"If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change."
This is a quote by Gautama Buddha that I spent a better portion of the day contemplating. Some of the Buddha's sayings seem so modern in how they are stated, almost as if he were not talking 2500 years ago, but right now. The Buddha's concept of a flower was so important, that the entire concept of Zen Buddhism was built off a single flower. The story goes that the Buddha was about to give a sermon, but instead of talking, he just plucked a Lotus out of the muck of a pond and held it up to his audience to behold. One man in the group recognized Buddha's message, understood Nirvana, and founded the subset of Buddhism called Zen Buddhism- a study focused on direct experience rather than scripture.
I wish I could come to a conclusion on what the Buddha meant by his quote. I searched online for possible answers, but they're all just possible interpretations, no answers to it claimed by authority.
So what is a flower, and what miracle does it hold?
I considered that a flower is beautiful just for the sake of being beautiful- that we should just appreciate it for what it is. It looks pretty, it smells nice. But a flower, like anything else in nature, has a purpose. A flower is a plant's genitalia, and its purpose is to reproduce. They're beautiful so that they can attract insects and birds to pollinate them and get fertilized. Obviously at this point I was over-analyzing.
I then considered that maybe the flower represents impermanence, which is a big theme in Buddhism. Nothing is permanent, everything withers away, including beautiful things. But that's the pessimistic side of Buddhism, not the miraculous part. The Buddha was conveying a miracle with the flower.
One thing I read online stated that, because the Buddha pulled up the lotus out of the muck of the pond, that the muck represents humanity and the lotus represents an enlightened being springing from it. But that doesn't make sense in the story because it doesn't teach any lessons. The man who founded Zen Buddhism based on this flower already accepted that Gautama was the Buddha, he didn't need a little flower metaphor telling him that Buddhas spring up from humanity.
So I'm back at square one- I have no freaking clue what the miracle of a flower is. Maybe it's just poetry, it's not supposed to make sense, and it has no profound meaning in it other than one old man's interpretation of a flower.
They are pretty though.
