Remove the opinion, and you are in the citadel. The familiar Stoic move in dialogical form: take away "your TERMopinion (ὑπόληψις) about what seems to grieve you," and "you yourself stand in the safest place" (ἐν τῷ ἀσφαλεστάτῳ). It is not the event that wounds but the judgment upon it; remove the judgment and the wound is gone too (cf. 4.7 — "Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, 'I have been harmed'").

Who this "self" is. A fine turn through an imagined interlocutor: "— Who is this 'self'? — TERMReason (ὁ λόγος). — But I am not reason. — Be it so." Marcus does not argue the identification: even if "you" are wider than reason, the conclusion is one — DOGMA"let reason not grieve itself" (ὁ λόγος αὐτὸς ἑαυτὸν μὴ λυπείτω); and if "some other part of you" (the flesh, an affect) suffers — "let it judge about itself" (ὑπολαβέτω αὐτὸ περὶ αὑτοῦ). The rational instance is not obliged to appropriate the pain of the lower parts; its task is not to catch their judgment (cf. 8.28 — no evil ascends into the ruling part; 5.26). The governing discipline is assent (to remove the opinion, not to let reason grieve itself).