Why can't sentient beings eat pork?

A student asked: "How can one avoid falling into stages?" Chan Master Huangbo said: “终日吃饭未曾咬着一粒米，终日行未曾踏着一片地，与么时无人我等相，终日不离一切事，不被诸境惑，方名自在人。更时时念念不见一切相，莫认前后三际，前际无去，今际无住，后际无来，安然端坐，任运不拘，方名解脱，努力努力！此门中千人万人，只得三个五个，若不将为事，受殃有日在，故云着力。今生须了却，谁能累劫受余殃！”

"Stages" here refers to the sequential stages of cultivation; "not falling into stages" means arriving directly at the most fundamental and ultimate place of the Dharma. What counts as directly realizing emptiness (śūnyatā)? Chan Master Huangbo replied: If you can manage it—eating all day long as though not a single grain of rice had been eaten, the mind empty and not attaching to self; walking all day long as though not a single patch of ground had been trodden, the mind empty and not attaching to self, not falling into the appearance of your own eating and walking. When you reach this state, there is in the mind no mark of others and no mark of self; all day long you are never apart from any affair, yet you are not confused by any state and not bound by any marks—only then are you called a person of freedom. Furthermore, at all times and in every thought you must see no marks whatsoever; do not hold that dharmas have a past, a present, and a future, for the past has not departed, the present does not linger even for an instant, and the future has not come. At all times sit calmly and upright, move along freely and naturally, unbound by dharmas—only this is called liberation.

This is the state after the prajñā realization of the Chan school, the state of the emptiness of the five aggregates (pañcaskandha). Why is it empty? Because they are generated by the tathāgatagarbha, and therefore it is said to be empty. Compared with the Small Vehicle's state of emptiness, this state goes a step further; compared with ordinary beings' state of "existence," it is higher beyond measure; yet it is still not as ultimate as the state of emptiness in Consciousness-Only. At the levels of the Small Vehicle and prajñā, it is the emptiness of self; at the Consciousness-Only level, it is the emptiness of dharmas. Building upon the emptiness of self, the emptiness of dharmas is more subtle and minute, with a broader and deeper scope.

Take eating, for example: at the prajñā level, there is no self eating and no eating self; I do not attach to the mark of a self that eats. But at the Consciousness-Only level, even the mark of the food does not exist. Take, for example, the matter everyone finds so interesting—eating pork: the five aggregates cannot touch the substantive pork of the outer representation at all; they can only touch the inner representation of pork at the back of the head. Yet after the pork is eaten, not only is the inner representation of pork gone—the outer representation of pork is gone too. Why is that?

If you cannot eat substantive pork, it is as if you never ate pork at all; then what is it that enters the mouth and is swallowed into the belly? The mouth eats food, but the food is the food at the back of the head; the mouth, the teeth, and the tongue are also at the back of the head, and the you who is eating is empty as well. Do you say you have eaten the food? Replace the food with pork: do you say you have eaten pork? What you ate was the inner representation of pork, yet the outer representation of pork is gone—how did it vanish? A secret, an enormous secret, worth investigating for a lifetime, worth investigating for several great kalpas.

This dharma is very deep; even with the foundation of the Small Vehicle's elimination of self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi) and the Great Vehicle's seeing of the true mind, it is not easy to investigate. The arising and ceasing of the inner and outer representations are all the tathāgatagarbha in function, and the functions of the six consciousnesses are also the result of the tathāgatagarbha's operation. Every dharma is the tathāgatagarbha; without enlightenment, one simply cannot investigate it at all.

Since beginningless kalpas, of the six sense objects—form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas—sentient beings have never actually contacted even one, yet at every moment they appropriate the six sense objects as their own, with the mind and mouth chanting: this is mine, that is mine—my body, my family, the words I speak, the sounds I hear, the meat I eat, the water I drink, the bed I sleep in, my power, status, fame, and so on. This scent, that flavor—you cannot contact any of them; which one is yours? Life after life of pursuing and chasing turns out to be wrestling with emptiness, contending with emptiness, playing games with emptiness—and oneself is empty too. Emptiness contends with emptiness; even the protagonist of the game does not exist, so the so-called contention is also empty. Rather than wasting your time on the games of worldly dharmas, it would truly be better to explore these truths, so as to avoid playing games in vain life after life. Do the truths really lack any attraction?

Someone takes a wooden stick and bangs it on the table, then firmly believes: Look—I banged the table, I showed off my power, I vented my anger. In reality, however, the stick is the stick at the back of the head, the hand is the hand at the back of the head, the table is the table at the back of the head, the action is the action at the back of the head. Seeing this action happens at the back of the head; hearing the sound happens at the back of the head; feeling that one has vented anger happens at the back of the head. All the activities of the five aggregates are performed at the back of the head.

How big is the back of the head, that it can contain so many dharmas? Not to mention just these—hundreds of millions of dharmas, countless numbers of dharmas, all occur at the back of the head. Only empty dharmas, dharmas without substantive nature, can land at the back of the head; substantive dharmas bearing marks cannot land there. All worldly dharmas lack substance; they are all empty, all images, all shadows. Pork is like this, eating pork is like this, my eating pork is likewise like this—there is no such person and no such event. What is there left to cling to, what to pursue? Fools!

To realize this principle, one must first eliminate self-view and then see the true mind. Eliminating self-view and realizing the emptiness of the five aggregates is very important. As for the question of the inner and outer representations, investigate it after enlightenment; only when meditative concentration and wisdom have both grown very deep can one begin to find a way in. Only by investigating from the angle of the tathāgatagarbha can any clue emerge, because the substance of all dharmas is precisely the functioning of the tathāgatagarbha.

Neither the tathāgatagarbha nor the five aggregates has ever contacted or possessed any worldly dharma whatsoever, yet the outer and inner representations of all worldly dharmas keep arising and ceasing in that way, being constantly fabricated. This phenomenon is indeed hard for people to accept. Empty dharmas are hard for worldly people to believe; they have grown too accustomed to clinging to existence. Yet the Buddha's teaching, whether Great Vehicle or Small Vehicle, all points to emptiness. When the emptiness reaches its end—utterly naked, ultimately and thoroughly empty—then one becomes a Buddha.