Lotus Quotes

Only the middle distance and what may be called the remoter foreground are strictly human. When we look very near or very far, man either vanishes altogether or loses his primacy. The astronomer looks even further afield than the Sung painter and sees even less of human life. At the other end of the scale the physicist, the chemist, the physiologist pursue the close-up – the cellular close-up, the molecular, the atomic and subatomic. Of that which, at twenty feet, even at arm's length, looked and sounded like a human being no trace remains.
Something analogous happens to the myopic artist and the happy lover. In the nuptial embrace personality is melted down; the individual (it is the recurrent theme of Lawrence's poems and novels) ceases to be himself and becomes a part of the vast impersonal universe.
And so it is with the artist who chooses to use his eyes at the near point. In his work humanity loses its importance, even disappears completely. Instead of men and women playing their fantastic tricks before high heaven, we are asked to consider the lilies, to meditate on the unearthly beauty of 'mere things,' when isolated from their utilitarian context and rendered as they are, in and for themselves. Alternatively (or, at an earlier stage of artistic development, exclusively), the nonhuman world of the near-point is rendered in patterns. These patterns are abstracted for the most part from leaves and flowers – the rose, the lotus, the acanthus, palm, papyrus – an ~ Aldous Huxley

And perhaps this is what Tukten knows - that the journey to Dolpo, step by step and day by day, is the Jewel in the Heart of the Lotus, the Tao, the Way, the Path, but no more so than small events of days at home. ~ Peter Matthiessen

... (my father) would say nothing,
And I could not find a silence
Among the one hundred Chinese silences
That would fit the one he created
Even though I was the one
Who had just made up the business
Of the one hundred Chinese silences-
The Silence of the Night Boat.
And the Silence of the Lotus,
Cousin to the Silence of the Temple Bell
Only deeper and softer ... ~ Billy Collins

A world full of people hating themselves is not a happy world. Buddhism does not seem to be about self-punishment. A key buddhist symbol is that of the lotus flower. The lotus flower grows in mud at the bottom of a pool, but rises above the murky water and blooms in the clear air, pure and beautiful, before eventually dying. This metaphor for spiritual enlightenment also works as a metaphor for hope and change. ~ Matt Haig

The symbol of the Lotus flower gives a precious teaching that can inspire us to deal with life in the best possible way. Its roots take nourishment from muddy waters and yet bloom in full delicacy and beauty on the surface. Similarly, to have a positive mindset is a beautiful quality; nonetheless to be transformational it needs to be rooted firmly in reality to then blossom with the value which can be created from the muddy problem(s) ~ Dorotea Brandin

One day, the lotus spoke again. "You remember me? The flower that grows through the mud?" I did. I said as much. "Have you ever considered my significance? I'm everywhere - art, religion, nature.... Have you ever wondered why?"

... It spoke, "Nothing touches me. I radiate beauty. You can do the same."

"How?" I asked.

"Easy," it said. "I grow in a pond. I take the water and nutrients I need to grow, and let the rest sink to the bottom. What's in mud, anyway? Water, nutrients, life and a little bit of sludge. Let the sludge go like I do. Then stand tall above the leaves. ~ Dawn Casey-Rowe

resembling a stylized lotus. Inside the circle, in proportions ~ Krishna Udayasankar

Paris can be like the land of the Lotus-Eaters. You can't leave. ~ Edmund White

One late winter afternoon in Oxford Street, amid the noise of vehicles and voices that filled that dusky thoroughfare, as I was borne onward with the crowd past the great electric-lighted shops, a holy Indifference filled my thoughts. Illusion had faded from me; I was not touched by any desire for the goods displayed in those golden windows, nor had I the smallest share in the appetites and fears of all those moving and anxious faces. And as I listened with Asiatic detachment to the London traffic, its sound changed into something ancient and dissonant and sad - into the turbid flow of that stream of Craving which sweeps men onward through the meaningless cycles of Existence, blind and enslaved forever. But I had reached the farther shore, the Harbour of Deliverance, the Holy City; the Great Peace beyond all this turmoil and fret compassed me around. Om Mani padme hum - I murmured the sacred syllables, smiling with the pitying smile of the Enlightened One on his heavenly lotus.
Then, in a shop-window, I saw a neatly fitted suit-case. I liked that suit-case; I desired to possess it. Immediately I was enveloped by the mists of Illusion, chained once more to the Wheel of Existence, whirled onward along Oxford Street in that turbid stream of wrong-belief, and lust, and sorrow, and anger. ~ Logan Pearsall Smith

