No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering

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Taking time with this because this IS the turning point of moving from trauma into post-traumatic growth. This helps reverse the impact of suffering and resignation. You become more empowered, recover strengths, gain more self-control, experience more pro-active learning, return to active problem solving, believe you can cope and improve through effort and support. You get to claim that you are stronger than you think. “I can handle this.” With a resilience mindset, you can handle anything. My friend Beth sent me the image above of the beautiful blue mushrooms growing out of the sludge in her trash compactor, headed for the compost heap. Next, observe your feelings—whether they are pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Feelings flow in us like a river, and each feeling is a drop of water in that river. Look into the river of your feelings and see how each feeling came to be. See what has been preventing you from being happy, and do your best to transform those things. Practice touching the wondrous, refreshing, and healing elements that are already in you and in the world. Doing so, you become stronger and better able to love yourself and others.

One of the most important benefits of suffering is that, by experiencing it, we come to appreciate the value of reality. While the experience of pleasure connects us to the realm where there are no limits, the experience of pain makes us aware of our limitations. When we get hurt, despite all of our efforts, we are humbled by constraints that we sometimes fail to notice when we are feeling good and positive. When in ecstasy, we often lift our heads up to the heavens, to infinity; but then when in agony, we cast our gaze down to the earth, to finite. This is symbolic as much as it is true. Nhat Hanh shares how practising mindfulness through meditation and other activities can help us cultivate the energy of mindfulness within everyday life. With that energy, you can embrace pain and calm down, instantly bringing a sense of freedom and clarity. In this article, we will cover what No Mud No Lotus means, where it came from and how it can help you grow towards happiness. What Does No Mud No Lotus Mean and Where Does it Come From? Looking Deeply the pain of our ancestors Some of our ill-being comes from hurt and pain in our own life; but some has been transmitted to us by our ancestors. Think of a stalk of corn that grows from a seed. Each ear of corn, each leaf, contains that initial seed. In every cell of the plant that seed is there. And just as the plant of corn is the continuation of the seed of corn, you are the con- tinuation of your parents. When you see a picture of yourself as a five-year-old child, you may ask yourself, “Am I the same person as that child?” The answer isn’t “Yes” or “No.” Your form, your feelings, your mental formations, your perceptions, and your consciousness are quite different from when you were that child. It’s clear you aren’t exactly that same person. But if you say that you are a completely different person, that’s equally wrong. You and that young child inter-are with each other. Before my mother gave birth to me, she had a miscarriage. The child who didn’t arrive that time—was he my brother or was he me? We aren’t the same, but we aren’t totally different. My feet have been transmitted to me by my ancestors. When I walk, I walk with my own feet, but these feet are also theirs. I can see the hand of my mother in my hand. I can see the arms of my father in my arms. I am my parents continuation. There are those who have lost their biological parents, or never knew them, and have no chance to connect with them in person. There are also people who grew up with their blood relatives, whose parents are still alive, yet they are unable to communicate with them. In all these situations, even if you don’t have a regular interpersonal rela- tionship with your parents or your ancestors, your body and mind con- tain their suffering and their hopes as well as your own. 33 Embracing the muddy, murky waters of loss, failure, disappointment or other negative emotions each of us encounters in life is easier said than done. How do we cultivate our own metaphorical lotus flowers and emerge triumphantly from the darkness, you may ask? As I pondered the lotus, I was reminded of similar work I do with my coaching clients. Key to Managing Negative Emotions is to First Mindfully Observe So the practice is not to fight or suppress the feeling, but rather to cradle it with a lot of tenderness. When a mother embraces her child, that energy of tenderness begins to penetrate into the body of the child. Even if the mother doesn't understand at first why the child is suffering and she needs some time to find out what the difficulty is, just her acto f taking the child into her arms with tenderness can alreadby bring relief. If we can recognize and cradle the suffering while we breathe mindfully, there is relief already.”When we suffer, we tend to think that suffering is all there is at that moment, and happiness belongs to some other time or place. People often ask, “Why do I have to suffer?” Thinking we should be able to have a life without any suffering is as deluded as thinking we should be able to have a left side without a right side. The same is true of thinking we have a life in which no happiness whatsoever is to be found. If the left says, “Right, you have to go away. I don’t want you. I only want the left”—that’s nonsense, because then the left would have to stop existing as well. If there’s no right, then there’s no left. Where there is no suffering, there can be no happiness either, and vice versa. Breathing in, you notice the rising of your abdomen. Breathing out, notice the falling of your abdomen. Breathe deeply and focus your attention only on your in-breath and out-breath. If there is anything to be aware of, it’s that an emotion is only an emotion, and that you are much more than one emotion. You are body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. The territory of your being is large. One emotion is very little. An emotion is something that comes and stays for a while and eventually goes away. If during the time of the emotion, you have that insight, that insight will save you. You don’t have to die just because of one emotion. Today, when I heard of Thich Nhat Hanh’s death, I returned once more to one of the most precious lessons I’ve learned from him: Suffering is inevitable, but we can always transform it. Even though the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic are not over, not yet, you can create a coherent narrative about events that have already happened to gain insight into how you have learned to “play an active role in how adversity transforms you.” (Kelly McGonigal in The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You and How to Get Good at It.)

