…the house I live in…

“Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.”

To recap: My use of the word spiritual: the means by which the individual strives to be a better human being.

To recap: Montaigne’s discipline of attention is extraordinary, especially related to self-reflection.

Nietzsche said that all philosophy reflects the philosopher’s biography.^1. One of the aversions Nietzsche had to systematic philosphy was that the philosophy and the philosopher could not be teased apart. In other words, any system of philosophy (think Kant, Plato, or Descartes) cannot be seperated from the ideosyncratic experiences of the philosopher. Secondly, Nietzsche saw life so complex and unsystamatic that reducing it to a system was an exercise in futility. These are among the reasons he dismissed systematic philosophy, and the philosophers who created it, with such vehemence. Conversely, it explains his admiration for non- systemtic thinkers, such as Emerson and, our hero, Montaigne. (It also helps us understand the sometimes frustrating nature of Nietzsche’s own radically unsystematic writings.)

I write the above because I believe, similarly, that the reader’s idiosyncratic experiences cannot be teased apart from the reading and interpretation of a text. That is my way of saying that I bring to Montaigne my own list of expectations and judgements. This can be a dangerous way to read in that the reader may unwittingly overlap his or her own notions upon those contained in the text. For example, to consider Montaigne as a spiritual teacher demonstrates in stark relief my own interest in the topic, perhaps at the expense of reading the text correctly. I am, for purposes of curiosity and investigation, okay with that.

Let’s return to our current theme, what I call Montaigne’s discipline of attention.

We know Montaigne loved to have conversations. Indeed, chapter eight of book three is devoted to the subject.

“The most fruitful and natural exercise of our mind, in my opinion, is discussion. I find it sweeter that any other action of our life.”

III.8

So it is I believe that if my French friend were sitting here with me as I write he would be interested and enthusiastic about this topic. I would start by telling him that about four hundred years after his book was published a young female philosopher and mystic, also French, wrote:

“Never in any case whatever is a genuine effort of the attention wasted. It always has its effect on the spiritual plane and in consequence on the lower one of the intelligence, for all spiritual light lightens the mind.” ^2.

That is Simone Weil, and she also wrote:

“Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love…Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer…If we turn our mind toward the good, it is impossible that little by little the whole soul will not be attracted thereto in spite of itself.” ^3.

To thoughtfully work your way through Montaigne’s Essais is to observe the art of attention in practice, refined and exercised until “taken to its highest degree”–which is, according to Weil, a fashion of prayer. I find this an extreemly interesting and compelling idea, underscoring my reading of Montaigne as a spiritual teacher.

As if to simultaneously motivate us toward attention and admonish us for lacking it, Montigne writes:

“It was a paradoxial command that was given us of old by that god at Delphi: ‘Look into yourself, know yourself, keep to yourself; bring back your mind and your will, which are spending themselves elsewhere; you are running out, you are scattering yourself; concentrate yourself, resist yourself; you are being betrayed, dispersed, and stolen away with yourself…’”

III.9

Montaigne begins the Essays by exercising his discipline of attention on the ancients, on battles recorded, philosophy studied and poets read, and so on. “And of my first essays, some smell a bit foreign.” (III.5). But as the years go by his attention shifts, never diminishing but rather growing in acuity, towards himself, the ultimate subject.

“Greatness of soul is not so much pressing upward and forward as knowing how to set oneself in order and circumscribe oneself.”

III.13

The highest degree of attention, observing and investigating the inner life is Montaigne’s ultimate goal. It is a bar set quite high, but then a life without a goal is, indeed, quite empty.

Another component of my notion of Montaigne as a spiritual teacher is his presence of mind, or, as some might say, his practice of mindfulness. I will explore this in the next post.

Thanks for reading.

1. “Gradually it has become clear to me what every great philosophy so far has been: namely, the personal confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memior; also that the moral (or immoral) intentions in every philosophy constitued the real germ of life from which the whole plant had grown.” Basic Writings of Nietzsche, translated and edited, with commentaries by Walter Kaufmann, The Modern Library, New York, 1992, p.203

2. The Simone Weil Reader, edited by George A. Panichas, 1977, David McKay Co. Inc., New York, p. 5

3. Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace….