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kham gyi zas

Comment: One of the four foods, which according to (1) morsel food (kham gyi zas, kavaDaMkAra-AhAra), (2) contact food (reg pa'i zas, sparza-AhAra) which is contaminated touch that increases the great elements associated with the sense powers, (3) intention food (sems pa'i zas, manaHsaMcetanAhAra) which is intention (or attention) that involves hope for a desired object, and (4) consciousness food (rnam shes kyi zas, vijJAna-AhAra) which is the collections of consciousness. S#er-s#hül L#o-sang-pün-tsok (Notes, 13b.5) cites the third chapter of Vasubandhu's Treasury of Manifest Knowledge (III.119-128) which indicates that:\n* coarse food furthers the body that is the support of this lifetime\n* contact furthers the mind that depends on the support of the body\n* intention projects future lifetimes (in that it is the main feature of karma)\n* the karmas that actualize future lifetimes in the sense of filling in the details of the lifetime projected by intention are posited as consciousness.\nS#er-s#hül quotes Vasubandhu's explanation that morsel food exists only in the Desire Realm whereas the other three exist in all three realms—Desire, Form, and Formless—and are necessarily contaminated. As Ge-s#hay B#el-den-drak-b#a explained, the foods increase cyclic existence, and thus uncontaminated contact, intention, and consciousness are not posited as food. S#er-s#hül paraphrases AsaGga's Compendium of Ascertainments which explains that although meditative absorptions and engaging in pure behavior are means of furthering the body through eliminating unfavorable circumstances, they are not posited as foods since they do not further the body by way of their own entities. His point must be that meditative stabilization therefore should not be included in the list.\n Contrary to this, Geshe Gedün Lodrö of the University of Hamburg includes meditative stabilization (ting nge 'dzin) and gives mental food as the second (Calm Abiding and Special Insight, 70-71):\n"The four types of nourishment are (1) coarse food, (2) mental nourishment, (3) nourishment of intention, and (4) nourishment of consciousness. The sense of mental satisfaction that comes when a desire is fulfilled is called mental nourishment. Just as coarse food nourishes the body, so satisfaction nourishes or replenishes the mind upon fulfillment of a desire. The third type, nourishment of intention, is an action that projects the next lifetime. Since it generates or produces the next lifetime, it is called a nourisher, or nourishment; it is the second link of the twelve-linked dependent-arising. Similarly, the third link, which is called consciousness, is known as the food of consciousness. Just as the action that projects, or impels, a future lifetime is called a nourisher, so the consciousness which is imprinted with that action and which will at the time of the effect of that action in the future life be imprinted with other karmas is called a nourisher, or nourishment. Why is [the first link of dependent-arising,] ignorance, not called a nourisher? It is because ignorance is the agent that pervades everything; thus, it is not singled out as a nourisher. There is still another type of nourishment, that of meditative stabilization. Persons who have achieved calm abiding and special insight and have proceeded to high levels of the path do not need to use coarse food; they have the nourishment of meditative stabilization.

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