Lotus And Mud Quotes

The lotus is the most beautiful flower, whose petals open one by one. But it will only grow in the mud. In order to grow and gain wisdom, first you must have the mud --- the obstacles of life and its suffering. ... The mud speaks of the common ground that humans share, no matter what our stations in life. ... Whether we have it all or we have nothing, we are all faced with the same obstacles: sadness, loss, illness, dying and death. If we are to strive as human beings to gain more wisdom, more kindness and more compassion, we must have the intention to grow as a lotus and open each petal one by one.

Be like a lotus. Let the beauty of your heart speak. Be grateful to the mud, water, air and the light.

A flower can't grow without rain. (Alexion) Too much rain and it drowns. (Danger) And yet the most beautiful of the lotus flowers are the ones that grow in the deepest mud. (Alexion)

When you love someone, you have to offer that person the best you have. The best thing we can offer another person is our true presence.

The main affliction of our modern civilization is that we don’t know how to handle the suffering inside us and we try to cover it up with all kinds of consumption.

Whenever you should doubt your self-worth, remember the lotus flower. Even though it plunges to life from beneath the mud, it does not allow the dirt that surrounds it to affect its growth or beauty.

Without suffering, there's no happiness. So we shouldn't discriminate against the mud. We have to learn how to embrace and cradle our own suffering and the suffering of the world, with a lot of tenderness.

Most people are afraid of suffering. But suffering is a kind of mud to help the lotus flower of happiness grow. There can be no lotus flower without the mud.” —THICH NHAT HANH

There is the mud, and there is the lotus that grows out of the mud. We need the mud in order to make the lotus.

the art of happiness is also the art of suffering well.

Seeing the mud around a lotus is pessimism, seeing a lotus in the mud is optimism.

In life hard times will befall you that will create doubt in yourself, and life will ask questions of the authenticity of the person you are. Carrying the lotus means being true to yourself and in the realization that you were always meant to grow above this mud. We are meant to grow, progress, and evolve in this relentless environment of the World and through it all achieve happiness with grace in letting go. Carry the Lotus within; grow and rise above from the harsh and remorseless world beneath you.

I wonder if the world’s fascination has less to do with the flower itself, and more with the muck that it flourishes in. The Lotus flower is of an unparalleled beauty in its elegance and grace, yet its’ origins are of an environment that is a stark contrast. We cannot help but ponder such strange juxtaposition. However, there is something telling in this natural contrast between the flower and its environment: we are meant to grow, like the Lotus, and not dirty our hands in the mud that surrounds us.

At times we will be asked to let go of things that we have always wanted to keep for ourselves, or things that we would never have thought that we would to have to let go of, such as the loss of a loved one or the betrayal of a dear friend. A tree never hesitates to shake off her leaves during fall, and so we must take another lesson given to us by the nature: let go when it is time. Although such losses can be difficult and painful, rise above this suffering. Focus within your mind, the image of the Lotus prospering above mud. We are the lotus; rise above.

Great people will always be mocked by those who feel smaller than them. A lion does not flinch at laughter coming from a hyena. A gorilla does not budge from a banana thrown at it by a monkey. A nightingale does not stop singing its beautiful song at the intrusion of an annoying woodpecker. Whenever you should doubt your self-worth, remember the lotus flower. Even though it plunges to life from beneath the mud, it does not allow the dirt that surrounds it to affect its growth or beauty.

Whenever you should doubt your self-worth, remember the lotus flower. Even though it plunges to life from beneath the mud, it does not allow the dirt that surrounds it to affect its growth or beauty. Be that lotus flower always. Do not allow any negativity or ugliness in your surroundings destroy your confidence, affect your growth, or make you question your self-worth.

if we cultivate compassion for those who have hurt us, we have the possibility of overcoming our anger,pain, and fear. compassion is a great medicine.

Lotus flowers blossom while rooted in mud, a reminder that beauty and grace can rise above something ugly.

Love needs to be nurtured and fed to survive; and our suffering also survives because we enable and feed it. We ruminate on suffering, regret, and sorrow. We chew on them, swallow them, bring them back up, and eat them again and again. If we’re feeding our suffering while we’re walking, working, eating, or talking, we are making ourselves victims of the ghosts of the past, of the future, or our worries in the present. We’re not living our lives.

Every struggle is like mud - there are always some lotus seeds waiting to sprout.

The soil of our mind contains many seeds, positive and negative. We are the gardeners who identify, water, and cultivate the best seeds.

Suffering has its beneficial aspects. It can be an excellent teacher.

NO MUD, NO LOTUS Both suffering and happiness are of an organic nature, which means they are both transitory; they are always changing. 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.

The first definition of love is to be there. This is a practice. How can you love if you are not there? In order to love you have to be there, body and mind united. A true lover knows that the practice of mindfulness is the foundation of true love.

There is no birth and death; everything dies and renews itself all the time. When you get that kind of insight, you no longer tire yourself out with anxiety and aversion.

here is the mud, and there is the lotus that grows out of the mud. We need the mud in order to make the lotus.

Breathing in, I’m aware of the painful feeling in me. Breathing out, I’m aware of the painful feeling in me.” This is an art. We have to learn it, because most of us don’t like to be with our pain. We’re afraid of being overwhelmed by the pain, so we always seek to run away from it. There’s loneliness, fear, anger, and despair in us. Mostly we try to cover it up by consuming. There are those of us who go and look for something to eat. Others turn on the television. In fact, many people do both at the same time. And even if the TV program isn’t interesting at all, we don’t have the courage to turn it off, because if we turn it off, we have to go back to ourselves and encounter the pain inside. The marketplace provides us with many items to help us in our effort to avoid the suffering inside.

If you can recognize and accept your pain without running away from it, you will discover that although pain is there, joy can also be there at the same time. Some

It is the simplest things in life that hold the most wonder; the color of the sea, the sand between your toes, the laughter of a child.

We can condition our bodies and minds to happiness with the five practices of letting go, inviting positive seeds, mindfulness, concentration, and insight.

The French have a song they like to sing, “Qu’est-ce qu’on attend pour être heureux?” (What are you waiting for in order to be happy?) You can be happy right here and right

From the mud of adversity grows the lotus of joy

The most effective way to show compassion to another is to listen, rather than talk.

Because people learn from their mistakes, Danger. Pain and failure are a natural part of life. It's kind of like a parent who watches their child fall down while learning to walk. Instead of coddling the child, you set them back on their feet and let them try again. They have to stumble before they can run. (Alexion) Do you really believe that we need to have our hearts ripped out? (Danger) A flower can't grow without rain. (Alexion) Too much rain and it drowns. (Danger) And yet the most beautiful of the lotus flowers are the ones that grow in the deepest mud. (Alexion)

Everyone knows we need to have mud for lotuses to grow. The mud doesn’t smell so good, but the lotus flower smells very good. If you don’t have mud, the lotus won’t manifest. You can’t grow lotus flowers on marble. Without mud, there can be no lotus.

We can see the mind as a lotus. Some lotuses are still stuck in the mud, some have climbed above the mud but are still underwater, some have reached the surface, while others are open in the sun, stain-free. Which lotus do you choose to be? If you find yourself below the surface, watch out for the bites of fishes and turtles.

