การติดในรสอาหารจนถึงขั้นกินเนื้อมนุษย์ เกิดจากวิบากกรรมสองอย่างมาประกอบกัน คือกรรมจากการผูกอาฆาตหมู่คน และกรรมจากความยินดีติดใจในรสชาติ เมื่อถึงวาระ อกุศลที่เก็บเหตุไว้ก็จะฉวยโอกาสแสดงผลCraving for taste that escalates all the way to eating human flesh arises from two karmic results combining — the karma of having bound enmity with a group of people, and the karma of having once delighted in a particular taste. When its turn comes, the unwholesome that stored up that cause seizes the chance to bear its result.
Someone asked about a past-life story of a certain teacher — concerning a king who once gave up his throne because of a craving for human flesh, going on to commit demerit continuously. The question was whether such an overwhelming craving for taste, to the point of losing all sense, arises from a karmic result.
Pra Ajarn confirmed that yes, it does — arising from several karmic results combining together: the karma of having bound enmity with others, together with the karma of having once delighted in a taste until becoming attached to it. When these two combine, the result is being made to eat the flesh of those with whom enmity was once bound, with a taste one simply cannot stop delighting in.
The Root: Enmity Bound Against a Group, Not a Specific Person
All of this is guided by — the unwholesome that stores the cause of bound enmity, sometimes bound not against a specific individual but against a whole group. For example, one might once have fought and killed between villages; upon defeat, enmity gets bound against an entire village without singling anyone out. When the karmic result ripens, the sense-bases draw those people, now scattered, back together; the sense-base within the demerit-sphere of the one who created the cause draws in the opportunity to rise to power.
When the Turn Arrives: From a Craving for Taste to Eating Human Flesh
At first, it's simply a fondness for meat, an attachment to its taste. Then one day — a holy day — the cook can't find meat, and uses the flesh of someone who has just died instead. Tasting it, the craving deepens: it seems more delicious than before. Were this not the fruit of a karmic result, there'd be no way to explain why human flesh could seem more delicious at all. It's because the karmic result of once-bound enmity, buried from the past, still lies embedded; given the opportunity, it forces an overwhelming delight in that taste. These feelings and thoughts belong to the unwholesome that stored the cause; when its turn comes, it surfaces, creating such delight that one wants to know its source. Learning the truth — that it is human flesh — one still wishes to eat it again, every day. This is the nature of a stored cause: when its turn arrives, like a time bomb reaching the point where it must bear fruit, it seizes the chance to surface and forcibly dictate that outcome.