The Falsity of the Tongue Faculty and Taste Objects as Taught in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Original text: 阿难。汝常二时。众中持钵。其间或遇。酥酪醍醐。名为上味。于意云何。此味为复生于空中。生于舌中。为生食中。阿难。若复此味。生于汝舌。在汝口中。只有一舌。其舌尔时。已成酥味。遇黑石蜜。应不推移。若不变移。不名知味。若变移者。舌非多体。云何多味。一舌之知。

Explanation: Ānanda, you regularly go out with your alms bowl among the assembly at two periods of the day. When begging for food, you may sometimes encounter butter, curds, and ghee, which are considered the finest of flavors. What do you think? Does this flavor arise from empty space, from the tongue, or from the food? Ānanda, if this flavor arose from your tongue, then in your mouth there is only one tongue. At that time, your tongue would already have become the flavor of butter and ghee; when you encountered black rock honey, the flavor should not shift. If the flavor did not change, the tongue could not be said to know flavors. If the flavor did change, then since the tongue is not of multiple bodies, how could a single tongue know many flavors?

Original text: 若生于食。食非有识。云何自知。又食自知。即同他食。何预于汝。名味之知。若生于空。汝啖虚空。当作何味。必其虚空。若作碱味。既碱汝舌。亦碱汝面。则此界人。同于海鱼。既常受碱。了不知淡。若不识淡。亦不觉碱。必无所知。云何名味。是故当知。味舌与尝。俱无处所。即尝与味。二俱虚妄。本非因缘。非自然性。

Explanation: If the delicious flavor of butter, curds, and ghee arose from the food, the food has no consciousness—how could it taste its own flavor-object? Moreover, if the food knew the flavor by itself, that would be like someone else eating: it would be a knowing outside of your tongue, not your tongue tasting the food. The act of eating would have nothing to do with you, so how could you know the flavor of butter, curds, and ghee?

If the delicious flavor arose from empty space, and you were to taste empty space, what flavor would you taste? If that empty space were salty, then tasting empty space would not only salt your tongue but also salt your face, and the people of this world would be like fish in the sea. Since people of the world would constantly experience saltiness, they would no longer know the taste of blandness. If people could not know the taste of blandness, they also could not perceive saltiness, and they would know no flavor at all. In that case, how could there be any tasting and knowing of flavor? Therefore, you should know that the flavor-object, the tongue, and the tasting consciousness all have no location. Tasting and the flavor-object are both false and illusory; they are fundamentally not of the nature of dependent arising, nor of the nature of spontaneity, but rather of the nature of the tathāgatagarbha.