At each monastic meal in Soto Zen Buddhism, we recite the Mealtime Verse: “We must think deeply of the ways and means by which this food has come; We must consider our merit when accepting it; We must protect ourselves from error by excluding greed from our minds; We will eat lest we become lean and die; We accept this food so that we may realize awakening.”
This is actually a significant number of koans all bundled together, which is one reason for repeating it so often. Today we will take up ways and means, which are manifold. In particular, does our food come from suffering, disease, death, and destruction?
The Blessed One, Shakyamuni Buddha, originally taught the monks to eat whatever was offered, whatever lay people chose to share with them, except that they were on no account to accept animals being killed for them. This is a straightforward basic principle, but there are long discussions of cases in the Vinaya about who knew what when, and about various people’s intentions. These rules were quite strict for Bhikkhus, but entirely voluntary for the laity. Practice has varied greatly in different countries, with meat-eating standard practice in Japanese Buddhism. In some countries onions and garlic are forbidden to monks, generally on the basis of Chinese medicine, which considers them aphrodisiacs.
Buddhist begging bowls are quite large, so that the monks can collect enough to share.