I'm not even sure I'm going to see that Colin Farrell wanna-be again."

"What happened?"

"Walked in on him and the bartender in the bathroom last night at Lotus. Usually, that wouldn't bother me, but the bartender had a mullet. Can you imagine, a mullet in 2012? So sad, Travis obviously has tragically bad taste. ~ Tamara Larson

Every green herb, from the lotus to the darnel, is rich with delicate aids to help incurious man. ~ Martin Farquhar Tupper

I sit cross-legged on the rock The valleys and streams are cold and damp Sitting quietly is beautiful The cliffs are lost in mist and fog I rest happily in this place At dusk the tree shadows are low I look into my mind A white lotus emerges from the dark mud ~ Hanshan

I believe there's more than this-that maybe when we die our brains conjure up some kind of shutdown experience, and that's what people try to sum up as the afterlife. Something else is going to happen and it's going to be crazy and confusing and weird, and we probably won't know what it's all about. It'll just be another place where we're trying to understand why we exist at all. ~ Flying Lotus

On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying, and I knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded.
Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south wind.
That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing and it seemed to me that is was the eager breath of the summer seeking for its completion.
I knew not then that it was so near, that it was mine, and that this perfect sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

This work opens the eyes of the world blinded by ignorance. As the sun dispels darkness, so does Bharata by its exposition of religion, duty, action, contemplation, and so forth. As the full moon by shedding soft light helps the buds of the lotus to open, so this Purana by its exposition expands the human intellect. The lamp of history illumines the 'whole mansion of the womb of Nature.' - Vyasa ~ R.K. Narayan

Waterlilies always come in Buddhist sculpture. The Buddhas all stand on lotus pedestals, because the lotus is grown from the mud. The mud represents the stained world, a dirty world, but growing from the dirt is such a beautiful, pure thing. This is the way the spirit should be. ~ Hiroshi Sugimoto

Number theorists are like lotus-eaters
having once tasted of this food they can never give it up. ~ Leopold Kronecker

There is the mud, and there is the lotus that grows out of the mud. We need the mud in order to make the lotus. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

She took his verbal punches and she felt silenced under the mental prison that he had held her in. She looked perfect on the outside, but her body expressed her pain. Her soul was crystallized, permanently on survival-mode. He thought he was smart, but he had no idea that he was married to a lotus. She rose every time because she knew he could not take away her worth. She knew she was meant to have more. She loved herself through the horror, and regained her ability to keep walking, to keep breathing, to keep living. She rose peacefully like the lotus, elegant and full of class, untouched by his filthy, meaningless existence... and that had always left him powerless. ~ Karen A. Baquiran

I'm delighted to be coming back to Formula 1 after a two-year break, and I'm grateful to Lotus Renault GP for offering me this opportunity. ~ Kimi Raikkonen

Among all shravakas and pratyekabuddhas, bodhisattvas are the foremost. So is the Lotus Sutra; among all sutras, it is the foremost! Just as the Buddha is the King of the Law; so is the Lotus Sutra, it is the King of all Sutras!
(LS 23:2.16)
Lotus Sutra, Chapter 23, Section 2, Paragraph 16 ~ Gautama Buddha

You can purify your existence by feeling deep within yourself a beautiful rose or lotus, or any other flower that you like. A flower is all purity. Try to identify yourself with the consciousness of the flower or with the purity of the flower. Today it is imagination, but if you continue imagining for five days, or ten days, or a month or two, then you are bound to see and feel the flower within you. First you may feel it, then you are bound to see the existence of the flower, and then automatically the fragrance and the purity of the flower will enter into you to purify you. ~ Sri Chinmoy

