The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Script 251
Sunday 17 November 2002

Glossary

Bojjhanga: : a factor or constituent of knowledge or wisdom

This script is entitled: Food for Thought

In 1672, Les Femmes Savantes stated that “It’s good food and not fine words that keeps me alive”.

In the Time magazine, 1978, French restaurateur Alain Chapel wrote, “Cooking is an act of love”.

The French Chef Anton Mosimann states: “All the best cooking is simple. There is really nothing new in it. I have 4,000 cookbooks dating back to 1503 and everything that is in novelle cuisine was there 200 years ago”.

We appreciate that not all beings can obtain nutritious food. We prepare nutritious food for our Members so that they can correct any problems that they may have with their nutrition.

The Buddha taught that there are four types of nutriment.

Venerable Sariputta taught that there are four nutriments - only one of which is physical and three which are mind. The balancing of these nutriments can provide the conditions for waking up in this life and to create the karmic conditions for good rebirth.

The first of the four nutriments is physical food - kabalinkaro in Pali - which is either fine or coarse.

Contact - phasso dutiyo in Pali - is the second nutriment. The six-fold contact which begins with the eye-contact - or sight, sound, smell, taste and so on - should be understood as the second of the four kinds of nutriment.

Mental volition - manosancetana in Pali - is the third nutriment.

The fourth nutriment is consciousness - vinnanam.

For some persons, food is easily available to them, yet, even when they ingest it, they cannot obtain the nutrients.

This phenomenon is seen often when persons are ill and dying.

Sometimes persons become allergic to many foods and have to get their nutrient from formulas.

Sometimes persons lose the ability to swallow from stroke or other medical condition such as dementia and need a tube put into their stomach to feed them.

There are many cases where persons have food but cannot eat.

There is urgency to create causes for your own future nourishment.

There are many stages to being adequately nourished. Sometimes a person has the nutrient but is not nourished. Sometimes a person cannot swallow. This comes back to sati – obviously the food was not offered with awareness of the fact it was intended to nourish others in the past, and so as the food comes back to you, yet you are unable to gain nourishment from it.

Offering food to a series of other persons is the way to make the causes for your own future nourishment.

So - what is nutriment and what does it nourish?

Well, the definition of a nutrient has a different meaning to a nutriment; nutrients are substances that serve as nourishment and possess nourishing qualities such as food.

In the Pali translation of the Sammaditthi Sutta, or the Discourse on Right View and its commentary - nutriment is described as a condition which nourishes its own fruit.

Nutriment provides nutrient.

Physical nutriment is the special condition for the material body of
beings which eat physical nutriment and is usually the first to be
understood in this teaching by the Venerable Sariputta.

What a being eats - whether it is fine or coarse - is both causes and
effects. Past actions make the causes for the type of food or nutrient a being enjoys. Eating is the resultant (vipaka). The conditions that are being made now appear later this life or even for the next births.

In other words, the ranges of types of food or nutrients we draw to ourselves in the present life is caused by the pattern of giving food we laid down in our past lives, and the various types of food we can digest in this life when offered can create the causes for the reappearance of such types of foods for our future lives.

For example, you can imagine if we seek to eat one type of food exclusively, such as Vietnamese or Italian food, then, if our attachment to the remembrance of the smell of such food was very strong within our present death, then, in our next rebirth we may be drawn to parents who eat that food while they are having sex.

Our Teacher has said his liking for lychees is from a former life.

When the right conditions for practice are needed, our Members prepare sattvic nutritious food and offer this to the Mahasangha, our Resident Practitioners and other Members as suitable foods to sustain their practice.

“According to Ayurveda, this [sattvic food] is the best diet for physical strength, a good mind, good health, and longevity. The list of sattvic foods is short and would not fulfill a normal person's dietary requirements, although if well managed, a diet limited to milk, vegetables, rice and fruit would certainly be excellent for one's health.

Sattvic diet consists of light, soothing, easily digested food. According to the diet, the best foods are those that are fresh, which have a balance of all the six tastes and are consumed in moderate portions.

A sattvic diet can be made of the following foods:

Ghee (clarified butter)
Milk
Fruits and fruit juices
Rice
Sesame
Almonds
Sweet taste in general”

We serve a lot of tinned peaches.

We do not offer herbs because they are intoxicants.

We encourage Members that favour tobacco to stop smoking. It represses appetite. As some of our Members are overweight, we encourage them to lose weight without using tobacco as an appetite repressant.

We take care with tomatoes because they contain a chemical equivalent of Aspirin which thins blood.

