Consumer vs. Custodian

Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today I'm going to talk about the idea of shifting our mindset from being consumers to being custodians. So I'm going to share a brief passage from the Tao Te Ching. It says, "Don't let a thread fall without noticing it. Don't rake dry, brown leaves carelessly.

Think how difficult it was for something to take this existence." So think about how difficult it was for something to take this existence. So you can really hear in this simple passage, an invitation to be really aware of the preciousness of things, appreciating even the smallest things that we would usually overlook, like a piece of thread or some dry leaves. So perhaps we can consider all that it took to bring those things into being. You know, in the case of the leaves, it started with a small seed and then rain and sun and soil and time and the growth of a tree and oxygen and seasons. And eventually after many seasons, those particular leaves fell and are now here.

The thread maybe was shorn from a sheep that depended on its mother for nourishment, the land it lived on. And the wool was maybe woven by somebody died, spun and then sold. You know, in almost every indigenous culture, there's an importance placed on this kind of appreciation of all of the life around us and an attitude of caretaking and honoring life through conservation and simplicity. An attitude of being a custodian, in other words, was a common way of being. Now consumer culture today is not the same, is it? We have this kind of throw away culture, somewhat careless attitude, you might say, towards the things in our lives.

But we can reclaim a more mindful and meaningful way of living by being aware of conservation every day. For instance, we could consider if we want to reuse or recycle something. We can spend our money carefully, you know, really thinking about if we really need to buy certain things. And we can be careful of wasting our time doing things that are maybe superficial or unimportant. And we can take care of our possessions, you know, really trying to caretake them, fix them instead of throwing them away.

And of course, we can caretaker our own bodies and minds with healthy habits and compassion and nurturing. This kind of custodianship and caretaking of life truly is mindful, mindfulness integrated into daily life. It's also a demonstration of wisdom because it shows that we have a sound understanding of the wholeness of the cycles of life. Now everything lives or dies in its own time. We're part of those same cycles.

And when we remember how precious something is, how much time, effort and interconnectedness it took for that thing to come into being and how fleeting it is, we value it deeply. And then when it's time, we can dispose of it very carefully and thoughtfully. The more we're able to bring this attitude of being a custodian into our life, the more we experience a sense of meaning and even sacredness in the flow of our lives. So as always, thank you for your practice and your presence here. And now let's settle in for today's meditation.