Fasting Retreat – Hypocrite Vegan in Self-Deception trapped in Self-Abuse

The monk who's been a vegan and been eating only raw vegetables and uncooked grains declared that he would begin a solitary fasting retreat at the Mountain Hermitage. He looked very weak and they said that he had eaten only uncooked grain for six months. He was much weaker than the first time.

Vegan

He went to the zen monastery right after high school graduation. He reads too much and his knowledge is unorganized, even excessive. He's a erudite man, but not at all profound. He is extremely introverted and very intent but he's physically weak and quite irritable. Though knowledgeable in diverse subjects, he's arrogant and hypocritical. With less than five years of monastic experience, he pretends to have attained Enlightenment, which is ridiculous in the eyes of senior zen monks. In short, he is a zen Pierrot, a kind of unwitting clown. He talks slowly with his legs crossed in lotus position and his eyes slightly closed even when he addresses his seniors.

On the other hand, he can suddenly become hysterical if anyone gets on his nerves in the slightest way and reaches in a tirade and acts out with all kinds of gestures. Does he eat raw food to accelerate this practice of just to show off?

The members in general did not like his odd way of acting and speaking and they finally turned away from him. Completely alienated from everyone, he decided to make another attempt to show off his superiority in the meditation hall. Thus the solitary fasting retreat.

Solitary Fasting Retreat

It was a dangerous thing to do considering his health. It shouldn't be permitted in this freezing cold weather.

"Monk, are you going to do a solo fasting meditation retreat? It is freezing outside and the mountain Hermitage is very cold."

"I know. But I can't tolerate everybody freeloading here on donated food in the cozy indoors and always wasting time with useless arguments in total delusion. It is quite pathetic."

How condescending! But I refused to argue with him because we differ in many ways.

"So your are gonna wipe out karmic debts on behalf of stupid members?"

"That is right. With my fasting prayers."

"That is very generous of you, monk. By the way, you said you mastered Wisdom. Do you remember the story about walking in Handan? A boy from the Yan state went to Handan, the capital of Zhou Dynasty, to learn how to do the Zhou style of walking. But before he was able to learn it, he forgot his own may of walking, and eventually had to return on his hands and knees."

"Yes, I do."

Step by step I tried to catch him off-guard.

"Monk, An hour of sleeping reclined on your back is better than three hours sleep in sitting position or five hours of sleep while standing up. If you ignore self-nature and do unnatural things, you will inexorably fall into delusion. Neglecting your well-being for the sake of asceticism may be meaningful for religious observance, but it won't enhance your spiritual practice a bit. I think it is better to practice asceticism for self-help rather than self-abuse.

"That is a lousy logic of binary opposition!"

"I just want to find out what is right and what is wrong beyond logic."

"Is it because standards are relative?"

"No, just because of the limitation of language."

Self-Abuse

"Then I will tell you again. Ascetic practice is definitely self-abuse in every way. Self-abuse means abandoning yourself. Laozi once said, "He who devotes himself to the Tao seeks from day to day to diminish his doing. He diminishes it and again diminishes it, till he arrives at doing nothing on purpose. Having arrived at this point of non-action, there is nothing which he does not do." As far as I understand it, the Way can be attained when you have nothing left to lose after repeated trials to diminish yourself."

"I think, true ascetic practice should be self-centered."

"Please do not make a judgement as if you're objective. Say directly what you think."

"Monk, let me ask you a simple question. When you follow your practice, are you aware of 'diminishing' ?"

"Yes I am, I think it and I feel it as well. And I try to come up with ways and means to do my practices more strictly. Like today when I decided to to on a fasting prayer retreat. Whenever I eat raw grain for my meal, I suffer intensely."

Ascetic Practice

"Monk, your ascetic practice is not ascetic practice at all. Laozi didn't actually practice asceticism. He just made smart analogies about it. Your ascetic practice is simply a meaningless effort mistakenly dedicated to the Way. If you are aware of or sense that you're engaged in some difficult practice, then, you've already lost it. Ascetic practice in a true sense refers to the practice that you do without the awareness that you're doing it at all."

"Well is ascetic practice possible if you take good care of your body?"

"There is an old saying 'there is nothing more important than your body, live first and then you can do everything.' This may sound very materialistic and egoistic. If you look into it carefully, though, you will see that it expresses the universal truth of all beings very well. 'I' can be found when I realize that I'm merely one of the countless beings appearing and disappearing through the endless functioning of infinite space, eternal time and inexhaustible energy.

While searching for 'I' I have to take good care of myself, and to do this, I will have to practice. When I finally find myself on the path, there is no 'I' but liberation. This being so, do you really have to make a fasting meditation retreat in your poor health?"

"By the way, what is Liberation? What is it that attracted all of us to this distant mountain monastery"

"I do not know what Liberation is. One thing I know is that it cannot be expressed in words. If you talk about it, already, it is not Liberation. Speaking about Liberation can be compared to blind men talking about an elephant. All we have to do is to become enlightened. Although I use some rarified expressions such as 'liberation' or the 'other shore' , I merely use it for easier communication."

"Well I am going to do my fasting retreat anyway. I am not you."

"Well, if you insist."

At this point, there was nothing I could do about him anymore. He was beyond my reach. You couldn't win over this stubborn zen monk. How stupid I was to have wasted my time using foolish words to reason with him!

As it turned out, the vegan raw-food-eating monk ended his fasting retreat after only three days and left the meditation hall.

"Things could've gotten worse.... at least he has a bit of conscience left."