Can I offer leftover food to a monk?

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SarathW
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Can I offer leftover food to a monk?

Post by SarathW »

Can I offer leftover food to a monk?
:thinking:
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
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pilgrim
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Re: Can I offer leftover food to a monk?

Post by pilgrim »

Yes you can, and you'll receive the corresponding merits of that act which will be a sad waste of opportunity.

"I tell you, Vaccha, even if a person throws the rinsings of a bowl or a cup into a village pool or pond, thinking, 'May whatever animals live here feed on this,' that would be a source of merit, to say nothing of what is given to human beings. But I do say that what is given to a virtuous person is of great fruit, and not so much what is given to an unvirtuous person. " ~ Vaccha sutta , AN 3.57
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JamesTheGiant
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Re: Can I offer leftover food to a monk?

Post by JamesTheGiant »

When I was working in the monastery kitchen, the Thai ladies would sometimes stop us from putting out the delicious leftovers from yesterday, saying it was forbidden to give leftovers to the monks.
Maybe this is a Thai custom not found in the time of the Buddha.
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DNS
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Re: Can I offer leftover food to a monk?

Post by DNS »

JamesTheGiant wrote: Fri Nov 30, 2018 5:53 am When I was working in the monastery kitchen, the Thai ladies would sometimes stop us from putting out the delicious leftovers from yesterday, saying it was forbidden to give leftovers to the monks.
Maybe this is a Thai custom not found in the time of the Buddha.
I believe it comes from the rule that monks are not supposed to store food.
Should any bhikkhu chew or consume stored-up staple or non-staple food, it is to be confessed.
pacittiya 38
Although in practice, this is rarely observed as now we have refrigerators and other means of storing food without it decaying or going to waste. However, if the rule is about not accumulating possessions (which in fact I think it is), then even though we have refrigerators, some monasteries nowadays do follow the letter of this rule and throw out all leftover foods from the lunch dana.

As for lay people serving left over food, that is allowed.
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AgarikaJ
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Re: Can I offer leftover food to a monk?

Post by AgarikaJ »

DNS wrote: Fri Nov 30, 2018 6:03 am Although in practice, this is rarely observed as now we have refrigerators and other means of storing food without it decaying or going to waste. However, if the rule is about not accumulating possessions (which in fact I think it is), then even though we have refrigerators, some monasteries nowadays do follow the letter of this rule and throw out all leftover foods from the lunch dana.
My observance how food is treated: all leftover food will be shared by the village old and poor, very often exactly the circle of people who came to the temple to present food to begin with. What then was not eaten normally went to the temple dogs and chickens.

This is of course the experience of small village temples in Isaan, how the much larger city temples (with the according larger amounts of food given) handle this, I have no idea.
There, I have seen very often that what is given are mostly pre-packaged goods (instant noodles, coffee, etc) which I always suspected to simply make a round-trip back to the temple shop for the next merit maker to purchase -- nobody would have needed those monstrous amounts of coffee, so maybe not the worst way to allow people to make merit while at the same time financing the upkeep of the temple.
The teaching is a lake with shores of ethics, unclouded, praised by the fine to the good.
There the knowledgeable go to bathe, and cross to the far shore without getting wet.
[SN 7.21]
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gavesako
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Re: Can I offer leftover food to a monk?

Post by gavesako »

Stored-up Food : A Discussion of Pācittiya 38, by Khematto Bhikkhu. (revised & expanded October 4, 2017) This essay, which includes the relevant Pāli along with its English translation, addresses the issue of whether the Vinaya allows monks to eat food reoffered on a subsequent day.

-- The author takes the stricter view that any food offered into the hands of a bhikkhu should not be offered again on a later day, regardless of who kept it overnight. (This is the strict Dhammayut interpretation.) The other view is that a bhikkhu can relinquish any leftover food and it is not up to him to direct the laypeople what they do with it afterwards.
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Kiṃkusalagavesī anuttaraṃ santivarapadaṃ pariyesamāno... (MN 26)

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salayatananirodha
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Re: Can I offer leftover food to a monk?

Post by salayatananirodha »

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/thag/thag.18.00.than.html wrote:Coming down from my dwelling place,
I entered the city for alms,
stood courteously next to a leper
eating his meal.

He, with his rotting hand,
tossed me a morsel of food,
and as the morsel was dropping,
a finger fell off
right there.

Sitting next to a wall,
I ate that morsel of food,
and neither while eating it,
nor having eaten,
did I feel
any disgust.

Whoever has mastered
left-over scraps for food,
smelly urine for medicine,
the foot of a tree for a dwelling,
cast-off rags for robes:
He is a man
of the four directions.
And I believe it is okay for monks to give away their food; I mean, in MN 3 the buddha talks about offering his leftovers to a weary monk
As I recall too it is acceptable for monks to share their alms food with one another
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