What was his secret? Virtue. Not the sort of uptight, pleasure-hating Puritanism that some people now associate with that word, but a broader kind of virtue that goes back to ancient Greece. The Greek word aretē meant excellence, virtue, or goodness, especially of a functional sort. The aretē of a knife is to cut well; the aretē of an eye is to see well; the aretē of a person is . . . well, that’s one of the oldest questions of philosophy: What is the true nature, function, or goal of a person, relative to which we can say that he or she is living well or badly? Thus in saying that well being
...more
Dharma
