Fasting Against the World — A 21-Day Healing Camp

In the Sun’s Company

Day 5 — 5 PM: 
A little hungry. A bit uneasy. My head feels heavy — maybe from too many hours at the computer since 6 a.m. This afternoon, I step away from the screen and into the sunlight.

The sun… all life depends on it. Plants turn it into food. We turn that food into movement, thought, breath. Without it, there is no growth, no warmth, no rhythm.

To life, the sun is what consciousness is to the soul: the unseen engine of vitality. Without consciousness, the soul is inert. Without the sun, the earth sleeps in cold darkness.

Science can tell us the sun is a ball of nuclear fusion — hydrogen becoming helium — but that answer feels incomplete. In esoteric traditions, the sun is more than matter; it is the visible face of the invisible fire. Hermetic texts call it the heart of the cosmos. Daoist alchemy sees it as a yang furnace that never sleeps, an eternal altar where the cosmic breath is transmuted. Some say its light is not just photons, but information — a constant transmission from the Source, coded in heat and brilliance.

How can it burn without fuel? Perhaps because it is not burning in the way we think — it is emanating. The way love in its pure form never depletes, or the way awareness, once awakened, does not “run out.”

I close my eyes. The warmth sinks into my skin, into my breath, into my bones. I imagine my Dantian as a miniature sun — steady, unhurried, feeding my whole being with quiet radiance.

Fasting reminds me: sometimes the best nourishment doesn’t come from food. Sometimes it comes from stepping into the light and remembering where all life begins.

Day 5

The Myth, Lies, and Truth of Nutrition, Protein, and Growth

Weight: 123 lbs

Introduction — When the Body Becomes Its Own Proof
Five days into my 21-day fast, I wake up with no hunger pains, no dizziness, no “crash” that every nutrition ad warns you about. The scale says 123 lbs, but my strength and mental clarity are sharper than they’ve been in years. The mirror doesn’t show frailty — it shows a certain brightness in the eyes, a lightness in the body that is not weakness, but freedom from excess.

This is the part where modern nutritionists would furrow their brows and shake their heads. “You’re losing muscle mass!” they’d warn. “You’re putting your body into starvation mode!” they’d insist. And yet here I am, not only functioning — but thriving. This is not theory; it’s lived evidence.

The truth is, much of what we’ve been told about food, protein, and the human body’s needs is based on a pyramid built not of stone, but of profit motives, cultural myths, and selective science.

 
Section I — The Food "Jin San Jiao" and the Cult of Balanced Diets
In China, there’s an idea sometimes called the “food golden triangle” — the belief that one must eat a balanced combination of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats every single day, and that within those categories, variety is essential: fruits, nuts, meat, milk, eggs. Western dietary guidelines echo this, telling us to fill our plates with a rainbow of foods, to never “skip” a food group, to consume daily amounts of everything from dairy to grains.

But let’s pause. Is this truly nature’s law? Or is it a marketing construct wrapped in the language of health?

Think about the cow. It eats no meat, no eggs, no milk from other animals. Its diet is grass — cellulose and water — yet within one year it develops hundreds of pounds of muscle and bone. How? Through the miracle of biological transformation: the cow’s microbiome ferments plant matter into volatile fatty acids, and its body synthesizes every amino acid it needs. It does not consult a dietitian.

Now look at the tiger. A pure carnivore, it eats no plants, no fruit, no grains. Yet it never develops “scurvy” from a lack of fruit or “fiber deficiency” from a lack of greens. The tiger’s body extracts vitamin C from fresh meat, obtains all necessary micronutrients from organ tissues, and thrives without touching a single carrot or apple.

If two creatures — one plant-eater, one meat-eater — can achieve perfect development without “balanced” diets, what does that say about the rigidity of human nutritional dogma?

 
Section II — The Breakfast Lie
One of the most enduring mantras of modern nutrition is that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” It’s repeated in schools, health campaigns, and cereal commercials. But where did this idea actually come from?

Not from ancient wisdom. Not from unbroken human tradition. It came largely from 19th and 20th-century food industry campaigns, especially those selling grains, cereals, and bacon. In the late 1800s, Kellogg’s and Post popularized the idea of a morning meal as a health ritual, linking it to moral purity and industrial productivity. Later, the National Pork Producers Council boosted bacon sales by commissioning “studies” touting the hearty breakfast.

Before that, many cultures ate their first meal late in the day. In traditional Chinese life, farmers might drink tea in the morning, work several hours, and then eat their first substantial meal closer to midday. In medieval Europe, “dinner” was often the first meal, taken around 10 or 11 a.m., and “breakfast” — literally “breaking the fast” — was not assumed to be an early morning habit.

