The Hammer

Dear Friends,

It is said that if your only tool is a hammer, you tend to regard everything around you as a nail.  The moral: it is too limiting to see everything around you as the same kind of problem that always needs the same kind of solution.

Some time ago (1983), the Leatherman tool was invented.  In this case, we know the source: Tim Leatherman, of Portland, Oregon.  It has many more tools in it than just one, and so the world of possible operations became that much more available to everyone who carries this versatile item: with its file, screwdriver, pliers, knife blades, can-opener, etc.

I don't know if Tim has a Buddhist background, but the Leatherman has always reminded me of Avalokitesvara, the Hindu god of compassion.  This male deity became female or androgynous as it traveled Eastward into China, Tibet, Japan and other countries, becoming Guan Yin or Kwannon at around the time of Christ.  Her gender versatility may correspond to her infinite versatility as a practical provider of compassion.  In one of her traditional esoteric forms, Guan Yin is portrayed with 1,000 arms, an eye in each palm, to see the specific need of each person to whom she will lend a helping hand.

The needs are infinite.  And though 1,000 would be a lot of tools for a Leatherman, it is a low number to suggest our infinite potential responsiveness to the intuition, the need of the moment, the needs of those around us.  Today's practice will start with gratitude for the various ways in which we have each been helped or shown compassion, and move on to the varieties of compassion we ourselves can perform. 

Then again, we may not want compassion, however variegated, to be our only response to our world.  That would make compassion itself into a kind of hammer, facing a world we saw as nothing but objects of compassion.  What all else are we here for?  Let's find out together, today at 11 am.

wishing you joy,

Michael