Karmic Seeds, Karmic Conditions, and the Digestion and Absorption of Food

Answer: Each person's physical condition is related to the karmic seeds from past lives. The body is the direct retribution, while the material world—the living environment—is the circumstantial retribution. Whether a person is healthy or not, tall or short, fat or thin, is all determined by karma from past lives. For example, if a person's retribution is to be fat, then even if he eats very little food, he will still be fat; a thin person, even if he takes in a lot of nutrition, will still be thin. When food enters the stomach, the tathāgatagarbha will selectively digest and absorb it according to sentient beings' karmic seeds and karmic conditions; the functions of the stomach and intestines are also manifested by the tathāgatagarbha according to sentient beings' karmic seeds.

When different people eat the same food, their karmic conditions differ, so their digestion and absorption differ, and their physical conditions differ. Those whose cultivation lacks strength will be influenced and limited by these karmic conditions, while those whose cultivation has strength can change the structure and composition of matter, and will not be influenced by matter, or will be influenced less. For example, those who are relatively good at sitting in meditation and cultivating samādhi can replenish the nutritional elements in their bodies, allowing the body to gain energy—even more abundant and nourishing energy than that from food—so the body will be very healthy, and thus they can reduce their intake of food.

Take another example, Patriarch Bodhidharma: his meditative concentration was excellent. Others repeatedly poisoned his food, yet he was able to remain unaffected and unpoisoned. His tathāgatagarbha was able to refrain from absorbing the poison in the food, or, if the poison was absorbed, to change the four great elements of the poison, so that the food had no toxic effect. Because Patriarch Bodhidharma's cultivation was powerful, his tathāgatagarbha was able to change the structure of the four great elements of the poison, so the poison was not absorbed by the body, and the body remained unharmed by it. The power of merit of each person's tathāgatagarbha is the same, yet each person's karmic conditions differ. With the same poison, the four great elements that each tathāgatagarbha absorbs differ, and the material body manifested accordingly differs as well.