To become conscious we must become Self-aware in the awareness of the observer Self-observing.
Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.
As you are externally aware, so also you can be inwardly aware of your thoughts and feelings, of your motives and urges, of your prejudices, envies, greed and pride…This outward and inward awareness is a unitary process which brings about a total integration of human understanding.
Fasting in the monastic community is considered an ascetic practice, a “dhutanga” practice. Dhutanga means “to shake up” or “invigoration”. The Buddha, as is well known, emphasized moderation, the Middle Way that avoids extremes, in all things. Fasting is an additional method that one can take up, with supervision, for a time.
