Surangama Sutra Exposition
by Living Buddha Lian Sheng, Grandmaster Sheng-Yen Lu
In this excerpt, the Buddha explains that taste does not arise in the tongue, not from the taste objects, and not from emptiness. Thus, both taste and the faculty of the tongue are without inherent nature.
“Ananda, you take your bowl and go among the crowds at mealtime daily. Sometimes you encounter curds, cheese, or ghee, which are considered superior flavors. What do you think? Are these flavors produced from emptiness, from your tongue, or from the food?
“Ananda, if the flavor were produced from your tongue, since there is only one tongue in your mouth, and if that tongue had already taken on the flavor of the curds, then when encountering black sugar or honey, the taste should not change. If it does not change, it cannot be called perception of taste. If it does change, since the tongue is not multiple in substance, how can a single tongue perceive multiple tastes?
“If the flavor were produced from the food, since the food itself has no consciousness, how could it know its own flavor? Moreover, if the food could know its own flavor, it would be akin to another person eating—how would that involve your perception of taste?
“If the flavor were produced from emptiness, when you eat emptiness, what flavor should it have? If emptiness had a salty flavor, then it would make your tongue salty and even your face salty. Then all people in this world would be like fish in the sea—constantly subjected to saltiness, utterly unaware of blandness. If they could not recognize blandness, they would also be unable to perceive saltiness. If there were no perception at all, how could it be called taste?
“Therefore, you should know that neither taste, the tongue, nor the act of tasting has any bases. Thus, tasting and flavor are both illusory and false. They are produced neither from dependent-arising nor self-arising.”
The tongue perceives flavors, but neither tongue nor taste possesses self-nature. Both are illusory and unreal. As the Buddha explained, milk is processed into cheese, cheese into butter, and butter into ghee. They all originate from milk. Since Grandmaster is lactose intolerant, he cannot drink milk, though he has no problem eating cheese.
There are many ways to prepare eggs such as sunny side up, over easy, scrambled, etc. Additionally, there are boiled eggs, braised eggs, preserved eggs, century eggs, and more. Likewise, steak can be prepared in different ways and at different levels of doneness. [Although the different preparations create different flavors, they are all still eggs and steak.]
The tongue can know taste, however, both the tongue and taste have no self-nature and are originally non-existent. Why? Because when the tongue does not lick or touch anything, it cannot perceive any flavor. The sense of taste does not originate from the void, as there is no flavor in the void, nor is there taste on the tongue itself. The tongue also has many functions besides tasting.
The Buddha uses saltiness versus blandness in his example. The tongue can also taste multiple flavors simultaneously or even combine two flavors into another. Yet both taste and the faculty of the tongue have no self-nature, neither dependent-arising nor self-arising.
Grandmaster also recounted how emotions and different types of kisses can bring various flavors to the tongue.
In summary, the Buddha said that the tongue and taste are neither depending-arising nor self-arising; everything is illusory without self-nature except for the wondrous luminous true mind.