A dogma ready to hand. Against pain — a EXERCISEready formula (πρόχειρον ἔστω): to apply to any πόνος two prepared thoughts. The first tier is Stoic: pain "DOGMAis nothing shameful, nor does it make the governing mind (τὴν διάνοιαν τὴν κυβερνῶσαν) worse." The argument is by faculties: pain corrupts the mind "neither as it is rational (λογική) nor as it is TERMsocial (κοινωνική)" — both chief powers are intact, and so there is no genuine harm (cf. 7.33, 7.53).

A loan from Epicurus. The second tier is another's: "let the PERSONsaying of Epicurus help you too" (τὸ τοῦ Ἐπικούρου) — the one naming of Epicurus in the Meditations. The maxim (KD 4, the same as anonymously at 7.33): pain "is neither unbearable (ἀφόρητον) nor everlasting (αἰώνιον), if you remember its limits (ὅροι) and add no opinion (μὴ προσδοξάζῃς)." προσδοξάζειν — "to opine-in-addition": the same technique as the Stoic "add nothing of yourself to what the sensation announces" (8.49). Marcus takes the best instrument from his rival without embarrassment: therapy outranks the school's sign-board.

Hidden pain. The third move extends the concept of πόνος: many things "that are the same as pain (τὰ αὐτὰ ὄντα πόνῳ) escape us while they gall us" — drowsiness (νυστάζειν), scorching heat (καυματίζεσθαι), loss of appetite (ἀνορεκτεῖν). Fretting at these, you are in fact "giving in to pain (πόνῳ ἐνδίδως)" without calling it by name. The diagnosis exposes petty faintheartedness: not only under torture but from stuffiness or lost sleep a person yields to the same enemy. The strict terms — TERMκοινωνική (social) is in the text; EXERCISEπρόχειρον too. The governing discipline is desire (not to be tormented by pain); the sustaining one, assent (to add no opinion beyond the sensation).