Fasting Buddha

The icon for extreme concentration

The Fasting Buddha icon-cum-sculpture is a copy of a 1^st century AD stone icon (called ‘the ascetic Bodhisattva’) robbed by British archaeologists in the 19^th century from an ancient Buddhist pilgrimage site in Taxila, Pakistan. The original, created in the Gandhara Period in Greco-Roman style (note the dramatic, wholly un-Buddhist appearance + the Roman toga + the typically Roman hairdo and beard), is approx. 60 centimetres high and made of Schist stone. It’s on view in Lahore Museum.

The Victor’s Way replica is about 3.5metres high and made of bronze. It’s the largest reproduction in the world.

The Fasting Buddha icon represents the concentration sub-program (i.e. executed in the extreme….’Do not try this at home!) of the overall problem solving program so crucial to survival. During concentration the brain (i.e. as blind biological navigation system, or Bio-Nav) is induced to reduce (i.e. narrow) or restrict its data processing range to a single datum (or point or problem), i.e. as in Yoga. In other words, reducing (≈ concentrating or condensing) mental processing to a single datum/point (or problem) is akin to extreme fasting (≈ asceticism).*

The problem solving (or diagnostic) program, and which includes the concentration (as elimination of redundant data) sub-program, is an integral part of the basic survival operating system with which every living thing is born. Which means that, depending on the importance of the problem to be solved, every human being at some time replicates the Fasting Buddha phase.

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*… If and when one-pointed (let’s say, @100%) concentration is achieved the focus is processed as ‘perfect’ (≈ done as a fact), meaning that the bio-system’s perfection response is triggered. That in turn means that subsequent (single) foci (cleansed of non-focus data) are experienced as perfect (and beautiful too). Achieving the perfection status (i.e. as gear or speed or purity) in which all the world is reflected as perfect was and is the goal of extreme concentration (i.e. as in Hindu, Buddhist and Christian Samadhi (contemplation)). The pay-off for engaging the perfection gear (or mental state) is the honeymoon affect and which as it subsides releases into Nirvana. (See the Nirvana Man)