Invasive

I took a walk in the woods yesterday and found a hundred yards of myrtle. No house could be seen, but i was walking on an old logging road, probably now used once a year for sugaring. Perhaps that dip near the road was an old cellar hole? Someone lived here once upon a time, but all traces of human habitation have disappeared. Except for rampant myrtle.

In Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia, myrtle is an invasive species. Our local garden club, Perennial Swappers, forbids gardeners bringing myrtle to give away. We know what it's going to look like a hundred years from now.

Karma is like this. We indulge in just a little bit of unskillful action--gossip, one drink too many, taking something when no one is looking.

Thoughts become words.

Words become deeds.

Deeds develop into habits.

Habits harden into character.

Watch the mind and its ways with care, born out of concern for all beings.

Our unskillful thoughts, words, and behaviors follow us past death. Old cemeteries here in New England are often surrounded by myrtle (Vinca).

Heliconia

One of the aspects about being in the tropics that i love (besides sun, warmth, beach, and swimming in the ocean) is the tropical flora.

I test myself, trying to remember names of commonly seen landscape plants. Here at our yoga-villa is a heliconia. Yay! I remembered its name. (Pleasant.)

I love knowing the names of plants. Most of the Latin names (some derived from Greek) are descriptive of some aspect of the plant. Heliconia comes directly from the Greek word helikonios.

I also enjoy the Sanskrit or Pali names that are used in English. Although English has a gazillion words for the material world, the vocabulary for the inner world turns out to be quite limited.

In English, we have the word consciousness. In Buddhism, consciousness is delineated much more precisely: eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, touch-consciousness, taste-consciousness, smell-consciousness, and mental-consciousness. Come to think of it, when we are conscious, we are conscious of something. Hmmm. Maybe the Pali language is on to something here.

Karma and Dharma have already migrated into English. The next words to migrate will be metta (loving-kindness) and dukkha (unsatisfactoriness, stress, suffering).

Today i am visually conscious of the heliconia and mentally conscious of how much i love knowing its name.

Loose Strife

I did find 3 weeds to pull here at the vacation house on the lake. Down on the beach, i pulled up 3 plants of the invasive purple loosestrife.

"Oh, but it's so pretty," more than one gardener has said to me. "I'll keep an eye on it."

Keep an eye on 3 million seeds per plant?

Listen to the name again, my dear: loose - strife. Strife means conflict, discord, and opposition. Why would anyone want to let strife loose in their garden?

Oh, this loose strife has such a lovely disguise. Perhaps not unlike the opinions and judgments we let loose toward friends and family. Ouch, that hurt.

"Oh, they're just a wuss if they can't take it," we rationalize.

Once we have loosed strife into the world, we are the owners of our actions. We cannot retract our words.

Our tender hearts are kind and friendly. Pull those strife-causing opinions, and don't let them go to seed.

Remember your intentions: We want to harvest calmness and happiness.

Head in the Sand

After a month of retreat in the sunny South, i'm home. I've finally brought indoors pots of forced hyacinths, which are beginning to bloom.

One bulb in one pot of hyacinths had buried its head in the dirt and was growing into and under the soil. I pried its pale, pale green leaves out of the dirt this morning.

We too sometimes bury our heads in the sand. We don't want to look. We don't want to see. We don't want to acknowledge the truth of the present moment.

The Buddha recommends 5 Daily Reflections to help us work against this tendency to not want to acknowledge true life.

• I am of the nature to grow old. Aging is unavoidable.
• I am of the nature to become ill. Sickness is unavoidable.
• I am of the nature to die. Death is inevitable.
• Everything i cherish will change and vanish.
• Karma is the only thing i own.

Some of my friends turn up their noses at these seemingly unpleasant thoughts. But i'm trying to pry my own head out of the sand to see and acknowledge the beautiful life all around me.

Worm Castings

At the Seed Celebration yesterday, i bought 3 bags of worm castings. To put it bluntly--worm poop, which looks like really rich soil. Perhaps we could call it worm cast-offs?

Many people use worm castings to fertilize their seedlings, but i'm putting mine directly into my houseplants.

The sustainability movement is built on the assumption that what goes around comes around. I call that karma.

Out in the garden, i want to use organic products because i can see it's a very short step from what goes into the ground nourishes what comes out of the ground--and goes into my mouth.

