Tending the Garden - Dousing Fires and Uprooting Weeds

Dousing Fires

In these uncertain times plagued by violence and destruction across the globe, we are constantly bombarded with the heat of tension and heaps of stress that may ignite into flames.

If our house went up in flames, wouldn’t we want to put it out? Yet if there was a raging fire sweeping over a hill in the distance, we might not feel as immediately threatened. Instead, we may neglect dousing the flames.

Yet dousing fires is an urgent matter, no matter how close or far they are. Reflecting on the unpredictability of fire would tell us that our house may soon fall victim to fire just like the burning hill. Now is the time to act, while we still have a chance. Similarly, if our own bodies were to burst into flames, wouldn’t we be ready to save ourselves by putting out the fire?

Look for Water

In the face of fire, our immediate instinct might be to look for water. Everyone knows that water puts out fire. Likewise with the strategy many of us may have learned as children: stop, drop, and roll.

Water (or rolling in the dirt) is the logical antidote to fire. Likewise, the fires that burn within have their own respective antidotes. So what about those flames burning within? How do we put out those fires?

In the Buddhist framework, such inner fires are treated as poisons. Each poison has its respective antidote. For instance, the flames of greed, anger, and delusion should be overcome by their opposites. Greed should be overcome with generosity. Anger and aversion, with loving-kindness. Delusion with wisdom. This is how one goes about dousing the fires.

Fight Fire With Fire

Easier said than done. What if there’s no water to be found? Sometimes one must fight fire with fire.

It's worth clarifying that Buddhist teachings never have us add greed to greed, anger to anger, or delusion to delusion. To fight fire with fire doesn't have to involve the same kinds of fire running up against each other. One fire, serving as an antidote, is carefully regulated while the other (a wildfire, the fires burning within) is uncontrolled. The regulated fire, in this case, is a skillful means to overcome the wildfire. Sometimes we must use regulated force to burn through and uproot unwholesome tendencies. Thus, the Buddha invokes another set of imagery to demonstrate how to quell the flames.

The task of dousing fires by fighting fire with fire can be compared to uprooting weeds.

Uprooting Weeds

Summarizing the Buddhist perspective is the metaphor of uprooting weeds from the “Mula Sutta.” In this discourse, the Buddha identifies the fires that burn within (greed, anger, and delusion) as unwholesome roots. He declares that one whose bodily actions, speech, and mind are overcome with these unwholesome roots will suffer in the present and in the future, in like manner “as a sal tree, a birch, or an aspen, when smothered & surrounded by three parasitic vines, falls into misfortune, falls into disaster, falls into misfortune & disaster.” (Thanissaro Bhikkhu)

Importantly, one who is free from these weed-like vines, these poisons and fires, is instead imbued with wholesome roots. The image that follows provides a detailed description of the weeding process, helping paint a picture of how to go about uprooting weeds.

First, imagine “a sal tree, a birch, or an aspen, smothered & surrounded by three parasitic vines.” These are greed, anger, and delusion, weeds that invade the garden of the mind. One must practice tending the garden. Here is how the process unfolds:

“A man would come along, carrying a spade & a basket.

He would cut the vines at the root and, having cut them at the root, would dig around them. 

Having dug around them, he would pull them out, even down to the rootlets. 

He would cut the stalks of the vines. 

Having cut them, he would slice them into splinters. 

Having sliced them into splinters, he would pound them into bits. 

Having pounded them into bits, he would dry them in the wind & sun. 

Having dried them in the wind & sun, he would burn them in a fire. 

Having burned them in a fire, he would reduce them to powdered ash. 

Having reduced them to powdered ash, he would winnow them before a high wind or let them be washed away in a swift-flowing stream. 

In that way the parasitic vines would have their root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future arising.” (Thanissaro Bhikkhu)

Tending the Garden

Through this process, one is sure to uproot the weeds (unwholesome habits), thus tending the garden (one's mind) with care and creating the conditions for flourishing.

A person who is able to weed out unwholesome roots may then plant wholesome roots in their place, again tending the garden and supporting its health. These wholesome roots will generate wholesome fruits. Thus, one will neither suffer in the present nor in the future, as one's mind will be free of weeds, poison, fire, and invasive vines that threaten to choke its saplings. Meanwhile, both the social and natural worlds will flourish like a garden free from weeds.

What method will you use for dousing fires - uprooting weeds - tending the garden? We’ll address a few specific methods (e.g., mettā, satipaṭṭhāna, etc.) in the next posts. Stay tuned!