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.
Each of us in our own way can try to spread compassion into people’s hearts. Western civilizations these days place great importance on filling the human ‘brain’ with knowledge, but no one seems to care about filling the human ‘heart’ with compassion.
Desireless, serene, immortal, self-existent, contented with the essence, lacking nothing, is He. One has no fear of death who has known Him, the Atman - serene, ageless, youthful.
When there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation. When there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.
The Self, having in dreams enjoyed the pleasures of sense, gone hither and thither, experienced good and evil, hastens back to the state of waking from which he started. As a man passes from dream to wakefulness, so does he pass from this life to the next.
