Buddhism And Gardening

I am not a gardener. However, I’ve grown up watching my mother work tirelessly to make her garden beautiful, and I am in the process of learning from her what it means to gardening.

- Namali Silva

It’s not because it’s my mother’s garden, however, I have to say it’s gorgeous. It is a skill: Gardening. Everyone cannot be a good gardener. It takes time. One has to be able to understand the Nature. One has to be sensitive enough to understand how to coordinate colours and textures. And one can also learn so much about Buddhism by understanding gardening.

Once a Buddhist monk witnessed a storm. He was meditating in his hut and outside was a massive gale. The next day early morning, he got up and went out of his hut. It was a gigantic mess. Tree branches strewn all over, leaves ripped apart from the trees. This monk was observing everything that was around him.

Then he noticed that among the leaves on the ground, there were young green leaves, and some yellow ones, and lots of brown ones. The brown ones would have easily fallen off the trees. And yet, there were young shoots also lying on the ground. And then he looked at the trees. On the branches, there were young green leaves and yellow ones. And also some brown ones. Instantly the realisation struck him about what life was. This was death. Mother Nature was teaching this monk a profound lesson. The leaves were symbolic of all the people on Earth- The young, the middle-aged and the elderly. And the trees symbolized life.