I personally stopped eating breakfast over ten years ago. My “break-fast” is often at noon, sometimes later, and often just fruit. My health markers — blood pressure, resting heart rate, energy levels — are better than most of my peers. I have not collapsed from “low blood sugar.” The truth is, the body adapts. It doesn’t run on clock-based feeding schedules; it runs on stored energy and metabolic flexibility.

 
Section III — The Ancient Norm: Fasting as Default
We tend to think of fasting as some extreme, temporary act. But for much of human history, fasting was the baseline. Food scarcity, seasonal cycles, religious observances, and labor rhythms naturally created long stretches without eating.

Even the word “break-fast” implies that fasting is the default state, and eating is the interruption. In pre-industrial times, people might fast from evening until the next day’s work was well underway. They did not graze on snacks; they worked, prayed, and moved in sync with daylight.

Religious traditions preserved this rhythm. Daoists, Buddhists, and Christian ascetics all embraced fasting as a means of purification — not just spiritual, but physical. In Islam, Ramadan creates a daily fast from sunrise to sunset. Jewish Yom Kippur, Greek Orthodox fasting seasons, Hindu Ekadashi — all encode periods of voluntary abstinence. These were not “biohacks.” They were expressions of a truth humans have always known: the body thrives on cycles of emptiness and nourishment.

 
Section IV — Protein Panic and the Growth Myth
One of the most powerful fears instilled by modern nutrition is the “protein panic” — the idea that without constant high-protein intake, you’ll lose muscle, weaken your immune system, and age faster.

But research into protein metabolism tells a different story. The human body recycles its own amino acids with extraordinary efficiency. When dietary protein is low, the body increases autophagy — breaking down damaged proteins and reassembling them into new, functional ones. This is not loss; it’s maintenance and repair.

Growth itself has been over-romanticized. We are told we must constantly “build” — more muscle, more tissue, more output. But growth without balance is cancer. In the Daoist view, the body is healthiest not when it is in a state of perpetual anabolic (building) activity, but when it cycles between building and cleansing. Fasting tilts the balance toward cleansing — a phase the modern diet nearly erases.

 
Section V — The Industry of Appetite
Why do these myths persist? Because there is profit in constant feeding. The global food industry — from processed snack companies to meat and dairy producers — thrives when you believe you must eat more, more often, and in greater variety than your body actually requires.

Media amplifies the message. Lifestyle magazines, health influencers, and even government guidelines echo the same refrain: “Eat to fuel your day,” “Snack to keep your metabolism high,” “Protein with every meal.” The implication is that you are fragile, dependent, and incomplete without the product being sold.

Scientists are not immune to influence. Research funding often comes from industry groups with a vested interest in promoting certain foods. “Studies show” becomes a marketing slogan, stripped of nuance, repeated until it feels like fact.

 
Section VI — My Day 5 Body and Mind
On Day 5 of my fast, my mind is lucid. My skin is clear. My joints are quiet. The subtle hum of inflammation that once lived in my body is silent. I walk without heaviness. When I sit in meditation, my breath is deep without effort.

The absence of constant digestion frees energy for other systems. My body is no longer preoccupied with processing food; it is busy repairing tissue, cleaning out cellular debris, balancing hormones. My stomach rests, my liver rests, my pancreas rests — and yet I feel more “fed” than when I was eating three meals and snacks every day.

 
Section VII — Breaking the Spell
To break free from the myths of modern nutrition, you don’t have to fast for 21 days. But you do have to fast from the constant noise of food propaganda.

Ask yourself:

Who benefits when I believe I need to eat every two hours?
Why is the idea of skipping breakfast treated as dangerous?
If cows and tigers can build perfect bodies from radically simple diets, why am I told I need fifteen ingredients on my plate?
The answers reveal an uncomfortable truth: you’ve been taught to believe that health comes from external supply, rather than internal balance.

 
Section VIII — The Dao of Nourishment
In Daoist medicine, nourishment is not just about what enters the mouth. It is about the cultivation of Qi through breath, rest, movement, and spirit. Food is one source of Qi — but not the only, nor always the most important.

When you fast, you discover that Qi can be drawn from stillness, from sunlight, from deep breathing, from the quiet joy of an unburdened body. This is not mystical escapism; it is physiology. The mitochondria burn stored fat, producing ketones — a cleaner fuel for the brain. Hormones rebalance. The gut lining repairs.

Food is a part of the picture. But so is emptiness.

 
Conclusion — From Consumer to Custodian
The myths of nutrition — the golden triangle, the breakfast lie, the protein panic — keep us in the role of consumer. To fast, even for a day, is to step out of that role and become custodian of your own body.

On this fifth day without food, I do not feel deprived. I feel released. The hunger that once drove my schedule is gone; in its place is a steadiness that no meal has ever given me. I have broken more than a fast — I have broken a spell.

Day 4 of 21

Fasting Journal — 
Empty Stomach, Full Day

Today was not the quiet, meditative retreat I had pictured when I began this 21-day fast. It was a day thick with movement, decisions, lifting, rearranging, and all the small practicalities that come when a child is stepping into a new chapter of her life.

