Offering to the Monks
Joining Us for Lunch @ the Dining Hall
For those wanting to partake in and experience authentic Buddhist culture, making offerings to the monastic community at the dining hall is a daily activity that simply must be experienced. You can join in every Monday - Saturday 10:45 - 12:15. Please view the section below to understand why we make offerings to monks and how it supports our spiritual life. For now, here is a timeline of the lunch offering and ceremony:
Please note that on the Buddhist holy days that fall on the full moon of each month, there will be a special transference of merit chanting ceremony to share merit and prayers with departed loved ones that will start at 10:30am instead of the normal 10:45 start time. Also of note, the meal shared amongst the community for all in attendance is sponsored by our generous temple donors. In the spirit of the resolution that our Great Master Nun made before she passed, we always make sure that everyone who joins the temple is fed a free quality meal made with love and care. Although not necessary, you can pay this forward by making any type of offering to the monastic community so that the culture of service and generosity is practiced by all who come to the temple to purify their minds.
“If 100 come, we will feed 100. If 1 million come, we will feed 1 million. ”
The Importance of Making
Offerings to the Sangha
When monks come to ordain, they take a vow to uphold 227 precepts of discipline that limit them from engaging in activities that take up a lot of time and energy in the lay life and distract from spiritual cultivation such as making a living, having romantic relationships, wearing normal clothes, cooking, etc.
As a result, faithful lay people will offer the basic necessities of life: food, clothing, medicine, shelter, and monetary donations or equipment to help with fueling Dhamma projects in order to give the monks more time and energy to focus on meditation, cultivation of wisdom, and sharing that with others. Monks will also live a very minimalist lifestyle with few possessions and needs so as to be easy to support.
The support that lay people provide not only benefits them karmically, but it also gives them the opportunity to listen to wisdom and consult the monks so that they can overcome suffering, meditate more effectively, and experience sustainable happiness in their daily lives. This is the symbiotic relationship between monks and lay people where physical support is given so that spiritual support and wisdom can be cultivated and shared in return.
In addition to the main purpose of generosity: to train the mind to release greed and attachment to physical belongings thus purifying the mind and deepening spiritual progress, faithful Buddhists believe that making offerings to monks is especially powerful and beneficial. Since these offerings enable the monks to practice a high degree of morality, cultivate wisdom and purity, and share the Dhamma more effectively (considered by Buddhists to be the highest form of giving that generates the most merit), Buddhists believe that they get a corresponding share in the merit that the monks make since it was empowered by their support.
Similar to how nutrient dense and meticulously maintained soil provides the most suitable conditions to support abundant harvests for each seed a farmer plants, Buddhist monks who train themselves well are considered to be the most fertile field to practice generosity for those seeking to make merit and see the Dhamma take root in their lives and the lives of others. If you would like to learn more about merit, please see this page.