Monks go on their round for alms every morning barefoot. They stop outside the laymen’s houses. If someone comes out with alms, they would receive it in silence. If no one comes to make offerings, they would go on their way. Each house holder gives what he can; quality or quantity does not matter as much as the spirit in which it is given.
The Buddha allows monks to accept food sent to them at their own place. They can also accept invitation to laymen’s houses to partake of alms-food.
People who cannot effort to send alms-food to the monasteries or invite monks to their own houses, have a chance of gaining merit by making offerings to the monks on their daily rounds.
Monks consider it an act of compassion for poor people to go round on alms rounds.
Even people who can afford to invite monks to partake of alms-food in their own houses do not want to miss the daily alms rounds; for this kind of offering alms is considered more meritorious.
It is spontaneous alms-giving without any wish for show or ostentation. There is also a spirit of impersonal and impartial good will.
Yellow robed brethren of the Buddha’s order came single file in procession of ten or fifteen, their jet black alms bowls cradled in their arms. With downcast eyes they stopped one after another and silently opened the lacquer lids of their bowls to receive the alms-food.
Since we was young, we watched in awe and reverence as the staid yellow-robed figures walked silently away into the long shaded alley speckled with the mild rays of the morning sun.