Κεφ. ΙΘ'
The Fortress Against Sadness
True detachment from worldly pleasure serves as a secure defense against the onset of sadness.
Anyone who avoids every worldly pleasure is a fortress beyond the reach of the demon of sadness. Sadness is just the loss of a pleasure, whether you already have it or are simply expecting it. But we cannot drive this enemy away while we are still attached to earthly things, because he sets his trap and stirs up sadness exactly where he sees us leaning the hardest.
Read the original Latin
Ὁ φεύγων πάσας τὰς κοσμικὰς ἡδονὰς πύργος ἐστὶ τῷ τῆς λύπης ἀπόσιτος δαίμονι· λύπη γάρ ἐστι στέρησις ἡδονῆς ἢ παρούσης ἢ προσδοκωμένης· ἀδύνατον δὲ τὸν ἐχθρὸν τοῦτον ἀπώσασθαι πρός τι τῶν ἐπιγείων ἔχοντας ἡμᾶς προσπάθειαν· ἐκεῖ γὰρ ἵστησι τὴν παγίδα καὶ τὴν λύπην ἐργάζεται ὅπου βλέπει μάλιστα νενευκότας ἡμᾶς.
The Praktikos companion
A daily portion of stillness
Chosen Portion delivers one short contemplative reading and a guided moment of silence each day — the ascent, one step at a time.
Chosen Portion is the paced doorway into this collection: it portions the dense mystical treatises into one daily reading plus guided silence, exactly as the 14-day plan teaches.
- Daily bite-sized excerpts from the contemplative classics, never a wall of text
- A built-in timed stillness practice that grows from 2 minutes to 10
- Gentle progression through the tradition — the app remembers where you are on the ascent