C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

      There is, at least in certain places online, a lot of “chatter” about whether or not you should practice intermittent fasting.  Many folks who used to previously tout intermittent fasting as some sort of miracle of modern dieting have backtracked, and now a lot of those “influencers” (or whoever-the-heck they might be) recommend a more standard, traditional approach to dieting for building muscle and burning fat.  Recently, there was even that god-awful “study” from the American Heart Association that showed a “91% increased likelihood of death” from heart complications by following intermittent fasting.  Now, this isn’t the place to discuss the real problems and politics around that so-called study, it will suffice for now to point out that its metrics were just plain wrong.   And, of course, on the flip side of all of that you also have the defenders, rightly so, of the benefits of various forms of fasting.      My point in this essay, however, is that most of the above—no m

  Essays and Thoughts on The Dokkodo Part Sixteen Abstain from Fasting and Other Things That Affect You Physically Mas Oyama - modern-day heir to the Budo throne of Musashi - was a believer in Kangeiko , or "cold training" the same as the samurai at the time The Dokkodo  was written. Of all the musings/thoughts of The Dokkodo , this precept is the most widely translated - perhaps even mis translated.  For instance, Wikipedia  has it translated as, "Do not act following customary beliefs."  Roshi Richard Collins in his book No Fear Zen,  translates it almost exactly the same way: "Do not follow customary beliefs."  If you have read my past posts here on The Dokkodo , you know that I love  Collins's book, but I think this is the one musing where he  might  miss the point a little. Compare those translations with the translation by William Scott Wilson, the preeminent scholar and translator of traditional budo  and Bushido  works.  Wilson translates it as