True Happiness

A muddy pond covered with green slime attracts bugs that feed the frogs that live under the lily pads. The lily pad, a.k.a. lotus plant, anchored in the mud emerges through the green slime to bloom into a beautiful flower floating just above the slime. The stem is neither too short nor too long but just the right height for the flower to blossom above the water.

My life emerges like that flower amidst the muddy swamp of my obstacles. In the mud rests my enemies, my challenges, my financial insecurities, my fair-weather friends, my incompetent superiors, my flawed parents, my illnesses, my mental instability, and my sadness. Yet, even while I sink into the quicksand, my hopes and dreams, my loved ones, my inner strength, pushes up through the green slime like the lotus flower and bursts forth with joy, greeting the sun and the moon and the universe with appreciation for the quicksand pulling me downward as I thrust myself upward.

The power of the universe, once I align myself with it, provides opportunities that guide me in the direction of happiness. I stay above the green slime, pure and fragrant, showing my true self to the universe. My path is clear. Throughout each level of my life condition, my Buddha nature, like the lotus flower, emerges when I chant, “Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.”