Buddhist begging bowl contains
profound lesson
By Julia Gregg, Courier Press,
February 16, 2007
Evansville, IN
(USA) -- A friend and I have an ongoing discussion
about what really matters - that is, what is essential to good
living. We have this discussion, of course, from a historically
privileged position.
We're usually agreeing or disagreeing over pasta, dessert or
flavored coffee, so it's safe to say Abraham Maslow's lower-level
basic needs are usually off our radar screen.
But it's not safe to say that we don't struggle. She has five
children, and I have so many lessons to learn that I deplete myself
on a fairly regular basis.
One of my most recent profound lessons centered on this same
friend's Christmas gift to me, a hand-thrown ceramic bowl, a
Buddhist begging bowl. The lesson of the begging bowl, she said, is
that what we need will come to us - that at the end of the day our
bowls will have been filled.
But I am a worrier, I admit to her. I don't want to be, but my
mother was, and her mother before her, so I suppose worry is in the
genes. Sometimes I quietly and privately agonize about having
enough time, money and energy to give to those around me who need
what I have to give. Ironically, I tell my son - and I honestly
believe it, despite my worry - that we are only a channel through
which money, time, love and energy flow; what we give out comes
back again to us. There will be enough.
I have placed the glazed begging bowl on my desk, and every morning
it reminds me of my basic "channel" belief that rests somewhere
within my core. Every night before bed I realize that - for that
day - I have had enough. The lesson is reassuring.
I looked up the history of the begging bowl, and I found that the
Buddha divided what was put into his bowl into 49 portions,
portions that sustained him on his way to enlightenment. Once
enlightened, he threw his golden bowl into the river, having no
need for possessions.
I am hardly so evolved. I need my bowl. I like looking at it.
What my friend thinks we need, ultimately, besides basic
sustenance, is positive relationships. She tells the story of
helping an elderly acquaintance clear out a life's assortment of
memorabilia and junk - an acquaintance with no family to assist
her. "I was throwing away things that meant nothing anymore to
anyone. She had no one left in her life, and I could see so clearly
that the possessions that were left were valuable to no one. She
was alone."
I see my friend's point clearly: In the end, nothing remains but
what we have given to others through relationship and what they
have given to us.
But I can't let go of the idea that beauty matters, too ... that
it's not only the love, care, support, listening, thinking and
sharing of ideas and food and drink that sustains us.
It's the perfect beauty of the hand-thrown sea-green pottery bowl
wrapped in sunshine on the edge of the desk ... the perfect poem
centered in the middle of the book lying open there, too.
Ah, but how much better that the bowl was a gift, my friend says.
How expanded the poem becomes when it is shared.