Breaking Bread Together

[parodie]

It is no wonder that we have had to invent other games to counteract [the ways we spend time together while avoiding really "seeing" each other]. Encounter groups, T groups, the multisensory techniques of William Schutz and the Esalen Institude and the Living Theater. After all these years of playing games whose purpose it is to keep us at arm's

Comments

[blueheron]

Food, for obvious reasons, is something that I have given a lot of thought.

In choosing to eliminate animal products from my life, it has also translated into a rejection (more often than not) of food offered by other people. This has been perhaps the hardest and most uncomfortable part of being vegan -- the rejection of hospitality, the rudeness of saying "no, thanks".

In many Buddhist monastic traditions, the monks will go begging for food on a regular basis into the community in which they serve. It is generally accepted, and understood in the communities, that only vegetarian food should be given. However, should meat be provided, the monk is also expected to eat it.

The most visible case of this would be with HH The Dali Lama, who travels and visits frequently in the west. As a monk, he shouldn't be eating meat (and indeed, the other Tibetan monks that I have met do not), but you will occasionally read about a dinner party thrown with him as a guest, with meals of veal or sea bass. To his credit, from the perspective given by you above, he never refuses the food offered him, is always gracious, etc. In fact, unless you knew or found out from other sources, you would never know that he was, ideally, a vegetarian.

Anyway... maybe I am just rambling.

Ok, no need for the "maybe" ;).

[blueheron]

You raise an interesting point about the hospitality of receiving food: to refuse something is often to somehow refuse or spurn the person offering the food. I think the corollary to that - and the point I was thinking about as I wrote this post - is that it is not just the act of accepting the food that is significant (although it is): something important happens (or rather, can happen) in the eating. If we all sit down and share a meal together, we are no longer strangers - we have shared a meal together. It's different.

(thoughts are fuzzy)

But yes, you raise an interesting point.