Good evening and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Tonight we continue on with verse number 92, which reads as follows.
Yesang sanichayo nathi, ye parinyata bhojana, sunyato animito ja vimoko yesang gojaro, akase wa sakuntanang katitesang duranay ya,
Which means, for whom there is no storing, no hoarding, for whom there is no hoarding, one who is fully aware or fully mindful has perfect understanding in regards to food.
empty and signless is the liberation no the empty and the signless liberations are their pasture are their habitat are their dwelling place
Pasture is really the meaning.
Just as for birds in the sky, their going, their destination is hard to know.
as it regards to food.
The point here is those people who don't hoard and are conscientious in regards to food, fully conscientious,
Parinyata means to know thoroughly.
And you'd think, well, knowing food thoroughly doesn't sound all that impressive until you really consider how important food is, what a role it plays in our lives.
It's really the one thing that, along with water, water and air, I guess, but food is like the one thing that we really have to look for and work for.
water theoretically is pretty easy to find air is still quite easy to find but food is something you actually have to work at so it is really the one thing
that we should be, that we have to be concerned with.
It's about the most primal or basic requisite.
And so it stands to reason that it's the one that is closest to our heart and most closely associated with things like craving and aversion.
Our likes and dislikes of food are, well, they're a bit of an issue.
We obsess about food.
It's the one thing that we have to think about, usually at least three times a day, usually more.
We'll have the three meals a day that we are thinking about, and then on top of that there are snacks, and there's treats, and...
And then there is the cooking and the preparing and the purchasing and the storing, thinking about the food that's in our refrigerator, what's in our freezer, what's in the oven, what foods we like and dislike, thinking about nutrition.
It's really a huge subject, right?
Now we have all sorts of information about food, and if you look in the news, it is one of the topics that comes up quite often.
This food is found to be bad for you, that food is found to be good for you.
This whole gluten-free thing that some people say is just a big sort of noxibo.
It doesn't really hurt most people, and then other people say it does.
Food is actually a big deal, which is kind of funny because I don't think many people think of it like that.
I think for the most part we think, well, food is just food.
It's not a big deal.
It's not something that a spiritual person should really concern themselves with.
In fact, we would go the other way, I think.
I think a lot of spiritual people become more obsessed with food, right?
Worried because they want to be, they're concerned about themselves.
And somehow we equate
physical health with mental health, right?
In Buddhism, I don't think that's the case.
I think physical health is not considered to be necessarily associated with mental health, especially in regards to food.
Things like food, even sickness, like... well, any kind of sickness, a cold, a flu, or a terminal illness like cancer or so on.
It's...
I mean, you'd have to say that, you'd have to say in that case there is some fairly, with sickness there is a clearer picture, a clearer association, because for most people, when you're sick, it disturbs your mind more than when you're healthy.
But you could argue the other way and say healthy people have a disturbed mind in a different way because they become intoxicated with their body.
They become conceited about it.
But with food, I think there's even less of an argument that can be made that of a clear indication or a clear relationship between, direct relationship between one's nourishment and one's mental health.
Because overnourishment can lead to this intoxication.
The Buddha said, mandanaya.
Madaya.
No, Madaya, I think, is the one.
Madaya?
It makes you intoxicated.
So...
And much more simpler than that, much more basic than that, food is an obsession.
Good food, wanting good food, being disgusted by unpleasant food, having likes and dislikes and preferences.
And an obsession about health can actually be a huge hindrance for the mind.
Worry and concern and distraction.
So you're no longer mindful.
To some extent we
We obsess about it.
So knowledge about food in Buddhism isn't like that.
It isn't knowledge of what is nutritious and so on.
That's not what is meant here at all.
I'm getting ahead of... I haven't told the story yet, so I should probably do that before I talk too much about that.
But this is a verse about food.
The second and third lines are not about food.
But the core here is talking about a person who understands food.
What the story was, it's an interesting story, very short.
But the preceptor, Ananda's preceptor, Bellata Sisa, I think.
Bellata Sisa?
Bellata Sisa.
He was, I think, an Arahant.
I'm pretty sure.
And that's what makes this story interesting, is he was an Arahant and...
