Slow Fasting
by Tofu Roshi

You don't hear much about fasting in Zen practice, but actually we do fast in Zen. We fast between meals and snacks. In fact, almost all of the time that we are not eating, with just a few exceptions, we are fasting!

One reason fasting is called fasting is because people want to get it over with quickly and get on to the next meal, whether it's breakfast, elevenses, lunch, afternoon tea and cookies, dinner, or bed-time snack. But it's important not to fast too quickly. Fast slow, at least at first. Later, when you are more experienced, you can fast faster. You have heard of the Slow Food Movement? At my practice place, the No Way Zen Center, we are part of the Slow Fast Movement. Just as the Slow Food Movement emphasizes organically grown food prepared at home and eaten together in community, similarly, we in the Slow Fast Movement take care to ensure that all the food we don't eat together is organic.

One of the great advantages of fasting is the time you save. You don't have to shop, cook, or wash dishes. You don't really even have to floss. In the time you save, you can develop other interests besides food. In the time it takes to look for a parking place at the supermarket, you can be learning chords on the ukelele. In the time you now spend alphabetizing the spice rack, you can take a course in night photography.

There is some confusion about the difference between a fast and a diet. If we limit our food intake for the purpose of losing weight, that's a diet. But if we limit it for no reason, that's a fast. My dharma ancestor, Old Master Bush Wak of Lazy Man Mountain, went on a fast twice a year and ate nothing but French toast for a week. He didn't want his fast to be tainted by the desire to lose weight, and in fact he usually gained weight while fasting. As soon as he finished his fast, he always had to go on a diet, and for another week he had nothing but celery juice.

My students sometimes complain to me that they obsess about food while fasting. This is a common problem. If you cease all eating with your mouth and yet you continue eating with your mind, you are not fasting. So here is what I tell them: For five minutes every morning sit on your cushion and take this vow: "I will not think about food." Start with your least favorite foods, and work your way into a more challenging practice. In my own case, for example, I began the practice by not thinking about tripe. Whenever thoughts of tripe crept into my mind, as they inevitably did, I returned to my breath and started all over again. In this way I became more disciplined, and when I had spent a whole month deeply not thinking about tripe for five minutes every morning, I added other foods, and gradually I worked my way up to not thinking about tastee-creme donuts for five full minutes at a stretch.

If you continue to have difficulties, you may find it helpful to put all your cookbooks away and drape a plain white sheet over the refrigerator.

I would like to say more about the practice of fasting together. At No Way, we use our traditional oryoki eating style for this. Everyone spreads out their three bowls on the mealboard in the zendo. The servers come around with empty serving bowls, and each person indicates how much nada they want as they are being served. If you don't like what is not being served in any of the three bowls, you are encouraged not to take at least a little bit of it all the same. If the aversion that comes up is very strong, you can repeat a mantra to yourself such as, "It's better than tripe. It's better than tripe." In this way, we support each other's practice.

And remember, food is doof backwards.

For more guidance from Tofu Roshi, see his remarks on The Zen of Voting. You can also read his book, The Life and Letters of Tofu Roshi and look for his columns in Turning Wheel magazine.