No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering

Product Information

The Tibetan monk Khenchen Rinpoche discusses four benefits of suffering: wisdom, resilience, compassion, and deep respect for reality. Wisdom emerges when we experience suffering. We rarely stop to ask ourselves questions about our lives when things go well. However, when we’re faced with a difficult situation, we often get out of our mindless state and start thinking about our experiences. To be able to look deeply, to develop what Solomon referred to as a “wise heart,” we must face the eye of the storm (the storm of life). 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? If you know how to make good use of the mud, you can grow beautiful lotuses. If you know how to make good use of suffering, you can produce happiness. We need some suffering to make happiness possible. A Meditation on Transforming Suffering

Both suffering and happiness are of an organic nature, which means they are both transitory, always changing. The flower, when it wilts, becomes the compost. The compost can help grow a flower again. Happiness is also organic and impermanent by nature. It can become suffering and suffering can become happiness again.If you want to feel it, to make it expand, to make it stay, keep reminding yourself: No mud, no lotus. 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. we can often avoid passing this suffering to our children and their children. Allow yourself time to look deeply, during your times of meditation. 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 So many of us stay busy with diversions, to avoid suffering, despair,anger, loneliness and so forth. But if we don't care for ourselves, how do we offer care to others. That's why we must stop running and practice the work of returning to our minds and bodies, through the breath and stillness.

Understanding your character strengths can increase your confidence in your ability to deal with any challenge that comes your way. No one can predict the future and we often create undue stress by overly focusing on and worrying about what “might happen.” While we cannot predict the future, we can choose to gratefully focus on our strengths, thus increasing our confidence and ability to deal with whatever the future brings. Use your mindfulness and self-compassion practices to be able to come to that observer awareness and acceptance and relate to the event somewhat objectively rather than caught in the trauma response. 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. 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.Looking Deeply are able to look at others with compassion, you see things very differ- ently. You speak differently. The other person can sense you are truly seeing her and understanding her, and that already eases her pain significantly. Even a child can look deeply and see that his parents have diffi- culties and don’t know how to handle their own pain. Their suffer- ing overflows out onto the people around them, including—even especially—the ones they love. An understanding of suffering helps anger to be transformed. And when compassion is born in your heart, you naturally want to reach out, to help others suffer less. Understanding and compassion are not for somebody else to cul- tivate. They can heal you and increase your happiness. A human being without understanding and compassion isn’t a happy being. Without compassion and understanding, you are utterly alone and cut off. You can’t relate to any other human being. I wouldn’t want to be in a world without any suffering, because then there would be no compassion and understanding either. If you haven’t suffered hunger, you can’t appreciate having something to eat. If you haven’t gone through a war, you don’t know the value of peace. That is why we should not try to run away from one unpleasant thing after another. Holding our suffering, looking deeply into it, and trans- forming it into compassion, we find a way to happiness. With mindfulness, the feelings that have been painful and diffi- cult transform into something beautiful: the wondrous, healing balm of understanding and compassion. 39

When a painful emotion comes up, stop whatever you’re doing and take care of it. Pay attention to what is happening. The practice is simple. Lie down, put your hand on your belly, and begin to breathe. Or you may sit on a cushion or on a chair. Stop thinking, and bring your mind down to the level of the navel. No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering is a book written by the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, the meaning behind the title is that without mud, the beautiful lotus flower could not grow. This is an analogy of life—without pain or suffering, there cannot be happiness. The key is to learn to transform your suffering and not ignore it, for which Hanh lays out a detailed plan on how to do this with various helpful techniques.

Arriving 100%

The Collective energy of mindfulness and compassion with and among others, can be very strong. Be an example to others. Water the seeds of others and watch them bloom, while feeling joy bloom within you at the same time. If your lungs want four steps instead of three, please give them four steps. If they want only two steps, give them two. The lengths of your in-breath and out-breath do not have to be the same. For example, you can take three steps with each inhalation and four with each exhalation. If you feel happy, peaceful, and joyful while you are walking, you are practicing correctly. headspace که از نتفلیکس پخش شد به عنوان headspace guide to meditation رو پیشنهاد میکنم، کوتاه تره، انیمیشن هاش فوق العاده است، توضیحات اضافه نداره، کتاب کلی مبحث های تکراری یا جملات یک شکل رو در فرم های مختلف بیان میکرد که باعث میشد بعضی وقت ها از حوصله خارج بشه و در اون سری برنامه headspace حدود ده دقیقه شما رو در طول مدیتیشن همراهی میکنه بهتون توضیح میده و خیلی کمک میکنه از سردرگمی های اوایل مدیتیشن کمتر کنید یا اگر مثل من مدام ذهنتون همه جا میچرخه بهتون تذکر بده و سریع تر ذهنتون و تمرکزتون رو برگردونه به جایی که باید باشه. جدا از تمام این ها واقعا راهنمایی های صدایی بهتر هستن از کتاب چون در طول مدیتیشن شما نیاز دارین به اینکه یک نفر براتون بعضی چیزها رو مدام تکرار کنه، مخصوصا اوایل راه. کتاب هرچقدر هم اطلاع بهتون بده باز هم در طول مدیتیشن ذهنتون انقدر تحت تاثیر افکار مختلف قرار میگیره که ممکنه بعد از ده دقیقه یک ربع تازه متوجه بشید که مدیتیشن نکردین در اصل در حال overthinking بودین... باز هم :›