See, in the beginning times, the Buddha didn't have rules for the monks.
It was just assumed that they would live properly because they were all enlightened.
People would practice, listen to the Buddha's teaching, become enlightened.
He'd ordain them as monks.
That's kind of how it went.
But eventually, problems arose, and situations arose, mostly based on monks that were not enlightened.
So it wasn't that they shouldn't become enlightened first and then ordained, it's just that there were no unenlightened monks in the beginning.
But eventually, that changed.
Excuse me.
And one monk, being pestered by his wife, he had been married before he ordained, and his wife came and pestered him to give her a child, actually to disrobe, but then when he wouldn't disrobe, she pestered him to give her a child, and so he had sex with her, just to get rid of her, basically.
And she left, and that was that.
But, yeah, the Buddha didn't really take kindly to that, and...
instated the first rule that monks shall not have sex
And it went from there.
In the end we got lots and lots of rules.
But this was in a time when there weren't as many rules.
The rules weren't all there yet.
So we have this Arahant who was living off in the forest or up on a mountain maybe.
And he would go into the food for alms and get enough for himself to eat.
But then he would continue on alms or he would go eat that food maybe.
and then go on a second alms on a different street.
And he would take that food that he got, just rice basically, and he would dry it in the sun and then go and meditate.
And he would enter into meditation for days.
So he would be in, it said he was in meditation for a few days, I think.
And then when he'd come out of
when it came out.
Actually, I don't know.
No, it doesn't say that.
The Dhammapada story says it, but in the Vinaya it doesn't say it.
It just says he would dry it and leave it, put it aside, and then the next day he would put it in some water and eat it.
But his point, his reasoning being he wouldn't have to go back into the village and he'd be able to focus on his meditation.
It was really out of just a desire not to get caught up in the village life and to focus on his meditation, just to stay in the forest and live in meditation.
So somehow he thought this was a good idea.
But it got back to the Buddha and the Buddha actually scolded him, scolded an arahant, vigarahati.
Vigarahati, which means to abuse, it can mean it's really scolding the Buddha gave him.
But actually that's what it says the Buddha did for everybody who broke a rule or who did something that was the instigation of a rule.
This is, I think, one of the only examples of an arahant being the reason for the creating of a rule.
The Buddha did, I think, mention that he understood that Bhālatasīsā was blameless.
And in fact, he never
It's not an offense because there was no offense to break.
And until the Buddha instated the offense, he said before that it wasn't actually an offense.
So anyone who broke it before that wasn't breaking, wasn't doing anything.
Well, could still say they're doing something wrong, but it wasn't an offense.
So that was the
that was the story behind it but it says in the yeah it says in the dhammapada
He was doing it out of a desire for fewness of wishes, or out of fewness of wishes.
So he was a person who had little greed and little attachment.
But it's a very dangerous precedent because then it leads to monks hoarding.
Let's have stores of food so that if I get something good today, I can also have it again tomorrow.
If I get something good today and tomorrow I get something bad, well, I can eat yesterday's food today.
So that we can store up sweets and salts and spices and put salt on our food when it's not salty.
And if it's too bland, we can put spices in it and so on.
If I get something sweet today, it's funny being a monk because some days you get just so much food.
Like today I went to Stoney Creek and there was so much food.
But you can only eat so much and then that's it.
And the next day you still have nothing.
Which is important.
It's an important part of the training to not cling.
to be content with whatever, to not have this hanging over you, this sort of this sense of the past, sense of what you're going to eat in the future, what you've stored up in the past and thinking about what you've stored up and concern about it and so on.
it's liberating and it's challenging, right?
So it's liberating in the sense that you don't have to think about cooking or
storing, protecting.
You don't have to worry about food going bad or being spoiled.
But it's challenging because that's exactly it.
One day you might not get what you want.
Quite often it's not about what you want to eat.
It's about what you get.
So I remember there was a period of time in
in Chamtong where all I would get was sweets.
I was just going into the market and I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, but all I would get was some few sweets to eat and that was all I ate for the day.
Of course they were rice sweets, so there was a little bit of substance to them, but nothing real.
Certainly nothing like vegetables, protein.
