How do the inner and outer sense-objects of food and drink arise and cease?

Eating as a dharma is not necessarily an attachment of the manas. When the Buddha manifested in the human world, He had activities of eating and drinking, and the great bodhisattvas also eat; they have no craving for food and drink, and none of them are attached to it. For some sentient beings, eating arises from the manas's attachment, and they crave form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas; other sentient beings are neither attached nor craving—the Buddha is not attached, and bodhisattvas are not attached either. So what is eating for? It is to nourish the physical body, so that the physical body has normal activity of the five aggregates to liberate sentient beings. For ordinary people, eating is on the one hand to maintain the physical body, and on the other hand it carries a craving nature, manifesting their own greed, anger, and delusion. In the process of eating, Buddhas and bodhisattvas have no afflictions of greed, anger, or delusion—this is the difference between a Buddha and ordinary sentient beings.

Food and drink are composed of the four great seeds of earth, water, fire, and wind. Even without being chewed to pieces, they arise and cease, changing moment by moment: the four great seeds arise, and in an instant they cease and return into the tathāgatagarbha; arising and returning, always thus arising and ceasing and changing. This food and drink must all be chewed to pieces; it too is composed of the four great seeds. The chewed food and drink become fine particles, and finally become the smallest, tiniest particles, yet they are forever combinations of the four great seeds, forever arising and ceasing and changing moment by moment.

The food and drink that sentient beings' tongue faculty, oral cavity, and teeth come into contact with is outer sense-object; the food and drink that tongue consciousness and body consciousness feel is inner sense-object. When the teeth bite the outer sense-object to pieces, the inner sense-object touched by body consciousness is also broken apart. Finally the outer sense-object becomes fragments that enter the stomach and intestines, and the inner sense-object touched by body consciousness and mind consciousness also enters the stomach and intestines. In the end, the food and drink in the stomach and intestines are completely metabolized away, even excreted from the body, and the inner sense-object contacted by body consciousness and mind consciousness disappears. By the same principle, after the inner taste sense-object discerned by tongue consciousness and mind consciousness enters the esophagus from the oral cavity, the inner taste sense-object can no longer be tasted, but in the stomach and intestines there are still the transformed outer taste sense-object and inner taste sense-object; it is only that tongue consciousness cannot taste them. After they are metabolized and excreted from the body, the outer taste sense-object and inner taste sense-object all disappear. What, then, is the relationship between these outer and inner sense-objects, and how do they all change?