Garden Notebook 12/4/14 ~
I was out in the garden early this evening talking to the roses. They were telling me how much they appreciated the shower yesterday. I looked upon beautiful Brandy and I do believe she was winking at me!
11/30/14
This morning there is a blessed light rain in the garden. I went out and swept around the drains in anticipation of the coming downpour. The mist on my face focused attention on the task and my hair is now pleasantly damp as I write. To find our work and ask for nothing more. This is the practice.
I was contemplating a passage from Dudjom Rinpoche concerning meditation: “Whatever thoughts arise, let them arise. Do not follow after them and do not suppress them. If you ask, “In that case, what should I do?” whatever objective phenomena arise, whatever appears, do not grasp phenomena’s appearing aspect, simply rest in a fresh state, like a small child looking inside a temple.”
As I looked west from my garden, I beheld this stunning, fiery sunset and felt as if I were that small child looking inside a temple.
It didn’t need it, but I had a little creative fun and added the Cathedral to amplify the vision… that’s my nature!
This image was captured many years ago. I hiked to the top of the hill behind our Sand Canyon home, and I had the overwhelming sensation that if I could just go a few feet higher, I could actually reach out and touch this delightful Strato Cumulus cloud. It was right there!
Wind carries cloud cover east.
Unstable moisture gathering weight.
Holding fast to the line.
There are 3 elements necessary in order for a rainbow to exist: rain, sunlight, and the aperture through which the rainbow is viewed. We are the aperture through which the universe views rainbows! You see, that is why we are here. We are the apertures through which the universe is manifested. There could be no greater purpose than this!
~ Jeff’s Garden Notebook
“When you see that ordinary mind is the Buddha mind, you can see that everyday life as it is, is the great thing. There is no difference between that and the divine mind.”
~Alan Watts
“What is now the foliage moving?
Air is still, and hush’d the breeze,
Sultriness, this fullness loving,
Through the thicket, from the trees.
Now the eye at once gleams brightly,
See! the infant band with mirth
Moves and dances nimbly, lightly,
As the morning gave it birth,
Flutt’ring two and two o’er earth.”
~ Goethe
Parked in traffic coming back from Vegas a couple of years ago and looked off to the south to behold this spectacular vista. I might have missed this had we been flying along at 80mph. Sometimes we need to force ourselves to slow down in order to see the world as it truly is.
Jeff's Zen Garden 