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Moon Rabbit Cafe
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Next Moon Rabbit Dinner
August 10th 2024 Pay-What-You-Can! 5pm - 8pm "Japanese Bento" Guest Chefs - Cindy Ryan and Mike Brisbin To make Reservations click here
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Join us for our annual Japanese Bento Box dinner and Obon Festival! 5-8pm
Features homemade teriyaki chicken or tofu, cool and crunchy veggie salad, Japanese Rice and mochi! *Gluten-free and vegan options available. Bento Menu: Marinated Teriyaki chicken or tofu cool and crunchy veggie salad White Rice Hachi Mochi for dessert Genmaicha tea or Raspberry/Mint spritzer Reservations & payment can be made here on GoFundMe or pay at the door. Moon Rabbit is partnering with the Asian Community Development Council (ACDC), the Japanese American Citizen League (JACL), Tsurunokai Taiko and Sakurakai to offer traditional Obon dancing, Taiko drumming, kid's games, face painting, and a kimono sale. Bring friends & family to this fun cultural event! When you donate - Please make your Reservations & Payment here on GoFundMe. Remember to note the number of meals and veg/meat count in the "comments" section. 
Moon Rabbit Cafe's mission
The Moon Rabbit Café is a bimonthly community café that provides a setting where everyone eats in community regardless of means. To this end, we prepare high quality meals for all that come in peace, dining in community and Paying-What-You-Can. |
What is Moon Rabbit Cafe? This is our "pay what you can" community cafe. Guests can actually pay what you can afford or donate a little more to support others. Moon Rabbit Cafe features delicious and healthy specially prepared food in a relaxed community focused setting. Everyone is welcome to this unique and friendly dining experience.
Make your donation in advance. This will help keep the cashiers safe from bio-hazard money. Follow this link to GoFundMe and make a donation. Please include your name and number of Chicken or Veg in your party in a "Donation Comment". Make a Donation for dinner Now [click here] We will accept 'cards on GoFundMe and Cash Only at the event. 
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Moon Rabbit Cafe's vision
We would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the Moon Rabbit Café, a pay-what-you-can community café where all our neighbors eat together with dignity. Our guests pay what they can for meals or volunteer their time. We are an outreach of the Reno Buddhist Center and opened our doors for occasional dinners on January 31st, 2015. At the helm was an award-winning chef with a team of restaurant experienced VOLUNTEERs. In addition to providing delicious and thoughtfully prepared food, Moon Rabbit Café cultivates a new social paradigm by allowing full participation - that is - all of Reno coming together to enjoy an awesome dinner in the company of both friends and strangers. Everyone is welcome at Moon Rabbit Café, where everybody brings something to the table. Pay what you can - $10 helps someone else eat, $5 covers just you, and really whatever you have is ok. If you don't have any money - no worries - please volunteer to help and we'll share the crew dinner with you. The donations are a fundraising activity that makes the cafe possible at RBC. With the public’s attention increasingly focused on issues such as locally sourced food, sustainability, and the chronic problem of food insecurity, we are determined to be “crazy successful” as both a community gathering and, most importantly, as a force for positive change. We invite you to join us as we share the love and weave the fabric of community. |
The Moon Rabbit is managed by a committee of volunteers and is a Buddhist group that expresses the deep value of compassion through food. We are an integral part of RBC and appreciate strong support and encouragement. This is a community wide effort and non-denominational in the extreme - everyone is welcome just at they are. We rely on RBC for organizational and financial backing in the project and funds raised support RBC's community outreach activities.
Many thanks for your support! Feel free to contact us with any questions or ideas. With Gratitude, Moon Rabbit Café team members [email protected] 
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The Moon Rabbit Story
Where did the name come from? The Story of the Rabbit in the Moon....
Moon Rabbit Cafe was inspired by a well known Jataka Tale called “The Rabbit in the Moon”. Jataka Tales are stories of the Buddha's previous lives. Many are animal fables, very similar to Aesop’s fables. As the Buddha was not yet a Buddha, in the stories he often is called "Bodhisattva." A Bodhisattva is anyone who, motivated by great compassion, strives to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings.
This story of the selfless rabbit appears in the Pali Canon. The craters of the Moon seem, in some cultures, to form an image of a face -- the Man in the Moon -- but in Asia it is more common to imagine the image of a rabbit. This is the story of why there is a rabbit in the moon and why we chose this image and story’s meaning to represent our community cafe:
Once Upon a time long long ago.....
The Bodhisattva was reborn as a rabbit. He lived in a leafy forest among soft, tender grass and delicate ferns, surrounded by climbing vines and sweet wild orchids. The forest was rich with fruits and bordered by a river of pure water as blue as lapis lazuli.
This forest was a favorite of wandering ascetics, people who withdraw from the world to focus on their spiritual journeys. These ascetics lived on food they begged from others. The people of that time considered the giving of alms to the holy wanderers be a sacred duty.
The bodhisattva hare had three friends -- a monkey, a jackal, and an otter -- who looked to the wise rabbit as their leader. He taught them the importance of keeping moral laws, observing holy days, and giving alms. Whenever a holy day approached, the rabbit admonished his friends that if someone asked them for food, they were to give freely and generously from the food they had gathered for themselves.
