What the Buddha Taught: Revised and Expanded Edition with Texts from Suttas and Dhammapada

by Walpola Rahula

There are four Nutriments (āhāra) in the sense of ‘cause’ or ‘condition’ necessary for the existence and continuity of beings: (1) ordinary material food (kabalinkārāhāra), (2) contact of our sense-organs (including mind) with the external world (phassābāra), (3) consciousness (viññaṇāhara) and (4) mental volition or will (manosañcetanāhāra).4