I have a money tree (Pachira Aquatica) that I've grown quite fond of over the past year.  Sadly, it doesn't produce any actual money.  

But I enjoy caring for it so much that I've given it a name; Sifu.  Sifu means teacher in Chinese, and it's fitting because I've certainly learned a lot from my green-leafed friend.

Case in point, I noticed over the winter that Sifu had completely stopped growing.  He wasn't producing any new leaves, and his older leaves were turning brown at the tips.  

Needless to say, I was concerned.  I wondered if there was something wrong with the tap water that I was giving him or if the fluorescent lights above my work desk were harming him.  At one point, I even wondered if one of my co-workers was poisoning my house plant!

But there wasn't much that I could do.  

I tried bringing Sifu back home in the hopes that a change of environment would help, but Enso kept trying to use him for a scratching post.  So, I took my money tree back to work, and I focused on the basics.

I made sure that the pot was the right size, and his soil was good.  I  double-checked to make sure that I was giving him the right amount of water each week.  And then I just waited to see what happened.

Sifu stayed the exact same size for about 5 months.  But something shifted recently.  He's sprouting new leaves like crazy, and he's grown several inches in a very short amount of time.  I was shocked at the sudden change of events until I looked out the window and put 2 and 2 together.

It's summer now.  Trees do most of their growing in the summer, and they rest in the winter.  

There was nothing wrong with my beloved plant during the cold winter when he remained dormant.  It just wasn't his time to grow.

But what if I had given up?  What if during the months that Sifu wasn't growing new leaves, I'd responded by not watering him or refusing to check his soil quality? What if I had decided that he was a "bad" tree; not worth my time? Would he have still grown as tall as he is now?  I doubt it.

I've been thinking about this a lot, and how it relates to the teaching of basic goodness.  Mahayana Buddhism teaches that all sentient beings are a manifestation of the Dharmakaya.  As a result, we're all basically good as a result of our shared Buddha-nature.  Unfortunately, we're also infected with the poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance, and this can make our basic goodness hard to see.

That being said, can we take this teaching a step further?  After all, if a nation is made up of millions of individual people, and all of those people possess basic goodness.  Is it fair to say that a country can also be basically good; in spite of its imperfections?

I like to think so.  After all, things may appear bleak right now, but they were much worse in 1950 when the Korean War started.  And they were downright terrible in 1850 when the Fugitive Slave Act was passed.  Of course, none of this excuses the atrocities that are occurring today, but the trend seems to be in a positive direction.  

We just need to make it through this "winter" period until America is ready to grow again. 

Thankfully, Buddhism is ripe with teachings, which provide the "soil and water" necessary for our country's basic goodness to grow even faster than Sifu!  An example of this would be The 4 Immeasurables,  which are discussed in the Mettanisamsa Sutta (SN 46.54).  They are as follows:

Compassion- The wish that everyone be free of suffering
Loving-Kindness-  The wish that everyone be happy
Sympathetic-Joy- The ability to rejoice in the success of others
Equanimity-  The ability to be patient during difficult times

When we work to cultivate these mind states in daily life, we nurture the essential goodness that lives within us.  By extension, this nourishes everyone around us as we exude more compassion, loving-kindness, sympathetic-joy, and equanimity in our dealings with other people.  

The end result is that we lessen the influence of greed, anger, and ignorance on our democracy.  But we have to be consistent in our practice for this to work.  We have to keep nurturing our Buddha-nature through the dark times just like I kept watering Sifu through the winter.

Things are bad right now.  But I remain hopeful.  I believe that America's basic goodness will continue to grow, and we'll make it through these dark times.  We just need to put in the work.

Trees and Basic Goodness