The Meditation of Gardening
- Dylan Bartholomew
- Mar 30
- 3 min read
Many moons ago I was attempting the Duke of Edinburgh award, and I found myself stumped on the service section - no shade but what can a teenager exactly offer to any business or charity honestly. But, alas, the Fo Guang Shan temple in East Auckland took me under their wing to do my weekly service with their supervision, and it honestly changed how I see the world for the long term... well after a few years of maturity I realized that.
Meditation is painful but by that I mean the one you are picturing in your head, sat cross legged and humming into sweet oblivion. That I could never do, and still can't, as an overly active person sitting still really makes me stress out, but 'Active Meditation'? That sounds like something I can be involved with. Especially if it pairs with another hobby of mine - Gardening.
Sweeping. That was how they got me started. Every week I would go, be handed a broom, and I would sweep until I had completed the interior quad corridors, and that may sound horrid, until you gamify it. For me it was a time trial, trying to beat myself week after week, but occasionally someone would slow and tell me 'The tool does half the work, and you do half the work, as a team', or 'use this time to meditate' . I think that as much as I wanted to believe myself a spiritual teen, I was really an angsty teen with a lot of pent up emotion (and later learned some mental health limitations I wasn't looking after), so these lessons were somewhat lost on me, but I did appreciate that they wanted to involve me with their practices.
Fun fact, once a year I go back to the temple, because it still brings me an amount of peace, and is one of my favorite landscapes in Auckland. I no longer sweep it, although if they asked me I might very well say yes, but I do walk the corridors subconsciously and consider myself carefully. With all the crazy changes in my life and the world I exist within, it's really truthfully very nice to have a place like that, that I can walk by muscle memory, that has forgotten me but I haven't forgotten the lessons it taught me. But, active meditation has continued to exist outside of the temple.
In my little garden I can disappear for a period of time, and no not every time I go out there do I feel some kind of tranquil, sometimes it can be quite stressful, but on the times that I do slow down, consider my actions, watch the birds fly in and out, water the peppers, scratch the cat through the glass (she's dumb but I love her), I can genuinely disconnect from the world for a small amount of time, and reclaim some of my mental clarity.
This might all come across as a little bit preachy, and I get it, but this is all to say that gardening doesn't have to feel like a chore. It can be your escape, or a way to see more in the little things. I'd love to hear that more people stick their hands in dirt (gloved if you prefer) to perform better in what they enjoy.
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