Amaryllis Blooming

At home, my amaryllis are just starting to bloom. In the gardens at the University of Florida, amaryllis are blooming full-blast.

Notice how close the stems are to each other. That means the bulbs are packed together tightly, sort of like daffodil bulbs for us in the North Country.

It looks like the closely packed bulbs encourage each other to bloom. If we stay in close touch with our Dharma friends and a Dharma teacher or two, they encourage us to bloom in the Dharma.

Naked Ladies

Naked Ladies are blooming, all soft and pink and odalisque. Lycoris is in the amaryllis family, and like amaryllis, it shoots up a bare stalk of glorious trumpet flowers.

Unlike amaryllis, the leaves appear first--in the spring--then die back. In August, just as i've completely forgotten them, here they are, trumpeting their glorious arrival.

Once in a while, meditation feels like this. We put all this effort into green leaves, but after a while, maybe we forget to meditate.

Suddenly, one day we are surprised when the kindness or calmness of meditation blooms, right in the middle of a heated discussion.

It's a good thing to plant meditation in our lives every day.

Rotten Amaryllis Bulb

Nowadays, amaryllis in a box come with a plastic pot that has no hole in the bottom. This is a no-muss, no-fuss, and no mess way to plant your amaryllis.

My dozen amaryllises spend the summer outdoors in the shade being rained on occasionally. (In this drought, very occasionally.) So i was surprised to find a rotten amaryllis bulb--in one of those pots with no holes in the bottom. In my 25 years of keeping amaryllis bulbs from year to year, i've never seen a rotten bulb before. And last winter was the first time i had seen the pots with no holes in the bottom.

The amaryllis sellers are in the business of selling amaryllis, not in keeping my bulb alive from year to year. I am seduced by the ease of the clean pot and the peat moss potting soil. Plop the bulb in. Done.

Done, and then gone. For many people, this is sufficient. I've inherited some bulbs from people who can't be bothered with keeping the bulb and its strappy foliage over the summer.

Caveat emptor. If i want to keep my amaryllis bulbs, i need to put them in better flowerpots.

Coco Puff

I bought an amaryllis kit that surprised me. The "potting medium" was a coco disc, about 3 inches in diameter and an inch thick. That's it? That's the potting soil?

I added 2-1/2 cups of water, and the coco puffed up to not quite fill the flowerpot. Just enough room left, to add the amaryllis bulb and leave about 1/3 of it uncovered.

Wow. That was easy and not messy. No muss; no fuss.

The Four Noble Truths are a telegram of the Buddha's deeper teachings.

1. Dissatisfaction (dukkha) exists.
2. The cause of discontent is craving and attachment.
3. Dissatisfaction can cease.
4. The 8-fold Noble Path is the way.

When we start to unpack them, they expand into a hologram of teachings.

But for now, let's just admire the compactness of this telegram. When we water it with meditation and attention, our understanding will expand.

The coco disk was compact. And then, when i added water, it grew.

Surprise Lily

Beautiful pink lily-like flowers are blooming in the garden. Lycoris squamigera, also known as Naked Ladies.

The strappy leaves were green in May, then slowly faded away. Two months later, a single stem of flowers rises up 3 feet with delicate pale pink blossoms, like a summer amaryllis.

Our meditation practice can look like this. We meditate and study, do our work. Only later does our practice come into full flower, surprising even us with an internal calm despite windy conditions in our lives.

Meditate now as if your life depended on it.
It does.

Giving Brings Joy

Tomorrow we leave for a 2-week vacation. I've given away a dozen pots of blooming tulips. Now 3 amaryllis are budding, so it would be nice to find homestays for them so that someone else can enjoy their blooms while we are away.

Giving flowers is a form of generosity where it is so easy to feel the Buddha's words.

“Generosity brings happiness at every stage of its expression. 

• We experience joy in forming the intention to be generous. 
• We experience joy in the actual act of giving something. 
• And we experience joy in remembering the fact that we have given.”

I've got joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.