One woman's trash is another woman's treasure. Or in this case, one worm's trash is this woman's treasure.

Good Luck Food Potluck

On New Year's Day i attended a neighborhood potluck. The theme was Good Luck food, a legacy from a Southerner who died a few years ago. The hostess cooked up the black-eyed peas. I brought boiled cabbage from my German heritage. Long noodles (meaning long life) were on the table, as well as a kale salad. Greens represent life and living things. Pork, which was once reserved for the Chinese elite, symbolizes wealth and prosperity. A lentil salad because lentils look like coins.

Luck seems like a roll of the dice, a turn of the wheel of fortune. I'm placing my bets on karma--acting as skillfully, wholesomely, and compassionately as i can right now, because this moment conditions the next moment. Compassion begets compassion. Kindness builds the habit of kindness.

These beautiful qualities are our true wealth any day of the year.

Poison Ivy

I have poison ivy for the first time in my life. It's lasted for 2 weeks. I got it while pulling invasive bittersweet. I thought i was doing a good deed, but the poison ivy got the better of me.

Despite being good and doing good,
karma does not have to reward us.

Often being good and doing good does lead to good karma, but you just never know.

Laying Down Tracks

It snowed a couple of days ago, and i rushed out of the house before i shoveled the front step. A day later, my footprint is frozen in place.

This trace of yesterday's step is a good description of karma. We are laying down the tracks for our neural networks all the time. Listen to the news, feel afraid or angry, and thereby build the habit of fear or anger. Feel grateful for the blessings of your life today--beautiful snow, for instance. Spend 30 seconds enjoying the snow and begin to build the habit of joy and happiness.

What track, what trace do you want to leave behind for tomorrow? And the day after that? And the year after that?

That Garden is Gone

I was so happy to see that the garden behind the church has been demolished.

Odd words from a meditative gardener, i know. Here's the back story:
My sweetie belonged to a tiny church that was living on its endowment and failing to make ends meet. Three ladies installed a garden in the back yard of the church. In that garden they planted some beautiful invasives--burning bush, honeysuckle, and purple loosestrife.

I offered to buy the plants from them if they would take them out. "They're invasives!" i said. (I planned to destroy the plants.)
"Oh, we'll keep an eye on them," said one of the church ladies.

The church closed its doors a few years later, due to lack of money. It was bought by the town's historical society, and, by this time, the back yard garden was unkempt and overgrown.

Fortunately, the building became an arts venue for concerts and plays. It received several grants to improve the falling-apart, paint-peeling church. In the process of adding a "green room" behind the stage (the former altar), the garden of invasives was destroyed.

We too think we can live with and control or at least contain various bad habits--drinking, talking about people behind their back, overspending, living on our credit card. But those unskillful actions pollute our minds. It really is better to root out those unwise actions now, while we have the energy and the clear vision to see the long-term effects on our very own karma.

Because, one day, we too, like the church and the garden behind it, will be gone.

Morning Glory Children

Morning glories are clambering over my arbor, their heart-shaped leaves a charming green background to the intense blue, pink, and purple flowers. Mixed in among them are a few Venice blue and Venice pink for contrast.

All these morning glories are volunteers, children of previous generations of morning glories. The line from a song in The Fantasticks goes,

"Plant a radish,

get a radish,

not a Brussel sprout."

In my garden, it's plant a morning glory one year; get dozens of morning glories next year.

We, too, have to plant and tend the qualities we want--kindness, patience, generosity, caring.

My cousin, Nadine, tries to be nice to me, even though i consistently annoy her. She's nice to me. Then something i do or say sets her off and breaks through her veneer of niceness. Maybe she thinks she's being nice by correcting me or by being critical? There. That should help me do it properly next time.

What if she practiced kindness instead of niceness?

We are not going to grow kindness by planting nice-ness. Maybe we won't grow too many friends by planting our opinions and critical comments either.

As one woman in the county jail said yesterday, "I can't slap every mouthy teenager. Otherwise, i'd be in jail for the rest of my life. Now I pause before reacting. The other women here on the block, even women who i didn't like at first, have started to like me."

Plant a pause before reacting. Pausing can be the first step to creating a beautiful mind.

Venice Pink & Venice Blue

Flowers Left Behind

I've fallen in love with moth mullein these past few weeks. Mullein likes the habitat in my vegetable garden, so dozens of plants spring up there. I keep transplanting them to various flowerbeds, or i give them away.

