Can you explain alms?
How do you help a monk?
Can you buy them food?
Yeah, I mean, this is a big thing, really.
Westerners, they appreciate monks.
Many Western people appreciate monks and get teachings from them, but they don't know what to do.
I guess there's also monks that you don't get teachings from, but you think somehow you should help them, which is good.
Feeding stray cats is good.
Why isn't feeding stray monks good?
Or feeding monks good?
Yeah, you can buy them food.
Don't buy them food in the evening.
Buy them food for the day.
Monks aren't allowed to keep food.
Theravada Buddhist monks aren't allowed to store food.
So if they're Theravada monks, you should give them food that they can eat in the morning.
It should be given after dawn and before noon, and it should be consumed on that day.
If you're interested in learning about alms, I wrote an article that
I don't know.
Maybe it's probably not what you're looking for, but there's an interesting article.
It was talking about the idea of giving alms and what it means.
It shouldn't be considered an exchange.
It's considered fulfilling a need.
So when monks go on alms day, it's because they need food.
Just like when cats come to your door and start meowing, it's because they need food.
So yeah, giving them food is a great thing, especially because you consider that, wow, they're probably doing good things for people.
Yeah, they're probably doing good things for themselves and good things for other people.
So it's a better bet than giving to a cat.
That's the best way to help.
Monks are not allowed to ask for things.
They're not allowed to beg.
But if you, unless a person says to the monk, and you have to be careful about this, but if you say to a monk, or a male or female monk, look, if you need anything, let me know, I'll be happy to do my, I'll try my best to, if it's within my power, I'll try to get it for you.
Then they can ask.
And they're allowed to ask for four months.
This is the official allowance.
From that point in time, they can ask you for another four months, unless you say to them, for the rest of my life, you can ask me, or something like that, or for the rest of this week, you can ask me, unless you set a limit.
Then it's four months.
But anyway, then you don't have to guess what they need, and you can supply them with something that they may not have.
The best thing you can do to help monks is to go and learn from them and become part of the community.
Because there's so much work that needs to be done to facilitate teaching, for example.
So get involved in the organization.
Anyway, this article I wrote, I don't know if it's actually relating to this, but it relates to the idea of supporting an organization.
and how we should best view supporting organizations, especially the Buddhist organization.
It's called, there is two such thing as a free lunch.
And it's on my web blog.