One Sunday morning in October, I accept the invitation of a wooden bench that sits amidst the glory of the Monastery flower garden. It is a perfect fall day. Sunlight glitters on the oak leaves, lazy white clouds scud across a bright blue sky and a butterfly floats on a gentle breeze. At my feet, the flowers spill over in joyous and colored abandon—crimson hollyhocks, purple morning glories and orange marigolds. The bee orchestra is busily playing to the accompaniment of squabbling squirrels and trilling song birds. I sit on the bench enjoying an intense moment of being alive, part of an abundant, joyous and ebullient universe.
A bumblebee makes a dizzy crash landing on the open face of a lovely morning glory and disappears into the soft flowery interior. Minutes go by; it reappears covered in flower dust and happily takes off for the next flower.
What an incredible exchange to witness—the generous offering and grateful receiving of sweetness. What a wonderfully intimate and yet impersonal orientation Life has! There is no word for “mine,” it seems, in Life’s vocabulary. Everything is Life’s for Life- freely and openly offered, nothing hoarded, nothing jealously guarded, nothing defended, nothing owned and nothing owed.
How completely opposite is ego’s orientation, dividing Life into yours and mine, taking what is not given. It marks its turf, guards its territory, defends its point of view, asserts its rights to control what it perceives its purview, rejects what it conceives is unimportant, cares nothing for what is not its own, jealously apportions what it has and resists anything that would breach its boundaries. It denies us all a membership in Life’s club.
I am inspired by this garden teaching to practice offering and receiving all that is given. For as Rumi says: “Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”
Gassho,
Ashwini