After the heavy rains last week beat down the long tall stalks of flowers, i harvested the stalks lying flat on the ground and brought them indoors.

Now they drop their flowers, one by one, onto the kitchen floor.

We, too, drop the flowers of our lives behind us.

People don't remember what you said, 

but they remember how you made them feel.

May we leave only the traces and fragrance of flowers behind us.

Redbud Karma

I just found a redbed seedling growing in my backdoor garden. I scattered redbud seeds in that flowerbed, oh, maybe just before or after my dad died, 18 years ago.

There's been a lot of turnover in that particular flowerbed, which used to be a nursery bed for starter plants. Three summers ago, during construction, a 5-foot deep trench ran through that flowerbed.

And today: a redbud seedling. Amazing!

The results of yesterday's actions, even long ago actions, are still springing up in our lives. This is called karma. Knowing that our future is born of our action strengthens our intention to act honorably today. The seeds of today's unkindness may come to fruition 18 years from now. Likewise, today's generosity, today's patience, today's open-hearted kindness will come to fruition sometime in the future.

What kind of future do you want for yourself? The choice is yours: Today.

Redbud

Beautiful Roots

I'm giving away the hyacinths I've been growing in the basement, even before they have bloomed. The swirling roots growing in the glass vase are beautiful all by themselves. We don't often see the roots of the flowers we're growing, but the hyacinth, suspended in its glass vase, shows us its white tresses of roots, all neatly "combed" into a whorl.

We don't often see the roots of our own actions. Once in a while it will suddenly dawn on us, I sound just like my mother or Oh, darn. I didn't want to do that again.

Yet the roots of our actions are right here in the present moment. Right now, we are laying down the habit patterns, the neural networks for future actions. This is just one more reason to act ethically right now.  The mind will want to cheat. Oh, it doesn't matter if I keep the change or I don't care what they think, I'm giving them a piece of my mind right now.

Watch your actions. watch your words. See the roots of future actions and future thoughts. See your future habits. Right now.

May your thoughts and actions be beautiful. Right now.

Walla Walla Onions

I had a fantastic onion harvest in August.  My Walla Walla (Vidalia) onions were as big as softballs. No kidding!  But those big onion-ring type onions have a short shelf life. So I'm cooking up as many onion recipes as I can. Onion soup. Onion quiche with bacon bits. What's your favorite recipe that uses a lot of onions?

These big onions are surprisingly mild and sweet. We think of onions as causing us some distress, bringing tears to our eyes. But not these. People in Walla Walla eat these onions like apples. Crunch!

 Several things on our Buddhist path may initially make us put up our right hand like a stop sign. "No thanks. I don't want any of that."

For instance, the 5th precept of not taking intoxicants. Oh a little glass of wine never hurt anybody. Or the third perfection of renunciation. No thanks. I want more not less. Or the third characteristic of existence: Not-self. Of course i have a self! Or the 5 daily reflections on aging, illness, and death, followed by impermanence and karma. Really, do we have to talk about those? What a bore.

Yet when we bite into any one of these teachings, we find our life becomes sweeter.

So send me your onion recipes Sweetie.

Bear Eating Sunflowers

Everyone in the neighborhood has either seen the bears or has piles of bear scat in their yard. My neighbor, Connie, says her sunflowers have all been bent in half and the seed heads have been eaten.

Our forester neighbor has been on all of our cases for years about bringing in the birdfeeders in March. But some of us cheat. We like to see the birds up close; they bring us so much joy.

But the birdfeeders bring bear, who then become used to people food and the sources of people food. In the confrontation between people and a bear, the bear always loses--its life. The bear will be killed. It's a life-and-death situation for the bear.

We like to do things our way. Wisdom suggests a different way, a different action. But we think we can get away with our little cheat. "Surely, it won't hurt anyone," we reason.

The Buddha was very specific. We have the 5 precepts of doing no harm, not taking what isn't offered, using our sexual energy wisely, speaking truthfully and helpfully, and not using intoxicants.

Perhaps one of these precepts sticks in our craw. Oh, surely, we think, it's not that important.

But our actions are extremely important. Our actions are really the only, only thing we own.
Our actions are a life-and-death situation--for us.

