Ascetic practices (Buddhism)
Description
is accompanied not only by meditative practices but by ascetic practices. These purify virtue and lead to special qualities such as fewness of wishes, contentment, effacement, solitude, loss of sin, energy and modest requirements. Thirteen kinds of ascetic practice are allowed, each having three grades of severity depending on the vow undertaken. The practices are: the wearing of refuse rags; the wearing of a triple robe; the eating of alms food; house-to-house seeking of alms; the eating of food at one session; the eating of food from one bowl; the refusal of later food; dwelling in the forest; dwelling at the root of a tree; dwelling in the open air; dwelling on a ground where dead bodies are burnt; accepting any bed; remaining sitting as opposed to lying down while sleeping. Detailed instructions are given for these practices, including advantages in carrying out such a vow and conditions under which the vow is broken.
The practices may be carried out in combination (except, of course, where one includes the other or where they are mutually exclusive). Again, some are unsuitable for women, some more appropriate for different types of person. In general, asceticism is said to be good for individuals of greedy disposition, in that with progress greed subsides, and for the deluded in that delusions are got rid of by the diligent in effacement. Dwelling in the forest or at the root of a tree are said to be good for someone with the disposition to hate.
No ascetic practice is seen as unprofitable - all are profitable or indeterminate. The ascetic states that go with volition of ascetic practices bring non-greed, so that greed for forbidden things and indulgence in pleasure of those things which are allowed are both shaken off; they also bring absence of delusion, so that the dangers of forbidden things are no longer hidden and there is no indulgence of self-mortification through excessive self-effacement in ascetic practice.
In that the practices are seen as an aid to meditation, they are recommended only in that they assist in progress or do not decrease progress; where an ascetic practice makes the meditation subject deteriorate then it should not be cultivated.