It was good to read Marcus Aurelius at Whiskey River (a blog I'm very thankful for), with thoughts in the same vein as an earlier post here. For me, I think this line of thought was opened a couple of years ago when reading a Rumi poem (Barks' translation) that said something vaguely like "a person who is happy at someone else's misfortune just doesn't get it", and I realized I was starting to get it.

Of course the Golden "Do unto others" Rule expresses the same thing (or even harder, Jesus' admonition "love your enemies; do good to those that hate you"), but as a Rule it's put in terms of a moral standard to uphold. I see it as more of a state of being, a state of grace I guess, that visits. It takes lots of practice to keep the door open for that visitor. I think it's that distinction that Marcus Aurelius is making here.