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Monastic Day Teaching
The Four Sources of Food for monastics include:
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Volition food: the deepest aspiration or beginner’s mind that nourishes the intention to leave home and practice. When beginner’s mind is still strong and vibrant, the monastic does not need to seek material or emotional comforts from outside, because the flame of bodhicitta already brings enough energy and solid faith. Lacking volition food, the monastic becomes like a “dead body,” easily falling into seeking other, unwholesome kinds of food.
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Consciousness food: the collective consciousness of those who share the same aspiration. A practitioner must live within the Sangha or in a wholesome environment, where there are brothers and sisters, Dharma doors of practice, and shared joy, so that this consciousness continues to water the seed of bodhicitta. If one leaves or lacks this atmosphere, the bodhicitta will become dry and cannot be sustained.
The remaining sources of food are:
- Sense impression food: the products of what we hear, see, smell, taste, and touch, which affect body and mind—some are nourishing, some are toxic.
- Edible food: the activities of eating and drinking together.
Maintaining volition food and building or strengthening consciousness food (the Sangha environment) is the foundation for all monastics. When the first two sources are assured, the third and fourth will easily follow, and the precepts and daily activities will become “the miracle of walking on the Earth”—each step is a miracle.
