Latest / Dits & Dahs / the hand-me-down karma
Transcript
- Sue: When I receive a hand-me-down item from either a friend or loved one, of course it's meant to be an incoming form of Dharma, isn't it? Something unexpected in a good way has been offered to you as a gift, something that has been discarded by the presenter, but discarded with, in their view, purpose because they're gifting it to you with the idea that you might need it, you might like it, you might enjoy it, you might not buy the gift out of your own money, but because you're receiving it as a gift, you welcome it. All sorts of possibilities aren't there. It's this perhaps subconscious idea that by passing on a shared item improves your dharma. And as the recipient, it's intended that I receive it as incoming dharma. And I think for the most part, anytime I do receive such a hand-me-down, I do, but it doesn't absolve the karma that's created by the overconsumption. And it is something that I've been thinking about for the last couple of days because I've had the occasion of recently purging my husband's tool and now have gratefully some empty space in the house that I'm not looking to fill up again. or at least not immediately. Feeling that I had when finding new homes for those tools was a sense of relief. I was really grateful because otherwise the choices that I had were down to sending it to landfill. Trying to sell it is a long process and I didn't want to actually accept any money for the tools. I just wanted to pass them along. The idea being that trying to keep the Dharma generating more Dharma. When I was destitute, even though I had a full house of tools and such, when friends would offer me hand-me-downs of any shape or kind, I accepted them for the sake that my whole mindset at that destitute part of my life was a lack or a need mindset. And because I couldn't afford to buy those things, I took them on into the household, whether or not it was something I was gonna immediately use. I swear, of course, you start though. hoarding mentality of, you know, gathering things up and storing them without ever referring back to them until you move and then you wonder where all of your moving costs have gone into packing up and moving things that you haven't touched since you put them in a box 10 years ago. And it's one as a consumer I think about a lot because when people update their belongings, it's not necessarily because they were worn out. Could be that the software that needs to operate has moved on and they don't update it anymore. It could be that it's just not the right color anymore. All of those sort of visceral decisions that we easily make without the first consequence of having decided not to buy the item to begin with just because. And of course that mindset I didn't have at all for several years for the sake that there was no point in looking window shopping because there was no way I was ever going to have the money to buy it at that time. So you start to, for me, protect myself with a mindset of using what I have, making best use of it, repairing it, and just staying the course with those items until such time that they had to be repaired or replaced. And as a result, I kept sort of generating Dharma for myself because I wasn't mindlessly wasting or over consuming. And it's been a difficult shift in my mindset to go from maintaining the boundaries of frugality, because that's sustainable, confirmation with the EMP, and yet be open to receiving gifts and learning to be more discerning about not accepting each and every hand-me-down that's offered. I'm not the repository for everybody to believe that they're creating Dharma genuinely. Neither am I the person to be receiving karma that I have to transmute and bounce back in a way that now becomes positive either. You do it because it's the best for your self-preservation. But understanding that not all hand-me-downs are Dharma is important to understand in discerning your path forward. And that will help not creating a hoarding situation unintentionally. It's a very different and difficult, it's a difficult mindset to shift. slightly because you don't want to get out of your frugality mindset because that's what's going to keep you alive and sustain you. At the same time, you don't want to perpetuate the lack mindset of not having enough by accepting all gifts. Hand me down gifts. I am now the recipient of a brand new George Foreman grill and another supply of doggy poo bags. So, you know, everybody wins in this situation. Now just have to find a place to store the Foreman grill. I live in a small house intentionally. so that I don't overstock my home. These are just thoughts of my mundane life as I'm welcoming hand-me-down items but refusing many more and that discerning what their true intent is, is growth spiritually. And I'm grateful for that. I don't know how you deal with hand-me-down items, but if you have any thoughts to share on it, feel free to leave me a comment. Regardless, thank you for listening. I appreciate you.