What is it? Not eating! Why do you do it? To attain a type of cleansing and spiritual clarity! When do you do it? Whenever you feel the need.
Jews have Yom Kippur
Christians have Lent
Muslims have Ramadan
Buddhists have most anytime! Buddha LOVED fasting.
And Hinduism--well, Gandhi wasn't exactly portly.
In this space, post about your fasting experience and what can be learned from the process. Is fasting important, or just an interesting sidelight to a faith?
Please fast for at least 12 hours, but I say--GO FOR THE 24!
Blog Creator
- Hoover
- Dover, PA, United States
- HS Teacher, specializing in American government & politics, as well as World Religions.
9 comments:
So I used to do this thing at my church called the "30 Hour Famine" where we fasted for 30 hours and raised money for starving children in Africa (Similar to Dance-a-thon). Anywho, I really never understood the point of fasting other than the reason I did it, which was to fund raise.
Also, if Buddha loved fasting so much, why are all of the statues of him extremely fat??
From my own experiences when I was younger, I remember fasting for a period of 12 hours on Ash Wednesday. It's definitely not an enjoyable experience, but I guess it does have benefits.
I think the goal is to produce spiritual awareness. From my point of view, I see it as a connection to be made to the suffering of Jesus and to make the fasting person more aware of the idea of sacrifice. I also think it produces a sense of achievement, similar to the Dance-A-Thon where we endured the pain and succeeded in recognizing the sacrifice and the reward.
As a note, I'm going to try a 24 hour fast this weekend...this will be fun...
I've never really fasted but I've gone without food. In early high school, most trips I just stopped eating. And once for about two weeks, I dehydrated myself so that I could only eat a bite of a sandwich and a capri-sun pouch, any more food than that and my body rejected it.
I'm going to fast some time during Lent, because I don't find it that daunting, but rather than set a time limit, I'm just gonna go until I can't stand it. It seems like a good mental exercise to teach discipline and self-control/will-power.
I found it interesting when I went to start this fast the many different "rules" of fasting. There are a million different rules, ranging from purely water only, water and bread, and finally beverages only(including soda, etc). I went with the Beverages option and decided to go for 24 hours from Saturday 8:00 AM (since I woke at 7:30 and had breakfast) to Sunday 8:00 AM. It was fairly easy until around midnight when it really hit me. For my own amusement I decided to go for a second mini-fast for 12 hours the next morning, but that was after a welcomed breakfast...
Anyway, I learned three key things that made fasting worthwhile.
-Fasting is a test of faith. We are tempted to eat, much like we are tempted to sin. Faith in God and ourselves helps to avoid being led astray.
-The 'suffering', or more so just uncomfortable nature of an empty stomach, is a reminder of what people go through or have gone through. It strengthens compassion and empathy, two common themes in many religions.
-Coffee makes me hungry, making it a bad option for future fasting
I did my fast from Friday at 6am to Saturday at 7am. The funny part is---no one in my family picked up that I was fasting. I agree with Chalupa that it's tough later at night. I would say starting at 7pm, I became much more mindful that I was fasting. It didn't help that I also prepared meals for my daughters and a late night snack for my wife---that was a killer and I almost made the excuse that it would be OK. After all, who would know?
Nevertheless, I was strong and felt good about it. I think the idea of suffering and want are two big philosophies, but I also think the value is to reset the body. Since the fast, I've tried to be more mindful of what I eat.
By the way, I did tell my family that I was fasting. I guess since I do this every year, no one really cares all that much. I guess I'm like Gandhi--when he fasted, I'm sure no one really cared. But, what if he wore pants? Then people would care!
I finished my fast successfully as well. I didn't find it hard staving off hunger, in fact I couldn't finish the meal I broke my fast with. What I found hard was breaking eating habits. I found myself walking to the pantry a couple times, and it felt weird to not split the day's happenings with lunch; the day just kept going...
And Hoover, I'd also like to know why Buddha's fat like The Hippie pointed out. I looked it up but I found different answers ranging from it signifies his benevolent nature to it being a different buddha from THE buddha, to it being a Chinese thing.(interestingly Japan's buddha's are skinny). Or is asking why buddha's fat like asking why Jesus has a beard?
I was doing some research too since it was a good question. Quoting one site, a Buddha in China is fat because traditionally "a fat person signifies wealth and happiness and good fortune." It just has to do with the regional interpretation like Tim mentioned. Siddhartha (the original Buddha), was the skinny man we'd expect to image.
Personally, I always thought it was just because he was 'full' of knowledge...
Uh... I couldn't really fast friday or saturday because I had districts... but i tried it on sunday for twelve hours.
I ate something around 8:30 am, i actually think it was tacos. They were pretty sweet, but they weren't cacasian tacos, more mexican in style. Anyway, i ended up not eating until 9:30 or so.
I had to wait that long because i had church at 2:30 then dance practice until 8:00 pm. My dance group is in Hanover, and when i got home i took a shower.
I was really hungry during dance, but then kinda forgot about it, cuz i had a gatorade. I guess 12(13 hours really) hours isn't really enough to trully experience a fast, but it was interesting. I usually snack a lot throughout the day, and had some though moments where i wanted to eat some stuff(some girl had girl scout cookies after church... they looked really good)
My fast lasted from last Thursday at 6:30 at night to Friday night at 6:30. I ate a huge meal at Taco Bell right before I began, which I think helped me a lot. After that I was out all night and went to bed as soon as I got home to avoid thinking about eating. I then slept in until 10, went to school and skipped lunch because I knew that would get me until 3 o'clock at least. The last 5 or so hours were incredibly difficult, especially the last hour and a half when I was at work and surrounded by food. I felt fatigued a lot from not eating anything, and it was quite a difficult task. It did make me mindful of suffering and temptation though.
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