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Edible food is one of the forty meditation subjects as described in the Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification) of Buddhaghosa called "Perception of repulsiveness in edible food," it is also one of the important steps of the practice of meditation. Although edible food is the basic need for maintenance of human life, if looked deeply a process of search for it, of ingesting and digesting, finally outflowing and smearing, one will feel shy with it. One who wants to cultivate that perception of repulsiveness in nutriment or food, he should go into solitary retreat and review repulsiveness in ten aspects in the physical food classified as what is eaten, drunk, chewed, and tasted, that is to say, as to going, seeking, using, secretion, receptacle, what is uncooked (undigested,) what is cooked (digested,) fruit, outflow, and smearing. These ten aspects of repulsiveness in food can be presented in details in the Path of Purification as follows: 471 1. Repulsiveness in food should be reviewed as to going: When a man has gone forth in so mighty a dispensation, still after he has perhaps spent all night reciting the Enlightened One's word or doing 471 Tran. by Bhikkhu Nanamoli, The Path of Purification, pp. 372-379.

245 the ascetic's work, after he has risen early to do the duties connected with the shrine terrace and the Enlightenment-Tree terrace, to set out the water for drinking and washing, to sweep the grounds and to see to the needs of the body, after he has sat down on his seat and given attention to his meditation subject twenty or thirty times and got up again, then he must take his bowl and [outer] robe, he must leave behind the ascetics' woods that are not crowded with people, offer the bliss of seclusion possess shade and water, and are clean, cool, delightful places, he must disregard the Noble Ones' delight in seclusion, and he must set out for the village in order to get food, as a jackal for the charnel ground. In due course, after standing in the debating lodge when he has finished paying homage at the Enlightenment Tree and the shrine, he sets out thinking 'Instead of looking at the shrine that is like a cluster of pearls, and the Enlightenment Tree that is as lovely as a bouquet of peacock's tail feathers, and the adobe that is as fair as a god's place, I must now turn my back on such a charming place and go abroad for the sake of food;' and on the way to the village, the view of a road of stumps and thorns and an uneven road broken up by the force of water awaits him. when he reaches the vicinity of the village gate, perhaps the sight of an elephant's carcase, a horse's carcase, a buffalo's carcase, a human's carcase, a snake's carcase, a dog's carcase, awaits him, and not only that but he has to suffer his nose to be assailed by the smell of them. This repulsive (experience) beginning with the carpet that has to be trodden on and ending with the various kinds of carcases that have to be seen and smelt, (has to be undergone) for the sake of nutriment: 'Oh nutriment is indeed a repulsive thing!"

246 2. Repulsiveness should be reviewed as to seeking: How as to seeking? When he has endured the repulsiveness of going in this way, and has gone into the village, and is clothed in his cloak of patches, he has to wander in the village streets from house to house like a beggar with a dish in his hand. And in the rainy season wherever he treads his feet sink into water and mire up to the flesh of the calves. He has to hold the bowl in one hand and his robe up with the other. In the hot season, he has to go about with his body covered with the dirt, frass and dust blown about but the wind. On reaching such and such a house door he has to see and even to tread in gutters and cesspools covered with bluebottles and seething with all the species of worms, all mixed up with fish washings, meat washings, rice washings, spittle, snot, dogs' and pigs' excrement, and what not, from which flies come up and settle on his outer cloak of patches and on his bowl and on his head. And when he enters a house, some give and some do not. And when they give, some give yesterday's cooked rice and stale cakes and rancid jelly, sauce and so on. Some, not giving, say 'Please pass on, venerable sir,' others keep silent as if they did not see him. Some avert their faces. Others treat him with harsh words such as 'Go away, you bald-head.' When he has wandered for alms in the village in this way like a beggar, he has to depart from it. So this (experience) beginning with the entry into the village and ending with the departure from it, which is repulsive owing to the water, mud, etc., that has to be trodden in and seen and endured, (has to be undergone) for the sake of nutriment: 'Oh nutriment is indeed a repulsive thing!" 3. Repulsiveness should be reviewed as to using: How as to using? After he has sought the nutriment in this way and is sitting at ease in a comfortable place' outside the village, then so long as he has not dipped his hand into it he would be able to invite a respected

