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4.3.4. Vinnana-ahara 4.3.4.1. Meaning of vinnanahara According to Therevada Buddhist tradition, the terms citta, vinnana, or mana have the same meaning, which means consciousness or mind. According to Abhidhammattha Sangaha, consciousness is the first of four ultimate realities (citta, cetasika, rupa, and nibbana). it contains 89 or 121 cittas in which sense-sphere consciousness (kamavacaracitta) with 54 cittas, fine-material-sphere consciousness (rupavacaracitta) with 15 cittas, immaterial-sphere consciousness (arupavacaracitta) with 12 cittas, and supramundane consciousness (lokuttaracitta) with 8 or 80 cittas. The Pali word "citta" is derived from the verbal root citi, to cognize, to know. The commentators of Suttas explained the word "citta or consciousness" in three ways: as agent, as instrument, and as activity. As the agent, citta is that which cognizes an object (arammanam cinteti ti cittam.) As the instrument, citta is that by means of which the accompanying mental factors cognize the object (etena cinteti ti cittam.) As an activity, citta is itself nothing other than the process of cognizing the object (cintanamattam cittam). The third definition is regarded as the most adequate of the three: that is, citta is fundamentally an activity or process of cognizing an object. The Buddhist thinkers point out, by means of these definitions, that is not a self that performs the act of cognition, but consciousness or citta. This citta is nothing other than the act of cognizing, and that act is necessarily impermanent, marked by rise and fall. The 327 327 A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, ibid., pp. 28-29.

172 three ways of consciousness are also regarded as "awareness" (sanjanati,) "discrimination" (vijanati,) and "decision" (pajanati). It In the suttas, Lord Buddha taught "these are the six groups of consciousness: Eye-consciousness, ear-onsciousness, smell-consciousness, taste-consciousness, touch-consciousness, and mind-consciousness.",328 is explained that: the word "consciousness" is used because one is conscious, "It is conscious of [flavour] sour or bitter, acrid or sweet, alkaline or non-alkaline, saline or non-saline. Therefore, one is conscious; therefore, this is called "consciousness.",329 Being conscious of the six sense objects, as Lord Buddha affirmed, is the source of man's knowledge, man's attachment to the world and man's sufferings. It conditions name-and-form (nama-rupa) and other elements, so it is recognized as the subject of cognition, the object of cognition and the content of it. It exists in all mental, oral and bodily activities. From the above quotations, the term vinnanahara has the same meaning, but here, Lord Buddha has taught vinnana as ahara; therefore, vinnana-ahara means the food consciousness or the nutriment of intellection, which is the fourth kind of food of four aharas. While doing the cognition, consciousness is like the body which absorbs the foods into it, called the food consciousness. Again, the cuti-citta (sencience acting at the close of one span of life) as cause, is followed by the patisandhivinnana (reconception consciousness) as effect at the first conscious moment in the new life is called vinnanahara. When one asks, what on that occasion is vinnanaharo? The answer will be the thought which on that occasion is ideation, mind, the heart, which is clear, ideation as the sphere of mind, as the faculty of mind, the nutriment of intellect, the 328 S. II, 4. 329 S. III, 87.

173 appropriate element of representative intellection - this is the nutriment of intellect that there then is. 330 For consciousness, Thich Nhat Hanh has explained that, consciousness is composed of all the seeds sown by our past actions and the past actions of our family and society. Every day our thoughts, words, and actions flow into the sea of our consciousness and create our body, mind, and world. We can nourish our consciousness by practicing the Four Immeasurable Minds of love, compassion, joy, and equanimity, or we can feed our consciousness with greed, hatred, ignorance, suspicion, and pride. Our consciousness is eating all the time, day and night, and what it consumes becomes the substance of our life. We have to be very careful which nutriments we ingest. 331 It can be said that, the nutriment consciousness plays the most important role in the kinds of aharas. Our consciousness is like the ocean with the six rivers of our senses flowing into it. Our mind and our body come from consciousness. They are formed by ourselves and our environment. Our life can be said to be a manifestation of our consciousness. Because of the food that our consciousness consumes, we are the person we are and our environment is what it is. In fact, the edible foods we take into our body and the foods of sense-impression and intention all end up in to our consciousness. Our ignorance, hatred, and sadness all flow back to the sea of consciousness. We should know the kinds of food we feed our consciousness every day. When vijnana (consciousness) ripens, it brings forth a new form of life, nama-rupa (mind and body.) Rupa is our body or physical aspect, and nama is our mind or mental aspect. Body and mind are manifestations of our consciousness are made of these kinds of food. We have to look at the Five Aggregates 330 A Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics, ibid., pp. 29-30. 331 The heart of the Buddha's teaching, ibid. p. 36.

