Watering the Seeds of Mindfulness with Zachiah Murray

Zachiah Murray tells us that mindfulness is an awareness of what is around us and within us in the moment, so that we can see deeply without being caught in the past or the future. She says mindfulness has a different flavor from meditation, “Meditation tends to take you from the outside very deeply inward. Mindfulness does the same thing in it centers you, but you are aware of everything that’s happening; it brings you ultimately right into what you’re experiencing, from touching this table cloth to feeling my feet on the ground, to seeing you across the table. It is really being present to those things and it often uses the breath to do that.” She goes on to describe how gardening encourages mindfulness because it requires our immediate attention and the attention of all our senses. She likens cultivating a garden to spiritual practice, inspiring each person to accept themselves and start where they are, weeds and all. Through the practice of mindful gardening, we invite not only the thriving of the natural world but also the flowering and beauty of the pure land of our true self to emerge. (hosted by Justine Willis Toms)

Bio

Zachiah Murray is a landscape architect and member of the Order of Interbeing in the lineage of Thich Nhat Hanh.

She’s the author of:

• Mindfulness in the Garden: Zen Tools for Digging in the Dirt

Topics Explored in This Dialogue

• How she did a walkabout blindfolded in the New Zealand bush
• What is Mindfulness practice
• How weeding can teach us compassion, loving-kindness, and love
• How can we deal with the less desirable critters in our gardens
• What to do when seeds don’t grow
• Why our failures tell us more about ourselves than our successes
• How, as our gardens grow, we grow

Host: Justine Willis Toms          Interview Date: 1/12/2013            Program Number: 3461

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