[ccmonnett]

I am a Buddhist. I had a heck of a time getting my garden ready for a party last weekend because caterpillars are rampaging my roses. Do I let the caterpillars be, since they’re just “doing their caterpillar thing,” or do I trim the branches on which they’ve taken root in order to let the roses thrive just a little bit more?

It felt like much more of an internal crisis than it likely was, but your post echoed the innate desires I struggled with last week.

FWIW I feel that I have much more respect for “things as they are” since setting out on this journey. Desire for prettiness may lead you to plant flowers, but I have found myself much more appreciative of the world around me on a much wider spectrum than I used to. Prettiness isn’t inherently good - it’s just another aspect of things. I still smell roses, and they are often pretty, but the unprettiness of their surroundings is equally valid and in a sense necessary to enjoy their prettiness together. The beauty is in the system as a whole, not the prettiness of the roses.

By the way, I ultimately let the caterpillars and roses duke it out on their own.

[JangoSteve]

That is actually an incredibly interesting anecdote about the catepillars. Thanks for that!

It's kind of funny, because your second point about the unprettiness of the rose's surroundings being equally valid as the prettiness of the roses reminds me of how I started liking some of the foods I had hated as a child.

At some point in my young adulthood, I started appreciating tastes for what they were, as experiences. In this way, I began thinking about the sensations that foods triggered, and how interesting and different the foods I didn't used to like were. It made me start appreciating them just for being able to experience the uniqueness of the taste and texture, and next thing I knew, I no longer disliked those foods.