Fasting and meditating for 100 days. Part 1

This is part of the unpublished autobiography of a remarkable man, whom it has been my privilege to work with, in the role of proofreader and editor, for a period of several years. These excerpts are presented with his permission. Earlier parts of his story are also offered as hubs, A troubled childhood and Life as an Army nurse (the links are to the first of several hubs, each presenting a separate episode)

Having suffered terrible abuse as a child, he then had a decidedly mixed career in the army, where he trained as a nurse, followed by the discovery of alternative medicine and healing techniques. He found his real self via Buddhism, and parrticularly the Shingon form of Buddhism that is mainly practised in Japan. He trained and was ordained as a Buddhist priest, but wanted to go further in his spritual journey, hence the decision to a undertake a 100 day fast on a mountain in Japan. Very few people have ever achieved this feat (some have died in the attempt), and he was the first Westerner to do so. What follows is his own account of what happened.

Preliminaries to the fast

The crescendo of noise eased to a background hum and the feeling of violence and movement settled into a state of quietness. The 747 banked gently to the right as it climbed towards its cruising altitude. Before long the clouds hid England from sight as I settled back for the long flight eastwards towards Japan and what would turn out to be my greatest trial yet.

This was it. The tension and excitement, the worry and the fear, all drained from me and I felt light-headed and happy. During the hours of the flight I had plenty of time to reflect on the events that had brought me to this point on my spiritual path that was leading me towards a potentially life-threatening 100-day fast.

The decision to undertake the fast was not mine. This is not a task that you are allowed to perform through your own freedom of choice. The faith that I follow teaches that, when you are ready, the universe gives you the permission, authority and power to tackle the next task.

It was now two years since I had been ordained as a priest in the Japanese Buddhist order of Shingon Shu. For me, this was the culmination of a lifetime's journey, and that moment of ordination had been when I made my contract with my understanding of God in my own truth. It was at that moment that I realised that nothing can come between a person and his/her God.

This was a theme and a belief to which I would have to give up much in the future. Becoming a priest in Shingon Shu is to begin a journey of understanding of the esoteric worlds and dimensions of consciousness that exist in a multitude of different kinds of universe. It is a journey of love, tolerance, compassion and understanding. It teaches that we are indeed spiritual beings, undergoing the journey of human experience and, in order to transcend all aspects of human experience, one has to attend the university of physical life and embrace its teachings, because all experience is a teaching.

During the previous two years I had managed to pass many tests based on the teaching of Gyo. My Sensei then said that I had received permission to attempt a 100-day fast. I should state that at this time I was more than a little dubious about this, because as a nurse I fully understood the implications and risks of undertaking such a task. I prayed deeply and meditated for long periods to seek my own understanding of what I was proposing to do. Although we teach that each of us walks alone, that does not mean that we do so in a vacuum. There were many things in my life that some would refer to as attachments, and which could not be ignored, including my wife, children, and friends, as well as my job, my school and my clinic.

Was I prepared, through trust, to let go of all forms of human attachment? There is no easy answer to this question, and I burnt gallons of midnight oil as I wrestled with the problems associated with this quest. In the final analysis the answer comes with the doing rather than the thinking or the talking. Did I have enough faith and trust in my understanding of Buddhism or not? Eventually I decided that I did, and I felt humble and grateful to be allowed to attempt the 100-day fast.

A period of grieving and detaching myself from all that was "normal" in my life had to be completed before I left. The medical profession took the line that I needed sectioning (i.e. declared mentally unsound) and could not and would not in any way endorse this journey. My wife completely understood the implications and realised that the man she had married was evolving into a new person, and when he came back he would not the same person she had said goodbye to.

Little did I realise just how much I would change and how much it would cost. As the departure date drew closer all my relationships began to move into a clearer focus and I came to realise that so many of them were unfinished business. I therefore sought to tie up a lot of emotional, mental and physical loose ends. I could feel the strength and power of my God, I could feel a calling that I could not resist and did not want to resist. There lay within my subconscious a knowingness that all indeed would be well. As the long journey to Japan continued, the flashbacks of the events of my life went on exploding in my mind like a kaleidoscope with people and events merging into a continuous barrage of doubts, worries and anxieties.

I had anticipated these feelings within myself and had made arrangements to enter Japan quietly and unannounced in order to find my own focus. I had allowed myself ten days for pilgrimage, prayer and meditation before joining my temple to begin the test. During those ten days I walked about 200 miles through the mountains of Japan and visited many sacred sites and temples. My previous life fell away from me as my mind settled into a pool of calmness and my soul into a state of peace.

Japan is a land of striking contrasts, of ugliness alongside breathtaking beauty, and of traditionalism and modernism in constant conflict with each other. In general terms I found the people to be warm and friendly towards me as I struggled to master the language and communicate with their, to me, very unfamiliar customs and attitudes. The culture shock was two-way, as in some remote areas they had never seen a white person, let alone a white Buddhist priest. However, the vibration of Mikkyo and the love it carries transcend culture; it seems as though there is a form of knowingness within people that leads total strangers to give pilgrims food and shelter.

I therefore arrived at my temple in the south of Japan totally focused and ready for the task in hand. I was shown to a concrete hut on the side of a mountain and told that this was to be my home for the next three months or so. The temple had changed in terms of energy since my last visit and I was certain that I had changed in my ability to perceive the things that were going on around me. I started to see and feel people in a completely new way, and this created considerable dis-ease in me. However, I attributed this to my apprehension and nervousness at starting the fast.

My teacher laid out the rules that I was to follow and the conditions of the Gyo. I asked him many questions about all aspects of the fast so that I would understand exactly what was expected of me. My task was that between days one and 50 I would paint two Mandalas, called Kongoki (wisdom) and Tizoki (love). From days 51 to 70 I would undertake a sacred form of meditation called Ah Je Kan. For nourishment, my only food would be one bowl of rice water, two salt plums and green tea, every day. And so the Gyo began.

In the silence and solitude of the space I quickly became attuned to the sound of the wind in the jungle trees and the noises made by animals running around in the undergrowth. The first week was a week of detoxification and adjustment, and I soon found that the rice water played havoc with my digestive system. Severe wind and bouts of diarrhoea became the norm, and pain of many kinds was a constant companion. There was the pain of hunger, the pain that came from prolonged sitting in the lotus meditation position, and the perceived pain of an overactive mind being irritated by a grumbling body.

But, very soon, energetic beings started to appear, and this bore out one of my original concerns, which was that the evidence of my spiritual journey would be difficult to present in a form that would be acceptable in an academic thesis, which it was my aim to write at some stage. I was fully aware that back in my other world everything I saw that was not explainable in purely physical terms would be put down to hallucinations and the body's responses to the deprivations that it was undergoing. Before coming to Japan, I had therefore made arrangements with the BBC to maintain a video diary and reflective log. These would, I hoped, provide evidence of logical thought processes. The log would demonstrate my intact cognitive processes, and the video would supply evidence of my physical and emotional states.

© J K Adler-Collins 2008