Vesak Revisited: Food for Monks:

Fancy a vegetable sandwich? After Mr. How and I left the Buddhist temples in Assam Kumbang, we decided to go for a drink in a coffeeshop in town. We were not very hungry and asked for something light and the man who took our order suggested a vegetable sandwich. That was really something new to us and we decided to order one to see what it looked like. It was just a piece of white bread dressed or should I say, hidden by cooked vegetables and an egg. I suppose that was a dish fit for a Mahayana monk. It was vegetarian no doubt, unless of course, if there was an embryo in the egg. Mahayana monks, I heard are strict vegetarians but Therevada monks eat anything offered to them. Buddhism is supposed to be made up of two major sects, Mahayana and Theravada. I think I heard the late Rev. Abhinyana saying that there was no such thing as Mahayana and Theravada in Buddhism during Buddha's time. Actually, there wasn't one during the First Buddhist Council which was held three months after the Buddha's Mahaparinibbana but a hundred years later, during the Second Buddhist Council, the Mahasanghika or the Great Community which later became known as Mahayana came into formation. A hundred years is a long time and there were great political, social and economic changes and some monks saw the need to change certain rules, considered minor and supposed to be allowed by the Buddha. The fact here is, there is impermanence!