九种灵性练习 |第169期 |现在的理念 --- Nine Spiritual Exercises | Issue 169 | Philosophy Now

• description: Massimo Pigliucci explains how to get Philo-Sophical.
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The Art of Living生活的艺术

Nine Spiritual Exercises九种灵性练习

Massimo Pigliucci explains how to get Philo-Sophical.马西莫·皮格柳奇 （Massimo Pigliucci） 解释了如何获得哲学。

On 20th May, 1521, Spanish troops fought against a Navarrese contingent supported by the French at the fortress of Pamplona. The Spanish lost the battle, but a little more than a month later, on June 30th, they decisively defeated the combined Navarrese and French forces at the Battle of Noáin, thus ending the Navarrese rebellion. One of the Spanish soldiers wounded at Pamplona was the Basque captain Íñigo López de Loyola, who was injured in both legs. While convalescing at the Benedictine abbey of Montserrat in Catalonia, Íñigo, who later took the name of Ignatius and founded the religious order known as the Society of Jesus, started working on a book of spiritual exercises. These practices were organized in four thematic weeks, meant to help Christians recommit to their faith. Yet as famous as Ignatius’s exercises became, he was not the originator of the idea of spiritual exercises. Several ancient Greco-Roman schools, including the Epicureans and the Stoics, had long before discovered that certain practices could be invaluable in living a good life.
1521 年 5 月 20 日，西班牙军队在潘普洛纳要塞与法国人支援的纳瓦拉特遣队作战。西班牙人输掉了这场战斗，但一个多月后，即 6 月 30 日，他们在诺安战役中决定性地击败了纳瓦拉和法国联军，从而结束了纳瓦拉叛乱。在潘普洛纳受伤的西班牙士兵之一是巴斯克队长伊尼戈·洛佩斯·德·洛约拉，他的双腿受伤。在加泰罗尼亚蒙特塞拉特本笃会修道院疗养期间，伊尼戈后来改名为依纳爵并创立了耶稣会的宗教团体，他开始编写一本精神练习书。这些实践分为四个主题周，旨在帮助基督徒重新委身于他们的信仰。然而，尽管依纳爵的练习变得很有名，但他并不是精神练习思想的鼻祖。包括伊壁鸠鲁学派和斯多葛学派在内的几个古希腊罗马学派很久以前就发现某些实践对于过上美好生活是无价的。

The most comprehensive discussion of the history of philosophical exercises, including a comparison between the Hellenistic and Christian approaches, can be found in a classic book by French scholar Pierre Hadot, aptly entitled Philosophy as a Way of Life (1995). Hadot tells us that a list of such exercises was written down in two books by the Jewish Middle Platonist philosopher Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE-40 CE), Who is the Heir of Divine Things?, and Allegorical Interpretations, although similar exercises are scattered throughout the works of Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Plutarch, and other classical thinkers.
对哲学练习史最全面的讨论，包括希腊化方法和基督教方法之间的比较，可以在法国学者皮埃尔·哈多 （Pierre Hadot） 的一本经典著作中找到，恰如其分地命名为 《哲学作为一种生活方式 》（1995 年）。哈朵告诉我们，犹太中世纪柏拉图主义哲学家亚历山大的斐洛（公元前 20 年至公元 40 年）在两本书中写下了此类练习的清单，即 《谁是神圣事物的继承者？》 和 《寓言解释》， 尽管类似的练习散布在塞内卡、爱比克泰德、马库斯·奥勒留、普鲁塔克和其他古典思想家的作品中。

Let’s take a closer look at Philo’s approach, which some modern practitioners (including yours truly) find particularly useful. Philo recognized three major classes of exercises, having to do with reflection, action, and learning. Broadly speaking, the goals of the three classes are, respectively: to meditate on our life and on what is or is not important; to help us act appropriately, in accordance with our meditations; and to gain insights into what other people think so that our actions are most efficacious.
让我们仔细看看 Philo 的方法，一些现代从业者（包括您的从业者）发现它特别有用。菲洛认识到三大类练习，与反思、行动和学习有关。从广义上讲，这三堂课的目标分别是：冥想我们的生活以及什么是重要的或不重要的;帮助我们根据我们的禅修采取适当的行动;并深入了解其他人的想法，以便我们的行动最有效。

Beginning with reflection, there are three fundamental exercises that Philo advises us to do on a regular basis (daily, if possible, but at least weekly):
从 反思 开始，Philo 建议我们定期进行三个基本练习（如果可能的话，每天，但至少每周）：

(i) Pay attention: that is, train ourselves to live and act in the moment, and not be distracted by other things, including regrets about the past or worries about the future;
（i）注意：即训练自己活在当下，活在当下，不要被其他事情分心，包括对过去的遗憾或对未来的担忧;

