Healthy gardening makes a healthy life

Reported by - Shawon Barua
Date: 23-5-2020
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The term ‘health’ is a positive and dynamic concept. In common parlance, health implies absence of disease. It is also the key to all happiness. The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined health as: “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or illness or infirmity” An unhealthy person cannot live happily in a society. An unhealthy man is a burden for family and society. A healthy person is an asset to society; so, everyone wants to live happily and healthily. To stay healthy, it is very important to have regular activities and a good environment. International Buddhist College (IBC) is such a place where every member of the campus can keep themselves healthy through their daily activities such as community work amidst the healthy environment of IBC.
Gardening is a kind of activity that can benefit a person’s physical and mental health. In IBC, we have a number of places where we cultivate organic food. Every morning, we work there for 45 minutes. When we work, both our body and mind are required to be energetic and mindful. During the activity, calories are burnt which helps to regulate our blood pressure. Besides this, spending time in the garden is good for our bones and this helps to keep us in good physical shape.
Mental health is the level of psychological well-being or an absence of mental illness. Gardening helps me in various aspects. Chiefly, I engaged myself with nature in the beautiful morning when I see dew drops lying on the grass and this touches my heart with unexplainable feelings. When I start working in the morning, it relieves my stress and boosts my mood. Furthermore, when we work together, the friendship among us becomes stronger. I maintain good social health which refers to the ability to make and maintain relationships with other people. From our community work, I also learn to work as a group which is very important in our everyday life.
Moreover, chemicals are now being used everywhere for cultivation and this is a threat to human beings. The chemicals can enter the human body through food and weaken the immune system in the human body. As a result, people get infected with different kinds of diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, etc. Chemicals are not only a risk to the human body but are also a threat to soil fertility. Chemicals destroy soil fertility and reduce crop yields. But here in IBC, we make our own natural fertilizer for farming which is from the food waste from the kitchen, for example, fruit skin, old vegetable leaves and stem, etc. The cooks keep the food waste in a big water drum and we will bring it to the compost station in the garden for composting. This is how we recycle the food waste to fertilizer by natural process. This is a healthy process because garbage composting is a universally recognized process through which both nature and humans get to enjoy a healthy environment.
Besides that, we get good nutrition from the vegetables and fruits we cultivate in our garden. Without using any chemical, the food that we obtain from the IBC garden is healthier and provides us with good nutrition.
Gardening seems like an ascetic practice because we need to take care of the plants every day. We need to water the plants, we need to cut the grass and remove the weeds, and we need to apply fertilizers. Then, we can grow good food. Similarly, following the Buddhist way, one should do good deeds every day, attain perfection, destroy the defilements of the mind; then, we can cultivate a good result in our life. This is the same guidance we follow when we are working in the garden.
To sum up, health is the foundation of wealth and virtue. On the other hand, diseases are the destroyers of health and good life. IBC is an ideal place to stay healthy because it is surrounded by plenty of trees. It is a remote land from town; therefore, air pollution cannot affect us. Vegetarianism is primarily practiced by all students, teachers, and staff. Therefore, we grow our own organic vegetables in the garden. We have a group of students who is not only interested in Buddhist Studies but also in gardening. They grow plants, take care of them and support the IBC family. Most importantly, plants are cultivated without the use of dangerous chemicals. Instead, we use our own hands to make fertilizers through the recycling of food wastes. Gardening is a good activity to perform as it energizes the human body. Finally, fruits and vegetables grown in IBC are the best organic food to consume as they have high nutritious power. In my experience as a student of IBC, it is very rare for me to see someone falling ill in IBC because we dwell in an ideal environment.