Before dopamine detoxes, there was tapas

Cold plunges. Intermittent fasting. Phone-free weekends. '75 Hard'. A lot of people in their twenties are voluntarily choosing discomfort to prove they're not ruled by their cravings.

Jainism has been doing this, very seriously, for millennia. The word is tapas, often translated as austerity. Literally it means heat: the heat that burns karma off the soul.

Jain texts list twelve forms of tapas. Six are external: fasting, eating less than you want, limiting the variety of food, giving up tasty food (salt, sugar, oil), seeking solitude, and enduring physical discomfort.

Six are internal, and these are the ones the tradition says matter more: repentance for harm done, humility, service to others, study, letting go of identification with the body, and meditation.

Jain fasting culture is intense. Some people fast for eight days during Paryushan, taking only boiled water in daylight hours, and some for a month. Communities celebrate the end of a long fast with processions and feasts for the person who completed it.

Here's where it parts ways with wellness culture. Tapas isn't about optimising your body, your productivity or your dopamine receptors. It's about loosening the grip of desire, so that wanting stops running your life, and about burning off karma that's already bound.

Jain teachers warn that fasting with a proud or angry mind cancels much of its value. A fast done to show off is just pride with an empty stomach. The inner austerities (humility, service) are what keep the outer ones honest.