解脫道論 食不耐想總說與經營

The first mode of the perception of repulsiveness in food is procurement, and procurement is viewed together with impurity after food enters the body. Worldly people kill, steal, beg, deceive, and falsely display energy for food; the source immediately says that food is a cause for impure excrement and urine to overflow. Renunciants leave pure mountain forests, undergo cold, heat, mud, and rain, and gather alms; the source immediately says again that food is impure and excrement and urine flow out. The burden of obtaining food and its impurity in the body are both objects of repugnance.

The general account first lists many flavors obtained through procurement, esteem by pure people, fullness of color and fragrance, and high value. It then expressly says that food entering the body changes into impurity and becomes repulsive, putrid, and loathsome. After listing what beings do and undergo in procurement, the text states “seeing food thus, he arouses repugnance”; after listing renunciants’ dwellings and journeys for alms, it states “seeing this, he arouses repugnance.” This doorway places the two aspects and the two explicit statements side by side without adding a psychological cause.

As an editorial summary, the received material can be grouped under three aspects: how food is obtained, what hardship renunciants encounter in obtaining it, and what food becomes after entering the body. These headings only arrange what the source already contains. The formal practice named here is “cultivating the food-repulsiveness perception through procurement,” and the virtues remain the eight stated in the opening.

Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · The Perception of Repulsiveness in Food: Overview and Procurement · Doorway · Summer 2026

Questions and Definition

Question: What is the perception of repulsiveness in food? What is its cultivation, characteristic, function, place, arousing, and virtue? How is it cultivated?

Answer: With respect to the food one eats and tastes, one attends to all of it as repulsive. The source then reads 彼想知正知; its exact syntax is not explained in this passage. This is called the perception of repulsiveness in food. For this perception to remain without distraction is called cultivation. Taking the faults of food is its characteristic, repugnance its function, and subduing craving for flavor its arousing.

Eight Virtues

It accomplishes eight virtues: first, knowing the perception of morsel food; second, knowing fulfillment of the five desires; third, knowing the material aggregate; fourth, knowing the perception of impurity; fifth, fulfilling cultivation of mindfulness of the body; sixth, drawing back from craving for flavor; seventh, departing from that mind; and eighth, tending toward a good destination and toward the cream.

General Method and Five Modes

To cultivate it, the beginning meditator enters a deeply quiet sitting place, gathers the whole mind, makes it undistracted, and attends to the food one eats and tastes as repulsive.

Many flavors are obtained through procurement, esteemed by pure people, complete in color and fragrance, and accounted highly valuable. Yet when such food enters the body, it changes into impurity: it becomes repulsive, putrid, and loathsome.

The perception of repulsiveness in food is cultivated in five modes: through procurement, dispersed use, place, flow, and aggregation.

Cultivating the Perception of Repulsiveness in Food through Procurement

Question: How is the perception of repulsiveness in food cultivated through procurement?

The meditator sees beings committing various evil actions for the sake of procuring food: killing and stealing. He also sees them undergoing various sufferings, including being killed and bound. He sees beings perform further evil deeds: begging, deceiving, and falsely displaying energy. Seeing food involved in these things, he arouses repugnance. Food is a cause for impure excrement and urine to overflow, and beings commit evil actions in this way.

He also sees renunciants dwelling in pure mountain forests fragrant with many flowers and resonant with birds and beasts. Some places are made by good people; some are in the countryside and fully adorned. Tree shade, woods, and water delight others; the ground is level, pure, and fine, without unevenness; people marvel at it, and it is free of clamor. This is a place where renunciants cultivate awakening, equal to a Brahmā dwelling. Dwelling there without greed or attachment, they continually practice meditation and recitation and delight in cultivating wholesome matters. Yet to procure food they must take their bowls and enter homes for alms through cold, heat, wind, dust, mud, rain, and difficult mountains. Seeing this, the meditator arouses repugnance: food becomes impure, and excrement and urine flow out from it. These journeys arise from procuring food. Therefore such procurement is to be relinquished and the foremost pleasure sought.

He further sees renunciants who, in order to gather alms, move among horses, elephants, and fierce beasts, through places with dogs and wild boars, into the presence of evil people, or through unclean places where they tread in mud and excrement. At another’s door they stand silently for a short time, covering the body with their robe, uncertain whether they will receive morsel food. At times they see that food resembles dog food and become repelled by it. This procurement of food is most loathsome. What use is procurement? It is only begging from others.

In this way one cultivates the food-repulsiveness perception through procurement.

Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · The Perception of Repulsiveness in Food: Overview and Procurement · Vernacular · Summer 2026

Another doorway among the thirty-eight fields of practice opens here. Begin with the central observation: the general account of the food-repulsiveness perception first says that the food one eats and tastes becomes impure, putrid, and loathsome after entering the body, and then lists five modes; the first mode, “procurement,” presents both the burden of obtaining food and the impurity into which food changes. “Question: How is the perception of repulsiveness in food cultivated through procurement? The meditator sees beings committing various evil actions for the sake of procuring food, such as killing and stealing” 〔T32 440b27–29〕. It later says, “Impure excrement and urine overflow, with food as their cause” 〔T32 440c03〕. The passage on renunciants likewise first describes leaving a pure mountain forest for food, undergoing cold, heat, mud, and rain and the difficulties of alms-gathering, and then expressly states, “Food is impure, and excrement and urine flow out” 〔T32 440c10–11〕. Under “procurement,” this passage expressly lists killing, stealing, begging, deception, falsely displaying energy, leaving a quiet place, and the difficulties encountered in gathering alms; it also expressly lists the impurity of the excrement and urine produced by food. Each of the two passages says that what is seen gives rise to repugnance.

