Mindfulness in the Garden: Zen Tools for Digging in the Dirt - Hardcover

Murray, Zachiah Laurann

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1937006158 ISBN 13: 9781937006150

Publisher: Parallax Press, 2012

Synopsis

Mindfulness in the Garden offers simple mindfulness verses (gathas) composed to connect the mind and body and to bring the reader/gardener’s awareness to the details of the present moment as they work in the garden. These gathas are signposts leading to nature, to the present, and ultimately to one’s self through the love and understanding they evoke. The gathas offered with each gardening activity serves to water the seeds of mindfulness within us, and softening and preparing the ground for our ability to be present.
Mindfulness in the Garden values weeds as important messengers seeking to bring into close communion our spiritual nature with that of the environment. It likens spiritual practice to cultivating a garden and inspires each person to accept themselves and start where they are, weeds and all. Through the practice of mindful gardening, we invite not only the thriving of the natural world but also the flowering and beauty of the pure land of our true self to emerge.

Features black and white botanical illustrations throughout by Jason DeAntonis.
Introduction by Thich Nhat Hanh, author of Present Moment Wonderful Moment

About this title

About the Author

Zachiah Laurann Murray is a Registered Landscape Architect whose vision and passion is to collaborate and consult with Landscape Architects, Architects, Civil Engineers, and environmental organizations in the creative, instinctive, and most ecologically sensitive approach to designing and developing our land. As a steward of the land, she encourages the preservation and restoration of the environment to ensure future generations a quality of life enriched through their ability to make a connection to Mother Earth that is unique to themselves. Zachiah is a Masters in Divinity candidate at the Interfaith Center for Spiritual Enlightenment. She teaches meditation and is a member of the Order of Interbeing in the lineage of Thich Nhat Hanh. She presently lives in Santa Cruz, California.
Jason DeAntonis is an award-winning sculptor and visual artist. His illustrations have appeared in many children's books including Making Space: Creating a Home Meditation Practice by Thich Nhat Hanh and Little Pilgrim by Ko Un (both from Parallax Press). He lives in Berkeley, CA.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION


Tucked in the far left corner of my childhood home lived a handsome row of silvery-green-leafed Russian olive trees, Elaeagnus angustifolia. Beneath their thorny boughs—young knees to the ground and body in an earthly bow—I became a gardener at the tender age of eight. Gardening without gloves, I loved the feel of the earth in my hands: its rich, aromatic texture, warmed by the sun. I still do.

I surrendered many childhood struggles at the feet of those olive trees. I found solace in their silent presence. Grateful for their company, I instinctively knew my survival was intimately connected to theirs. As I stepped away from the carefully tended band of soil that held the olive tree roots firm to the earth, I saw the rich brown soil free from the tangle of weeds that once claimed its clarity. In this clearing, the knot in my mind loosened, and my heart was put at ease.

Now, many years into my practice as a landscape architect, gardening remains a true love. Nature is a place where I come back to myself. Whether it’s a window box, vegetable crop, fruit orchard, vineyard, a designed “outdoor room,” or simply a patch of tenacious weeds, a garden is the critical demarcation between what is wild and what is cultivated. When we garden—weeding, preparing the soil, planting, watering, tending, harvesting—we place ourselves at the edge, between what is wild and what is cultivated. Crossing the garden’s threshold, we enter into a direct relationship with nature and with ourselves. This is a relationship that must be recognized and consciously and compassionately entered. It requires that we garden with a heartfelt mindfulness.

This book offers simple short verses, called gathas, to guide our gardening and assist us in becoming present. Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh says that reciting a gatha “helps us to dwell in the present moment and to be deeply aware of the action we are doing so that we can perform it with understanding and love.” Each gatha waters the seeds of mindfulness within us, softening and cultivating the ground of our ability to be present.

Each gatha offered is designed to be practiced in alignment with the breath. First, read the whole gatha, then, consider inhaling as you recite one line to yourself and exhale as you recite the next. So the first line would be in sync with your inhale, the second with your exhale, the third with your inhale, and the fourth with your exhale.

Practicing in this way, each four line gatha becomes a gateway to a moment of mindfulness. What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is the awareness of what is around us and within us in the present moment. Looking deeply, and being with what is, frees us from getting caught in the past or the future. When we garden, the details of nature call to life all of our senses grounding us in the present moment. While weeding, for example, we use our sight to discern the beautiful glistening leaves of the native, noninvasive Redwood sorrel (Oxalis oregana) from the flat, green, stippled leaves of the invasive sour grass (Oxalis pes-caprae L.). We use our sense of taste as we nibble on a basil leaf or bite into a freshly picked, sun-warmed peach. We feel nature’s touch as we are gently brushed by the summer’s refreshing breeze upon our skin, cooling the perspiration of our labors of love in the garden. Attuned to our breath, we can smell the arrival of the seasons upon the wind. As we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel nature’s details, we become more present, and compassion and love grow within us. Gardening mindfully—being present with our shovels, our steps, and our gathas—we invite the mind to drop into the heart, and the tangle of our thoughts is loosened.

Edition details

• Publisher: Parallax Press
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1937006158
• ISBN 13: 9781937006150
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: DeAntonis Jason
• Number of pages: 160