< The Four Nutriments of Life: An Anthology of Buddhist Texts >
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0. Introduction
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"All beings subsist on nutriment." ... ... this saying of the Buddha reveals indeed a truth that leads to the root of all existence and also to its uprooting. ... ...
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... four kinds of nutriment: edible food, sense-impressions, volitions, and consciousness. The body, from birth to death, craves ceaselessly for material food; and mind hungers as eagerly for its own kind of nourishment, for ever new sense-impressions and for an ever expanding universe of ideas.
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Craving (ta.nhaa) is the principal condition of any "in-take" or "up-take" (upaadaana), that is, of nutriment (aahaara) in its widest sense. This is the first factor common to all types of nutriment, be they physical or mental.
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The second common factor is the process of the assimilation of food. In the process of eating and digesting, what was external becomes absorbed in the internal... Also our memories, when they become objects of mind, are as "external" to the present thought-moment as the ideas read in a book. ... ... in the body as well as in the mind, there is a constant process of grasping and rejecting, assimilating and dissimilating, identifying with oneself and alienating. ... ... it is not only the eater who consumes the food, but, in the course of assimilation, also the food devours the eater. ... ... We know how much people can be changed (for better or worse) by ideas they have absorbed and which finally have absorbed and consumed them. ... ...
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Individualized life is, as Paul Dahlke says, "neither a metaphysical 'I'-identity (pure spirit, pure subject, according to the soul-theory of the religions) nor a mere physical process (pure body, pure object, according to scientific materialism), but a nutrimental process ... something that is maintaining itself: and all these so-called higher faculties of thinking and feeling are different forms of eating, of maintaining oneself." ... ...
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... this is enough to reveal the dukkha-nature of life, the tiresomeness of the tedious round of eating and being hungry again. Hence a medieval Jewish sage, Abraham ben Chisdai, was moved to say, "I am fed up with being hungry again and again, and I hunger after final satiety."
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... ... the search for food (aahaara-pariye.t.thi) is an ever-present source of suffering (vattamaana dukkha) and as such it can stir man's sense of urgency (sa.mvega) when he considers, in the light of "nutriment," man's own nature, his incessant needs and his situation in the world. ... ...
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1. Edible Food
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Simile: A couple, foodless in the midst of a desert, eat their little child, to enable them to reach their destination.
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... ... Often, in his search for food, man has destroyed what is commonly dearest to him, be it relatives and friends or the ideals of his youth. ... ...
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... ... In his incessant search for food, or for better food or for control of food resources, how often has man killed, cruelly crushed or exploited his fellow creatures, even those who are close to him by common blood or common race! And is there not close kinship between all that lives? ... ... For an unfathomable time, caught in the ever-turning Wheel of Life, we have been everything: the prey and the devourer of all, parent and child of all. This we should consider when contemplating the nutriment of edible food and the Buddha's simile for it.
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... ... It is a world of killing in which we live and have a part. We should face this horrible fact and remain aware of it in our Reflection on Edible Food. It will stir us to effort for getting out of this murderous world by the ending of craving for the four nutriments.
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... ... there will always be left some tiny remnants of food in our body that are neither assimilated nor expelled but remain and putrefy. Some physiologists say that it is this putrefaction of residual food that ultimately brings about the aging and death of the organism. ... ...
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... ... the Buddha says: "All nutriment is miserable, even divine food." ... ... What the Buddha, as a teacher of the Middle Way, advised was moderation in eating, non-attachment to the taste of food, and wise reflection on nutriment.
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2. Sense-impression
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Simile: A skinned cow, wherever she stands, will be ceaselessly attacked by the insects and other creatures living in the vicinity.
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Like a skinned cow, man is helplessly exposed to the constant excitation and irritation of the sense-impressions, crowding upon him from all sides, through all six senses.
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... ... it is not a physical impact that is meant here, but a mental contact with the objects of all six senses, including the mind.
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... ... what is nourished or conditioned by it are feelings or sensations (vedanaa) ... pleasant, unpleasant, or indifferent. ... ... As long as there is craving (ta.nhaa) for sense-impressions which arises from unguarded feelings (vedanaa-paccayaa ta.nhaa), there will be an unlimited supply of that foodstuff to be digested by feeling. ... ... According to the Buddha, any type of feeling is bound to cause suffering and conflict in him who has not yet freed himself from attachment. Painful feeling is suffering in itself; pleasant feeling brings suffering through its transience and its unsatisfying and unsatisfactory nature; worldly indifferent feeling produces suffering through the dullness and boredom involved in it. ... ...
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... ... What is at the psychological root of this situation is man's hunger for ever new experiences. If that hunger is not temporarily but regularly satisfied, it leaves him empty, starved and helpless. From that comes man's wish for change and novelty, and his longing for a close contact with life that for its own sake becomes a habituation and makes solitude unbearable for most men.