247 bhikkhu or a decent, person, if he saw one, [to share it;] but as soon as he has dipped his hand into it out of desire to eat he would be ashamed to say 'Take some.' And when he has dipped his hand in and is squeezing it up, the sweat trickling down his five fingers wets any dry crisp food there may be and makes it sodden. And when its good appearance has been spoilt by his squeezing it up, and it has been made into a ball and put into his mouth, then the lower teeth function as a mortar, the upper teeth as a pestle, and the tongue as a hand. It gets pounded there with the pestle of the teeth like a dog's dinner in a dog's trough, while he turns it over and over with his tongue; then the thin spittle at the tip of the tongue smears it, and the thick spittle behind the middle of the tongue smears it, and the filth from the teeth in the parts where a tooth-stick cannot reach smears it. When thus mashed up and besmeared this peculiar compound now destitute of the [original] colour and smell is reduced to a condition as utterly nauseating as a dog's vomit in a dog's trough. Yet, notwithstanding that it is like this it can still be swallowed because it is no longer in range of the eye's focus. 4. Repulsiveness should be reviewed as to secretion: Buddhas and Pacceka Buddhas and Wheel-turning Monarchs have only one of the four secretions consisting of bile, phlegm, pus and blood, but those with weak merit have all four. So when [the food] has arrived at the stage of being eaten and it enters inside, then in one whose secretion of bile is in excess it becomes as utterly nauseating as if smeared with thick madhuka oil; in one whose secretion of phlegm is in excess it is as if smeared with the juice of nagabala leaves; in one whose secretion of pus is in excess it is as if smeared with rancid buttermilk; and in one whose secretion of blood is in excess it is as utterly nauseating as if smeared with the dye.

5. Repulsiveness should be reviewed as to receptacle: 248 When it has gone inside the belly and is smeared with one of these secretions, then the receptacle it goes into is no gold dish or crystal or silver dish and so on. On the contrary, if it is swallowed by one ten years old, it finds itself in a place like a cesspit unwashed for ten years. If it is swallowed by one twenty years old, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety years old, if it is swallowed by one hundred years old, it finds itself in a place like a cesspit unwashed for a hundred years. 6. Repulsiveness should be reviewed as to what is uncooked: How as to what is uncooked (undigested)? After this nutriment has arrived at such a place for its receptacle, then for as long as it remains uncooked it stays in that same place just described, which is shrouded in absolute darkness, pervaded by draughts, tainted by various smells of ordure and utterly fetid and loathsome. And Just as when a cloud out of season has rained during a drought and bits of grass and leaves and rushes and the carcases of snakes, dogs and human beings that have collected in a pit at the gate of an outcaste village remain there warmed by the sun's heat until the pit becomes covered with froth and bubbles, so too, what has been swallowed that day and yesterday and the day before remains there together, and being smothered by the layer of phlegm and covered with froth and bubbles produced by digestion through being fermented by the heat of the bodily fires, it becomes quite loathsome. 7. Repulsiveness should be reviewed as to what is cooked: When it has been completely cooked there by the bodily fires, it does not turn into gold, silver etc., as the ores of gold, silver, etc., do (through smelting). Instead, giving off froth and bubbles, it turns into excrement and fills the receptacle for digested food, like brown clay squeezed with a smoothing trowel and packed into a tube, and it turns into urine and fills the bladder.

249 8. Repulsiveness should be reviewed as to fruit: How as to fruit? When it has been rightly cooked, it produces the various kinds of ordure consisting of head hairs, body hairs, nails, teeth, and the rest. When wrongly cooked it produces the hundred diseases beginning with itch, ringworm, smallpox, leprosy, plague, consumption, coughs, flux, and so on. Such is its fruit. 9. Repulsiveness should be reviewed as to outflow: 99472 How as to outflow? On being swallowed, it enters by one door, after which it flows out by several doors in the way beginning "Eye-dirt from the eye, ear-dirt from the ear. And on being swallowed it is swallowed even in the company of large gathering. But on flowing out, now converted into excrement, urine, etc., it is excreted only in solitude. On the first day one is delighted to eat it, elated and full of happiness and joy. On the second day one stops one's nose to void it, with a wry face, disgusted and dismayed. And on the first day one swallows it lustfully, greedily, gluttonously, infatuatedly. But on the second day, after a single night has passed, one excretes it with distaste, ashamed, humiliated and disgusted. Hence, the Ancients said: 'The food and drink so greatly prized- 'The crisp to chew, the soft to suck- 'Go in all by a single door, 'But by nine doors come oozing out. 'The food and drink so greatly prized- 'The crisp to chew the soft to suck- 'Men like to eat in company, 'But to excrete in secrecy. "The food and drink so greatly prized- 472 Suttanipata Verse No. 197.

