Asceticism

Cynicism is a radical asceticism: through askēsis (training), the sage makes do with water, bread, and a coarse cloak, rejecting luxury and refinements as so many forms of bondage. Seeing a child drink from its cupped hands, Diogenes threw away his bowl, judging that a child had outdone him in simplicity.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VI, 37 · Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VI, 22-23

Platonic asceticism rests on the image of the body as the tomb of the soul (sōma/sēma) and on distrust of sensible pleasures, which chain the soul to becoming and hamper its ascent toward the intelligible. Purification consists in detaching oneself from the body as far as possible.

Plato, Phaedo, 64c-67b, purification · Plato, Gorgias, 493a, the body as tomb

The sermon at Benares sets aside two extremes, the pursuit of sensual pleasures and self-mortification, in favor of the Middle Way. Without condemning the body, Buddhism treats sensory pleasures as attachments that feed craving, and commends measured sobriety: the tendency is ascetic, but moderate and free of harsh rigor.

Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (the sermon at Benares)

Against the caricature of debauchery, Epicurus advocates a sober life: the pleasure sought is chiefly katastematic, the stable pleasure of satisfied need, rather than the kinetic pleasure of enjoyment. The position thus leans slightly toward frugality, without condemning the body.

Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, 130-131 · Epicurus, Vatican Sayings, 33

Bodily pleasures bind the soul to the lowest degree of being and turn it away from its ascent: the first virtue, the "purificatory" one, consists precisely in detaching from them so as to return the soul to itself. Without condemning the body as a positive evil, Plotinus urges a resolute asceticism, the sage holding bodily needs to be mere necessities to be met at a minimum, never ends.

Enneads, I, 2 (On Virtues) · Enneads, I, 4

The declared ideal is asceticism: chastity, voluntary poverty, fasting, by which the body, the most immediate objectification of the will, is methodically starved in order to break the will-to-live. But this is the ideal of the saint, which the philosopher describes without embodying it: Schopenhauer lived as a gourmet rentier and owned the gap, no more than a sculptor need be beautiful himself does the philosopher need to be a saint to draw the saint's portrait.

The World as Will and Representation, §68

Renunciation (saṃnyāsa) of the world and its enjoyments is held to be the condition most favorable to liberating knowledge: Śaṅkara's ideal sage is the wandering ascetic, detached from bodily pleasures as from every worldly good. Sensible pleasures bind one to the body-mind compound that the path invites one precisely to transcend. It is a pronounced asceticism, which does not hold the body to be evil in itself but subordinates it entirely to the quest for liberation.

Upadeśasāhasrī · Commentary on the Bhagavad Gītā

Diogenes' asceticism is radical: through askēsis (training), he makes do with water, bread and a coarse cloak, hardening himself to cold and hunger. Seeing a child drink from its cupped hands, he threw away his bowl, judging that a child had outdone him in simplicity. Yet the stance is not a pure asceticism that despises the body, and this is its own nuance: whatever accords with nature is never shameful, and Diogenes performs the crudest bodily functions in public. Luxury and refinement, on the other hand, are rejected as forms of bondage, not because pleasure would be bad, but because factitious need enslaves. Hence an asceticism of the superfluous rather than a condemnation of the body.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VI, 37 and 22-23

Pleasure is not the good: to confuse the happy life with a life of pleasure is to sink man to the level of beasts. Seneca commends a sober life, the voluntary endurance of hunger and cold, and holds bodily pleasure to be an indifferent not to be sought for its own sake, without lapsing into outright mortification.

On the Happy Life, X-XV (against equating happiness with pleasure) · Letters to Lucilius, XVIII and CXXIII (rehearsing frugality)

The body and pleasure are indifferents: one should use external goods with measure, attach to them only as one uses a passing inn, and defer pleasure to make sure one remains its master. A moderate asceticism, with no absolute condemnation of pleasure.

Enchiridion, §11 and §34 · Enchiridion, §33

To break the objects of desire into their parts dissolves their prestige: this dish is only an animal's carcass, this wine grape juice, the union of bodies a mere rubbing. Pleasure being an indifferent, one should use it soberly and without enslavement to it, a measured asceticism rather than mortification.

Meditations, VI, 13 · Meditations, III, 2

The criterion is not moral but pragmatic: what counts is what actually leads to awakening. Gautama had tested both failures in his own flesh, the pleasure-life of the palace and the six years of extreme fasting that had left him wasted without awakening him; from this he concludes that both extremes miss their aim. The first sermon accordingly rejects both the pursuit of sensual pleasures, "low and vulgar", and self-mortification, "painful and fruitless", for the Middle Way alone. Without condemning the body, he treats sensory pleasures as attachments that feed craving (taṇhā): the leaning stays ascetic, but regulated and deliberately measured, against the grain of the radical asceticism of the renunciants of his time.

Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, Saṃyutta Nikāya 56.11 (the two extremes and the Middle Way)

Although pleasure is the good, Epicurus advocates a measured sobriety: the highest pleasure is not the abundance of enjoyments but the absence of pain, which a little bread and water suffices to procure. When we say that pleasure is the end, we do not mean the pleasures of the dissolute but the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. The value leans slightly toward asceticism, out of frugality rather than contempt for the body.

Letter to Menoeceus, 130-132 (the praise of frugality) · Principal Doctrines, XV (the wealth required by nature is easily obtained)