My question for today is, how can you cultivate the perception on repulsiveness of food in formal meditation and daily activities?
I remember the Buddha said that “when developed and cultivated (the perception) it’s very fruitful and beneficial”, but I can’t remember if He explained in detail how to do it.
I’ll be glad to read your answers. Thanks in advance.
PD: I can’t remember exactly the sutta where the Buddha mentioned that; maybe it was in the Anguttara Nikaya or the Samyutta Nikaya. If you could find the exact sutta, that would be great.
The Visuddhimagga talks about specific methods in the chapter on Samādhi under the Nutriment and Elements section. It suggests things like visualizing it in your stomach and recollecting that it becomes poop, how it appears when all mashed together in the mouth, etc.
I don’t think you’d want to do that because first of all, what benefit are you trying to achieve?
Is it to give up greed(abhija)/passion(rago) for food? Then how about a perception of unattractiveness of food instead. Training in such way that you can enjoy food yet not be greedy for it.
It is also good to keep in mind MN151
‘Along the path that I went for alms, or in the place I wandered for alms, or along the path that I returned from alms, was there any desire or greed or hate or delusion or aversion in my heart for sights… sounds… smells… tastes… touches… thoughts known by the eye… …mind?’ Suppose that, upon checking, a mendicant knows that there was such desire or greed or hate or delusion or aversion (paṭighaṁ) in their heart, they should make an effort to give up those unskillful qualities.
which warns that paṭighaṁ (aversion; repulsion; resistance; irritation; conflict; lit. striking back) is an unskillful quality that is to be given up.
Eating meat is making one’s stomach a graveyard. It’s the corpses of animals. Animals who could, in some past life of theirs, be our relatives, even relatives in this life. Could be our deceased grandparents, etc.
Whenever one is eating meat, imagine the scene of that animal being killed to produce this particular meat.
Below is applicable to all food.
And one sutta has it that a couple and their son goes on a desert, get lost, and reason that it’s better for them to kill and eat their only son rather than all die. So they did that; would they enjoy the food? Or would they just eat for the sake of sustaining their body?
Seeing that food production involves indirect killing- even vegetables; small insects can be killed during harvesting- considering past-life relationships again, the analogy of eating one’s son is appropriate.