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The nutriment sense-impression feeds the "World as Enjoyment" or the "World as Enjoyment of Experience." It feeds the craving for existence (bhava-ta.nhaa). This habitual craving can be broken only if one ceases to identify oneself with the stream of impressions and learns to stand back as an observer wherever one can dispense with active response. Then feeling that is nourished by sense-impression will cease to turn into craving, and the Dependent Origination of suffering has been severed at this point.
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3. Volitional Thought
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Volitional thought here means chiefly kamma — i.e., rebirth-producing and life-affirming action — and the Buddha has compared it with a man dragged by two others towards and into a pit of glowing embers.
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The two dragging forces are man's kammic actions, good (but still deluded) and evil. It is our kammic proclivities, our life-affirming volitions, our plans and ambitions, that drag us irresistibly to that deep pit of samsaara with its glowing embers of intense suffering. Hence it was said that volitional thought, in the sense of kamma, is the nutriment for rebirth on the three planes of existence.
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The nutriment volitional thought manifests itself in man's incessant urge to plan and to aspire, to struggle and conquer, to build and to destroy, to do and to undo, to invent and to discover, to form and to transform, to organize and to create. ... ...
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... ... It is an incessant task, yielding a conquest of but short duration, and one that again and again ends in defeat.
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4. Consciousness
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The nutriment consciousness has been compared with the punishment of a criminal who thrice daily is pierced with three hundred spears.
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The sharp shafts of conscious awareness, the punitive results of past cravings and delusions, inflicted on us at all times of the day, pierce our protective skin and lay us open to the impact of the world of objects. ... ...
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The desire for conscious awareness has the same character as that for sense impressions: the craving to be alive, to feel alive in the constant encounter with the world of objects present to consciousness (or present within consciousness — as the idealists prefer to say).
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But there is still more meaning than that to be derived from the description of consciousness as a nutriment if we consider that it is explained primarily as rebirth consciousness. This rebirth consciousness, which is a single moment's occurrence, feeds (or conditions) the mind-body process (naama-ruupa) of the present existence; and it is the arising of such moments of rebirth consciousness at the beginning of each successive life that continues the interminable chain of future births, deaths and sufferings. ... ...
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... ... Life springs up wherever it gets the slightest chance through favoring conditions like warmth, moisture, and light. ... ...
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Life is always in readiness to spring up, and its most prolific manifestation is consciousness. ... it is consciousness that contributes most to the "expanding universe" of samsaara. Hence the Enlightened One warned: "Do not be an augmenter of worlds!" (Dhp v. 167). ... ... consciousness appears as the feeder and procreator of innumerable beings all of whom undergo that daily ordeal of life's piercing spears. ... ...
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Looking back to the Buddha's similes for the four nutriments, ... ... They are meant to break through the unthinking complacency in which these so common functions of life are performed and viewed: eating, perceiving, willing, and cognizing. ... ...
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The contemplation on the four nutriments of life can do this for him. From that contemplation, man can learn "not to recoil from the real and not to be carried away by the unreal." He will learn from it that it is suffering which is nourished and pampered by the four nutriments. He will more deeply understand that "Only suffering arises where anything arises and only suffering ceases where anything ceases." And another word of the Master will gain fresh significance and increasing weight: "This only do I teach: suffering and its end."
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5. Some Quotes on Nutriments
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- "If it were possible to declare a fifth grave offense (paaraajika), the monks, partaking of food without due reflection should be made a fifth grave offense."
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- "Just as this body subsists on nutriment, subsists because of nutriment, does not subsist without nutriment; in the same way, O monks, are feelings conditioned by sense-impression, is consciousness conditioned by kamma-formations (sa"nkhaara-cetanaa, 'karmic volition'), is mind-and-body conditioned by consciousness."
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- Edible food feeds and conditions the set of corporeal qualities that have nutritive essence as their eighth factor. The nutriment sense-impression feeds and conditions the three kinds of feeling. The nutriment volitional thought feeds and conditions the three states of existence. The nutriment consciousness feeds and conditions mind-and-body at rebirth.
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- The nutriment consciousness, at the moment of rebirth, feeds and conditions the three other mental groups (khandhaa), conjoined with it; and by way of conascence-condition, etc., it feeds and conditions the thirty corporeal processes that arise in a triple continuity (ti-santati). So does the nutriment consciousness feed and condition mind-and-body at rebirth.
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- In whatever place rebirth-consciousness becomes manifest, there it arises along with the mind-and-body existing at the moment of rebirth. And with the arising of that mind-and-body, all dangers have arisen because they have their roots in it. It is for this reason that manifestation (in a mind-and-body) is the danger in the nutriment consciousness.
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- In this case, sense-impression represents the formation aggregate (sankhaara-khandha).
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- The path of sainthood (arahatta-magga) that discards attachment and desire for that very (combination of) mind-and-body — this is "comprehension as abandoning."
