The 500 robes

To conclude this meditation on the Eightfold Way and the Permaculture Principles, here is a story after the Guṇa Jātaka, based on the translation by Piya Tan:

[The elder Ānanda instructed the rajah's queens. They gave him five hundred robes.] They all set aside their robes, and the next day gave them to the elder Ānanda, while they themselves wore the old robes, and went to where the rajah was having his breakfast.

The rajah asked: “I’ve given you robes worth a thousand each. Why are you not wearing them?”

“Your majesty, we have given them to the elder Ānanda.”

“All taken by the elder Ānanda...?”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“The fully self-awakened Buddha only allows the three robes. Has the elder Ānanda
become a cloth merchant, to have taken so many robes?”

Angry with the elder Ānanda, the rajah, after breakfast, went to the monastic residence and entered the elder’s cloister. After saluting the elder, he sat down, and asked: “Bhante, do the women in our house learn or listen the Dharma in your presence?”

“Yes, maharajah, they learn whatever they ought to, they hear whatever they ought to.”

“What, do they only listen to you, or do they give you upper robes and undergarments, to you, too?”

“Today, maharajah, they gave five hundred robes worth a thousand each.”

“You took them all, bhante?”

“Yes, maharajah.”

“But, bhante, does not the Teacher allow only the three robes?”

“Yes, maharajah, three robes are allowed for each monk, but there is also an allowance under the category of ‘use’. For, it is not forbidden to receiving what is offered. Therefore, I accepted the robes, from which I gave to those others whose robes are old.”

“But when these monks have received the robes from you, what they do with the old robes?”

“The old upper robes are made into outer robes.”

“What do you do with the old outer robes?”

“They are made into undergarments.”

“What do you do with the old undergarments?”

“They are made into cover-sheets.”

“What do you do with the old cover-sheets?”

“They are made into carpets.” 

“What do you do with the old carpets?”

“We make them into foot-towels.”

“What do you do with the old foot-towels?”

“Maharajah, it is not proper to waste what is given by the faithful. Therefore, we break up the old foot-towels with a sharp knife, mix them with clay, and plaster them over the walls of our lodgings.”

The Rajah was satisfied.

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Creatively use and respond to change

"Creatively use and respond to change."

Four stages. 1. Broadfork 2. Mulch. 3. Drip irrigate. 4. Harvest.

The current situation here is drought. More drought now, in August, than we had last year at any stage, which was more than we've ever seen at this site. So the plants are doing as well as they are, I think, because we broadforked the beds and are spot-watering a lot of the plants at their bases. Those that start to wilt get immediate attention.

It is very difficult to garden right now in Pleasant Hill, Oregon.

Yes, I know guilds are supposed to be helpful. For reasons I won't go into, this particular garden must be kept tree free. But we have done what we can around the edges. Also we are trellising in every other bed in the far back, which really seems to help with partially shading the beds in between. The summer squash bed and the winter squash bed I don't worry about -- they have formed a solid canopy.

Change is the basic fact of the universe. Roll with it. 🙏

That everything changes is the basic truth for each existence. No one can deny this truth, and all the teaching of Buddhism is condensed within it. This is the teaching for all of us. Wherever we go this teaching is true. This teaching is also understood as the teaching of selflessness. Because each existence is in constant change, there is no abiding self. In fact, the self-nature of each existence is nothing but change itself, the self-nature of all existence.

  -- Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind Beginners Mind

(To be continued)