Juice drinks allowable after noon?

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khemacitto
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Re: Juice drinks allowable after noon?

Post by khemacitto »

gavesako wrote:For Ajahn Chah tradition monasteries in England, all juices (forget the thing about the size of a first -- it is an old muddle) are allowable in the afternoon, and so is soy milk usually mixed with tea.

:coffee:
Could you explain the reasoning behind the inclusion of soy milk? What interpretation of the Vinaya supports this?

PS, I don't mean this in an accusatory way, but just because I'd like to understand. I looked up the Vinaya passages this afternoon and couldn't find any clear "soy milk" loop holes. Clarification would be greatly appreciated.

:anjali:
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kmath
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Re: Juice drinks allowable after noon?

Post by kmath »

I'm surprised no one has said this yet but some Ajahn Chah monasteries allow cheese in the afternoon as well. I can't remember the reasoning behind that. Seems like food to me...

The soy milk allowance I believe has something to do with bean broth being allowable as a medicine -- I think!

I don't the Vinaya on this very well but am just speaking from my experience at ONE Ajahn Chah monastery. The monks there would use the following as rule of thumb regarding juice: if you can see through it, you can drink it. Although carrot juice was passed around often, so the rule seemed to go to hell in that case. Or the monks would do the fork test: if you can dip a fork it in, pull the fork out and if the fork did not contain any remnants of the juice, it's allowable.

But the cheese allowance was the most surprising. Cheese, dark chocolate that did not contain milk, and sugar candies -- all good. I don't think soda was allowable but I can't really see why not if all the rest of this is.

:shrug:

It should also be noted that different monks, even within the same tradition or at same monastery, can have widely different views regarding allowables and so some monks will abstain while other partake.

:popcorn:
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lyndon taylor
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Re: Juice drinks allowable after noon?

Post by lyndon taylor »

Some Therevada traditions permit Ice Cream because at room temperature its a liquid. And I think the production and consumption of milk would have been pretty important in the time of the Buddha otherwise where would all the stuff about not killing cows and cows being Holy come from. IMHO Cows were considered Sacred because of just how important milk and cheese were to their diet in India.
18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

http://trickleupeconomictheory.blogspot.com/
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DNS
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Re: Juice drinks allowable after noon?

Post by DNS »

The five "tonics" allowed for a sick bhikkhu:

ghee, fresh butter, oil, honey, sugar/molasses
In Mv.VI.34.21, the Buddha allows bhikkhus to consume five products of the cow: milk, curds, buttermilk, fresh butter, and ghee. Apparently, cheese — curds heated to evaporate their liquid content and then cured with or without mold — was unknown in those days, but there seems every reason, using the Great Standards, to include it under one of the five. The question is which one. Some have argued that it should come under fresh butter, but the argument for classifying it under curds seems stronger, as it is closer to curds in composition and is generally regarded as more of a substantial food. Different Communities, however, have differing opinions on this matter.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... .html#NP23
If cheese is allowed, then certainly soy milk would be considered okay as it is less calories and non-dairy. And Bhikkhu Gavesako was referring to putting soy milk in tea, which I imagine would just be something like a teaspoon or two.

"Sick bhikkhu" can be somewhat subjective from what I understand and can include simply being "hungry" (in some interpretations of the Vinaya).
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lyndon taylor
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Re: Juice drinks allowable after noon?

Post by lyndon taylor »

David N. Snyder wrote:The five "tonics" allowed for a sick bhikkhu:

ghee, fresh butter, oil, honey, sugar/molasses
In Mv.VI.34.21, the Buddha allows bhikkhus to consume five products of the cow: milk, curds, buttermilk, fresh butter, and ghee. Apparently, cheese — curds heated to evaporate their liquid content and then cured with or without mold — was unknown in those days, but there seems every reason, using the Great Standards, to include it under one of the five. The question is which one. Some have argued that it should come under fresh butter, but the argument for classifying it under curds seems stronger, as it is closer to curds in composition and is generally regarded as more of a substantial food. Different Communities, however, have differing opinions on this matter.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... .html#NP23
Its quite possible the Pali?? word translated as curds in that passage also includes cheese in its meaning, I find it very hard to believe that pre BC India was so primitive they hadn't developed the ability to manufacture cheese, add to that the big problem with dairy products being spoilage(with no refrigeration) it seems cheese of all products from the cow would last the longest before spoiling, hence making it very attractive to them.

On the other hand, no one at my temple suggested that cheese was somehow permitted after 12PM, being a solid food, where as I said, milk and ice cream where permitted, some of this makes less logical sense and is more arbitrary, for instance I'm surprised at how relatively liberal the Ajahn Chan traditions are quoted as being on what's permitted after 12PM, I was under the impression that the forest monk traditions were a return to more conservative interpretations, maybe not???
18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

http://trickleupeconomictheory.blogspot.com/
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greenjuice
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Re: Juice drinks allowable after noon?

