No Mud No Lotus – Embrace the Mud

In “No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering” Thích Nhất Hạnh wrote, “NO MUD, NO LOTUS. Both suffering and happiness are of an organic nature, which means they are both transitory; they are 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.

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.”

Sometimes you are “stuck in the mud” and sometimes you are the lotus flower blooming in the sunlight.

I know that I tend to reject the “suffering” part of that and even the “suffering” part of the title and yet I know that sometimes that is just my definition. I believe that the experience shifts into suffering when we believe that there is no way out, that the mud is forever.

When you are in the mud know that there IS a light at the end of the tunnel. The mud, as Thích Nhất Hạnh said, is transitory. The mud is the difficult times in your life, the times that you later may dislike, regret, blame, rage against, or try to wish away and forget.

I get it; I have been in the mud before too. I still go into the mud! But the thing is, you don’t have to live there.

The thing about those times, about the mud, is that those times often move you forward the fastest. The mud is there to nurture you, to teach you and to help you release who and what no longer serves you.

The mud helps you discover your strengths, your resiliency, your amazing capacities. The mud, once washed off, reveals the new, stronger you! It helps you discover that something better is waiting for you once you release what is holding you down in the mud!

As Bob Sima’s song, “NO MUD NO LOTUS” says “Tough breaks, heartaches, perfect mistakes created this version of you. Everything you go through grows you, exposes who you are.” (listen on YouTube https://youtu.be/m6h8_mNyaak). “The wound is where the light gets in revealing the masterpiece just beneath the skin”

The next time you are in the mud, even though it may be difficult and you may not want to do it and you may think it is pointless, you may resist it, you may even be angry with me for suggesting it and yet I encourage you to ask some questions. Ask, “What is the benefit here? What is this revealing to me?” And listen to those whispers of hope. Those whispers saying, “Come this way, through this darkness, through this mud and see what awaits you on the other side.”

Embrace the gifts of the mud, then wash it off and soar into the light as the amazing lotus blossom that you are!

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Join me on the Spring Equinox 3/20/21 for the

Purple Launch Party Energetic Spring Cleaning Edition

There is a Universe of possibilities just WAITING for you!

The Purple Launch Party Energetic Spring Cleaning  Edition (celebrating the beginning of Spring)  will be March 20 from 10 AM to 12 PM
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It’s time to discover, explore, and attain what you desire for your life!

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