Stoic Manuals
A Beginner’s Manual to Stoic Practice
Begin with control, impressions, virtue, and a short evening review.
What this manual is for
Begin with control, impressions, virtue, and a short evening review. Work with one actual situation at a time; the aim is to practise judgment and conduct, not to guarantee an external result.
Read the primary-source anchors first, then use the sequence as a repeatable course of attention and action.
The sequence
1. The Dichotomy of Control. Sort what is yours from what no choice can command. Use it when being tested or uncertainty.
2. Cognitive Distancing. Separate the event from the judgment added to it. Use it when upset or conflict.
3. Evening Meditation. Retrace the day honestly, then set it down. Use it when evening or review.
How to review the work
After the final step, record what belonged to your judgment and action, what remained outside your command, and what you would rehearse differently next time.
A review is evidence for the next practice, not a verdict on your worth.
Practice sequence
- 1The Dichotomy of Control
Sort what is yours from what no choice can command.
- 2Cognitive Distancing
Separate the event from the judgment added to it.
- 3Evening Meditation
Retrace the day honestly, then set it down.
Primary-text evidence
These excerpts are shown with their exact work locators. Read them as evidence for study, not as detached slogans.
“Of things some are in our power, and others are not. In our power are opinion (ὑπόληψις), movement towards a thing (ὁρμή), desire, aversion (ἔκκλισις, turning from a thing); and in a word, whatever are our own acts: not in our power are the body, property, reputation, offices (magisterial power), and in a word, whatever are not our own acts. And the things in our power are by nature free, not subject to restraint nor hindrance: but the things not in our power are weak, slavish, subject to restraint, in the power of others. Remember then that if you think the things which are by nature slavish to be free, and the things which are in the power of others to be your own, you will be hindered, you will lament, you will be disturbed, you will blame both…”
“Of all the faculties (except that which I shall soon mention), you will find not one which is capable of contemplating itself, and, consequently, not capable either of approving or disapproving. How far does the grammatic art possess the contemplating power? As far as forming a judgment about what is written and spoken. And how far music? As far as judging about melody. Does either of them then contemplate itself? By no means. But when you must write something to your friend, grammar will tell you what words you should write; but whether you should write or not, grammar will not tell you. And so it is with music as to musical sounds; but whether you should sing at the present time and play on the lute, or do neither, music will not tell you. What…”
“Precognitions are common to all men, and precognition is not contradictory to precognition. For who of us does not assume that Good is useful and eligible, and in all circumstances that we ought to follow and pursue it? And who of us does not assume that Justice is beautiful and becoming? When then does the contradiction arise? It arises in the adaptation of the precognitions to the particular cases. When one man says, “He has done well: he is a brave man,” and another says, “Not so; but he has acted foolishly;” then the disputes arise among men. This is the dispute among the Jews and the Syrians and the Egyptians and the Romans; not whether holiness should be preferred to all things and in all cases should be pursued, but whether it is holy to eat…”