REMEMBER THE LOTUS FLOWER

Great people will always be mocked by those
Who feel smaller than them.
A lion does not flinch at laughter coming from a hyena.
A gorilla does not budge from a banana thrown at it by a monkey.
A nightingale does not stop singing its beautiful song
At the intrusion of an annoying woodpecker.
Whenever you should doubt your self-worth, remember the lotus flower.
Even though it plunges to life from beneath the mud,
It does not allow the dirt that surrounds it
To affect its growth or beauty.
Be that lotus flower always.
Do not allow any negativity or ugliness
In your surroundings,
Destroy your confidence,
Affect your growth,
Or make you question your self-worth.
It is very normal for one ugly weed
To not want to stand alone.
Remember this always.
If you were ugly,
Or just as small as they feel they are,
Then they would not feel so bitter and envious
Each and every time they are forced
To glance up at magnificently
Divine YOU.

REMEMBER THE LOTUS FLOWER by Suzy Kassem ~ Suzy Kassem

Since history is not an objective reality, but only an imaginative reconstruction of vanished events, the pattern that appears useful and agreeable to one generation is never entirely so to the next. ~ Carl Lotus Becker

The truth is that there are no good men, or bad men,' he said. 'It is the deeds that have goodness or badness in them. There are good deeds, and bad deeds. Men are just men - it is what they do, or refuse to do, that links them to good and evil. The truth is that an instant of real love, in the heart of anyone - the noblest man alive or the most wicked - has the whole purpose and process and meaning of life within the lotus-folds of its passion. The truth is that we are all, every one of us, every atom, every galaxy, and every particle of matter in the universe, moving toward God. ~ Gregory David Roberts

We perceive, as from a great distance, a thousand years filled with dim shapes of men moving blindly, performing strangely, in an unreal shadowy world. ~ Carl Lotus Becker

Durga wore a simple sea-green dress and a lei of lotus flowers ... "Take this," it has no special power except that the blooms will not fade, but it will serve a purpose on your voyage. I want you to learn the lesson of the lotus. This flower springs forth from muddy waters. It raises its delicate petals to the sun and perfumes the world while, at the same time, its roots cling to the elemental muck, the very essence of the mortal experience. Without that soil, the flower would wither and die." She placed the lei over my neck. "Dig down and grow strong roots, my daughter, for you will stretch forth, break out of the waters and find peace on the calm surface at last. You will discover that if you hadn't stretched, you would have drowned in the deep, never to blossom or share your gift with others. ~ Colleen Houck

Clear waters drift through the immensity of a tall forest.
In front of me a huge river mouth
receives the long wind.
Deep ripples hold white sand
and white fish swimming as in a void.
I sprawl on a big rock,
billows nourishing my humble body.
I gargle with water and wash my feet.
A fisherman pauses out on the surf.
So many fish long for bait. I look
only to the east with its lotus leaves. ~ Wang Wei

In the distance, I could see Skanda sitting on a pavilion wreathed in lotus blossoms and flanked with serving girls. He was, as I had guessed, fat. And in his golden jacket, he indeed looked like a toad.
"Ah, I remember him," muttered Kamala.
"He's my half-brother."
"Nasty, nasty."
"I know."
"Would you like me to eat him?"
"Definitely not," I said, a little too quickly. I patted Kamala's neck. "But I appreciate your offer. It was almost nice."
"It is nice to be nice," said Kamala with a sage nod. "And it is also nice to eat people," she added as an afterthought. ~ Roshani Chokshi

It dishonors the deaths of our loved ones to shut out happiness. We throw away what we could have been and waste our opportunities. We each have a purpose, a destiny, and to realize it, we must reach beyond what we think we are capable of ... A wise woman once told me that I needed to learn the lesson of the lotus flower: All of our human experience, both the good and the bad, grounds us like the sludge in a river. We may be rooted in pain or suffering but our job is to rise above it, find the sun, and bloom. Only then can you brighten the world for others. ~ Colleen Houck

