Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, April 22, 2009

One day as I was meditating, I saw a rusty gutter, and I suddenly
felt sad and sorry that it was going bad and rusty. I experienced
that life was impermanent. I learned Dharma from that gutter.

- Mae Chi Boonliang, "Women's Buddhism, Buddhism's Women"

One can do a lot to gutters to keep rust at bay. They will last a long time with careful maintenance. “Rusty Gutter” is, of course, a metaphor - certainly for human life. Doesn’t matter how much dye, tucks, creams, etc., one uses, all that accomplishes is that we (a) spend a lot of time on this camouflage, to the detriment of living into the wisdom of aging, (b) suffer a horrible sudden shock at some point that everything we have tried to avoid seeing the truth hasn’t worked, and (c) have lived on the surface and missed passion and a load of other great stuff Life offers.

Nope. The Velveteen Rabbit for me! Slowly but surely loved into the frayed-ness of a full liver of Life. I often look at old pictures. I love it when people bring a big collage of photos of the deceased from birth to death to a funeral! I’ve used beard dye for a long time, and Oil of Olay for decades ………. but one of my spiritual disciplines is to look at those pictures of myself, from babyhood onwards. And believe me, I won’t be shocked when the time comes for the rust to have worked its power, under all the unguents and “products”.

Most important, I learned the lesson of the Rusty Gutter early on. Good religious teachers will do that for you. So, I’ve had a great Life, I’m glad to be able to say. It’s had its normal amount of challenge and suffering (not to be dramatic!). But I learned to make the best of It, to live every day as fully as possible. That has meant everything from traipsing about the Greek islands for several weeks, to taking week-long-or-more silent retreats, to keeping up with friends, to recognizing a lover when he came along and having the courage to say Yes. And many other things between!

We can apply the unguents and colours if we want - as long as the Rusty Gutter is held clearly in the heart and mind. That Rusty Gutter is a symbol of our Freedom. The worst thing about Life is to get to the end and find we missed it.

Brian+