This morning I made a significant practical step in my preparations for my ordination. Yesterday, I received my Economic Recovery Package “Stimulus Check.” Today I did an Electronic Funds Transfer of most of the amount to my PayPal account to start saving toward the expenses of my first robes and the transportation. In addition to this, my eBay auction items have both bidders and watchers which is encouraging that I will be able to raise more funding for my needs for this most important event of my life.
On top of this I was gifted two items of my robes and I was able to borrow shirts that I can copy. Although I am a bit larger than the owner of the shirts, I have been able to enlarge patterns before. I have the paper to make my patterns and time on my hands with the rain we have been having, making this an opportune moment for this project. I might even be able to finish a shirt that I could wear even before my ordination. Nevertheless, this should be a relatively simple sewing project.
The idea of sewing all or part of my robes myself makes sense to me. When I was a Christian monk, it offended me very greatly that the monastic robes were so expensive. It seemed so wrong that so much money would be charged for the clothing of persons who had vowed poverty. Similarly, as a Buddhist monk who is prohibited from handling silver, gold, or currency, why should the clothing that originated as castoffs that no one would want now be so expensive? Even the very designs of some of the garments carry the mark of these beginnings. Why should we have forgotten them?
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