a life, borrowed

A long, long time ago I was a girl scout. I actually don't remember much about being a girl scout except for two things. The first was the little round badges I wanted to accumulate because those things were like status symbols.


The second was something I learned about borrowing. Our troop leader told us that when you borrowed something, you should not just return it to its lender in its original condition, but in even better condition. This, she said, would be a great way to show your appreciation to the person who lent you something. Say, for example, a classmate lent you her half-dull pencil because you forgot yours. You wouldn't just return the pencil to her sans bite marks, but would return it completely sharpened.

This really stuck with me for years. I borrowed stuff from people all the time and always tried to return things in better condition than which they were lent to me. Then once day, not too long ago, I realized that nothing I thought I owned was really mine. I realized that I was, in fact, borrowing everything.

This shift in perception started when I wrote an article on Vipassana meditation for a local periodical. In the article, I explained to readers that it is against the practice of Vipassana for a meditator to contribute anything to a dhamma center (even though they provide 10 days of lodging, food and instruction) until the meditator completes a course. After a meditator completes a 10-day course, they can give a donation if they feel the meditation was beneficial. That donation will be used to provide food and lodging and instruction for a future meditator. I find this to be a beautiful way to run a dhamma center. It's really like living a monk's or a nun's life when you take a Vipassana course. Everything given to you during a course is because of the charity of someone else.

It also makes sense to run things like this when you are teaching people to dissolve their egos. When we get attached to the idea of something being "ours" or belonging to the self, a whole bunch of ego subconsciously gets wrapped up in our actions. Suddenly, we have to defend what is "ours." We have to fight for it or demand something on its behalf. Or we start to believe that we can do what we'd like with it, because it belongs to us.

I became absolutely intrigued by this idea of life as charity so I spent one entire day pretending as if nothing was mine and I was borrowing everything. The bed I slept in? Not mine, so I was grateful I had it when I woke up. The food in the fridge? Not mine, so I really enjoyed eating it and made sure to clean up the kitchen I was "borrowing" better than I normally would have.

The man I live with and usually call "my husband?" On that day I pretended he was not mine. It was like the first day we met-fresh and new and I fell in love with him all over again. I didn't expect him to do anything for me. When he did, I was surprised and delighted. The clients I coached? Not mine and I no longer concerned myself with their progress or lack thereof. In fact, a sacred reverence came into each session. Even this body was not mine. I noticed with this paradigm shift an absence of a self-critical monologue. There was just no need to say anything bad about a vehicle I was borrowing to have the experience of a human existence.

The day when I realized nothing was mine was the beginning of a new life.

Not only was there an increased sense of gratitude and reverence, there was also the responsibility to leave things I was borrowing better than I found them. Every person I interacted with became someone I was borrowing for that moment in time. If they seemed sad, I tried to cheer them up. If they seemed stressed, I tried to make them laugh. If they needed to talk, I listened. I tried to leave them better than I found them. Everything in my life was something I was borrowing while I was alive.

The public bathroom? I made sure to clean off the borrowed sink. The trash in the parking lot? I picked it up. The mother with four kids and a cart full of groceries? I helped her get to her car. All of this happened naturally when I realized everything was borrowed. It didn't have the weight of something "I should do" to be a good Samaritan. It just flowed naturally.

Perhaps at some time in the future, I will get to a place where I can let go of the concept of anything being "mine" for longer than one day. The ego seems like nothing more than a prison. The more I grow as a person, the more obvious it becomes that to live in a world where so much is "mine" feels like carrying a heavy, iron burden. I will try to consistently remind myself that everything I have is actually borrowed. It really does feel a lot more free.