Cause I don't wanna be a witness to this life,
I want to be charged and convicted,
ear lifted to her song like a bouquet of yes
because my heart is a parachute that has never opened in time
and I wanna fuck up that pattern,
leave a hole where the cold comes in and fill it every day with her sun,
'cause anyone who has ever sat in lotus for more than a few seconds
knows it takes a hell of a lot more muscle to stay than to go ~ Andrea Gibson

I'm influenced by the music of the '60s. It's a mishmash of everything. To me, psychedelic can be all the way to a DJ. House music can be very psychedelic. Flying Lotus is very psychedelic. Even though it's urban and technological, it's also mind-expanding, anything-can-go mishmash. ~ Anton Newcombe

Drop guilt! - because to be guilty is to live in hell. Not being guilty, you will have the freshness of dewdrops in the early morning sun, you will have the freshness of lotus petals in the lake, you will have the freshness of the stars in the night. Once guilt disappears you will have a totally different kind of life, luminous and radiant. You will have a dance to your feet and your heart will be singing a thousand and one songs. ~ Rajneesh

The lotus symbolizes purity, because it rises out of the mud but looks pristine. ~ Lisa See

The Lotus Sutra

The Lotus Sutra. Ultimate reality.
So far
you've been bashing me badly.
Now
I'll cudgel you, bastard.
Oh! Ouch!
You're made for bashing.
Oh! Ouch!
Oh! Ouch!

The Lotus Sutra dashed away
Fields open wide,
once the farmers have gone. ~ Ko Un

Life is like a rain drop on a lotus leaf. Everybody realises that you're either very lucky person or you're not. ~ George Harrison

I want you to learn the lesson of the lotus. This flower springs forth from muddy waters. It raises its delicate petals to the sun and perfumes the world while, at the same time, its roots cling to the elemental muck, the very essence of the mortal experience. Without that soil, the flower would wither and die. ~ Colleen Houck

When one chants the Holy Names, listens to Krishna katha or just meditates on Krishna's form, one's body feels wellbeing, one's mind becomes tranquil, one beholds beauty in the sky, nature, people, animals, insects - in everything. Vāsudeva sarvam iti, everything is Krishna. One feels the cooling touch of the breeze. One feels the golden warmth of the setting sun. In an orb of happiness, one reposes oneself at the lotus feet of the Lord like a honey bee. ~ Anil B. Sarkar

The beauty of mindful-life-breath meditation is that you are not restricted to having to sit in the lotus position to be present. Whether you are on a busy train, driving a car or walking down a crowded high-street, you can easily remind yourself to focus on your breathing. Appreciate the subtle sensation of oxygen flowing in and out of your nostrils. ~ Christopher Dines

a man--venerable, with a white beard, or on a cross, or as a baby, or a sage seated in the full lotus position. Are these not limiting incarnations, temporary housings, of the great energy process? ~ Timothy Leary

The Lotus opens. Movement from earth, through water, from fire to air. Out and in beyond life and death now, beyond inner and outer, sense and non-sense, meaning and futility, male and female, being and non-being, Light and darkness, void and full. Beyond all duality, or non-duality, beyond and beyond. Disincarnation. I breathe again. ~ R.D. Laing

I woke up nights, worrying that Lotus was out of control - that no one would know what to do. ~ Mitch Kapor

The crown chakra is located several inches above the head, but it is not connected. The crown chakra, also known as the thousand-petal lotus of light, references the planes of light, of enlightenment. ~ Frederick Lenz

Good morning, Hell-A. In the land of the lotus-eaters, time plays tricks on you. One day you're dreaming, the next, your dream has become your reality. It was the best of times. If only someone had told me. Mistakes were made, hearts were broken, harsh lessons learned. My family goes on without me, while I drown in a sea of pointless pussy. I don't know how I got here. But here I am, rotting away in the warm California sun. There are things I need to figure out, for her sake, at least. The clock is ticking. The gap is widening. She won't always love me no matter what ~ Hank Moody

