Mystical systems
Asceticism
Direct answer
Asceticism is the practice of voluntary restraint, in food, speech, sleep or comfort, taken on as training for a spiritual or moral end.
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At a glance
- Also called
- askesis, ascetic practice
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Desert Fathers, Tapas, Lent, Prayer and Fasting
Asceticism is the practice of voluntary restraint, in food, speech, sleep or comfort, taken on as training for a spiritual or moral end.
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What is asceticism?
Asceticism comes from the Greek askesis, which meant exercise or training, the regimen of an athlete. Philosophers borrowed the word for the training of character, and Christian monks for the training of the soul. An ascetic gives up something lawful and pleasant, for a time or for life, in order to be less governed by it.
Every major religion has ascetics, and nearly every one also warns against excess. The Buddha rejected extreme austerity for a middle way, the Desert Fathers mocked monks who fasted for show, and Benedict's Rule asks for measure in all things. The tradition's own judgement is that restraint is a tool and that the body sets its limit.
On the tree of the hidden arts: Fasting and discipline.
What sets Asceticism apart
The word carries its own correction. An askesis was a programme of training with a contest in view, and Paul, the Stoics and the monks all kept the athletic picture: the runner, the boxer, the prize. So an ascetic practice is judged, in the tradition's terms, by what it makes a person able to do. The sayings of the desert are full of this test. A monk who fasts and is proud has trained nothing, and one who breaks his fast to welcome a stranger has understood.
- Greek root: askesis, exercise or training; asketes, one in training
- First borrowers: Cynic and Stoic philosophers, for the training of character
- Christian model: Antony of Egypt, who withdrew to the desert about 270
- Famous extreme: Simeon the Stylite, on a pillar near Aleppo, fifth century
- Buddhist verdict: a middle way between indulgence and self-torment
- Modern sense: Max Weber wrote of a worldly asceticism of work and thrift, 1905
Often mistaken for something else: Abstinence is doing without one thing; asceticism is a whole regimen of doing without, chosen as training for something else.
The story behind Asceticism
Greek Cynics and Stoics practised deliberate hardship from the fourth century BCE. In India renouncers and forest dwellers are described in texts older still. Christian asceticism took its lasting form in the Egyptian desert from the late third century, with Antony as its model. In the fifth century Simeon the Stylite lived for decades on top of a pillar near Aleppo, the extreme that later writers both admired and cautioned against.
Why Asceticism matters
Asceticism names the common idea behind fasting, silence, vigil and cold, so that each is seen as training and not as self-punishment.
How to read Asceticism
Historians use the word for the disciplines of monks and renouncers; in everyday speech it means any deliberate plainness of life.
Asceticism in practice: an example
Someone who gives up their evening screen for a month to see what the habit was covering is practising a small asceticism.
Where readings of Asceticism go wrong
Restraint that harms the body, or that grows out of fear of food or of oneself, is not training; that is for a doctor.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- asceticism meaning, ascetic, what is asceticism, askesis, ascetic practice
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What is asceticism?
It is voluntary self-restraint, in food, drink, speech, sleep or comfort, undertaken as training toward a spiritual or moral goal. The word comes from the Greek for athletic exercise.
Is asceticism the same as self-punishment?
Not in the mainstream of any tradition. The classic teachers describe it as exercise with a purpose, and most warn explicitly against harming the body.
Which religions practise asceticism?
All the major ones in some form: Christian monasticism, Islamic fasting and renunciation, Hindu and Jain austerity, Buddhist monastic discipline, and Jewish fasts.
