..续本文上一页eek myth, according to which Demeter is the Goddess of corn (that is, food) and of death as well. Bachofen, that great explorer and interpreter of classic myth, has expressed the significance of it very succinctly: "She feeds man as a prey to herself."
People, as far as they give any thought to the humdrum act of eating, have taken very different attitudes towards food. Some who became tired of the dull routine of eating dull food, have made a "fine art" of it and became gourmands. To them the Buddha says: "All nutriment is miserable, even pine food." Others, keenly aware of the importance of food for good health, have devised various ideas about "pure food": we have here the dietetic rules of several religions, and the belief of ancient and modern sects in man”s "purification by nutriment" (aahaara-parisuddhi), of which already the Buddha made mention (adversely, of course), down to our own days with their ersatz religions of numerous food-reformers. Others, again, have tried to solve the problem of the body”s dependence on food by reducing nourishment below sustenance level and by long periods of fasting. This harsh and futile method of self-mortification the Buddha, too, had tried out and rejected before his Enlightenment, and had vividly described his experience in the Discourse on the Noble Quest (Ariya-pariyesana Sutta). Also later on, the Buddha never recommended periods of fasting beyond the abstention from solid food after noon enjoined upon bhikkhus, and in the periodic observance of the Eight or Ten Precepts. 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.
2. Sense-impression
Simile: A skinned cow, wherever she stands, will be ceaselessly attacked by the insects and other creatures living in the vicinity.
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.
The Paali word phassa, rendered here by sense-impression, means literally "touch" or "contact." But it is not a physical impact that is meant here, but a mental contact with the objects of all six senses, including the mind. Sense-impression, together with attention (manasikaara), is the mind”s first and simplest response to the stimulus exercised by the world of material objects and ideas. According to Buddhist psychology, sense-impression is a constituent factor in each and every state of mind, the lowest and the highest, occurring also in dream and in subliminal states of consciousness.
Sense-impression is a basic nutriment, that is a sustaining condition of life, and what is nourished or conditioned by it are feelings or sensations (vedanaa) which are living on that multitude of constantly occurring sense-impressions and assimilating them as pleasant, unpleasant, or indifferent. This relationship has also a place in the formula of Dependent Origination: "Conditioned by sense-impression is feeling (phassa-paccayaa vedanaa)." 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. In an unending stream and in rapid alternation, forms, sounds, smells, flavors, bodily impacts, and ideas impinge upon us as long as we live. It is the poignant awareness of that constant bombardment by sense-impressions that induced the Buddha to choose for the sense-impressions the simile of a skinned cow whose raw flesh is the target of swarms of insects that cause intensely painful feelings to the animal. According to the Buddha, any type of feeling is bound to cause suffering and conflict in him who has not yet f…
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