Repairing the Garden Hoses

I spent 2 hours repairing hoses yesterday. Rarely do i experience such a combination of patience, diligence, and determination on the task at hand.

On the way home from giving a Dharma talk, i stopped at our fabulous hometown hardware store and bought 3 new female ends for hoses that i had already cut the worn, hole-y, or squirting ends off of. By using these lengths of old hose and not simply buying a brand-new hose, i was practicing the voluntary simplicity of "reduce, re-use, recycle." I had tried to recycle the hoses on Saturday at the Swap Shop at the landfill, but they didn't accept them. So now i am "re-using" them :) Sometimes i need just a short length of hose.

In this simple act of repairing hoses, i was practicing half (or more) of the 10 paramis (a.k.a. paramitas). These supreme qualities are the ones we need to perfect if we aspire to be a Bodhisattva or to live a life of service.

1. Generosity
2. Virtue, morality,integrity
3. Renunciation (voluntary simplicity)
4. Wisdom, insight
5. Energy, diligence, vigour, effort
6. Patience, tolerance, forbearance, acceptance, endurance
7. Truthfulness, honesty
8. Determination, resolution
9. Loving-kindness
10. Equanimity, serenity

 

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”