Swords in the Garden

This past week, irises have held the point of interest in the garden. Now they are fading. This is an excellent time to divide them, while you can still remember what color they are.

A garden designer refers to iris leaves and daylily leaves as "swords." How many swords do you want in your garden?

When you look at it that way, noticing shapes of leaves--you see that a small number looks better, more balanced with the other leaf shapes nearby.

The Buddha tells the parable of a man shot by an arrow. His friend is a doctor and offers to pull out the arrow, but the man says, "Wait. Who shot the arrow? What village did he come from? Who are his relatives? What kind of wood was the arrow made of? What kind of feathers?"
Then the man dies.

We, ourselves, suffer a painful sensation, a painful emotion, a painful thought--like being shot with an arrow or impaled on a sword.

Rather than extract the arrow or sword, we ruminate on it and thereby increase our suffering. Our sorrow, our stress, our heartache can cease. All we have to do is pull out the arrow.

How many swords do you want in the garden?

Photo from davidincoll.tripod.com