Abstract
We specify a hybrid community food network rooted in religious institutions: a distributed network of monastery-based sites, each combining a farm, a kitchen and free food distribution, operated by AI and robotic caretakers that hold no ordained status or ritual authority. Supply has two layers: produce donated from participants' home gardens, which the shared kitchen turns into meals for many, and food purchased through ordinary channels that guarantees a supply floor, so that people with no land, time or skill are never excluded; over decades the intended ratio shifts toward donated produce without cutting anyone off. Contributions are not priced. Each is recorded on a non-monetary gratitude ledger as one unweighted crossing, whatever it carried; meals are given to everyone on identical terms and may be thanked afterwards; the provenance of a gift is told in its story and never earns a rate, credit or tier. A two-ledger rule separates thanks between people from thanks addressed to non-human contributors (soil, plants, the kitchen), which a coordinator records but never holds. Purchases from outside vendors run on regulated payment rails beneath the gratitude layer. The network is positioned outside the licensed food-service category, subject to local legal review, and is adaptable to other contemplative traditions. An earlier variant, in which contributions earned redeemable credits and home-grown produce a higher rate, is retained as disclosed. Stated limits: nothing is built; the funding that replaces the withdrawn credit-redemption leg is unspecified; land access constrains urban sites.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Ly, Thon, "Silica Wat as Hybrid Food Network with Gratitude-Economic Drivers: Religious Institutional Infrastructure for Middle-Way Restoration of Food Systems — Monastery-Based Community Kitchens with Donated Produce, a Purchased Supply Floor, an Unweighted Non-Monetary Contribution Ledger, and AI Caretakers without Religious Office", Technical Disclosure Commons, (October 01, 2026)
https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/11928