Amaryllis Joy

My neighbor, Cliff, has inspired me to grow amaryllis. He reliably has an amaryllis blooming every year. Today he has a single amaryllis flower in a vase on the kitchen table.

When you look at just one flower, and when you look in detail, the mind slows down to pure joy.

So it is with mindfulness. By bringing our attention to one thing in each moment, the tension in the body relaxes, the mind relaxes, and voila! Joy arises.

Slow down. Right now. Feel your eyes touching these words. Feel your i-toy under your fingers. Feel the body, as a whole. Notice the mind. Just for a moment.

Amaryllis Blooming

My amaryllis are blooming one by one. Lovely pink Susan is fading. Now a white-and-green-and-pink one is blooming (Rembrandt?) on a stem that is 3 feet (!) tall.

Sometimes people complain to me that their amaryllis didn't bloom at Christmas. Well, neither does mine. I keep my from year to year, and left to their own devices, they seem to bloom, one by one, from December into April, although someone told me their amaryllis bloomed in July.

Our meditation practice doesn't unfold on time schedule we want. Hey, our life doesn't unfold on the time schedule we wanted either.

Life unfolds. Simply be with the beauty of that.

Amaryllis Susan

Two months ago, as i was checking out of the garden store, i espied an amaryllis bulb named "Susan." Ooh. I liked that. I have a cousin named Susan, and several friends named Susan. But at $15.99 per bulb, i just couldn't justify spending that much money.

Then the check-out lady said, "Oh, i could give them to you for half-price." After all, it was January. And they were the last two amaryllis bulbs on the shelf. I bit. I bought them.

Now "Susan" is blooming, and she is beautiful.

My inner accountant is amortizing the cost of the bulbs. At 2 stems per bulb and 4 flowers per stem, that's $1.00 per flower. If they bloom again next year (never a sure thing), the cost goes down again.

On the other hand, the beautiful flowers are priceless.

The Buddha's teachings are also priceless. Even though we offer dana (a donation) to our meditation teachers, the Dharma cannot really be bought and sold. Peace of mind is priceless.

I gaze at Susan and feel content.

Amaryllis Blooms

My first amaryllis of the season bloomed today! I have about a dozen amaryllis bulbs in pots that i carry over from year to year.  Last year, i had an amaryllis blooming every week from Christmas into April.

I've made a commitment to amaryllis despite their strappy foliage. I "hide" the plants in my sweetie's music studio in the basement until they come into bloom. Then i bring the blooming bulb upstairs to the kitchen where it can stand alone on center stage and where i can see it every time i walk through the kitchen.

What's one quality that you would like to work toward? This month, i'm practicing compassion. You might choose kindness or generosity or patience or....

Put that quality in the center of your meditation--today or this week. Find little opportunities for it to take center stage. Then one day, it will bloom when you weren't even expecting it.

Amaryllis Blooms

I received a distress call/email in late January from Stella who said her amaryllis were not blooming. What should she do?

Even though we give and receive amaryllis at Christmas, and often those bulbs bloom shortly thereafter, i find that the amaryllis that i keep from year to year bloom in late March and in April. Right now i have 4 amaryllis in bloom or bud.

Stella thinks her house wasn't warm enough; she gave the amaryllis to her mother, and it bloomed immediately. My passive-solar house has been baking every sunny day for more than a month, and the amaryllis are coming on like gangbusters now.

Life--and amaryllis--don't unfold as we think it should. We want it one way (a blooming amaryllis, for instance), but something else is happening (nothing, for instance). These aggravations, bothers, and harrumphs are called stress.

We can pile a lot of additional stress by creating a story about what a bad gardener i am or what a bad plant amaryllis is. Stop.

Look at your amaryllis bulb. The one with the strappy green leaves. Non-judgementally. Not wishing for anything different than what is.

Look at the aggravating person in your life right now. No story. Let your heart simply look at that person for one second. The story will quickly return. Notice where, somewhere in your body, something tenses up. Is the stress worth it?

