Death carries off a man busy picking flowers with an besotted mind, like a great flood does a sleeping village.
Gautama BuddhaRead
May we live like the lotus, at home in muddy water.
Interpretation
This quote encourages resilience and grace in challenging situations.
The lotus flower grows beautifully in muddy waters, symbolizing purity and enlightenment despite adversity. By wishing to live like the lotus, the quote expresses the idea of thriving and maintaining one's beauty and peace even when surrounded by difficulties and challenges. It embodies the ability to remain composed and grounded in the midst of life's messiness.
In practice
During a meditation retreat, I shared the quote to inspire others to embrace their challenges.
Death carries off a man busy picking flowers with an besotted mind, like a great flood does a sleeping village.
A kind man who makes good use of wealth is rightly said to possess a great treasure; but the miser who hoards up his riches will have no profit.
There are having flowers in Spring, breezes in Summer, moon in Autumn, snows in Winter. If there is nothing worrying over you, it will be the best seasons at all times.
Make an island of yourself, make yourself your refuge; there is no other refuge. Make truth your island, make truth your refuge; there is no other refuge.
When a wise man is advised of his errors, he will reflect on and improve his conduct. When his misconduct is pointed out, a foolish man will not only disregard the advice but rather repeat the same error.
The tongue like a sharp knife ... Kills without drawing blood.
And one more idea which may be laughed and sneered at in some supposedly sophisticated circles, but I just have to believe that the loving God who has blessed this land and thus made us a good and caring people should never have been expelled from America's classrooms. It's time to welcome Him back, because whenever we've opened ourselves and trusted in Him, we've gained not only moral courage but intellectual strength.
The Divine was beyond description, beyond knowing, beyond comprehension. To say that the Divine was Creation divided by Destruction was as close as one could come to definition. But the puny of soul, the dull of wit, weren't content with that. They wanted to hang a face on the Divine. They went so far as to attribute petty human emotions - anger, jealousy, etc - to it, not stopping to realize that if God were a being, even a supreme being, our prayers would have bored him to death long ago.
We only make peace with our enemies. That's why it's called making peace.
If we do not abide in prayer, we will abide in temptation.
I did used to have nightmares about the idea that when I die, there is a spark of consciousness which basically creates the world. 'Is the world going to disappear if this spark of consciousness disappears? And how do I know it won't? How do I know there's anything there except what I'm conscious of?'
We need not wait for the world to become more mystical; the world is mystical. Our problem is not that the world lacks magic; our problem is that we don't believe in its magic. We do not show up fully for life, and then wonder why life is not showing up more fully for us.
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