"Master, what was it you said about hawsers [63], whatsit meaning?"
"Just a word, dropped for those who recognise it. It then would give them pleasure. When a Spartan heard a trader boasting of his wealth, he commented: 'Your fortunes depend on hawsers; and that's an unenviable situation' (Cicero, Good). Naturally, the Spartan meant that it is far better to depend on your own control for well-being, happiness. In terms of the trader: 'When all your ships have sunk, all your warehouses burnt, family destroyed, you still can decide to be happy or not, entirely by yourself. This is not just a theory (Tao-Stoic), but cold fact. Yet, the trader would not have grasped it, as many people today don't. Thus, their own happiness, they themselves have not under control. They think that it is dependent upon outside circumstances, that it is in the 'that', the hawsers, not in the 'this', as the Taoists would call it."
"I will go and study Stoicism again Master."
"Good. Epictetus, the Tao Te Ching, Cicero or Confucius, it is all the same, all about the Nature of things, about the Way."