Do you eat anything after noon if you are a monk? Re: If you are a monk. What three? Here, a bhikkhu guards the doors of the sense faculties, observes moderation in eating, and is intent on wakefulness. He should develop perception of unattractiveness so as to abandon lust This tonics are allowable for one who is sick, not for one who is not sick. Sugar dissolved in water is allowable for one who is not sick. So is clear fruit juice.
There are also some other medicines made from leaves, which are not regarded as solid food. So, mint tea, but not cabbage soup. Medicines made from roots: e. So we don't spend too much calories so we need less than usual.
Also on a physiological level, we feel more sleepy when we're full. So if people eat too much, you'll end up with a bunch of snoring meditators in the meditation hall. It is only meaningful when the person is making the conscious choice to not overindulge. Perhaps think about the other precepts at the time of serious meditation work like retreats.
If you let people watch day time drama, or chit chat all day long, no one is getting any meditation done, and many people sacrifice their limited vacation time to join retreats so this would be a shame I personally appreciate having a bunch of little rules like this in retreats because i just don't have to worry about any of those things, don't have to fight my self.. Well, I'm really not talking about short-term things. I'm talking about years in the monkhood.
And it's long been my opinion that when Thai Buddhist officials in the Sangha or government wonder why fewer and fewer men are choosing to become monks, and some temples are having to close down, gee Yes, it's a choice, and one that fewer and fewer are making. I have been in villages where there are no longer open temples.
And most locals have no means of transportation to other villages. Jason God Emperor Arrakis Moderator. The two main reasons I've seen are eating too late can cause drowsiness, making meditation an important part of the monastic life more difficult, and eating only once a day helps to reduce the burden on the lay community, which supports the monastic community with the majority of their material requisites.
An exception is made for monastics who are ill, however. And this training rule is also undertaken by lay-followers who wish to have a more rigorous practice, part of which is to reduce the amount of time and energy spent on indulging in sense pleasures. I eat every hours, even if it is small. Without eating like that I can ge to the point of passing out. I think maybe some people could do this however I wonder if even being still for long periods if this is physically possibly for a large number of people.
It's entirely possible. I've spent a fair amount of time at monasteries, and I didn't find it as difficult as I thought it'd be. Of course, the idea that monks spend 16 hours a day meditating is sheer nonsense. Which is probably why no one here suggested they did.
If they're sincere about their practice, however, they're going to spend a fair amount of time alternating between sitting and walking meditation. After having visited hundreds of Buddhist temples in Thailand, I will tell you that my experience is that monks spend a lot of time sitting around, and I don't mean meditating.
Meditation is probably a part of every day for them, but we are not talking about hours on end. I have seen them eating, cleaning the temple, talking with the laity, attending formal occasions mostly funerals , I have sat with them in their kutis, I have seen them out walking around and shopping at the computer mall, talked with them on buses and the river taxis, chatted with them while they were gardening, and caught them sleeping in the wiharns and bots, etc.
And, if the food traditions receiving alms shortly after dawn and eating only in the early morning and around 11 a. But you and I both know that's not happening except in rare instances. I recently read a statistic that the decline in the number of monks in Thailand is roughly equal percentage-wise to the decline of Catholic priests in Europe.
I find that to be quite disturbing. I have visited a number of temples in Thailand where the laity are trying to attract monks to come to their village temple because their wat has been closed for a fairly long period of time, and the locals have no place to go since they have no transportation to neighboring villages. The Thai government and the Supreme Sangha have both expressed confusion about why this is happening.
I don't see why it is so difficult to understand. In olden times boys and young men became novices and monks to gain an education of sorts or because the family was simply too poor to feed them. That's rarely true anymore.
And young adults have choices now -- 3 meals a day, or collecting alms and eating only in the morning; meditating or watching television; having nothing or owning a computer; walking around with alms bowl or a Blackberry; taking a vow of poverty or working and helping their family.
So what is the mystery? Modern people are making modern choices. And, when you consider that most monks in Thailand are only monks for a few weeks or perhaps 3 months, the number of real long-term monks is indeed few. And this is not really any different than what has happened in Protestant and Catholic churches here in America.
The minister or priest of is not the same as the minister or priest I grew up around in the s. Meanwhile, at least in Southeast Asia, monks are wearing the same style robes they wore hundreds of years ago. Some of the monks I have visited are living in kutis with dirt floors. At Thai ordination ceremonies there's a tradition that, with their families present, monks being ordained wear white clothing and toss symbolic coins away to show they are giving up worldly possessions It gets very old very fast.
And soon the vast majority of them go back to their regular lives, satisfied that they have done their duty to their family and tradition. Meanwhile, back at the temple, the vast majority of the "real monks" are old men in their 60s, 70s, and beyond. I can't think of another group in the world that has done so little to modernize and has still remained viable. That's why the Supreme Sangha and the Thai government are concerned with the sharp decline in the number of monks Thanks vinlyn for your perspective.
