Chapter 13: The Fasting of the Mind: Quieting the Inner Taskmaster

The Voice That Never Stops

Marit is thirty-seven and works as a physiotherapist, helping people recover from injuries and operations. She is very good at her work, and her patients often thank her warmly. But inside Marit's head, there is a voice that never stops. It is not cruel, exactly. It is more like a strict supervisor who follows her everywhere, commenting on everything she does.

When Marit wakes up, the voice says, "You should have gone to bed earlier. You are going to be tired today." When she drives to work, it says, "You forgot to reply to that email. You need to call your mother. You have not exercised for a week." When she treats a patient, it says, "You could have explained that better. That other physiotherapist would have done it faster." When she comes home, it says, "The kitchen is a mess. You should cook something healthier. You should read more. You should be calling your friends." When she lies in bed, it says, "Tomorrow you must do better."

Marit has lived with this voice for so long that she barely notices it. It feels like part of who she is. She believes it keeps her on track, makes her work harder and stops her from becoming lazy. But she has noticed that she is always tired, even when she has not done much. She rarely feels satisfied, even when she has done well. She finds it hard to enjoy anything, because the voice is always telling her what she should be doing instead.

One evening, Marit went to a class on gentle stretching at a community centre. At the end, the teacher asked everyone to lie still for five minutes and simply listen to the sounds in the room, without thinking about them. Marit tried. The voice immediately started: "This is a waste of time. You have things to do." But the teacher's calm voice said, "If thoughts come, let them pass, like clouds. Just listen." Marit tried again. For a few moments, perhaps only a few seconds, the voice went quiet. She heard rain on the window, a car passing, someone breathing beside her. She felt a strange, deep peace.

Many people who try too hard carry an inner taskmaster like Marit's: a voice that constantly judges, plans, criticizes and demands more. The Zhuangzi describes a practice that speaks directly to this voice. It calls it the fasting of the mind.

Not the Fasting of the Body

In the fourth chapter of the Zhuangzi, there is a long conversation between Confucius and his favourite student, Yan Hui. In this story, Yan Hui wants to go to a distant land to advise a harsh and reckless ruler, hoping to change his ways. He comes to Confucius with plan after plan: he will be upright and humble, he will be inwardly straight and outwardly flexible, he will quote the wisdom of the ancients. Confucius rejects every plan. Each one, he says, is too full of Yan Hui's own ideas and intentions. The ruler will resist them all (Zhuangzi, chapter 4).

Finally, Yan Hui says he has nothing more to suggest and asks Confucius what to do. Confucius tells him to fast. Yan Hui replies that he is poor and has not drunk wine or eaten meat for months. Does that count as fasting? Confucius says that this is the kind of fasting people do before religious ceremonies. It is not the fasting of the mind (Zhuangzi, chapter 4).

Yan Hui asks what the fasting of the mind is. Confucius answers, in my own words: make your attention one. Do not listen with your ears; listen with your mind. Then do not listen with your mind; listen with your spirit, with your whole being. The ears stop at hearing. The mind stops at matching things to its own ideas. But the spirit is empty and waits, ready for whatever comes. The Way gathers only in emptiness. This emptiness is the fasting of the mind (Zhuangzi, chapter 4).

This passage is subtle, and translators render it in different ways. But its main idea is clear enough. The ordinary mind is full: full of plans, judgments, opinions, demands and comparisons. It hears what happens and immediately matches it to its own ideas, deciding whether it is good or bad, right or wrong, what should be done about it. This fullness makes it hard to see clearly or respond freely. The fasting of the mind is a way of emptying it, so that it can simply listen and wait, open to what is actually there.

It is important to say that this is not a religious instruction. In the Zhuangzi, it is a philosophical idea, a way of describing a quiet, open state of mind. For our purposes, it can be understood very simply: as the practice of setting aside, for a while, the constant commentary of the inner taskmaster, and simply attending to what is in front of us.

The Empty Room Where Light Is Born

After Confucius explains the fasting of the mind, Yan Hui reflects for a moment and then says something remarkable. Before he heard this teaching, he says, he was sure that he was Yan Hui. Now that he has heard it, it seems that there is no Yan Hui at all. Is this what emptiness means? Confucius says that it is (Zhuangzi, chapter 4).

