Watering the Seeds

Gardeners are meticulously choosy about what grows in their soil. With great care, they pull out the weeds and they water the vegetables, fruits and flowers they want to nurture.

Can we take this same approach with our lives? We’re told that we can.

The Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh had a practical way of describing the challenge and the opportunity we face on the path to spiritual growth. Nhat Hanh, affectionately called Thay (meaning “teacher” in Vietnamese), encouraged us to think of our minds as a piece of land that has been planted with many kinds of seeds.

Within each of us, he taught, we carry both beneficial and harmful seeds. Our minds hold the seeds of love, kindness, generosity and understanding along with the seeds of anger, greed, jealousy and hate. As in any garden, the seeds that are watered consistently are the ones that will take root and grow.

As Thich Nhat Hanh put it, “The quality of your life depends on the seeds you water.”

That’s a point worth contemplating. Thay was reminding us that at the root of our being, none of us is purely good or bad. We all carry the potential to lean one way or the other, depending on which attributes we nurture on a regular basis.

Which seeds do we hope will thrive within us? How do we want our interior garden to look? I wish you joy and peace as you cultivate the soil of your mind with careful intention.

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Photographer’s Footnote: I spotted these bricks on a wall inside Brakeman’s Coffee in Matthews, North Carolina. Someone had drawn roots sprouting from the space between bricks.