Caring and loving other living beings

I’ve always wanted to care for a bonsai; a miniature tree - or directly translated from Japanese: A tree in a pot. There’s something about caring for something that’s small in size. It is the love in our heart manifesting itself into the world. Loving other living beings, whether they are human beings, animals or plants, caring for them, loving them gives meaning to one’s life.


bonsai


It also seems to me that the closer the other being is to us, the easier we feel it is to care for them. A family member is easier to care for than say a stranger. Trickling down the branches of this idea, we arrive at the tip of the branches - to plants. It is not an easy task to truly care and give love to a plant. It can’t convey to you what it needs through the channels that we are accustomed to as humans, namely: speech and movement. Since it doesn’t move nor speak, we discard them from our everyday consciousness. “It doesn’t move nor speak, thus it must be irrelevant”. We don’t say that nor do we consciously think in this way, but our subconscious believes it.

Human beings will too often destroy what they do not understand. Ignorance is what drives us to do horrifying things. We wage war on other people because we do not understand them. We wage war on them because we want to protect our own views and ideas. Instead of trying to understand them through love, we gun them down in fear. All the wars of the world could’ve been avoided through the loving act of understanding. You see, the act of understanding, as opposed to the result of it, is love. The result may vary, but the commitment towards understanding something or someone can only come from love. If it doesn’t, then it’s not understanding. To understand is to stand under someone, to remove yourself, completely, from the high horse you’re riding.

Special attention and precise observation is required to know what a plant needs. Since it isn’t able to tell you what it needs, it trusts you to know. You are responsible for its growth. It forces you to sit and observe. In time, not only will you be able to understand what it needs, but its majesty will inevitably bring calmness into your life because bringing the body to a still also brings the mind to a still. You’re mimicking the plant you’re observing. Perhaps then you will realize that the plant helps you just as much as you help it. Maybe that’s something to think about.