Good morning!
We have beautiful flowers at the altar and all around us, inside and out. The first koan is “holding up a flower, smiling at it.” The Buddha held up a flower and Mahakashapa smiled at it. Thus, the exquisite heart of nirvana storing the right Dharma-eye was transmitted from the Buddha to Mahakashapa, generation after generation down to us.
Goethe mentioned that the sky should have stars, the earth should have flowers, and humans should have love. Saneatsu Mushanokoji often drew similar phrases in his calligraphy. Kant admired the starry heavens above and the moral law within us. We pursue our cultural values in intellect, volition, and emotion: truth, goodness, and beauty.
If these are partial and limited, they may not be truly truthful, good, and beautiful. Religion derives from Latin religare, reunion, with holiness, wholly wholesome. This is the way to perfect truth, goodness, and beauty: holy truth, holy goodness, holy beauty: holy health, holy harmony, and holy happiness. Holiness perfects in nirvana, no-wind of karma limiting.
In nirvana, we can truly taste amṛta, ambrosia, immortality of neither birth nor death, neither self nor other, neither here nor there, neither now nor then, etc., but one whole wholesome way world. Trees grow with millions of leaves breathing, roots drinking, etc., working together. Truth grows with billions and billions of cells, the starry sky, the flowery earth, lovely humans, and others.
July 6, 2019 C.E.
Note:
Immanuel Kant:
“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
“When there are no stars, it won’t be heaven.
When Daichi has no flowers, it won’t be.
And when it’s loveless, it won’t be man.”
The above pictures were taken and shared
by Erin, 恵林
The following pictures were taken and sent by
Mr. Noriyuki Otsuka, Shimoda, Japan
Note: Nice site on tulips:
https://www.greenandvibrant.com/types-of-tulips