(If you're wondering, JtC lifted my suspension. We cleared the air, agreed to disagree and agreed that occasional differences between friends is part of life. A rather stoic arrangement, one could say.)
Welcome to Part Four.
Part One can be found here:http://caucus99percent.com/content/resilience-how-stoic-marcus-aurelius-...
I find the teachings of Stoicism a great help in strengthening my ptsd-scrambled brain.
It has been universally beneficial to regular folks for 2,500 years now.
You may find it a useful, practical guide to strengthen your mind in these turbulent times.
Previously, I had written a 3-part essay series on the Stoic teachings of the Roman Epictetus that makes for a brief grounding in Stoic practical basics. You will find it in the Resilience Group Essay Queue:
http://caucus99percent.com/content/stoicism-trauma-survivors-part-13

This is a four-part series on the thoughts to himself of the Roman Stoic, Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome.
I present an introduction on what Aurelius means to me, who he was, and then his thoughts without comment: for they speak clearly for themselves directly to the reader. More below.

Japanese Zen Garden meditative music goes (un)surprisingly well with reflection on the sayings of Marcus Aurelius - the emperor at war, alone in his commander's tent at night on the frontier.

Introduction: How Marcus Aurelius Helped Me

My Loeb edition of The Meditations is dog-eared and filled with pencil markings from long hours of studying during quiet times on military exercises and deployment.
The growing ptsd steadily overwrote the coding and chemical channels within my brain structures.
I had no understanding of what was happening within me: only growing "irrational" anger, "weird" new paranoia, psychotic breaks, and growing dread, night terrors, and daily anxieties.
I tried, unsuccessfully, to hide my problems with the usual result of alienating everyone.

I should have crashed much earlier. I am still awed by the strength of will that kept me going, one foot in front of the other, form break to break, from day to night and night to day.
Stoicism steeled the will inside of me; I literally experienced the blacksmith's sword forging processes -
the fire, the water, the blows from the hammer on the anvil, the fire, the water, the blows, every day.

I carried my paperback Stoic books in my gear or my webbing. I read them everywhere on breaks.
Because they helped me endure.
Once before a month-long exercise, which consisted mostly of digging armoured vehicles out of spring-time mud, I took the online George Long translation and copied my favourite sayings into a Word document.
This I carried in my trouser side pocket in a plastic bag and read when I felt overwhelmed.
I'm using that to share with you, hoping it could help you strengthen your mind during trying times.

Then, I learned that Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis both based cognitive-behavioural therapy on the Roman Stoics. And I went to the doctors to get help.
I've been in CBT therapy (with competent and incompetent psychologists) for ten years now.
I got the help I needed, but lost my military career to a medical release.
My diagnosis is complex and chronic. I will need CBT and Stoicism for the rest of my life.
And I am grateful for both for they saved my life, marriage, and family.

The Life of Marcus Aurelius

(The only reason this statue survived was because the heathen Christians thought it was of their Emperor Constantine!)
The life of Aurelius was fascinating and you can read about in online. Here's just the header info from wiki:

Marcus Aurelius26 April 121 – 17 March 180 AD) was Roman Emperor from 161 to 180. He ruled with Lucius Verus as co-emperor from 161 until Verus' death in 169. He was the last of the Five Good Emperors, and is also considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers.

During his reign, the Empire defeated a revitalized Parthian Empire in the East: Aurelius' general Avidius Cassius sacked the capital Ctesiphon in 164. In central Europe, Aurelius fought the Marcomanni, Quadi, and Sarmatians with success during the Marcomannic Wars, although the threat of the Germanic tribes began to represent a troubling reality for the Empire. A revolt in the East led by Avidius Cassius failed to gain momentum and was suppressed immediately.

Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, written in Greek while on campaign between 170 and 180, are still revered as a literary monument to a philosophy of service and duty, describing how to find and preserve equanimity in the midst of conflict by following nature as a source of guidance and inspiration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius

Selections from The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

Very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life. VII.67

The perfection of moral character consists in this, in passing every day as the last, and in being neither violently excited, nor torpid, nor playing the hypocrite. VII.69

Consider that men will do the same things nevertheless, even though you should burst. VIII.4

Be not perturbed, for all things are according to the nature of the universal. VIII.5

Remember that to change your opinion and to follow him who corrects your error is as consistent with freedom as it is to persist in your error. VIII.16

Pain is either an evil to the body – then let the body say what it thinks of it – or to the soul; but it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility, and not to think that pain is an evil. For every judgment and movement and desire and aversion is within, and no evil ascends so high. VIII.28

Wipe out your imaginations by often saying to yourself: now it is in my power to let no badness be in this soul, nor desire, nor any perturbation at all; but looking at all things I see what is their nature, and I use each according to its value. Remember this power which you have from nature. VIII.29

Receive wealth or prosperity without arrogance; and be ready to let it go. VIII.33

The rational animal is able to make every hindrance its own material, and to use it for such purposes as it may have designed. VIII.35

Do not disturb yourself by thinking of the whole of your life. VIII.36

Different things delight different people. But it is my delight to keep the ruling faculty sound without turning away either from any man or from any of the things which happen to men, but looking and receiving it all with welcoming eyes and using everything according to its value. VIII.43

The common nature brings nothing which may not be borne by you. VIII.46

If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now.VIII.47

The mind which is free from passions is a citadel, for man has nothing more secure to which he can fly for refuge and for the future to be inexpugnable. VIII.48

