We have way too many trees in the temple grounds. They need to be pruned to keep the landscape beautiful many times a year. We know it's better for a gardener to prune, but it's far too expensive to pay for every time. More than anything, our Zen sect of Buddhism teaches it's important to sit in zazen meditation, do indoor cleaning, and work outside as well. We call it Samu(作務). These are important practices, so we have a gardener do it only once a year. My husband and I often prune them ourselves. 

To be honest, I've been dissatisfied with the way he trims trees for a long time. I was wondering why he trims them just slightly. So I went and trimmed his trees while he was trying to book some baseball tickets online. I made it more compact and small. He saw it and said "What happened to it! I'll give you a piece of advice. If you cut the leaves too much, hard strange leaves grow." I said "The gardener Hachiro(八郎) taught me that you should trim the trees as small as possible." My husband said "He told me not to cut them too much!" 

I realized we were focusing on different things. Hachiro taught us it's important to both form and not cut too much. It took a decade to make sense. Hachiro must have been laughing up in heaven.

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