Peter Rabbit in the Lettuce Patch

The retreat center has a large organic garden, thanks to the housekeeper Dawn, who is making sure that retreatants have probiotic kim chi and pickles, fresh lettuce salads, and, soon, fresh tomatoes from 100 heirloom tomato plants.

I saw Peter Rabbit in the lettuce patch yesterday. In a place like this, which deeply practices "doing no harm to any sentient being," the next challenge may be putting in a fence. The current fence is beautiful, hand-made from branches of pine and birch trees.

When we begin our meditation practice, we may take the 5 precepts sort of half-heartedly.

I intend to 

• do no harm to anyone
• take nothing that is not freely giving
• speak truthfully and helpfully
• use my sensual energy wisely, and
• keep my mind clear.

 We might interpret the precepts loosely, and, of course, we cheat a little, here and there. We keep the big no-nos out, but there are those cute little rascals--a little gossip, a third glass of wine, flirting with someone else's partner. Those things are fun. And they do bother our mind.

Eventually, we renounce those rascally behaviors, and keep the rabbits out of the lettuce patch with stronger determination.

Hostess Gift: A Bottle of....

We went over to a friend's home for Easter dinner. Although my sweetie and our host couple drink wine, i do not, and i don't feel quite right about bringing a bottle of wine to dinner. I finally solved my little problem: I now take a bottle of olive oil. The bottle sometimes looks like a bottle of wine, and yesterday's olive oil came from a company that also sells wine.

I can't tell you how happy i am to have put this niggling not-quite-rightness to rest.

As we go through our day, we have all sorts of trifling little ruffles of our conscience. We may breeze over most of them. No one else may even notice, but in our hearts, we know something is not quite right.

Living a skillful life calls on us to be true to ourselves, whether or not anyone else notices.

Primroses on the Front Step

With the warmish weather, i've been dying for pansies, which won't be on sale until mid-April. However, i did find primroses at the garden store. I bought four, which i grouped together in a pot on the front step. What a nice bit of cheery color to greet me every time i leave or return home.

By putting them in a flowerpot, i can bring them indoors on the freezing nights we are having and take them outdoors again during the day.

Primroses may look prim. Perhaps we feel a bit prim when we stick to the 5th precept of refraining from intoxicants while, all around us, friends are drinking their wine or beer.

So here's my question: what's the difference between being a prude and being prudent?

Though others may judge us as prim and prudish when we politely refuse alcohol. "Oh, i'll have a glass of fizzy water, please." Perhaps we are simply being prudent.

Or could we say that alcohol leads us down the primrose path?

Intoxicating Flowers

Those poppies that we sowed on the last snow in March are blooming now. Papaver somniflorium--the flowers of sleep--otherwise known as opium poppy.

I pick a bouquet every day, or several, and give away as many as i can. Yesterday i took a bouquet to the receptionist at the jail where i volunteer to teach meditation on Thursday mornings. Most of the women i meet are in jail for possession of heroin. Or perhaps we should say possession by heroin.

Intoxicants, of any kind, alter our consciousness and take possession of us for a few hours. Meditation offers the possibility of altering our consciousness more deeply and more permanently than wine or heroin. If you spent your wine money and wine time on a meditation retreat, how much would that add up to? And the effects would be more long-lasting.

We take intoxicants to relieve our stress and pain. Now. We are aching now, even in the midst of our wonderful lives. Notice that. Wake up, and take the stress reliever that offers you an actual remedy.