Mark 2:21 Meaning No One Sews a Piece of Unshrunk

Anicca: Impermanence Everything made is on its way to coming apart, and the old garment is well along: thin at the elbows, the weave gone loose, weak down every seam. Fresh cloth pulled tight against worn threads only hurries along what age was already doing quietly. The hole opens because the fabric is old, and no amount of careful stitching argues with that.

Sīlabbata-parāmāsa: Clinging to rites and rules Gripping an observance as though the doing of it were the goal is among the first fetters to fall away. Fasting twice a week, kept until the practice had become the garment itself, is what stands behind the question put to Jesus: why do John's disciples fast while yours sit eating? A rule wears out the way cloth wears out, holding its shape long after the strength has gone from the threads.

Majjhimā paṭipadā: The middle way The middle way opened for Gotama only after six years of starving had taken starving as far as it goes. When he accepted a bowl of rice milk his five companions walked off in disgust, and that same disgust sits under the objection raised when these disciples are found at table. Eating belongs to a different road, and a different road will not sew onto the old one.

Kullūpama: The teaching as a raft A raft is built for crossing and left at the far bank. The old garment did its work through years of weather, and forcing it to go on working is the man who carries the raft down the road on his head. New cloth is cut for a whole garment, and it pulls loose the moment it is made to hold up something it was never meant to hold.

Paṭinissagga: Letting go Relinquishing is setting a thing down whole. There comes a point with a coat where every new stitch drags out two old ones, and the mending costs more than the coat ever did. The worse hole comes from the effort to rescue the old garment; folded away quietly, it costs nothing and tears nothing.