and I am never lonely.
In various traditions of meditation there is the concept of “noble silence,” which means unifying body, speech and mind as we go through the day. In noble silence, you are encouraged not to talk except for essential communication required with meals or chores. In silence it is easier to quiet the mind because there is no need to constantly respond to multiple conversations and dialogue. We have enough self-talk occurring constantly in our own minds. The more I practice noble silence, the more I am slowly finding as much joy in between words and in the presence of others without a need for a constant verbal expression of every thought.
“Silence is something that comes from our own hearts, and not from someone outside. If we are truly silent, then no matter what situation we find ourselves in, we can enjoy the silence. Silence does not only mean not talking and not doing loud things. Silence means that we’re not disturbed inside, there’s no talking inside.”
—Thich Nhat Hanh
Space
Every summer we are amazed at how certain perennials take over certain spaces in the garden. Year after year we have to thin the crocosmia to create room for less-hardy plants to find space and light.
In our busy lives, creating space for the activities of “being” vs. “doing” always brings renewal and healing. I used to find it easy to fill my daily schedule to the brim, like a cup of coffee with little room for cream. The other day when I stopped for my favorite brew, the barista asked, “Do you want it with room?”—meaning did I want room to add cream. Every time I hear that phrase, I am reminded that it’s okay to have fewer appointments, lunches or coffee dates and leave room for quiet time and reflection. The awareness that “less is often more” may become more important with age, or perhaps with wisdom.
When asked why his music was so beautiful, a famous pianist responded, “I strike the keys like most other musicians. It is the space between the notes that makes it beautiful.” The space between notes and the space between objects is what offers contrast and beauty. One of my favorite hobbies is photography, and one of my favorite subjects, as you can probably guess, is flowers. Finding space and distinction between the flowers offers contrast and beauty, and enough light for seeing these things.
“What makes a fire burn is space between the logs. A breathing space. Too much of a good thing, too many logs packed too tightly, can douse the flames just like a pail of water would. So building fires requires attention to the spaces in between as much as to the wood…. A fire grows simply because the space is there in which the flame that knows how to burn will find its way.” —Judy Brown
Stopping and Resting
Just as gardens need time to renew during the winter, and plots of farmland need to rest for a year or more to yield better crops in the future, we need to take time to stop and rest. Inherent in all religious traditions is a time for rest and renewal. Whether it be Shabbat or Sabbath, or just “lazy day,” the results of self-renewal are the same.
Growing up, Sunday was a day of rest for my family, one that began with church, followed by a special breakfast and relaxation time. Later in the afternoon we would enjoy the best meal of the week. Other nearby family members often joined us for these meals, which were typically enjoyed in a local park or by a lake in the summertime. After eating together, my cousins and I would either swim or play in the park. We celebrated the Sabbath without any major effort, and we always felt renewed. The day became more challenging as it wore on, since Monday meant back to school. Yet I always felt better knowing that at least for one day, we felt rested and renewed.
“In our consciousness there are wounds also, lots of pains. Our consciousness also needs to rest in order to restore itself. Our consciousness is just like our body. Our body knows how to heal itself if we allow it the chance to do so. The same thing is true with our consciousness; our consciousness knows how to heal itself if we know how to allow it to do so. But we don’t allow it. We always try to do something. We worry so much about healing, which is why we do not get the healing we need. Only if we know how to allow them to rest can our body and our soul heal themselves.”
—Thich Nhat Hanh
Wanting bountiful growth each spring, we let our garden beds go barren during the winter months. So too we need to prune our lives of too much doing, and lie fallow at times so that we can listen to our bodies, thoughts and feelings. Through silence we listen to what is needed, through space we see the beauty that is in and around us, and by stopping we are truly able to enjoy life and those we love.
Practice:
• In what ways do you find time to stop in your daily and weekly routines?
• Reflect on someone or something that represents beauty in your life. How does the condition of space play a role in enhancing this beauty?
• During the silent moments of your life, what is it that emerges—moments of delight or moments of fear?
Regardless of your schedule, find times to be silent, create space and stop along the way.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” —Viktor E. Frankl
Chapter 3
Being: Watering the Seed of Mindfulness
“Of all the meditative wisdom practices that have developed in traditional cultures throughout the world and throughout history, mindfulness is perhaps the most basic, the most powerful, the most universal, among the easiest to grasp and engage in, and arguably, the most sorely needed now. For mindfulness is none other than the capacity we all already have to know what is actually happening as it is happening.” —Jon Kabat Zinn
At a recent meditation retreat, I spoke with a woman who had been a doctor before joining the monastic community as a teacher. I asked her, “Do you still practice medicine?” After a long pause, she looked directly into my eyes and said, “Brother, mindfulness is the best medicine.” I have shared this story with others, including a friend who has experienced stage-four cancer, who said, “Mindfulness practice has saved my life.” Whether we are ill or healthy, we should always focus on improving the quality of our lives.
In learning to care for ourselves as gardeners, we sought to have a beginner’s mind, including openness, faith, patience and acceptance so as to see in new ways. We also learned that we require silence, space and stopping to rest so we can renew ourselves. Mindfulness is a practice that supports everything else we have learned thus far. It means learning to be present in an openhearted way to what is occurring in us and around us. Mindfulness is the practice of bringing our whole being to everything we do. It is a way of seeing—a lens—that will help us cultivate the seeds of love in others and ourselves. Mindfulness itself is a seed that, when watered, strengthens and grows, making us more alive and vibrant in the process, like a rose bush receiving the right nutrients, sunlight and water.
How wonderful it is to walk out into a beautiful garden, which offers a vision of what might be cultivated in the gardens of our homes and our consciousness through mindfulness. The practice of mindfulness is the ability to be truly aware and see what is happening within outer gardens and the gardens of our consciousness. The key practice and the essence of becoming a “master gardener” of our consciousness is to know how to nourish the seed of mindfulness.
“The practice is to nourish the seed of mindfulness so that it becomes
