Style: November 02, 2018

STYLE | landscaping 47
W
hen you go out into your garden, are you truly present? Are you really
experiencing each moment? The smell of the plants; the touch of a leaf on your
shoulder; the feel of dirt between your fingers? Or are you thinking about your list of
chores, planning a birthday party, or even talking on the phone?
Jon Kabat-Zinn is the founder of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction
programme, which he developed to help patients deal with stress, pain and illness
at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He defines mindfulness as the
“awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment,
non-judgementally”. If you are not experiencing the moments in your life as they occur,
but are instead thinking about the past or future, then are you really living this life? If
you spend your life thinking and not experiencing, then your life is really just an illusion
created by your mind. Your actual life is passing you by, while you are thinking about
what you are having for dinner tonight.
It is, of course, the very nature of the mind to wander, and this is okay. When you
realise it has happened, just gently bring it back. Herein lies the practice. There is no
point in doing this for 20 minutes sitting on a cushion in the morning, then being a
frazzled animal for the rest of the day. Being mindful during the day gives you your true
life experience back, and correspondingly the joy that comes from little things that you
may otherwise miss.
A garden is an ideal place to practise mindfulness, containing so many things to
be consciously aware of – things that activate the senses. The call of a thrush in the
evening air; the smell of freshly cut wood; the softness of a petal. If you cannot be
mindful in your garden, how on earth can you be mindful in the rest of your life?
So, how can you design a garden to help you remain mindful? The answer is to
provide as many things as possible to activate your five senses, to remind you to come
back into the moment, each time you experience them.
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