Your Mind is a Garden

"Your mind is a garden;

your thoughts are the seeds."

So are you growing flowers? Or weeds?

I recently taught a class on the Noble Eightfold Path. One of the first investigations we did was to divide our thoughts into wholesome and unwholesome. Do this for 3 minutes during your next meditation.

Once you become aware of the unwholesome, the unskillful, the "weeds," you can apply the antidotes.

Loving-kindness and patience antidote just about everything.

You can practice loving-kindness during meditation or on a walk or while you are driving or while you are washing the dishes. You can grow flowers in your mind all day every day.

Ornamental Sweet Potatoes

My brother asks whether he can eat the sweet potatoes he found in his hanging pot with a sweet potato vine. The tubers are radish red, but shaped like a potato.

Yes, they are edible--if you haven't fertilized your hanging plant with chemicals. These "ornamental" sweet potatoes aren't as tasty as regular sweet potatoes that are bred for sweetness. But i daresay, that wouldn't matter much in a side dish of roasted roots, for example.

Harvesting vegetables from your flower pots feels like a 2-for-1 deal--beautiful vines in the hanging flower pot all summer, and, after frost, a harvest of vegetables.

This reminds me of Pascal's Wager. The seventeenth century philosopher, mathematician, and physicist, Blaise Pascal, says that a rational person should live as though God exists. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some worldly pleasures), whereas she stands to receive infinite gains (represented by eternity in heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in hell).

We could fine-tune Pascal's Wager by recognizing that unwholesome, unskillful conduct leads to stress in the here and now. Yes, unskillful conduct can feel like fun, but our conscience knows. We don't even need to believe (or not believe) in God. The proof of Pascal's Wager lies in our very own emotional bodies.

If we act with wholesome intentions, we can harvest the flowers and the vegetables of a life well-lived.

Mulch Those Bad Habits

April showers bring May flowers. Or, in this El Nino year, April flowers. What joy to see flower gardens springing to life. Color in the spring garden is made more dramatic by a background of mulch. The little yellow daffodils really stand out against the dark brown mulch, which looks like fresh dirt. In the beds that haven't been mulched yet, the daffodils are lost in the tan leaf litter--they are hard to see and just not as striking.

When we mulch our bad habits and unwholesome words and deeds, our kindness stands out beautifully.

Rooting Wholesome Qualities

When i gave all my houseplants a haircut last month, i rooted the cuttings in water. Why? Because i'm an inveterate plant starter. Well, if you're reading this, you probably are too. But now i've found a way to use all those cuttings--as bedding plants.

Several years ago, while we were on vacation in Tobago, i saw a 20-foot square patch of zebrina (wandering jew). Beautiful!

Zebrina (Tradescantia)

So i take cuttings from all my wandering jews--the purple, the striped purple.

Eventually, i had 30 jars of cuttings. Free plants!

Let's root the wholesome qualities in our life. What's on your short list of wholesome qualities?

While you're at it, make another list of unwholesome qualities. These aren't bad. More likely, they're bad for you--like drinking too much, smoking, or eating junk food. They aren't evil, in and of themselves, but their effects are... Well, those aren't the effects we wanted, after all.

I'm rooting for patience and generosity.

Purple wandering jew (Tradescantia)

Steamed Vegetables

In this season of steamed or boiled vegetables for dinner, we are left with a saucepan of water that we know is perfectly nutritious.

From past experience, i can predict that if i save it for soup stock, it will still be cluttering up the refrigerator a week from now. So, i let it cool, and after dinner, i water a houseplant with that green bean water, that potato water, that broccoli water.

When we get steamed, or even come to boiling, we can turn that unwholesome mind state into a wholesome mind state simply by noting out loud: "Steaming. Steaming. Steaming." or "Boiling. Boiling. Boiling." or "Worry. Worry. Worry." (or whatever your favorite unskillful mind state is :).

As we note or label out loud, our unskillful mind state cools down, and we water our daily mindfulness practice.

