The Buddha in the Garden: Growing our own food

Using our Garden to cultivate our 5 gems for Heart-health-wealth-mind-spiritual

Metta Centre collaboration with Small Seeds Big Feeds

Led by Eric Brocken, Ling Halbert and Tom Halbert

5 week course Wednesday nights on 14/7, 21/7, 28/7, 4/8 , 11/8 7-8.30pm

via Zoom

Cost: By Donation

The garden is a good teacher for us, teaching us many Buddhist principles and allowing us to develop our spiritual qualities. Gardening teaches us interdependency, impermanence, karma, learning to observe and respect nature, letting go of our need to control, teaching us patience, kindness, gentleness, calmness, mindfulness, and interconnectedness with our world and our food.

This course embraces the principles of Buddhism and applies this to our gardens. The course will also discuss the benefits of growing our own food and how to do it. Whether you are a beginner gardener starting out your vege garden, or want to take your gardening to a new (spiritual) level, whether you are Buddhist or not, this course is for you.

There are many benefits in incorporating gardening in your spiritual practice. It allows us an opportunity to reflect on the Buddha’s teachings, grow our happiness, peace of mind, relieves stress, develop our presence, take care of our planet and our health, builds community and becomes a place for our spiritual growth.

Metta Centre has invited the team from Small Seeds Big Feeds to present this workshop. The presenters will be presenting five topics or ‘Gems’ as they call them. These gems cover what you need to know for growing your own food. The Gems are: soil, seeds, growing, animals and harvest. Moreover, the presenters will explore the Small Seeds Big Feeds approach of the five Sets that increases our wellbeing as a whole: mindset, heartset, healthset, wealthset and spiritset.

Program & what to bring:

14/7: Eric presents on Soil. Please bring:

a)     a clear glass jar of your soil

b)     list of any composting materials at hand, eg autumn leaves, coffee grounds

c)      list of any addendums you have at hand, eg seasol

21/7: Ling presents on Seeds. Please bring:

a)     seeds that you have

b)     any seed catalogues you have

28/7: Tom presents on Growing. Please bring a pot with soil and seeds, and we will do a planting.

4/8: Eric presents on Animals. Please bring:

a)     list of animals or insects you have in your garden and life

b)     name of animal/s you have an affinity with

11/8: Ling presents on Harvest. Please bring four food ingredients that you have on hand.

Zoom Login details: If you would like to join our session online, just click on this link to access the session: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83506489824?pwd=cmpNQ1ljSmFVYURLWVN1dWllYUN1dz09 Alternatively, you can dial in from your telephone (call charges apply): +61 2 8015 6011 | Meeting ID: 835 0648 9824| Passcode: 718905