Grow Joy and WisdomA few years ago, a friend gave me a tiny aloe vera plant as a housewarming gift. I was instantly taken by this sweet addition to my home, and started to steadily acquire more and more house plants for my indoor garden. Caring for them was an exciting new hobby, and offered a way to connect to nature in my city apartment. Amidst the ups and downs of life, I’ve found great comfort in caring for my plants. As they grow, I’ve felt joy with every new leaf. Many of my plants over the years have thrived, while others — despite my best efforts — have died. My tiny garden reminds me not to hold onto things too tightly. To love and care for the plants is the best that I can do, but there is so much more involved in the life of a plant that I can’t control. In the new July 2023 issue of Lion’s Roar magazine, three Buddhist teachers examine how gardening is more than just weeding and watering — it’s a spiritual practice. You’ll find their evergreen teachings for gardeners below, each inviting you to recognize the wisdom we can learn from our plant counterparts. I hope these teachings encourage you to have patience with your own growth, too. —Martine Panzica, Digital Editorial Assistant, Lion’s Roar |
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For Valerie Brown, her garden is a teacher of the dharma. In every bloom she sees impermanence, nonself, and nirvana.
Roses remind me of the importance of beauty for beauty’s sake. Beauty is complete and gives generously. Growing up in Brooklyn, the natural world, generous and beautiful, seemed distant and inaccessible to me. The sun came up and set over the parched terrain of Bushwick’s row homes, concrete sidewalks, and chain-link fences. To see and feel grass, my brothers and I would run through The Evergreens Cemetery on Bushwick Avenue, one of the great urban forests of New York City, paying little or no mind to the tombstones. We were there to smell the green grass and feel it under our sneakers and to get close to muscular trees. We were chasing an emerging feeling, a fleeting sense of the timeless present—moments that glow in their luminosity and that cannot be possessed.  |
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Cheryl Wilfong on how to practice the four foundations of mindfulness in the garden.While pruning bushes or raking leaves or planting seeds, settle into the body. This is first foundation of mindfulness. Perhaps we are familiar with mindfulness of the body from practicing breath meditation, walking meditation, or body scans. But in the garden, when we are in motion and doing lots of tasks, it’s easy to lose track of what the body is doing. Try simply being aware of each posture. By saying the labels aloud, you remind yourself of what you’re doing: walking from the flower bed to the compost pile; standing while you are watering a flowerbed; or bending over while you are weeding. As you deadhead your flowers, you can practice the five daily reflections of aging, illness, death, impermanence, and karma. Say to yourself, “This flower is of the nature to grow old and die.” Notice the body walking to the compost bin. Pause for a moment and contemplate the life cycle of compost. Here today, gone tomorrow. Next year, new life springs forth. It’s a mystery. |
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Karen Maezen Miller on cultivating the three minds — joyful mind, kind mind, and great mind.
As the abbot of a temple, Dogen wrote meticulous instructions for carrying out daily tasks, from cooking and cleaning to brushing one’s teeth. He didn’t want students to squander a single moment of the day. Mindfulness was not to be confined to a meditation hall. Though Dogen’s practical instructions were intended for monastic communities, we can apply them outside the monastery confines and into the garden, where doubts sprout, weeds abound, and the mind blooms beyond all barriers. “In performing your duties, maintain joyful mind, kind mind, and great mind,” wrote Dogen. Everything you do, everywhere you are, is a reflection of your own mind. So how does a tiresome chore become instead the activity of a buddha? |
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