Memento mori. Marcus Aurelius 2.2

Marcus here offers a meditation on mortality: we are fragile and contingent beings, unable to endure forever or to control everything that happens, and our best life requires us to make peace with that. His graphic visualization reminds me of Buddhist techniques for cultivating maranasati ('death awareness') and later Christian art with the theme memento mori ('remember death'). You can hear the Greek text read aloud <here>.

Ὅ τί ποτε τοῦτό εἰμι, σαρκία ἐστὶ καὶ πνευμάτιον καὶ τὸ ἡγεμονικόν. ἄφες τὰ βιβλία· μηκέτι σπῶ. οὐ δέδοται, ἀλλ̓ ὡς ἤδη ἀποθνῄσκων τῶν μὲν σαρκίων καταφρόνησον· λύθρος καὶ ὀστάρια καὶ κροκύφαντος, ἐκ νεύρων, φλεβίων, ἀρτηριῶν πλεγμάτιον. θέασαι δὲ καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα ὁποῖόν τί ἐστιν· ἄνεμος, οὐδὲ ἀεὶ τὸ αὐτό, ἀλλὰ πάσης ὥρας ἐξεμούμενον καὶ πάλιν ῥοφούμενον. τρίτον οὖν ἐστι τὸ ἡγεμονικόν. ὧδε ἐπινοήθητι· γέρων εἶ· μηκέτι τοῦτο ἐάσῃς δουλεῦσαι, μηκέτι καθ̓ ὁρμὴν ἀκοινώνητον νευροσπαστηθῆναι, μηκέτι τὸ εἱμαρμένον ἢ παρὸν δυσχερᾶναι ἢ μέλλον ὑπιδέσθαι.

I am whatever we call the expression of flesh, breath, and a ruling principle. Throw out the books. Don't write more. Though death waits, withholding her presence, witness your flesh and despise it now, as though you were already dying—your blood and bones, the woven mat of your nerves and veins, the twisted net of your arteries. Watch the breath, too, seeing it for what it is: a wavering wind, poured forth and sucked back every moment, unable to remain ever the same. Finally you come to the mind, the ruling principle. Know this, that you are old. You cannot allow your mind to toil anymore in slavery, driven by motives external to it. Nor can you afford to shrink from your fate, past or present, and you cannot know your future.