And I’m nervous about what I perceive as dynamics in some circles where people seem to “show off” how little moderation they accept—how self-sacrificing, “weird,” extreme, etc. they’re willing to be in the pursuit of EA goals.
There is an episode in the life of the Buddha where he believes that it would be best for him to eat very little. He does so and:
When I wanted to touch the skin of my belly I felt my backbone, and when I wanted to touch my backbone I felt the skin of my belly; in fact the skin of my belly stuck to my backbone because of eating so little
But it does not work for him:
And yet by means of this severe, harsh practice I had achieved no special knowledge and insight beyond the capacity of human beings and worthy of the noble ones: might there in fact be another path to awakening? Then it occurred to me that I remembered that when I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose apple tree while my Sakyan father was engaged in work, I had spent time having attained the joy and happiness of the first absorption, which is accompanied by thinking and examining, and is born of seclusion: might this in fact be the path to awakening?
He concludes:
’It occurred to me that it would not be easy to achieve this happiness with a body that had become so extremely emaciated, so I thought I should take some solid food, some rice gruel. Then I took solid food, some rice gruel. Now at that time there were five monks with me, who thought: “The ascetic Gotama [the Buddha] will inform us of any Truth he achieves.” But after I had taken some solid food, some rice gruel, those five monks lost their enthusiasm for me and left, thinking: “The ascetic Gotama is one for excess. He has given up the struggle and reverted to a life of excess.”
While it’s not common in my experience for EAs to intentionally deprive themselves of food (at least not nowadays), they do sometimes tend to deprive themselves of time for things other than impact. Perhaps they shouldn’t.
There is an episode in the life of the Buddha where he believes that it would be best for him to eat very little. He does so and:
But it does not work for him:
He concludes:
While it’s not common in my experience for EAs to intentionally deprive themselves of food (at least not nowadays), they do sometimes tend to deprive themselves of time for things other than impact. Perhaps they shouldn’t.
And be wary of being one of those monks.
(From The Dialogue with Prince Bodhi)