All around, green is overtaking brown as the dominant color of the landscape, revealing what survived the winter. Multiple colors of wildflowers emerge through the soil and stand out against the greening ground. And new plants are surfacing from seeds that received enough water and nutrients over the past season. For those new plants seen there are many other seeds that are not seen because they didn’t receive what was needed to grow. So they lie dormant.
This brings to mind recent works I’ve been reading of Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen master, author, teacher, and highly esteemed peacemaker. I’ve been intrigued with his observation that each of us have all the seeds, “wholesome and unwholesome,” within our consciousness. Seeds of anger, compassion, hatred, love, fear, peace, and on and on. Some are growing, some are lying dormant. The seeds that grow are the ones we water and tend to, or the ones we allow others to water and tend to for us.
And I’ve been thinking of the various ways this inner gardening may occur. What we consume, the people and society we’re surrounded with, adverse life events and subsequent beliefs about ourselves and others, may all be sources of water and nutrients for the seeds lying within us.
Considering the impact of media, news, entertainment, and the constant barrage of ads, the underlying message isn’t usually, “Hey, just wanted to let you know you’re great just as you are and have everything you need within to be happy.” The message tends to be “you’re not enough, not worthy, not safe, and can’t be happy unless you buy what we’re selling.” We’ve got much fertilizer for growing seeds of anger, fear, and despair in our media-saturated culture, seemingly more than we have fertilizer for seeds of compassion, peace, and hopefulness.
During and after terrible life events, we may discover all sorts of seeds that we didn’t realize were there and find ourselves tending more to the ones we really don’t want to grow rather than the ones we do. And sometimes the people that could have most supported us by watering our more wholesome seeds, water those more negative seeds instead.
Overtime these seeds may grow into beliefs. And the way our brains are constructed we more readily notice and give more credence to the things that confirm what we believe and disregard things that don’t. The psychological term for this phenomenon is called cognitive bias. So if I believe I’m not worthy and I’m just a loser, I’m more likely to tune into those things that prove that belief and filter out the things that call it into question. If I believe people are bad and out to get me, I’ll generally disregard all the times someone shows me something different. So one can get caught in an ongoing cycle of growing those negative seeds while seeds of worthiness, belonging, and compassion lie dormant.
With mindfulness practice, we can know better what we’re watering. If we wish to grow tomatoes, we must know we’re watering tomato seeds. Mindfulness brings compassionate attention and intention. It helps us know the seeds that are there and to tend purposely to the ones that we want to grow. Thich Nhat Hanh says the Buddha compared mindfulness to a “sentinel at our sense doors” protecting us, letting us know what we’re ingesting, what seeds we’re watering. Even in the midst of extreme stress, mindfulness allows us to choose what we water.
On the day that I learned my marriage was over, I was shaken. In an instant, the life I thought I knew no longer existed. Yet in the midst of the shock and despair, there was some part of me that was able to see beyond all of the immediate fallout as I repeatedly told myself and others, like a mantra, “I don’t want to become bitter.” As I reflect back on that now, I recognize the glimmer of mindful awareness, keeping me as oriented as I could be in the midst of the storm, to the core of who I wanted to be. I had become aware of the seed of bitterness and took a conscious stand that it was not going to be what grew within me.
It’s no small thing, this watering of the seeds within. Because what grows is what comes out into the world. And it truly effects each of us. Author and spiritual teacher Amit Ray says, “your thoughts are your message to the world, just as the rays are the messages of the sun.” As long as we’re alive, something will grow. We will have some kind of a “garden.” Whether the garden is overrun with poisonous plants or full of beautiful flowers depends on which seeds we water.
What seeds are being watered within you? What are the sources of the watering? Are these the seeds you wish to flourish or are seeds you truly wish to grow lying dormant? Consider how mindfulness, compassionately cultivating attention and intention, can support this inner gardening.
My wish is for your garden to be exceedingly lovely, abundantly vibrant, and immensely peaceful!