I LOVE GARDENING, but I'm not as diligent about removing weeds as I'd like to be. If left to propagate, they'll take over the whole plot, leaving my beautiful flowers unable to flourish and bloom. Reading an article in a gardening magazine, I learned a better way to defend my garden—by planting the flowers closer together, weeds are discouraged from growing in the first place because there's no room for them to develop.
So I took this idea further and asked myself what qualities I was cultivating in my own, inner, spiritual garden of thought. Was I allowing unproductive and destructive feelings to grow? And what qualities should I be planting close together, so these destructive weeds of emotion are excluded from taking root?
I pondered this some years ago when digging over a large patch of ground in order to plant my vegetable plot. An argument with a family member had put me in a bad mood, and as I dug, angry and resentful thoughts kept churning around. Suddenly I realized I was getting nowhere.
