Organic Garden of Peace

"What is the spirit behind spiritual seekers who hated demons and devils excessively?", a young man asked. Similar to the path of growth in school, at the beginning the spiritual journey is also very black and white. Students are prohibited to do this and that. Those who are in line are friends,  those who are not in line are opponents. But once spiritual seekers  grow older, they begin to see the spiritual life which is far beyond the box of black and white.

The same thing happen to meditation journey. Many friends keep fighting with themselves at the beginning. Norms, religion, belief, traditions  appear as the judges who make many novice keep fighting within. Guilty of the past, bad memory, the ideas of sin make the inner fighting even worse.

Similar to gardening, all the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, like and dislike, praised and blamed are treated as organic materials which are in the process of blooming into peace. It is as simple as dry leaves which are in the process of being flowers. It as natural as organic wastes. They appear to be wastes, but one day they will bloom into flowers as well.

Before being touched by meditation, the mind is strongly gripped by the duality such as devil-divine, satan-God, bad-good, wrong-right. Once someone grow deep in meditation and treat everything as organic materials that keep growing into flower of peace, one day the grip of dualistic mind begins to weaken. The grip becomes weaker and weaker from day to day, that's the important sign that some one grow on the path of meditation.

That is the reason why many friends who grow deep in meditation are rarely argue loudly. Very few of meditation students who attain high level of attainment like to judge those who follow the different paths. Mainly because the dualistic mind is no longer becomes their master.

On the path of meditation there is a simple yet deep message like this: "Anica, Anatta, Nirvana". Everything in nature is the subject to the law of impermanence (Anica). Both living beings and dead things are all impermanent. Forcing the impermanent into something permanent, that is the root of suffering.

Once a person understands deeply the idea of impermanent, their life are no longer rigid, they begin to flow (anatta). There is no permanent self, but there's flowing self. There is no independent self, but there is an interdependent self.

Deeply experience that everything flow in a connectedness, that is beautiful peace (Nirvana). In this level of peace, the devil is no longer the enemy of God. The devil is actually an evolving divine. As often quoted here, darkness is not the enemy of light. It is because the kindness of darkness then you can see touching light.

This is exactly the same as the art of gardening, everything in the garden are organic materials which keep growing following their impermanent laws. That's the reason why some meditation masters like Thich Nhat Hanh keep suggesting to meditation students to be the skillful garden of mind.

There is frangipani trees that need very little water but plenty of sunshine. There is lotus tree that needs a lot of water and a lot of sunlight as well. The same thing happen to the body, feelings, the mind inside. Treat body, feeling, mind as skillful as you treat your garden. That's what exactly this article means by being an organic gardener of peace. Welcome home beautiful souls.

Author: Gede Prama
Photo Courtesy: Twitter @FlowersArticles

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