Maybe Just One Is Enough

            The morning glories that gloriously bloomed through most of the summer have not returned.  In the spring, my intention was to repeat last year’s success.  I followed the same steps – but decided to try some new colors.  But May was so cold that the first seedlings I set out didn’t survive.  But new seedlings sprouted quickly and eventually the plants began to grow with vigor.

            Now in early August, the jute strings rising to the pergola are hidden in the tangle of the generously lobed leaves.  The tendrils—having long since risen to the top—keep rising and fall to the sides.  They twist and turn like puppies chasing each other for the sheer joy of the play.  Arcing gracefully, they spray carelessly away from the support—into midair.

            And today, the second blossom of the season appeared.  Of course, it is a delicate miracle of blue.  I do my best to appreciate it - to greet it with appropriate approbation and gratitude.  But mostly my mind runs to questions.  ‘Where are your brothers and sisters?  Did I feed you too much or not enough?  How have I failed as a parent?  How could you disappoint me like this?’  These silly questions make appreciation difficult but seem to rise up unbidden from some endlessly deep well of dissatisfaction.

            Meanwhile, in a pot on a nearby table, brilliant blossoms of crimson impatiens wiggle slightly in the morning breeze.  They care not a fig for my fancy speculating, but call wordlessly with the endless song of beauty and perfect sufficiency.  And I look over once again to the single morning glory blossom and think: ‘Maybe just one is enough.’    

Nasturtiums and Crabgrass

           A cool breeze blows across the Temple grounds.  This morning quiet will soon be filled with voices and bodies as we’re having a work-day to prepare for our upcoming sesshin.   Earlier, the neighbors walked by as I was weeding one of the front gardens.  We greet each other warmly and talk about the weather.  They are wonderfully nice people, but we’ve only talked to them four or five times in the two years we’ve been here.  The Temple is like that – somehow private even in the midst of the city.

            But it’s the crabgrass I’m thinking about this morning.  Over the past week I’ve pulled out grand patches of it from the mulched areas around the rhododendrons in the front and still it keeps coming back.  I admire its easy tenacity and appreciate how it has filled in the bare patches in our nearby lawn.  Each tuft I pull this morning from among the brightly colored nasturtiums comes up with white threaded roots clinging gently to bits of mulch.  A shake or two and most is given back and I throw the slender green shoots into my weed bucket.

            I feel quite productive when I’m weeding.  Aside from the fact that it’s an unending task, I find a gentle satisfaction in clearing the space.  I still don’t know how things grow – these trailing nasturtiums were round pea-like seeds and now manifest as crimson, orange, and golden flowers lurking amongst the pleasingly shaped round leaves.  They seem to wander randomly from the root stem, as if they were out to escape the inertial pull of their beginnings.  But I do sometimes know how to clear space – how to make room for what is yet to come.

            I suppose this is what our meditation is about – clearing some space in the busyness of our lives to allow the aliveness of the moment to reveal itself.  We can’t command it, but we can create conditions that seem to allow it to be known.  Sitting still and following the breath, sometimes the clutter of the mind fades away and some enormously shy presence allows itself to be seen.

            But too much talk of these grand concepts is like trying to tell the nasturtiums how to grow those delicate and tasty flowers.  They already know.  So I remind myself to appreciate the necessary little bit I am given to do and I go back to pulling the crab grass.

Temple Gardens

            I’m in love with the Temple gardens again.  It took me a while to find my way back in this spring.  Being so caught up in the procession of retreats and ceremonies here at the Temple, I’ve only recently taken up my morning wanderings again.  I set out the back door with as little intention as possible.  Following my feet and remembering not to work, I am filled – heart and mind – with the subtle thrill green activity.

            This slow garden saunter is the true pleasure of gardening.   These gardens of our lives are never finished.  Always weeds to pull, plants to rearrange, new spaces to create.  Walking at leisure, I allow the ideas of the future to be part of the pleasure of this moment.  The only true place of appreciation is in the middle of it all –  joining in as part of the endless arising and falling away.  In this perpetual becomingness each blossom is separate and complete while only arising in the full support of the earth and the sky and the sun and the stars.

            I willingly take my place as the slowest one in the garden.  I am the younger brother tagging along with his beautiful older sister.  Hopelessly in love, I am happy just to be in her presence though I only dimly understand the necessities of her world.  But the garden is patient with me – not demanding any more than I give – but meeting me joyously wherever I show up.  The bricks on the path rise precisely to meet my foot with each step.  The shape and hue of each thing gives itself with abandon to the heart of my senses – with no effort –  as if it were not a miracle – as if it were just a wooden bench in the morning sun.  Such a clever disguise for God.  Who would have thought that she was here all along?  

Momentary Patience

Buddha sits patiently
while the weeping cherry 
blooms momentarily
in the early spring.

More Rain

The spring rain falls 

cold and life-giving.  

Joining with it 

I tumble down the mountain 

toward home.

Getting Down To Business

            The seeds I put into peat pots last week have sprouted.  The tiny dry brown flakes and little roundish bits of nothing have produced bits of tender green waving about on the slenderest of stalks.  To really look at what has happened from any kind of reasonable perspective is to witness the utterly preposterous.  But my mother taught me to plant gardens and watch closely.  I expected this all along.  And still, I’m unreasonably astonished and delighted. 

Each time I pass the glare of the grow light in my office, I pause to greet the tiny fellows lined up in their trays.  Each one is clearly committed to its path toward a summer exposition of beauty. 

I pause and smile to myself.  Here it is - the unspeakable – the grandeur of God – the one true way.  Right under my nose all the time.  At last, I can call off the search and get down to business.  I go into the kitchen and make a cup of tea.

A Sense of Things to Come

            In the early morning dark I sneak outside for a few minutes after I make my tea.  It’s been a night above freezing for the first time in months and the damp coolness in the air feels alive to me.   Standing out on the porch swinging my arms in random directions, my body remembers spring – the dirt and possibility lying silently beneath the seasons accretion of snow.

            Yesterday, it was nearly 60 and I spent part of my day digging in the snow bank that the plow has pushed up against the Temple.  My intention was to create a channel away from the foundation for the melting snow water to follow.  It wasn’t strictly necessary – a good idea – but no water in the basement yet.  Preventative.  Prophylactic.  But mostly for me.  To be outside – to be pushing the world around.  A shovel full of snow thrown out over the parking lot to melt.  A careful channel of water through the ice and snow.

            When I was young and it rained really hard in the summer, the water would come down the gutters of our suburban street in torrents.  My mother let us – I suspect even encouraged us – to play outside.  Or was it that we were out playing and got drenched before we could get home and asked if we could stay outside?  Either way we ended up totally wet.  Then, fearless of the rain, we walked up the street –delighting in the our freedom and wetness.  

            I do want to be included in this world - to escape this persistent dream of separation.  I want to wait for spring sprouting with the dignified patience of the bare trees.  But mostly these days I feel like an impatient sapling – dancing quickly in the breezes like a squirmy child:  ‘Are we there yet?  Is the winter over yet?  How much longer?’