..续本文上一页cal nutriment nourishes the materiality with nutritive essence as eighth;[26] contact as nutriment nourishes the three feelings; mental volition as nutriment nourishes the three kinds of being; consciousness as nutriment nourishes the mentality-materiality of rebirth-linking.

　　How

　　 As soon as it is placed in the mouth, physical food as nutriment brings into being the eight kinds of materiality (aforesaid). Then each lump of cooked rice ground by the teeth, on being swallowed, brings into being unit after unit of the eight kinds of materiality. Thus it nourishes the materiality with nutritive essence as eighth.

　　But with contact as nutriment, when contact productive of pleasant feeling arises it nourishes pleasant feeling; contact productive of painful feeling nourishes painful feeling; contact productive of neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling nourishes neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling. Thus in all ways contact as nutriment nourishes the three kinds of feeling.

　　In the case of mental volition as nutriment, kamma leading to sense-sphere being nourishes sense-sphere being; kamma leading to fine-material and immaterial being nourishes its respective kind of being. Thus in all ways mental volition as nutriment nourishes the three kinds of being.

　　But with consciousness as nutriment, it is said that it nourishes, by way of conascence condition, etc., the three (immaterial) aggregates associated with itself at the moment of rebirth-linking and the thirty kinds of materiality that arise by way of triple continuity. Thus consciousness nourishes the mentality-materiality of rebirth-linking.[27]

　　And here, by the words "mental volition as nutriment nourishes the three kinds of being," only the wholesome and unwholesome volition accompanied by taints is meant; by the words "consciousness nourishes the mentality-materiality of rebirth-linking," only rebirth-linking consciousness is meant. However, these are to be understood indiscriminately as nutriments as well because they nourish the states that are associated with them and originated by them.

　　The Four Functions

　　As regards these four kinds of nutriment, physical food as nutriment accomplishes the function of nutriment by sustaining, contact by contacting (touching), mental volition by accumulating, consciousness by cognizing.

　　How

　　 Physical food as nutriment, by sustaining, is for the maintenance of beings by maintaining the body. For this body, though generated by kamma, is sustained by physical food and stands for ten years or a hundred years up to the end of the life-span. Like what

　　 Like a child which, though given birth by the mother, is nurtured by the milk, etc., given to him to drink by the wet-nurse and thus lives long. Also, as a house is supported by a prop. This too has been said (untraced): "Great king, just as, when a house is collapsing, they prop it up with other timber, and that house, being propped up by other timber, does not collapse, so too this body is supported by nutriment, persists in dependence upon nutriment."

　　Thus physical food as nutriment accomplishes the function of nutriment by sustaining. Accomplishing it thus, physical food as nutriment becomes a condition for two material continuities, namely, for that originated by nutriment and that kammically acquired.[28] It is a condition for the kamma-born materiality by becoming its preserver. It is a condition for that originated by nutriment by becoming its producer.

　　Then contact, by contacting the object which is the basis for pleasure, etc., is "for the maintenance of beings" by causing the occurrence of pleasant feeling, etc. Mental volition, accumulating by way of wholesome and unwholesome kamma, is "for the maintenance of beings" because it provides the root of existence. Consciousness, by cognizin…

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