"Gardening helps us realize somatically, viscerally, the laws of growth and gradual unfolding. We can't pull the plants up to make them grow, but we can help facilitate and midwife their blooming, each in his own way, time, and proper season. I have learned a little about patience and humility from my gardens. It's so obviously not something I'm doing that creates this miracle! I also like to reflect upon and appreciate the exquisitely, evanescent, transitory, and poignant nature of things in the garden. If you love the Dharma, you have to farm it. Go to a garden. Just stand in it. Breathe in the air, the fragrances, the light, the temperature, the music of the different plants, insects, birds, worms, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and butterflies. Inhale the prana (cosmic energy) of all the abundantly growing things. Recharge your inner batteries. This is the joy of natural meditation."
- Lama Surya Das, Awakening to the Sacred, 1999