The Miniature Zen Garden: A Useful Tool for Those Dealing with Cancer

Laura Yeager is a two-time breast cancer survivor. Catch up on all of Laura's blogs here!

Spring is the time to get outside and dig around in the earth to clean up the yard or to enhance your garden with new plantings. I’m not a gardener, but I did purchase a mini-Zen garden the other day. I have an upcoming mammogram, and I’m a little more nervous than usual. I bought the Zen garden to help me deal with nervous energy. Truth be told, the Zen garden is an experiment to see how using it will improve my day-to-day life as a cancer survivor.

What is a Zen garden? The miniature version is essentially a wooden tray covered with white sand. The garden comes with miniature rakes and tools to manipulate the sand; you can make the sand smooth, or you can make it have wavy lines or deeper trenches. The garden might also have smooth stones that you can place where you desire. My Zen garden even came with a miniature statue of Buddha.

You might be asking: Why would anyone want something like this?

The Zen garden is a meditation/relaxation tool. And I have decided that this is a great object for people dealing with cancer.

The other night, I tried out the Zen garden. I slowly flattened the sand with one tool, and then, with another, I made pretty designs in the sand. Instantly, I felt a calmness come over me, and my mind went blank as I concentrated on “connecting” with the white sand. Lo and behold, I found myself meditating. The feeling was sublime.

Then, as I continued to tinker with the sand, random thoughts popped into my brain. Suddenly, I was pondering my sister-in-law, and then, I could see random images in the sand. But the main thing was I was relaxed. The Zen garden is a great relaxation tool, and it’s a bargain! I purchased mine for $25. Later today, I’m going to spend about 15 minutes with my Zen garden.

I feel as though I need to work with my garden, kind of like a runner needs to run. I enjoy the meditative “high” of being in the “zone.”

My mammogram appointment is next week. To deal with the upcoming anxiousness, I will be using my Zen garden.

Zen gardens are not new inventions. They’ve been around for centuries. The full-sized gardens might be in a person’s yard. It was a great day for humanity when an inventive person miniaturized the full-sized garden for indoor use in either the home or the office.

According to a blurb on the internet, “Zen gardens, also known as dry gardens, have a history spanning over 1,000 years, emerging alongside Zen Buddhism in Japan, with their earliest forms rooted in Chinese garden design brought to Japan in the sixth century.”

All I can say is that I never understood meditation until I found an indoor Zen garden. When I attempted to meditate, I could never completely clear my mind. I found myself ruminating over the events of the day — the trials and tribulations and the successes and the highlights. But now, with the use of this vital little meditation device, I can easily drift away and turn off my mind. Things like cancer scan nervousness become history.

Cancer folk, consider this a testimonial. Consider investing in an indoor Zen garden for your office or home.

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