You can find out more about the nervous system and gain more control over your reaction by using a tape recorder than you could find out sitting twenty years in the lotus posture. ~ William S. Burroughs

Watch birth and death:
The lotus has already
Opened its flower. ~ Natsume Sōseki

I got things like the lotus position long before anybody else did, or at least in the mainstream. But I had fun. I guess my legs are pretty flexible, so I used to get a kick out of doing things like that. I would get into a full lotus with my legs and then roll around. ~ John Astin

The thousand petal lotus of light, the crown center, really does not become operative until one is on the verge of enlightenment itself. Then you really don't have to meditate on it. The thousand petals gradually light up. ~ Frederick Lenz

The culmination of all of that was the decision to start a company, which became Lotus, to do a product, which became 1-2-3. By the time I reached that point it had been four years, and it felt like a lifetime, but really it was kind of evolutionary. ~ Mitch Kapor

An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea. ~ Herman Melville

Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.' Say not, ' I have found the path of the soul.' Say rather, 'I have met the soul walking upon my path.' For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals. ~ Kahlil Gibran

From the mud of adversity grows the lotus of joy ~ Carolyn Marsden

Microsoft has had two goals in the last 10 years. One was to copy the Mac, and the other was to copy Lotus' success in the spreadsheet - basically, the applications business. And over the course of the last 10 years, Microsoft accomplished both of those goals. And now they are completely lost. ~ Steve Jobs

Reason is incompetent to answer any fundamental question about God, or morality, or the meaning of life. ~ Carl Lotus Becker

You have to measure your success by the way your audience responds to your games. No matter how small that audience is, it's yours. Your game is part of the lives and the memories of those people in a way that WordPerfect or Lotus 1-2-3 or Windows can never be. ~ Orson Scott Card

Valentine's Day 12 [10w]
My heart's a lotus,
opening and closing to love's light. ~ Beryl Dov

How a sip of water from a brass cup or a few drops from a brass spoon of the size of finger or how can one keep rose petals and marigold spreads between the pages of one's books for years or how the fresh shoot of barley could be put behind one's ears or how a dot of vermilion on the forehead or how fasting for a day or how praying or chanting or lightening an incense stick or how lighting a cotton wick dipped in mustard oil or how being blessed by priests and saints or how sitting in a lotus posture or how reading the holy books could kindle in one that thing called faith ~ Aporva Kala

the briefest flash of pale, pale ice over a thin-boned shoulder. Neon caught the red lotus splayed on her elbow and lit it on fire. ~ K.C. Alexander

When you're dead set on doing the right thing, sometimes it's hard to recognize that you're doing it in the wrong way. ~ Brian K. Vaughan

In Egypt, I loved the perfume of the lotus. A flower would bloom in the pool at dawn, filling the entire garden with a blue musk so powerful it seemed that even the fish and ducks would swoon. By night, the flower might wither but the perfume lasted. Fainter and fainter, but never quite gone. Even many days later, the lotus remained in the garden. Months would pass and a bee would alight near the spot where the lotus had blossomed, and its essence was released again, momentary but undeniable. ~ Anita Diamant

Writing is a very focused form of meditation. Just as good as sitting in a lotus position. ~ Alan Moore

The lotus reminds you to remain centered in pure awareness, connected to your central channel or core, even as chaos and complexity unfold around you. Staying centered helps you keep connected with Source in the most direct way, without getting pulled off track by all the events blossoming around you. ~ Anodea Judith

Once the lotus of your inner divinity gets full-blown and you reach the mental state where all the religious giants of human history experienced the all-encompassing sense of godliness, the exuberance of the human mind turns infinite. ~ Abhijit Naskar