It was my daughter’s last morning waking in the home she’s known for eighteen years. By nightfall, it would be her first night sleeping in her new space on the University of British Columbia campus — her own small dorm room, a square of independence with a window that will frame the seasons in her own way from now on.

We spent the day in transition. Not just hers, but mine.

 
Morning Without Breakfast
The day began the same way as the last three — with nothing on my plate. I have learned over years of intermittent fasting that the absence of breakfast sharpens the mind. This morning, it sharpened something else too: my sense of presence.

While others would have fueled themselves for a “big day” with a hearty meal, I carried nothing in my stomach but water and lightness. And yet, as we loaded the car with boxes, bedding, books, and all the small fragments of a life being transplanted, I felt no lack of energy.

I realized that in the past, I might have worried about stamina — Can I really carry furniture and suitcases on an empty stomach? Will I fade halfway through the day? But here I was, muscles steady, breath even, mind uncluttered.

I thought of the steak comparison: normally I might have eaten three meals, one of them perhaps a hearty 12-ounce sirloin, and still felt tired by the end of such a day. Today, with no calories, I felt just as capable — maybe even more so. The human body, when unburdened by digestion, reveals a quiet truth: much of our “tiredness” comes not from work, but from the hidden labor of processing food.

 
A Day of Many Roles
Moving a child into university is not just a logistical act. It’s a braid of roles — parent, packer, advisor, emotional anchor.

At moments I was the practical helper, hauling bins up stairs, finding the right size of storage box, plugging in lamps. At others, I was the voice of reassurance, offering small bursts of advice that I know may or may not be remembered in the rush of new experiences: keep your door locked at night; keep your deadlines visible; don’t be afraid to ask for help; remember to breathe when things feel too big.

There were hugs — many of them. The kind you hold for just a beat longer because you know they have to last. And there were moments of quiet observation, watching her arrange her books and decide where her coffee mug should go, a glimpse into how she’s already shaping her own rhythm.

 
Fasting in the Midst of Emotion
People often think fasting is purely physical — a matter of willpower and body chemistry. But days like today show how it interacts with the emotional field.

An empty stomach can make some people irritable or impatient, quick to snap. But I have noticed the opposite for myself when the fast has settled in: a greater patience, a more spacious mind.

Maybe it’s because I’m not carrying the subtle restlessness that comes from digesting. Or maybe fasting brings the mind into a mode that is closer to meditation — a low hum of observation instead of the spikes and drops of post-meal energy.

Today, that patience was a quiet gift. I didn’t feel rushed when we couldn’t find parking. I didn’t mind the wait for the elevator. I didn’t react to small delays or last-minute changes in plan. It was as if the fast had pulled me just far enough outside the usual tempo of the world that I could move through it without getting tangled.

 
Letting Go Without Falling Apart
There’s a letting go in fasting: you let go of food, of eating’s comforting rituals, of the structure meals give to the day. That same skill applies to parenting in moments like this.

Watching her settle into her new room, I was aware of two parallel truths:

She is beginning something that no longer includes me in the same way.
My role is not ending — it is changing shape.
The hunger I might have felt for control — to know she’s safe, that she’ll make the “right” choices — is a hunger I have to release, just as I’ve released the hunger for food.

Both kinds of hunger come from the same place: the desire to hold onto what cannot be held. Fasting teaches you that hunger is not an emergency. You can feel it, watch it, even welcome it, without immediately trying to make it go away.

So I hugged her goodbye, not with a desperate grip, but with an open hand. She will walk her path. I will walk mine.

 
The Body as a Reliable Companion
One of the small revelations of today was realizing that my body is far more adaptable than I sometimes give it credit for.

We tend to treat food as the single source of strength, yet today I could carry boxes, move furniture, bend, lift, and navigate the day’s logistics with as much physical presence as any “well-fed” version of myself. Perhaps more — because there was no post-meal sluggishness, no heaviness in the limbs, no mid-afternoon slump.

The body draws from deep reserves when it needs to, and fasting reminds you of those reserves. It’s not just fat stores — it’s the efficiency of a system not distracted by constant intake.

There is a certain primal readiness in fasting, a hint of the “hunting mode” our ancestors lived in. You wake early. You move lightly. You feel prepared, not in the sense of being armored, but in the sense of being unburdened.

 
An Empty House, A Full Horizon
When I returned home, the house felt different. Quieter, not just in sound, but in energy. Her room, though still filled with some belongings, was no longer the heart-beating space it had been.

There’s an ache in that — but also an opening.

With her away, my time shifts. The rhythms of the house will change. The responsibilities will contract inward. And that means more space — more time — for the work that calls me now: my practice, my writing, the deepening of the inner path that this 21-day fast is meant to serve.