Photo from sarahbrownskitchengarden.wordpress.com

Too Much Squash

I harvested 10 large summer squash last evening. Then, since we're going away for a long weekend, i grated them all in the food processor and froze them in baggies.

10 large squash are unpleasant. Actually, the squash themselves are pleasant, but the thought, "What the heck am i going to do with all this?" is unpleasant.

We could grumble and complain and thereby perpetuate the unpleasant, but that just makes us grumpy.

The Buddha suggests we recognize unwholesome mind states and end them.
He also suggests we give rise to wholesome mind states and figure out how to continue those.

So how can we give rise to a wholesome or skillful mind state around 10 BIG summer squash?
(Your suggestions are appreciated.)

1. Give them away (and thereby practice generosity).
2. Put them in the neighbors' mailboxes and get an additional chuckle.
3. Grate them, as i did, and freeze for winter localvoring. 
4. Throw them away. There. That was way too easy. Done. And your compost pile will be so happy.

Here's my favorite recipe for grated summer squash or zucchini:

Blond Brownies
Mix:

• 1/3 cup canola or coconut oil
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Then add:

• 1 cup flour
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• dash of salt

After mixing, add:

• 1 cup grated zucchini or summer squash, drain and squeeze all the water out
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup walnuts 

Turn into a greased 8x8 pan.
Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Photos from vegetablegardener.com and ihopeyouarehungry.blogspot.com

Abundance of Watercress

I picked watercress yesterday. In 2 minutes, i filled up a 5-gallon bucket.

Now for the sorting. I pinch off the top one-third of green leaves on stems and compost the remaining stem and yellowing leaves. I am separating green from yellow, separating a preponderance of leaves from the stem, which happily roots on any damp surface.

The Buddha suggests we separate wholesome from unwholesome. Just for today, imagine you are putting your skillful thoughts, words, and actions in one pile, and your unskillful thoughts, words, and actions in another pile.

Uh-uh-uh. No fair beating yourself up for having unskillful/unwholesome thoughts and actions. We are playing the part of an impartial observer here. Oh! Isn't that interesting? We are acting as a referee and calling the move "fair" or "foul" from a balanced viewpoint.
Apply the scientific method; be curious. How did that happen? What happened just before that unwholesome/unskillful thought, word, or action appeared?

Meanwhile, i have about 3 gallons of watercress stems to go into the compost. This quantity of green being added to the mostly brown (at this time of year) compost will hurry the composting process along. And that makes me smile.

Stinky Compost

When i talk about my book, at a book signing, for instance, the conversation often veers off into compost. What's the best method? "It depends" is my answer.

If you're a city/town dweller, then you probably want one of those black plastic units. Our landfill sells them for a cheaper price than you can buy them in the catalog.

If you live in bear country (and there are more and more reports of bears nearby), then you want a really big, heavy, black plastic unit that the lid screws on to. The bears may roll it away, but they (hopefully) won't be able to get into it.

I live in the country, so i have 3 open bins--each made of 4 pallets that are simply tied together in a square with clothesline. E-Z. Yes, critters come to the pile. I see chipmunks and bluejays picking their way through it in the morning, and i'm sure raccoons come at night. Last evening, i made my final run to the compost pile at 9 p.m. and beaned a skunk on the nose with a watermelon rind. I didn't stick around for a closer sighting, once i saw that furry white tail start to twitch. When my sweetie came home 15 minutes later, he said he smelled skunk.

Our thoughts and actions go into a "compost pile" from moment to moment. A thought arises, then it passes. A deed happens, then it's over. Even though it's gone, gone, really gone, it leaves the track of its valence. A wholesome thought or deed--of kindness or generosity--lays the path for more wholesome thoughts and deeds. An unwholesome thought or deed lays the pathway for more of the same. In the language of neuroscience, "Neurons that fire together, wire together." In the language of gardeners, "You reap what you sow."

So be careful what you compost. Those stinky thoughts may come back to haunt you.