If you come to Plum Village in the summertime, you see many lotus flowers. Without the mud the lotus flowers cannot grow. You cannot separate lotus flowers from the mud. It is the same with understanding and love. These are two kinds of flowers that grow on the ground of suffering ~ Nhat Hanh

The lotus flower is troubled
At the sun's resplendent light;
With sunken head and sadly
She dreamily waits for the night. ~ Heinrich Heine

शान्ताकारं भुजगशयनं पद्मनाभं सुरेशं
विश्वाधारं गगनसदृश्यं मेघवर्णं शुभाङ्गम्।
लक्ष्मीकान्तं कमलनयनं योगिभिर्ध्यानगम्यं
वन्दे विष्णु भवभयहरं सर्वलोकैकनाथम्।

I bow to Vishnu, Master of Universe unquestionably,
Who rests on great serpent bed, peaceful perpetually,
From His navel sprouts Lotus of Creative Power surely,
He the Supreme Lord of cosmos undeniably does be.
- 146 -
He supports the entire universe and all-pervading be,
He dark as clouds with beautiful Lakshmi form glowingly,
He the lotus-eyed, whom yogis see by meditation only,
He destroyer of `Samsar' fear – the Lord of all `loks' be.
- 147 - ~ Munindra Misra

It does not matter if you are a rose or a lotus or a marigold. What matters is that you are flowering. ~ Rajneesh

The ultimate source of energy, the sun is ready to set. The leaves of the blooming lotus flower in the pond are losing their lustre. A bumblebee, sitting on that lotus is enjoying the romantic pleasure and murmuring passionate songs. ~ Manmohan Acharya

Lotus's efforts around the Mac were pathetically unsuccessful, which is sad. ~ Mitch Kapor

Nadia now lies back as her body perks up at me like the white lotus that reaches for the sun's love. I now come into Nadia with all of my love, my lips running over her silk skin like water drifting downstream. Her kisses are filled with an incredible ability to give as her body merges into mine. The sounds of relief escaping her lips commend my escape, transcending me into the absolute pureness of love's unseen realm. ~ Luccini Shurod

When your roots are receiving nourishment from the earth in the first chakra, your creative juices are flowing in the second, your intentions are empowered in the third, your heart is open and exchanging love with those around you in the fourth, you are spontaneously expressing your highest self in the fifth, and you are in touch with your inner voice in the sixth, then energy moves into the crown chakra and you remember your essential nature as infinite and unbounded. The thousand-petaled lotus flower unfolds and you know yourself as a spiritual being temporarily localized to a body and mind. ~ Anonymous

May the sound of the bell penetrate deep into the cosmos. Even in the darkest spots living beings are able to hear it clearly. So that all suffering in them cease. Understanding comes to their heart, and they transcend the path of sorrow and death." "The universal dharma door is already open; the sound of the rising tide is already heard clearly. The miracle happens. A beautiful child appears in the heart of the lotus flower. One single drop of this compassionate water is enough to bring back the refreshing spring to our mountains and rivers." "Listening to the bell I feel the afflictions in me dissolve. My mind is calm, my body relaxed. A smile is born on my lips. Following the sound of the bell, my breath brings me back to the safe island of mindfulness. In the garden of my heart, the flowers of peace bloom beautifully. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

I have a strong antipathy to everything connected with gardens, gardening and gardeners ... Gardening seems to me a kind of admission of defeat ... Man was made for better things than pruning his rose trees. The state of mind of the confirmed gardener seems to me as reprehensible as that of the confirmed alcoholic. Both have capitulated to the world. Both have become lotus eaters and drifters. ~ Colin Wilson

I also have a lot of preserved foods, things that will keep for a long time like dried fish, seaweed or lotus seed. ~ Martin Yan

Love is born in sexuality but sexuality is not love. The lotus is born in the mud, but the lotus is not just mud. And if mud remains mud of course there are bound to be tears on the cheeks. ~ Rajneesh

No matter where you went - no matter how ancient the traditions, no matter how grand the history, no matter how awe-inspiring the landscape - there was always a market for a cheap Happy Meal. The Lotus Way might lead to nirvana, but it was a long trip, and when you had a lot of miles to cover, it was just natural to want some drive-thru along the road. ~ Joe Hill

