“The flower, when it wilts, becomes the compost. The compost can help grow a flower again. Happiness is also organic and impermanent by nature. It can become suffering and suffering can become happiness again.
If you look deeply into a flower, you see that a flower is made only of nonflower elements. In that flower there is a cloud. Of course we know a cloud isn’t a flower, but without a cloud, a flower can’t be. If there’s no cloud, there’s no rain, and no flower can grow. You don’t have to be a dreamer to see a cloud floating in a flower. It’s really there. Sunlight is also there. Sunlight isn’t flower, but without sunlight no flower is possible.
If we continue to look deeply into the flower, we see many other things, like the earth and the minerals. Without them a flower cannot be. So it’s a fact that a flower is made only of nonflower elements. A flower can’t be by herself alone. A flower can only inter-be with everything else. You can’t remove the sunlight, the soil, or the cloud from the flower.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering
4 comments:
It's true of us too, Shari. We are, after all, little bits of stardust.
Indeed so!
With my biologist eye I see pistal and anther....grin That's a beautiful post today.
Love this, Erika! I see a reminder that my crappy season is upon me, but it will end because everything does--LOLOL I always enjoy the beauty of spring flowers even as they depress me because, well, it's spring.
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