Her leaving does not take from me. It gives me a different configuration of life. And perhaps, as with fasting, the absence will create its own kind of nourishment.

 
Fasting and Life’s Transitions
There’s something fitting about fasting during this particular milestone.

Fasting is a kind of moving out — moving out of the daily occupation of the digestive system, moving out of the habits of eating without thinking. And moving out always leads to moving in somewhere else.

Just as she is learning to inhabit a new space at UBC, I am learning to inhabit the space fasting opens in me: a space of clarity, simplicity, and undistracted attention.

Both require adjustment. Both are slightly uncomfortable at first. But both carry the quiet promise of transformation.

 
Closing the Day
It is evening now as I write this. My body is still empty of food but not of vitality. My mind is both tired from the day’s fullness and calmed by the knowledge that it was spent well.

There’s a satisfaction in knowing that I could be fully present for my daughter on such an important day without my fasting being an obstacle. If anything, the fast made me more present — less wrapped in my own needs, more tuned to the flow of the moment.

Tomorrow will be different. The house will be quieter. The hours will stretch more open. But today was a day of participation in the living world, of helping someone I love step forward into her own life.

And I walked every step of it with an empty stomach, a steady body, and a full heart.

The Gathering Field — Qi in Motion at UBC

The air was still warm from the day, though the sun had already lowered into its late-summer gold. The grass of the University of British Columbia campus held the heat like a patient hearth. A crowd gathered—hundreds of first-year students spilling into the courtyard in clusters, circles, small knots of conversation. Laughter flared here, a shout of recognition there, the murmur of introductions and questions weaving itself into a tapestry of sound.

From the edge of the gathering, I watched—not as an intruder, nor as a detached observer, but as someone attuned to a subtler dimension of what was unfolding. This was not just an orientation event. This was a convergence of fields, a meeting of breaths, a mingling of Qi.

Qi Emission — The Overflow of Youth
In Daoist language, Qi is the breath of life, the current of vitality that animates all beings. It is not metaphor; it is as real as the scent of the grass and the warmth of the sun on your skin. Young people, especially those on the threshold of a new chapter, carry a surplus of it. Their fields are unscarred by the deeper fatigue of years, their reservoirs full from the long harvest of youth.

As I stood there, it was impossible to ignore the sheer emission of Qi from the crowd. It radiated in laughter that seemed to spill past the limits of the body, in bright glances exchanged across the grass, in the restless movement of feet that could not bear to stand still for long.

The emission was not deliberate. It never is at this age. It pours out simply because the vessel is full and there is more than can be contained. This is why the presence of the young often changes a space—they saturate it with vitality, with currents that ripple outward into everyone around them.

Qi Absorption — The Quiet Feast
And here is where my awareness turns inward. I could feel it in my own breath: the subtle intake, the way my own field seemed to expand in proximity to theirs.

In a forest heavy with ripe fruit, the deer does not apologize for eating the fallen apples. In the sea, the fish do not debate whether to open their mouths when the plankton drifts by. Life moves in cycles of giving and taking, of emission and absorption.

So too here. My body, my breath, my spirit knew what to do. The excess Qi spilling from this gathering was not something to hoard or to steal; it was a tide that would flow somewhere regardless. Most of it would dissipate into the air, unreceived, like the fruit that falls and rots into the earth. But some of it, I could take in—quietly, respectfully, as part of the great recycling that all of nature observes.

It was not a harvest in the sense of exploitation. No hand reached out to grasp, no will sought to drain. It was a gentle attunement, an openness in my own channels to receive what was already moving outward.

The Two Directions of Breath
In Daoist cultivation, there is always this duality: Qi emission and Qi absorption. To exhale is to give; to inhale is to receive. The two cannot be separated. A field that only emits becomes depleted. A field that only absorbs becomes stagnant.

What I witnessed in this crowd was a vast, unconscious outbreath—a collective offering of vitality into the surrounding space. My own role in that moment was the counterpoint: the conscious in-breath, the acknowledgment that nothing in the cycle need be wasted.

And yet, even as I took in their overflow, I was also giving something back. Stability. Stillness. A different quality of Qi—the slow, deep current that comes not from youth’s surplus but from years of cultivation.

Qi is not a commodity. It is not diminished by sharing. The presence of one who receives in stillness can often anchor the excess of those who give without knowing they are giving. In this way, the exchange is not extraction but completion.

The Field Effect
Standing at the edge, I felt my own field grow warmer, fuller, more resonant. Their vitality was not mine to keep, but it could pass through me, invigorating the channels, feeding the inner flame.

In return, something shifted in the crowd nearest to me. It was not dramatic—just a subtle drop in restlessness, a few shoulders lowering, a few breaths deepening. The Qi they had flung out without aim was being met, caught, and steadied.

This is one of the quiet mysteries of energy: it seeks coherence. When a coherent field is present, scattered Qi will gather to it naturally. It is not about control. It is resonance.

