The Ever-Changing Garden

A Thai friend who has beautiful gardens and who arranges flowers and leaves so artfully has received her third diagnosis of cancer.

I emailed her a note of sympathy, and she responded:
"No birth. No death. It's the anatta [not-self]. I am not holding on to the notion of existence. Life itself is an illusion. We are passing, evolving, changing, and transforming away from the illusion."

Just like our gardens that evolve, change, and transform from day to day, from hour to hour, and, if we can apply the microscope of our attention, from minute to minute.

A noun is simply a slow-moving verb. The noun "garden," for instance.

We may like or dislike the changes, but what's the use of liking/disliking? The changes simply happen. The garden, the elements of the garden, move on.

Pronouns are faster-changing verbs. "I," "me," "mine" change from moment to moment. The in-breath is completely different molecules from the out-breath (CO2). The "I" is born minute after minute, second after second. Pay attention. Notice moments of not-I, maybe when you are quite relaxed. Those "not-I" moments are moments of no birth, no death either. When we hold on to the notion of existence, we perish.

Just life unfolding.

Tiny Tastes of Calm

Deb Lazar showed me around her community garden plots--she has 2 and her husband has one. She has a fantastic crop of basil. It's only 1-inch tall at the moment, but add rain and sun, and soon she'll have a forest of basil bushes.

Our meditation practice is like this: we start with a 1-second taste of calm. Notice that one second. Revel in it. Sink into it. Paying attention to momentary calm is the rain. Coming back to the cushion is the sun. Yes, some days, like today, are overcast, and maybe even one second of calm doesn't show through the clouds of mind chatter.

Keep tending that momentary calm. By the end of the summer, you'll have a crop of it.

Pruning--Inside and Out

I need to reduce my iris clumps by half now that they've finished blooming. The mature garden is an overgrown garden. Perennials grow into each other--a look that i like, although well-separated, well-defined clumps seem to be the style nowadays.

The perennial gardener is forever busy dividing these various overgrown colonies. I want to keep 1/3 of the pulmonaria near the terrace and give the other 2/3 away.

The stuff inside our houses accumulates as well, and it takes on-going intention and effort to reduce clothes, clutter, and collections. "Keep pruning" is my motto, although the other person in my house isn't as focused on this as i am.

We reduce our possessions--flowers, vegetables, or paraphernalia by offering them for re-use. Flowers to other gardeners. Vegetables to neighbors or the community or church food shelf . Pass along paraphernalia at a yard sale or give it to a thrift shop (i.e., Goodwill) or to the homeless shelter (e.g., toiletries from hotels). I send the really low-quality junk to the Swap Program at the landfill because i know Mr. & Ms. Fix-It come there as well as people on fixed incomes. The Swap Program keeps tons of stuff OUT of the landfill.

In these ways we practice generosity--toward others and toward the earth.

What Flowers in Your Life?

I cut my first bouquet of zinnias yesterday, from plants i started from seed. It's particularly gratifying that they have begun to bloom in colors i enjoy--a lot of Berry Mix and a few Crayon (red, orange, yellow).

The seeds we plant in meditation--mindfulness, kindness, calm, gratitude, energy, attention--also flower in our daily life. Mindfulness begins to pop up unexpectedly in our daily activities. We find ourselves being kind to other drivers. We feel calmer in the face of the unknown future. We may even like ourselves better.

Plant seeds of mindfulness today and see what flowers in your life. E-mail me and tell me about it.

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.

Discontent in the Garden

I planted winter squash seeds yesterday--about 3 weeks too late according to my reckoning. The soil was dusty dry, and the afternoon had heated up to 88 degrees, so even the small effort of dragging a hoe through the clumpy, caked soil and pulling a few clods of field weeds drenched me with sweat.

This is one small vignette of discontent in the garden. I'm sure you could tell me your story, and then we'd commiserate with each other. Does this mean gardening is co-misery?

Listening to gardening conversations, you might wonder why people willing put themselves through such dissatisfactions with bugs, plant diseases, and weather. And then the comparing mind (the only one we have) looks at the neighbor's garden and wonders why my beets are 2 inches tall and hers are a foot tall.

All this discontent doesn't stop the green thumb from getting dirt under her fingernails. We know in our heart that joy and calm are lurking somewhere out there in the garden.

Pull the weeds of discontent--not by pulling weeds, but by simply relaxing into the garden as it is, without wishing for anything different. Contentment is a form of wishlessness, a place our heart can come to rest.

The mind is like Velcro for discontent and like Teflon for contentment.* To overcome this "negativity bias," we have to focus on contentment for 30 seconds in order to start building the neural pathways that will enable us to more easily fall into contentment.

Start now. Look at a flower for 30 seconds. View your garden through a window from inside your house for 30 seconds. Stroll through your garden in the early morning or after dinner and just relax.

* This paraphrase comes from a quote by Rick Hanson, author of Buddha's Brain: the practical neuroscience of happiness, love & wisdom.

Keepers

Last night I used the last of my tomatillos to make salsa verde for a pork roast from the Farmers' Market. Those tomatillos have been sitting in my basement for 9 months--ever since i harvested them last September. Now that's what i call a keeper.
No canning. No freezing. No special treatment. Just stored in a tray in a rack. So easy.

Spiritually, we keep the 5 Precepts.
-- do no harm
-- not taking what is not offered
-- refraining from sexual misconduct
-- speaking truthfully and helpfully
-- keeping our mind clear.

We keep the 5 Precepts as our base for happiness.
Doing no harm leads to less guilt and shame.
Not taking what isn't offered leads to less bother.
Refraining from sexual misconduct leads to less heartbreak.
Speaking truthfully and helpfully leads to less regret.
Keeping our mind clear leads to less poor judgment.

We can retrieve any one of the Precepts any time. They keep us safe and happy. They're keepers!