9781608682522

Come See the Garden That Is Your Life

When Zen teacher Karen Maezen Miller and her family land in a house with a hundred-year-old Japanese garden, she uses the paradise in her backyard to glean the living wisdom of our natural world. Through her eyes, rocks convey faith, ponds preach stillness, flowers give love, and leaves express the effortless ease of letting go. The book welcomes readers into the garden for Zen lessons in fearlessness, forgiveness, presence, acceptance, and contentment. Miller gathers inspiration from the ground beneath her feet to remind us that paradise is always here and now.

Karen Maezen Miller is a Zen Buddhist priest, meditation teacher, and self-described “delinquent mother and reluctant dog walker.” Her writing is also found in The Best Buddhist Writing 2007 and The Maternal is Political. She lives in Los Angeles County.

Prologue: Paradise

The origin of the word “paradise” reveals its hidden whereabouts.

Part 1:
Coming Here
Have faith in yourself as the Way.

Chapter 1: Curb—The view from a distance

The first part of the book describes the signposts for finding the garden, and with it, one’s own paradise. The curb is separation, or ignorance, the erroneous view that we are separate from the world we inhabit. Afraid of making a mistake, unable to trust what we do not know, we stand paralyzed at a crossroads. After two years of a long-distance marriage, my husband and I begin the search for a home in common. On a half-hearted house hunting expedition, we arrive in front of an empty house on a quiet street in an ordinary suburb, where there is no hint of the treasure we’ll find if we are brave enough to step inside.

Chapter 2: Gate —What’s holding you back

The gate is fear in all its clever guises: ambivalence, cynicism, self-deception, anxiety and doubt. In Zen, this barrier is called the “gateless gate” because it’s only an illusion. An old and flimsy garden gate stands at the front of the property. It’s half-rotten and leans to one side. Similarly, the mental limitations that hold us back aren’t real, but they form the threshold for every moment of our lives. How do we go beyond fear? Anyone can pass through by simply taking a step, and then another.

Chapter 3: Path—Straight on

The path is the way. Like the sidewalk from the gate to the front door, there’s no way to get lost, because the path is always beneath your feet. Stepping one foot in front of the other, we have an overwhelming sense of arrival. The years of feeling adrift, abandoned, conflicted and confused have led to this irreversible point. Without knowing, we are in a state of active mindfulness, or total awareness. This new and unfamiliar place seems like home, where we feel relief and belonging.

Chapter 4: Ground—Here it is

The ground is the place. The point of Zen is to settle on the ground. It was a radical departure from the altitudes I’d been scaling on my climb to so-called success. I’d traveled a long way to see what was keeping me airborne: avoiding the real work of planting myself on the ground, the one place to cultivate satisfaction and fulfillment.

Chapter 5: Sun—What you see

Sun is illumination, the light of wisdom. The sun is always overhead, lighting our way. Once the garden comes into full view, a spectacular and serene panorama, the future is clear. This is our home. This is our life. This is our work and practice. It is always waiting for us to bring it to life.

Chapter 6: Moon—What you don’t see

Moon is wholeness. It is always complete even if you can only see a sliver. Second thoughts inevitably set in. We feel inadequate, untrained, and over our heads. But the moon's light assures that the sun will rise and show you exactly what to do in the morning. With the moon as our companion, we can see our way through many dark nights.

Part 2:
Living Now

Cover the ground where you stand.

Chapter 7: Rocks —The remains of faith

Part 2 depicts the work to maintain the garden—the practice of mindfulness—and its application to daily activities and relationships. The first hands-on work in the garden is to uncover the rocks obscured by overgrowth and neglect. Rocks are faith, the foundation of the landscape and the secret to the garden’s longevity. Keep the bare and unblemished face of the rocks in clear sight or you will lose your way.

Chapter 8: Ponds —No wind, no waves

Ponds are stillness, the heart of the garden. Looking past its adornments you can see that the garden is formed almost entirely of still water. A pond is like the mirror of our mind: if the surface is disturbed, it's because we've tossed troublesome stuff into it. When we allow the pond to be still, the mud settles, the water clears and balance is restored. Ponds preach the power of meditation to clear the mind and reflect an open sky.

Chapter 9: Roots —Giving life

Roots are lineage, the unfathomable source of life. The garden's hundred-year-old oak tree exemplifies lineage. The grandfather oak doesn’t deal in delusional thinking about the past: the questions of what, who, when or how. It stands upright, giving shelter, shade and life to the universe here now. We embody the past and birth the future moment by moment. Isn’t that meaning enough?

Chapter 10: Pine —Taking life away

Pine is impermanence. A masterfully pruned pine is the pinnacle of the garden. Our pines have seen better days, and yet, they are still here. In the dying art of Japanese pine tree pruning, an old gardener reveals the beauty and dignity in life’s continual performance: disappearing.

Chapter 11: Palm —The eternal now

Palm is time. Time seems to accelerate as we grow old. Every day it’s more evident how little remains. Yet the garden is dotted with prolific sago palms, a prehistoric species unchanged from the Jurassic age.

Chapter 12: Bamboo—A forest of emptiness
Bamboo is strong because it is hollow. When we empty ourselves of fixed opinions about how things should be, we stand supple and straight. If one falls; all fall. Bamboo teaches the awesome responsibility of our interdependence and the true nature of togetherness.

Part 3:
Letting Go

Become the least grain of sand.

Chapter 13: Fruit—Swallowing whole
The third part of the book shares the parting gifts of the garden, the legacy we leave behind. Fruit is atonement, the act that heals the past, releases the future and makes life taste good. When the past is forgotten, nothing remains but gratitude.

Chapter 14: Flowers—Love is letting go
Flowers are love, a perfect offering of oneself. Love showers the ground we walk on when we let our ideas of perfection go.

Chapter 15: Leaves—The ease of undoing
Leaves express the effort of no effort, freedom from the expectations of outcome or gain. Ease isn’t inertia, but fearless acceptance.

Chapter 16: Weeds—A flourishing practice
Weeds are practice. I can pull weeds every day and never be finished. When we see the weeds of anger, greed and ignorance, pluck them. Be vigilant in weeding or you’ll be overtaken and entangled.

Chapter 17: Sound—Not what you think
The sound is not-knowing. Spend a few minutes mesmerized by the ballet of the summer dragonflies and you’ll know what you don’t knowThe birds sing, the stream gurgles, and the frog croaks. All of it is beyond our comprehension.

Chapter 18: Silence— Not what you say
Silence is truth, and truth speaks for itself. At the outset, I thought the garden, my life, presented something overwhelming to accomplish: a reinvention, an achievement, a master stroke. But my job is the same as everyone’s. There is a ready-made paradise in your own backyard. The work is solitary and silent: sweeping up the traces of yourself.

Epilogue: Rules for a Mindful Garden
Keeping it short and simple in four rules given to children who visit the garden.

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Paradise in Plain Sight Lessons from a Zen Garden

Paradise in Plain Sight Lessons from a Zen Garden

1608682528

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