it’s been barely a week since i’ve started my no substance fast and i am already beginning to mark the days. for some reason i feel like it should be easy but there have been some small challenages already. the reality is that anytime you take something away such as the free will to do whatever, there will be habitual reactions to make the first phase of the withdraw period challenaging. i always use my example of fasting for 10 days as an attestment to my will power. still, it’s hard now to imagaine the suffering that i went through to sustain that level of discipline. interesting enough i read an article today about a teenager in nepal that has been meditating straight for about 6 months. it seems for the most part that he’s been fasting throughout most of the duration and he was even biten by a snake. some are already calling him the ‘buddha’ reincarnate and even if he wasn’t, i am sure he will have many followers throughout his life. reading stories like this simply validates my own convictions on the path. on a more ironic note, i also read on bbc news about a magician that fasted for 44 days in a glass box over the thames river. sometimes it’s too easy to laugh at the world around me.
meanwhile, i am vey much looking forward to the retreat next week. 5 days isn’t really long enough but i will take what i can get. i would dearly like to bring my computer to record my thoughts as they disengage from mundane attachments but i guess there are things that should only be experienced. like the experience of a life that is montonous such as mine. in some respect, i feel like i am on a very extended “work” retreat. a rather intense period of focus energy to establish a foundation for greater experiences. some would say that i have no life and i would not argue with that. but to those same people, being a monk is also a life without much “life”. artists or monk, do either of those care about life as others percieve it? and so, i find a quiet sweetness in my ability to sustain this level of lifelessness. maybe in a couple more years i will find even more lifelessness.