Freedom from Thoughts
Part One: The Ancient Wisdom of Evagrius
We all struggle with mental preoccupations: worry, future-tripping, self-pity spirals, endless comparisons and evaluations, escapist fantasies. These sap us of creativity and energy, and even become obstacles to our spiritual growth. We come to identify with the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. We are trapped in the prison of our own minds. How do we get free?
This is a question that ancient Christian monasticism sought to answer, and one of the most brilliant sources of ancient wisdom on this issue is a little know monk named Evagrius Ponticus. I want to explore his teaching as a resource for our struggles today. But first, a little bit about his life.
Evagrius was a 4th century Christian monk and theologian (345-399 CE). He is not particularly well known in the Western tradition, having been condemned as a heretic by the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553 and subsequent Councils because of his adherence to speculative ideas associated with Origen of Alexandria. Be that as it may, Evagrius is an important link between the Christian philosophical reflection of the Alexandrian School and the ascetical practices of the early Coptic monks, providing the first systematic Christian spiritual theology.
His theological mentors were the great Cappodocian bishops, St. Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and Basil’s younger brother, St. Gregory of Nyssa. In fact, Evagrius was an influential figure at the Second Ecumenical Council in 381, supporting the defense of Nicene faith. But the heady intellectual life and power politics of Constantinople eventually proved too much of a temptation for Evagrius. He was ambitious and arrogant, and even became consumed with desire for a married woman. Being troubled by obsessive and distracting thoughts was not an abstract problem for him!
Eventually, he realized his need for spiritual renewal. He left Constantinople for Jerusalem, where he was welcomed to the monastic community founded there by Melania the Elder and Rufinus of Aquileia. Under the auspices of Melania, Evagrius made his way to the Egyptian desert in 383, settling with a group of Origenist monks in Nitria. He also visited Scete and sat at the feet of the revered Abba Macarius the Great, and eventually moved to a more austere hermitage in Cells. It was here that he practiced austerities and meditation, offered spiritual direction to other monks, and wrote prolifically about the spiritual life and theology until his death in 399.
His major work was a trilogy on the spiritual life comprised of the Praktikos, the Gnostikos, and Kephalia Gnostica. The later writing was the most speculative and controversial. The earlier writings were more concerned with matters related to spiritual practice and its challenges. Some of these found there way into the great compendium of Eastern Orthodox spirituality, the Philokalia, though often attributed to other monastic figures.
In the Syriac and Armenian Orthodox Churches, Evagrius is venerated as a saint. His reputation in the West is undergoing something of a rehabilitation, as his influence through John Cassian on St. Benedict and his Rule has shaped profoundly the development of Western spirituality. The monks continued to read Evagrius, even if in secret, and benefited from his sophisticated spiritual psychology. We, too, can benefit from his writing, particularly his teaching on logismoi (thoughts) and how to deal with then.
There are eight general and basic categories of thoughts in which are included every thought. First is that of gluttony, then impurity, avarice, sadness, anger, acedia, vainglory, and last of all, pride. It is not in our power to determine whether we are disturbed by these thoughts, but it is up to us to decide if they are to linger within us or not and whether or not they are to stir up our passions.1
These eight kinds of “evil thoughts” became disilled by later tradition as the “seven deadly sins.” But that is really not quite what Evagrius is getting at. What Evagrius is describing are not “sins” per se but the interior conditions that provide the necessary preconditions for sin. “Thoughts” are essentially constellations of energy within the body associated with particular mental formations and related emotional states.
Notice that thoughts are not just cognitive, but also emotional and even sensate. The problem is not that we have thoughts/feelings/sensations, but that they can become entrained with thought-loops that recur obsessively and stir up “passions.” “Passions” in this context does not refer to joie de vivre or creative energy, but rather to stuck emotions. Think of envy or resentment or despair:
“Why does she get all the breaks!”
“Can you believe what he did to me 20 years ago!”
“I’ll never be good enough.”
It is such thought-trains and their attendant emotions that disturb us, distort our perception of reality, and poison our relationships. Contemplative practice helps us to recognize these patterns and to dis-identify from them, creating greater inner spaciousness and freedom to recognize, release, and redirect our thoughts before they can disturb us. This is not a counsel to dissociate from or repress thoughts, but to shine the light of awareness on them at the earliest stages of their development.
In subsequent posts, I will be exploring the “eight evil thoughts” and Evagrius’ teaching on how to respond to them.
Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos & Chapters on Prayer translated by John Eudes Bamberger, OCSO (Trappist, KY: Cistercian Publications, 1972), p. 16-17.