“This is the life of a monk that I illustrated to you as much as I can.”

The Buddha taught us to practise all the time except when we go to sleep. He has set a schedule for a monk: from 6pm to 10pm we practise samādhi and wisdom, by sitting in meditation or walking meditation; from 10pm to 2am, we go to take a rest, to sleep; we get up at 2am and from 2am to 6am we do more walking and sitting meditation until the time to go on piṇḍapāta, to collect food.

While we go on our piṇḍapāta, we can still practise, we can either maintain mindfulness or we can contemplate on the impermanent nature of everything surrounding us. Everything is impermanent. We can also contemplate on the nature of the body while we go on piṇḍapāta. When we come back to the temple, we go to the sālā to have our food, we continue with our mindfulness or contemplation.

Before we eat, we should contemplate on the repulsive aspect of the food that we are going to eat because we don’t want to eat with the desire to eat. We want to eat like taking medicine. In order to eat like taking medicine, we must put all the food together into a bowl and mix them all up because eventually the food will be mixed in the stomach anyway. This is to get rid of our desire for food.

If all the food that we eat are going to be mixed in the stomach, we should mix it before it goes into stomach. We mix it in the bowl, put everything that we are going to put into our stomach in the bowl and mix it all up and eat it. If we eat it that way, then we will not eat with the desire to enjoy, to have pleasure from eating but we eat it like we are taking medicine.

We eat just to take care of the body. This is something that you have to do if you have problems with eating. If you choose this kind of food or that kind of food, it means that you are still delusional. You still don’t see the purpose of eating. The purpose of eating is just to maintain your body, like taking medicine. You don’t care what size or shape of the medicine you are going to eat, you just take it when the doctor has prescribed you with the medicine. It is the same way with food. We should look at it like medicine, not something to enjoy but something to maintain the body, to take care of the body. If we can eat like this, you will have no problems with eating, you can eat any kinds of food.

While you eat, you also have to have mindfulness, with every bite that you chew, with every food that you swallow. You must have mindfulness. You should not think about this thing or that thing. We should not enjoy the food. If you are enjoying the food, just imagine what it looks like in your mind. If you want to see what it looks like, may be you can spit it out. You see the food that you are enjoying and swallowing. You see what it looks like by spitting it out, putting it into your bowl and see if you can put it back into your mouth again. This is to dispel your delusion of enjoying the food. When you really look at the food that you are enjoying, you don’t want to eat it anymore. This is how we should practise as a monk. We should not eat for enjoyment. We should eat just for the purpose of maintaining the body. This is the practice. This is the way to eliminate the desire, the kilesa that associate with eating.

After we finish eating, we clean up the place where we eat, we clean up our bowl, then we go back to our living quarters to continue on with our practice until the time in the afternoon when we have to sweep the temple ground and we have some refreshments. After that we take a shower, and when we are done with it, then it is time to practise again until the time to go to sleep.

This is the schedule of a practicing monk. He doesn’t do any other job, if he can avoid it. Occasionally we might have to do other work, but this other work should not be considered as the principal work. Our principal work is to meditate, to develop mindfulness, to develop samādhi and to develop wisdom. We need this Dhamma to eliminate all our desire. We don’t want to have dukkha or sadness or suffering, in the mind. The cause of our suffering is the kilesa or our desire and they can only be get rid of by using mindfulness, samādhi and pañña. So this is the life of a monk that I illustrated to you as much as I can.

By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto