When a bhikkhu who develops the path to nibbāna dwells in seclusion in a forest, it is natural that he would face difficulties in finding alms-food during the alms round. In such circumstances, hunger, too, should be turned into a blessing for your path to emancipation.

In this case, however, no one else should get to know you are carrying on without food. Keep it to yourself. Not getting any food for one, two, or three meals in a row will grant you the opportunity to gain an amazing insight. The rest of the world needn’t know that you are carrying on or have carried on without food. You alone must be both the accused and the witness. For what you are attacking thus is the invisible Māra. If you manage to strike the correct target, it is Māra who loses. This time, you need to be smarter than Māra, more skilful than Māra. For it is Māra who has always outsmarted you thus far in saŋsāra.

Perhaps you may not have so far experienced the wonder of hunger. Perhaps it may be that ‘getting hungry and eating food’ is all you know. That cycle is part and parcel of our daily routine; it is the intrinsic nature of the entire species of beings. The bhikkhu who practises the path to enlightenment is a being different from the entire species of beings; a being who pursues a different objective.

By reading the sun, moon or stars in astrology, or by reading the horoscope, or through the art of palm reading, suppose the world’s best fortune teller or astrologer tells you that you have fifty more years to live, or that you have very long life expectancy. Try starving yourself for a few days, and you are bound to end up dead.

Do you know why? When this body is left to starve by depriving it of food, it becomes crystal clear that this body exists solely dependent on food. If this body is deprived of food, no matter how long the line on the palm depicting life expectancy stretches, you will die for sure. This body that you thusly regard as ‘mine’ while very proudly adorning with decorations is a body that simply dies when starved of food. It is a body that belongs to food that rots, a body which rotting food stakes a claim on. It is a body that simply dies when deprived of food rather than something that belongs to, or can be controlled by, you.

If you look from the lens of true-dhamma, you will clearly see that the horoscope, the astrology, the palm reading or the palm-leaf reading of Nādi astrology is simply an evil booby trap Māra has set for you so as to elongate the journey of saŋsāra. Having been caught in this trap, day by day you keep postponing to enter upon the path to enlightenment. There is a particular elder bhikkhu whom I know, who is much righteous, is of lofty human qualities, and had entered monkhood during his youth after having given up an eminent job and a good social status. At first, that venerable bhikkhu strived with much energy aiming for extinguishment. Then an astrologer has told him he would realize enlightenment only after another ten years. Now that venerable is intensely performing materialistic meritorious deeds (āmisa) claiming he lacks pāramī. Getting sidetracked, he has veered away from the path to emancipation.

The journey that was commenced after having relinquished everything with much saddhā, subsisting merely on an ear of corn at a forest hermitage with the toughest of conditions, has today been halted by Māra, the evil one.

Tear apart those prophecies that Māra hands you through horoscopes, palm reading or Nādi astrology. Insightfully realize that this body exists solely dependent on food, …that victory comes about through nothing but effort and striving energy.

Amongst the four elements the body is made up of, the air element (vāyo dhātu) is understood best, with much lucidity, when you starve the body of food. If the body were deprived of food, you would feel how fast the air element operates through the stomach, the gullet and the rectum. When the body is devoid of food, the air element invades the body as it pleases. The air exasperates and becomes turbulent. All you must do is observe it with mindfulness.

On this occasion, Māra would say to you, “Are you trying to die? Trying to develop gastritis, are you? If it develops… oh, boy! it sure is suffering for the rest of your life. What if you faint?”

Do not succumb to any of this. Do not give in. For it is just Māra himself who tells you thus. ‘Māra’ denotes your arising-passing (impermanent) mind leaden with defilements and greedy for nothing but sensuous pleasures.

At this juncture, think thus: ‘I am a bhikkhu who develops the path to enlightenment; …a bhikkhu who pursues the path to relinquishing with insight-knowledge this putrid body, regarding it as a thing that doesn’t belong to me. Therefore, even if this body will die, I shall not give up my resolve, my determination’. To think thusly would be to beat the daylights out of Māra, …would be to emerge as a bhikkhu who pummels Māra till he makes a run for it. Thinking in this manner, beating up Māra, and insightfully penetrating the air element even more, when you develop the perception of its impermanence, Māra will be frightened thinking whether he would lose his authority over this bhikkhu. Thinking thus, Māra will [make a lastditch] attempt to cajole the bhikkhu saying, “By carrying on without food like this, if you die, you may not attain enlightenment at all.”

Look how the cunning Māra speaks of enlightenment, too; how he even becomes sympathetic towards [your] enlightenment.

If you failed to remain vigilant and mindful about your goal as well as about Māra’s nature, this time you would fall for Māra’s trickery for sure. For he said, ‘may not attain enlightenment if you die’. Although it is Māra who says this, you’ll think it’s a thought born in your mind due to self-sympathy. You who practise the path to emancipation must be skilful to keep such trickery of Māra, born of nothing but tanhā, at bay. Yet the majority loses the battle here. Because Māra used the word ‘enlightenment’ (nibbāna). It is simply owing to cunning that Māra uses the words ‘may not attain enlightenment’.

Although, here if you manage to be skilful to behold that this body, this feeling, is not mine, that this air element, too, is not mine, and going even beyond that, to behold that even the ‘enlightenment’ Māra spoke to you about is not something that belongs to me, to abandon the desire for enlightenment, too… through the paññā that develops in you then, you would stop only after having travelled a maximum distance in the path to enlightenment. But to let go of this body for the purpose of extinguishment, effort and striving energy must be present.

Did you understand now why it was said ‘hunger is a blessing’? The reason why you ought to forgo even just one meal should not be to merely symbolize virtuousness but rather to develop insightful paññā through such an act. For both virtue and food are evil forces of Māra that usher you simply into the never-ending round of rebirths.