Bear in the Neighborhood

www.heartwoodpress.blogspot.com

After 30 years, a bear found and destroyed my neighbor's black plastic compost bin. We found 3 piles of bear scat here in our yard, but our open compost pile was not touched. Another neighbor saw a bear as she was taking a walk in the woods around dusk--a small bear, she said.

As cute as they are, we are talking about a life and death situation--for the bear. If a bear becomes habituated to people food, then the game warden will remove it.

If we become habituated to unskillful actions, then we too are talking about a life and death situation: our own. These habits--good ones or bad ones--are called karma. I'm not asking you to "believe" in karma. I'm asking you to look at karma, at your own habits very directly, with clear seeing.

Many of our habits are quite ordinary: brushing our teeth or driving a car. Many of our habits are skillful--anytime our heart reaches out to someone in need, anytime we do a good deed. And some of our habits are unskillful: you already know what yours are.

It's time to clean up our act--even though our friends may continue to practice unskillful acts of drinking a bit too much, expressing hurtful opinions. We clean up our act because, really, it's our life at stake here.

And it looks like i better clean up my compost act too.

Compost Grows in the Garden

Kay is the gardener of her family, but in April she asked her husband Tom to put the compost on the garden. He spread the entire contents of the black bin over the garden, then he rototilled.

Kay is now finding dozens of tomato plants sprouting in her garden, along with a couple of peppers, an unknown squash (oh-oh), an avocado tree, and maybe a watermelon? For Kay, tomato plants are a weed; she's pulling them out wholesale, except in certain spots, such as where the spinach didn't show up. May as well have something growing there.

Pulling weeds, she comes up with a lobster claw, lots of eggshells, and an interesting chunk of wet soil that turns out to be a rotten grape.

Burying your kitchen scraps in your garden is one form of composting, but that is not what Kay intended.

Here are the phrases that teach us about karma:

When we act upon intention,       such as spreading compost on the garden 
all beings are the owners of our actions,
and inherit its results.         such as stray tomatoes and an avocado tree

Our future is born from such action,  Tomato plants, peppers, lobster claw
companion to such action,
and its results will be our home.      such as weeding out tomatoes


All actions with intention,
be they skillful or harmful,             (I'll let you be the judge of this.) 
of such acts we will be the heir.      Exasperation? Or laughter? Or both?

Daylily Tubers

At the bottom of my compost pile lives an orange daylily with all its tubers ready to spring back to life. It's been suffocating there for almost a year--no dirt, exposed to the air, without any life-sustaining greenery, and under a few hundred pounds of garbage. I know it's orange because i dig out every orange daylily i find, in favor of the yellow ones or the pink ones.

Usually, i lay the orange daylily tubers on my dry-and-die pile and leave them there for an entire summer to cook in the sun. I now believe there are a few things that will survive environmental collapse besides cockroaches: ticks and orange daylilies.

To uproot our own bad habits requires as much persistence as an orange daylily. The roots of anger, irritation, and frustration, for instance, are considered to be so strong that a moment's anger can undo years of good karma. We constantly guard our own mental happiness and safety against surges of anger.

Mindfulness of anger is the strong spotlight of sun that can wither this unwelcome visitor. Simply feel how anger feels in the body. Feel it. Feel it. Keep your mindfulness right on that unpleasant, uncomfortable sensation. Use noting to name it: "Irritation. Irritation. Irritation."

By the end of the summer, i can safely throw the desiccated daylily tubers back into the compost pile.

Instant Karma

This morning i gave a Dharma talk on generosity. I took in a pink hyacinth and gave it to Chris who came early to set up the room. Then Linsey gave me a potted pink hyacinth as an offering for teacher support.

Talk about instant karma! What goes around, comes around.

The joy of giving multiplied by the joy of receiving. So lovely.

Photo from terraceiafarms.com

The Grass is Greener....

"The grass is greener
where you water it."

Neuroscience says it this way:
Neurons that fire together, wire together.

We could call it "cause and effect." We could call it "habit." We could call it "in a rut."
Or we could call it "karma," because our present actions determine our future.

 What "grass" do you water? Anxiety? Worry? Judgment? Impatience? Irritation?

What "grass" would you like to water? Open-heartedness? Balance? Patience? Kindness?
Name one.

The first step in practicing the quality you want to be is simply to be mindful of that bothersome habit.
Label it out-loud every time you see it.
Call out its name as if you are seeing an old friend.
Repeat its name until it disappears. Until it slinks into hiding.
And you smile.