Just as rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, so passion penetrates an undeveloped mind.
Translated by Acharya Buddharakkhita
A friend said to me that ‘the best way to stop worrying about a leaky roof is to have to have no roof.’ Pithy, but I’m not certain I could forego my roof. My family wouldn’t thank me if I insisted we tried going roofless for a while. Even though I’m very much attached to my roof, I appreciate the general point – material possessions can weigh us down.
A while ago I started scuba diving. I love the sea and I’m very fortunate to live near it. Once I’d got over the terror of drowning I really enjoyed the time under the waves. What I liked a lot less, was the sheer amount of kit that the endeavor required. In retrospect, it’s very obvious that scuba diving took a lot of gear. We were diving into an environment that did not support human life so of course we would need to carry about our own life support system. We needed our very own aquatic spacesuits. People who were dedicated divers owned their own wetsuits, diving computers, buoyancy control devices and so forth. All this needed to be set up, properly cleaned afterwards and serviced regularly. It was heavy kit to carry, it was heavy kit to wear and it weighed heavy on my mind.
So I don’t dive now. I like to cycle around which doesn’t take an entire life support system to do it. My bicycle gears aren’t working very well though and I’m a bit worried about them! The roof is leaking again.