Post by greenjuice »

Milk is not allowed after noon? But it's noot food, it's a drink.
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cooran
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Re: Juice drinks allowable after noon?

Post by cooran »

Milk is a food:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk

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lyndon taylor
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Re: Juice drinks allowable after noon?

Post by lyndon taylor »

cooran wrote:Milk is a food:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk

With metta,
Chris
But then so is fruit juice!!
18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

http://trickleupeconomictheory.blogspot.com/
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greenjuice
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Re: Juice drinks allowable after noon?

Post by greenjuice »

cooran wrote:Milk is a food:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk

With metta,
Chris
Sorry but whete does this article say that milk is food and not a drink?

Is there an explanation in the Vinaya pitaka of why is milk not allowed?
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Mkoll
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Re: Juice drinks allowable after noon?

Post by Mkoll »

Milk is a very nutritious complete food with ample fats, protein and carbohydrates. You could live on milk for a very long time if you supplemented the vitamins and minerals necessary for health that are not present in milk. Milk is what makes a calf gain 75 pounds per month. Milk and its derivatives like cheese are very satiating.

On the other hand fruit juice is a processed food that is almost all carbohydrate with negligible protein or fat. You would get a protein deficiency very quickly trying to survive on just fruit juice.

Sure they're both foods but milk is a food you could live on whereas fruit juice is not. I think the rule allows fruit juice but not milk for the above reasons.

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lyndon taylor
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Re: Juice drinks allowable after noon?

Post by lyndon taylor »

As I said, it depends entirely on which temple and the traditions interpretation of the vinaya you go for, all the local southeast Asian Therevada temples in my area allowed milk, to the best of my knowledge, but then again most of them allowed monks to handle paper money, but not gold, all comes down to interpretation. The rule said no Gold, not no money so technically money is OK, but of course in that time gold was the prima facta money, and so the spirit of the rule was no money, not no gold. As to the milk rule, we still haven't found the scriptural ban of that, have we, I do remember though in my high school my teacher trying to tell me that milk was a food not a drink, or something to that effect.
18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

http://trickleupeconomictheory.blogspot.com/
khemacitto
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Re: Juice drinks allowable after noon?

Post by khemacitto »

lyndon taylor wrote:On the other hand, no one at my temple suggested that cheese was somehow permitted after 12PM, being a solid food, where as I said, milk and ice cream where permitted, some of this makes less logical sense and is more arbitrary, for instance I'm surprised at how relatively liberal the Ajahn Chan traditions are quoted as being on what's permitted after 12PM, I was under the impression that the forest monk traditions were a return to more conservative interpretations, maybe not???
Mv.VI.34.21 contains an allowance for the five products of the cow: milk, curds, buttermilk, butter, and ghee. The Commentary mentions that each of these five may be taken separately—i.e., the allowance does not mean that all five must be taken together. Milk and curds are classed as “finer staple foods” under Pc 39, but in other contexts they fit under the definition of non-staple food. All other dairy products—except for fresh butter and ghee when used as tonics (see NP 23)—are non-staple foods. One of the ten disputed points that led to the convening of the Second Council was the issue of whether thin sour milk—milk that has passed the state of being milk but not yet arrived at the state of being buttermilk—would count inside or outside the general category of staple/non-staple food under Pc 35. The decision of the Council was that it was inside the category, and thus a bhikkhu who has turned down an offer of further food would commit the offense under that rule if he later in the morning consumed thin sour milk that was not left over.
Given the fact that milk has its own category within the five products of the cow and was not listed as a tonic, I don't see any canonical support for the taking of milk after noon. I believe that the allowance of "cheese" after noon was the result of Ajan Mun and, following him, other Forest monks who included it under the category of butter, although I'm uncertain of its origin.

And yes, I do agree with your comment, and many others, that some of these rules seem somewhat arbitrary in terms of where the division is drawn, but I also feel that that is the nature of any codified rules, there are some strange or arbitrary inclusions and other strange or arbitrary occlusions, but the line must be drawn somewhere.

Also, the handling of money is not allowed as per the Vinaya and the application of the Great Standards. The rule in the Vinaya is Gold AND Silver, with Silver including all range of currencies then in use at the time. Logically, this would apply to all paper currency currently in use.

What I'm still curious about, however, is the actual Canonical support for Soy Milk drunk after noon. Anyone?
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kmath
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Re: Juice drinks allowable after noon?

Post by kmath »

khemacitto wrote: What I'm still curious about, however, is the actual Canonical support for Soy Milk drunk after noon. Anyone?
I said this before -- I swear it has to do with the fact that bean broth is allowable as a medicine.
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