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Paper short abstract

Buddhist food rituals demonstrate how tables function as dynamic spaces where nature continuously transforms into culture through material practices and narrative encounters that extend beyond human boundaries.

Paper long abstract

This paper explores how Buddhist monastic food practices create narrative spaces where nature becomes culture through ritualized storytelling and material encounters. Drawing on ethnographic research at a Sōtō Zen and a Theravāda monastery, this research examines how dining tables act as agents in forming relationships that extend beyond the human. Communal meals function as what Marcel Mauss termed “total social facts”, integrating religious, economic, environmental, and moral dimensions within a single eating ritual. Gift-exchange cycles emerge among practitioners, food offerings, non-human entities, and natural ingredients, transforming raw produce into what participants describe as vehicles for practicing interconnectedness. The table becomes a gathering place for human and more-than-human elements: monastics, lay practitioners, donated vegetables, garden herbs, and even the cats who sometimes claim seats during rituals. Stories shared in the garden and during food preparation embed ecological relationships within social dining, turning meals into living narratives of reciprocity. These findings show how Buddhist food rituals animate the table as a dynamic site where nature and culture co-emerge through material practices and storytelling. In these ritualized meals, sharing food is not merely a social act but a multispecies performance that recognizes the agency of all participants in sustaining life. By highlighting how Buddhist tables cultivate ethical attentiveness and ecological relationship, this paper contributes to understanding how food rituals can transform ordinary dining surfaces into vibrant stages for a more-than-human community.