Life is never like a full stop. Full stops are like frozen ice, like dark clouds, like rotten mud.
But here rivers are born out of frozen ice, lightening sparkles by the clash of dark clouds, the lotus rises from the mud.
Isn't this glory of our life?
This is the story to sing this glory of life. ~ Mahesh Thakkar

Greenery

Juniper, Oracle Oak and Hop Tree,
California Buckeye, and Elderberry.
Pacific Dogwood and the pale green Eucalyptus,
Quaking Aspen and Flannelbush.

raw, sprouting, lush
green love
green with envy
green with youth
green with early spring

olive, emerald, avocado,
greenlight
ready, set, GO!
greenhouse, greenbelts, ocean kelp,
cucumber, lizard, lime and forest green,
spruce, teal, and putting green.

green-eyed, verdant, grassy, immature
green and leafy
green half-formed
tender, pleasant, alluring
temperate
freshly sawed
vigorous
not ripe
yet
promising

greenbriar, greenbug, green dragon
greenshanks running along the ocean's edge
greenlings swimming
greenlets singing
greengage plums
green thumbs
greenhorns
and greenflies-
how on earth
amid sage swells
kelly hillsides
and swirls of firs
did I ever find
that green of
hers?

holly, drake, and brewster green,
pistachio, shamrock, serpentine
terre verde, Brunswick, tourmaline,
lotus, jade, and spinach green:
start to finish
lowlands to highs
no field, no forest, no leaf, no blade
can catch the light or trap the shade;
no earthly tones will ever rise
to match the green
enchantment
of her eyes. ~ Nancy Boutilier

The force of life deep within his chest, a flowering lotus, opened into his consciousness, returning the ancient spark of thought to his mind. ~ Everet Martins

She, the first-born daughter of water, faced
darkness and smiled. Took mystery as her
lover and raised light as her child. Man that
shit was wild. You should have seen how
they ran. She woke up in an alley with a gun
in her hand. Tupac in lotus form, Ennis' blood
on his hands. ~ Saul Williams

There is a beautiful expression of this in the Chandogya Upanishad: 'There is this City of Brahman, (that is the body), and in this city there is a shrine, and in that shrine there is a small lotus, and in that lotus there is a small space, (akasa). Now what exists within that small space, that is to be sought, that is to be understood.' This is the great discovery of the Upanishads, this inner shrine, this guha, or cave of the heart, where the inner meaning of life, of all human existence, is to be found. ~ Bede Griffiths

All historical writing, even the most honest, is unconsciously subjective, since every age is bound, in spite of itself, to make the dead perform whatever tricks it finds necessary for its own peace of mind. ~ Carl Lotus Becker

By the boat of knowledge we can safely and fearlessly come to the lotus feet of the Lord. ~ Anil B. Sarkar

~ The One Who Loves You As You Are ~


As beautiful as a starlit sky

As delicate as a lotus blossom

As deep as still clear water

As priceless as your soul

As mysterious as the universe

As loving as love itself

Know this,

You are worthy to be truly loved

You are worth fighting for! ~ R. Alan Woods

Let all the strains of joy mingle in my last song---the joy that makes the earth flow over in the riotous excess of the grass, the joy that sets the twin brothers, life and death, dancing over the wide world, the joy that sweeps in with the tempest, shaking and waking all life with laughter, the joy that sits still with its tears on the open red lotus of pain, and the joy that throws everything it has upon the dust, and knows not a word. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

I will allow only my Lord to possess my sacred lotus pond, and every night you can make blossom in me flowers of fire. ~ Huang E

How to dispense with Padma? How give up her ignorance and superstition, necessary counterweights to my miracle-laden omniscience? How to do without her paradoxical earthiness of spirit, which keeps - kept! - my feet on the ground? I have become, it seems to me, the apex of an isosceles triangle, supported equally by twin deities, the wild god of memory and the lotus-goddess of the present … but must I now become reconciled to the narrow one-dimensionality of a straight line? ~ Salman Rushdie

Grave

What do you think of my new glasses
I asked as I stood under a shade tree
before the joined grave of my parents,

and what followed was a long silence
that descended on the rows of the dead
and on the fields and the woods beyond,

one of the one hundred kinds of silence
according to the Chinese belief,
each one distinct from the others,

but the differences being so faint
that only a few special monks
were able to tell them apart.

