Whalechaser's Musings

No Matter Where You Go...
There You Are
Make the Best of It

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

The paper and then the moon

I went to get the paper this morning at 6:15 and saw the moon in the western sky.




Then got this in my email from daily dharma...there is a connection here.

One day the Buddha held up a flower in front of an audience of 1,250 monks and nuns. He did not say anything for quite a long time. The audience was perfectly silent. Everyone seemed to be thinking hard, trying to see the meaning behind the Buddha's gesture. Then, suddenly, the Buddha smiled. He smiled because someone in the audience smiled at him and at the flower. . . . To me the meaning is quite simple. When someone holds up a flower and shows it to you, he wants you to see it. If you keep thinking, you miss the flower. The person who was not thinking, who was just himself, was able to encounter the flower in depth, and he smiled. That is the problem of life. If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything.
--Thich Nhat Hanh

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