The following post is collated from notes from several Internal Alchemy courses at Five Immortals Temple lectured and lead by the abbot Li Shifu [Xing De]. Any mistakes or misrepresentations are entirely my own:
辟谷
Abstention from Grains [part 1]
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First of all it is necessary to delineate the term Abstention from Grains [bi gu辟谷] as distinctly more faceted to the Western usage of the modern fad of Fasting. Taking a closer look at the two Chinese characters that make up Bi Gu, the first character Gu [谷] does not only include grains, but also rice, pizza, steamed buns and so on. Some of the foods of this category are high in calories [1] and others have low caloric content. What you consume during the day and what you use up in one day is what you have to replenish through food. If you intake lots of high nutritional foods in very low quantities, you will feel extremely hungry, as you will also absorb very little quantities of its power and energy.
Overall there are two aspects to Abstention to Grains [bi gu 辟谷]. The first aspect is the aspect of health and longevity, since fasting leads to the purification of the intestines and the stomach, and the regulation of the endocrine system. Furthermore it regulates the inner balance of the organs. It is temporary; for instance fasting for three days only provides a cleanse for longevity purposes. Moreover, short-term fasting is suitable for minor health issues such as discomfort in the intestines and stomach and a short period of three days is enough for achieving this goal. After approximately three days you will open your internal system; the latent and dormant one, which the conscious mind has no access to [2] . It takes at least three days to lose fat and obtain a drop in weight.
Abstention from Grains is beneficial for the purification of your thoughts and for elevating your understanding to a certain degree. It is not a problem, if you also refrain from drinking water, but you should not do any strenuous work at the same time as fasting, in order is to achieve a transformation of the endocrine system [3]. Fasting enables you to renew and refresh the regulation of Yin & Yang and the Five Phases. One of the effects of fasting is to open parts of your innate abilities that have not been unleashed yet and to reach conditions above normal.However, fasting itself has its limits and levels. After all, it could be considered one aspect of cultivation; yet it is not for attaining eternal life though. Maybe you will live one thousand years, but ten to twenty years of fasting will not resolve the problem of life and death. Li Shifu points out:
Once you finish fasting,
you return to normal.
However your sixth sense will be more sensitive,
responsive and intuitive.
Post-Scriptum:
More information on Abstention from Grains can be found under the following link:
http://fiveimmortals.com/wudang-tao/fasting/ & Fabrizio Pregadio’s phenomenal translation of excerpts of Ge Hong’s 《Master of Embracign Simplicity》:
https://www.academia.edu/…/Seeking_Immortality_in_Ge_Hongs_…
Post-Post-Scriptum:
If you prefer this article as PDF, please message me through the Purple Cloud Institute Facebook page.
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[1] The author is of the opinion that the English word calories only partially reveals the Chinese view on this bio-chemical concept. The Chinese word for calories literally means heat-quantities [re liang 热量].
[2] Li Shifu once recounted the story of a woman who was bed-ridden and crippled due to a debilitating physical disorder for more than a year. When the area was struck by an earthquake, she jumped out of bed to save her two young children, running downstairs and out of the building.
[3] An interesting elaboration of the endocrine system’s function was once relayed by Daoist abbot Li Shifu to his student: A mother stays in hospital for three to five days after her natural birth, but twenty to thirty days after a C-section, thus a much longer stay. They perform more and more surgeries; half of all births are C-sections now. Doctors tell pregnant women that they will lose their beauty and that it is unhealthy to have warm body temperature water births. Western medicine is concerned about infections, sterilization, germs and bacteria. It certainly must not be dirty water. On top of this the doctors inject anesthetics that are harmful to the body. It is detrimental to the child and the adult, as it affects the child’s Pre-Heaven endowment. Women are subjected to a special kind of regulation and adjustment of their endocrine system during the pains of birth and through the umbilical cord these particular hormonal levels enter the baby. They are not passed on, if the child does not go through natural birth. It is not natural to take away the most suffering that women have to endure during parturition, as it is part of recreation for a reason. When thoughts enter a certain condition, then the body follows. Thoughts change the endocrine system and the energetic field. People whose energetic field and meridians are sensitive, they can enter and the door opens, activated by one sentence of the master, so they do not eat nor feel hungry. Through this perception the regulation of the endocrine system slowly began. It is a gradual process, but its special method imparted by the teacher. The universal method is discussed here.