Waste and Renewal
I thought of orchards in autumn—branches heavy with fruit, far more than the pickers can gather. The deer will eat some, the birds will take their share, the wind will knock down the rest. Much will rot. And yet even the rotting is not waste; it feeds the soil, it seeds the next generation.

The Qi of youth is like this. It overflows, spills, gets spent on trivialities, flashes out in laughter, in flirtation, in bursts of movement. Most of it goes unnoticed, even by those who carry it. Some of it lands in places that can use it—a tired parent receives it in a hug, a teacher in the glow of a curious question, a stranger in a passing smile.

And some of it, in moments like this, lands in the quiet vessels of those who know how to receive. Not to hoard. Not to take from need. But to complete the circuit.

The Unnamed Exchange
No one in that crowd knew this was happening. It required no agreement, no consent in the verbal sense. This is the nature of Qi—it is not owned. It cannot be signed away or fenced in. It moves by resonance, by the simple laws of nature: what is full will overflow; what is empty will fill.

And yet there is an ethics to it. Just because something is possible does not mean it is rightful. The adept knows the difference between drawing what is freely given and pulling against the natural flow.

In this case, there was no force. Only the same natural rhythm that brings the bee to the flower, the roots to the rainwater.

The Circle of Life at UBC
Here, on this campus at the edge of the Pacific, the cycle is as old as the forests that once covered this point of land. The faces change—different years, different cohorts—but the field is the same. Every September, new arrivals step onto this green space, full to the brim with their own unspent potential. Every year, that potential spills into the air, into the soil, into the invisible web of life that the city barely notices.

Some of it will be shaped into scholarship, into art, into relationships that change lives. Some will be wasted in the conventional sense—spent on distractions, on ego battles, on restless consumption. But even that “waste” is part of the great composting. Energy spent unwisely often returns later as wisdom, humility, or resilience.

And some, just some, will be quietly gathered by those who stand at the edge—not to hoard it, but to carry it into places where it can be of use. Into healing rooms. Into writing. Into acts of presence that feed the next generation.

The Taste of It
If I were to describe the sensation of that intake, it would be something like the first breath of air after rain—a sweetness, a looseness, a rush of oxygen to every corner. There was no heaviness to it, no stickiness, no shadow. Youthful Qi, when unburdened, is like sunlight on water—clean, bright, moving easily through the channels.

And yet, there was also a kind of ache in it. A reminder of the years when my own field overflowed without my knowing, when I walked through the world spilling radiance I had no idea I carried. Receiving theirs was not just nourishment. It was memory.

The Practice of Standing Still
One might think the way to absorb Qi is through complex techniques, elaborate breathing patterns, or esoteric postures. Sometimes that is true. But more often, it is simply the art of standing still.

Stillness is the open palm in which the apple lands. It is the empty bowl that catches the spring water. It is the absence of demand that allows the gift to arrive without resistance.

So I stood, and I breathed, and I let the field do what it knows how to do. No effort. No reaching. Just a willingness to be part of the great exchange taking place on that lawn.

The Blessing Returned
Before leaving, I took a moment to send back—not to the same individuals necessarily, but into the field itself—a different kind of Qi. Older, slower, more seasoned. If their gift to me was sunlight, mine back to them was the deep water of the well.

It is not the same kind of nourishment, but it is one they will one day recognize: the quiet steadiness that allows one to walk through life without being pulled apart by every wind.

This, too, is part of the cycle. The young give vitality; the elder gives coherence.

Closing the Circle
As the evening deepened and the crowd began to thin, I walked away—not depleted, not inflated, but balanced. What I had received had already moved through me, leaving its trace in warmth, clarity, and a faint hum along the spine.

And I knew that, tomorrow, those young people would walk through their own days unchanged in any conscious sense. They would still laugh, still explore, still emit more Qi than they could possibly use.

But the field would be fractionally more coherent because of the silent exchange. The gift they had unknowingly given would ripple outward in ways they would never need to know.

And in that, the orchard had once again fed both the deer and the soil.

Day 3 of Fasting — Time Opens When the Body Empties

Another strange but wonderful fact about fasting and time: when you are fasting, you simply need less sleep.

It’s now 4:55 a.m., and I’ve been up working at my computer for half an hour already, after only about four hours of sleep—without a single memorable dream. This isn’t insomnia. I am fresh, clear-minded, and full of energy, as if I had slept eight hours on a non-fasting night.

Why Less Sleep Feels Natural in Fasting

Clinically, the explanation is simple: without food in the system, the digestive organs have less work to do. Sleep is partly the body’s repair shift, and digestion is one of the heaviest jobs on that shift. When that workload is removed, the body requires less time to reset.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the hunter-gatherer body is tuned for survival in scarcity. Hunger switches the system into “hunting mode”—cortisol and adrenaline rise slightly, the senses sharpen, and the brain stays alert for opportunity. That early waking is not a flaw—it is an ancestral inheritance, the call to move, to act, to find sustenance.

