What to Do With Offerings

[dontknowmind]

I'm just curious what all of you do with your offerings once they've been used. I'm guessing that offerings and their uses differ by sect, so I would love to know what they are and what happens to them.

[mudra]

I'm just curious what all of you do with your offerings once they've been used. I'm guessing that offerings and their uses differ by sect, so I would love to know what they are and what happens to them.

Well we share out the food offerings to participants to eat, flowers that are still ok can either be left or given out to members to take home. DIsposing of rotting /olf flowers is a bit more problematic as ideally they should disposed of where they won't be walked on.The water we use to make tea, with the exception of the water in brass bowls which is used to water the garden.

[Malcolm]

I'm just curious what all of you do with your offerings once they've been used. I'm guessing that offerings and their uses differ by sect, so I would love to know what they are and what happens to them.

Everything comes from emptiness and dissolves back into emptiness, so it does not matter much what one does with offerings. Some people have elaborate rules, some people don't.

As for me, food (torma) offerings are put in a high clean place (a stump in my back yard actually), water offerings are tossed out the window into plantings in front of my house. Flowers go in the compost heap for next year's garden.

[Kyosan]

It's my experience that offerings of fruit are consumed after they have sat out for a long enough period. They might be consumed by: monks, nuns or laypersons. Sometimes when I have visited temples, they have given me fruit that was previously used for offerings.

[nirmal]

I usually burn all the offerings from my altar including fruits over charcoal within the compound of my house.It is very easy to get inspirations by doing this. See how blissful your meditation becomes by doing this.If the offerer is greedy and one moved by selfishness and always keeps the offerings for himself, then a fire sacrifice is needed.Everything put into the fire is burned and all that remains is the poverty of the spirit and only this is returned to us as pure bliss.There is no harm in eating the offerings from our altars occasionally but would it be right if we were to buy good offerings for the Buddhas just with the intention of consuming them later? The purpose is defeated.However the choice is still yours.