“When you go for alms in the village, put on your robes neatly before you go. Exercise restraint as you go for alms. I’ve seen new monks and novices who don’t know anything. When they eat in someone’s house, they have to look around, all over the place. Why do they have to look around? Some of them even stare—it’s even worse than lay people. It’s because they’ve been living in the wilderness and haven’t seen anything like this for a long while. When they go into someone’s home, they see this, see that, and it pulls at their eyes.
They look all around because they’re hungry. It’s kind of like a dog: When it stays in the village market, it doesn’t bark very much. But if you take it out into the wilderness and the wind blows the leaves around, it barks all night.
So this is important. You have to be very careful when you go for alms.”