A cucumber is bitter. Throw it away. There are briars in the road. Turn aside from them. This is enough. Do not add, And why were such things made in the world? VIII.50

If a man should stand by a limpid spring, and curse it, the spring never ceases sending up potable water; and if he should cast into it clay or filth, it will speedily disperse them and wash them out, and will not be at all polluted. How then shall you possess a perpetual fountain [and not a mere well]? By forming yourself hourly to freedom conjoined with contentment, simplicity and modesty. VIII.51

No longer let your breathing only act in concert with the air which surrounds you, but let your intelligence also now be in harmony with the intelligence that embraces all things. For the intelligent power is no less diffused in all parts and pervades all things for him who is willing to draw it to him than the aerial power for him who is able to breathe it. VIII.54

Generally, wickedness does no harm at all to the universe; and particularly, the wickedness of one man does no harm to another. It is only harmful to him who has it in his power to be released from it, as soon as he shall choose. VIII.55

Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them. VIII.59

He who acts unjustly acts impiously. IX.1

Be neither careless nor impatient nor contemptuous with respect to death, but wait for it as one of the operations of nature. As you now wait for the time when the child shall come out of your wife’s womb, so be ready for the time when your soul shall fall out of this envelope. IX.3

He who does wrong does wrong against himself. He who acts unjustly acts unjustly to himself, because he makes himself bad. IX.4

Your present opinion founded on understanding, and your present conduct directed to social good, and your present disposition of contentment with everything that happens – that is enough. IX.6

Wipe out imagination: check desire: extinguish appetite: keep the ruling faculty in its own power. IX.7
Today I have got out of trouble, or rather, I have cast out all trouble, for it was not outside, but within and in my opinions. IX.13

It is your duty to leave another man’s wrongful act there where it is. IX.20

If there is a god, all is well, and if chance rules, do not you also be governed by it. IX.28

Let there be freedom from perturbations with respect to the things which come from the external cause; and let there be justice in the things done by virtue of the internal cause, that is, let there be movement and action terminating in this, in social acts, for this is according to your nature. IX.31

If any man has done wrong, the harm is his own. But perhaps he has not done wrong. IX.38

Either the gods have no power or they have power. If, then, they have no power, why do your pray to them [for events]? But if they have power, why do you not pray for them to give you the faculty of not fearing the things which you fear, or of not desiring any of the things which you desire, or not being pained at anything, rather than praying that any of these things should not happen or happen? IX.40

When you are offended with any man’s shameless conduct, immediately ask yourself, Is it possible then, that shameless men should not be in the world? It is not possible. Do not, then, require what is impossible. IX.42What harm is done or what is there strange, if the man who has not been instructed does the acts of an uninstructed man? IX.42

What more do you want when you have done a man a service? Are you not content that you have done something conformable to your nature, and do you seek to be paid for it? Just as if the eye demanded a recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking. IX.42

He who follows reason in all things is both tranquil and active at the same time, and also cheerful and collected. X.12

No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man aught to be, but be such. X.16

Constantly contemplate the whole of time and the whole of substance, and consider that all things individual as to substance are a grain of fig, and as to time the turning of a gimlet. X.17

Imagine every man who is grieved at anything or discontented to be like a pig which is sacrificed and kicks and screams. X.28

The spherical form of the soul maintains its figure, when it is neither extended towards any object, nor contracted inwards, nor dispersed nor sinks down, but is illuminated by light, by which it sees the truth, the truth of all things and the truth that is in itself. XI.12

Such as a man’s character is, he immediately shows it in his eyes, just as he who is beloved forthwith reads everything in the eyes of lovers. XI.15

As to living in the best way, this power is in the soul, if it be indifferent to things which are indifferent. XI.16

Consider how much more pain is brought on us by the anger and vexation caused by such acts than by the acts themselves, at which we are angry and vexed. XI.18

Socrates used to call the opinions of the many by the name of Lamiæ, bugbears to frighten children. XI.23

Neither in writing nor in reading will you be able to lay down rules for others before you have first learned to obey rules yourself. Much more is this so in life. XI.29

All those things at which you wish to arrive by a circuitous road, you can have now, if you will take no notice of the past, and trust the future to providence, and direct the present only conformably to piety and justice. XII.1

The things are three of which you are composed, a little body, a little breath [life], intelligence. Of these, the first two are yours, so far as it is your duty to take care of them, but the third alone is properly yours. XII.3

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others. XII. 4

See what things are in themselves, dividing them into matter form and purpose. XII.10

Does the light of the lamp shine without losing its splendour until it is extinguished; and shall the truth which is in you and justice and temperance be extinguished [before your death]? XII.15

Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in your power. Take away then, when you choose, your opinion, and like a mariner, who has doubled the promontory, you will find calm, everything stable, and a waveless bay. XII.22

Every man lives the present time only, and loses only this. XII.26

There is one light of the sun, though it is interrupted by walls, mountains, and other things infinite. There is one common substance, though it is distributed among countless bodies which have their several qualities. There is one soul, though it is distributed among infinite natures and individual circumscriptions [or individuals]. There is one intelligent soul, though it seems to be divided. XII.30

Consider nothing great, except to act as your nature leads, and to endure that which the common nature brings. XII.32

Depart then satisfied, for he also who releases you is satisfied. XII.36