Offering Food

The community only eats food that is offered

Offering Food Nourishes the Sangha and Your Good Heart

Friends of Sravasti Abbey (FOSA)—lay and ordained supporters from around the world—provide the food eaten by nuns and monks at Sravasti Abbey.

To join in providing food for the sangha you can:

Want to Make an Offering?

We welcome your food offering.  Both the “Needed Now” and “Always Needed” lists can guide your giving.

Vegetarian
Remember that the community is vegetarian—no meat, fowl, or seafood at all. We also do not eat fertilized eggs.

No Onions or Garlic
The monastics avoid onion, garlic, leeks, chives, scallions, and radishes.

Healthy
Please support the health of the community by avoiding processed, high-sugar, and high-fat foods. Some community members avoid gluten and many are vegan.

Cultivate a Generous Heart
The most important aspect is your motivation. Rejoice in your own virtue!

Help Our Environment
Please minimize packaging—bulk is better than individually-wrapped portions. If possible, look for paper or cardboard containers rather than plastic ones

Minimize Shipments
If you are ordering from an online retailer, please select the shipping option that combines the items into as few shipments as possible. This small step helps to minimize our carbon footprint.

Foods needed now

Needed now:

  • Unsalted nuts
  • peanut butter (with no palm oil or added sugar)
  • jam, jelly, and fruit spreads
  • cheese
  • anything on the always needed list

NOT needed right now:

  • ice cream
  • candy
  • junk food and snacks

Foods always needed

  • fresh vegetables of all kinds
  • fresh seasonal fruit
  • dried tofu skins
  • vegetarian protein products besides tofu and beans
  • extra firm water-pack tofu
  • salad greens
  • milk 2%
  • low fat yogurt
  • low fat cottage cheese
  • butter
  • English muffins, & bagels
  • whole grain bread
  • cheese
  • quinoa
  • millet
  • peanut butter (with no palm oil or added sugar)
  • jam, jelly, and fruit spreads
  • nuts (especially unsalted)
  • honey
  • nutritional yeast
  • sesame seeds
  • rolled oats and gluten-free rolled oats (not instant)
  • brown rice
  • unbleached, whole wheat, and gluten free flours
  • 8-grain gluten free cereal
  • soy and gluten protein products
  • soy and gluten-free protein products (also)
  • dried fruit – prunes, raisins, dates, figs, cranberries, apricots, etc
  • sunflower & pumpkin seeds
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • canola oil
  • soy milk & oat milk
  • canned tomatoes
  • tomato sauce (with no garlic or onions)
  • vegetarian canned refried beans
  • pulp-free orange juice
  • coconut milk
  • black tea bags (without individual wrappers if possible)
  • loose black tea
  • green tea – – loose or bags without paper wrappers if possible
  • herbal tea — loose or bags without paper wrappers if possible
  • rice cakes
  • rice crackers
  • ground flax meal
  • ground cinnamon
  • whole cinnamon sticks
  • whole green cardamom pods
  • whole cloves
  • the things you most want to offer

Why Offer Food?

When the Buddha founded the sangha community, he wisely set the guideline for monks and nuns only to eat food offered to them. This sets up the relationship of mutual dependence between monastics and lay people. Sravasti Abbey monastics don’t shop for food, and general donations are never used for that purpose. There is, however, a Sravasti Abbey Food Fund designated for Abbey groceries.

How does that work?

The community eats what supporters bring or send them, and share that food with their guests. Visitors are encouraged to make a food offering. In addition, a network of local friends contact the community weekly to ask what they need. Those volunteers draw on the Sravasti Abbey Food Fund to shop for and deliver fresh food and groceries.

The Food Offering Ceremony

The mutual dependence of sangha and lay community is symbolized in a beautiful ceremony of offering and receiving food at Sravasti Abbey.

When you make your food offering from afar, imagine taking part in this exchange.

The benefactor formally offers the food and says,

“With a mind that takes delight in giving, I offer these requisites to the sangha and the community. Through my generosity, may they have the food they need to sustain their Dharma practice.

They are genuine Dharma friends who encourage, support, and inspire me along the path. May they become realized practitioners and skilled teachers who will guide us along the path.

I rejoice at creating great positive potential by offering to those intent on virtue and dedicate this for the enlightenment of all sentient beings. Through my generosity, may we all have conducive circumstances to develop heartfelt love, compassion, wisdom, and altruism for each other and to realize the ultimate nature of reality.”

The sangha accepts the offering and says,

“Your generosity is inspiring and we are humbled by your faith in the Three Jewels, We will endeavor to keep our precepts as best we can, to live simply, to cultivate equanimity, love, compassion, and joy and to realize the ultimate nature so that we can repay your kindness in sustaining our lives.

Although we are not perfect, we will do our best to be worthy of your offering.

Together we will create peace in a chaotic world.”

“The network of sustenance that is going on here is just fabulous! This is really wonderful! And when you study impermanence … you realize how strong the motivation has to be to maintain what is set up. So I want to celebrate the marvel of what is happening here at Sravasti Abbey.”

Jeffrey Hopkins

Professor Emeritus, University of Virginia

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Sravasti Abbey

692 Country Lane
Newport WA 99156 USA
[email protected]
509-447-5549