When the crown chakra opens, the 1000 petals of the perfect bliss arises. You will find no mud but nutrients.

Like a lotus plunging to the surface of a pond to embrace the light from its muddy darkness, truth always rises with time.

One way of taking care of our suffering is to invite a seed of the opposite nature to come up. As nothing exists without its opposite, if you have a seed of arrogance, you have also a seed of compassion. Every one of us has a seed of compassion. If you practice mindfulness of compassion every day, the seed of compassion in you will become strong. You need only concentrate on it and it will come up as a powerful zone of energy. Naturally, when compassion comes up, arrogance goes down. You don’t have to fight it or push it down. We can selectively water the good seeds and refrain from watering the negative seeds.

Whenever you should question your self-worth, always remember the lotus flower. Even though it plunges to life from beneath the mud, it does not allow the dirt that surrounds it to affect its growth or beauty.

One must be a lotus to emerge from mucky waters clean.

Without suffering there cannot be happiness. Without mud there cannot be any lotus flowers.

Most people are afraid of suffering. But suffering is a kind of mud to help the lotus flower of happiness grow. There can be no lotus flower without the mud.

If we are to strive as human beings to gain more wisdom, more kindness and more compassion, we must have the intention to grow as a lotus and open each petal one by one.

The function of mindfulness is, first, to recognize the suffering and then to take care of the suffering. The work of mindfulness is first to recognize the suffering and second to embrace it. A mother taking care of a crying baby naturally will take the child into her arms without suppressing, judging it, or ignoring the crying. Mindfulness is like that mother, recognizing and embracing suffering without judgement. So the practice is not to fight or suppress the feeling, but rather to cradle it with a lot of tenderness. When a mother embraces her child, that energy of tenderness begins to penetrate into the body of the child. Even if the mother doesn't understand at first why the child is suffering and she needs some time to find out what the difficulty is, just her acto f taking the child into her arms with tenderness can alreadby bring relief. If we can recognize and cradle the suffering while we breathe mindfully, there is relief already.

It is possible of course to get stuck in the “mud” of life. It’s easy enough to notice mud all over you at times. The hardest thing to practice is not allowing yourself to be overwhelmed by despair. When you’re overwhelmed by despair, all you can see is suffering everywhere you look. You feel as if the worst thing is happening to you. But we must remember that suffering is a kind of mud that we need in order to generate joy and happiness. Without suffering, there’s no happiness. So we shouldn’t discriminate against the mud. We have to learn how to embrace and cradle our own suffering and the suffering of the world, with a lot of tenderness.

Nonhuman animals instinctively know that stopping is the best way to get healed.

We ruminate on suffering, regret, and sorrow. We chew on them, swallow them, bring them back up, and eat them again and again. If we’re feeding our suffering while we’re walking, working, eating, or talking, we are making ourselves victims of the ghosts of the past, of the future, or our worries in the present. We’re not living our lives.

Then meditate on your perceptions. The Buddha observed, “The person who suffers most in this world is the person who has many wrong perceptions, and most of our perceptions are erroneous.” You see a snake in the dark and you panic, but when your friend shines a light on it, you see that it is only a rope. You have to know which wrong perceptions cause you to suffer. Please write beautifully the sentence, “Are you sure?” on a piece of paper and tape it to your wall. Love meditation helps you learn to look with clarity and serenity in order to improve the way you perceive.

Like the lotus flower, business blooms in the mud, and in the dark of night. The lotus is an amazing creation of God, because for all of its beauty, it is the sum total of work performed in a mess. It is also a creation that has the ability to create seeds in its habitat for a very long time without help from human hands. The lotus has the ability to survive beyond the mercurial nature of weather (storms, frost). The lotus is one strong, powerful, and resilient flower that blossoms in a substance (mud) that none of us would want to touch.

REMEMBER THE LOTUS FLOWER Great people will always be mocked by those Who feel smaller than them. A lion does not flinch at laughter coming from a hyena. A gorilla does not budge from a banana thrown at it by a monkey. A nightingale does not stop singing its beautiful song At the intrusion of an annoying woodpecker. Whenever you should doubt your self-worth, remember the lotus flower. Even though it plunges to life from beneath the mud, It does not allow the dirt that surrounds it To affect its growth or beauty. Be that lotus flower always. Do not allow any negativity or ugliness In your surroundings Destroy your confidence, Affect your growth, Or make you question your self-worth. It is very normal for one ugly weed to not want to stand alone. Remember this always. If you were ugly, Or just as small as they feel they are, Then they would not feel so bitter and envious Each and every time they are forced To glance up at magnificently Divine YOU.

Wonder shows in the light of our eyes. Without it, they become dull and old.

If you don't take responsibility, then you'll never grow. You will never learn. And you will only repeat your mistakes.

When the highest Chakra opens, you will find yourself sitting on the lotus of nothingness. The entire world will seem like mud upon which the lotus blooms. The mud is neither bad nor good. If you think it’s bad, you are still attached to it; you are still swimming into it. True detachment is the only way to slowly move upward from one Chakra to another.

If you know how to make good use of the mud, you can grow beautiful lotuses. If you know how to make good use of suffering, you can produce happiness. We do need some suffering to make happiness possible. And most of us have enough suffering inside and around us to be able to do that. We don’t have to create more.

[I]f an arrow hits you, you will feel pain in that part of your body where the arrow hit; and then if a second arrow comes and strikes exactly at the same spot, the pain will not be only double, it will become at least ten times more intense. The unwelcome things that sometimes happen in life—being rejected, losing a valuable object, failing a test, getting injured in an accident—are analogous to the first arrow. They cause some pain. The second arrow, fired by our own selves, is our reaction, our storyline, and our anxiety. All these things magnify the suffering

Great people will always be mocked by those who feel smaller than them. Yet a lion does not flinch at laughter coming from a hyena. A gorilla does not budge from a banana thrown at it by a monkey. A nightingale does not stop singing its beautiful song at the intrusion of an annoying woodpecker. Whenever you should question your self-worth, always remember the lotus flower. Even though it plunges to life from beneath the mud, it does not allow the dirt that surrounds it to affect its growth or beauty. Do not allow any negativity or ugliness in your surroundings destroy your confidence or affect your growth. Always be confident and courageous with your truths and the directions set out by your heart. It is very normal for one ugly weed to not want to stand alone.

They say that wisdom is a dying flower, and I disagree. In a world covered in mud, the lotus still continues to grow. Even after mankind washes itself away from the surface of the earth, knowledge will still remain. Look no further than the bosom of Nature. It offers all the solutions needed to cure and unite humanity. Wise men only exist as interpreters and transmitters of Truth. Their time on earth is limited, but Nature's existence is eternal. Open books shall always exist for those with an opened eye and pure heart; for Truth can only be seen by those with truth in them.

Meditation is the art of using one kind of energy to transform another.

that the mud and muck of life’s challenges can provide fertile ground for our development. As the lotus grows, it rises through the water to eventually blossom.

According to the creation story in the biblical book of Genesis, God said, “Let there be light.” I like to imagine that light replied, saying, “God, I have to wait for my twin brother, darkness, to be with me. I can’t be there without the darkness.” God asked, “Why do you need to wait? Darkness is there.” Light answered, “In that case, then I am also already there.

