The Seven Forms of Bodily Discipline

By St. Peter of Damascus

The first of these forms of discipline consists in stillness, [1] or in living a life without distraction, far from all worldly care. By removing ourselves from human society and distraction, we escape from turmoil and from him who ‘walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour’ (I Pet. 5:8) through idle talk and the worries of life. Instead, we have but one concern: how to do God’s will and to prepare our soul so that it is not condemned when we die; and how with complete attention to learn about the snares of the demons and our own faults which, being more in number than the sands of the sea and like dust in their fineness, pass unrecognized by most people. Ever mourning, we grieve over human nature but are comforted by God. For in our gratitude, we are encouraged because we have come to see what we could never have hoped to perceive had we lived outside our cell. Having recognized our own weakness and the power of God, we are filled with fear and hope, so that we neither lapse through ignorance because we are too sure of ourselves nor, when some misfortune befalls us, fall into despair because we have forgotten God’s compassion.

The second form of bodily discipline consists in moderate fasting. We should eat once a day and then not to the point of satiety. We should eat one kind of simple and readily accessible food–if possible, the kind of food that we do not relish particularly. In this way we can overcome gluttony, greed and desire, and live without distraction. But we should not refuse any kind of food completely, lest thereby we wrongly reject things that, being created by God, are ‘wholly good and beautiful’ (Gen. 1:31). [2] Nor should we gulp everything down at once, indulgently and without restraint; but each day we should eat one kind of thing, with self-control. We should use all things for the glory of God, and we should not refuse anything on the grounds that it is evil, as the accursed heretics do. We may drink wine when appropriate: in old age, sickness and cold weather it is most helpful, but must be drunk only in small quantities. When we are young and in good health, and the weather is warm, water is better, though we should drink it as little as possible. For thirst is the best of all bodily disciplines.

The third form of discipline consists in keeping moderate vigils. We should sleep for half the night and the other half we should devote to the recital of psalms and to prayer, compunctive sorrow, and tears. Through this judicious fasting and vigil, the body will become pliable to the soul, healthy and ready for every good work; while the soul will gain in fortitude and illumination, so as to see and to do what is right.

The fourth form of discipline consists in the recital of psalms - that is to say, in prayer expressed in a bodily way through psalms and prostrations. This is in order to gall the body and humble the soul, so that our enemies the demons may take flight and our allies the angels come to us, and we may know from where we receive help. Otherwise in ignorance we may grow arrogant, thinking that what we do is due to ourselves. If that happens, we will be forsaken by God so that we may recognize our own weakness.

The fifth form of discipline consists in spiritual prayer, prayer that is offered by the intellect and free from all thoughts. During such prayer the intellect is concentrated within the words spoken and, inexpressibly contrite, it abases itself before God, asking only that His will may be done in all its pursuits and conceptions. It does not pay attention to any thought, shape, color, light, fire, or anything at all of this kind; but, conscious that it is watched by God and communing with Him alone, it is free from form, color and shape. Such is the pure prayer appropriate for those still engaged in ascetic practice; for the contemplative there are yet higher forms of prayer.

The sixth form of discipline consists in reading the writings and lives of the fathers, paying no attention to strange doctrines, or to other people, especially heretics. In this way we learn from the divine Scriptures and from the discrimination of the fathers how to conquer the passions and acquire the virtues. Our intellects will be filled with the thoughts of the Holy Spirit, and we will forget the unseemly words and conceptions to which we gave our attention before we became monks. Moreover, through deep communion in prayer and reading we will be able to grasp precious meanings; for prayer is helped by reading in stillness, and reading is helped by pure prayer, so long as we attend to what is being said and do not read or recite carelessly. It is true, however, that we cannot properly understand the full significance of what we read because of the darkness induced by the passions; our presumption often leads us astray, especially when we rely on the wisdom of this world which we think we possess, and do not realize that we need knowledge based on experience to understand these things, and that if we wish to attain knowledge of God mere reading or listening is not enough. For reading and listening are one thing and experience is another. One cannot become a craftsman simply by hearsay: one has to practice, and watch, and make numerous mistakes, and be corrected by those with experience, so that through long perseverance and by eliminating one’s own desires one eventually masters the art. Similarly, spiritual knowledge is not acquired simply through study but is given by God through grace to the humble. That a person, on reading the Scriptures, may think that he partially understands their meaning need cause no surprise, especially if that person is at the stage of ascetic practice. But he does not possess the knowledge of God; he simply hears the words of those who do possess this knowledge. Writers like the prophets often did indeed possess divine knowledge, but as yet the ordinary reader does not. So it is in my own case: I have collected material from the Holy Scriptures, but have not been found worthy of learning directly from the Holy Spirit; I have learnt only from those who did learn directly from the Holy Spirit. It is like learning about a person or a city from those who have actually seen them.

The seventh form of bodily discipline consists in questioning those with experience about all our thoughts and actions, in case we go astray because of our inexperience and self-satisfaction, thinking and doing one thing after another, and so become presumptuous, imagining that we know as we should, although we still know nothing, as St Paul says (cf. I Cor. 8:2).

In addition to practicing these seven bodily disciplines, we should patiently endure all that God allows to happen to us so that we may learn and gain experience and knowledge of our weaknesses. We should neither grow too bold nor fall into despair, whatever happens to us, whether good or bad. We should repudiate every dream and every idle word or action, and should always meditate on God’s name, at every moment, in every place, in all we do, as something more precious than breath itself. And we should sincerely abase ourselves before God, withdrawing the intellect from all worldly thoughts, seeking only that God’s will may be done. Then the intellect will begin to see that its faults are like the sand of the sea. This is the beginning of the soul’s illumination and a sign of its health: the soul becomes contrite and the heart humble, and truly regards itself as the least of things. Then we begin to understand God’s blessings, whether particular or all-embracing, of which the Holy Scriptures speak; and we begin to understand also our own offences. We start to keep all the commandments, from the first to the last, fully aware of what we are doing. For the Lord has established them like a ladder, and we cannot miss one out and go on to the next: as with steps, we must go from the first to the second, from the second to the third, and so on. In the end they make man a god, through the grace of Him who has given the commandments to those who choose to keep them.

1. Stillness (hesychia) means in Greek not only inner tranquility, but also exterior withdrawal into solitude: hence its inclusion, at first sight somewhat unexpectedly, among the forms of bodily discipline.

2 The Greek word used here is not agathos (good) but kalos, a term that in the Septuagint, and in the Greek patristic tradition as a whole, denotes the beautiful no less and sometimes more than the good. To speak of creation and created things as beautiful does not of course mean only that they are pleasing to look at. What is implicit in this context is the understanding that physical beauty is an epiphany of divine beauty: physical beauty is related to moral beauty, and both are related to their origin in the world of incorporeal essences (logoi) and its principle, the Good itself, or God. It is with these connotations in mind that the term should be read, as indeed it should be read in the actual title of The Philokalia (cf. Vol. 1, p. 13).

Source: St. Peter of Damaskos, The Philokalia, Vol. 3, Faber & Faber, 1984.