General Account: Eight Questions, One Unanswered; Eight Virtues Match Their Count

“Question: What is the perception of repulsiveness in food? What is its cultivation? What is its characteristic? What is its function? What is its place? What is its arousing? What is its virtue? How is it cultivated?” 〔T32 440b14–15〕—eight items by actual count. The answer beginning, “With respect to the food one eats and tastes, one attends to all of it as repulsive; 彼想知正知; this is called the perception of repulsiveness in food” 〔T32 440b15–16〕, first says, “For that perception to remain without distraction is called cultivation,” then, “Taking the faults of food is its characteristic, repugnance its function, and subduing craving for flavor its arousing” 〔T32 440b17–18〕. Thus cultivation is answered by the perception remaining undistracted, the characteristic is taking the faults of food, the function is repugnance, and the arousing is subduing craving for flavor; all four questions have explicit answers. The question about “place” has none (the four witnesses omit the two graphs 何處, “what place,” yielding seven questions; this edition follows the Taishō in retaining the question and does not supply an answer). “Subduing craving for flavor is its arousing” is retained as written; this passage gives no separate definition of “craving for flavor.” The eight virtues are: “If one cultivates the perception of repulsiveness in food, one knows the perception of morsel food, knows fulfillment of the five desires, knows the material aggregate, knows the perception of impurity, fulfills cultivation of mindfulness of the body, draws back from craving for flavor, departs from that mind, and tends toward a good destination and toward the cream” 〔T32 440b18–21〕. The eight items exactly match the stated number: the first four are each introduced by “knows,” while the latter four read, in order, fulfilling cultivation of mindfulness of the body, drawing back from craving for flavor, departing from that mind, and tending toward a good destination and toward the cream. The name of this doorway is itself worth observing: “perception of repulsiveness in food” occurs thirteen times and “food-repulsiveness perception” three times. The two orders are interwoven rather than being an error at a single point; both are retained without forcing them into one form.

Accordingly, the syntax of the eight divides into a first group of four and a latter group of four: the first four are each led by “knows,” while the latter four follow the verbs of their source phrases. The fifth says that cultivation of mindfulness of the body is fulfilled; the sixth, that one draws back from craving for flavor; the seventh, that one departs from that mind; and the eighth, that one tends toward a good destination and toward the cream. None of the latter four is prefaced in the source by another “knows.”

After listing the eight virtues, the answer again asks, “How is it cultivated?” and immediately says: “The beginning meditator enters a deeply quiet sitting place, gathers the whole mind, makes the mind undistracted, and attends to the food one eats and tastes as repulsive” 〔T32 440b21–23〕. In the literal order come first entering deeply quiet sitting, then gathering the whole mind and making it undistracted, and only at the end attending to the food one eats and tastes as repulsive. The source forms 寂寂 (“deeply quiet”) and 噉甞 (“eats and tastes”) are retained; this unit gives neither a further definition. Only after this sentence does the text proceed to many flavors obtained through procurement, what people esteem, fullness of color and fragrance, and impurity after entering the body.

Many Flavors, Esteem, and Impurity after Entering the Body

The general account of the practice proceeds in sequence: “Many flavors obtained through procurement, esteemed by pure people, complete in color and fragrance, and accounted highly valuable; such food enters the body and changes into impurity, becoming repulsive, putrid, and loathsome” 〔T32 440b23–25〕. Two explicit groups can be checked in the source sentence: before entry into the body come many flavors obtained through procurement, esteem by pure people, fullness of color and fragrance, and high value; after entry come becoming impure, repulsive, putrid, and loathsome. The source only places them in this order and does not separately explain how each gives rise to the next. It then states the five modes: “The perception of repulsiveness in food is cultivated in five modes: through procurement, dispersed use, place, flow, and aggregation” 〔T32 440b25–27〕. The five names, in order, are procurement, dispersed use, place, flow, and aggregation. This unit next asks only how it is cultivated through procurement, so it explains only the first and does not define the other four in advance.

Before the heading of the five modes, the sentence has already expressly named four results after food enters the body: becoming impure, repulsive, putrid, and loathsome. Impurity is therefore not something that appears only in the latter four modes; it is established in the general contemplation before the five modes unfold.

