About Breatharianism (辟谷漫谈)

Breatharianism is a form of practice that enables a person to live without the need to consume food or consumes only a small quantity of food in a relatively long period of time. Many religions have one form of breatharianism or another: the Taoist has many forms, the Tibetan, Indian, Japanese etc.

 

The purpose of fasting is to clean our body or ‘detox’, but in Taoist practices, fasting is to find out the defects in our aura and to mend it until a Taoist’s aura is seamless; for a Tantric practitioner, having less food will enable one to accomplish the rainbow body faster.

 

Basically, there are many components that form a fasting technique: cleansing, breath control, meditation and food preparation. Well, we still need a small quantity of ‘food’. An accomplish Tibetan Tummo yogi can survive with one Chestnut in 3 years time. Another example is that a Taoist can fast for up to 40 days with water and food pills.

 

My friend has sent me some very interesting information on how to prepare 'food' for the one that practices this type of fasting technique.

 

Below is a Prescription from the famous work "Bencao gangmu" (本草綱目 / 本草纲目)---- ( from Li Shizhen (李时珍 / 李時珍):

 

There are several prescriptions against famines, but especially interesting is the following one:

 

It only uses Black Soybeans and Raw Hemp Seeds.

 

The Black Soy Beans are rinsed several times. Then they are cooked very, very long (several hours). The Hemp seeds are treated the same way. Both of them are made into powder form, but each of them separately. Then the two powders are mixed with each other into balls, the size of a human fist.

 

According to descriptions, eating 1 ball is eaten, 1 ball shall last one for 1 week, if 2 balls are eaten, then it will last for 49 days and so on… Well, after the 3rd serving it says that one does not feel hungry for 300 (!!) days...

 

And after the 4th sercing even 2400 days...

 

The Prescription was written in the 2nd year of the reign (Title: Yingning) of the Emperor Huidi of the Jin Dynasty (265-420).

 

A Man named Mr. Liu Jingxian (Offical Title Huangmen Shilang) wrote this prescription to the Emperor Huidi. He wrote that he got the recipe from a Hermit in the Taibai Mountain. He even offered to receive any punishment if he was in any way lying or trying to cheat regarding the emperor. ​And Mr. Liu JIngxian even wrote, that his family (70 people) are already eating this stuff.

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There are some other information's, because it seems that once you start his special diet, you are not allowed to eat other things. There is also a recipe for special drink you have to make, if you are thirsty. The recipe is on page 2372-2373 of the Bencao Gangmu from the Publisher "Foreign Languages Press", Beijing)

 

Perhaps the above formula can be used during war times when people need to travel for long distances without carrying heavy food stuffs… Just a thought; then we would be able to save thousands of lives…