Asceticism: Self-Discipline and its Practice in Religious Traditions

What is Asceticism?

Asceticism, a style of religious performance seen in all religious traditions. The word “ascetic” comes from the Greek askesis, “the practice of severe self-discipline, typically for religious reasons,” and refers to performances of self-discipline and the people who perform them. These performances can be either “positive” (inflicting painful penance on one’s body) or “negative” (withholding pleasures or basic necessities from one’s body). Some of the most common acts of asceticism involve the withholding of food: not eating meat on Fridays and “giving up” something for the Lenten season might be the most common example to Americans.

People in other religions act similarly: female devotees of the Hindu god Shiva fast on Mondays, Muslims fast every day from sunrise to sunset during the month of Ramadan, and Jewish people will not perform work during the Sabbath. These acts of asceticism are for the laity, people who are not officials in any religious organization; we might refer to them as “temporary” ascetics, since they will return to “normal” life after the particular time when they practice asceticism. But some people take vows to become “permanent” ascetics, devoting their entire lives to their tradition at the expense of everything else: Buddhist monks and nuns with shaved heads and red robes; Catholic priests, monks, and nuns; and Hindu Aghora renouncers represent some of the most famous examples, some of whom you will meet in the readings for this lesson.

The definition of asceticism is a practice in which one gets rid of worldly pleasures and focuses on thinking, particularly for religious or spiritual purposes. A Buddhist monk is an example of someone practicing asceticism. ... The principles and practices of an ascetic; extreme self-denial and austerity. Asceticism has been historically observed in many religious traditions, including Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Pythagoreanism and contemporary practices continue amongst some religious followers.

Asceticism consists of practices of self-discipline undertaken voluntarily in order to achieve a higher state of being. Buddhism has an interesting, rather ambivalent relation to asceticism. It is a movement that places the principle of moderation among the key doctrines of the tradition. Asceticism, or zuhd in Arabic, is not an end in itself in the Islamic worldview. but is one of several tools and aids towards attaining or catalysts to kick-start. religious/spiritual development. The term zuhd embraces a spectrum of meanings including abstinence, withdrawal, renunciation from pleasure and/or from.

In Christianity all of the types of asceticism have found realization. In the Gospels asceticism is never mentioned, but the theme of following the historical Christ gave asceticism a point of departure. An ascetic view of the Christian life is found in the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians in his use of the image of the spiritual athlete who must constantly discipline and train himself in order to win the race. Abstinence, fasts, and vigils in general characterized the lives of the early Christians, but some ramifications of developing Christianity became radically ascetic. Some of these movements, such as the Encratites (an early ascetic sect), a primitive form of Syrian Christianity, and the followers of Marcion, played important roles in the history of early Christianity.

Brakke, David. Athanasius and Asceticism. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

Chadwick, Owen. Western Asceticism. Westminster John Knox Press, 1979.

Cole, Letha B. & Winkler, Mary G. The Good Body: Asceticism in Contemporary Culture. Yale University Press, 1994.

Naqvi, Athar Saeed. Human Self: In the Light of Physics and Quran. Balboa Press, 2018.

Wimbush, Vincent L. & Richard Valantasis. Aceticism. Oxford University Press, 2002.