The Esoteric View — Energy Freed from the Stomach Rises to the Spirit

In Daoist internal alchemy, digestion is an alchemical fire. Normally, that fire is bound to the “cooking” of food in the lower cauldron. During fasting, the fire is free to refine Qi upward. The Shen (spirit) receives this surplus energy, resulting in heightened clarity, wakefulness, and a sense of expanded time.

The ancient adepts saw this as a shift from the postnatal breath—fed by grains and physical sustenance—to the prenatal breath—fed directly by Heaven’s Qi. The less you rely on the kitchen, the more you live in the cosmic field.

Science and Hormones — The Clock Inside the Body

Modern science supports this experience. Fasting changes the hormonal rhythm:

Ghrelin, the hunger hormone, pulses in waves that can trigger alertness.
Orexin (also called hypocretin), a neuropeptide, rises during fasting and promotes both wakefulness and motivation.
The circadian rhythm adjusts subtly, often moving toward earlier waking, as if the body senses a need to maximize daylight hours for foraging or work.

This means fasting not only shifts your metabolism, but your perception of time.

Gaining Time in Two Directions

When fasting, you gain time twice:

You eliminate the hours spent preparing, eating, and cleaning up meals.
You reduce the hours your body demands for sleep.

Time becomes more spacious. For most people, this extra space can be unsettling—especially if they don’t know how to rest in stillness. An idle mind in an empty body can quickly turn restless.

For me, it is no problem. My hours are always full—either in writing, or in meditation. The pen and the breath are enough to fill the day and the night.

A Philosophical Reflection on Time Freed

Fasting reveals something about the illusion of “not enough time.” Time is not a fixed length—it is elastic, shaped by how you use and inhabit it. When the body is light and unburdened, time stretches. Hours open. Clocks feel slower.

Perhaps the real luxury is not food, but unbroken hours of presence.

Day 3

Zi Hour Reflections

In the Chinese tradition, a new day begins at Zi Hour — 11 p.m., just before midnight. Thus, we step into each day not through waking toil, but through sleep and dream, entering first the spirit world before the world of men.

Weight: 123.3 lb.
The day flowed straight into the page — twelve hours of writing, words unfolding like an endless ribbon. Then a 2.5-hour commute through the city’s pulse, meditating while city people hurrying toward their meals, their coffees, their snacks.

For me, there was no hunger. Just one or two passing shadows of food in the mind — and then, gone. No grip, no ache, no longing. The thought dissolved before it could settle.

Now, the eyes are heavy, lids warm. Time to rest them, like putting brushes down after painting a long mural. This is not a break from fasting; it’s part of it. The stillness between words. The darkness behind the eyes.

Another day complete. The body quiet, the mind clear.

More on Water and Fire — The Dance of Vital Transformation

In Daoist inner alchemy, water and fire are not mere metaphors — they are the two primal forces within the human body, continually meeting, parting, and returning in the great rhythm of life. Every breath you take, every pulse that beats, every clear thought and subtle dream — all are born from the dance of water and fire.

I. Water as Jing — The Deep Reservoir of Life

In the body, water is not just H₂O. It is Jing, the essence. It is stored in the kidneys like a hidden reservoir, cool, still, and quiet. It is the dew of life condensed before you were born — the ancestral inheritance from your parents, mingled with the nutrition of the mother’s womb.

This water is not meant to be spent recklessly. It is the seed-stock of vitality, the oil in the lamp. In the language of medicine, Jing shapes your constitution: the strength of your bones, the brightness of your hair and eyes, the fertility of your blood. In Daoist practice, Jing is the foundation of spiritual transformation.

Yet Jing on its own is potential — like a pool of still water at dawn. Without warmth, it remains quiet and unmoving. For life to express itself, for thought and action to arise, this water must be stirred, warmed, and transformed. That warmth is fire.

II. Where Does the Fire Come From?

In alchemical language, fire is the heat of spirit — Shen. It is the spark of consciousness, the light in the eyes, the quickening of desire and will. In the body, this fire is housed in the heart, but its true origin is even more subtle: the mind’s attention — 意 (Yi).

Yi is like the sun in our inner sky. Wherever attention goes, energy follows, and warmth flows. The moment your mind fixes on a thought, a task, or a feeling, you are directing fire. This is why agitated, restless thinking heats the body, and why stillness cools it.

Daoist medicine often speaks of 心腎相交 — the meeting of heart and kidney. The heart holds the fire, the kidney stores the water. When they are estranged, the upper body blazes with restlessness while the lower body chills with fatigue. When they meet, water tempers fire, and fire transforms water — this is the alchemy of life.

