Asceticism and ascetic practices seem to suffer from a bad reputation in contemporary understanding. Modern stances about the preponderance of the mind as the element truly characterizing our identity as human beings, and a radically scientific approach to the body, have created a sort of irreconcilable dualism in the understanding of ourselves. In this kind of cultural environment, if we think about the generic expression human body, the notion that may instinctively arise in our minds is of an image somehow resembling a picture in a medical book: an organism, namely a set of biologically constituted parts that work together in virtue of a series of mechanical processes. A failure in one of these processes may result in disease or even death.

Healing thus means nothing more than fixing that bodily failure, the same way a mechanic may fix a broken engine. This idea of the body is analytical, the various organs are seen as semi-independent entities, and often the dysfunction of one part of the body is considered to be unrelated to the others. This basic stance has shaped the attitude of men and women toward their own bodies in the last two centuries. Still, the body is something that must be nurtured for one's own good. It must be healthy because otherwise the spirit residing in it would not be able to move or act according to its desires. It must be kept in fine condition because a dirty or badly maintained body may represent a major obstacle to social relationships.

In short, the body must be treated with care in order to employ it at its best, to fulfill the spirit's desires.¹ What we were not taught to think is that we are our bodies. The underlying assumption is that being a human being means something different from being merely a body, and more precisely it means to be something more than a body. If something more than the merely physical exists in the human being, that thing is implicitly supposed to be subtle, transcendental to its mere physical reality. The realm of the spirit is thus conceived of as having a parallel but clearly distinct ontology, because to the soul is advocated a set of durative qualities that the body seems to lack: perfection, purity, and permanency.

When the two terms are juxtaposed in the common expression body and soul, indeed, the feeling is that the phrase is trying to reconcile two opposites, two natural enemies. Something good for body and soul seems to be meant as something good for all the possible manifestations of the human being in a hierarchical, vertical order, from the lowest to the highest.

If we try to understand the figure of the ascetic practitioner using merely these conceptual tools, the only result is the image of a religious person aimed at nothing but a complete and destructive self-denial. Let us think for a moment about the following definition of asceticism:

A variety of austere practices involving the renunciation or denial of ordinary bodily and sensual gratifications. These may include fasting, meditation, a life of solitude, the renunciation of possession, denial of sexual gratification, and, in the extreme, the mortification of the flesh.²

This sort of assumption of self-destruction seems to make any understanding of ascetic practices as beneficial to health utterly impossible. In fact, it is remarkable how a deeper and less-modern-biased analysis of the actual activities and beliefs of ascetic practitioners, pertaining to both Western and Eastern cultural environments, sharply contradicts this preliminary view. For example, Christian ascetics, such as Anthony³ and Catherine of Siena,⁴ were noted among their contemporaries exactly because of their capacity for remaining healthy and strong in spite of their ascetic efforts. On the same account, Taoist masters strove for a perfect and immortal body by employing a wide range of dangerous and physically demanding techniques.⁵

There seems then to be a certain continuity in the activities of ascetic practitioners that stems from a different understanding of one's body. The basic paradigm underlying this theme seems to be close to this equation: If the proper use of the body can benefit spiritual qualities, then the opposite must also be true. In other words, successful ascetic efforts should be beneficial for body and spirit at the same time, because these two entities are bound in a nondualistic and reciprocally synergetic way. In this sense it is thus not surprising to understand ascetic activities as beneficial to health, and indeed as a most natural effect of the proper training of one's body.

In Japan this form of understanding of one's physicality, and of the effect that ascetic activities--generally termed as shugyo--can have on one's bodily integrity and health, is so natural as to be almost at the point of being taken for granted. During my field research I had the opportunity to talk to a wide number of practitioners while sharing their practices with them, and I could not help noticing how the issue of health is one of the most recurring motivations urging even ordinary people to undertake ascetic exercises.

One of the most common examples of popular asceticism is the suigyo practices (sometimes also called kangyo--cold-water ablutions) undertaken by various devotee groups from a variety of denominations, such as Ontake gyoja, yamabushi, and groups gathering on the occasions of matsuri (festivals) and other collective celebrations, such as kagura (sacred music and dance) performances. In all of these cases, the etiology of the practice seems to follow closely the equation outlined above. The first effect of cold-water ablutions is to cleanse the body to both the physical and the more subtle levels, forcing the body itself to respond by tapping into unknown resources. As one of my interviewees put it: "The body reacts to that, you feel warmth coming from the inside of your body. After a few minutes it is not cold anymore!"

A potentially destructive action thus results in a positive outcome for the practitioner's body and health. The wish of many practitioners to increase the physical strain on their bodies by employing stricter and stricter forms of practice must then not be attributed to an irrational indulgence in pain but rather to a conscious strategy aimed at reaching the full of each individual's bodily potential. As someone remarked to me enthusiatically: "You see, this cold cleanses you, can you feel it?" while two nearby acquaintances were merrily discussing the fact that "it's cold, it's cold, isn't it?", "Yes it is! But the colder the better," and then burst into laughter that hinted at a sort of unexpressed mutual understanding.

