I enjoy gardening at sunrise. The air is cooler in the early morning and biting insects are still tucked away in their burrows. So the work is easier than it would be if I started later in the day. Also, there is a special feeling that comes with watching the world wake up. The sun cracks the horizon, the birds start to sing, and I feel like I’m watching a movie that few people get to see.
Recently, I was out working in the flower beds around my home, and as the night’s dark shadows were replaced by sunlight I noticed a patch of weeds that hadn’t been there the day before. We’d receive a lot of rain the day before and the added moisture had caused these dormant seeds to spring to life.
A cursory inspection alerted me to the fact that there were several patches just like this one throughout the beds—crabgrass, purslane, dandelions, and a host of others were trying to encroach into my carefully managed space.
Some of the plants were medicinal in nature, others were edible. None of them belonged in my flower beds.
As I went about the never-ending work of removing them by hand, I was careful to not harm the flowers that I’ve planted over the years to support native wildlife. My hostas are a favorite with the local humming birds and coral bells attract an endless stream of bumble bees. Both the brown and the black-eyed Susans provide a nice pop of yellow against the brown mulch of the beds and they seem to be a favored resting place of the moths every evening.
Admittedly, I planted the hydrangeas just because they are low-maintenance and pretty. And while they don’t do much for the wildlife, I think my neighbors appreciate their beauty.
As strange as it sounds, it took several years for me to start planting flowers around my house. It’s not that I have anything against flowers. In fact, I’m quite fond of them and the support they provide for local ecosystems. I was just so hyper-focused on controlling the weeds that the thought never crossed my mind.
When I first moved onto the property, the beds were overrun with everything from bindweed to poison ivy. So I pulled the weeds and then I mulched. And then I pulled more weeds and mulched some more. This went on for several years until I was finally able to bring the problem under control.
For a while, I reveled in the empty space and bare soil around the house. It was another rendition of the timeless tale of man versus nature, and man had won.
But over time I realized that I’d won a pyrrhic victory.
The flower beds weren’t ugly, but they also weren’t beautiful. More than that, there was nothing to cover the soil and compete with the noxious plants that tried to take root there. All of my mulching had added much needed nutrition to the soil, but there was nothing in the soil for it to feed.
In the absence of beauty, the soil tended toward ugliness, it fed the weeds.
So I began planting the things I wanted to grow in the flower beds in addition to removing things I didn’t want to be there. And as the flowers took root, I noticed that the weeds grew more slowly and were easier to manage. Also, the process of caring for the flowers required me to spend more time in beds, which helped me notice and remove the weeds more quickly.
Now my flower beds are pleasant to look at and the weeds are under control. This occurred not because I spent endless hours pulling noxious plants out by the roots. That was an important step, but it was only the first. I also had to plant something helpful and life-affirming to replace them.
When we first begin our Buddhist practice, many of us begin with the teaching of non-attachment. We are taught that suffering is caused by desire, and the way to end our suffering, along with the suffering of others, is to let go of all our desire-fueled attachments.
This is a proper teaching, but it is only the first step. If the only thing we ever do is “let go,” we’ll quickly find ourselves divorced from many of the things that make life meaningful; family, friends, walks in the park.
Instead, we must blend our practice of non-attachment with a practice of re-attachment wherein we identify the healthy and life-affirming things that we may have overlooked in the past. And then we must integrate those things into our lives.
The Dharma can be helpful in this endeavor, helping us to separate the things that cause grief and disruption in our lives from the things that are helpful. And once we are able to tell one from the other, it becomes a simple task to hold on to the good and let go of the bad.
In this way, we can cultivate the flower beds of our minds, turning them into a beautiful garden where we can take refuge.
Namu Amida Butsu
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Sensuality, Contact, and Attachment
Beyond Attachment: Understanding Clinging Versus Caring
Anam Thubten Rinpoche On Non-attachment, Being a Buddhist Gypsy, and Impermanence
Working with Attachment and Family
Thanks for this. As a fellow gardener, I really appreciated both the sensory language, and intent of this metaphor.