III. The Rising of Qi — Steam from the Inner Cauldron

When the warmth of the heart-fire touches the stillness of kidney-water, transformation begins. Just as the sun warms the ocean and causes vapor to rise, fire within the body causes water to refine into Qi.

Qi is not a vague “energy” — it is movement, breath, and circulation. It is the steam that carries vitality upward, warming the chest, feeding the brain, opening the senses. This is why inner alchemists often visualize a cauldron in the lower Dantian: water in the base, fire beneath, steam rising.

In practice, this rising of Qi is felt as a gentle heat moving up the spine, a clarity in the head, a subtle quickening of the breath. It is life in motion.

IV. From Crown to Dew — Qi Returning to Water

But the cycle does not end with rising. In nature, vapor that rises into the sky eventually cools and condenses into clouds, returning as rain. In the human body, the same occurs.

When Qi reaches the crown — the Niwan Palace — it meets the cooling influence of calm consciousness. Here the agitation of thinking dissolves, and the mind becomes spacious and clear. In this stillness, the heat of Qi softens; the vapor condenses.

This condensation is felt as a cooling sweetness in the mouth — Jade Dew (玉液). Daoist adepts speak of this dew as a heavenly nectar: saliva rich with hormones, enzymes, and subtle vitality, which, when swallowed mindfully, nourishes the organs and replenishes Jing. Modern physiology can see its echoes in hormonal balance, neurotransmitter health, and the fine tuning of the body’s inner chemistry.

The ancients poetically said this dew drips from the Niwan down to the heart and belly, just as rain falls from heaven to nourish the earth.

V. The Endless Circulation — Heaven and Earth Within

This rising and descending is the microcosmic orbit — the internal Heaven-and-Earth cycle.

Water rises as vapor: Jing transformed into Qi through the warming of fire.
Fire descends as rain: Qi refined into Shen, cooled into nectar, returning as replenished water.

When this cycle is strong, the body heals quickly, the mind is clear, and the spirit is luminous. When it is weak or broken, water may leak away (fatigue, aging, infertility), or fire may burn uncontrollably (anxiety, insomnia, inflammation).

The purpose of Daoist cultivation is to restore and refine this cycle until it becomes self-sustaining — like a perpetual spring.

VI. How to Cultivate Water–Fire Harmony

Calm the Heart to Guard Fire
The heart’s fire is not meant to rage — it is meant to glow steadily. Meditation, slow breathing, and a quiet mind prevent fire from consuming water too quickly.
Nourish the Kidney to Store Water
Adequate rest, deep breathing, and conserving sexual energy help preserve Jing. Herbs like goji berry, rehmannia, and eucommia are traditional allies.

Link Attention to Breath
Since Yi directs fire, mindful breathing can guide warmth where it is needed — often the lower abdomen — allowing water to receive fire’s touch without spilling upward into scattered thoughts.
Swallow the Jade Dew
When the mouth fills with cool, sweet saliva during practice, do not spit it out. Swallow slowly, imagining it descending to replenish the Dantian.

VII. The Spiritual Meaning

Beyond health and longevity, the union of water and fire is a metaphor for the marriage of opposites within you:

Water — receptive, still, hidden potential.
Fire — active, bright, outward expression.

When these two embrace, you are no longer at war with yourself. Your mind does not pull one way while your body resists another. Instead, there is a single current — rising, falling, rising again — like the breath of the cosmos moving through your own form.

This is what the classics mean when they speak of “returning to the root” and “refining the spirit to return to emptiness.” The alchemy of water and fire is the alchemy of being whole.

Closing Reflection

If you listen closely to your body, you can feel this cycle even now:

The warmth in your chest when you feel inspired.
The quiet in your belly when you rest deeply.
The cool, sweet mouthfeel after long meditation.

These are not accidents — they are the signatures of water and fire playing their eternal game within you. Every choice you make — how you breathe, think, move, and feel — feeds one side or the other, balances them or divides them.

In the end, the art is simple: let your inner sun shine warmly, not harshly; let your inner waters rise and fall in their season. In this balance, the whole of Heaven and Earth is contained within your own body.

Day 1 Fasting Reflection — The Hidden Gift of Time

When people talk about fasting, the first benefits that come to mind are usually physical — weight loss, metabolic reset, improved blood sugar control, reduced inflammation. But there’s another benefit that often gets overlooked, one that I’m experiencing vividly today: fasting gives you time back.

 
No Cooking, No Food Court, No Errands
This morning, I didn’t have to think about breakfast. There was no question of whether to cook or go out, no time spent waiting for water to boil, vegetables to chop, or dishes to wash. That’s already an easy 30–45 minutes saved compared to a normal day.

Come lunchtime, I didn’t need to walk to a food court, queue for a meal, find a seat, eat, and then wander back — a process that often swallows another 45–60 minutes. I stayed exactly where I was, deep in my work, completely uninterrupted. The clock rolled past noon without me noticing, and I realized I had already gained at least an hour and a half of productive, focused time.

