What happened to the shawl?

Arvind Gupta

One day, the
great Buddha was taking a walk around the monastery.
He was
approached by a monk who wanted a new woolen shawl.

The Buddha
asked him, "What has happened to your old shawl?"
"It had become
very old and worn out. So I am using it as a bedsheet," replied the monk.

The Buddha
asked again, "But what happened to your old bedsheet?"
"Master, that
bed sheet got old with use. It was worn and torn.
So I cut it up and made a pillow cover out of it," replied the monk.

"But there
certainly was a pillow cover before you made a new one. What did you do to your
old pillow cover?" asked the Buddha.
"My head had
rubbed a million times against the old pillow cover and had made a big hole in
it. So I made a doormat out of it," replied the monk, in earnest.

Gautama Buddha
was not satisfied
by this answer. He always
delved deep into every issue.
He
asked the monk,
"Tell me, what did you do
with your old doormat?"

The monk
replied with folded hands, "Master, the old doormat had got totally worn out.
After being used for so long, the warp and the weft had come out. So I took the
cotton fibres and braided a wick out of them. Later, I burned the cotton wick
in the oil lamp."
The Buddha
smiled after listening to the monk. The monk got a new shawl!

Make your own cloth
ball
1. Choose old
clothes at home that you can reuse.
You will need to cut out two pentagon
shapes and five petal shapes like this.
2. Hand-stitch the
pieces. Or get an adult
to machine stitch them. Leave a small hole
in one
pentagon.

3. Turn it inside
out.
4. Insert a
strong balloon and blow it.

5. Twist the
mouth of the balloon, tie a knot,
and push it in through the button-hole.
6. Yippee! Your colourful cloth ball is ready.

Fun with threads!
Here is an
easy way to have hours of fun
with small bits of thread or wool.
1. Find an empty
matchbox.
2. Thread a
length of wool about 70cm long
diagonally through the box.

3. Thread a
length of wool in another
colour through the other diagonal.
Tie the ends
together.
4. Ask a friend
to hold both the ends of the wool.
And you can slide the box gently across.

Surprise,
surprise!
The wool seems to change colour
as it comes out of the box!
Find more such
free-to-download projects at ww.arvindguptatoys.com

Recycle! Reuse!
Reduce!
We buy, use
and throw away things without thinking much about them. We buy much more than
we need. Our mantra seems to be, "Buy more! Throw more!" We misuse Earth’s
resources like water, trees, sand and soil and produce tonnes of junk that
become mountains of garbage.

But has it always been like this? Have we Indians always been wasteful? No! History tells us that Indians have been very frugal and sensible. We believe that every object has several uses - not one, but many lives. The concept of reuse and recycle has very deep roots in the Indian culture.
This story is 2,500 years old, set in the times when the great sage and teacher Gautama Buddha lived. It shows a deep respect and sensitivity for the material world. It has many lessons for us.