174 (skandhas) in us - form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness. They are nama-rupa. The first of the Five Aggregates is rupa, and other four are nama. They are all products that store consciousness. 4.3.4.2. Function of vinnanahara The nutriment consciousness, in its cognizing function, serves the sustenance of beings by causing the occurrence of mind-and-body. In order to specify its nature, function, and operation in the cycle of birth and death, Lord Buddha offered another dramatic image to illustrate this: "A dangerous murderer was captured and brought before the king, and sentenced him to death by stabbing. 'Take him to the courtyard and plunge three hundred sharp knives through him.' At noon a guard reported, 'Majesty, he is still alive,' and the king declared, 'Stab him three hundred more times!' In the evening, the guard again told the king, 'Majesty, he is not yet dead.' So the king gave the third order: 'Plunge the three hundred sharpest knives in the kingdom through him."" Therigatha the Buddha said, "This is how we usually deal with our consciousness." Every time we ingest toxins into our consciousness, it is like stabbing ourselves with the three hundred sharp knives. We suffer, and our suffering spills out to those around us. This kind of food is the most subtle but it is the extremely perilous. One should contemplate it so that he could mourn for his fate from the past time until now. In the application of the simile of the criminal pierced by spears, the king should be understood as kamma. The criminal is the foolish worldling attaching himself to the round of existence. The 300 spears are the rebirth-consciousness. The order of the king to pierce the criminal with 300 spears, corresponds to the King of Kamma seizing the foolish 332 S. II, 98.

175 worldling attached to samsara, and flinging him into rebirth. Though, herein, the 300 spears have been compared to rebirth consciousness, there is no pain in the spears themselves, but the pain that originates from the wound caused by the spears' piercing. Similarly, there is no suffering in rebirth itself; but there is kamma-resultant suffering (vipaka-dukkha) arising during the life-process in a given rebirth, as corresponding to the painful wound caused by the spears. The sharp shafts of conscious awareness, the punitive results of past cravings and delusions, inflicted on us one's life at all times of the day, pierce his protective skin and lay him open to the impact of the world of objects. The desire for conscious awareness has the same character as that for sense impressions: the craving to be alive, to feel alive in the constant encounter with the world of objects present to consciousness (or present within consciousness - as the idealists prefer to say). But there is still more meaning than that to be derived from the description of consciousness as a nutriment if we consider that it is explained primarily as rebirth consciousness. This rebirth consciousness, which is a single moment's occurrence, feeds (or conditions) the mindbody process (nama-rupa) of the present existence; and it is the arising of such moments of rebirth consciousness at the beginning of each successive life that continues the interminable chain of future births, deaths and sufferings. Growth or proliferation is a characteristic feature of all consciousness. Each rebirth consciousness, though its direct link is with the life immediately preceding it, has behind it the inexhaustible storehouse of the beginningless past, a vast granary of potential seeds of life. Fed from the dark unfathomable recesses of the past, lurks consciousness, an octopus with not eight but a thousand arms, ready to

176 grasp and take hold wherever it finds a chance, and there to procreate a fresh breed of beings, each with its own set of grasping tentacles. Life is always in readiness to spring up, and its most prolific manifestation is consciousness. Seen from one's limited viewpoint, it is consciousness that contributes most to the "expanding universe" of samsara. Hence the Enlightened One warned: "Do not be an augmenter of worlds!"333 It is by one's insatiable and greedy feeding on consciousness and the other nutriments that the world "grows;" and the potentialities for its growth are endless. Also the end of the world of consciousness cannot be reached by walking. Seen from that world-wide perspective, consciousness appears as the feeder and procreator of innumerable beings all of whom undergo that daily ordeal of life's piercing spears. Such a visualization of the reach of consciousness will increasingly lead to revulsion, to turning-away and dispassion, undeceived by the magician's enchanting illusions with which the Buddha compared the aggregate consciousness. 4.3.4.3. The peril of vinnana-ahara When the food consciounsness, thus fulfilling its respective function of sustaining by cognizing, there is its peril, which should be known. In (rebirth) consciousness, manifestation (of a new body-and-mind) is the peril. In whatever place rebirth-consciousness becomes manifest, there it arises along with the mind-and-body existing at the moment of rebirth. And with the arising of that mind-and-body, all perils have arisen because they have their roots in it. It is for this reason that manifestation (in a mind-and-body) is the peril in the nutriment consciousness. Human beings in the world generally desire for beauty, health, virtues, the Brahma-life, friends, much knowledge, wisdom, position, Dhammapada verse, No. 167. 333

