Mindfulness Therapy: No Mud, no Lotus
If you know how to make good use of the mud, you can grow beautiful lotuses. Thich Nhat Hanh
Most of us know what it's like to get stuck in the 'mud' of life. Even as we seek happiness, challenges and suffering meet us. We can find inspiration in the lotus, which lives rooted in the mud without sacrificing its beauty. For many, the lotus flower represents a spiritual connection and the ability to overcome anything. It affirms our capacity to rise from difficulty and hardship into the beauty of expanded consciousness.
The symbolism of the lotus flower
The life cycle of the lotus is unique. Although rooted in mud, each night it returns within, submerging into murky waters only to re-emerge and re-bloom the following day, fresh, clean, and with all its purity intact. It is associated with an ability for non-attachment as its flower remains unaffected by the mud below.
The lotus flower is associated with rebirth and spiritual enlightenment in many cultures. Even amidst difficulty, the enlightened mind can rise from and overcome its circumstances.
Finding hope in dark, difficult times
One of the most challenging things to accept is that life contains suffering. None of us are immune from the experiences of loss, disappointment, fear, and challenge.
Some of us have emotional trauma from childhood. We may have absorbed the fear, cravings, and despair of our parents and the surrounding world, leaving us anxious, depressed, and wounded.
Many of us have experienced the loss of people and things that we count on — a relationship, home, health, and finances.
The emotional pain in our communities, society, and world also can be shocking. We see the limitations and confusion of others, and we are affected. We have 'collective pain' that we share. It can be overwhelming to experience that everywhere we look, we see suffering.
Life is not here to make you comfortable
Adversity can cause us to stop and take stock of our needs, priorities, and understanding of life.
We may find ourselves going in a direction for some time — in a job, relationship, or a way of life —that then loses satisfaction. This loss of fulfillment can lead to healthy questioning of our life purpose and propel us to align with a greater universal purpose.
“Life is not here to make you comfortable; life is here to make you conscious.”
Life is here to make you conscious
We can transform pain. Where there is suffering, there is also grace. A new beginning follows an ending. Courage accompanies fear. Out of periods of anxiety and pressure can come positive growth and change. With adversity, there is also a potential to grow in our awareness and understanding of a greater consciousness.
Difficulties can become a springboard for awakening. They can move us in a new direction that deepens questioning of ourselves, our life purpose, and the nature of reality. And this can expand our capacity to see ourselves and life with new eyes.
Making good use of suffering
There is a way out of suffering. The Vietnamese Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh described the natural process of dead flowers and foliage becoming fertilizer for new seeds that regenerate a garden.
Thich Nhat Hanh spoke of suffering as compost for the flowering of our consciousness. We need not be discouraged. We can learn how to make beneficial use of adversity. We can use the experiences of loss, disappointment, fear, and unfulfilled desires to grow flowers of compassion, peace, joy, and happiness for ourselves and others
Suffering is a kind of mud to help the lotus flower of happiness grow. There can be no lotus flower without the mud. ~Thich Nhat Hanh
When is suffering self-created?
Sometimes suffering is self-created and unnecessary. When might this happen?
To start, we need to take a closer look at our idea of happiness — our expectations of ourselves and our lives may need to be adjusted. Our society has many distorted pictures of happiness related to an accumulation of material things and social status.
The ego creates suffering both on a personal level and a collective level. The nature of the unobserved mind is to create separation. It needs us to be better than others — either in success or misery.
With self-compassion, we can look at the tendencies that keep us stuck in unnecessary 'mud' and question our understanding.
The art of happiness
We can begin transforming 'compost' into fertilizer so that this energy becomes helpful in our journey of awakening.
Peace follows as we acknowledge, embrace, and sort out our life challenges. We can transform our suffering into understanding, compassion, and joy for ourselves and others. We can dive deeply into our experience of our essential nature, independent of our circumstances.
Come home to yourself
As we come home to ourselves and begin to make peace with suffering, we must gently look at the roots of our pain. We can find our way out of darkness through mindfulness and self-compassion.
By embracing the 'mud' in our life with tenderness, we can enter into a new experience of ourselves. Like the lotus, we can learn to rise every morning in the midst of, and despite, the mud.
We can honor our challenges as part of our custom-made design on our journey of expanded consciousness. As we increase awareness of our essential nature, we can discover that what we were seeking all along lies in the depths of our being.
Reach out to a mindfulness therapist
As with the lotus who finds a peaceful co-existence with the 'mud' of life, many of us seek to make peace with childhood emotional pain and life challenges — and we find these hard to sort out alone. Some challenges are meant to be faced with a trusted guide and resolve more quickly with support.
Reach out to find out more about mindfulness therapy today.