Gardening itself can be an act of meditation, as recently portrayed in the book The Meditative Gardener by Cheryl Wilfong. Dropping your preoccupation with the future and the past seems more possible with hands immersed in earth and your smile exposed to the sun.

When you garden, you connect with your environment in a powerful way. You become intimate with the cycle of life. You can notice the change in the seasons and how each season blends into the next — spring starts in winter with buds showing through the retreating snow, and the leaves start to fall in late summer. The insects have their own life cycles and agendas, and in watching the earthworms and the ants, you can see a larger pattern to life. You can see the interconnection of the roots and the soil, the creatures and rain. You can eat that which you have grown yourself and feel connected to the earth in a way you may have never known before. Gardening is a meditative act and an affirmation of life.

Try sitting in a garden and practicing breathing meditation. Moments of wakefulness may come as you drop your stories and notice the life around you. Lose yourself in the sound of the birds, the delicate tapping of the rain on leaves. Hear the movement of water and the flow of a gentle breeze. Anyone who spends time outdoors knows the connection between every living thing on earth.