四食 four nutriments

It is hard to provide and cook so simple and clean a diet as will not offend the imagination; but this, I think, is to be fed when we feed the body; they should both sit down at the same table. Yet perhaps this may be done. The fruits eaten temperately need not make us ashamed of our appetites, nor interrupt the worthiest pursuits. But put an extra condiment into your dish, and it will poison you. It is not worth the while to live by rich cookery. Most men would feel shame if caught preparing with their own hands precisely such a dinner, whether of animal or vegetable food, as is every day prepared for them by others. Yet till this is otherwise we are not civilized, and, if gentlemen and ladies, are not true men and women. This certainly suggests what change is to be made. It may be vain to ask why the imagination will not be reconciled to flesh and fat. I am satisfied that it is not. Is it not a reproach that man is a carnivorous animal? True, he can and does live, in a great measure, by preying on other animals; but this is a miserable way — as any one who will go to snaring rabbits, or slaughtering lambs, may learn — and he will be regarded as a benefactor of his race who shall teach man to confine himself to a more innocent and wholesome diet. Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.

梭羅說，當我們餵養自己的身體時，也要同時餵養我們的想像力。而他以為肉食會冒犯人的想像力。佛陀則用夫婦在糧食乏盡時共食子肉的比喻來告誡世人應如何看待人類對食物的需求。這對夫婦在吃肉時當然不會去想肉的味道如何。佛陀說：「若於四食，無貪無喜，則無憂悲，亦無塵垢。」

今時今日修道之所以不易，乃是因為光是飲食並不足以支持這個身體。人必須滿足於各種生理及心理上的需求之後，才有能力修梵行；否則在修行途中，就會無法支持，餓死或精神失常。佛陀說有四食資益眾生，令得住世攝受長養。何等為四？謂一粗細搏食，二觸食，三意思食(intellectual intention)，四識食。而此四食又因貪愛而生。這也就是二刃的刀 ── 人為了要活著需要此四食，得此四食又緣於貪愛。所以當你要此四食以長養此色身時，就會自然產生貪愛。在物慾橫流的今日要滿足於此四食並不容易。除非下了決心過著隱姓埋名的日子，與家人朋友不再往來，不然便必須面對社會對你的期望：正常人必須具備的積極進取的人生觀。這樣的人生觀如果沒有一定的物慾及企圖心(意思食)是無法支撐的。如此一來，要保持不退轉就要知道「一心正念、安住觀察」。要「覺諸受起、覺諸受住、覺諸受滅，正念而住，不令散亂」。對於自已的感受要像局外人一樣的觀察它們的生起、持續以及消滅，而不是任由自己因這些感受產生的各種情緒散亂迴轉。隨著感覺的產生、停留及消逝，要如實的觀察。觀察其愛味、過患、及出離。如此才不會因放縱損及修行。萬不可留戀已消逝的感覺，苦苦追求，蓋此正是諸結煩惱之因。