If someone were to ask, “What’s the purpose of walking meditation? What’s the point? Why do you practice it?” There are several answers we can give. But for me the best answer is, “Because I like it.

The elegant and beautiful Lotus flower must toil through the mud and mire of murky swamps and shadowy waters of darkness before it can finally bloom. Above the fray of struggle yet firmly rooted in rugged beginnings, it ultimately lies pristinely above the water, basking in the sun of triumph. So no matter what you’ve endured or where you come from...you are no different and no less beautiful. There is simply no greater beauty than when a flower blossoms despite its tough and humble beginnings. ~Jason Versey

Happiness is impermanent, like everything else. In order for happiness to be extended and renewed, you have to learn how to feed your happiness. Nothing can survive without food, including happiness; your happiness can die if you don’t know how to nourish it. If you cut a flower but you don’t put it in some water, the flower will wilt in a few hours. Even if happiness is already manifesting, we have to continue to nourish it.

REMEMBER THE LOTUS FLOWER Great people will always be mocked by those Who feel smaller than them. A lion does not flinch at laughter coming from a hyena. A gorilla does not budge from a banana thrown at it by a monkey. A nightingale does not stop singing its beautiful song At the intrusion of an annoying woodpecker. Whenever you should doubt your self-worth, remember the lotus flower. Even though it plunges to life from beneath the mud, It does not allow the dirt that surrounds it To affect its growth or beauty. Be that lotus flower always. Do not allow any negativity or ugliness In your surroundings, Destroy your confidence, Affect your growth, Or make you question your self-worth. It is very normal for one ugly weed To not want to stand alone. Remember this always. If you were ugly, Or just as small as they feel they are, Then they would not feel so bitter and envious Each and every time they are forced To glance up at magnificently Divine YOU. REMEMBER THE LOTUS FLOWER by Suzy Kassem

the first mindfulness training: reverence for life Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating the insight of interbeing, compassion, and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, or in my way of life. Seeing that harmful actions arise from anger, fear, greed, and intolerance, which in turn come from dualistic and discriminative thinking, I will cultivate openness, nondiscrimination, and nonattachment to views in order to transform violence, fanaticism, and dogmatism in myself and in the world.

One day, the lotus spoke again. "You remember me? The flower that grows through the mud?" I did. I said as much. "Have you ever considered my significance? I'm everywhere - art, religion, nature.... Have you ever wondered why?" ... It spoke, "Nothing touches me. I radiate beauty. You can do the same." "How?" I asked. "Easy," it said. "I grow in a pond. I take the water and nutrients I need to grow, and let the rest sink to the bottom. What's in mud, anyway? Water, nutrients, life and a little bit of sludge. Let the sludge go like I do. Then stand tall above the leaves.

Life is never like a full stop. Full stops are like frozen ice, like dark clouds, like rotten mud. But here rivers are born out of frozen ice, lightening sparkles by the clash of dark clouds, the lotus rises from the mud. Isn’t this glory of our life? This is the story to sing this glory of life.

Many of us slog through life without conscious awareness or intention. We set ourselves a course and we barrel ahead, without stopping to ask whether this path is fulfilling our most important goals. That's partly because many of us believe that happiness is not possible in the here and now. We think we need to struggle now so that we will be happy in the future. So we postpone happiness and try to run into the future and attain the conditions of happiness that we don't have now.

Waking up this morning I smile. I have twenty-four hours to live. I vow to live them deeply and learn to look at the beings around me with the eyes of compassion.

The faith in the light, the vigor to plunge out from the mud and the sustained nobility to remain unstained by the past is what makes it a lotus

Concentration, samadhi in Sanskrit, is a powerful force that you can generate to make a breakthrough, to see clearly what is there and understand its true nature.

The lotus flower blooms most beautifully from the deepest and thickest mud.

For many people, it [suffering] starts already at a very young age. So what don't schools teach our young people the way to manage suffering?

No mud, No lotus

We need to stop and ask, “Can I realize my deepest aspiration if I pursue this path?” “What is really preventing me from taking the path I most deeply desire?” DEVELOPING

EMBRACING SUFFERING If we let the suffering come up and just take over our mind, we can be quickly overwhelmed by it.

She was a beautiful lotus flower that had risen from a pond of mud.

No mud, no lotus,” she said, quoting Thích Nhất Hạnh again. “Out of the muck of life, beauty will emerge.

The lotus symbolizes purity, because it rises out of the mud but looks pristine.

To be mindful means to be aware. It’s the energy that knows

I think that the most beautiful of people are like exquisite serpents— glorious sheen, glorious patterns and elaborate grace— but you do wrong to cast envy upon them, lest you want to also taste of the venom they carry in their mouthes! Beauty is so often born from adversity of circumstance, like the lotus born of the mud, reaching up through the water and into the light! I often wake up from dreams of being underwater, I suppose I am a lotus flower that has made her way! But you do wrong to envy the lotus blossom, for you know not of her journey! Not all of us are serpents and lotus flowers, not all of us are beautiful like that; too many people just sit there, ignorantly casting envy on what they do not even comprehend!

There are those who say that in their heaven there is no suffering. But if there is no suffering, how can there be happiness? We need compost to grow flowers, and mud to grow lotuses.

The way to suffer well and be happy is to stay in touch with what is actually going on; in doing so, you will gain liberating insights into the true nature of suffering and of joy. NO

Some people think that in order to be happy they must avoid all suffering, and so they are constantly vigilant, constantly worrying. They end up sacrificing all their spontaneity, freedom, and joy.

1. “The lotus does not just grow despite the mud; it transforms the mud into the very foundation of its bloom. Your deepest wounds are the fertile ground from which your greatest strength will rise.

It's easy loving someone in the light: in the bright light where everyone wants you to love each other, everyone expects you to stay together, and it's the right thing to do. But have you ever loved someone in the dark: in the deep dark where nobody wants you to love, everyone expects you to be a mistake, and it's supposed to be the wrong thing to do? A love like that isn't for anybody's eyes, it isn't for anybody else, and for no other reasons than love itself. It's the flower that grew in the pavement, the vines that grew inside cement walls, the lotus that rises cyan blue from the mud.

The most effective way to show compassion to another is to listen, rather than talk. You have an opportunity to practice deep, compassionate listening. If you can listen to the other person with compassion, your listening is like a salve for her wound. In the practice of compassionate listening, you listen with only one purpose, which is to give the other person the chance to speak out and to suffer less.

Observe this lotus flower blooming before us in the pond. If you study it hard, really look, you will see that below this surface picture, it is the mud and rot of a stagnant pond that is actually producing the lotus flower’s pretty bloom.

The key is not to let these things fester. Worst of all, don't revel in being a victim. Don't become comfortable in your misery. Take back control. You may not be able to change what happened, but you can change your perception of it. All you need is the intention, and you have the power to change. Face up to what happened, admit it and try to move on. Through understanding, try to forgive not only yourself but the person who did this to you. This is truly another path to happiness.

There are many cells in your body that are dying as you read these words. Fifty to seventy billion cells die each day in the average human adult. You are too busy to organise funerals for all of them! At the very same time, new cells are being born, and you don't have the time to sing Happy Birthday to them. If old cells don't die, there's no chance for new cells to be born. So death is a very good thing. It's very crucial for birth. You are undergoing birth and death in this very moment.

