Gardening the mind

In this article, we shall use the analogy of how the mind is like a garden. Why so, we may ask? Let's discuss!

Imagine a garden for a moment... it can be in any condition, depending on the way we imagine it. Some of us may imagine a beautiful, peaceful garden. A space filled with sweet scents, profound colours. A space that offers healing and happiness. A sanctuary.

On the other side of the spectrum, some of us may have different ideas of a garden. We may imagine a place with a lot of garbage in each corner, long grass, weeds, and bushes all over. No footpath, no birds chirping, no sweet smells, and only the smell of garbage.

Yeah, this is maybe hard to imagine, but some of us may have seen such gardens, haven't we? Those gardens where you just want to get out of, not knowing what you are about to step into, or what is about to step into you!

Now, all of this, the kind of experience we have, this depends on one person. It depends on the person who is in charge of maintaining the garden, the gardener.

Being a full-time gardener

Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, we are all gardeners. We are the gardeners of our own minds, and we are solely in charge of what kind of experience we have in our mental garden. We maintain our mind-gardens, and we also neglect our mind-gardens.

When we consider this, we are actually the main keeper, the only keepers of our mind-gardens. This also means that we are solely responsible for the kind of experience we are having in our minds, in our gardens. Is this not true?

We can choose to plant the seeds of love, patience, kindness, compassion, and gratitude in our gardens. We can nurture these seeds, grow them into beautiful trees, and we can harvest their fruit. We can enjoy their fruit and even share it with everyone around us.

However, we can also choose to neglect the garden. We can just turn our backs to it, and let it grow out of control. Of course, it starts as a small piece of weed, growing between the pathways. We leave it, and it gets bigger, it expands, and before we know it, the whole pathway is covered and we cannot walk there anymore.

At this point, it seems like too much effort to clean up the garden, so we decide to do it at some later stage when we have more energy. Yet, does this day ever come? If not now, then when?

We neglect, and it gets worse. In each corner, we find weed, dead leaves, garbage. It grows in size, in smell, in work required, and before we know it, it becomes a dark corner we choose to avoid.

Some of us may have seen this, how some people have a corner in the garden which they choose to avoid because it is filled with garbage, spider webs, snakes, or who knows what can be there! Because of avoiding it, it just gets bigger and bigger, and we avoid it more and more until we are completely surrounded by the mess. The author has seen this personally in someone's garden.

In the same way, when we do not address the ego's smaller attachments and desires, it gets out of hand. It starts to consume our minds and even our lives completely, and eventually, our realities become a place we would rather avoid if we could, but we cannot! We need to face the messy states of our minds each day, and when it becomes too unbearable, we start to distract ourselves or numb ourselves. Yeah, we do this, and it helps for a short period, but it does not solve our problems, it does not clean up our gardens.

Think about how it feels when we look out of the door and we see the mess in the backyard? Of course, we can avoid it, switch on Netflix, scroll through Facebook, but when we are done distracting ourselves, the mess is still there. We need to deal with this.

Tidying up

Let's be honest. It takes courage to go into that dark, creepy corner and cleaning it. Courage, because we do not know what will come out of this mess.

Likewise, it takes courage to address the roots of our suffering. Dealing with the ego, addressing the attachments, the desires. It takes courage, but the rewards are priceless.

How do we start? Little by little, one day at a time. We start to take ten minutes each day, we sit down, quiet our minds, and observe, observe what comes up. We observe and identify the cause of our unhappiness.

Next, we need equipment, we need tools to work in the garden. So, we equip ourselves with the tools needed to pacify the suffering mind. We can start with the physical, we can start with what we consume, trying to be mindful of what and how much we eat and drink. We can try to get enough sleep and try to make time in the morning and evening to quiet the minds and meditate, starting off with short periods.

Additionally, we can read up on gardening the mind. There are many many motivational and inspirational material online, and we have instant access to this. It does not have to be religious, it can just be motivational, giving us the courage and inspiration we need.

Then, when we have the tools, we have made the time, we have built up the confidence and courage, we can start to get active. Meditating, observing the mind, working on the ego, being mindful, feeding our minds with uplifting thoughts and ideas. We do this, day by day, little by little, and with time we shall see that the dark corners we once avoided have disappeared. They are now open spaces.

In these open spaces, we can plant the seeds of happiness, love, kindness, and so forth. We can nurture them, and we can turn the mind into a happy place.

An ongoing project

Just as a physical garden is bound to impermanence, bound to change, our minds are too. Ideas, emotions, thoughts, they come and go, but we can nurture the mind, appreciate what we have when it is there, and understanding that these emotions and thoughts are bound to change.

Imagine having an apple tree. We do not pull the tree out and destroy it as soon as the season ends and it stops producing apples. We keep maintaining it, just as we can maintain our minds. Just because we may not be experiencing happiness right now does not mean that we should stop our meditation and healthy lifestyles. Let's be patient, as we shall definitely harvest the fruit of our labor.

To conclude, we have the power to decide what kind of mental garden we have, and what kind of experience we have in life. If we feel demotivated, feeling like we just don't care, at least we can think of others. We can think of other people, friends, family, colleagues, the people that we let into our gardens, and we can at least try to make it an enjoyable experience for them.

Just as we do not enjoy unpleasantness, unhappiness, suffering, it is the same with those around us. Therefore, we can offer our garden, our peace, kindness, and compassion, to those around us. Sharing the fruit of our labor, sharing the love and peace in our hearts. 

We can be a happy gardener.

Are we the creators of a peaceful garden, as in this photo, or are we the creators of a messy backyard? We decide.