A Season to Begin Again

 

03.24.2022 A SEASON TO BEGIN AGAIN The coming of spring serves as a reminder that it’s never too late to begin again. Winter’s cold fades, the weather warms, and new growth emerges all around us. The way I see it, springtime invites the perfect opportunity to reignite any New Year’s intentions we may have forgotten. We can look to our natural environment—the cleansing rains and sprouting flowers—for inspiration to plant seeds of happiness, nurture our practice, and truly come to life. The three teachings below remind me of the playful magic of springtime, and offer some creative motivation to refresh your meditation practice, tend to your emotions, and enjoy this new beginning. May they leave you refreshed, and eager to grow. —Lilly Greenblatt, digital editor, Lion’s Roar

The Spring Prayer Shozan Jack Haubner presents a prayer for the chaotic awakening of nature that is spring. Spring is when the mountain comes alive. If there’s been a lot of snow, and suddenly there’s tons of sun, things start crawling out of the earth, stirred to life by the contrasts in their surroundings. The hills basically go nuts. You’re walking down the gravel driveway under a canopy of chirping treetops and suddenly a pair of chipmunks falls on top of you. “Sorry dude,” their little scampering body language says. “But something’s goin’ down on this mountain and we’re just part of it!”

5 Practices for Nurturing Happiness The great Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh shares five healing practices to cultivate joy. Happiness is impermanent, like everything else. In order for happiness to be extended and renewed, you have to learn how to feed your happiness. Nothing can survive without food, including happiness; your happiness can die if you don’t know how to nourish it. If you cut a flower but you don’t put it in some water, the flower will wilt in a few hours. Even if happiness is already manifesting, we have to continue to nourish it. This is sometimes called conditioning, and it’s very important. We can condition our bodies and minds to happiness with the five practices of letting go, inviting positive seeds, mindfulness, concentration, and insight.

The Garden Path It takes root; it grows; it blooms. Cheryl Wilfong on how meditation practice is cultivated like a garden. A gardening adage about perennials says: “The first year they sleep. The second year they creep. The third year they leap.” This means that when you transplant perennials into your garden, they just sort of sit there the first year. But underground they are developing a root system that will sustain them for a long time. Our meditation practice requires this sort of patience. First we simply sit on the cushion and develop the habit of sitting. During the second year, perennials begin to look more robust—they bloom and begin to grow. The third year they are fully established in their new location and have a serious growth spurt. Some perennials are even slower, such as my climbing hydrangea that took five years to grow three feet. Then it grew three feet the following year. Now it covers half the side of my house, and a robin nests in it each spring. Our meditation practice needs time to flower and bear the fruits of a spiritual life.

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