..续本文上一页he aggregate consciousness was compared by the Buddha.

　　Looking back to the Buddha”s similes for the four nutriments, we are struck by the fact that all four evoke pictures of extreme suffering and danger. They depict quite unusual situations of greatest agony. Considering the fact that the daily process of nutrition, physical and mental, is such a very humdrum function in life, those extraordinary similes are very surprising and even deeply disturbing. And they obviously were meant to be disquieting. 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.

　　The contemplations on the four nutriments, as presented in these pages, cut at the very roots of the attachment to life. To pursue these contemplations radically and methodically will be a grave step, advisable only for those who are determined to strive for the final cessation of craving and, therefore, are willing to face all consequences which that path of practice may bring for the direction of their present life and thought.

　　But apart from such full commitment, also a less radical pursuit but serious and repeated thought given to this teaching of the four nutriments will be beneficial to any earnest follower of the Buddha. To those who feel it premature for themselves to aim straight at the cessation of craving, the Dhamma has enough teachings that will soothe the wounds received in the battle of life, and will encourage and help a steady progress on the Path. Though gentle guidance will often be welcome amidst the harshness of life, yet when there is only such gentleness and when, for a while, the winds of fate blow softly and pleasantly, there will be the danger that man settles to a comfortable routine and forgets his precarious situation in this world, which the Buddha so often described. Hence there is the need that man, and especially a Buddhist, should face now and again such stern teachings as those on the nutriments, which will keep him alert and will strengthen his mental fiber so that he can fearlessly meet the unveiled truth about the world in which he lives.

　　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.

　　The Four Nutriments of Life

　　§ 1. One Thing...

　　Monks, when a monk becomes entirely dispassionate towards one thing, when his lust for it entirely fades away, when he is entirely liberated from it, when he sees the complete ending of it, then he is one who, after fully comprehending the Goal, makes an end of suffering here and now.

　　What one thing

　　 "All beings subsist by nutriment." When a monk becomes entirely dispassionate towards this one thing (nutriment), when his lust for it entirely fades away, when he is entirely liberated from it, and when he sees the complete ending of it, then, O monks, he is one who, after fully comprehending the Goal, makes an end of suffering here and now.

　　— AN 10.27

　　§ 2. The Discourse on "Son”s Flesh",

　　or The Similes for the Four Nutriments

　　THE DISCOURSE

　　At Saavatthii.

　　"There are, O monks, four nutriments[7] for the sustenance of beings born, and for the support of beings seeking birth.[8] What are the four

　　"Edible food, coarse and fine;[9] secondly, sense-impression;[10] thirdly, volitional thought;[11] fourthly, consc…

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