Real wisdom for today’s life.
There are moments in life when nothing happens. And moments in which all of life happens in an instant.
And that happened to me when I listened to the interview that Thich Nhat Hanh gave with Oprah.
In it, this almost centenarian monk talks about mantras, uniqueness, and the meaning of life, specifically about the importance of suffering.
And I have never heard a phrase that will resonate so much with my pain as this one.
The most powerful quote I heard
“You can’t grow lotus on marble; you have to grow lotus on mud.”— Thich Nhat Hanh
This phrase clicked in my head, and it illuminated everything.
According to Thich Nhat Hanh, suffering is a special kind of mud that we must learn to use to grow the flower of empathy and love.
But for my soul, it resonated even more profoundly.
Thich Nhat Hanh’s words brought tears to my eyes.
Why?
I guess that’s the thing about beauty: it moves.
And beauty can be in a flower, in a painting, in a song, in the singing of birds, in nature, in silence, in a sentence; it can be in everything true. So that is why it touches us.
And that phrase made me shed rivers of tears. Because I finally understood the reason for all the suffering of the past decades of my life graphically.
All pain is soil that nourishes the seed so that it can sprout.
Think about it
You need manure for a garden to grow. You need mud for your inner seed to flourish.
That seed is your Higher self or spiritual self. And that mud is all the shit you went through, voluntarily or involuntarily.
An addiction.
Ignorance.
Sin.
It’s all mud for your seed.
And if this text resonates with you, it is because that seed is blossoming within you, my little Lotus 🙂
Let me tell you something
I know what you have been through. I lived through decades of darkness, addiction, and personal drama. But when that is transcended, something new is born.
And you have to share it because it’s a gift.
If you’ve made your way through the mud to the surface and blossomed, now it’s your turn to inspire the rest of the seeds to grow.
You prove that pain transforms and that nothing is wasted, not even suffering, in this world. And you are also the proof that there is light at the end of the tunnel. So you are the proof that all the bad things we go through have a meaning: to grow.
Takeaway
- If you are suffering, if you do not see the light, trust that in the not-too-distant future, you will understand the reason for everything happening because life does not occur through you but for you. And that suffering of today will become a lotus flower tomorrow.
- If you have already bloomed, you know what I am talking about. Share your gift with those who are still stuck in the mud. Thank you for blossoming.
A virtual hug
AG