Begging Bowl
Buddhist Monks carrying begging bowls
At another post on this blog, a friend of mine, Emily Wilmer, made reference to a begging bowl. Begging Bowl I found this interesting reflection by Rev Rudolph Nemser
“Several years ago,
in a book, Everyday Sacred by Sue Bender
I gratefully remember but cannot find,
I read of the ancient Buddhist custom
of the begging bowl.
Each morning the Buddhist monk
sets out on his day’s journey
with an empty bowl.
All that the monk will eat that day
-each day-
is what is placed in the bowl
by the people
among whose lives his path takes him
At night, if no food has been placed in the bowl,
the monk goes to his bed hungry;
if any food remains,
the monk is to eat it all…
not waste any…
so that the morrow
shall start out with an again empty bowl.
The reason for the monk’s bowl
is a teaching that transcends
physical hunger.
Teachers instruct that, like the monks,
each morning
everyone of us should begin our day
with mind and spirit cleared and uncluttered.
We should be in a state of receptiveness without demand.
Thus our psyches will be able, like the bowl,
to be filled by the experiences
and the teachings
we encounter in the course of the day.”
……..
“Monks and charity.
Buddhist monks and their bowls.
Benedictine monks and abbeys.”
___
“What is the spiritual meaning
of the hunger and the giving?
Why does the Buddhist tradition teach
there shall be people of the begging bowl?
Why does the Christian tradition
teach the sacredness of the calling
of a life a prayer
dependent upon the gifts of others…
freely given
often with only unvoiced thanks?
What is the meaning of the people of hunger…
the people who are hungry
not as function of birth
but as deliberate path of choice?”
