Turning Over The Bowl
Indicative of the mutual nature of the almsgiving exchange, in some Theravada countries, if a monk were to refuse alms from someone—a gesture known as "turning over the rice bowl"—this would be interpreted as an act of excommunication of the alms-giver by the monk.
The Buddha conceived the monastic Saṅgha and the lay community as ‘living together in mutual dependence.’ (aññamaññaṃ nissaya, It.111). Monks and nuns usually took the role of teachers of the laity but sometimes this situation was reversed. The layman Citta, for example, was learned enough and skilled enough in Dhamma to teach monks (S.IV,282-8). The Buddha also understood that there might be times when a monk’s or nun’s behaviour might warrant reproof from lay people or visa versa. He said that lay people could express their disapproval of monks or nuns by refusing to give them food when they came alms gathering.
According to the commentaries, when the monks of Kosambi were locked in an unseemly squabble, the lay people decided to ‘neither give them salutation nor gestures of respect or offer them alms when they come to us’ (Ja.III,409), which very soon brought the monks to their senses. Likewise, monks and nuns may express their disapproval of a lay person by ‘turning over the bowl’ (pattam nikkujjeyya), i.e. refusing to accept their alms. The Buddha gave the conditions whereby monks could consider doing this, all of them concern disadvantaging the Saṅgha (Vin.II,125).
However, a monk may also decline to accept a lay person’s alms if he knows that it has been obtained by immoral means. I know of a gentle, meditative, forest-living monk in Sri Lanka who turned over his bowl when a local man tried to give him some food which included venison. He knew that the man was a poacher illegally hunting deer in the nearby forest reserve. The man’s wife was so angry at her husband for causing the family such humiliation, and scolded him so severely, that he stopped pouching.