They make you look very scholarly,
I heard my mother say
once I lay down on the ground

and pressed an ear into the soft grass.
Then I rolled over and pressed
my other ear to the ground,

the ear my father likes to speak into,
but he would say nothing,
and I could not find a silence

among the 100 Chinese silences
that would fit the one that he created
even though I was the one

who had just made up the business
of the 100 Chinese silences -
the Silence of the Night Boat

and the Silence of the Lotus,
cousin to the Silence of the Temple Bell
only deeper and softer, like petals, at its farthest edges. ~ Billy Collins

When I notice a rear wheel overtaking me, I know I'm sitting in a Lotus. ~ Graham Hill

Like a lotus plunging to the surface of a pond to embrace the light from its muddy darkness, truth always rises with time. ~ Suzy Kassem

YOU are the big drop of dew under the lotus leaf,
I am the smaller one on its upper side,'
said the dewdrop to the lake. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Like the lotus which thrives in mud, the potential for realization grows in the rich soil of everyday life ~ Dalai Lama

There is nothing worse than an opponent who is suddenly revealed to be understanding and compassionate. ~ Robert Jackson Bennett

I embrace my body, and I embrace everything about myself. Coming full circle is a celebration of freedom and happiness because that's what [my new album] 'Lotus' is representing. I'm embracing everything that I've grown to be and learned to be. ~ Christina Aguilera

If wanderers were not themselves the cause, then like the scent and color
of the lotus in the sky, there would be no perception of the universe. ~ Nagarjuna

What did I want?
I wanted a Roc's egg. I wanted a harem loaded with lovely odalisques less than the dust beneath my chariot wheels, the rust that never stained my sword,. I wanted raw red gold in nuggets the size of your fist and feed that lousy claim jumper to the huskies! I wanted to get u feeling brisk and go out and break some lances, then pick a like wench for my droit du seigneur--I wanted to stand up to the Baron and dare him to touch my wench! I wanted to hear the purple water chuckling against the skin of the Nancy Lee in the cool of the morning watch and not another sound, nor any movement save the slow tilting of the wings of the albatross that had been pacing us the last thousand miles.
I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me, "The game's afoot!" I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and the Lost Dauphin.
I wanted Prestor John, and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake. I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon. I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid. I wanted the world to be what they had promised me it was going to be--instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Life has many petals. Spirituality is unfolding those petals with with love, responsibility, equanimity, creativity and compassion. ~ Amit Ray

The kitchen. La cucina, the true mother country, this warm cave of the good witch deep in the desolate land of loneliness, with pots of sweet potions bubbling over the fire, a cavern of magic herbs, rosemary and thyme and sage and oregano, balm of lotus that brought sanity to lunatics, peace to the troubled, joy to the joyless, this small twenty-by-twenty world, the altar a kitchen range, the magic circle a checkered tablecloth where the children fed, the old children, lured back to their beginnings, the taste of mother's milk still haunting their memories, fragrance in the nostrils, eyes brightening, the wicked world receding as the old mother witch sheltered her brood from the wolves outside. ~ John Fante

Felix had gone to live in a lotus land of his imagination. Where what is desired is dreamed of as already happened, where obstacles dissolve under the weight of desire, and where reality has vanished entirely. ~ Iain Pears

God cannot be found outside you, because there is no God who can ever be outside you. God is the ultimate fragrance of your consciousness. When your consciousness opens like a lotus, the fragrance that is released is God - better to call it godliness. ~ Rajneesh