This sounds mysterious, but it may describe something quite ordinary. When we are absorbed in simply listening, to music, to rain, to another person, we sometimes forget ourselves. The voice that says "I should" and "I must" and "I am not good enough" goes quiet, because there is no room for it. For a while, we are not a person with a long list of demands. We are simply listening. Marit felt this for a few seconds in her stretching class. That brief absence of the inner taskmaster was a taste of the fasting of the mind.

A little later in the same passage, Confucius uses an image that many readers love. In my own words: look into that empty room. In the empty room, brightness is born (Zhuangzi, chapter 4). An empty room with a window lets in light. A room crammed full of furniture and objects is dark. In the same way, a mind crowded with demands and judgments has no room for clarity. A mind that has been emptied, even for a short time, fills with light.

The Daodejing offers a related observation about the senses. In chapter 12, it says, in my own words: the five colours blind the eye. The five notes deafen the ear. The five flavours dull the taste. Racing and hunting make the mind wild. Rare treasures lead people astray. So the wise person attends to what nourishes from within, rather than what dazzles the eye (Daodejing, chapter 12).

In our time, the five colours and five notes might be the constant stream of screens, messages, news, advertisements and noise that fill our days. They do not only tire our eyes and ears. They feed the inner taskmaster, giving it endless new material: more things we should do, more people to compare ourselves with, more demands. Part of the fasting of the mind, for modern people, may be simply reducing this stream for a while, so that the mind has a chance to empty and the inner voice a chance to quiet.

Marit Practises Fasting

After her experience in the stretching class, Marit wanted to feel that peace again. She asked the teacher how. The teacher suggested a simple practice: five minutes each morning, sitting quietly, listening to whatever sounds were around her, without trying to think about them or do anything about them. When the inner voice started, she should notice it, say silently "thinking", and return to listening.

Marit tried it the next morning. The voice was very loud. "This is pointless. You are wasting time. You should be getting ready. You are not doing it right." Every few seconds, she had to say "thinking" and return to listening: the fridge humming, a bird outside, a neighbour's door. Five minutes felt like an hour. But at the end, she felt slightly calmer.

She kept going. After a few weeks, the five minutes became easier. The voice still came, but it was quieter, and she found it easier to let it pass. She began to notice moments during the day when she could do a small version of the practice: standing at a red light, waiting for a patient, washing her hands. Each time, she would pause and simply listen for a few breaths, setting the inner taskmaster aside.

Marit also noticed something about the voice itself. When she paid attention to it, rather than simply obeying it, she saw how unreasonable many of its demands were. It wanted her to be a perfect physiotherapist, a perfect daughter, a perfect friend, perfectly healthy, perfectly organized and perfectly well read, all at once, every day. No human being could meet these demands. Seeing this did not silence the voice completely, but it made it easier not to believe everything it said.

Marit also tried a small experiment that a friend suggested. Whenever the voice made a demand, she imagined saying the same words to one of her patients. "You should have recovered faster. You are not doing your exercises properly. Other people would be walking by now." She would never speak to a patient like that. She knew that such words would discourage them and slow their recovery. Yet she spoke to herself in this way every day. Seeing the difference helped her begin, slowly, to speak to herself with some of the patience she gave her patients.

After several months, Marit says that her life feels different. "The voice is still there," she says. "But it is not in charge anymore. I can hear it, say 'thinking' and go back to what I am doing. Sometimes, when I am working with a patient, I forget it completely, and I am just there with them. Those are my best moments as a physiotherapist." Like Yan Hui, she had begun to find that, in the emptiness, the demanding self went quiet, and the room filled with light.

Juma and the Noise of the Market

Juma is fifty-two and runs a stall selling fruit and vegetables at a busy market. His days are full of noise: traders shouting, customers bargaining, a radio playing from the next stall, his phone buzzing with messages from suppliers and family. In the evenings, he watches television or scrolls on his phone until he falls asleep. He is rarely in silence.

Juma's mind, he says, never rests. He is always thinking about prices, stock, suppliers, debts and the future of his stall. Even when he sleeps, he dreams about the market. He feels constantly tired and irritable, and he has started to have headaches. He went to his doctor, who checked him, found no serious problem and asked him about stress and rest. The doctor suggested that he try to give his mind some quiet each day.

