法苑珠林 93.42

93.42

Question: Wine is a medicine that harmonises the spirit; meat is food that satisfies hunger. From antiquity to the present their flavour is the same; what view is held now that despises them and refrains from consuming them? If the Buddha's teachings of pure prohibition were applied to the mourning rituals, and, for example, one were facing a strict monarch bestowing secular food by imperial decree, how could it be the monk's fault to refuse and not eat it?