The only path to happiness is to really be all that you can be. The be secure and unafraid of speaking your own mind. If your intentions are not just to win the game, then you can feel good that you have spoken your mind without malice or anger but just from the depths of your truth.

In the past, we probably did suffer from one thing or another. It may even have felt like a kind of hell. If we remember that suffering, not letting ourselves get carried away by it, we can use it to remind ourselves, "How lucky I am right now. I'm not in that situation. I can be happy.

Do you know why the lotus is one of my favorite flowers?" I cocked my head to one side so I could see his expression. He shook his head. "This beautiful flower lives in the most vile, muddy water of swamps and bogs," I said and rubbed the smooth metal of the pendant between my fingers. He frowned. "No, seriously... the grosser the environment, the better," I said. "So let me get this straight. You like a flower that lives in disgusting places?" One of his eyebrows rose. "That ain't right." "No, I love this flower," I corrected. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, "Seriously?" "What?" You don't believe me?" "Sure, I believe you. It's just weird." "I'll tell you why, but only if you promise not to laugh," I said. He nodded. Taking a cleansing breath, I rested my head against the seat, closed my eyes, and took that scary first step. "This flower stays in the mud and muck all night long." I peeked at him without moving my head. His face had become set in the smooth lines of one who listens intently. "Then, at sunrise, it climbs toward the light and opens into a pristine bloom. After the sun goes down, the bloom sinks into the mire. Even though it spends the whole night underwater, the flower emerges every morning as beautiful as the day before." Smiling, I swiveled in my seat to face him. "I love this flower because it reminds me that we get second chances every day, no matter what muck life drags us through.

If we focus exclusively on pursuing happiness, we may regard suffering as something to be ignored or resisted. We think of it as something that gets in the way of happiness. But the art of happiness is also and at the same time the art of knowing how to suffer well. If we know how to use our suffering, we can transform it and suffer much less. Knowing how to suffer well is essential to realizing true happiness.

A world full of people hating themselves is not a happy world. Buddhism does not seem to be about self-punishment. A key buddhist symbol is that of the lotus flower. The lotus flower grows in mud at the bottom of a pool, but rises above the murky water and blooms in the clear air, pure and beautiful, before eventually dying. This metaphor for spiritual enlightenment also works as a metaphor for hope and change.

The poet Tao Yuan-ming (A.D. 376 - 427) used the lotus to represent a man of honor in a famous poem, saying that the lotus rose out of mud but remained unstained. [. . .] Perhaps the poet was too idealistic, I thought as I listened to the laughter of the Red Guards overhead. They seemed to be blissfully happy in their work of destruction because they were sure they were doing something to satisfy their God, Mao Zedong.

I learned to listen to my heart, which taught me that you and I are connected to each other and everything else on this planet. We are joined together by the mysterious nature of life itself, the fundamental creative energy of the universe. In this complicated world of ours, where contradictions abound, we find breathtaking beauty in the most unlikely places. The brightest rainbows appear after the heaviest of storm clouds. Magnificent butterflies emerge from the drabbest cocoons. And the most beautiful lotus flowers bloom from the deepest and thickest mud. Why do you suppose life works this way? Perhaps those rainbows, butterflies, and lotus flowers are meant to remind us that our world is a mystical work of art—a universal canvas upon which we all paint our stories, day by day, through the brushstrokes of our thoughts, words, and deeds.

I am a lotus. It takes a century for my toes to reach for the ground beneath me, a century for my hands to reach for the sun. A dragonfly visits me one summer. We spend the long hours of the days together, locked in a quiet caress. They are the happiest months of my life. Through him I, anchored so tightly to the mud, come to know flight. I am his hammock and his refuge; his stained-glass wings are my church. He dies in my arms. I hold him for a thousand years.

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.

When a painful emotion comes up, stop whatever you're doing and take care of it. Pay attention to what is happening. The practice is simple. Lie down, put your hand on your belly, and begin to breathe. Stop thinking, and focus all your attention on the rise and fall of the abdomen. Breathe deeply and focus your attention only on your in-breath and out-breath. An emotion is only an emotion, and you are much more than one emotion. You are body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. The territory of your being is large.

Knowing your limits, and that there is a limit to getting what you want, comes from a sense of self-respect instilled in you from an early age. It takes guts to stand up in the face of what you really want, but you have to know in your heart that if you make the wrong choice you won't be able to live with yourself for the rest of your life. There is only one person who matters at that point and that's you. If you give in to such pressures, you strip away your self-respect, your personal ethics and your standards-the very things that create the fiber that will hold you together for the rest of your life.

A bell of mindfulness, whether it is an actual bell or some other sound, is a wonderful reminder to come back to ourselves, to come back to life here in the present moment. The sound of the bell is the voice of the Buddha within. Every one of us has Buddha nature—the capacity for compassionate, clear, understanding nature—within us. So when we hear the sound of the bell, if we like practicing mindfulness, we can respond to that intervention with respect and appreciation. In my tradition, every time we hear the bell, we pause. We stop moving, talking, and thinking, and we listen to the voice of the heart. We don’t say that we “hit the bell” or “strike the bell.” Rather, we say we “invite the bell” to sound, because the bell is a friend, an enlightened friend that helps us wake up and guides us home to ourselves. Gentleness and nonviolence are characteristics of the sound of the bell. Its sound is gentle but very powerful. When you hear the sound of the bell, take the opportunity to come home to yourself and enjoy your breathing. Take a few moments to inhale and exhale deeply and touch a little happiness. If you want to experience what the end of suffering will feel like, it is in the here and the now with this breath. If you want nirvana, it’s right here.        Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.        Breathing out, I smile.

To the repentant thief upon the cross, the soft Jesus of the modern Bible holds out hope of Heaven: “Today thou art with me in Paradise.” But in older translations, as Soen Roshi points out, there is no “today,” no suggestion of the future. In the Russian translation, for example, the meaning is “right here now.” Thus, Jesus declares, “You are in Paradise right now”—how much more vital! There is no hope anywhere but in this moment, in the karmic terms laid down by one’s own life. This very day is an aspect of nirvana, which is not different from samsara but, rather, a subtle alchemy, the transformation of dark mud into the pure, white blossom of the lotus. “Of course I enjoy this life!

What did it take to move from that, to develop a shell, a protective boundary, to pull the shades on the imposing mostly male Gaze, to allow a fertile darkness within my being, where “I” could begin? What did it take to create this kind of darkness, a safe place to Be, to shut out the world and scream “I”? … A sex object has to completely fall apart before she can rebuild herself in her own image. She has fall into the mud, begin again, perform her own acts of Creation, mold herself of this solid material. It is out of the mud that the lotus blossoms. It does not grow on some pedestal, under the light of the eternal Gaze. How ironic that our paternal mythmakers made Medusa’s gaze the deadly one!

the second mindfulness training: true happiness Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I am committed to practicing generosity in my thinking, speaking, and acting. I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others; and I will share my time, energy, and material resources with those who are in need. I will practice looking deeply to see that the happiness and suffering of others are not separate from my own happiness and suffering; that true happiness is not possible without understanding and compassion; and that running after wealth, fame, power, and sensual pleasures can bring much suffering and despair. I am aware that happiness depends on my mental attitude and not on external conditions, and that I can live happily in the present moment simply by remembering that I already have more than enough conditions to be happy. I am committed to practicing Right Livelihood so that I can help reduce the suffering of living beings on Earth and reverse the process of global warming.