It's pretty sad yet fascinating to know that Buddhist ordination is on such a sharp decline in Thailand. I can imagine it being true that the whole celibate, having to give everything up thing isn't that attractive to youth growing up in a world that is increasingly commercial.
I wonder what the stats are for monastics in places like Japan, where Zen and Shin Buddhist monks are allowed to have families and - I've heard but not sure if this is true - even a job on the side.
You bring up a very interesting point. I didn't know that about being able to have families there. Tosh Veteran. Ajahn Brahm - in one of his many interweb talks - says that the 'not eating after midday' precept was brought in, in Buddha's day, to stop his monks from bothering the local lay householders through out the day.
You can imagine it, drips and drabs of monks coming for food at all hours; it would have to be annoying day-in-day out; right? It's bad enough with teenage kids! So it meant the Monks had to be up and have completed their alms round early; so the locals weren't bothered by the Monks at all hours. One thing might have been that, at the time this was begun, there may have been less food overall for that population. Eating less might have been easier because there was not much more food to eat.
There wasn't much temptation. They didn't live in a state of perpetual plenty like many people in many countries now. Many people think of this is a sort of moderate asceticism. However, reading the suttas and doing additional research I came to realize that the actual purpose of this practice is to maximize health and well-being. According to Indian Ayurvedic medicine, which was in its heyday during the lifetime of the Buddha, the digestive fire or agni is maximal during the waxing of the sun, i.
It has nothing to do with asceticism, although of course the Buddha did teach that one should eat moderately, i. I asked about this matter to my teacher before, a lot of thai monks have problems with their health because of eating once a day. Then i realised that a lot of them ate rice cakes and thai foods is not good for stomach if you don't eat rice. A lot of factors. As for me, I've been taking the meals once a day before noon since and since then i feel fresh, lighter and i could meditate as long as i want because i don't have to think about having a lot of meals.
I did medical checkup a few months ago and my health conditions are very good. And also few years back, my japanese friend sent me a link about a doctor who'd been doing this once a day meal. His face from 20 years back and the current shows that he's getting younger and he did show up on television. In my opinion it's best to eat mostly in between the time period of a few hours before sunrise and noon, to be in synch with the sun.
As it is rising, it's generating energy and light until it's apex at noon, then gradually tapers down to sunset, as natural human activity should. Please read Bhaddaali-Sutta MN65 describing the laying down of the rule about not eating at improper times. The sutta also contains the parable of the Ajaniya horse. An excellent tamed mule schooled by an expert trainer and put through the various stages of training, becomes endowed with ten qualities.
Such a thoroughbred horse is fit to be regarded as a treasure by a king. Similarly, a man who has developed the Noble Eightfold Path and obtained right knowledge and right deliverance, becomes the richest field in which the seed of merit may be sown. The purpose is ideally for those who meditate were the extra food is more than what is appropriate.
Specialists must claim what they claim for active people who use up substantial energy on defilements and don't meditate much. I could be wrong but it seems to me that often the majority of specialists, at least those whose religion is material science, are incorrect.
They are biased by materialist views IMO. I feel not eating after noon is a very good way to be healthy. The health problems happen when, even though one doesn't eat after noon, one has tea and other things, which by themselves are fine, but when taken with sugar, are bound to cause problems, given the fact that insulin sensitivity decreases as the day progresses. It also doesn't go with the general advice that eating thus would help us be equanimous when struck with hunger.
I prefer only water after noon, and even when I eat a huge meal during the day, it's all slow carb. Eating thus also helps to balance our body processes, as our body is catabolic during the day hence eating mostly then to balance out, as digestion and assimilation is anabolic.
I also feel that the Budhha, who was so in tune with his feelings, could feel this last point, that eating this way leads to a balanced body at all times. Of course, no one way is the best, it's all about being on the middle path, right? But these, in my opinion, are some ways in which this diet, when done properly, could be helpful to us, as validated by the science of today.
Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. I needed to do something. When I was a monk, the dietary rule turned out to be a profound practice for me. Learning how to tolerate hunger for hours a day became training for tolerating difficult emotions and physical pain. Restricting eating to the morning acts on your desire like focusing a camera lens: the way that the mind relates to the craving for pleasure and safety becomes clearer and easier to witness.
To use a metaphor of Ajahn Chah, the great Thai Forest teacher, the eating rule is like a Thai lizard hunter. He finds the mound where the lizard lives and closes off all the holes but one, then he waits, watching that one hole.
Sooner or later the lizard comes out where he can catch it. In the same way, when you stop foraging for food whenever you want and limit yourself to the morning only, you can see your minds behavior around food more clearly. As a layperson, following the bhikkhu diet is of course much more difficult. As a monk, I did not have to cook dinner for others while I myself was not eating or resist the urge to wake up my brain with a meal when I had to stay up late at night working.
It was initially difficult as a layperson to adjust to the need to schedule a reasonable amount of healthy food before the noon cutoff. It was also hard to acclimatize myself to the season of hunger that began sometime in the late afternoon and continued until nighttime.
0コメント