Discourses - Book IV   

and obstruction. "Granted." Well; and can a man force you to desire to
move toward that to which you do not choose? "He can, for when he
threatens me with death or bonds, he compels me to desire to move
toward it." If, then, you despise death and bonds, do you still pay
any regard to him? "No." Is, then, the despising of death an act of
your own, or is it not yours? "It is my act." It is your own act,
then, also to desire to move toward a thing: or is it not so? "It is
my own act." But to desire to move away from a thing, whose act is
that? This also is your act. "What, then, if I have attempted to walk,
suppose another should hinder me." What part of you does he hinder?
does he hinder the faculty of assent? "No: but my poor body." Yes,
as he would do with a stone. "Granted; but I no longer walk." And
who told you that walking is your act free from hindrance? for I
said that this only was free from hindrance, to desire to move: but
where there is need of body and its co-operation, you have heard
long ago that nothing is your own. "Granted also." And who can
compel you to desire what you do not wish? "No man." And to propose,
or intend, or in short to make use of the appearances which present
themselves, can any man compel you? "He cannot do this: but he will
hinder me when I desire from obtaining what I desire." If you desire
anything which is your own, and one of the things which cannot be
hindered, how will he hinder you? "He cannot in any way." Who, then,
tells you that he who desires the things that belong to another is
free from hindrance?
"Must I, then, not desire health?" By no means, nor anything else
that belongs to another: for what is not in your power to acquire or
to keep when you please, this belongs to another. Keep, then, far from
it not only your hands but, more than that, even your desires. If
you do not, you have surrendered yourself as a slave; you have
subjected your neck, if you admire anything not your own, to
everything that is dependent on the power of others and perishable, to
which you have conceived a liking. "Is not my hand my own?" It is a
part of your own body; but it is by nature earth, subject to
hindrance, compulsion, and the slave of everything which is
stronger. And why do I say your hand? You ought to possess your
whole body as a poor ass loaded, as long as it is possible, as long as
you are allowed. But if there be a press, and a soldier should lay
hold of it, let it go, do not resist, nor murmur; if you do, you
will receive blows, and nevertheless you will also lose the ass. But
when you ought to feel thus with respect to the body, consider what
remains to be done about all the rest, which is provided for the
sake of the body. When the body is an ass, all the other things are
bits belonging to the ass, pack-saddles, shoes, barley, fodder. Let
these also go: get rid of them quicker and more readily than of the
ass.
When you have made this preparation, and have practiced this
discipline, to distinguish that which belongs to another from that
which is your own, the things which are subject to hindrance from
those which are not, to consider the things free from hindrance to
concern yourself, and those which are not free not to concern