Cold air can be painful if you aren’t wearing enough warm clothes. But when you’re feeling overheated or you’re walking outside with proper clothing, the bracing sensation of cold air can be a source of feeling joy and aliveness. Suffering isn’t some kind of external, objective source of oppression and pain. There might be things that cause you to suffer, such as loud music or bright lights, which may bring other people joy. There are things that bring you joy that annoy other people. The rainy day that ruins your plans for a picnic is a boon for the farmer whose field is parched. No one person can or should try to be the big idea change hero. We need our co-workers, collaborators, compatriots. They improve on our ideas and help us figure out how to sell it and get it adopted. As importantly, they ease the suffering of that goes with most change efforts. Other research on building resilience shows that bravery is one of the character strengths most strongly associated with resilience. It was found that bravery was related to the recovery of life satisfaction after physical illness, and to posttraumatic growth. Resilience also involves the development of courage, which is defined as the capacity to move into situations when we feel fear or hesitation (i.e. bravery). People who develop bravery do not shrink from threat, challenge, difficulty, or pain, and are able to face adverse situations with increased resilience. Connect, Care, Create Looking Deeply fear of what might happen if we do the wrong thing, or fear of being hurt by or of hurting someone we care about. Many people suffer due to the fear of dying. We want to live for- ever. We fear annihilation. We don’t want to pass from being into non- being. This is understandable. If you believe that one day you will cease to exist altogether, it can be very scary. But if you take the time to still the activities of body and mind and look deeply, you may see that you are dying right this very moment. You think that you will die in a few years, or twenty years, or thirty years. That’s not true. You are dying now. You have been dying all the time. It’s actually very pleasant to die, which is also to live. There are many cells inside your body that are dying as you read these words. Fifty to seventy billion cells die each day in the average human adult. You are too busy to organize funerals for all of them! At the very same time, new cells are being born, and you don’t have the time to sing Happy Birthday to them. If old cells don’t die, there’s no chance for new cells to be born. So death is a very good thing. It’s very crucial for birth. You are undergoing birth and death in this very moment. While most people are intensely afraid of dying, there are also people who are weary of living. They get bored after fifty, seventy, or maybe only twenty or thirty years. They find life unbearable and are seeking nonbeing. Some of them think that suicide is a way to end the suffering and to pass from the realm of being into nonbeing. Both of these preconceptions cause suffering because they ignore the reality that life and death always go together. You can’t take one out of the other. Even after your so-called death, you will continue in some way. Deep looking can dismantle these kinds of notions. There is no birth and death; everything dies and renews itself all the time. When 35We shouldn’t wait until the strong emotion comes to begin learning. That may be too late; the emotion may carry you away. But you can learn now. Then, if the day after tomorrow you have a strong emotion, you’ll have confidence that you can handle the strong emotion. Nhat Hanh discusses the question of whether or not the Buddha suffered by saying that since he had a body, feelings, and perceptions (like all of us) he should also have experienced suffering. Both physical suffering and mental suffering are unavoidable, but we can suffer much less if we don’t water the seeds of suffering within ourselves. We cannot simply consume to cover up our suffering; we need to practice spiritual skills to develop the ability and strength necessary to look deep into our suffering and make an inner breakthrough. How Can We Use Suffering as a Tool for Growth? When we’re creating change there will be mud and all its discomfort and messiness. Perhaps this is a more useful wisdom than “fail fast” for those creating change inside of big organizations.

