Garden As Teacher

Yesterday’s snow covering has receded and should be gone by noon. My menagerie of green seedlings has weathered the storm from under the comfort of grow lights in the meditation hall. In the continuing absence of human beings, I have converted part of the Zendo to a greenhouse. A few largish houseplants stand by the windows and keep guard over the eerie glow emanating from beneath two oblong metal hoods. Scores of seedlings geometrically arranged in trays bask in the artificial light as they begin their small and miraculous lives.

I suppose I should write about something other than my garden the delight I take in how it organizes my life, but a friend the other day told me that after reading one post about my garden, he went out to look at his garden with new eyes. That’s all the encouragement I need.

And what is your garden? A garden is whatever we pay attention to, for everything everywhere is always growing and changing. A garden is any place where we appreciate life-and-death. A garden is where we witness life rising up, manifest itself in some particular form and behavior, then vanishing. This is the way of the universe, from single-celled algae in the pond to the swirling galaxies of our immeasurable universe.

When we pay attention to something, life itself becomes our teacher. We learn how to be human—how to be responsive and flexible to the dance of coming and going. If we are persistent, we can sometimes begin to get a felt sense of the reality that holds us so precisely. Paying close attention to any piece of life can begin to counteract the false evidence of our senses that we are separate, discrete and self-determining beings. The more you pay attention, the more the swirling patterns of life become self-evident and reassuring.

A friend asked me how I keep track of all the seedlings and all the various rhythms and needs of the garden. I told her that I can’t keep track, but I just put myself in their proximity and then it becomes clear what needs to be done. Sometimes more water. Sometimes more light. Sometimes transplanting. The wonderful cacophony of rhythms, needs, and stages comes to my ears without effort. I give a hand here, change positions of something there—doing my small part while the plants and trees and soil themselves manifest their miraculous nature.

I feel lucky to be included. Lucky to have meaningful work. Lucky to have a way in that is beyond words and achievements. I just spend time and help out. I feel like a little boy hanging out at the corner barbershop who is happy to be among the coming and going of real people. Amidst the smells of lotions, the snipping of shears and the buzzing of electric clippers, I run little errands for the barbers and help out where I can. Here, life is alive and bustling and I am held in the warm comfort of it all.

So what is your garden? Growing things of any sort, from houseplants to small window box of flowers is plenty. Cats, dogs, fish and even snails too are teachers sent from life itself to teach us life itself. Or playing and listening to music. Or preparing food. Or paying attention to the placement of furniture or the folding of our clothes and sweeping of floors.

As another friend (Walt Whitman) once said: All truths wait in all things. Today, I remind myself to learn as I go and join in the swirling rising, the particular manifesting and the gentle falling away that is the endless dance of the universe and me.