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- Because volitional (kammic) thought has its root in craving (the sensual craving, the craving for existence and the craving for self-annihilation), and if the cause is not abandoned, the result cannot be abandoned.
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- Mind-and-body are thereby comprehended": mind-and-body as conditioned by consciousness (according to the dependent origination). If consciousness is comprehended, also mind-and-body are comprehended, being rooted in consciousness and arising together with it.
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- "Thus, O monks, through ignorance conditioned are kamma-formations; through the kamma-formations conditioned is consciousness; through consciousness conditioned is mind-and-body; through mind-and-body conditioned are the six sense-bases; through the six sense-bases conditioned is sense-impression; through sense-impression conditioned is feeling, through feeling conditioned is craving; through craving conditioned is clinging; through clinging conditioned is becoming; through becoming conditioned is birth; through birth conditioned are decay and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair. Thus arises this whole mass of suffering." -- SN 12.11.
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- Both Paali words, aahaara (nutriment) and upaadaana (clinging) have originally the same meaning of "taking up," "seizing," and both are also used to signify the fuel of a fire or a lamp (see SN 22.88).
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- "Who, O Lord, clings?"
"The question is not correct," said the Exalted One, "I do not say that 'he clings.' Had I said so, then the question 'Who clings?' would be appropriate. But since I did not speak thus, the correct way to ask the question will be 'What is the condition of clinging?' And to that the correct reply is: 'Craving is the condition of clinging; and clinging is the condition of the process of becoming.' Such is the origin of this entire mass of suffering.
"Through the complete fading away and cessation of even these six bases of sense-impression, sense-impression ceases; through the cessation of sense-impression, feeling ceases; through the cessation of feeling, craving ceases; through the cessation of craving, clinging ceases; through the cessation of clinging, the process of becoming ceases; through the cessation of the process of becoming, birth ceases; through the cessation of birth, old age, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair cease. Such is the cessation of this entire mass of suffering." -- SN 12.12.
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"'By the cessation of nutriment, that what has come to be is bound to cease' — that one sees with true wisdom, as it really is. And having seen with true wisdom, as it really is, that 'by the cessation of that nutriment, what has come to be is bound to cease,' then, through revulsion from what is liable to cease, from dispassion (concerning it) and the cessation (of it), one is liberated without any clinging. Thus, O Lord, is one a comprehender of Dhamma..." -- SN 12.31.
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- "Through the origin of craving, there is origin of nutriment. Through the ceasing of craving, there is ceasing of nutriment. The way leading to the ceasing of nutriment is the Noble Eightfold Path, namely, right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.
Friends, if a noble disciple thus knows nutriment, knows the origin of nutriment, the ceasing of nutriment and the way leading to the ceasing of nutriment, he entirely abandons the inner tendency to lust, he casts off the inner tendency to ill-will, eliminates the inner tendency to the opinion-and-conceit of 'I am,' he discards ignorance, produces knowledge, and becomes an ender of suffering here and now." -- MN 9.
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https://www.accesstoinsight.org/.../nyanapo.../wheel105.html
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[希修] The Buddha's teachings seem very different from most other spiritual traditions in many respects. One of them is that the Buddha's teachings may look to most 'normal' laypeople 'life-negating' while other spiritual teachings are 'life-affirming' or 'life-boosting,' which is 'only encouraging more and more feeding' in the Buddha's words.
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For example, there is a single mom, who feels her life is so 'empty' once all her children have left for college. So she felt depressed for a while. And then she got involved in some kind of social activism, and now she feels 'alive' again. Some spiritual traditions would say that a divine providence has lead her to a new mission/service or that, since she is a god herself, she has to keep creating in this universe and that her consciousness will surely attract whatever manifestation she wants to see in the world. As to this, however, the Buddha will say it is only the fourth kind of nutriment (consciousness) and thus "Do not be an augmenter of worlds!" (Dhp v. 167).
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Those who do not know about nibbana, a better alternative to the kind of life we humans are currently used to and imprisoned by, may mistakenly think 'Does it mean that to stay depressed or to hate life is the way then?' To them, the Buddha's original teachings, which are seemingly 'life-negating,' might be too painful or even repelling, just as shining the strong sunlight directly on someone's eyes, who has spent his entire life in a dark place, will only blind him. This may be one of many reasons that compromised interpretations of the Buddha's words are so much more popular in the world - as the Buddha predicted for himself. This just occurred to me recently, and it helps me with equanimity. I used to feel so upset that there are so many inaccurate teachings of the Buddha's words and that I wasted many years myself on those wrong teachings.
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But I realize that everything has a reason (good or less good) and everyone including myself just does her best in her own way at her own pace. No other way.
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The Four Nutriments of Life: An Anthology of Buddhist Texts
3崔明淑 and 2 others
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希修
https://youtu.be/fs-hSDldAvw
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The Four Nutriments with Khemako - Ajahn PunnadhammoThe Four Nutriments with Khemako - Ajahn Punnadhammo
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