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.
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.
In each of our Plum Village practice centers around the world, we
have a lotus pond. 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.
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.
When I lived in Vietnam during the war, it was difficult to see
our way through that dark and heavy mud. It seemed like the destruction
would just go on and on forever. Every day people would ask me
if I thought the war would end soon. It was very difficult to answer,
because there was no end in sight. But I knew if I said, “I don’t know,”
that would only water their seeds of despair. So when people asked me
that question, I replied, “Everything is impermanent, even war. It will
end some day.” Knowing that, we could continue to work for peace.
And indeed the war did end. Now the former mortal enemies are busily
trading and touring back and forth, and people throughout the world
enjoy practicing our tradition’s teachings on mindfulness and peace. 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.