Lotuses and Mud

When something tragic happens to you, you have to remember how to be human. Slowly, over time, things start to make sense again. The lense you used to have as a human no longer resembles who you are now. Or if you and I are the same, then those statements are true. The reality that becomes ever so clear to me in every waking moment is that the human experience is incredibly varied. People experience tragedy as does the Earth an earthquake – the closer you are to the epicenter, the more you are effected. The more far away you are, the less you are.

It’s important to me now, though, that for the people in my life who know me, and care about me, that I am transparent about who and what I am. I am no longer Glo, to put it simply. There may be things about me that remain the same, and old habits die hard. I am me and not me at the same time. So to say that I am no longer myself is not true, but to say that I am exactly the same is also not true.

Recently I’ve been reading a lot more Eastern spirtual and philosophical books, and the one theme that keeps recurring to me is the Buddhist concept of “no mud, no lotus”. In Buddhism, there is the teaching of the Four Noble Truths; that suffering exists, and that desire is the root of suffering; that there is a way to end suffering, and that way is the “Middle Way”. There a lot more ways of interpreting or explaining these four truths, but for me the metaphor of “no mud, no lotus” rang the most true. The teaching is, to me, that suffering is going to happen no matter what; and if we can learn to transform our suffering, we will experience the joy of life much more imminently. The suffering is the “mud”, and the joy is the “lotus”. “When we know how to suffer,” Thich Nhat Hanh says, “we suffer much, much less.”

So here I am, tending to my small garden. I hope that I can suffer well in the process, and each person in my life learns to tend to their suffering as well.

Glo