So it was a matter of picking through the sweets and figuring out which ones were most nutritious.
But in other days, you just get so much food.
But it's a complacency thing as well, right?
If you've got lots of food, then you begin to rely upon it.
You take this as a refuge.
And it blinds you, or it hides from you the fact that this is ever-present.
This is an ever-present gnawing on us.
When you give up this support of having constant supply of food, it forces you to let go.
It forces you not to cling.
It forces you to be open to, well, starving, at least going without food for a day.
It's funny how you get to see how the mind works then because there are people who actually purposefully fast for days on end and they're fine with it.
But when it's kind of forced upon you, right?
I don't want to, you know, I was looking for food today and I didn't get any.
How your mind whines and complains, right?
because you feel that something's wrong.
It's a sense of not getting what you want.
Whereas some people are so happy to not eat, they do it for days on end.
They'll fast and just drink fruit juice or something.
It's a real test.
It shows you your defilements.
Not storing food is an awesome practice to keep.
I've been with monks who, you can see where they start to give up the training.
They've got biscuits that they keep and breadstuffs that they keep aside for the next day to have in the morning with their coffee, which they're also storing.
I remember in Jomtong during this time where things were, you know, I wasn't getting quite the food that I would assume to be proper nutrition.
And I was struggling with it, but, you know, being mindful and just really working through this.
And then there was a layperson living out behind the monastery, and I went to see him for something.
He was one of the teachers at the time.
And he invited me in for toast, whole grain toast and peanut butter and a bowl of cereal and milk.
And it was just such a shock.
It's quite a different practice, I guess.
That's a real other level to your practice, not having a fridge to store milk in and that kind of thing.
So definitely worth practicing, definitely worth undertaking.
There's so many aspects of the monastic life that are for that reason beneficial.
Anyway, so that was sort of the reasoning behind the rule.
I assume that the Buddha, it's my understanding of his reasoning for instating the rule.
And then he gives this verse on the importance of it.
How supportive it is, actually, of freedom.
So then he says, sunyato animito ja.
Such a person.
I mean, it's such a powerful practice.
And the Buddha says this several times.
He talks about mindfulness.
He doesn't use the word mindfulness.
He uses parinyata or matanyuta.
Understanding, knowing moderation in food.
Here he says fully understanding food.
There's something else to this that I'm also not saying, and bhojana can mean not just physical food, but it can also refer to mental food, right?
So this would be sense impressions, sensual pleasures and suffering, pain, and those things that give rise to likes and dislikes.
That's a kind of a food as well.
Vedana is a kind of food of feelings, of pleasant and painful feelings.
thoughts.
I think intentions are a kind of food because they create a result.
They feed the future.
So it's understanding that as well, but even just understanding physical gross food is important because it's one of the basic requisites.
And the Buddha says this kind of understanding.
But I would say, if you're going to get into its relationship between nibbana, you probably have to go a little bit deeper and say, yeah, this relates to anything.
Because the word food in Pali, ahara, means that which brings.
Hara is to carry.
Ahara means to bring.
So it brings about a result.
Like food, physical food brings about the body, sustains the body.
So it brings nourishment to the body, it nourishes.
Feelings nourish attachments, likes and dislikes.
Consciousness nourishes experience.
So there's four types of food.
There's physical food, there's feelings, there's consciousness, and then there's intentions.
So intentions nourish results.
four types of food, and understanding them is considered, all four of them, is considered a primary or a base for the understanding of reality.
So when you understand all four, if you understand the mind and you understand karma, intentions, how they work, you understand feeling, you understand the physical aspects of experience,
This leads to vimoka, which is freedom.
This is talking about nibbana.
Sunyato means signless.
This is through seeing non-self.
So it helps you let go of the idea of self.
When you give up food, give up the obsession with pleasing and caring and tending for oneself.
You know, often you're better off being from time to time malnourished, because it tests you, it challenges you, it opens your mind up, it forces you to let go of this intoxication.
I have a beautiful body, I have a strong body.
It's funny, people always tell me I'm getting thinner.
And I've been getting this for years, that, oh, you're thinner than last time.
And I have people who tell me this every year, that I'm getting thinner.
