Deep Roots in Buddha's Garden

The last job I undertook before I left Sonoma Mountain Zen Center last Thursday was to clear the Buddha's Garden of the lemon balm, which someone had planted years ago and which had slowly overtaken many of the other plants. It was somewhat strenuous work, but deeply satisfying. The plants were tall and closely spaced, and the ground was soft from having been watered, and the plants came up easily with some, but not all of their roots intact. Lemon balm is deeply aromatic. As I worked my gloves took on a lovely citrus-y smell. It took me about an hour to clear the garden and another fifteen minutes to carry armsful of the weed to the composting bin--which happened to be exactly as much time as I had to give. Sally, the head gardener, was happy. It was a good beginning to her job of transforming the Buddha's Garden from a neglected to a loved space.

As I drove away I thought about the hard work she faces if she wants truly to control the lemon balm. For the plants I pulled up are not singular individuals but rather offshoots of a larger plant whose deep roots wind throughout the bed like a river from which many creeks flow. From time to time as I weeded I would touch that larger structure. I could feel its age and strength. Eventually, it will need to be dug out with great care and determination. Until then someone will have to go in and pull up lemon balm on a regular basis or it will re-take the entire bed. Even as I write this four days later I imagine that new shoots of the lemon balm have begun to appear.

Intensive practice--staying at a Zen Center or going on a retreat--is a little like weeding lemon balm. Sometimes the work goes smoothly. Other times the ground is hard or the weather extreme and the work is difficult, even painful. But at the end we can feel the results: a greater sense of mental ease and spaciousness, a new sense of joy and calm. How wonderful! But sooner or later, within hours or days, the deeper structure that gave rise to all the karma the retreat cleared away--the anger or sense of grievance or restlessness or boredom--gives rise to new karma, and our minds become crowded again with the exact same species of dissatisfaction that we worked so hard to eradicate during our intensive practice.

This is the great work of life and death. If we want to finish it then we have to find a way to dig out that deeply rooted karmic system that lies at the sub-stratum of the self. And that's why we promise to return, lifetime after lifetime, because those roots are deep and strong, and it takes a long time to discover where they lie and how best to remove them.