Feel your own heart. Tenderly. And take good care of it. Your heart will bloom too.

Resistance: Another Name for Stress

A friend said she bought an amaryllis bulb for Christmas. Its leaves grew, but no flower appeared. So she threw it out.

I cringe when i hear a story like that. I offer her some covert advice. "Last year, my amaryllis all bloomed in March and early April." In other words, Don't give up on the non-blooming amaryllis.

But she has already given up; she's already thrown it away. If the amaryllis doesn't bloom at Christmas, like it's "supposed to," then what's the use of keeping it?

A lot of us don't bloom like we're "supposed to." One friend is still single at 38; her 14-year-old niece has had a boyfriend for longer than the 38-year-old has ever had a boyfriend. We can fight against reality. (And then we lose. But only 100% of the time.) We can want something we don't have.

Fighting against reality is called stress. Or some people call it "control" (another disguise of stress).

My friend was solving her stress (of no blooms) by getting rid of the offender.
I was trying to solve my stress (But, but, but....... Things could be different.) by offering advice.

Stress has a million difference disguises, but we can trace them all back to resisting the present moment.  Resistance: another name for stress.

Staking Up a Tall Amaryllis

My first amaryllis is blooming on a 3-foot tall stalk. I'm staking it up with a green bamboo stake from the garden and green twisty-ties.

Sometimes we need a little staking up in our meditation practice. Maybe we're the only meditator we know--alone by ourselves in a room. A sangha, a community of meditating friends, supports us in our practice.

Last Saturday, Vera came over, and we watched a day-long retreat with Shinzen Young via streaming on the computer. Vera said if she'd done it on her own, she would have sat for 10 minutes before she got distracted by something around the house. Ditto for me.

Vera came over and we meditated for several hours. We staked up each other's intention to meditate. Just the fact of the other person's presence staked us down on the cushion.

At the end, Vera and i were both smiling.

Out of the Box

An amaryllis is growing out of its box at the garden store. "Help! Let me out of here," I can almost hear it crying. It wants to be planted in soil in a pot. The soil and the pot are in the box with the almost-flowering bulb. So near and yet so far.

Sometimes we'd like to break out of the box of our small lives. We'd like to grow into wide open space. When we' re young, we can travel--rootless, open, available. We can try on new personas, new jobs, new places.

Eventually, we do root into our adult lives--some of us younger, some later. We plant ourselves willingly, with a person or in a place or in a career. Meanwhile, the purpose of our lives wants out of the small place we confine ourselves to.

Look deeply. What's the purpose of your life?

Naked Ladies Dancing in the Garden

Naked Ladies are blooming! In fact, they are dancing throughout one of my flowerbeds. Lycoris has pink amaryllis-type flowers atop a 3-foot stem. Its strappy spring leaves are nowhere to be seen, having dried up last month. Thus the stem and flowers are "naked" of any foliage.

What's the naked truth of our lives? The unadorned, yet surprisingly beautiful truth of life?

The Buddha offers us 4 unadorned truths:

1. Life is challenging. We experience stress every day.
2. The cause of our stress is craving.
3. Our stress and distress can end.
4. The way to end our stress is through 8 steps of mindful living.

These naked truths are called The 4 Ennobling Truths because they ennoble those of us who follow their guidance.


At first glance, these Ennobling Truths don't seem very pretty and certainly not beautiful. But they point the way to a beautiful mind. A beautiful mind that is calm and peaceful. A beautiful mind that is wise and skillful when we come face to face with the naked truth of our life.

Root-Bound Amaryllis

I've had a steady stream of amaryllis blooming for the past month, often 2 or 3 at a time. I thought i had 3 amaryllis plants, but i seem to have about 8. I'm not sure where they all came from. Well, 2 of them came from a plant sale at a library, but beyond that, i don't know. I feel so delighted to have actual blooming amaryllis.

For years, i tried all sorts of tricks to get my amaryllis to bloom. I did what the garden books said: cut off the foliage in October and don't water them until December. I tried planting them outdoors for the summer.