177 fame, etc. They try to do wholesome actions to appropriate their wish. They will get nama-and-rupa that is appropriate to the former wish after death. However, this result is ruled by impermanence and then they have to come back suffering, it is similar to a man who has worked for a long time, accumulated properties, but he wastes his own property excessively, then he is poor and ill as before. The contrary, one who does unwholesome actions that tends to rebirth-consciousness, then that consciousness creates nama-and-rupa that is appropriate to the rebirth place. Similarly, a human who is fallen into the hell, nutriment consciousness also creates nama-and rupa in accordance with the fire of the hell, but it is not burnt by the fire. For this problem, King Milinda asked Nagasena as follows: "You say that the fire of purgatory would instantly destroy a boulder the size of a house; but you also say that whatever beings are reborn in hell, though they burn for hundreds of thousands of years they are not destroyed. How can I believe this?" Nagasena answered: "That is the strong of evil results which keeps human life. For example, although the food, bones and even stones eaten by various female beings are destroyed inside their abdomens yet their embryos are not destroyed. Just so those beings in hell avoid destruction by the influence of their kamma. 99334 In order to prevent from the peril of vinnanahara, Lord Buddha has given to human beings one example of three hundred darts as mentioned. It is said that a wound is enough to feel extremely painful and stinging, let alone three hundred wounds. Rebirth is like piercing of dart; namarupa is like wound, different sufferings rise from wounds that are like 334 Bhikkhu Pesala, The Debate of King Milinda, England: Association for Insight Meditation, 2001, p. 56.

178 different sufferings of mind-and-body. It is enough to be miserable because hundreds of darts pierce into this nama-rupa in a day. Whenever one sees the peril of food consciousness, viz he understands well the peril of name-and-shape or the five Aggregates of man (Pancakkhandha). Lord Buddha said, "Feeling, Perception, Will, Contact, work of mind; this is called Name. The four great elements and the form derived from them; this is called form. This is the Name, this is the Form called Name-and-Form." In this teaching, Feeling, Perception, Will, Contact, Work of mind, from the above teaching, are of the aggregates of Feeling, Perception, Will and Consciousness; Form is Form Aggregate. Name - and - Form are therefore the five Aggregates of man 99336 In the Mahanidana sutta of Digha Nikaya, Lord Buddha has explained that: - "I have said that cognition is the cause of Name-and-Form. Now in what way that is so, Ananda, is to be understood after this manner. Were cognition not to descend into the mother's womb, would Name-and-Form become constitued therein? It would not, Lord. Were cognition, after having descended into the mother's womb, to be extinct, would Name-and-Form come to birth in this state of being? It would not, Lord. Were cognition to be extirpated from one yet young, youth or maiden, would Name-and-Form attain to growth, development, expansion? - It would not, Lord. Wherefore, Ananda, just that is the ground, the basis, the genesis, the cause of Name-and-Form, to wit, cognition." According to the doctrine of Dependent Origination, consciousness is the cause of mind-and-body and mind-and-body is the cause of 335 S. II, 98. 336 Ibid., 3-4. 337 Trans. by T.W. & C.A.F. Rhys Davids, The Dialogues of The Buddha, vol. II, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers reprinted, 2007, p. 60.

179 consciousness, both really are not entities having a fixed nature, but relate closely to each other: In consciousness (or Cognition) exist the other eleven elements; also in Name - and - Form exist the other eleven ones. Both come from Ignorance and both lead to suffering. In brief, 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 peril. 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 them 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 peril that man

180 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.