Health is central to other, and far more demanding, ascetic efforts as well. One particular case, the kaihogyo practice of Tendai monks, seems to be so harsh and extreme that, at first glance, it appears to constitute a sort of exception to the beneficial tendencies and intentions we have discussed so far. The well-known sennichi kaihogyo mainly consists of one thousand days of walking practice on a route encircling Mount Hiei and occasionally including part of Kyoto. In order to fulfill the practice, the gyoja has to walk from forty to eighty kilometers per day, and by the end of the practice period, which usually lasts seven years, he would have walked more than forty thousand kilometers.

However, as demanding as it may seem, the walking practice does not represent the highest peak in the physical exertion of the ascetic. The climax of the effort is marked by a prolonged period of abstention from food, water, and sleep known as doiri. The figures concerned with this extreme ascetic practice are stunning in themselves: nine days without any food, sleep, or rest, and even more impressive, without a single drop of water. Only from the fifth day is the gyoja permitted to rinse his mouth with a cup of water once per day. Not a single drop may be swallowed, however, and all the liquid must be spat back into the cup. The gyoja should also recite the Fudo Myoo mantra⁶ a total of one million times throughout the nine days, which practically means an uninterrupted recitation all the time, adding also a complete recitation of the Lotus Sutra once a day.⁷

Practitioners say that this is a good exercise for maintaining concentration and staying awake, but I think that it also must require an unimaginable effort. Lastly, every day at 2:00 a.m. the gyoja is required to perform the shusui, the water-taking ritual at the Aka well, consisting of taking a bucket of water from a nearby well and then offering it to the statue of Fudo inside the Myoo-do. The Aka well is no more than two hundred meters from the Myoo-do, so on the first days the trip takes only a few minutes. However, as the prostration of the gyoja grows, the task requires a longer time to be performed, up to almost an hour in the final days.⁸ On the ninth day, when the gyoja is literally on the brink of death, the fast ends and the gyoja receives a medicinal herb tea called ho-no-yu and an official document of completion from Enryakuji. The doiri is over, and the gyoja is granted the title of togyoman ajari, the "master [Sanskrit, acarya] who has fulfilled the practice."

In my work with ascetics in Japan I never encountered anything more exhausting and potentially dangerous for one's health than the doiri, and it is hard to comprehend how such a distressing experience may have any positive influence on one's health. The words of the ajari about his experience, however, seem to give us a completely different picture. The longer the doiri continues, we are told, the more the ascetic's perception becomes clearer. During the last part of the doiri, as all the practitioners report, the sensations of the body are enormously enhanced and they become able to hear the most feeble sounds, such as the falling of the ashes from an incense stick located at the other side of the hall.⁹

Self-awareness is enhanced, and the gyoja becomes aware of the physiological processes in the body. The progressive cleansing brings stability to the already highly tested body of the gyoja, while the water he periodically uses to rinse his mouth, initially brownish-red, as time passes becomes clearer and clearer until it is "as clear as pure water."¹⁰ After nine days of total fasting, the gyoja is radically transformed but not annihilated. The general impression that all the gyoja report is that everything completely left them; good and bad are now meaningless, and their perception of reality is absolutely clear.¹¹

Accounts such as these seem to subvert once again the "modern" thinking underlying the contemporary understanding of body and health vis-a-vis physical exertion. Neurological and physiological interpretation will probably attribute the mutated awareness of the gyoja to neurological dysfunction caused by prolonged fasting. However, this is but one strategy of interpretation of the phenomenon and nothing more than a choice among a variety of possibilities of self-understanding. In contexts where the boundaries between body and mind are blurred and of reciprocal influence, the effects and consequences of pain and physical toil are subject to a much wider spectrum of possible interpretations.

In my own experience, fellow practitioners reminded me often of the beneficial effects of shugyo practice carried on in the proper way. Walking in the mountains with continuous awareness of the position of one's feet, legs, joints, and back, for instance, improves balance and concentration. Sitting in zazen maintaining the proper posture, while concentrating on one's breathing pattern, sets the practitioner's mind and body in harmonious continuity. The list of examples could go on, but in all cases we have to notice how body and mind are taken into account as a unity rather than as two separate--and perhaps antagonistic--entities.

And the second element we can notice is that always the ascetic practice is supposed to be carried on in the proper way. The term proper suggests a certain degree of ascetic orthodoxy, which indeed constitutes the significance of the practice as a strongly motivated, voluntary effort. Asceticism is then not an irrational urge for self-destruction but a consciously and systematically planned strategy to improve one's body and mind conditions inside a framework wherein mental health and bodily health are mutually dependent.

It is my hope that the fruitful interaction between different cultures can in the future bring back some of this holistic understanding of ourselves. The contributions of modern science to human health have certainly been extraordinary, but the results obtained should not prevent us from reexamining our traditions in search of answers to still open questions. In particular, the balance and relationship between mental and physical health should be reevaluated in order to provide efficacious responses to many issues, such as stress and depression, that seem to plague our otherwise well-fed and bodily healthy societies.

Notes

Tullio Lobetti graduated with a degree in Japanese language and literature from the University of Turin in 2003. He then pursued his interest in the study of religions in Japan by obtaining an MA degree in Japanese religion from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, in 2004. In the same year he started his PhD research at SOAS on "Body and Ascetic Practices in Contemporary Japanese Religious Context." He is now a teaching fellow in the Department of the Study of Religions at SOAS.

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