Mokujiki

Mokujiki (木食, “eating of trees/wood”) is the Japanese ascetic practice of abstaining from cereals and cooked foods and instead consuming foods from mountain forests. Many adherents primarily rely on flour of buckwheat or wild oats, and supplement their diet with pine bark, chestnuts, torreya nuts, grass roots, and so on. As a mountain diet, it is thought to be imbued with spiritual energy and purity, a marked contrast to a typical worldly diet based on cereals. Some practice it annually for short periods on sacred mountains, while others practice for years at time or even vow to do so for life. Those who make the vow take mokujiki as part of their religious name. It was an essential part of preparation for Buddhist self-mummification. rdf:langString