Letters from a Stoic
This edition of Seneca's Epistles unites all 124 of the letters in a single volume, complete with thorough explanatory notes, an appendix, and an index of the names referred to in the text. The entirety of this compendium was penned by Seneca during his retirement and sent to his friend Lucilius Junior, a procurator of Sicily. At this late stage of life, Seneca held great experience in matters of both philosophy and governance, having served under the Emperor Nero for fifteen years. Despite the conversational tone present in many of Seneca's epistles, it isn't entirely clear whether Seneca actually corresponded with Lucilius. It is possible that Seneca simply wished to write fictional correspondence so as to experiment with the form, possibly recreating how he wisely explained ideas or concepts to individuals. The quotation: Vita sine litteris mors - 'Life without learning [is] death' - is derived from the 82nd epistle, and remains the motto for several educational institutions around the world.
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- Here is an attempt at curating the best parts of the book, Letters from a stoic. Do give it a read!
- Here you go:
For stoicism:
- "Enchiridion" of Epictetus. - "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius (my personal favorite that I keep reading over and over). - "Letters from a stoic" from Seneca.
It's not a lot of authors but they're pretty dense and should keep you busy for a long time.
For buddhism, it's a very vast subject, but I'd start with:
- "Siddhartha", this is a novel but will give you an overview on the buddhist system of thoughts. It's also very well written and inspiring.
- "What the Buddha Taught", also an introductory book on buddhist toughts. - Another introductory book is "Buddhism for Beginners".
From there, and based on your interests that you will discover along the way, go into the "suttas" which are the religious texts. You may even want to go to a time before buddhism with the vedas and the Upanishads that have so much to teach us.
There are many schools of buddhism, some closer to what we'd call a religion in the west while others purely philosophical (without any emphasis on a god). Zen buddhism is yet another category, where the teaching is based almost entirely on mediation alone but it's the exception, even if in the west we often think buddhism = meditation, but it's not so.
So, as you can see, it's more a tree than a line and you'll figure it out as you go if it resonnates with you and how deep you want to go.
Enjoy!
- I'm not sure I'd recommend Aurelius' Meditations as an easy-to-read introduction to Stoicism - it's a hefty tome (in the longer editions, I can't speak for the ~100-200 page versions) and incredibly repetitive, which is no surprise given it's essentially his personal journal. I'd much sooner recommend "Letters from a Stoic", a compilation of Seneca's letters to his friend Lucilius. It's much more conversational but still covers all the important ground of Stoicism.
- Been asking myself this question for a while, and have found the following reading to be very enlightening:
- Letters from a Stoic, Seneca
- On the Shortness of Life, Seneca
- Walden, Henry David Thoreau
- Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
- I was going to post that, Letters from a Stoic, single best book I read. I already bought it 4 or 5 times and end up gifting it to friends/family.
- If you’re just now finding your way to Seneca; I would recommend reading “Letters from a stoic”.
Not terse, easy to pick up and read in parts unsequentially.
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