Sowing Seeds (And Digging Up Roots)

I just returned from a Deer Park retreat in Escondido, CA, a mindfulness practice center in the tradition of Plum Village/Thich Nhat Hanh. The retreat theme was, "Turning Outward with Inward Stability," with the encouragement to increase our engagement with our world. Mindfulness practice is twofold:

1) taking care of suffering 
2) cultivating happiness and freedom

Another way to look at this might be to know the mud, but to also know the lotuses. How do we cultivate delight everyday? How do we encourage the lotus to grow and push up through the muck? 

These questions corresponds nicely with the April mindfulness theme of sowing seeds. How do we plant seeds of peace, love and understanding in our daily lives? When we engage someone with our smile, hold the door open for an elder, shovel snow for our neighbor (spring in Tahoe:), we sow seeds that can't help but grow beautiful flowers. These simple acts could be called right conditions. Using our spring gardens as metaphors--with fertile ground, sunlight and rain, the cherry tree blooms effortlessly. Consciously cultivating the right conditions in ourselves and in our loved ones is our mindfulness practice. When we do so, suffering is lessened right away.    

I feel a poem coming on...."In the garden of a clear mind, a flower blooms..."