Don't let the mediocrity that surrounds you affect the creative machinery of your rich mind. Like how the incandescent beauty of the magnificent lotus is unaffected by the swampy mud that surrounds it.

In contrast to most of the examples given in this chapter, it is occasionally recorded that even solitary confinement imposed by enemies can be the trigger for psychological experiences of lasting value. Anthony Grey, who experienced solitary confinement in China, and Arthur Koestler, who was similarly imprisoned in Spain, discussed their experiences together on television. The transcript of their discussion appears in Koestl’s collection of essays, Kaleidoscope. Both men were grateful that they did not have to share a cell with another prisoner. Both felt that solitude enhanced their appreciation of, and sympathy with, their fellow men. Both had intense experiences of feeling that some kind of higher order of reality existed with which solitude put them in touch. Both felt that trying to put this experience into words tended to trivialize it, because words could not really express it. Although neither man subscribed to any orthodox religious belief, both agreed that they had felt the abstract existence of something which was indefinable or which could only be expressed in symbols. Anthony Grey thought that his experience had given him a new awareness and appreciation of normal life. Koestler concurred, but added that he had also become more aware of horrors lurking under the surface. Koestler also refers to a feeling of inner freedom, of being alone and confronted with ultimate realities instead of with your bank statement. Your bank statement and other trivialities are again a kind of confinement. Not in space but in spiritual space . . . So you have got a dialogue with existence. A dialogue with life, a dialogue with death. Grey comments that this is an area of experience into which most people do not enter. Koesder righdy affirms that most people have occasional confrontations of this kind when they are severely ill or when a parent dies, or when they first fall in love. Then they are transferred from what I call the trivial plane to the tragic or absolute plane. But it only happens a few times. Whereas in the type of experience which we shared, one has one’s nose rubbed into it, for a protracted period.17 So, occasionally, good can come out of evil. Anthony Grey recalled being shown a painting by a Chinese friend in which a beautiful lotus flower is growing out of mud. The human spirit is not indestructible; but a courageous few discover that, when in hell, they are granted a glimpse of heaven.

When we find the dark side of life too much to take, when we feel an urge to fight or escape from it all, perhaps we should visualize a lotus flower, the timeless Buddhist symbol for purity. While the lotus itself is clean and beautiful, it is nevertheless rooted in dirty, stinking mud. Unsightly as the mud may be, it provides the necessary nutrients for the lotus flower. Should the flower be disconnected from the mud, it cannot continue to live. Perhaps we should think of our greed, anger, and lust in the same way: they provide the necessary food for our soul.

Out of the mud grows the lotus

If we’re feeding our suffering while we’re walking, working, eating, or talking, we are making ourselves victims of the ghosts of the past, of the future, or our worries in the present. We’re not living our lives.

like the lotus flower born from the mud, we must embrace the darkest parts of ourselves to become our most beautiful selves.

always liked the symbolism of the lotus flower—rebirth, resurrection, revival. Its roots are in the mud at the bottom of ponds or rivers, and its petals emerge above the water. Every night they close up and duck beneath the surface, and every morning they rise up and open again. I got it at a time in my life when I needed to be reminded of my capacity for resilience. The lotus flower never gives up. It gives me strength when I need it.

The lotus grows in the mud, but it reaches up for the sun, and as it emerges it produces the most beautiful flower in the world. According to Buddha, every person has the potential to become enlightened and to become perfect. It is just a matter of time before we reach the light. If not in this life, then the next, or the one after that.

The soil of our mind contains many seeds, positive and negative. We are the gardeners who identify, water, and cultivate the best seeds. Touching the seeds of joy, peace, freedom, solidity, and love in ourselves and in each other is an important practice that helps us grow in the direction of health and happiness.

you suffer from depression, your depression won’t be able to go away until you know how to stop. You’ve lived in such a way that depression has become possible. You’ve been running and not allowed yourself the time to rest, to relax, and to live your daily life deeply. Spending time each day doing mindful walking can help. Arrange your life so that you can do mindful walking every day.

Lotus plants grow in poor conditions. Their roots are in the mud, sometimes dirty swamps. But they rise above that. Their flowers are very beautiful. Sometimes when we have problems we, too, can use our difficulties to create something we may not even have considered before. We can turn our suffering into the cause of extraordinary growth.” Like so much else of what His Holiness said, his words could be understood in different ways. I knew he was making not only a general observation but offering a deeply personal message—one that referred not only to my own recent challenges but to Mrs. Trinci’s, too. And, more important, to the fresh direction in which they could propel us. Instead of believing my infestation to be a cause of nothing but biting misery, I was beginning to see that it seemed it could become fuel for personal growth.

You think that you will die in a few years, or twenty years, or thirty years. That’s not true. You are dying now. You have been dying all the time. It’s actually very pleasant to die, which is also to live.

You see clearly that he has a lot of pain inside and doesn’t know how to handle it. That is why he suffers so much and makes the people around him suffer. What he needs is help, not punishment. If you stay with this practice, the suffering of anger or jealousy in you will dissipate and the flower of compassion will be born.

If we take care of the suffering inside us, we have more clarity, energy, and strength to help address the suffering violence, poverty, and inequity of our loved ones as well as the suffering in our community and the world. If, however, we are preoccupied with the fear and despair in us, we can’t help remove the suffering of others. There is an art to suffering well. If we know how to take care of our suffering, we not only suffer much, much less, we also create more happiness around us and in the world.

With mindful breathing, you can recognize the presence of a painful feeling, just like an older sibling greets a younger sibling. You can say, “Hello, my suffering. I know you are there.” In this way, the energy of mindfulness keeps us from being overwhelmed by painful feelings. We can even smile to our suffering and say, “Good morning, my pain, my sorrow, my fear. I see you. I am here. Don’t worry.

The notions we entertain about what will bring us happiness are just a trap. We forget that they are only ideas. Our idea of happiness can prevent us from being happy. When we believe that happiness should take a particular form, we fail to see the opportunities for joy that are right in front of us.

How long will you keep fighting the mud? Grow out of it like a lotus.

When you have softness and precision at the same time, the lotus of awakened heart is blossoming within you. The lotus always blooms in the mud. You are willing to give birth to this beautiful lotus flower in the muddy waters of your life. For the first time, you realize that you are a candidate to be a wakeful person.

Our tendency is to think that if we let go, we’ll lose the things that make us happy. But the opposite is true. The more we let go, the happier we become.

The point of meditation is not to turn yourself into a battlefield, one side opposing the other. Conscious breathing soothes and calms the anger, and mindfulness penetrates it. Anger is just an energy, and all energies can be transformed. Meditation is the art of using one kind of energy to transform another.

Can I realize my deepest aspiration if I pursue this path?” “What is really preventing me from taking the path I most deeply desire?

As long as you continue to compare, you suffer from the fear of coming up short; and, even worse, you keep yourself trapped in a constant, painful delusion of isolation and alienation.

If you can recognize and accept your pain without running away from it, you will discover that although pain is there, joy can also be there at the same time.

