John Cassian's "The Conferences"[0][1] is a collection of interviews with the Desert Fathers, and one of the subjects discussed is that of focus and concentration (a selection of excerpts was recently compiled into a small book entitled "How to Focus", a review of which was posted here on HN two months ago [2]).
At one point, one of the monks interviewed by John Cassian and Germanus (either Abba Moses, Abba Serenus, or Abba Isaac, all of Scetis) compares the mind to a millstone driven by a water wheel. As long as the water flows, you cannot stop the millstone from moving and grinding whatever has been put into it. We cannot stop the millstone, but we can control what we feed into it and what is ground up by it.
Of course, there is also a long tradition of mortification of the flesh ("The Conferences" also discusses such things), crudely parodied and ridiculed by bad literature and trash Hollywood films. The basic understanding is that our bodily appetites can be unruly, grasping, wanting, desiring, imprudently and with no regard for the objective good that the intellect knows. Mortification is a way of training these insubordinate appetites and passions into obedience to the intellect through exercises of denial. Fasting is one example. An element of discomfort, and even suffering, can be involved as the lower is sacrificed for the sake of the higher, and the appetites throw their tantrums as we persevere and dominate them, reigning them in like a man on horseback reigns in his horse.
Our culture has sold us the idea that indulging our whims and desires with no regard for our objective good is freedom, but nothing could be further from the truth. This kind of lifestyle is a recipe for misery and enslavement, both to the chaos and disorder of unruly and even disordered appetites and passions, but also those who gladly exploit the appetites of such weak and blind men, herding and using them like mindless beasts. As Augustine of Hippo wrote, "a good man, though a slave, is free; but a wicked man, though a king, is a slave. For he serves, not one man alone, but what is worse, as many masters as he has vices." The relevance to focus here is that if you do not learn to exercise restraint and self-mastery, you will have trouble with focus as your appetites and passions will pull you away from the matter at hand. Perseverance is thwarted by such softness [3]. Pour only good things into your millstone. Do not pollute your millstone with darnel. Endure truth, whether pleasant or painful. Let is grind away your marble you bring forth your sculpture. It is not mastered, repressed appetites that come back to bite you. On the contrary. It is repressed truth that does.
At one point, one of the monks interviewed by John Cassian and Germanus (either Abba Moses, Abba Serenus, or Abba Isaac, all of Scetis) compares the mind to a millstone driven by a water wheel. As long as the water flows, you cannot stop the millstone from moving and grinding whatever has been put into it. We cannot stop the millstone, but we can control what we feed into it and what is ground up by it.
Of course, there is also a long tradition of mortification of the flesh ("The Conferences" also discusses such things), crudely parodied and ridiculed by bad literature and trash Hollywood films. The basic understanding is that our bodily appetites can be unruly, grasping, wanting, desiring, imprudently and with no regard for the objective good that the intellect knows. Mortification is a way of training these insubordinate appetites and passions into obedience to the intellect through exercises of denial. Fasting is one example. An element of discomfort, and even suffering, can be involved as the lower is sacrificed for the sake of the higher, and the appetites throw their tantrums as we persevere and dominate them, reigning them in like a man on horseback reigns in his horse.
Our culture has sold us the idea that indulging our whims and desires with no regard for our objective good is freedom, but nothing could be further from the truth. This kind of lifestyle is a recipe for misery and enslavement, both to the chaos and disorder of unruly and even disordered appetites and passions, but also those who gladly exploit the appetites of such weak and blind men, herding and using them like mindless beasts. As Augustine of Hippo wrote, "a good man, though a slave, is free; but a wicked man, though a king, is a slave. For he serves, not one man alone, but what is worse, as many masters as he has vices." The relevance to focus here is that if you do not learn to exercise restraint and self-mastery, you will have trouble with focus as your appetites and passions will pull you away from the matter at hand. Perseverance is thwarted by such softness [3]. Pour only good things into your millstone. Do not pollute your millstone with darnel. Endure truth, whether pleasant or painful. Let is grind away your marble you bring forth your sculpture. It is not mastered, repressed appetites that come back to bite you. On the contrary. It is repressed truth that does.
[0] https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3508.htm
[1] https://a.co/d/fygMduA
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39653517
[3] https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3138.htm