Someone asked the teacher about food offerings, recalling that an elder teacher once said that when an offering hasn't yet reached the family's departed relatives, hungry ghosts (asurakai) gather around it, mouths watering. She asked: if we take that offered food back and eat it ourselves, will anything happen to us?

Is It Safe to Eat Food Taken Back from an Offering

The teacher explained there's nothing to worry about — only that the flavor essence of the food will have faded somewhat. Everything follows the law of kamma. This world holds countless forms of life layered across different dimensions — microbes, viruses, bacteria, animals both domestic and wild, and hungry ghosts. Every being needs food to sustain itself. The subtle body consumes only the flavor essence of the food; the coarse body — whether human or animal — that eats afterward still receives the ordinary nourishment of earth, water, wind, and fire elements, simply without that essence remaining. What is beneficial remains beneficial; what is harmful, such as liquor offered in a ritual, remains harmful — the subtle body takes only its essence, while whoever drinks it afterward in the coarse body still suffers its ordinary effects. Good food nourishes either way; harmful food harms either way, regardless of whether it's eaten before or after being offered.

Do Ancestors Already Reborn Elsewhere Really Receive the Offering

A further question followed: during traditional ancestor-offering days, when honoring departed elders, do they truly receive the merit? The teacher explained that once someone passes on, they are reborn according to their own kamma — some into a new existence already, some possibly into lower realms. Only certain beings still in a subtle form capable of receiving the offering's essence, or wandering spirits who take that place instead, might receive it directly. What descendants can be certain of receiving, however, is the merit generated by their own gratitude. When the qualities of gratitude (kataññu) and readiness to repay that debt (katavedi) arise in the heart, they draw in pure energy that drives the system of wholesome states, purifying one's inner elements — increasing the proportion of wholesomeness within, and making life feel lighter and more at ease.

A Story on the Power of Gratitude

The teacher told the story of a young girl, around nine years old, who alone cared for her blind and partially paralyzed mother. Each morning she woke to cook rice, asked relatives for side dishes to feed her mother, helped her mother wash and get to bed, washed the dishes, then ran to school without breakfast, saving her share for lunch instead. At midday she rushed home to check on her mother before running back to class. In the evening, instead of playing with friends, she hurried home to bathe her mother, cook again, then went to do homework at a friend's house because her own home had no electricity.

He said that as this girl ran to school each day, the sphere of merit within her shone brightly from her gratitude. Local guardian spirits who noticed it would rejoice and quietly help improve her circumstances. Over the years, the merit accumulated from her devotion grew so full that it drew a generous benefactor to support her — paying for her mother's hospital care, building them a home, and funding her education through to a university degree. The teacher said this shows how just two qualities — gratitude and the will to repay it — can free both oneself and one's loved ones from suffering, without needing to visit a temple to make merit. Any wholesome state, once established in the heart, takes the form of a bright, clear sphere, and when enough of it accumulates, remarkable things can happen on their own.