Before I moved to Utah, I assumed that fasting was commonplace. I read seven books on Mormonism to try to help prepare myself for the culture shock. It didn’t work. But one of the many things I learned is that Mormons supposedly fast once a month. It’s entirely possible that a lot of people here in southern Utah do it regularly, although I’ve not heard any mention of it at all.
Fasting is a tradition that has at one point been a part of every major religion, but it doesn’t seem to happen much anymore. People seem to cherry-pick what they like from their religions and conveniently leave the rest behind. Even the tradition of fasting for Lent has been replaced by giving up something trivial like eating meat, something Christians should have already given up if they were truly trying to follow Christ.
I can think of three dudes I look up to who fasted. First and probably most obviously was Yeshua of Nazareth who, upon being baptized, went into the wilderness and fasted for 40 days. One assumes that he had access to water, otherwise he probably would have died for our sins a lot sooner. That’s a really long time to go without food, although the record is held by an Irish revolutionary who went for 116 days without food.
The second is Zen Master Seung Sahn, founder of the Kwan Um School of Zen. He went on a 100-day retreat in the mountains of Korea, living on nothing but rainwater and pine needles. I remember reading that he said that he turned somewhat green during that time. Technically, he was eating, so one might say that he wasn’t fasting. However, eat a few pine needles and you’ll quickly realize that they’re an acquired taste, to say the least. I don’t know how much of that one can really eat.
And finally, there’s Mahatma Gandhi. He was one of our time’s great political activists and advocates for peace, and he had a huge influence on Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King, Jr. As a devout Hindu who didn’t cherry-pick from his religion, a yogi and an outspoken vegetarian. He famously went on hunger strikes as a form of nonviolent protest, sometimes for up to three weeks.
At the time of publication, I’ve been in the southern Utah woods for a day of fasting and meditation and have four more to go. I’ve done one-day fasts a few times, and the most I’ve done is three, but compared to 40 days or three weeks, that seems like nothing.
But go for just one day without food and you’ll realize just how dependent you are on the world around you. You might think that “you” are something separate from the rest of the universe — a special, unique snowflake that will live forever in Valhalla, the Akashic Hotel, San Diego, or your fantasy afterlife of choice. But in reality, “you” are constantly changing, and there is no such thing as a tangible, static, and independent “you” to live forever. The laws of entropy just don’t allow it. Your mind, unless you’re very unusual, generally won’t be still and is always leaping around like a caffeinated grasshopper. Try to hold it still and it becomes like a wet bar of soap. And your body is constantly dying and being born again, cell by cell. With just the few breaths you’ve taken while reading this paragraph, the air around your body has been integrated into your blood and cells, and material that used to be a part of “you” is floating off to be inhaled by some plant somewhere.
Fasting is a great way to get your head out of the clouds of your thoughts and emotions and back to reality. Gratitude is often professed to be a panacea for many negative emotional states like anger, jealousy, or sadness. And there’s no better way to force-feed yourself gratitude than a fast.
Seung Sahn allegedly attained enlightenment during his 100-day retreat. Somehow, I doubt that’s going to happen to me this week. Either way, I’ll follow up with something about what fasting and meditating for five days is like and whether or not I resorted to eating pine needles … and, of course, whether or not I attained enlightenment.
“The Fasting Cure” by Upton Sinclair. Another side of Fasting long forgotten…. But no $$$ to be made…. unlike the Epi-pen. Nice article…. good luck.