Saṃyukta Āgama (371), Part One

(1) Original text: 如是我闻。一时。佛住舍卫国祇树给孤独园。尔时。世尊告诸比丘。有四食资益众生。令得住世摄受长养。何等为四。谓一粗抟食。二细触食。三意思食。四识食。 

Explanation: The World-Honored One told the bhikṣus: There are four kinds of food that nourish and benefit the living bodies of sentient beings, enabling them to be sustained and to remain long in the world. What are the four kinds of food? The first is coarse food, which is chewed and enters the internal organs to be absorbed by the body, nourishing the physical body so as to sustain life in the world; the second is the subtler food of contact, taking as food the contact of the six faculties with the six sense objects, as well as the contact arising from the conjunction of the six faculties, the six consciousnesses, and the six sense objects—the three together—nourishing the five aggregates of grasping and sustaining life; the third is taking as food the coarse deliberation of the mind consciousness toward dharmas, nourishing the body of the five aggregates and sustaining life, while primarily taking as food the deep and subtle deliberation (manasikāra) of the manas toward dharmas; the fourth is taking as food the consciousness's act of sustaining the body, maintaining the operation of the body of the five aggregates. 

All eight consciousnesses have the function of sustaining the body. The eighth consciousness sustains the body absolutely and is the primary body-sustaining consciousness; the seven consciousnesses are relative body-sustaining consciousnesses. The seventh consciousness is the second body-sustaining consciousness, the mind consciousness is the third body-sustaining consciousness, and the five sense consciousnesses are the fourth body-sustaining consciousness. As long as the eighth and seventh consciousnesses together sustain the body, the living body of the five aggregates can remain in the world, but the functions of the five aggregates will be incomplete. The vast majority of sentient beings cannot do without the body-sustaining function of the mind consciousness, as well as that of the five sense consciousnesses, for the functions of the five aggregates to operate in full and for life to continue and accumulate. Although the eighth consciousness has the absolute function of sustaining the body, the consciousness-food spoken of here does not yet include the food of the eighth consciousness; it takes mainly the food of the sixth and seventh consciousnesses. 

The four kinds of food that sentient beings need are all inseparable from consciousness-food; it is consciousness-food that serves as the fundamental food sustaining the body of the five aggregates, and only on this basis are contact-food and deliberation-food needed. If one lacks profound meditative concentration (samādhi), one must have the earth, water, fire, and wind elements of coarse food as the nutritional elements of the physical body. If one's meditative concentration is relatively deep, one can abandon coarse food and rely mainly on consciousness-food and deliberation-food to nourish the physical body; there may be slight contact-food, or one may even be able to abandon contact-food altogether. The more sentient beings depend on these four kinds of food, the more they transmigrate through birth and death, and the more suffering they experience. The deeper the meditative concentration, the less the dependence on these four kinds of food, and the freer the life; but the dependence on the eighth consciousness can never be severed—one need only not cling to the eighth consciousness.