The Impact of Diet on Samadhi

Diet is also a crucial factor affecting meditative concentration. If the body ingests excessive nutrients beyond its needs, it will react accordingly. This, in turn, affects the conscious mind, causing it to become restless and unsettled. The mind becomes impure, emotions become difficult to control, or require forceful suppression. These nutrients include not only meat-based substances like fish, meat, tobacco, alcohol, onions, and garlic but also vegetarian foods. If vegetarian nutrition is excessive, it can also provoke excessive physical and emotional reactions, increase physical and psychological burdens, and make it difficult for the mind to remain pure, thereby hindering meditative concentration.

Therefore, many people complain about the difficulty of cultivating meditative concentration. They should examine their dietary structure to see if it involves excessive nutrition. Nowadays, due to the abundance and variety of material life, people indulge in rich foods and nutrition, excessively cherishing their physical bodies and delicious flavors. This results in physical and mental impurity, making greed and anger difficult to subdue. With heavy afflictions, meditative concentration naturally cannot be achieved, and the contemplative practice and realization of the Dharma become extremely challenging. Thus, although one may study Buddhism extensively, be well-versed in theory, and eloquent in speech, their inner realization ultimately remains unfulfilled, turning them merely into a scholastic adherent and theoretical eclectic.

The World-Honored One, in the Surangama Sutra, instructed his disciples to abstain from meat and pungent foods to subdue the minds of desire and anger, thereby accelerating their spiritual cultivation. However, in modern society, material life is excessively abundant. Even vegetarian food can similarly affect the purity of body and mind, increase desire and anger, and prevent spiritual cultivation from progressing swiftly. This should draw the attention of the broader community of Buddhist disciples, prompting them to adjust their dietary structures to facilitate their practice.