The Teachings of Ajahn Suchart.
4 January 2024
Purpose of Fasting
Q: When we fast for 6 days, should we follow that with 6 days of eating?
Tan Ajahn: It’s up to you how much you want to eat and how much you want to fast. You have to look at the benefit that you get from fasting but you also have to look at the benefit of eating because you need to maintain your body also. So when you fast you have to make sure that you don’t overdo it to the point where it hurts your body. So this is something you have to figure out for yourself. There’s no fixed formula whether you eat 6 days and fast 6 days. If you find fasting 6 days and eating 6 days works for you, that’s fine. Or may be you’ll find that fasting 6 days and then only eating 3 days and then going back to fasting again - if you want to concentrate more on your meditation effort then you might fast more than you eat.
But if you want to have more of a balance between eating and fasting, you can divide half for each. Fast for 3 days, eat for 3 days, or fast for 5 days, eat for 5 days.
This is something that you can try out for yourself and see which works for you the best.
Q: Other Ajahn’s seemed to have destroyed their digestive systems fasting, but yours seems to be okay. How did you manage it?
Tan Ajahn: I don’t do the extreme, I just do it moderately. I don’t aim for the number of days of fasting. I look at the results of the practice when I fast.
If I fast and my mind is alert and I have more mindfulness then I keep fasting. But if I fast to a point where the mind becomes weakened and not alert anymore because the body has become weakened, then I stop fasting. I’m not looking for statistics, how many days you can fast. I look more at the result of fasting - whether it assists the meditation or not. If it doesn’t assist, it becomes a burden or becomes an impediment, then I stop. If I fast just to keep a statistic but I don’t meditate then it’s not worth fasting. Fasting is not for the statistic, it’s supposed to support your meditation.
So if you’re fasting but you’re not meditating, you just sleep because you’re so weak you cannot do anything, then it’s better not to fast. Then you should come back and eat.
Fasting is to stop your mind from being drowsy and lazy but over fasting can also have the opposite effect.
You can become sleepy and weak and you don’t feel like doing meditation practice if you fast too much. So this is something you have to figure out. Also the effect on your body. If you fast too long it can cause some stomach problems.
Q: What is the purpose of fasting and how do we know if it is suitable for our character?
Tan Ajahn: Fasting is to support your meditation, to help you get rid of your hindrances of sleepiness and laziness. It also stimulates your mindfulness practice because when you are hungry, you have to stop your hunger by stopping to think about food. In order to stop thinking about food, you have to recite a mantra or try to contemplate on the repulsive nature of food to stop your hunger. So this helps to stimulate your practice of mindfulness and also wisdom when you fast. And eventually, you will overcome this problem with eating forever.
Once you can fast, you will find that you will have no problem with what to eat - you can eat almost anything.
Because you can have a choice - if you don’t want to eat then you fast (Tan Ajahn laughs). When you’re given a choice then the defilements say, “Okay, I’ll eat anything that’s available.” But if you don’t have a choice, then you try to choose the food you want to eat and this is becoming defilements. So I think fasting is a good way of dealing with your overeating problem and also help your meditation practice.
“Dhamma in English, Feb 14, 2023.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
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