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 hunger
                    physical hunger.

That 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.
We will live in the present
            and, to this point, be fed in the present.

Thus shall we be freed
            of the demands of the past
as well as the claims of the future.

For, consider:
if we begin a day with our bowl filled with leftovers:
            there will be room for nothing else.
We will live solely on the past
            and what is no more.

If, on the other hand, during the day we turn the bowl topside down:
            it will hold nothing to nourish us
                    when the day is ended.
We shall have to be fed only in the future.

We must, therefore, begin each day
            with a whole and empty bowl
strong and open, able to retain
            what others have the grace to put inside

___

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.

Since I read Sue Bender's book of bowls
            I have reflected on the meaning of hunger
                    -self imposed-
            and the plates which others must fill
if these people of the spirit
are to be fed and survive.

I ask:

        >        whose way of life is more rigorous:
                            the begging monk or his farming brother?

        >        whose way of life is more demanding:
                            the celibate nun who prays half the night
                                    and works all day
                            or the married merchant?

        >        Who knows more fully the depth of hunger:
                            the monk with his bowl or the hunter with his bow?

The point which seems obvious to me
is that whatever the tradition:
            monasticism is not chosen
                    as the easier or more pleasant
                            or even more certain way of life.

People do not become monks to be fed.
Nor are monasteries organized
            as gourmet alternatives to the Four Seasons.

What, then, is the meaning of the self-imposed hunger
            and the need to survive on charity...
            need self-inflicted?

I take there to be a larger meaning...
            a spiritual dimension...
which the act of generosity
declares for the religious life.

Specific - spiritual - purposeful - necessary.

Hear these parallels:

It is wrong that people are hungry.
It is wrong that, in a world of abundance, we do not feed them.

It is wrong that people are destitute-
            physically, emotionally, morally.
It is wrong that we who live with plenty...
            and more than plenty...
                    do not share with the destitute.

It is wrong that people in our lives want.
It is wrong that, humble as our circumstances,
            we do not give them the crumbs from our table.
            The purpose of the begging bowl
                    is not to feed the monk,
            but to offer each person
                    occasion to give to someone else.

I was hungered, and ye gave me meat:
I was thirsty, and ye have me drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me in.

            I don't give to save them, she said,
            I give to save myself.

Some of you will remember the familiar story
Susan Rak told a number of years ago.
It contrasted heaven and hell.

In hell, the parable goes, there is plenty of the finest gourmet food
available to everyone.
            But, alas, the residents all have long forks and spoons
                    attached to their arms:
so long that while they can reach the feast:
they cannot place any of the aromatic food
            in their own mouths.
They cannot feed themselves.
So they live grimly in a desperate state of hunger.

In heaven likewise the banquet tables are laden
            with the finest and most succulent of victuals.
In heaven, too, each arm has a long spoon or fork
            that extends far beyond the hand.
So far that no individual
            can feed him or herself.

But in heaven, in contrast to hell,
            the people are of cheer and well fed.

For in heaven, the people feed one another.

            The purpose of the Indian begging bowl
                    is not to feed the monk,
            but to offer each person
                    occasion to give to someone else.

The reading from An Almanac for Moderns
from Donald Culross Peattie
for March 18th
speaks of life as "a green cataract"...
            "an inundation",
"a march against the slings of death
            that counts no costs".

How shall we respond, he asks,
            to earth's unconditional generosity?
When nature insists on giving us
as much or more than we can encompass?

One answer
            -that which Peattie proposes-
is to be "greedy for the last drop of it" ...
            to leave no part of what is given
unused, or unappreciated.
To take no part for granted.
To embrace the whole.

Another answer
            -also valid and necessary-
is offered by Maya Angelou
            within her insistent reminder and admonition:

            Alone, all alone
            Nobody, but nobody
            Can make it our here alone.

It is our obligation
            -each of our obligations-
that no one shall be alone
            for lack of our effort.

Place part of what we have
            -a precious part of what we have-
                    in someone else's bowl

A precious part of what we have
and yet...
and yet the learning is
no matter how generously we give to one another:
            we are not diminished by what we give.

Not long ago
I spoke with a man
who last year had given a million dollars away
            to charity and to family.

I wondered how this would feel?

Obviously a person of financial substance,
he said he had drawn a  sense of satisfaction
            and peace of mind
from these acts of grace.
He realized, he went on to say,
that even though he had worked all his life
            for the money he now had,
he somehow always believed
it was not truly his...
            it was a loan,
            a gift to accomplish something,
                    to share, to pass on.

He is a custodian and not an owner.
            As are we all.
The money is not a possession to be hoarded
            but an opportunity to be seized.

Charitable giving is his largest household expense...
            as it is, I suspect, for many of us...
because it is the most satisfying
use of the resources with which he has been endowed.

            I don't give to save them,
            I give to save myself.

Our family, it seems to me,
            like many Eastern Unitarian Universalist families,
has a Western child.  Someone who,
            for whatever reason,
while everyone else continues to leave east
            and near one another,
chooses to stretch the continent.

My daughter Kate, an environmental lawyer
            for the State of Idaho,
is our Western child.
She rarely comes east;
            most of us go to Boise infrequently.

Last year when I went to Florida
only my Eastern daughters and grandchildren joined
Judith and me and my Florida nephew.
It was a very enjoyable vacation
            with many good times..
but their was a deep sense of incompleteness.

So this year when I rented a condo
            on the Inter coastal
            and two streets for the ocean
I went out of my way to make certain
            that Kate and her three boys would come.

For a couple of days at the height of the week
we were seven adults and eleven children
(Fortunately the condo had four bedrooms,
            three bathrooms and three televisions.)

The week was pure confusion, greatness and joy.

A major factor creating its worth
was that were able to reach out to Kate...
            tell her we had missed her,
            that she is important to us,
            the we love her.
We were able
            to place what is of value to us...
our love and care...
in Kate's bowl.

And there in the sunny, bright warm Florida days
occurred
            a lowering of barriers
            a lessening of tensions,
            a bridging of separation,
            a soothing of pain.

>            For these are what hunger creates.

>            Just as surely
                        these are what ignoring the hunger of others creates.

The monk's purpose
(whatever the guise in which the monk appears)
is that he presents each of us
with the chance to reach
            to someone beyond ourselves.

The presence of those who are hungry
reminds us - as it must -
that the world is not yet enough changed

The monk passing by with his bowl
            bespeaks not only of his own privation
but hunger of all who pass each door.

So long as there is hunger
            the world has not changed enough.
So long as there is hunger
            we have not done enough.

We need to hear this message.
And we need to take it upon ourselves.

We cannot (only and always) count on others
            to change the world for us.
We cannot (only and always) count on others
            to change our family.
We cannot (only and always) count on others
            to change our relationships.

We cannot count on others
            to change the world.

We cannot (only and always) count on others to give on our behalf.

It is our privilege - and our salvation-
            to do this our ourselves.

this is the lesson of the bowls.

Worse than hunger
is to be indifferent to the hunger of others.

While yet time remains.