Stability is love of equanimity in the midst of adventure. It is the straight flat runway which allows the plane to take off to a new way of seeing things. No hasty departures, dramatic exits, but a gentle, strong lift off to brilliance. Everything packed, understood, stored, but nothing dangling carelessly, to be pulled at by questioning fingers.

It is very easy and pleasant to fly flags on earth, but it stops you flying inside. To say thanks to praise and pin it to your lapel just weighs you down. Try and be free then and you can’t. You’re too noticed to leave. Equanimity has gone.

To be stable takes immense alertness, to watch the approach of praise, catch it and divert it to God - where it’s due. And if there’s a single thing missing inside, then when it’s proffered, you take it, thinking it will fit the gap, but it doesn’t and then you’re lumbered with it.

An equally great challenge to stability is insult. When you’re doing your best and someone pushes you and it’ the last straw, you topple; when you’re not doing your best, its worse. Deeper will be the stability the more subtle and searching the challenges that come. They’re like hailstones chipping away at your heart. Stability at its deepest is flying free of everything, resting quite above praise, but is also having two feet firmly on the ground, so that you can’t be charged with negligence, because that’s an obvious target.

Above all, stability comes from understanding that whilst you should remain level-headed, life is full of ups and downs. When praise is in the air, you’ve got to be in the air too; free, light, empty, above, and then return ready to start again; fresh, unprejudiced and never smug. When insult is in the air, then you’ve got to be anchored in wisdom so safely that you can think deeply and surface with a solution that nourishes the enemy as well as yourself Enemies are those with hunger.