Eighteen Simple Steps to Appreciating Your Garden in the Spring

1. Find a time when you’re not fully awake and no one else is around.
2. Make some tea or coffee in your favorite cup.
3. Put on appropriate clothing.
4. Wander out into your garden (or yard or nearby park).
5. Walk naturally and without purpose, as if you did this all the time.
6. Imagine that you are at home here – that the garden may be greeting you even as you greet the garden.
7. Notice what attracts your attention and move towards it.
8. Get close and look closely.
9. Touch it gently as if you were shaking a tiny hand.
10. Look to see what is next to it and what it might be doing.
11. Continue wandering and noticing without purpose.
12. Gently see what you haven’t seen before.
13. After some time, find a place to sit and rest for just a few minutes.
14. Receive whatever comes – through you eyes and ears, through your nose and skin, through you mind and imagination.
15. Consider that you may be here simply to appreciate.
16. After some time, take your cup and go inside.
17. Don’t try to talk about what you experienced in the garden.
18. Let whatever happened or didn’t happen be enough.

Spring Vigil: March 21, 2018

I am told the flat earth
under our feet is actually
a stupendous sphere of mud
with molten core that hurtles
through unthinkable space
while tracing an indispensible
orbit around an exploding sun.

And that the precise tilt of
our precious muddy marble
cooperates with imperceptibly
wild speed and grave rotation
to cause the four seasons
that course through my blood.

I am waiting. I am waiting.

All calculations concur
that it has already come,
but my daffodil shoots are still
buried under last week’s snow
with more on the way tonight.

So much for trusting the authorities.

Measuring Life

I forgot yesterday
was the first day
of March. I’m
always behind
on things like that—
these necessary labels
we use to locate
the familiar fluctuations
of light and dark—
as if we could
measure our lives
in small chunks
of change and thus
control the whole.

Surprising Spring

The morning light comes early today—not yet six thirty and yet I am enticed by the brightness to step outside while the kettle heats the water for my tea. The soft, moist air welcomes me as I briefly wave my arms to circulate my sleepy blood and rouse my hidden chi.   Being somewhat modest and mindful of the passing cars determined for work, I modestly hide myself around the side of the Temple so as not to be a wayward influence.

And there, there they are. The sheltered daffodils on the southern-facing slope are lustily poking their green selves skyward. They are too early, snow will certainly come to test their resolve, but for now I shake my head in admiration and go back inside to make my tea and begin this day.

Zen Talks On-Line

Here at Boundless Way Temple, we’re in the middle of our annual three-week silent retreat.  Twice a day, one of the teachers gives a talk about this Zen path of awakening.  These talks and the short discussion that follows them are posted daily at: https://www.boundlesswayzen.org/sesshin/audio/.

Also, if you want to get a first hand experience, please come and join us at the BWZ Temple in Worcester any time between now and January 22nd.  For more information go to  https://boundlesswayzen.org/cags .