I am a clinical medicinal herbalist and am interested in eventually becoming a monastic. I would like to know whether I should plan on giving up medicinal herbalism.
In my practice, I use the combination of botainial (plant-based) medicines and nutritional/life-style plan to help people. I have three questions:
Q1. Can a monastic do this (without expecting/accepting material return/compensation)? I've looked into the precepts for monastics and cannot be sure about the answer.
Q2. If the answer is yes, can a monastic maintain an herbal dispensary, which includes dried herbs and herbal extracts in alcohol ("tincture", the alcohol is for the preservation)?
Note: An herbalist can practice without maintaining an herbal dispensary by giving out herbal prescriptions only and letting the patient purchase the herbs separately. But, some herbal remedies are hard to get in places outside big cities, having an herbal dispensary can be useful for cases in which time is a factor.
Q3. For that matter, can a monastic take herbal tincture (which contains 25-40% alcohole)? Note that, typically, a herbal prescription goes by 5 to 7.5ml of herbal tincture three times a day. Note that the 5 to 7.5 ml tincture is typically dropped into a glass of water to be taken (so the alcohol content is very much diluted when taken). I ask this question because I understand that a monastic is not to take alcohol.
I would very much appreciate authentic answers from a monstic as I have been searching in vain for an answer for a long time.
My sincere thanks in advance for any responses!