250 'The crisp to chew, the soft to suck- 'These a man eats with high delight, 'And then excretes with dumb disgust. 'The food and drink so greatly prized- 'The crisp to chew, the soft to suck- 'A single night will be enough 'To bring them to putridity.' 10. Repulsiveness should be reviewed as to smearing: How as to smearing? At the time of using it he smears his hands, lips, tongue and palate, and they become repulsive by being smeared with it. And even when washed, they have to be washed again and again in order to remove the smell. And, just as, when rice is being boiled, the husks, the red powder covering the grain, etc., rise up and smear the mouth, rim and lid of the cauldron so too, when eaten it rises up during its cooking and simmering by the bodily fire that pervades the whole body, it turns into tartar, which smears the teeth, and it turns into spittle, phlegm etc., which respectively smear the tongue, palate, etc.; and it turns into eye-dirt, ear-dirt snot, urine, excrement, etc., which respectively smear the eyes, ears, nose and nether passages. And when these doors are smeared by it, they never become either clean or pleasing even though washed every day. And after one has washed a certain one of these, the hand has to be washed again. And after one has washed a certain one of these, the repulsiveness does not depart from it even after two or three washings with cowdung and clay and scented powder. As he reviews repulsiveness in this way in ten aspects and strikes at it with thought and applied thought, physical nutriment becomes evident to him in its repulsive aspect. He cultivates that sign again and again,

251 develops and repeatedly practises it. As he does so, the hindrances are suppressed, and his mind is concentrated in access concentration, but without reaching absorption because of the profundity of physical nutriment as a state with an individual essence. But perception is evident here in the apprehension of the repulsive aspect, which is why this meditation subject goes by the name of "perception of repulsiveness in nutriment". When a bikkhu devotes himself to this perception of repulsiveness in nutriment, his mind retreats, retracts and recoils from craving for flavours. He nourishes himself with nutriment without vanity and only for the purpose of crossing over suffering, as one who seeks to cross over the desert his own dead child's flesh as mentioned. Therigatha his greed for the five cords of sense desire comes to be fully-understood without difficulty through the means of the fully-understanding of the physical nutriment. He fully-understands the materiality Aggregate through the means of the full-understanding of five cords of sense desire (see in chapter IV.) Development of mindfulness occupied with the body comes to perfection in him through the repulsiveness of 'what is uncooked' and the rest. He has entered upon a way that is in conformity with the Perception of Foulness. And by keeping to this way, even if he does not experience the deathless goal in this life, he is at least bound for a happy destiny. 473 It is said that whenever there is repulsiveness in food, there is repulsiveness in physical body; therefore, the cultivation of edible food is that of the body. In Satipatthana Sutta (Discourse on the Application of Mindfulness,) the cultivation of body is to contemplate the impurities in body. Indeed, if one reflects on precisely this body itself, he will see encased in skin and full of various impurities, from the soles of the feet up and from the crown of the head down, that "there is connected with 473 Ibid., pp. 379-380.

252 this body hair of the head, hair of the body, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, membranes, spleen, lungs, intestines, mesentery, stomach, excrement, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, serum, saliva, mucus, joint fluid, urine."474 The repulsiveness in body as described is the results of the assimilated food. From the perception of repulsiveness in ahara and body as presented, one can draw out a valuable lesson and help him know how to minimize desire for edible food and body to get true happiness in this life. In short, the cultivation of edible food is to realize that what one ate, is eating, and will eat that is made and processed by so many hands and services, including sun and moon, earth and water, cloud and rain, wind and fire, day and night. Hence, edible food should be consumed with the spirit of non-self: "this food is not mine," "this food is not myself, "all in this food." Eating with this way, he will eliminate the attachment to edible food, give up mental evilness, develop his loving-kindness, and tend to the development of spiritual life, which means transformational nourishment of mental foods. In Dhammadayada Sutta (Discourse on Heirs of Dhamma), Lord Buddha advised his disciples to become his heirs of dhamma, not heirs of material things, 4/5 because material things which will stimulate a human's desire to arise, do not bring true happiness to him. In four types of food, edible food is also one of the first basic material things to sustain physical body of human; it needs to be cultivated. But according to the spirit of the Discource on Heirs of Dhamma, Lord Buddha has attached special importance to the spirit of heirs of dhamma, which is meant that the cultivation or transformation of mental foods: food of contact, of volition, and of consciousness is more important than edible food. The phrase "He 474 M. I, 57. 475 Ibid., II.

253 who lives with his senses controlled, moderate in his food," that taught many times in Pali Nikaya has showed out this spirit. This is to say, if one wishes to transform the goal of eating, firstly he has to guard his senses. Why is it? Because if the six senses or mind of a person is not controlled or ill, viz his mind is full of lust, hatred, and jealous, he is not happy to eat food at all, even if he is hungry. This is discussed next.