Why: the steadiness by which a person of dull understanding does not abandon sleep, fear, grief, depression, and also conceit, is of the nature of ignorance, describing a kind of stuck, unmoving persistence, clinging to unhelpful states rather than actual disciplined consistency toward something worthwhile.

In life: sometimes what looks like stubborn persistence is actually just an inability to let go of unhelpful states, fear, grief, low mood, rather than genuine, disciplined consistency toward something actually worth sustaining.

Teaching: distinguish, in your own current stubbornness, between genuine disciplined consistency toward something worthwhile and simply being stuck, unable to release an unhelpful state, the outward persistence can look identical while the underlying reality is completely different.