The Impact of Diet on Samadhi

Diet is also a crucial factor affecting meditative concentration. If the body absorbs excessive nutrients beyond its needs, it will react accordingly. This subsequently affects the conscious mind, causing it to become somewhat restless and agitated, with thoughts becoming impure and emotions difficult to control—or requiring forced restraint. These nutrients include not only animal-based substances such as fish, meat, tobacco, alcohol, and pungent vegetables like onions and garlic, but also vegetarian foods. If vegetarian nutrition is excessive, it can likewise provoke extreme physical and emotional reactions, increase physical and psychological burdens, and make it difficult for the mind to remain pure, thereby hindering meditative concentration.

Therefore, many who complain that meditation is difficult should examine their dietary structure to determine whether it involves excessive nutrition. In modern times, due to the abundance and variety of material comforts, people indulge in gluttony and excessive nutrition, becoming overly attached to physical well-being and delicious flavors. This results in impurity of body and mind, making it difficult to subdue greed and hatred, increasing afflictions, and ultimately preventing the attainment of meditative concentration. Consequently, the contemplative practice and experiential realization of the Dharma become exceedingly challenging. Thus, although one may study Buddhism extensively, become well-versed in theory, and speak eloquently, without genuine inner realization, one remains merely an intellectual adherent and a theoretical eclectic.

In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, the World-Honored One instructed disciples to abstain from consuming meat and pungent vegetables to subdue cravings and hatred, thereby accelerating spiritual progress. However, in modern society, material abundance is so pervasive that even a vegetarian diet can similarly affect the purity of body and mind, intensify cravings and hatred, and hinder rapid advancement in spiritual cultivation. This issue deserves the attention of all Buddhist practitioners, who should adjust their dietary structure to support their practice.