No Mud. No Lotus.

What has beauty in this world, must first rise from the dirt.

The venerable Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, once wrote a book: No Mud No Lotus. The great teacher Alan Watts, once said, “We grow out of this world in exactly the same way that the apples grow on an apple tree.”

both of these teachings offer some similar wisdom. They both suggest that what has beauty in this world, must first rise from the dirt. From elements of our experience that we consider less desirable. But they are in fact the origin of what is beautiful. If we look closely at dirt it’s largely made up of dead things…dead people… what remains.

Yet such beauty comes from it. There are so many teachings out there now, with all the cameras and microphones available to us that would suggest that there is something that we need to do in order to achieve or to become. And there’s such a subtle form of aggression in that because it suggests that what is, is somehow wrong.

If you go deeper, it doesn’t even begin to address that the parts of us that are downright ugly, are actually sacred. Unbelievably sacred. The great fear in recognizing the parts of us that are sinful, confused and unskillful. The great fear is that if we recognize them and we fully accept them, somehow we will become lazy or complacent, that we won’t have any reason to work so hard, to make these pivots, make these pivots toward what we are told is a better way.

The truth is, we can never become all that we are. not all that we are capable, all that we are. Until we recognize all that we are. So much of what it means to be fully alive in this world, sin;t about doing anything, or making anything happen. It’s really allowing the ice to melt. Allowing what is already there, to rise up. If we disregard from where it has risen, we hold it down. we limit our experience. Literally. Because there’s simply parts of ourselves and parts of our experience that we don’t want to recognize.

I invite you to consider the parts of yourself you feel ought not to be there, should be different. Shame and regret are often symptoms of these things. Guilt in and of itself is a symptom. Consider the possibility of living without those things. This will not take you off the hook entirely. You’ll still feel pain as a result of engaging in behavior that is…

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