Plant Seed, Pull Weed: Nurturing the Garden of Your Life [Hardcover]

Geri Larkin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 6, 2008

Gardens have often been used as metaphors for spiritual nurture and growth--Zen gardens, monastery gardens, even your favorite aunt’s garden have all been described as places of refuge and reflection. In the tradition of Rick Field’s inspirational bestseller, Chop Wood, Carry Water comes Geri Larkin’s Plant Seed, Pull Weed which takes the reader through the steps of planning, planting, nurturing and maintaining a garden while offering funny stories and inspiring lessons on what plants can teach us about our lives. A sort of Zen Chicken Soup for the Soul, this book will entertain, charm and inspire the reader to get their hands dirty and get back in touch withthemselves.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When Larkin was a college student, she took a job as a gardener—something she says she knew absolutely nothing about. Now more plant savvy, the former management consultant–turned–Buddhist priest and author (The Chocolate Cake Sutra) uses gardening and Shantideva's The Way of the Bodhisattva to mine themes for her text. Her points are simple: see clearly, become more intentional, tame your mind, give generously and live with a wide-open heart. While advocating passion and enthusiasm, Larkin has learned the hard way that the best gardeners are patient. When we slow down, she writes, then chaos becomes beauty, lethargy energy, insolvable problems solvable. Her spare but pithy prose, common sense and laugh-out-loud humor emphasize her points. Other lessons also resonate: Learn to lose. Let go of mistakes. Forgive. Be kind. And don't worry, for anxiety will block your joy. Larkin is at her best when she shares personal experiences and insights, rather than stories about others, and the few recipes seem random. Although Larkin's book is clearly aimed at Buddhists, at its heart is a lesson about staying awake and paying attention to life, which is good advice for readers of any religious stripe. Readers will find Larkin's central promise—We can be happy. Right here. Right now—difficult to resist. (May)
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Review

Both edifying and entertaining. (Spirituality & Practice )

Plant Seed, Pull Weed should find a receptive audience in this part of the world [the Pacific Northwest], where there are garden centers galore and any number of people trying to live a calmer, more centered life. (The Oregonian )

Life as gardening is hardly an original metaphor...but Larkin breathes fresh life into it with anecdotes, insights, and enjoyable prose. Her focus on present-moment awareness and being ‘as wise and compassionate as we can be, right where we are’ will resonate with all readers. (Shambhala Sun )

...you’ll not only grow amazing vegetables...you’ll gain some Buddhist insight along the way. (Eugene Weekly )

With spare but pithy prose, common sense and laugh-out-loud humor, readers will find Larkin’s central promise—“We can be happy. Right here. Right now”—difficult to resist. (Publishers Weekly )

Larkin takes readers into her vegetable and flower garden to teach them a few lessons about what our minds--and spirits--need to thrive. (Body & Soul )

What a joy to find spiritual writing so deeply rooted in the life of the earth. If the Buddha were alive today, Geri Larkin would be his gardener. (Clark Strand, author of Meditation Without Gurus: A Guide to the Heart of Practice )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne (May 6, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061349046
• ISBN-13: 978-0061349041
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #433,872 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book About Pulling Weeds in Your Yard -- and in Your Spiritual Approach to a Better Life, May 14, 2008

By 

David Crumm "Editor of ReadTheSpirit magazine" (Canton, Michigan) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Plant Seed, Pull Weed: Nurturing the Garden of Your Life (Hardcover)

Geri Larkin's life has taken her from the heights of American business to the simplicity of Buddhist practice. She began her career as a jet-setting business consultant -- and is ending it as a sort of free-lance teacher and landscape consultant living in a tiny home in the Pacific Northwest.

In fact, in this new book she writes that when she volunteers at an emergency food bank -- it's impossible to tell her and the other folks running the program from the clients in need of the emergency food.

It's a wonderful journey, which Geri has laid out for readers in a series of books that are half spiritual memoir and half Zen advice about everything from personal relations to -- in this new book -- cooking up the dandelions you've pulled from your front yard.

Around the time her previous book, "The Chocolate Cake Sutra," was published, I invited a group of high school students to spend time interviewing Geri for a documentary film on prayer and meditation. Geri was heading back to southeast Michigan for a few days from her new home in the Pacific Northwest, and I told the students that the cost of a seat with Geri was reading her book.

If you know anything about the busy lives of teenagers, the idea of reading a book on Buddhism sounds like an impossible challenge. But, on the day of the interview, an eager little crowd of students pulled couches up around Geri's own easy chair. They pulled out these beautifully well-thumbed copies of her book -- their pages sprouting bookmarks, sticky notes and slips of paper with questions scribbled to ask Geri.

That's the best way I can convey the excitement of her spiritual voice. It can hook and hold a busy teenager -- or a busy middle-aged writer like myself.

These are books not to be missed, because they leave you with a hopeful smile on your face -- and a fistful of good ideas to make sure that smile is shared with someone else.

They're great for small groups -- easy reading, but deep provocative wisdom in each chapter.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Greening Up, April 19, 2009

By 

Robert L. Rose (Blooming Glen, PA, 18911-0064, Bucks County,United States)) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Plant Seed, Pull Weed: Nurturing the Garden of Your Life (Hardcover)

What I really like about this book is how the author takes the reader right down into the garden of her own life where we are present as she nurtures her own seeds of insight and pulls the weeds of distraction. Watching, together with Larkin, I see just where and how to attend to and cultivate my own garden of life. Very useful!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A lesson that applies to all life's challenges, January 4, 2009

By 

TLG (Madison, WI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plant Seed, Pull Weed: Nurturing the Garden of Your Life (Hardcover)

I've loved Geri Larkin's books since my first read and each one gets better and better. Geri shares her new life out west, and as usual, she shares her journeys, friends, pets, and posies. She gets cranky about a cold day and I love that even she takes a little while to "get it" when lessons pop up in her every day life. The title and the book lovingly suggest that we need to pay attention to our lives -- "plant seeds" whether they are ideas or relationships; and "pull weeds". . . we know who and what they are. It's as simple and as difficult as that. The best is the simple lesson on enthusiasm. Read it in a coffee shop and enjoy the looks you get as you laugh and cry out loud. Great to hear you are doing well, Geri! Waiting for your next book, with enthusiasm.