BUDDHIST MONASTIC CODE I

The Food Chapter Chapter 8.4thresholds — and ate them. People criticized and complained and spread it about,'How can this bhikkhu himself take our offerings for our dead ancestors and eatthem? He's robust, this bhikkhu. He's strong. Perhaps he feeds on human flesh.'"There are two factors for the full offense here: object and effort.Object. An edible is whatever is fit to eat, and includes all four classes of food andmedicine: staple and non-staple foods, juice drinks, the five tonics, and medicine.As the rule notes, however, there are two exceptions:1) Water, according to the Commentary, includes ice, hailstones, and snow as well.Whether such things as boiled water, bottled water, and man-made ice should alsocome under this exception is a controversial point. Because the texts offer nospecific guidance here, this is an area where the wise policy is to follow the dictatesof one's Community.2) Tooth-cleaning sticks, as used in the time of the Buddha, were semi-edible.They were sticks of soft wood, like balsam, cut four to eight fingerbreadths long,chewed until they were reduced to fiber and spat out. People in India still use toothcleaningsticks of this sort even today.Here again there is a controversy as to whether toothpaste comes under thisexception as well. On the one hand it fits in with the pattern for tooth-cleaningsticks — it is semi-edible and not intended to be swallowed — but on the otherhand it contains substances, such as mineral salts, that the Canon classes asmedicines (Mv.VI.8) and that are meant to have medicinal value for the teeth andgums. This second consideration would seem to override the first, as it is aquestion of following what is explicitly laid out in the Canon, rather than of applyingthe Great Standards. Thus the wise policy would seem to be to regard toothpaste asa medicine that has to be formally given before it can be used, and not as comingunder this exception.The act of giving food and other edibles, as described in the Vibhaṅga, has threefactors:1) The donor (an unordained person) is standing within reach — onehatthapāsa, or 1.25 meters — of the bhikkhu.2) He/she gives the item with the body (e.g., the hand), with something incontact with the body (e.g., a spoon), or by means of letting go. Accordingto the Commentary, letting go means releasing from the body or somethingin contact with the body — e.g., dropping from the hand or a spoon — andrefers to such cases as when a donor drops or tosses something into abhikkhu's bowl or hands without directly or indirectly making contact.3) The bhikkhu receives the item with the body or with something in contactwith the body (e.g., his bowl, a piece of cloth).There is a tradition in Thailand that a bhikkhu should never receive an offering froma woman hand-to-hand. Either she must offer it with something in contact with herbody (e.g., a tray) or the bhikkhu must accept it with something in contact with his:331