Nyanaponika Thera

The Four Nutriments of Life

The Four Nutriments of Life

All beings subsist on nutriment” — this, according to the Buddha, is the one single fact about life that, above all, deserves to be remembered, contemplated and understood.

If understood widely and deeply enough, this saying of the Buddha reveals indeed a truth that leads to the root of all existence and also to its uprooting.

Here, too, the Buddha proved to be one who “saw to the root of things” (mula-dassavì). Hence, it was thought useful to collect his utterances on the subject of nutriment (ahara), together with the instructive explanations by the teachers of old, the commentators of the Pali scriptures.

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About Nyanaponika Thera

Nyanaponika Thera (Siegmund Feniger) was born on 21 July 1901 in Hanau, Germany. He came into contact with Buddhism early in his youth and left for Sri Lanka in 1936, where he was ordained as a novice and a year later as a monk by the famous German monk Nyanatiloka.

Interned in camps like Dehra Dun's in India, he worked intensively during the war years on translations of Pali texts. Not only as author of the now classic The Heart of Buddhist Meditation and of many other books and translations, but also as co-founder in 1958, editor and president of the Buddhist Publication Society he made a great contribution to the international dissemination of the Theravāda teachings. He died on October 19, 1994 in Kandy, Sri Lanka.

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You yourselves must strive, the Buddhas only point the way

Buddha, Dhp 276