We understand the importance of being able to reflect on suitable food. Part of our practice is to acquire, prepare, serve and eat whilst being mindful of the five reflections on food. The five reflections of food are:

1.This meal is the labour of countless beings. Let us accept this offering with gratitude.
2.This meal is taken to strengthen our exertions, for greed and opinion are strong. Let us deserve this offering.
3.This meal is taken to help us become clear and generous. Let us pay attention.
4.This meal is taken to nourish and sustain our practice. Let us be moderate.
5.This meal is taken to help all beings attain the Buddha way. Let us practice wholeheartedly.

This meal is finished.

Our strength is restored for us to teach the Dhamma.

Food is number one. All things depend on nutrient.

Some of our Members eat meat due to past causes.

Over time, their meat as food consumption is replaced by other materials.

Persons are advised to seek medical advice if they change their diet too much too quickly.

Some of our Members are diabetic.

Diabetic persons need to carefully monitor and maintain their blood sugar levels at appropriate levels between 5 and 8 millimoles per litre. Foods that may be suitable for some Members may not be suitable for diabetics. To help our Members serve suitable food for our Members with diabetes we teach them about the glycaemic index of food.

The Glycaemic Index factor is a ranking of foods based on their overall effects on blood sugar levels. The glycaemic index concept (the G.I. factor) was first developed in 1981 by Dr. David Jenkins, a professor of nutrition at the University of Toronto, Canada, to help determine which foods were best for people with diabetes.

Carbohydrate foods that break down quickly during digestion have the highest G.I. factors. The blood sugar response is fast and high. In other words the glucose (or sugar) in the bloodstream increases rapidly. Conversely, carbohydrates which break down slowly, releasing glucose gradually into the bloodstream have low G.I. factors.

A good analogy can be made using the popular fable of the tortoise and the hare. The hare, just like high G.I. foods, speeds away full stream ahead but loses the race to the tortoise with his slow and steady pace. Similarly, the slow and steady low G.I. foods produce a smooth blood sugar curve without wild fluctuations.

For most people most of the time, the foods with low G.I. factors have advantages over these with high G.I. values. But there are some persons who can benefit from high G.I. foods sometimes. For example, athletes can benefit from the use of high G.I. foods during and after competition.

There are certain types of meat that should not be eaten under any circumstances.

The Buddha specifies these. In the Vinaya-Pitaka, Mahavagga (VI), it is stated: “Monks, you should not make use of human flesh. Whoever should make use of it, there is a grave offence. Nor, monks, should you make use of flesh without inquiring about it. Whoever should (so) make use of it, there is an offence of wrong-doing.”

Buddha specified the 10 kinds of meat that persons should not eat: human flesh, elephant-flesh, horse-flesh, dog-flesh, snake-flesh, lion-flesh, tiger-flesh, panther-flesh, bear-flesh and hyena-flesh.

In ancient Chinese Buddha Dhamma training practise, the novice Monk first worked in the Monastery garden growing food. Later, the novice Monk worked in kitchen chanting one sutta while preparing food. Years later, the novice would be invited to sit in the Monastery Meditation Hall.

We follow the same process of training at our Centre. Over time, every Member has worked in the kitchen. The novice was taught to make causes for an ongoing supply of good food for their practice to ensure health.

Without food to sustain us, we are unable to have the energy or good health to practice. The Novice learns to keep the kitchen clean, washing dishesm and sweeping the floors.
The Buddha taught us in the Bojjhanga Sutta:

“In giving a meal, the donor gives five things to the recipient. Which five? He or she gives life, beauty, happiness, strength, and quick-wittedness. Having given life, he or she has a share in long life, either human or divine.

Having given beauty, he or she has a share in beauty, either human or divine.

Having given happiness, he or she has a share in happiness, either human or divine.

Having given strength, he or she has a share in strength, either human or divine.

Having given quick-wittedness, he or she has a share in quick-wittedness, either human or divine. In giving a meal, the donor gives these five things to the recipient.”

Bojjhanga is defined in the Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary (1979) as: a factor or constituent of knowledge or wisdom. There are seven bojjhangas usually referred to or understood from the context.

A Sri Lankan Monk who stayed at our Centre taught:

“The importance of offering dana on behalf of the Buddha and also... how the dana should be offered to the Sangha to maximise the merit.

The first part of the food you have prepared this morning or before midday you can offer to the Buddha. You can serve a little from each different bowl and place it into a small bowl on a tray with a cup of water and with a very devoted mind you can offer this food on behalf of the Buddha to an Image of the Buddha. You can gain
tremendous positive energy and great merit from this action and you will be able to experience happiness and peace as a result. When you offer the dana you have to think:

The Blessed One, The Worthy One, The Enlightened One:
This food I worshipfully offer.
I offer this food to:
The Buddhas of the past
The Buddhas that are yet to come
The Buddhas of the present age
Lowly, I, each day offer.

