an aggressively male state. During the dark age, women had enjoyed a better status, but in the new cities they were marginalized, segregated in secluded courtyards of the family home, and were rarely seen on the streets. There had also been an increase in the number of slaves. Most citizens owned their own land, and it was considered degrading to work for others or earn a salary. In other parts of the ancient world, kings had to limit the independence of their subjects in order to achieve a monarchical state, but Greek peasants refused to give up their traditional freedoms, and the aristocrats created autonomous city-states rather than large kingdoms that required local rulers to submit to an overlord. This ideal of independence was not a Greek invention. The Greeks probably preserved the old tribal assemblies and councils that other peoples abandoned when they developed large states and empires. 57 As we see in the epics of Homer, for a Greek aristocrat of the eighth century, public speaking was as important as military prowess. 58 In the Mycenaean period, the king had been simply primus inter pares, and had to listen to the advice of the lords. Discussion of public policy continued in the polis, and because the farmers took part in government, they also had to develop debating skills. Everybody was forced, in however rudimentary a way, to think about abstract principles of justice and morality, as they argued about practical problems.