Meditate While Gardening

Avid gardeners, like Wendy Johnson in California, have often claimed there are therapeutic and meditative benefits involved with this outside work. Twenty-five years ago, before it was all the rage, Johnson began a program of organic gardening at the Green Gulch Farm Center and chose to live there as well, where she raised her family, teaching farming practices and meditation.  Nowadays, she is still contemplating how Buddhism, meditation, and gardening all relate to each other.
 
She just published a memoir entitled, Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate: At Work in the Wild and Cultivated World, where she asks questions such as, is it okay for Buddhists to crush snails? In addition to writing, she still teaches meditation and practices it daily at Green Gulch, “finding Zen perspectives even in compost.”
 
Whether or not you choose to devote yourself to meditation as deeply and as long as Johnson has, it is worth thinking about the many activities out there where meditation could be relevant.  In other words, it is not always defined by sitting in a room by yourself. What existing aspects of your life could be complemented by some meditating? [The New York Times]