Sakra, lord of devas, was watching the four friends from his great palace of marble and light on the peak of Mount Meru, and on one holy day he decided to test their virtue.
That day, the four friends separated to find food. The otter found seven red fish on a riverbank; the jackal found a lizard and a vessel of curdled milk someone had abandoned; the monkey gathered mangoes from the trees.
Shakra took the form of a Brahman, or priest, and he went to the otter and said, friend, I am hungry. I need food before I can perform my priestly duties. Can you help me? And the otter offered the Brahman the seven fish he had gathered for his own meal.
Then the Brahman went to the jackal, and said, friend, I am hungry. I need food before I can perform my priestly duties. Can you help me? And the jackal offered the Brahman the lizard and curdled milk he had planned to have for his own meal.
Then the Brahman went to the monkey, and said friend, I am hungry. I need food before I can perform my priestly duties. Can you help me? And the monkey offered the Brahman the juicy mangoes he had looked forward to eating himself.
Then the Brahman went to the rabbit and asked for food, but the rabbit had no food but the lush grass growing in the forest. So the Bodhisattva told the Brahman to build a fire, and when the fire was burning, he said, I have nothing to give you to eat but myself! Then, the rabbit threw himself into the fire.
Shakra, still disguised as a Brahman, was astonished and deeply moved. He caused the fire to be cold, so
the rabbit was not burned, and then revealed his true form to the selfless little rabbit. Dear rabbit, he said, your virtue will be remembered through the ages. And then Shakra painted the wise rabbit's likeness on the pale face of the Moon, for all to see. Shakra returned to his home on Mount Meru, and the four friends lived long and happily in their beautiful forest. And to this day, those who look up at the Moon can see the image of the selfless rabbit.
Moon Rabbit Cafe was inspired by a well known Jataka Tale called “The Rabbit in the Moon”. Jataka Tales are stories of the Buddha's previous lives. Many are animal fables, very similar to Aesop’s fables. As the Buddha was not yet a Buddha, in the stories he often is called "Bodhisattva." A Bodhisattva is anyone who, motivated by great compassion, strives to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings.
This story of the selfless rabbit appears in the Pali Canon. The craters of the Moon seem, in some cultures, to form an image of a face -- the Man in the Moon -- but in Asia it is more common to imagine the image of a rabbit. This is the story of why there is a rabbit in the moon and why we chose this image and story’s meaning to represent our community cafe:
Once Upon a time long long ago.....
The Bodhisattva was reborn as a rabbit. He lived in a leafy forest among soft, tender grass and delicate ferns, surrounded by climbing vines and sweet wild orchids. The forest was rich with fruits and bordered by a river of pure water as blue as lapis lazuli.
This forest was a favorite of wandering ascetics, people who withdraw from the world to focus on their spiritual journeys. These ascetics lived on food they begged from others. The people of that time considered the giving of alms to the holy wanderers be a sacred duty.
The bodhisattva hare had three friends -- a monkey, a jackal, and an otter -- who looked to the wise rabbit as their leader. He taught them the importance of keeping moral laws, observing holy days, and giving alms. Whenever a holy day approached, the rabbit admonished his friends that if someone asked them for food, they were to give freely and generously from the food they had gathered for themselves.
Sakra, lord of devas, was watching the four friends from his great palace of marble and light on the peak of Mount Meru, and on one holy day he decided to test their virtue.
That day, the four friends separated to find food. The otter found seven red fish on a riverbank; the jackal found a lizard and a vessel of curdled milk someone had abandoned; the monkey gathered mangoes from the trees.
Shakra took the form of a Brahman, or priest, and he went to the otter and said, friend, I am hungry. I need food before I can perform my priestly duties. Can you help me? And the otter offered the Brahman the seven fish he had gathered for his own meal.
Then the Brahman went to the jackal, and said, friend, I am hungry. I need food before I can perform my priestly duties. Can you help me? And the jackal offered the Brahman the lizard and curdled milk he had planned to have for his own meal.
Then the Brahman went to the monkey, and said friend, I am hungry. I need food before I can perform my priestly duties. Can you help me? And the monkey offered the Brahman the juicy mangoes he had looked forward to eating himself.
Then the Brahman went to the rabbit and asked for food, but the rabbit had no food but the lush grass growing in the forest. So the Bodhisattva told the Brahman to build a fire, and when the fire was burning, he said, I have nothing to give you to eat but myself! Then, the rabbit threw himself into the fire.
Shakra, still disguised as a Brahman, was astonished and deeply moved. He caused the fire to be cold, so
the rabbit was not burned, and then revealed his true form to the selfless little rabbit. Dear rabbit, he said, your virtue will be remembered through the ages. And then Shakra painted the wise rabbit's likeness on the pale face of the Moon, for all to see. Shakra returned to his home on Mount Meru, and the four friends lived long and happily in their beautiful forest. And to this day, those who look up at the Moon can see the image of the selfless rabbit.