The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.

The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart.

Question (M):  Today was my first time watching the alms food gathering and walking to the village. It was very beautiful to watch. The beautiful part was the people who were giving the alms food, rather than the monks who were receiving it. This is just my interpretation that the food the monks eat should be the food that is simply to maintain the body but it seems that there’s an abundance of food and so the monks can pick and choose from the best. Does this go against the grains regarding the alms food?

Than Ajahn:  That’s because of your own interpretation. In reality, alms round can be of different qualities and different quantities—it depends on the circumstances. If you go to a place where there isn’t plenty of food, then you’ll see a different type of activities. If you go to a place where there is an abundance of food, where there are many givers, then you’ll get this kind of scene. But for a monk, he knows he can only eat so much and the purpose of eating is to maintain life, so each monk has to fight with his own devil, whether he wants to eat to maintain his body or he wants to eat for enjoyment. If he eats for enjoyment, then it will be in contradiction to the teachings of the Buddha. This is the practice that monks have to do.

Sometimes, when a monk finds this place is too tempting like too much good food, then he might have to go to another place where there isn’t much good food, so that he can be spared the temptation. If you go to a rural area, especially if you live in a forest monastery that is far away from towns, when you go to the villages for alms round, you will get another types food which might just be barely enough for you to exist.

So, this depends on where you are and what you want.

When you go to a monastery, if you want to practice meditation, there are several factors you have to look out for:

first, you need a good teacher;
second, you need a quiet environment;
third, you have food that is adequate, not too much and not too little, it’s enough to sustain your body but spare you the temptation.

However, sometimes you cannot have all these factors exist together. Sometimes, when you go live with a good teacher, he usually has a lot of followers who will give good food to him. If you don’t want people to give good food, you might not find a good teacher because when the teacher is not a good teacher, no one wants to support that teacher.

So, it really comes down to yourself, as far as food is concerned. At a place where there are a lot of good food, you can still eat just enough for existence; you can choose not to take anything else except for some rice and vegetables; you can do this yourself. But you cannot tell people what to give or not to give.

This is the thing you have to decide on what you want.

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Question:  Could you give a brief explanation that when a monk goes for alms round, isn’t this meant to be a humbling act from the part of the monk?

Than Ajahn:  Yes, but it’s also a humbling act on the part of the laypeople because humility is an essential part of Buddhist practice. In order to strive and succeed in Buddhist practice, you have to have humility.

Therefore, the givers also have to show humility by taking off their shoes when they give food, and they’d give the food respectfully. It’s because monks are considered to be morally higher than laypeople; monks keep more precepts than laypeople. So, on the part of the laypeople, they show humility by being respectful, and monks show their humility by accepting things as they are given; monks are not supposed to ask for anything.

We never ask for food. We just walk to the village to show our presence. If anybody wants to give us food, they can do so. If people don’t want to give us food, we won’t be knocking on the doors and ask for the food. This is the interaction between the givers and the receivers: we go and accept things if people want to give us. If we happen to walk through the whole village and nobody gives us food, we cannot do anything, we just have to come back empty handed, and then we might have to go to the next town or the next village. Because if people don’t give us food, it means we cannot get support from this village and we have to go to other villages for the support. But we cannot ask for food, we can’t solicit for food or for anything. Is that clear?

Layperson:  Yes, thank you.

Than Ajahn:  And as far as humility on the part of the monks, every monk, when he starts, he has to start from the lowest rank of the ladder and will gradually climb up the rank as the time passes on.

This is also how monks practice humility: monks have to pay respect to another monks who were ordained before them.

“Dhamma in English, Jan 3, 2019.”

By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com

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