Essay
Plon, November 2010
Presentation
“Of all my books on philosophy and spirituality, this one is certainly the most accessible, but undoubtedly also the most useful. For it is not theoretical knowledge that I seek to transmit, but practical knowledge, the most essential there is: how to lead a good, happy life, in harmony with oneself and with others. What I say here with simple words and concrete examples, as in a conversation with a friend, is the fruit of thirty years of research and experience. My personal testimony would matter little if it were not illuminated by the thought of the philosophers and sages of humanity who have marked my life: the Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Aristotle, Epicurus, Epictetus, Jesus, Montaigne, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Levinas among others. To exist is a fact, to live is an art. The whole path of life is to pass from ignorance to knowledge, from fear to love.” FL
Translations – other editions
Germany: DEUTSCHER TASCHENBUCH VERLAG
Brazil: EDITORIAL OBJETIVA
China: PHOENIX-HANZHANG PUBLISHING
Korea: CHANG HAE PUBLISHING CO.
Croatia: TIM Press doo
Spain: EDITORIAL KAIROS
France: AUDIOLIB
France: FRANCE LOISIRS
France: LES EDITIONS A VUE D'ŒIL
Italy: ARNOLDO MONDADORI EDITORE
Japan: KASHIWASHOBO PUBLISHING Co
Netherlands: UITGEVERIJ TEN HAVE
Romania: Paralela 45
Turkey: APRIL PUBLISHING Ltd
Table
Prologue
Chapter 1. Saying “Yes” to Life
Chapter 2. Trust and Letting Go
Chapter 3. Taking Responsibility for Your Life
Chapter 4. Doing and Not Doing
Chapter 5. Silence and Meditation
Chapter 6. Knowledge and Discernment
Chapter 7. Know Thyself
Chapter 8. Acquiring Virtues Chapter
9. Becoming Free
Chapter 10. Self-Love and Inner Healing
Chapter 11. The Golden Rule Chapter
12. Love and Friendship Chapter 13.
Nonviolence and Forgiveness
Chapter 14. Sharing
Chapter 15. Attachment and Nonattachment
Chapter 16. Adversity is a Spiritual Master
Chapter 17. “Here and Now”
Chapter 18. Taming Death
Chapter 19. Humor
Chapter 20. Beauty
Epilogue
Addendum: What is a successful life? An unprecedented dialogue between Socrates and Jacques Séguéla
Acknowledgments
Prologue
To exist is a fact, to live is an art.
We did not choose to live, but we must learn to live as we learn to play the piano, to cook, to sculpt wood or stone. This is the role of education. Yet, it is less and less concerned with transmitting a way of being, in favor of a way of doing. It aims more to enable us to face the external challenges of existence than the internal challenges: how to be at peace with ourselves and with others? How to react to suffering? How to know ourselves and resolve our own contradictions? How to acquire true inner freedom? How to love? How, ultimately, to achieve true and lasting happiness, which undoubtedly has more to do with the quality of relationships with oneself and with others than with social success and the acquisition of material goods?
For millennia, religion has fulfilled this role of educating the inner life. It is clear that it is fulfilling it less and less. Not only because it has, at least in Europe, much less influence on consciences, but also because it has become rigid. It most often offers dogma and norms when individuals are in search of meaning. It lays down creeds and rules that only speak to a minority of the faithful and it fails to renew its outlook, its language, its methods, to touch the souls of our contemporaries who nevertheless continue to question the enigma of their existence and how to lead a good life. Caught between a dehumanizing consumerist ideology and a stifling dogmatic religion, we turn to philosophy and the great currents of wisdom of humanity. For the wise men of the world—from Confucius to Spinoza, including Epicurus, Plotinus, and Montaigne—have bequeathed to us keys to nourish and develop our inner life: accepting life as it is, knowing ourselves and learning to discern, living in the "here and now," controlling ourselves, remaining silent within, knowing how to choose and forgive. These keys to universal wisdom have lost none of their relevance. They still help us live, because while our world has changed greatly, the heart of the human being remains the same. Although 2,500 years old, the Buddha's diagnosis of what makes man happy or unhappy remains true. The Socratic observation that ignorance is the source of all evil is perfectly relevant today. Aristotle's teachings on virtue and friendship have not aged a day. The maxims of Epictetus, Seneca, or Marcus Aurelius on destiny and free will continue to speak to us.
In my personal journey, my readings brought me face to face with these masters of humanity's wisdom from adolescence. They are the ones who gave me a taste for beauty, truth, and goodness, to use Plato's great archetypes. My philosophy studies then allowed me to deepen my knowledge, but I also enriched my own inner journey with two other sources, of a quite different nature: spirituality and depth psychology. I discovered Buddhism at the age of sixteen, and the Buddha's teachings immediately touched me with their accuracy and pragmatic nature. I deepened my understanding of them during a long stay in India through meetings with Tibetan lamas, from whom I also learned the basics of meditation. At the age of nineteen, reading the Gospels was also a profound shock. My discovery of Christ, not only as a teacher from the past, but also as a living person to whom one can connect through prayer, has marked my life and given me access to an understanding of Christianity very different from the memories of my childhood catechism. The subsequent discovery of Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis as well as various therapeutic methods stemming from personal development (sophrology, Gestalt, Rebirth, etc.) helped me to become more aware of my flaws and to heal certain deep wounds that were parasitizing my life and causing me to fall back into recurring neurotic scenarios.
This short treatise is therefore the fruit of a personal reflection developed from the philosophical wisdom currents of the East and the West, Christian spirituality freed from its normative matrix, and depth psychology. My only ambition is to offer what has helped me to live and build myself. In order to make this book accessible to as many people as possible, I have chosen to develop it in two stages. It was born in the form of an oral teaching, then I reworked the text which nevertheless preserves the trace of this orality. What I transmit here is more a matter of experience: first of all that of the wise men from whom I draw inspiration and whom I often quote, then my own, which, despite many reservations, it was difficult for me not to expose. Because, how can I speak of the inner life without speaking of oneself? Let it be clear, however, that I do not consider myself in any way as a model: I retain dark sides and I do not always manage to put into practice the teachings that I evoke here. What is certain is that today I am much more lucid, peaceful and, all things considered, happier than I have been in the past. May this little book help other souls in pain and in search of light to understand that love is close, that inner freedom can come, that joy is there. You just have to open the eyes of your intelligence and your heart to discover them.