Have You Ever Eaten Real Pork?

Question: How do the six consciousnesses consume pork? Do they truly consume real pork? The four great elements of pork are constructed by the pig's tathāgatagarbha using seeds of the four elements, which are unrelated to humans or the human tathāgatagarbha. So how do the four elements of the pig enter the human body and subsequently vanish?

The external perceived division of the pig's body—the actual flesh, the essential realm—can only be contacted by the human tathāgatagarbha. The six consciousnesses can only contact the internal perceived division. So how do the six consciousnesses come into contact with and consume pork? Yet the external perceived division truly gets consumed and ceases to exist—remarkable!

When you put pork into your mouth, bodily faculties such as lips, teeth, and tongue cannot contact the actual pork. You cannot chew the actual pork, the tongue consciousness cannot taste the actual meat flavor, and the essential realm of the pork's external perceived division cannot enter the stomach or intestines. In short, the six consciousnesses only contact illusions; they cannot contact the true essential realm. What, then, is the point of eating meat like this? It is self-deception. The pig's tathāgatagarbha painstakingly manifests a piece of meat, which has nothing to do with you. You contributed no effort—by what right do you consume another being’s flesh? What difference is there between this and robbery or plunder? Having learned the Buddha's teachings, how could one continue to act as robbers or bandits?