 
No “Post-Meal Fog” 
In Chinese, there’s an old expression: 飯氣攻心 (fan qi gong xin), which literally means “the vapors of food attack the heart (mind).” It refers to that dull, heavy feeling after eating, when blood flow is diverted to digestion and the brain temporarily takes a back seat. Modern physiology explains it in terms of parasympathetic activation — after a meal, the “rest and digest” mode takes over, slowing mental sharpness.

By not eating, I bypass that entire slump. There’s no drop in alertness, no drowsy mid-afternoon drag, no need for coffee to “wake up” again. My energy remains steady, my mind clear.

 
A Morning of Unbroken Focus
I started work today at 6:15 AM. Normally, I’d have taken at least one food break by now, maybe two. But here I am, writing at 1:43 PM, still sitting at the computer, still with a sharp and present mind.

This kind of unbroken focus is rare in our world. Meals, while enjoyable, fragment the day. They pull us out of flow, scatter our attention, and introduce a cycle of spikes and dips in energy. Without them, the hours form a single, solid arc — a straight line from intention to execution.

 
Time as the True Luxury
We often think of luxury in terms of objects — a fine watch, a beautiful home, a gourmet meal. But in truth, time is the greatest luxury. Not just the number of hours in a day, but the quality of those hours: uninterrupted, clear, fully available to what matters.

Fasting is, in a way, a time-alchemy. You trade away the sensory pleasure of food for a day (or a set period) and in return, you receive hours of clarity. You feel the value of each moment more keenly because it isn’t divided by the rituals and logistics of eating.

 
The Subtle Discipline
This isn’t just about having more hours to work. It’s also about cultivating the discipline to sit with yourself without the constant punctuation of meals. When you remove food from the equation, you also remove one of the most common forms of distraction and procrastination.

How often do we “take a break” by eating something, not because we’re truly hungry, but because we’re seeking stimulation? Fasting closes that escape route. You face your work, your thoughts, your life — directly, without a snack break as a buffer.

 
A Body that Supports the Mind
It’s worth noting that this mental clarity isn’t just psychological — it’s biological. In the fasting state, the body switches from burning glucose to mobilizing stored fat and producing ketones. Ketones are a cleaner fuel for the brain, providing steady energy without the roller-coaster of blood sugar spikes and crashes.

This stable energy supply is exactly why, at 1:43 PM, I can still be fully engaged in writing. My body isn’t bogged down digesting a plate of rice or noodles; it’s in a light, efficient state, directing energy where I need it most — my mind.

 
Reclaiming the “In Between”
When you remove the act of eating, you also remove all the “in between” moments that surround it — the decision-making, the preparation, the cleanup, the travel to and from the food source.

On paper, it might seem like only an extra two hours saved in a day. But in practice, it’s not just time, it’s momentum. There’s no break in the current of the day, no need to restart your mental engine after a meal. You simply keep going, which means the quality of work and depth of thought compounds.

 
Fasting as a Productivity Ritual
Many people fast for health, some for spiritual reasons, others for weight loss. But I’m realizing that fasting can also be used as a productivity ritual. If I have an important writing deadline, a complex research project, or a period that demands high creative output, fasting removes both physical and mental interruptions.

This doesn’t mean fasting every day — that would be neither sustainable nor necessarily healthy for everyone — but rather strategically using fasting days to carve out space for deep work.

 
Time for Reflection, Not Just Work
Of course, the hours you save don’t have to be filled with work. They can be devoted to other forms of nourishment — reading, meditation, a walk in nature, or simply sitting quietly. Without meals, the day feels more spacious. You can stretch into that space however you choose.

On this first day, I chose to keep working. But I also notice that my mind has drifted, in a good way, toward reflection — about the relationship between food and time, between the body and the mind, between hunger and purpose.

 
The Psychological Shift
Something subtle happens when you realize you don’t need to stop for food. You start to question other “non-negotiables” in life. If I can go without eating for the better part of a day and feel better, what else might I be able to let go of? What other routines or habits are actually self-imposed constraints?

Fasting doesn’t just give you more time. It changes your relationship to time. You begin to see that not all daily rituals are essential — and that freedom is both practical and profound.

 
Closing the First Day
So here I am, still at my desk, the afternoon stretching ahead. The sun will set, the day will end, and I’ll have completed the first of twenty-one fasting days.

Today’s gift wasn’t just the physical lightness or the mental clarity — it was the unbroken thread of time, from dawn to now. That alone feels like a victory.

Tomorrow will bring its own challenges — hunger pangs, perhaps, or moments of restlessness. But for now, I’m grateful for this calm, steady day. A day with no cooking, no food court, no post-meal fog. A day when the work flowed and the hours felt whole.

And maybe that’s the quiet truth of fasting: when you eat less, you don’t just feel lighter — your day does too.