Offering of food to the Sangha is common everywhere in the Buddhist World.

When you offer something to Monks or Nuns, you should always bear in your mind that you are offering this food to the whole Community of the Sangha. Use broad view when offering dana to the Sangha and then you will know that you are offering dana to the whole Community of the Sangha in the past, present and future.”

Offering Dana to Monks or Nuns makes more merit than food offered to lay people because the Monks and Nuns will use the nutrition they receive to make much merit through their strong practice.

It is better to offer all the food to the Monks and Nuns and when they have finished, they may offer the remainders back to you.

Opportunities for making great merit (kusala kamma) are rare because they depend on conditions that are difficult to "assemble". For example, to offer food to a Bhikkhu requires at least ten contemporaneous conditions to arise:

(1) The co-existent human birth of both the Bhikkhu or Bhikkhuni and oneself.

(2) A living Bhikkhu or Bhikkhuni who is near at hand.

(3) Sufficient vision to see.

(4) The knowledge that such an act is meritorious.

(5) Food available.

(6) The volition to want to offer food to another person.

(7) The correct time and proper place within the Vinaya Rules.

(8) The time and means to prepare the food.

(9) Sufficient physical strength to prepare and offer the food.

(10) The actual acceptance of the food by the Bhikkhu or Bhikkhuni.


In this talk time does not permit us to cover each of these ten points in detail. You will find the text of this talk at our website www.bdcublessings.net.au. We recommend you study these ten points.

The Buddha obtained his food either by going on alms rounds or by being invited to the houses of his supporters and in both cases he ate what he was given. Before his enlightenment he had experimented with various diets including a meatless diet, but he eventually abandoned them believing that they did not contribute to spiritual development.

The Nipata Sutta underlines this point when it says that it is immorality that makes one impure (morally and spiritually), not the eating of meat. The Buddha is often described as eating meat, he recommended meat broth as a cure for certain types of illness and advised Monks for practical reasons, to avoid certain types of meat, implying that other types were quite acceptable.

The Buddha has stated that a Monk must be easy to support and easily contented. Accepting whatever is placed in his alms bowl is one way in which a Monk can observe the Buddha’s teachings and so we find that in Theravadin countries there are no dietary restrictions with regards to the eating of meat.

The time when we eat is most important in Buddha Dhamma practice. The Buddha laid down the rule that Monks and Nuns are not to take solid food after 12 noon.

Three of our Members recently attended a meditation retreat taught by the Venerable Mahinda held over four days. Many of those at the retreat observed eight precepts, including the precept of not eating after 12 midday. This reduces sensual craving and the person’s attachment to food and helps make the mind light.

Noble Silence is also observed at retreats as this encourages mindfulness.

If you want to improve your practice whilst on retreat, it is best to observe the eight precepts.

As Thich Nhat Hanh has said: ”The purpose of eating a meal in silence is to help us appreciate the food we eat and the presence of others at the meal. This awareness is possible only when we practice mindfulness while eating. Doing this will not tire your mind or your digestive system. It is not difficult. To the contrary, it gives us peace, strength and enjoyment. Silence makes our meditation successful.”

May you create causes for your own nourishment by offering food to other persons as nutrients.
May you have long life, beauty, happiness, strength and quick-wittedness for offering nutrients to others.
May you be well and happy with your food.
May all beings be well and happy.

The authors and editors of this script are John D. Hughes Dip.App.Chem. T.T.T.C. GDAIE, Anita M. Hughes, RN Div1, Julian Bamford B.A. App.Rec, Evelin Halls Dip.For.Lang.Corres., Jason Glasson B.A. (Hons.) and Pennie White B.A. Dip.Ed.


References

Buddhanet, 2002, Available at URL http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/dharmadata/fdd21.htm, accessed on 12 November 2002.

Friedrichsen, G. W. S., 1973, The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Green, J. (Compiler), 1982, A Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations, London, David & Charles.

Horner, I. B. (Translator), 1982, The Book of the Discipline (Vinaya-Pitaka), Volume IV (Mahavagga), London, The Pali Text Society, p.298.

Miller, Foster-Powell, Colagiuri and Leeds, 1996, The G.I. Factor, 2nd Edition, Hodder, Australia.

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Third Edition, 1979, Oxford University Press.

Rhys David, T.W. & W. Stede, 1979, The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary, London, published by The Pali Text Society, ISBN 0 7100 7511 1.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Venerable, 1986, Verses for Silent Meals, Dharma Teaching Course notes, Latrobe University, Melbourne, 1986 Australian Tour cited in Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. Newsletter No. 21, February 1987, pp 12, 13.


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Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score: 8.1

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