Ea s e want to do it at all. But he went and got tea for Mara, hoping that Bud- dha and Mara would have a short conversation. In fact, the conversa- tion ended up being very long. Buddha and Mara spoke as if they were the best of friends. Buddha said, “Mara, how has it been for you? How are you doing?” Mara said, “Not very well.” “What happened?” the Buddha asked. Mara answered, “My disciples aren’t listening to me anymore. They used to do everything I told them to, but nowadays they want to rebel. All my generals, all my soldiers, all my disciples, they want to practice mindfulness. They want to practice walking meditation. They want to practice eating in silence. They want to protect the Earth. I don’t know who got to them. Dear Buddha, I’m just so tired of being Mara; I want to be someone else. Don’t think that being Mara is all wild parties, fun, and games.” The Buddha laughed. “You think being a Buddha is such a lark? Do you know that people say things that I have never said and then they say it is I who said that? They do things that I have never done or encouraged them to do, but they say that I encouraged them to do those things. “I let go of my exalted reputation, my princely position, and an endless availability of sensual pleasures. I abandoned my throne, my beautiful wife and baby, future children, and wealth, all so that I could realize liberation. But now people come to the temple to pray and plead with me to give them all the very things I have renounced! They don’t ask for peace or joy; they just ask for lots of money, power, or for their children to have good grades on their exams. “They build a big house and they say it’s my house. But it’s only a place where people come to pass by and offer food, bananas, sweet rice, and money, so that they can have more money to spend on themselves. 51

Thay Explains Walking Meditation

When you walk to the bus stop or from one room to another, make it into a walking meditation. Even if your surroundings are full of noise and agitation, you can still walk in rhythm with your breathing. Even in the commotion of a big city, you can walk with peace, happiness, and an inner smile. This is what it means to live fully in every moment of every day of your life. This is something that is possible to do. If you suffer from depression, your depression won’t be able to go away until you know how to stop. You’ve lived in such a way that depression has become possible. You’ve been running and not allowed yourself the time to rest, to relax, and to live your daily life deeply. Spending time each day doing mindful walking can help. Arrange your life so that you can do mindful walking every day. It’s good to walk alone, but it’s also good to practice walking meditation with the Sangha, to get support. You can ask a friend to go with you, or you can even take the hand of a child and walk with him or her. 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.

The tagline for this book is "The art of transforming suffering", and that is what this book is, a guidebook for turning suffering into - well, not suffering. Identify one event or challenge you want to work with. I do strongly suggest this is an event that you did cope with, processed and learned from. It’s in the past. It’s important to work with something that has not much risk of being re-triggered. This was part of my ongoing practice of reading a Buddhism book before meditation. I chose this book because I was so moved by The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching (Thich Nhat Hanh) that I felt I had to read more of Thay's writings, and I chose this book specifically because I liked the title.Architect Goes Blind, Says He’s Actually Gotten Better At His Job, Lesley Stahl, Correspondent, 60 Minutes, January 2019 Issue.