The garden metaphor

[BlackBird]

Hello friends and Venerable Sirs.

I am working with the garden metaphor.

(Planting seeds, tending to seeds, chipping away at the giant trees, weeding the garden of undesirable plants, planting the right seeds - just for starters)

Does anyone else here use this metaphor in evaluation? Can you share your experience if this is so.

Metta
Jack.

[cooran]

Hello BlackBird, all,

You may enjoy this teaching by Ayya Khema on The Meditative Mind which uses an extended garden metaphor.
http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/khe ... e_mind.php

metta
Chris

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

See also...

AN 3.33: Nidana Sutta
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

Metta,
Retro.

[Jechbi]

Off-topic, but here's another famous garden analogy: The Invisible Gardener. Shades of anatta?

[Dhammanando]

"Therefore, bhikkhus, abandon what is unwholesome and devote yourselves to wholesome states, for that is how you will come to growth, increase, and fulfilment in this Dhamma and Discipline. Suppose there were a big sala-tree grove near a village or town, and it was choked with castor-oil weeds, and some man would appear desiring its good, welfare, and protection. He would cut down and throw out the crooked saplings that robbed the sap, and he would clean up the interior of the grove and tend the straight well-formed saplings, so that the sala-tree grove later on would come to growth, increase, and fulfilment. So too, bhikkhus, abandon what is unwholesome and devote yourselves to wholesome states, for that is how you will come to growth, increase, and fulfilment in this Dhamma and Discipline."
(MN. 21)