Flowers Fall

“Therefore, flowers fall even though we love them. Weeds grow even though we dislike them.” – Dōgen Zenji (trans. Okumura)

Out of the many pains that we experience in life, the most stinging and most common are losing what we want and getting what we don’t want. This happens on levels both great and small everyday. Beloved flowers fall–beautiful moments end, friends move away, the sun sets, and you eat that last bite of ice cream. Despised weeds grow–you get sick, bills come, cold, grey weather sets in, and you realize the only ice cream the store has is that other, gross flavor.

So, what do we do? The point is not to give up desire completely. Desire is also what drives us to seek enlightenment, to strive to help others, and to get out of bed each day. However, we would do well to let go of attachment to having everything go the way we want: let go of the gratification of those grasping desires. Ask yourself: is that really happiness? To collect a life of fulfilled desires and avoided aversions? Can you find peace and joy with the world as it is and try to help others find that peace and joy as well? Can you pursue that instead of pushing your own agenda first and foremost in the pursuit of happiness even if others burn in your wake? Perhaps happiness is not something you can “get” at all, and such grasping to get all external circumstances just right is a fundamentally deluded idea of what it is to be happy. Pause. Meditate. Connect. Love. Try these things, and you may find within yourself the seed of a true happiness beginning to grow alongside those weeds and fallen flowers.

May this help you find equanimity, non-attachment, and skillful action in the pains of desire.
Gassho

See also: Tao a Day — Verse 26, Inner Virtues for a Taoist take on how to cultivate such internal stability, peace, and joy.