She had found something immensely precious in their world, a diamond in the coals, a lotus in the mud. And she vowed to cherish it, cherish him, as he deserved. He needed time to open up, to trust her not to abandon him someday, and she would give that to him. He had earned that.

So the practice is not to fight or suppress the feeling, but rather to cradle it with a lot of tenderness. When a mother embraces her child, that energy of tenderness begins to penetrate into the body of the child. Even if the mother doesn’t understand at first why the child is suffering and she needs some time to find out what the difficulty is, just her act of taking the child into her arms with tenderness can already bring relief. If we can recognize and cradle the suffering while we breathe mindfully, there is relief already.

The Buddha’s Four Noble Truths are: there is suffering; there is a course of action that generates suffering; suffering ceases (i.e., there is happiness); and there is a course of action leading to the cessation of suffering (the arising of happiness).

Breathing in, I know I’m alive.” Your eyes still work: “Breathing in, I’m aware of my eyes. Breathing out, I smile to my eyes.

Many people suffer due to the fear of dying. We want to live forever. We fear annihilation. We don’t want to pass from being into nonbeing. This is understandable. If you believe that one day you will cease to exist altogether, it can be very scary. But if you take the time to still the activities of body and mind and look deeply, you may see that you are dying right this very moment. You think that you will die in a few years, or twenty years, or thirty years. That’s not true. You are dying now. You have been dying all the time. It’s actually very pleasant to die, which is also to live.

If you want to experience what the end of suffering will feel like, it is in the here and the now with this breath. If you want nirvana, it’s right here.

the miracle is not to walk on water or in thin air, but to walk on Earth.

When I was a young monk, I believed that the Buddha didn’t suffer once he had become enlightened. Naively I asked myself, “What’s the use of becoming a Buddha if you continue to suffer?” The Buddha did suffer, because he had a body, feelings, and perceptions, like all of us. Sometimes he probably had a headache. Sometimes he suffered from rheumatism. If he happened to eat something not well cooked, then he had intestinal problems. So he suffered physically, and he suffered emotionally as well. When one of his beloved students died, he suffered. How can you not suffer when a dear friend has just died? The Buddha wasn’t a stone. He was a human being. But because he had a lot of insight, wisdom, and compassion, he knew how to suffer and so he suffered much less.

If we know how to create a moment of happiness, we get to enjoy that happiness ourselves, and we can also double it by sharing it with another person. That is the art of happiness, tasting and delighting in the little happinesses of daily life.

From the point of view of Mother Earth, poison oak and weeds are as wonderful as chrysanthemum or rosemary. It is our mind consciousness that discriminates and declares, "I want this and I do not want that." Mother Earth does not have these ideas. The true nature of reality for her is neither defiled not pure, neither increasing no decreasing. The true nature of everything is free from concepts such as good and evil; it is indeterminate. There is no discrimination. As living beings, we have our needs, desires, and cravings, and we have our discrimination. So we see things in terms of good and evil, increasing and decreasing, defiled and immaculate. Mother Earth does not discriminate. If you throw perfume or flowers on her, she's not proud. If you throw urine or excrement on her, she's not offended. For her, everything is perfect. She knows that without this, the other cannot be. Without the mud, the lotus cannot be. So we can learn a lot from Mother Earth.

Play the role of a bell of mindfulness. Your squeezing the hand is like a bell, lovingly calling your friend back to himself. That squeeze means, "I am here for you, you don't need to do anything but breathe.

We don’t have to wait for the end of all suffering before we can be happy. Happiness is available to us right here and right now. But we may need to change our idea of happiness. Our idea of happiness may itself be the main obstacle keeping us from true happiness.

There is a Buddhist teaching found in the Sallatha Sutta, known as The Arrow. It says if an arrow hits you, you will feel pain in that part of your body where the arrow hit; and then if a second arrow comes and strikes exactly at the same spot, the pain will not be only double, it will become at least ten times more intense. The unwelcome things that sometimes happen in life—being rejected, losing a valuable object, failing a test, getting injured in an accident—are analogous to the first arrow. They cause some pain. The second arrow, fired by our own selves, is our reaction, our storyline, and our anxiety. All these things magnify the suffering. Many times, the ultimate disaster we’re ruminating upon hasn’t even happened.

A human being without understanding is a human being without compassion, utterly alone, cut off, and isolated. To connect with others, however, we first have to be willing to look deeply into ourselves.

The Buddha likened humans to the lotus flowers. Out of the deluded mud of human existence, filled with greed, hatred, and delusion, in a world where wars, oppression, and lust rule the masses, there are those who can and will rise above the muck and emerge victorious against suffering.

Some Indigenous Elders add lotus seed cakes to their diet in their final years, meditating on a branch continually blossoming, so that in their next reincarnation they’ll have to deal with less opaque karmic mud. Thus we hope to gain a longer measure of time to bring our share of Heaven to bear on Earth.

If you can be aware that you have a living body, and notice when there's tension in your body, that's already an important insight.

It is the Universal Spirit awakened in the human mind. It is not the mind that feels joy or sorrow; nor is it the mind that reasons and infers; nor is it the mind that fancies and dreams; nor is it the mind that hopes and fears; nor is it the mind that distinguishes good from evil. It is Enlightened Consciousness that holds communion with Universal Spirit or Buddha, and realizes that individual lives are inseparably united, and of one and the same nature with Universal Life. It is always bright as a burnished mirror, and cannot be dimmed by doubt and ignorance. It is ever pure as a lotus flower, and cannot be polluted by the mud of evil and folly.

Wonderful-Voice is told not to think less of this world, our world, just because it is full of mud, stones, and impurities.  I think this is an important reminder for us.  We should not think that we are somehow inferior, or that our faults are something to be ashamed of.  There is much in society that seeks to have us believe that we are somehow inferior.  Think about advertisements for example, the whole purpose of advertisements is to convince you that you are incomplete, or lacking, or inferior to some ideal because you don’t use a particular product.  You may have even received messages in school or growing up, which you carry around, that make you feel you are not worthy of being happy. The message of this chapter is that there is not one among us who is disqualified from attaining enlightenment or of being happy.  We are not missing anything, nor are we short of anything, nor are we not good enough to become Buddhas.

You associate with living beings by frequenting their migrations. Yet your mind is liberated from all migrations. Just as the lotus, born of mud, is not tainted thereby, So the lotus of the Buddha preserves the realization of voidness.

Lotus grows on mud. No mud no lotus.

The two- or three-story houses have ground-floor walls made out of whitewashed stone or mud, and upper levels of mud and wood. The narrow windows with their scalloped tops have sliding wooden slats to let in light and shut out the rain or the cold. The exterior walls are decorated with elaborate paintings, in faded blues and reds, of lotus flowers, deer, birds, and giant stylized phalluses (“to ward off evil spirits,” Rita says). Ladder steps lead to heavy wooden doors with irregular latches and locks. The roofs are covered with stone slates, or wooden shingles held down by large stones.