Meanwhile, my neighbor who did absolutely nothing, other than water his amaryllis every week, had reliable blooms, year after year.

I finally decided to plant the bulbs in small pots, let them get root-bound, and Voila! Flowers! Usually 2 stalks on each plant.

When we practice concentration meditation, we narrow our focus on one spot. By binding our attention to a single point, such as the breath, the mind blooms into joy and even bliss.

My amaryllis bulbs are multiplying, so i'm dividing them, and putting each one in a small pot.

Root-Bound

I just noticed that one pot of amaryllis has 4 good-sized bulbs in it, so i transplanted them, each into its own individual pot.

When i turned the pot upside down, out fell another, smaller pot. The 4 bulbs bulged out of the small pot like a middle-aged woman trying to fit into a dress she wore as a teenager. The bulbs bulged so strongly that i could not shake them out, pull them out, nor push them out. A table knife eventually solved the problem as i cut around the edge as i would do for a cake stuck to a cake pan.

We can get so comfortable with our bad habits that we don't realize they don't fit any more. The cute sullenness of a teenager doesn't look that good on a middle-aged woman. Teenage lingo and speech mannerisms don't fit a young professional woman if she is serious about her career.

The first step in breaking a bad habit is simply to be mindful of it. Listen to it. Look at it. Feel it in your body. You don't have to change a thing. Simply by being mindful, change will happen on its own.

Photo from forums.gardenweb.com

Wanting What I Already Have

The garden catalogs are tumbling into the mailbox. I leafed through a spring bulb catalog, and was immediately caught by delicious possibilities. I lingered over Amaryllis belladonna (Naked Ladies)--a bulb whose spring leaves die back and then blooms unexpectedly in August. I already have A. belladonna, and have even divided them to scatter them around other flowerbeds. I don't need to buy any more. Exactly what am i yearning for?

For those of us with chipmunks who eat oriental and Asiatic lily bulbs, Naked Ladies are a good substitute. My friend Anne, in Maryland, says Naked Ladies are a weed for her, springing up helter-skelter in her lawn.

Perhaps what i am yearning for is that A. belladonna would perform as beautifully as its photos. They are short bloomers, and in August, they have often gone by before i've even noticed them. Am i thinking that if i only had more, then i would have more blooms, more pleasure, that i would notice them more?

Life is brief. Everything we cherish perishes. Sometimes, much too soon.

Christmas Gifts

My Christmas cactus is actually blooming on Christmas day! And the amaryllis opened this morning. And i just found a bird-of-paradise!

Since my sweetie and i no longer exchange gifts, these blooming flowers feel like gifts to me.

Not giving gifts to my loved ones has greatly decreased my holiday stress. Imagine that! After all, a gift is really a way to say "I love you." And we can do that by sitting on the sofa together, looking at the Christmas tree, and all the blooms around it.

Try it now. Here's a guided meditation, called A Flower in Your Heart.
Practice the generosity of love right now.

An Amaryllis and the 4 Directions

My amaryllis are blooming with their 4 wonderful, large flowers, facing in the 4 directions.

If you have lived (or stayed in a hotel) near a mosque, you know the P.A. system booms out a resonant call to prayer 5 times a day. No matter which direction you live in, you can hear the call a half-a-mile away. This reminder of our spirituality pervades the entire area around the mosque.

My amaryllis is silent, but it reminds me to send loving-kindness out to the 4 directions. As the Buddha said,

     I will abide pervading one-quarter* with a mind imbued with loving-kindness,
     Likewise the second**, likewise the third, likewise the fourth.
     So above and below, around and everywhere,
     and to all as to myself.

     I will abide pervading the all-encompassing world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness,
     Abundant, exalted, immeasurable,
     without hostility, and without ill-will.

To hear this chant, listen here.

* one-quarter of the universe ( I think of this as one of the cardinal directions.)
** the second quarter (I think of this as the next cardinal direction, etc.)