"Master, in 'self-discipline', is not the self part superfluous?"
"Of course it is, but only for those who know the Way. We use the term for suckers who think that there is ONLY control of the outside, the 'that' of the Tao Te Ching. Plato, who knows his Pairs very well, says he not that 'each one of us is either 'conquerer of' or 'conquered by' himself' (Laws 48) and further: 'those who can control themselves are good, those who cannot are bad' (Laws 73)? It is the old distinction between the IN's those IN control, and the UN's, those wretched slaves, often selfimposed that feel best UNder control. 'To conquer others needs strength; to conquer oneself is harder still' says the Tao Te Ching (33). Achieving the latter only, can be said to put one in satisfactorily control of (his) Reality. The IN's know a kind of happiness that escapes the UN's entirely. Yet, the UN's may feel themselves happy ('Not happy is he who thinks himself not so' Seneca Lett.9), but it is an empty happiness, a fickle one too, dependable on chance (and hawsers)."