Monday, June 15, 2015

The Old Garden Cart

The tire on my garden cart is permanently flat, and i can't get it off its axle. The screws that hold the U-brackets that hold the axle in place are well-rusted. That's understandable: my cart is 35 years old. If a cart ages 2 years for every human year, i can forgive it for its parts rusting. My joints are rusting too.

The cart suffered an accident last year. It was standing innocently near the compost pile, when i backed my car into the cart, and now it is permanently si-fodling--it rolls on a slight diagonal.

I too limp a bit when i first get out of bed in the morning, favoring one side over the other.

Ahhh, my old garden cart needs to go to the cart-hospital for a little air in its pneumatic tubes, which probably need to be replaced.

Aging--me and my good friend, my garden cart.

Monday, April 29, 2013

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.