Grass Hut - 6 - Unwithering Fertility

[Jundo]

Dear All,

This week's garden work is Chapter 3, Unwithering Fertility, from page 31.

As a suggestion, perhaps we might discuss weeding life and weeding the mind in the way he describes, and what you feel about the book's description of weeding.

Gassho, J

SatToday

[Jishin]

Hi,

I think weeding life, weeding mind and the book's description of weeding is what you make of it.

Gassho, Jishin

[Myosha]

Hello,

My beloved brother is a voracious 'weeder' and has killed two fir trees not understanding the symbiosis of bird poop (which contains the weed-seed) and the nourishment of the tree. Distinction kills.


Gassho
Myosha sat today

[RichardH]

Weeding every day is complete action. A standing wave is ever-tipping. A world of work is ever-reaching. Ever-tipping and ever-reaching are perfect stillness and consummation itself. Delusions are endless, I vow to uproot them.

Gassho
Daizan
Sat today

[Troy]

Grass Hut - 6 - Unwithering Fertility

I think this section is a good reminder to be gentle with ourselves and others. We can go along time without even realizing our weeds are there. Through meditation and mindfulness, we can see our weeds for what they are without judging them which in turn helps us let them go.

During meditation, the thoughts and emotions that rise and dissipate are fragments of the thoughts and emotions we carry through out the day. By gently letting go of the thoughts and emotions on the cushion, it helps us do the same off the cushion. Through practice the weeds of anger, envy, regret, greed, etc. dissipate faster. We learn to enjoy the flowers while they last and smile when they disappear.


..sat2day•

[Risho]

Troy I agree. I like that description. What's cool about our weeds, observing our habits, is that sometimes it's hard for me because I can be a condescending a-hole. So it's hard to admit that and see that unfold in my mind sometimes, but it's also necessary. I think by granting ourselves a little compassion with our bad habits, we not only are able to overcome them by facing them, but we are also less harsh on others who also display similar habits. I work with some very difficult personalities. On calls, you can hear the negativity, the ego-ism, the bite of the words. But lately, I let it flow over me. I can't change that by meeting it with anger, that will make it worsen. Plus, it's easier to point out someone else's flaws and miss my own. So I'm sure just like that person to me, I annoy the crap out of a lot of people, completely based on bad habits a lot of the time. It's like that Buddhist analogy of a boat that bumps into you and you see that there's no one in it. That's what these bad habits are. So it's like this same method of practice we practice just extends. If we push or grasp, pick and choose, it doesn't bear fruit; it gets limited. I really like the description about that in the book about how we shouldn't limit it.

I think if we could apply, and I know I sound idealistic, this idea of letting people's harsh words pass over us (of course you know if you are not in physical danger and all that), and just return them with kindness, all sorts of crap could be averted.

I think practice is an art because it's a very personal thing we have to do. It's subtle to know when to pick, when to just be mindful. It's something I constantly practice with, for lack of a better term. It's actually a fun part of zen to me because it can be hard for me; it's where the rubber meets the road.

Gassho,

Risho
-sattoday

[Ansan]

Hello,

My beloved brother is a voracious 'weeder' and has killed two fir trees not understanding the symbiosis of bird poop (which contains the weed-seed) and the nourishment of the tree. Distinction kills.


Gassho
Myosha sat today

Oh, thank you, Myosha, for this!! I wish had a clever way to say you have just weeded some of today's angst by replacing it with laughter...out loud laughing...LOL!

Gassho,
Ansan

#SatToday

[Jishin]

Hi,

After getting married I lived in a tiny duplex with a small fenced back yard. My wife likes to make fun of me because I could not tell the difference between a weed and not a weed. She likes to tell friends that I watered weeds in my underwear in the mornings because I can't tell the difference. I am a little better about telling the difference now. We have a big lawn and the only way to get rid of some weeds is to pull them out. But if you do that it leaves ugly divots. It's pointless. So I just cut the grass real low and the weed remains but it's not as visible.

A weed is a weed only if it's a weed.

Gassho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Jika]

A weed is a weed only if it's a weed.

I like that a lot.

Gassho,
Danny
#sattoday

PS And a rose is a rose only if it's a rose, right?

[Byrne]

We have a lot of weeds growing all around my father in law's farm in northeast Pennsylvania. We pick some and eat others. The wild spinach is especially good. We also have to pull rocks out of the soil. That's way worse than weeding. The rocks don't appear. They're just there. Lots of them. In the 200+ years that land has been farmed on we haven't plucked them all. We can't eat rocks.

Gassho

Sat Today

[Roland]

Grass Hut - 6 - Unwithering Fertility

The garden of my late parents once was beautiful. I was a child and to me the garden was huge, it was like the universe. When they passed away it was full of weeds. Nature took it back and covered it. I lacked the strength to fight the weeds and sold the house and garden to the village authorities. I went there the other day to have a look. The house, the garden, the weeds were all gone.
It's just a vacant plot. It seems so small now. The universe of the child I once was, is gone. Killing the weeds can kill a universe, not killing them can end up doing the same.

Gassho

Roland

#SatToday

[Kyonin]

Hi Jundo!

I'll be reading and sitting with this a few days before posting.

Gassho,

Kyonin

[ForestDweller]

Out here in the Forest, we are very careful what we call a weed because it just might be your next meal in a pinch. If one subscribes to Gary Snyder's Practice of the Wild, a plant is a weed only if one is trying to beat the wild out of the landscape. What this usually does is create a monoculture and drive out diversity. Perhaps the "weeds" of our mind could be looked at similarly. Our thoughts, like weeds, will be with us as long as we are alive, returning to the mental soil in persistent fashion. Thinking is what our brains very naturally do. But, like "weeds," are these thoughts really so unwanted? They are the natural activity of the brain, just as a body of water will always have waves. Couldn't we view our thought-weeds as welcome entry points to scanning our environment and then settling into a place of "just watching?" But "we want a different garden than the one that's here." This has to be an exercise in judging good and bad instead of accepting our thoughts just as they are, cultivating the thoughts we want to track, and simply letting the rest pass by.

[ForestDweller]

Ooops! I'm not in the habit yet.
Sat today.
CatherineS

[Jika]

"When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared."

I can relate to this situation: when I am at the point of completing something, there is rarely "seeing it is all good".
Rather, I'll get doubts if I could have done better, if it is really finished like that.

When sitting zazen, thoughts can appear in my mind that I urgently have to do something I have not been thinking about for weeks.
Sometimes this can be quite amusing.
So I agree, if I understand it right, that weeding as a big part of practice could be more limiting than liberating.

On the other hand, I experience thoughts in my mind that only a very uncaring gardener would not gently try to weed.
Letting them grow roots in my mind would be harmful to me or to my relationship with others.
I like how Ben describes this "small" practice as a very attentive one: sometimes accepting weeds, sometimes not watering them, sometimes pulling them up.
I do not get the impression that a "small" part of practice is an "unimportant" one.

Knowing when to accept, knowing honestly when to do better, and being alert when to avoid harmful thinking or behavioural patterns looks like very advanced practice to me.

Gassho,
Danny
#sattoday