A serene mind does not require precepts. An upright behaviour does not need contemplative practice. 心平何勞持戒　行直何用修禪 Filial piety is gratefully taking care of parents. Justice is tenderly empathizing both the superior and inferior. 恩則孝養父母　義則上下相憐 Deference is to be in harmony despite nobility and inferiority. Tolerance is to not reveal the faults of others. 讓則尊卑和睦　忍則眾惡無喧 Given that fire can be made from drilling wood, Red lotuses can surely sprout from mud. 若能鑽木取火　淤泥定生紅蓮 Effective medicine is bitter to the taste. Earnest advice are words hard against the ear. 苦口的是良藥　逆耳必是忠言 Correction of errors gives rise to wisdom. Concealment of failures indicates an unvirtuous mind. 改過必生智慧　護短心內非賢 Altruism should be practiced often everyday. Ascension does not come from monetary alms. 日用常行饒益   成道非由施錢 Bodhi can only be found in the mind No need to search profound outside. 菩提只向心覓　何勞向外求玄 Upon hearing these words and practice accordingly, then heaven will be nowhere but before your eyes. 聽說依此修行　天堂只在目前

No mud, no lotus,” says Thich Nhat Hanh. “Lotus flowers do not grow on marble.

Knowing how to suffer well is essential to realizing true happiness. SUFFERING

The lotus is one of the most commercially successful sources of inspiration for biomimetic products. Apart from their intoxicating, heavenly fragrance, lotus plants are a symbol of purity in some major religions. More than two thousand years ago, for example, the Bhagavad Gita, one of India's ancient sacred scriptures, referred to lotus leaves as self-cleaning, but it wasn't until the late 1960s that engineers with access to high-powered microscopes began to understand the mechanism underlying the lotus' dirt-free surface. German scientist Dr. Wilhelm Barthlott continued this research, finding microstructures on the surface of a lotus leaf that cause water droplets to bead up and roll away particles of mud or dirt. Like many biomimics, this insight came quickly, while its commercialization took many years more. The "Lotus Effect"-short for the superhydrophobic (water-repelling) quality of the lotus leaf's micro to nanostructured surface-has become the subject of more than one hundred related patents and is one of the premier examples of successfully commercialized biomimicry.

It does not matter what muds you will ever know as long as you make them A White Lotus. Petra Hermans Babaji September 19, 2016

If we know how to handle the little sufferings, we don’t have to suffer on a daily basis. We can practice letting go of what the French call les petites miseres, the little miseries, and save our energy to embrace and soothe the true pains of illness and loss that are unavoidable.

When suffering arises, the first thing to do is to stop, follow our breathing, and acknowledge it. Don’t try to deny uncomfortable emotions or push them down.

May I be able to live fresh, solid, and free.

If you can recognize and accept your pain without running away from it, you will discover that although pain is there, joy can also be there at the same time. Some say that suffering is only an illusion or that to live wisely we have to “transcend” both suffering and joy. I say the opposite. The way to suffer well and be happy is to stay in touch with what is actually going on; in doing so, you will gain liberating insights into the true nature of suffering and of joy.

The lotus is a flower that grows in water. It starts off its life buried in the muck, struggling against the mud and sand, before rising up through the murky depths and breaking through the surface as it reaches for the light—truth rising from the ignorance of the world. The cross symbolizes the crucifixion of Christ, the Light of the World. He sits upon the lotus flower—life rising from the stain of death that taints the world. The truth eventually comes to light, and evil is eventually exposed, no matter how much we try to hide it.

When we feel suffering, we have the urge to run away from it and fill ourselves up with junk food, junk entertainment, anything to keep our mind off the pain that is there inside us. It doesn’t work. We may succeed in numbing ourselves from it for a little while, but the suffering inside wants our attention and it will fester and churn away until it gets it.

Times of suffering will come, use them To grow into a better version of yourself. Use the dirt to grow flowers. Let the storm water them. Watch them grow in the sunshine.

We don’t say that we “hit the bell” or “strike the bell.” Rather, we say we “invite the bell” to sound, because the bell is a friend, an enlightened friend that helps us wake up and guides us home to ourselves. Gentleness and nonviolence are characteristics of the sound of the bell. Its sound is gentle but very powerful. When you hear the sound of the bell, take the opportunity to come home to yourself

your future, and the symbol of the lotus flower was the most powerful image of all. It grows from the mud, the dirt, and emerges resplendent in its breath-taking beauty. It’s a symbol of purity, self-regeneration, and spiritual enlightenment. I chose the lotus flower because I identify with it. I grew from the mud and the dirt, and I have created something beautiful. So,

the symbol of the lotus flower was the most powerful image of all. It grows from the mud, the dirt, and emerges resplendent in its breath-taking beauty. It’s a symbol of purity, self-regeneration, and spiritual enlightenment. I chose the lotus flower because I identify with it. I grew from the mud and the dirt, and I have created something beautiful.

The hardest thing to practice is not allowing yourself to be overwhelmed by despair. When you’re overwhelmed by despair, all you can see is suffering everywhere you look. You feel as if the worst thing is happening to you. But we must remember that suffering is a kind of mud that we need in order to generate joy and happiness. Without suffering, there’s no happiness. So we shouldn’t discriminate against the mud. We have to learn how to embrace and cradle our own suffering and the suffering of the world, with a lot of tenderness.

I have to show an effort to change the water in Rhyme.

The Lawn is sewn in bird seed and a dove covers up.

I wouldn’t want to be in a world without any suffering, because then there would be no compassion and understanding either. If you haven’t suffered hunger, you can’t appreciate having something to eat. If you haven’t gone through a war, you don’t know the value of peace. That is why we should not try to run away from one unpleasant thing after another. Holding our suffering, looking deeply into it, and transforming it into compassion, we find a way to happiness.

Knowing how to suffer well is essential to realizing true happiness.

When we suffer we think that the other person has caused our suffering. “She doesn’t love me. So why do I have to love her?” Our natural tendency is to want to punish the other person. And the way we do that is to show her that “I can survive very well without you.” This is an indirect way of saying: “I don’t need you.” But that’s not true love. Many of us have made that mistake. I also have made that mistake. But we learn. In fact, when we suffer we do need the other person. That’s the commitment we made in the beginning of our relationship.

Dear Lotus Flower, Just like you, my roots were always latched in the mud. I envied you because you were in the dark, murky water only at night—when the daylight arose, you bloomed. Unlike you, I was submerged in nasty water every day and night, but the light abandoned me. Came the morning light, and somehow miraculously, you rebloomed, sparkling, and so clean. I sort of bloomed at night with the moonlight and stars. However, the next morning I wasn’t so lucky because the morning light was nowhere to be found. Things got better for me slowly but surely. I must say, no matter how many times our roots were in the dirtiest water, we survived. We survived because our roots provided the nutrients that allowed us to bloom. I read that a lotus flower at times only partially opens, and the center is hidden. Just like you, there were times when I slowly opened up to people. I hid my inner core because mentally, I didn’t know who to trust. However, I arose from the midst of suffering. Again, just like you, I withstood highly adverse conditions and had to repair myself mentally and physically. Nobody knows, but you are my favorite flowers. We are unique, and we have so much in common. Your shadowy, murky origin found enlightenment as you were on the hunt for light. I, too, was on the quest for light for many years. For 16 years, I was thirsty for light, and now my thirst is quenched. All of those years, I yearned and wanted to break free and bloom. However, I had to keep moving, growing, and believing. My soul is no different from a Lotus flower. I didn’t start my journey in fresh water because my environment was not pleasant. Just like a Lotus flower, my life was surrounded by insects, debris, and so many unpleasant things and people. However, just like the Lotus petals are never contaminated by the murky water, my core remained pure. Just like the Lotus flower, I came from a place of suffering. However, I remained true to myself. I have overcome many obstacles in my life. I am proud of myself—because this time, I jumped a little higher over the hurdles. I have finished the never-ending race. I have officially crossed the finish line and have a fresh start! I am renewed, and I am loved! Triumph should be my middle name because I never gave up.

