Zuhd is failing to be concerned about the dunya (the life of this world). Ibn Taymiyya is supposed to have defined it as abandoning in this life what is of no significance in the next life, and there is a nice discussion of how zuhd can be fostered by...

(Skt. tapas) an important part of the Hindu religious scene, ranging from restraint of the senses, celibacy and general renunciation of worldly life, involving living on the bottom line of merely sustaining life, to the extremes of self-punishment and...

As practised for gaining magical powers or propitiating gods is essentially selfish. In First Sermon Buddha condemned extreme asceticism as ignoble and useless, and taught Middle Way between self-mortification and allurements of senses. Only asceticism...

Abstaining from pleasures of this world; common, especially in classical Judaism, in the form of fasting, e.g., in times of crisis, along with prayers for rain, divine grace; may also involve abstaining from wine, sexual relations; expresses fear of...

Asceticism describes a life characterized by abstinence from worldly pleasures (austerity). Those who practice ascetic lifestyles often perceive their practices as virtuous and pursue them to achieve greater spirituality. Many ascetics believe the...

Asceticism. Edited by Vincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Pp. xxxiii + 638. The secret pleasure of receiving, thumbing through, and then pouring over a tome on asceticism is a self-indulgence reserved for scholars...

ASCETICISM AND SEXUALITY THE "TRUMPERY OF NATURE" IN BERGSON'S THE TWO SOURCES OF MORALITY AND RELIGION "Asceticism and Sexuality" is a strange, perhaps even jarring title if you know anything about Bergson's works. Yet I think that Bergson's 1932 The Two Sources...