Virya Paramita - gardening the mind with diligence, perseverance and energetic joy

Not everyone is into gardening, nor is everyone fortunate enough to have a garden. But, we humans have consciousness - and if we choose to we can practise cultivating a beautiful mind with the same enthusiastic joy we might invest in our garden.

Like a gardener’s seed store, in the depths of our store consciousness we have a whole array of wonderful seeds, waiting to be sown. But this selection doesn’t just include lovely looking examples of fauna - there are also a whole selection of nasty weeds, if allowed to grow the type that could give us backache after hours spent pulling them out only to watch them re-grow.

These seeds in our store consciousness are a mixture of negative mind activity - fear, anger and ignorance and positive mental activity - understanding, compassion and forgiveness. Many of the seeds that exist in our store consciousness have been handed down from our parents, guardians, society and ancestors. 

To ensure our mind doesn’t end up as a garden of weeds, one whose angry stinging nettles hurt others we need to practice the same diligence as an expert gardener. We need to cultivate and water the positive ones so we can bring happiness to the upper levels of consciousness, as we strengthen these positive seeds we can bring more joy to those around us. The negative seeds must be watched carefully, if we see them starting to grow we must avoid watering them so they wilt and don’t take hold of us.

In relating to others we can take the same approach - we can notice when negativity starts to arise and do our best to prevent it. We can also encourage positivity and seek to provide the conditions for it to arise and remain.

The best opportunity to practise diligence is perhaps when conditions are particularly challenging and we’re faced with the frequent arising of our negative thought patterns and emotions. We can learn to be grateful for testing times and the opportunity to practise that they present.

This gardening of the mind should be carried out with energetic joy, diligence and perseverance. The seeds are there - it’s our job to cultivate those that will lead to happiness.

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Is Yoga political?

When we practise Yoga we interrogate the mind and our experience of what’s happening to develop an awareness of our thoughts, feelings and behavioural tendencies. What we may discover is that much of what we think and many of the things we say and do have been learned from our ancestors, families and friends and society. This adoption of behaviours and traditions, without questioning their impact, can lead us to do things that may not only be damaging to ourselves but also to others. We may also find ourselves denying that our actions cause harm or even seeking to justify our behaviour, just because we deem it to be ‘normal, natural or necessary’. We might even seek to defend societal norms, perhaps because they offer us benefits, privilege or just align with our preferences - i.e. the gender pay gap, not allowing homosexual couples to adopt children or the right to exploit certain animals. 

As insight and awareness develop we may begin to see that we are not isolated from the world around us, in fact, we’re very much connected with everything else - we are political because our words and actions affect. When mindful of the impact we have on the world we can begin to behave in ways that contribute to the building of a more peaceful environment for everyone that lives here. We may see that it simply isn’t in our interest to think, say or do things that cause others to experience suffering.

Throughout the world, humans and other sentient beings are being exploited and oppressed. This oppression can go completely unnoticed as it is so ingrained in our belief systems. Invisible moral hierarchies permit the exploitation of some animals for transport, others for experimentation, entertainment or for food. In different countries, the acceptable species to exploit varies, but the same belief system of oppression remains the same. 

In some areas of the world social progress has led to the dismantling of some oppressive political systems and legislation that restricted the freedom of choice of certain people. In other areas, however, oppression remains or is being exacerbated by those that currently wield power. Oppression shows that there is a dysfunction in our relationships, not just as individuals but also as social groups, or as nations. When we find ourselves wedded to a mentality that permits oppression we will not only continue to harm humans and nonhuman animals but we will perpetuate the environmental devastation of planet Earth, the place we depend on for life. 

As Yogis, if we wish to work towards awareness and liberation from suffering we must see that our thoughts, words and actions are part of the bigger picture. In 1950 a father whose young son had died wrote to Albert Einstein asking for some comforting words. An excerpt from Einstein’s reply is below - it sums up very well the challenge we face as humans and how we should approach it.

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

The letter was quoted in the New York Times on 29 March 1972 and the New York Post on 28 November 1972.

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