Offering food

ClayTheScribe

I know some traditional Buddhists offer up portions of their meal to other beings, the animals, the hungry ghosts, the spirit world, etc. Do you do something similar, and if so, why?

Sile

I do. Especially if someone has passed away. If I'm really making it an offering, I do it before the meal is served, taking some of everything and putting it outside by a tree; if discarding leftovers, I just blow some mantras and set it by a different tree. I haven't mastered gSur offerings, where you're supposed to burn it on coals, I believe, since the smoke is easier for the dead to appreciate than the plain food.

I think it's so interesting that the Hocąk and other Native peoples make food offerings - the ghost meal aspect is especially interesting to me. Like Tibetans, they believe that after a person has passed away, they can still feel hunger, and that a special meal prepared and eaten in their name helps to ease that hunger.

There are special rules to ghost meals - for example, you have to eat everything that's been prepared This leads to game and hilarious attempts on the part of the participants to live up to that goal, resulting in tremendous overeating and weeping fits of laughter as the situation becomes more and more ridiculous (point being, one should be a good enough cook to not prepare too much or too little).