And
I just think of that because the way the body looks is interesting, how we tend to apply judgments to the body, saying it's like this, it's thin, it's fat.
We're concerned about these sorts of things.
And so we become obsessed with food because we're worried about our bodies.
And I would say to some extent the obsession, like for example people who are concerned with their weight and wish they were thinner, I think that kind of obsession actually makes it worse.
It aggravates the situation, makes one more obsessed with food, and as a result makes it harder to
eat the right food because you repress, repress, repress, and then you indulge.
As opposed to just understanding and saying, oh yeah, I only need so much food and as far as my needs go, I really don't need to eat so much.
And you just stop.
When you understand food, actually food is a big distraction, right?
It's actually a huge suffering in our lives, and we don't realize it.
So that's a big part of parinyata, understanding that it's a huge bother.
Meditators will get like this.
After a while they'll start to say, man, I've got to go eat again.
Wouldn't it be great if I didn't have to go and eat?
What a big, what a bother that is.
So this kind of understanding helps us give up self, helps us see impermanence.
When you don't store, that's a big one.
Animitta means signless, so having no, what is it called?
No foreknowledge, no prior knowledge, not knowing in advance.
Having no warning.
Because normally when we're storing, nimitta means we have in our mind a sense.
Something tells us that tomorrow we're going to have pizza because there's pizza in the freezer.
So we're able to know in advance.
That's what nimitta means.
Ani-mita means not being able to know in advance.
It's signless.
It comes unexpectedly, without warning.
And so that's how this is.
When you stop storing food, then you can't have any expectations.
You can't say, tomorrow I want to have pizza.
You can, but you'll probably suffer because you'll probably not get pizza.
Odds are.
So it helps with seeing impermanence as well.
And so such people, the Buddha says, this helps us, and along with all kinds of understanding about food, help us to dwell in this kind of freedom.
Just as a bird, and then he uses this wonderful imagery of just as a bird that flies in the sky without leaving a trail.
So too, it's hard to know the destination of someone.
The meaning here is when they pass away.
When they pass away, at the very worst, they will go to a pure abode.
So they may go to heaven, or they might go to the pure abodes where anagamis go to, or they might not return at all.
So it's much harder to know where they're headed, because it's harder to know their minds.
Their minds are so deep.
and so profound in their self, in their possession, their calm and their quietude, that it's hard to know where they're headed.
And when they die, it's hard to know where they've gone.
That's the meaning there.
So, useful for us?
Well, useful for us to be mindful of food.
Something that we don't talk about nearly enough, I think.
My teacher was always going on about it.
Of course, I think it had a lot to do with monks storing up and eating food at the wrong times and that kind of thing.
So he was always bringing it up without really saying, hey, I know you guys are eating at the wrong times and storing up food.
Without actually accusing anyone, he would just bring it up like this.
But nonetheless, it is a big deal because food is primary.
We don't pay enough attention to it.
That's why eating meditation is very important.
I mean, it's important.
It should be a part of our practice.
And then the idea that it helps with seeing non-self, because you can't attach to anything,
Because you have to stop worrying about yourself or being obsessed with getting the right nutrition, that kind of thing.
And animita, it shows you impermanence, because you have to be flexible.
And such a person, once they reach this, they become free.
And when they're free, you get no sense of what kind of a person they are, because they are simple.
They're just free.
I mean, I guess you do get a sense, you do get a sense that they're very deep and that there's some depth to them.
Anyway, so right, so useful to us, and that's where we're headed, we're headed in that direction, to see impermanence, to see non-self, to give up suffering, to give up the cause, to stop clinging.
And the idea that in the end we don't leave a trace, I think it's useful for us.
For those people always wondering, how do I know that I'm progressing?
Well, the less of a trace you leave, you leave this...
Just like the wind of the wings of a bird.
That's the sort of trace that you leave.
So you do affect people, but it doesn't bother them.
You don't cause conflict or friction.
You just buff it with your wings.
Something very light and undisturbing.
Okay.
So that's our Dhammapada verse for tonight.
Thank you all for tuning in.
And keep practicing.
Be well.
Wishing you all peace, happiness, and freedom from suffering.