FROM THE GARDEN OF ZEN: July 2026

July 20, 2026

Sacred lotus flower: Ofuna Flower Center (Kamakura)

The divine sunlight of summer has just arrived to illuminate this world brilliantly. The gray, overcast skies of the rainy season, which had persisted relentlessly, have finally lost their quiet yet formidable influence. Before our very eyes, they are swiftly ceding their dominance to the vivid, white clouds and the bright blue sky.

The colorful Ajisai (hydrangea) flowers that dominated the rainy landscape have fulfilled their reproductive duty and are gradually withering away, disappearing one after another.

Bathed in the brilliant light of midsummer, a variety of living things are emerging successively, beginning to receive the precious benefits of the sun, vividly indicating the liveliness of this shining season.

Under the deep, azure sky, the dignified lotus flowers, which are typical flowers of high summer in Kamakura, have started blooming one by one as if to be inspired by the majestic light and heat of summer.

I found a small, beautiful lotus flower whose mystical shape reminded me of "the flower of life" in Western culture. The flower of life is said to be one of the holy geometric figures that illustrates the essential structure of the universe, the cycle of life, and the interconnectedness of all things.

The lotus flower is the Eastern sacred flower that symbolizes spiritual growth, enlightenment, and rebirth, rising from the mud to purity in this universe.

Such a mystical resemblance between them implied the wonders of the universe and life in a particularly beautiful way.

Sacred lotus flower: Tsurugaoka-hachimangu

In Zen Buddhism, a particularly famous story about a sacred lotus is “Holding Up a Lotus Flower and Smiling.”

One day, during a sermon, Buddha raised a single lotus flower without uttering a word. No one could understand its meaning, but only his disciple named Kasyapa (one of the ten great disciples of Buddha) smiled.

Seeing this, Buddha said that he conveyed to Kasyapa the truth that cannot be expressed in words.

This story symbolizes his principle that spiritual awakening cannot be experienced through words and letters. Instead, fundamental enlightenment can be attained only by the spiritual fellowship of mind with mind without reliance on words. Truth cannot be conveyed by words alone. Enlightenment is attained directly through intuition and insight.

The single beautiful flower of the sacred lotus symbolized the stupendous teachings of Buddha, and only the finest disciple intuitively received the transcendental wisdom through the graceful figure of the flower and the gentle smile of his teacher.

Sacred lotus flower: Tsurugaoka-hachimangu

Within the grounds of Zen temples, there is a pond called a Houjou-ike (a pond for releasing captive birds, fish, etc.) located in front of the Sanmon (the three deliverance gate).

Such a pond is used for the Houjou-e ceremony, namely, a compassionate act of non-killing in which captured fish and other creatures are released into the pond without killing them.

This pond serves as a place for embodying the fundamental Buddhist ethic of “compassion for all life” (great compassion). In Zen Buddhism, the tranquil surface of the pond symbolizes “serenity of mind” or “nomindedness.”

In the scorching sunlight of midsummer, on the peaceful water of compassion which releases all living things from their sufferings, the sacred lotus of enlightenment blooms gracefully to awaken us to Buddha-nature.

Sacred lotus flower: Tsurugaoka-hachimangu

The enlightenment of Buddha is symbolized by the sacred lotus.

Like the flower of the sacred lotus rising and blooming from the dirty mud, the awakened mind grows from our worldly desire, anger, and stupidity. The deeper and dirtier the mud, the more beautifully the flower and our mind bloom by absorbing muddy water as a precious nutrient source.

In Buddhism, the mud represents our foolishness, namely, delusion, attachment, ignorance (a state of not knowing impermanence of this world), lust, and anger. Because the sacred lotus appears and grows from a muddy swamp, it does not avoid the mud nor distance itself from it. But instead, it absorbs necessary nourishment from the mud to grow nobly and beautifully in the dirty water under the blazing sun.

This is understood as the teaching that true wisdom is realized by conquering human ignorance and transforming it into an enlightened mind as beautiful as a lotus flower.