Juma laughed at the idea. "My life is noise," he said. But his doctor's suggestion stayed with him. He remembered something his grandfather used to do: sit on a bench in the evening, in silence, looking at the sky, for half an hour before dinner. As a child, Juma had found this strange. Now he wondered whether his grandfather had known something he had forgotten.

Juma began to try a small version of his grandfather's habit. After closing his stall, instead of turning on the radio in his van, he drove home in silence. At home, before turning on the television, he sat on his small balcony for fifteen minutes, without his phone, and looked at the sky. At first, his mind raced with thoughts about the day. But gradually, as the Daodejing's five colours and five notes faded, his mind began to quiet. He noticed the evening light, the birds returning to the trees and the sounds of the neighbourhood settling.

After a month, Juma's headaches had become less frequent, and he was sleeping better. He still thought about the market, of course. But his mind was no longer full every moment of the day. "My grandfather was right," he says. "A man needs some silence, or the noise gets inside him." Juma had found his own version of the fasting of the mind, through reducing the stream of noise that had been feeding his restless thoughts. It is worth adding that headaches and poor sleep can have many causes, and that it was wise of Juma to see his doctor first.

Cecilia and the Applications

Cecilia is twenty-three and graduated from university last year. She has been searching for her first job for eight months. She has sent dozens of applications and had several interviews, but no offers yet. Her inner taskmaster has become very loud. It tells her that she is not good enough, that her friends are all ahead of her, that she should be applying for more jobs, that she should have studied something different and that she will never find work.

Cecilia spends most of her days at her laptop, searching for jobs, rewriting her application and reading other people's success stories online. When she is not doing this, she feels guilty. She has stopped seeing friends, because she feels ashamed of not having a job. She has stopped exercising and stopped drawing, which she used to love. Her inner voice has filled every corner of her mind.

Cecilia's aunt, who had been through a long period of unemployment herself, noticed how unhappy Cecilia was. She told her about the fasting of the mind, and suggested that Cecilia try something simple: to set aside one hour each day when she would not think about jobs at all. During that hour, she would do something that absorbed her attention completely, such as drawing, walking or cooking. When the inner voice started to talk about jobs, she would notice it, set it aside and return to what she was doing.

Cecilia found this very hard at first. The voice kept interrupting her drawing with demands and criticisms. But her aunt had told her to treat it like a noisy neighbour: notice it, and then return to the work. Gradually, she found that she could draw for longer periods without interruption. During those periods, she felt calm and absorbed, in a way she had not felt for months. She began to look forward to the hour.

The hour also changed her job search. When she returned to her applications after drawing, her mind was clearer. She wrote better letters and felt calmer in interviews. A few months later, she was offered a job. She is not sure whether the drawing helped her get it. But she is sure that it helped her survive the search. "The voice was eating me," she says. "Drawing gave me an hour a day when it could not reach me." If, like Cecilia, you are going through a long, discouraging period and your inner voice becomes harsh and constant, and you feel low for a long time, please talk with someone you trust, and consider speaking with a doctor or another qualified professional.

Practical Steps: Fasting the Mind

The first step is to notice the inner taskmaster. For one day, pay attention to the voice in your head that tells you what you should be doing, what you have done wrong and how you could do better. Do not argue with it or obey it. Simply notice how often it speaks and what it says. Many people are surprised by how constant it is.

The second step is to name it when it speaks. When you notice the voice, say silently a single word, such as "thinking" or "planning" or "judging". This small act of naming creates a little distance between you and the voice. You are no longer simply inside it. You are noticing it.

The third step is to listen to what is around you. Choose a few minutes each day to simply listen: to sounds, to your breathing, to the world around you. Do not think about what you hear or try to change it. When the inner voice interrupts, name it and return to listening. This is a simple form of the fasting of the mind.

The fourth step is to reduce the five colours. Look at the stream of information that fills your days: screens, messages, news, background noise. Choose one or two times each day when you turn it off. Drive in silence, eat without a screen, walk without headphones. Give your mind some space to empty.

