Buddha in the Garden, by Upasika Yoly
Buddha in the Garden is a charming and delightful book about how someone seeking to live by the tenets of the Buddha can manage a garden. The author moved from creating an organic garden in the lush Willamette Valley, with abundant rainfall and fertile earth, to a place in Arizona where limited rainfall and scarcity of nutrients made a garden a target for insects and animals. To protect a garden in such an arid climate, how is the concept of no killing resolved? Or can it be? By looking at each pest and guest with a calm mind, the author developed a deeper appreciation of how to avoid just being reactive. Right View leads her to Right Action. To replace a 'Fix it Now!' mentality with a calm 'how does this action reflect the wheel of life?' guides her to a deeper understanding that the order of life and death also leads to renewal and rebirth. Her individual chapters on dealing with specific guests and pests ranges from the deeply insightful to the playfully ...