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Be There for Love and Liberation
Every child is “a flower in the garden of humanity,” complete with a “flower face,” “flower eyes,” “five-petaled” hands and feet. Losing our “flowerness” through anger or sorrow makes us unhappy, so the practice is to preserve our peace, calm and freshness. When we love someone, the most valuable offering is our own presence—fresh, loving, smiling and compassionate—rather than any material gift.
In Plum Village we use five mantras to restore flowerness, of which the first two are:
- Darling, I am here for you.
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Darling, I know you are there and I am very happy.
A mantra becomes effective only when body, speech and mind are perfectly united. Mindful breathing, walking and smiling bring us back to the here-and-now, so that our presence truly becomes the gift we offer.
In reviewing two weeks of practice, Thay introduced the three doors of liberation—emptiness (śūnyatā), signlessness (animitta) and aimlessness (apraṇihitā). Aimlessness means stopping all searching—realizing we are already in the kingdom of God, here and now. Every mindful breath and every step is both destination and arrival, a direct path to peace, freedom and joy.