The fifth step is to find an absorbing activity. Like Cecilia with her drawing, find something that absorbs your attention so completely that the inner voice has no room. It might be gardening, cooking, playing music, walking in nature, building something or playing with a child. Give it regular time.

The sixth step is to question the taskmaster's demands. When the voice tells you that you should be doing more, ask: is this demand reasonable? Could any human being meet it? Would I say this to a friend? Like Marit, you may find that many of its demands are impossible, and that you do not need to believe them.

A seventh step is to be patient with the practice itself. The inner taskmaster may try to take over the fasting of the mind too, telling you that you are doing it wrong, that you should be calmer by now or that other people find it easier. When this happens, simply notice it as one more thought, and return to listening. There is no way to fail at this practice, as long as you keep coming back.

Emptying Is Not Forcing Thoughts Away

An important point about the fasting of the mind: it is not about forcing thoughts away. Trying to stop thinking by force is like trying to calm muddy water by stirring it harder. It usually makes the mind busier. The fasting of the mind is gentler. It is about noticing thoughts, letting them pass and returning, again and again, to simple attention. The thoughts will keep coming. That is what minds do. The practice is in not being carried away by them.

It is also worth saying that the inner voice is not always wrong. Sometimes it reminds us of things we really do need to do, or points out real mistakes we can learn from. The aim is not to destroy it, but to stop it from running our lives. A taskmaster who speaks occasionally and reasonably is useful. A taskmaster who speaks constantly and harshly is exhausting.

Finally, for some people, the inner voice is very harsh: constantly telling them that they are worthless, that they deserve to suffer or that things will never get better. If your inner voice is like this, please do not try to manage it alone. Such a voice can be part of low mood or other difficulties that respond to care from a doctor or another qualified professional. And if your inner voice ever tells you to hurt yourself, please contact a helpline or a medical facility right away, and in immediate danger call your local emergency number. You deserve kindness, including from yourself.

A Short Exercise: Five Minutes of Listening

This is a simple practice of the fasting of the mind. It takes five minutes, and it works best if you do it every day for a few weeks.

Choose a time and place where you can sit quietly for five minutes without being interrupted. Morning works well for many people, but any time is fine. Sit comfortably, with your back fairly straight. You can close your eyes or look softly at the floor.

For the first minute, simply notice your breathing. Do not change it. Just feel the air coming in and going out. Then, for the next three minutes, listen to the sounds around you. Do not try to identify or judge them. Let them come and go: a car, a bird, a clock, your own breath. If there is silence, listen to the silence.

When the inner voice speaks, which it will, notice it, say silently "thinking", and return to listening. Do not be annoyed with yourself. Every time you return is a success, not a failure. You may need to return dozens of times in five minutes. That is normal.

For the last minute, notice how you feel. Do not judge it. Then open your eyes and go on with your day. After a week, write a few lines about what you have noticed: about the voice, about the listening, about your days. Marit's note after her first week read: "The voice talks for about four and a half minutes of the five. But in the other half minute, I heard the rain. It was enough to come back tomorrow." After two months, she wrote: "Sometimes now, at work, I hear the rain."

Chapter Summary

In chapter 4 of the Zhuangzi, Confucius tells his student Yan Hui, who is full of plans to change a harsh ruler, that what he needs is not the fasting of the body but the fasting of the mind: to make his attention one, to listen not with the ears or the ordinary mind but with an empty, open spirit, because the Way gathers only in emptiness. Yan Hui finds that, in this emptiness, his demanding sense of self goes quiet. Confucius adds that in the empty room, brightness is born. The Daodejing warns that the five colours blind the eye and the five notes deafen the ear (chapter 12).

Marit with her inner taskmaster, Juma in the noise of the market and Cecilia during her long job search all found relief by noticing the inner voice, naming it, reducing the stream of noise and giving their minds regular times of simple, open attention. Fasting the mind is not forcing thoughts away; it is letting them pass and returning to listening. A harsh inner voice that says we are worthless deserves care and support, not silent endurance.

In the next chapter, we will look at hard seasons of life: times of exhaustion, loss and difficulty that seem as if they will never end. The Daodejing has a short and comforting observation about them: storms do not last all day.