Procurement: What Beings Do and Undergo

The procurement section first says that the meditator sees beings commit various evil actions for the sake of procuring food, expressly listing “killing or stealing” 〔T32 440b29〕. It then says that beings undergo various sufferings and that he knows those killed and bound 〔T32 440b29–440c01〕; it next lists “begging or deceiving, falsely displaying energy” 〔T32 440c01–02〕. These five actions occur in the source order: killing, stealing, begging, deceiving, and falsely displaying energy. The source places them in one passage, without comparing their severity or supplying a separate motive for “falsely displaying energy.” Only after the list does it say, “Seeing food thus, he arouses repugnance; impure excrement and urine overflow, with food as their cause; beings perform evil actions in this way” 〔T32 440c02–04〕. The answer explicitly contains the actions, the suffering undergone, impure excrement and urine, food as their cause, evil action, and “arouses repugnance”; it gives no further psychological mechanism beyond them.

Twice this passage directly connects “procurement” with the impurity of excrement and urine. The passage on beings first lists killing, stealing, being killed and bound, begging, deception, and falsely displaying energy, and immediately says: “Seeing food thus, he arouses repugnance; impure excrement and urine overflow, with food as their cause; beings perform evil actions in this way” 〔T32 440c02–04〕. The passage on renunciants first lists a pure mountain forest, cold, heat, wind, dust, mud, rain, and alms-gathering, and immediately says: “Seeing this, he arouses repugnance; food is impure, and excrement and urine flow out. This is the procurement of food; it is the cause of that” 〔T32 440c10–11〕. The first uses “overflow,” the second “flow out”; both place food, excrement and urine, impurity, and repugnance within one statement.

Procurement: Places Traversed by Renunciants

“He further sees renunciants dwelling in pure mountain forests, with many flowers fragrant and birds and beasts calling, made by good people” 〔T32 440c04–05〕. The following lines continue with fully adorned fields, tree shade, woods and water that delight others, ground that is level, pure, and fine, without rises or hollows; people marvel at it, and it is free from clamor. They call this “a place where renunciants cultivate awakening, equal to a Brahmā dwelling,” and say that those dwelling there have no greed or attachment, continually practice meditation and recitation, and delight in wholesome matters 〔T32 440c05–08〕. The answer then separately lists cold, heat, wind, dust, mud, rain, difficult mountains, and taking the bowl and entering homes for alms in order to procure food 〔T32 440c08–10〕. It next expressly states: “Seeing this, he arouses repugnance; food is impure, and excrement and urine flow out. This is the procurement of food; it is the cause of that. Thus it should be relinquished and the foremost pleasure sought” 〔T32 440c10–12〕. The ascertainable order is dwelling place, conditions traversed for alms, the mind arousing repugnance, food’s impurity, excrement and urine flowing out, relinquishing, and seeking the foremost pleasure. No psychological explanation is added to make any one item necessarily produce the next.

“He further sees renunciants practicing for alms, among horses, elephants, and fierce beasts, in places with dogs and wild boars, in the presence of evil people, or in unclean places treading in mud and excrement” 〔T32 440c12–14〕. Four kinds of place occur in the source order: among horses, elephants, and fierce beasts; where dogs and wild boars are; where evil people are; and unclean ground where one must tread in mud and excrement. The preceding paragraph moved from the pure mountain forest into cold, heat, wind, dust, mud, rain, and difficult mountains; this paragraph further itemizes the beasts, people, and filth along the alms route. Together the two paragraphs state the difficulties undergone in obtaining food.

At the door of another household, the source continues, “For a short time they stand silently, covering the body with their robe, uncertain whether they will receive morsel food” 〔T32 440c14–15〕. They stand only briefly, remain silent, cover the body with the robe, and are uncertain whether food will be obtained. The text states only these actions and this doubt; it gives no separate account of the robe’s function or the beggar’s sense of identity. It then says, “At times they see that food is like dog food and become repelled by it” 〔T32 440c15–16〕. It closes with, “This procurement of food is most loathsome. What use is procurement? It is only begging from others” 〔T32 440c16–17〕, and finally concludes, “In this way the food-repulsiveness perception is cultivated through procurement” 〔T32 440c17〕. The sequence of this small passage is clear: first the places traversed for alms, then silent standing at the door and doubt about obtaining food, then the comparison with dog food and the arising of repugnance, and finally the close of the procurement mode.

To organize this passage, the material expressly present in the source may be summarized under three aspects: what actions the obtaining of food involves, what environments and journeys renunciants undergo to obtain it, and what food becomes after entering the body. These three aspects are only an editorial summary of the passage’s contents. The formal practice named in the text remains “cultivating the food-repulsiveness perception through procurement,” and its virtues remain the eight stated above.

Carry away three things: one observation (procurement and impurity after entry into the body are viewed together—obtaining food involves evil actions, leaving quiet places, and the hardships of alms-gathering, while food itself enters the body and becomes impure and putrid, with excrement and urine flowing out); one reading method (the five modes in their source order are procurement, dispersed use, place, flow, and aggregation; this passage first explains procurement, yet already twice expressly mentions the impurity of excrement and urine); and one through-line (the general account moves from many flavors, esteem, and fullness of color and fragrance to impurity after entry into the body; the procurement section then again writes together, paragraph by paragraph, the burdens borne by worldly people and renunciants in obtaining food and the impurity within the body). The other four modes continue in the next passage.

Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · The Perception of Repulsiveness in Food: Overview and Procurement · Exposition · Summer 2026