Buddha's Fasting Experience

Buddha’s fasting experience played a central role in the formation of Buddhism. He spoke highly of fasting and said that during his fasts, “My soul becomes brighter, my spirit, more alive in wisdom and truth” (as cited in Buhner, 2003, p. 27).

Around 500 B.C.E., Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) left his affluent family in search of enlightenment (Smith, 1995). He believed desire was the root of mortality and the only way he could gain liberation from suffering was by leading an ascetic life (Owens, 1975). After years of fasting in an attempt to achieve enlightenment, he decided to end his fast. He ate, regained his strength, and realized Buddhahood. Only after he stopped fasting did he realize his mahabodhi, or great awakening.

Buddha's story of fasting demonstrates how a spiritual awakening results from the process of fasting. His experience illustrates how physiological, psychological, and spiritual changes happen before, during, and after the event. Prior to the onset of his fasting, Buddha set the intent that fasting would initiate his enlightenment. He then fasted for an extended period in search of an awakening. Not until he ended fasting did he realize his original intention of enlightenment.

In certain respects, this explains how the mind, body, and spirit are connected during the act of fasting. When physiological, psychological, and spiritual aspects of the self are disrupted during the fast, it can cause intense self-examination. It is not uncommon for thoughts and emotions to ebb, flow, and explode from the deepest part of self. Once the fast is over and systems normalize, a shift may occur in the participant’s view of self in relation to reality. In this manner, fasting can cause spiritual awakenings, visions, and peak experiences that vary in perceived degree of intensity.

Fasting can cause a breaking and rejoining of the mind, body, and spirit. When this occurs on a parallel plane the magnitude of the dismemberment can be extraordinary. As the self is deconstructed, rearranged, and reconstructed, it can cause momentary anxiety and confusion, sometimes followed by crystal clear clarity. This may explain why some historians believe that Buddha's fasting experience was the spiritual vehicle for his enlightenment (Wilson, 2004). By removing his attachment for food—the most fundamental need we have—Buddha extracted from his life the major obstruction to his self-actualization.

Buddha’s experience is exemplary of the transformation that can occur as the result of fasting. Richard Valantasis (2008), a Professor of Ascetical Theology, explained how ascetic acts, like fasting, can cause a major reconstruction of self:

At the center of ascetical activity is a self who, through behavioral changes, seeks to become a different person, a new self; to become a different person in new relationships; and to become a different person in a new society that forms a new culture. As this new self emerges (in relationship to itself, to others, to society, to the world), it masters the behaviors that enable it at once to deconstruct the old self and to construct the new. Asceticism, then, constructs both the old and the reformed self and the cultures in which these selves function. (p. 7)

Valantasis’ description illustrates how fasting and other ascetical practices can create paradigm shifts as the experience alters both the participant and the world in which one lives. Fasting has the potential to create global paradigm shifts, demonstrated in Buddha’s case as his fasting is directly related to the formation of Buddhism and its contemporary practices.

Ralph Metzner (1986) suggested that Buddhism holds the central concept of a self- realization via the removal of obstructions. In our everyday life, vision and thought are obstructed with "thought-coverings," which Metzner called mental blocks or conceptual blind spots created in response to emotional cravings and aversions (p. 39). To remove these thought-coverings and become enlightened, we must release our attachments—not an easy task in cultures that thrive on materialism and superficiality. Fasting facilitates this process, creating a space where—as Metzner put it—we can dwell without thought-coverings. "In this state," said Metzner, "one is no longer attached, through either craving or aversion, to the world of sense objects, of phenomenal appearance. One sees and loves in what one modern seer-writer, Stewart Edward White, called 'the unobstructed universe” (p. 39).

The writings of Buddhists and Gnostics equate bodily life with imprisonment. According to Metzner, "Each human being is an immortal deity in mortal bodily form” (p. 60). We are "trapped, bound, and imprisoned" by our mortal form, but inside every person is an "imprisoned splendor” (p. 60). We exert an enormous amount of effort and money in our quest to uncover this splendor. Some of us think it lies in money, property, and prestige. We turn to therapists, coaches, and other practitioners hoping they have the answer. If we decide spiritual growth is the key, we learn to meditate, pray, do yoga—the list of spiritual disciplines seems endless. Fasting is different from other spiritual ventures because of the manner in which it empties, integrates, and activates mind, body, and spirit.

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