(ii) Take the time to write down our thoughts about salient events of the day and how we reacted to them, in order to learn how to do better the next time;
（ii） 花时间写下我们对当天重大事件的想法以及我们对它们的反应，以便学习下次如何做得更好;

(iii) Express gratitude by singling out things and especially people we’re thankful to have in our lives.
（iii） 通过挑出我们生活中值得感谢的事物，尤其是我们所感激的人来表达感激之情。

In terms of action, again he suggests three spiritual practices:
在 行动 方面，他再次提出了三种精神修行：

(iv) Engage in what has been called ‘therapy of the passions’ – being attentive to unhealthy emotions such as anger, learning to recognize them at their onset, and working on developing better reactions to whatever triggers them;
（iv） 参与所谓的“激情治疗”——关注愤怒等不健康的情绪，学会在情绪开始时识别它们，并努力对任何触发它们的事物做出更好的反应;

(v) Self-mastery: attempt to improve our temperance and self-control, for instance by engaging in occasional fasting, or abstaining from alcohol or drugs; and
（v） 自我控制：试图提高我们的节制和自制力，例如偶尔禁食，或戒酒或戒毒;和

(vi) Performance of duties, especially social ones, like writing to our friends, checking in with people we know who may be in need, and so forth.
（vi） 履行职责，尤其是社交职责，例如写信给我们的朋友，与我们认识的可能有需要的人联系，等等。

Lastly, there are three exercises concerning learning:
最后，有三个关于 学习 的练习：

(vii) Engage as much as possible in Socratic dialogue (ie philosophical discussion) with others;
（vii） 尽可能多地与他人进行苏格拉底式对话（即哲学讨论）;

(viii) Read philosophy, especially original texts; and
（viii） 阅读哲学，尤其是原著;和

(ix) Inquire, that is, engage in research or scholarship, if one can. Or at the least, read other people’s writings concerning how the world works – what we would now call ‘science’, broadly construed.
（ix） 询问，即如果可以的话，从事研究或学术研究。或者至少，阅读其他人关于世界如何运作的著作——我们现在称之为“科学”，广义地解释。

The general idea is to improve our knowledge of the world (learning), regularly meditate on our experiences (reflection), and use these two tools for the crucial aspect: acting in life according to our chosen philosophical principles.
总体思想是提高我们对世界的认识（学习），定期冥想我们的经历（反思），并将这两个工具用于关键方面：根据我们选择的哲学原则在生活中行事。

It helps to keep a diary of your practices, or a spreadsheet in which you write down when and how you have performed each exercise. Mine now goes back over a decade, and has gradually become a precious source of information about the evolution of my self. Since my records are electronic, I can search by keywords (something Philo certainly couldn’t do) and see when, or how frequently, certain issues come up. How often has anger been a problem? For what or whom have I been grateful? How good have I been at performing my duties toward others, or at engaging in self-control? The point is neither to chide ourselves for our failures, nor to ‘gamify’ our philosophical progress. Rather, such exercises are tools first used over two millennia ago to help us become better human beings, which is the goal of a philosophical just as much as of a religious life.
它有助于记录您的练习日记，或在电子表格中写下您何时以及如何进行每项练习。我的现在可以追溯到十多年前，并逐渐成为有关我自我进化的宝贵信息来源。由于我的记录是电子的，我可以通过关键字进行搜索（这是 Philo 当然做不到的），并查看某些问题何时或多久出现。愤怒多久会出现一个问题？我感谢什么或谁？我在履行对他人的职责或自我控制方面做得如何？重点既不是责备我们的失败，也不是“游戏化”我们的哲学进步。相反，这种练习是两千多年前首次使用的工具，以帮助我们成为更好的人，这是哲学和宗教生活的目标。

© Prof. Massimo Pigliucci 2025
© Massimo Pigliucci 教授 2025

Massimo Pigliucci is the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. His books include How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life (Basic Books) and Beyond Stoicism: A Guide to the Good Life with Stoics, Skeptics, Epicureans and Other Ancient Philosophers (with Greg Lopez and Meredith Kunz, The Experiment). More by him at massimopigliucci.org.
马西莫·皮格柳奇 （Massimo Pigliucci） 是纽约城市学院的 KD Irani 哲学教授。他的著作包括 《如何成为斯多葛派：使用古代哲学过上现代生活 》（基础书籍）和 《超越斯多葛主义：斯多葛派、怀疑论者、伊壁鸠鲁主义者和其他古代哲学家的美好生活指南 》（与格雷格·洛佩兹和梅雷迪思·昆茨合著，《实验》）。他在 massimopigliucci.org 更多。

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