"On était alors en carême, et Thomas observait avec une scrupuleuse exactitude les jeûnes et les abstinences de l'Église, jeûnes et abstinences dont la rigueur était doublée et par ses autres souffrances, et par l'insuffisante nourriture donnée aux prisonniers." Charles Dallet, Histoire de l'Église de Corée, p. 561. In the same way, nothing could make him omit any of his ordinary practices of piety. He was severely tortured with amazing constancy and gladness.
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Everyone was too afraid to go and claim the Church property, and Thomas accepted commission to claim them. But, instead of holding its promise, the officials questioned his religion. Thomas confessed it boldly, and was thrown in prison. It was the time of Lent, and Thomas observed with a scrupulous exactitude the fasts and the abstinences of the Church, fasts and abstinences whose rigour was doubled and by his other sufferings, and the insufficient food given to the prisoners.
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Patanjali defines yoga as having eight components (अष्टाङ्ग , "eight limbs"): "The eight limbs of yoga are yama (abstinences), niyama (observances), asana (yoga postures), pranayama (breath control), pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation) and samadhi (absorption)."Yoga Sutras 2.29.
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Fasts and abstinences can be once a month, once every two months, once a week, once every two weeks, or perpetual . . . Offices are celebrated thrice a day: at dawn, noon, and dusk. At these times, candles are lit on the altar, and joss-sticks are placed in the incense-burner; the caretaker of the temple gives several strokes of the bell and the faithful perform several prostrations in front of the altar, bowing their heads to the ground. Prayers are said in low voice; a few beads are recited.
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Aerius was a priest and a friend and fellow ascetic of Eustathius of Sebaste. Eustathius became bishop of Sebaste in the year 355 and would later ordain Aerius and put him in charge of the hospital in Sebaste. Aerius fell out with Eustathius, due to the bishop having deserted ascetic practices. Aerius soon began to teach new doctrines, insisting that there was no sacred character distinguishing bishop or priest from laymen, that the observance of the feast of Easter was a Jewish superstition, and that it was wrong to prescribe fasts or abstinences by law, and useless to pray for the dead.
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A statue of Patanjali, the author of the Yoga Sutras, practicing dhyana (meditation), one of the eight limbs of yoga that he defines Ashtanga yoga (Sanskrit: , "the eight limbs of yoga") is Patanjali's classification of classical yoga, as set out in his Yoga Sutras. He defined the eight limbs as yama (abstinences), niyama (observances), asana (postures), pranayama (breathing), pratyahara (withdrawal), dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation) and samadhi (absorption). The eight limbs form a sequence from the outer to the inner. Postures, important in modern yoga, form one limb of Patanjali's scheme; he states only that they must be steady and comfortable.
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It was also said that Burnham's eyes possessed a far-away look such as those acquired by people whose occupation has caused them to watch continually at sea or on great plains. Burnham would not smoke and seldom drank alcohol, fearing these habits would injure the acuteness of his sense of smell. He found ways to train himself in mental patience, took power naps instead of indulging in periods of long sleep, and drank very little liquid. He trained himself to accept these abstinences in order to endure the most appalling fatigues, hunger, thirst, and wounds, so that when scouting or traveling where there was no water, he might still be able to exist.
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He came to attribute much of the problem to the isolation of their lives, even when sharing a rectory. Having studied Church history while preparing for his ordination as a priest, he felt that a solution could be found in the communal lives of the canons regular, who combine a monastic way of life with the pastoral care of the secular clergy. He then determined to commit himself to that way of life. Together with two companions who wished to join him in this form of life, Gréa settled in a small house where they began to follow the traditional monastic practices of the canonical life, rising at midnight to start the day's cycle of the Liturgy of the Hours on 21 November 1865 as well as the traditional fasts and abstinences.
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