Sutra of Wei Lang
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"Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically heroic little, unnecessary points; do everyday or two something for no other reason than it is difficult, so that, when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. Asceticism of this sort is like the insurance a man pays on his house and goods. The tax does him no good at the time, and possibly may not bring him a return. But if the fire does come his having paid it, it will be his salvation from ruin. So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and his softer fellow ~ mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast."
William James
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This is from a conversation between Arjuna and Krishna within the Bhagavad ~ Gita.
Arjuna:
Krishna, what defines a man
deep in contemplation whose insight
and thought are sure? How would he speak?
How would he sit? How would he move?
Lord Krishna:
When he gives up desires in his mind,
is content with the self within himslef,
then he is said to be a man
whose insight is sure, Arjuna.
When suffering does not disturb his mind,
when his craving for pleasures has vanished,
when attraction, fear, and anger are gone,
he is called a sage whose thought is sure.
When he shows no preference
in fortune or misfortune
and neither exults hor hates,
his insight is sure.
Sensuos objects fade
when the embodied self abstains from food;
the taste lingers, but it too fades
in the vision of higher truth.
Even when a man of wisdom
tries to control them, Arjuna,
the bewildering senses
attack his mind with violence.
Controlling them all,
with discipline he shoud focus on me;
when his senses are under control,
his insight is sure.
Brooding about sensuous objects
makes attachment to them grow;
from attachment desire arises,
from desire anger is born.
From anger comes confusion;
from confusion memory lapses;
from broken memory understanding is lost;
from loss of understanding, he is ruined.
But a man of inner strength
whose senses experience objects
without attraction and hatred,
in self ~ control, finds serenity.
In serenity, all his sorrows
dissolve
his reason becomes serene,
his understanding is sure.
Without discipline,
he has no understanding of inner power;
without inner power, he has no peace;
and without peace where is joy?
If his mind submits to the play
of the senses,
they drive away insight,
as wind drives a ship on water.
So, Great Warrior, when withdrawal
of the senses
from sense objects is complete,
discernment is firm.
When it is night for all creatures,
a master of restraint is awake;
when they are awake, it is night
for the sage who sees reality.
As the mountains depths
of the ocean
are unmoved when waters
rush into it,
so the man unmoved
when desires enter him
attains peace that eludes
the man of many desires.
When he renounces all desires
and acts without craving,
possessiveness,
or individuality, he finds peace.
This is the place of the infinite spirit;
achieving it, one is freed from delusion;
abiding in it even at the time of death,
one finds the pure calm of infinity.