I’m enchanted by what Vijay Kumar Thakur tells us from the Vinaya, the Buddha’s disciple Ananda speaking to one King Udena:
When new robes are received the old robes are used as coverlets, the old coverlets as mattress covers, the old mattress covers as rugs, the old rugs as dusters, and the old tattered dusters are kneaded with clay and used to repair cracked floors and walls. (Narayan and Kumar, 60)
This goes beyond recycling or handing down clothes (in themselves good things), and even beyond the “circular model of production” commended as an alternative to “throwaway culture” in Laudato Si’ (ยง22). In a way I hope we’ll have a chance to discuss on Tuesday, it speaks to me of the ecological and ethical vision of belief in rebirth. Just as what is now a rug was once a robe and what is now a robe will one day be a wall, so what is now not a person once was, and what is now a person might one day not be.