Dear Lotus Flower, Just like you, my roots were always latched in the mud. I envied you because you were in the dark, murky water only at night—when the daylight arose, you bloomed. Unlike you, I was submerged in nasty water every day and night, but the light abandoned me. Came the morning light, and somehow miraculously, you rebloomed, sparkling, and so clean. I sort of bloomed at night with the moonlight and stars. However, the next morning I wasn’t so lucky because the morning light was nowhere to be found. Things got better for me slowly but surely. I must say, no matter how many times our roots were in the dirtiest water, we survived. We survived because our roots provided the nutrients that allowed us to bloom.

we've seen that our suffering is connected with the suffering of our ancestors, our loved ones, and with the planet itself, so we know our happiness is not an individual matter. If we are able to breathe happily, we can invite our ancestors to enjoy breathing in with our lungs. If we are able to enjoy walking, we can invite our ancestors to walk with our feet.

But if you take the time to still the activities of body and mind and look deeply, you may see that you are dying right this very moment. You think that you will die in a few years, or twenty years, or thirty years. That's not true. You are dying now. You have been dying all the time. It's actually very pleasant to die, which is also to live.

We all have an ember of madness that lives inside us. Given sufficient oxygen, it becomes a torch. Carrying a torch is dangerous, but it can save you in your darkest hour. My life has taught me that people break, become unhinged, fall completely apart, and then recover. After all, without mud, there would be no lotus flower.

Allow yourself to sink deeply into the here and the now, because life is possible only in the present, life is available only in the present moment, and you know that you have the capacity to touch life in the present moment, in the here and the now.

My previously published works were a lotus— an expression of hope— but I knew I had yet to speak of the mud— the darkness which makes these manifestations of hope an achievement of transcendence rather than simply one of literary merit.

In these days of living in a dry land that wants fire, we need to find words, or burn. 'I dreamt of rain last night.' Mai stood near my skin, on the bank of the American River, her flesh wet with simplicity. The scent of star thistle mixed with river mud. ' I met people in my dreams who had never known the inside of a lotus flower. Ever.' In the center of each word another word unfolded. Our ankles cold from the river. Her hands trembled. Bewildered fingers. Be careful around those who claim to know the history of fire and yet remain unafraid of rain.

Just like the Lotus flower you will rise , your roots might be deep into the mud yet you will rise up beautiful ,attractive and unique ,always remember, there is no one like you !

A white flower Lotus opens each and every day before my mud.

If there was one thing she had realized over the past few weeks, one thing that had become an epiphany in the past few hours, it was that this man would never have killed her. As silent as he remained, Morana knew it wasn’t because he didn’t feel anything. It was because he felt too much and no matter what, she vowed, watching him at her feet, that she would ride it out with him. She had found something immensely precious in their world, a diamond in the coals, a lotus in the mud. And she vowed to cherish it, cherish him, as he deserved. He needed time to open up, to trust her not to abandon him someday, and she would give that to him. He had earned that.

No lilies. They're a symbol of death. I want the room to be filled with exotic flowers: Passiflora caerulea--- it's a blue passionflower representing that I'm a passionate man. If you can arrange for a bowl of water or mud, I'd also like a few lotus flowers, and a bird-of-paradise flower. Amaryllis will brighten things up--- I'm thinking a mix of salmon and orange. Maybe some hyacinths, calathea, and lilacs for the scent. Throw in some irises, dahlias... oh, and peonies, but not from Leo's greenhouse because they're suffering from a blight, azaleas, hydrangeas...

The superconscient, not the subconscient, is the true foundation of things. The significance of the lotus is not to be found by analysing the secrets of the mud from which it grows here; its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the lotus that blooms forever in the Light above.

Maybe we have not been kind enough to our body for some time. Recognizing the tension, the pain, the stress in our body, we can bathe it in our mindful awareness, and that is the beginning of healing.

I am a lotus. I am a lotus feeling nothing at all. I rise to the top of the water, leaving the earthly mud below me.

One day the Buddha was sistting with some of his monks in the woods. They had just come back from an almsround and were ready to share a mindful lunch together. A farmer passed by, looking distraught. He asked the Buddha, "Monks, have you seen some cows going by here?" "What cows?" the Buddha responded. "Well," the man said, "I have four cows and I don't know why, but this morning they all ran aay. I also have two acres of sesame. This year the insects ate the entire crop. I have lost everything: my harvest and my cows. I feel like killing myself." The Buddha said, "Dear friend, we have been sitting here almost an hour and we have not seen any cows passing by. Maybe you should go and lookin the other direction." When the farmer was gone, the Buddha looked at his friends and smiled knowingly. "Dear friends, you are very lucky," he said. "You don't have any cows to lose.

No mud, no lotus.

To connect with others, however, we first have to be willing to look deeply into ourselves.

When we feel suffering, we have the urge to run away from it and fill ourselves up with junk food, junk entertainment, anything to keep our mind off the pain that is there inside us.

Lotus plants grow in poor conditions. Their roots are in the mud, sometimes dirty swamps. But they rise above that. Their flowers are very beautiful. Sometimes when we have problems we, too, can use our difficulties to create something we may not even have considered before. We can turn our suffering into the cause of extraordinary growth.

What is self? Self is a lotus bud slimed over in mud.

Most surf spots are best at low tide when the ocean’s ribs are exposed and vulnerable. People are like this too. When we’re hurting, when we feel rejected or unloved, our usual complacent approaches and all our hard-shelled survival mechanisms no longer seem to work. But lotuses grow from mud - and from brokenness, in my experience, beautiful things emerge. We are forced, out of necessity to write a poem or song in tears. We’re forced to go on retreat, into silence, into the realization that this feeble body and brain can’t do it all.

Waking up this morning I smile. I have twenty-four hours to live. I vow to live them deeply and learn to look at the beings around me with the eyes of compassion. There are four lines. The first line is for your in-breath. The second line is for your out-breath. The third line is for your in-breath again. The fourth line is for your out-breath.

If we know how to take care of our suffering, we not only suffer much, much less, we also create more happiness around us and in the world.

In all these situations, even if you don’t have a regular interpersonal relationship with your parents or your ancestors, your body and mind contain their suffering and their hopes as well as your own.

Usually we think that other people, such as our parents, our partner, or people at work, are to blame for our hurt. But looking more deeply, we can see the true sources of our own suffering, and we also can see that the person who we think is out to get us is a victim of his or her own suffering.

Breathing in, I know suffering is there. Breathing out, I say hello to my suffering.

we have lost touch with it. We don’t know how to rest anymore. We don’t allow the body to rest, to release the tension, and heal. We rely almost entirely on medication to deal with sickness and pain. Yet the most effective ways to ease and transform our suffering are already available to us without any prescription and at no financial cost.