On Dispassion
If the height of gluttony is that you force yourself to eat even when you are not hungry, then the height of temperance in a hungry man is that he restrains even the justifiable urges of nature. If the height of lechery is that one raves even over animals and over inanimate things, then the height of purity is to look on everyone in the same way that one would regard inanimate objects. If the ultimate stage of cupidity is to gather without ever being satisfied, the ultimate stage of poverty is the willingness to dispense with one’s own body. If the final point of despondency is to have no patience even when living in total peace, the final point of patience is to consider oneself to be at rest even in the midst of affliction. If to be furious even in solitude is talked of as a sea of wrath, then calmness, whether your slanderer be present or not, will be a sea of long-suffering. If the high point of vainglory is for a person to put on airs even when no one is present to praise him, the sure proof of its absence is that you keep your thoughts under control when someone is praising you to your face. If it is a sign of perdition — that is pride — to be arrogant even when poorly dressed, then surely amid high doings and great success lowly thoughts betoken saving humility. If complete enslavement to passion is indicated by the fact that one quickly submits to whatever the demons have sown in us, I take it then that a mark of holy dispassion is to be able to say unambiguously, “I did not recognize the evil one as he slipped away from me” (Psalm 100:4), nor did I know the time of his coming, the reasons for it, nor how he went. I am completely unaware of such matters because I am and will ever be wholly united with God.
John Climacus from The Ladder of Divine Ascent
John Climacus, also known as John of the Ladder, (c. 579-649) was a seventh century monk at the monastery on Mount Sinai. Very little is known about his life. However, his book, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, (which also gave him his alternative identification) was the most widely used handbook of the ascetic life in the ancient Greek Church. It has been called the eastern equivalent of The Imitation of Christ in the west. Climacus is credited with fully laying out the idea of spiritual ascent in the devotional life. His work also had a fundamental influence on the hesychastic or Prayer of the heart movement.