Mindful ownership: A vow to consider

I bought a great hat for this trip to Gampo Abbey. It has ear flaps and faux fur trim, and I admit to feeling a wee bit fierce while wearing it. But last week I gave it away. I didn't do this as a practice of generosity or as some show of asceticism. I did it because the hat seemed to belong to someone else more than it belonged to me.

It was the wicked and wild wind
Blew down the doors to let me in.
-Viva La Vida: Coldplay

The hat-belonging-to-someone-else awareness arose while I was taking my daily vows—specifically the vow not to take what belongs to someone else. For 2 weeks I had zipped through that vow because I was confident that I wouldn't take something that doesn't belong to me. But then I became curious about what seems a logical offshoot of that vow: in addition to vowing not to take something that belongs to another, can I vow not to own something that belongs to another? In other words, are there things I have now that belong to someone else? 

Do you remember the matching exercise that children do, drawing a line to connect a picture with its corresponding image—bowl with spoon, sock with shoe, and so on? I pictured the fierce hat. I pictured myself—in Virginia with its temperate climate, and my head, with lots of hair. Then I pictured the monks and nuns here—in blustery, snowy Cape Breton, and their heads, shaven. Even a child could recognize the better match for the hat. I dropped it in the Offering box. I felt no sense of doing a good thing by giving away the hat; I felt a sense of doing a smart thing. 

My actions are my only true belongings. -Thich Nhat Hanh

I don't know if this will turn into a practice of mindfully inventorying my belongings, and I realize that I'm talking about a hat—and not, say, a car. But it has me looking, considering, and so on, which is all part of mindfulness. Soon after I gave away the hat, I saw a book of Mary Oliver poems in the Offering box. Night after night I have lain warm in the bed, listening to the wind and reading her words, which in these moments suit me better than any hat I could ever imagine.

Messenger, by Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—

equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me

keep my mind on what matters, 

which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be 

astonished.

The phoebe, the delpinium.

The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart

and these body-clothes,

a mouth with which to give shouts of joy

to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is

that we live forever.