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Butterflies flutter in the garden of yellow mustard flowers
The poem “Butterflies Fly Over the Mustard Flower Garden” begins with the image of ten years of the old garden lush and green, twenty years of sunlight shining on the thatched hut, mother calling me back to wash my feet by the straw stove, warming my hands over the glowing fire. Butterflies flutter in joyful flocks in the garden of yellow mustard flowers, in the guava orchard with fragrant ripe fruit, dry almond leaves falling and drifting across the brick yard, bundles of golden straw, the moon gathering before the gate… All of it becomes alive in the present moment through the practice of dwelling happily in the present moment in the ultimate dimension, where past, present, and future interare.
The message throughout calls us to stop being a source of suffering for each other, to seek each other out and build a sangha as a place of refuge, to prioritize to be over to do. The “works of a thousand lifetimes” are already complete; all that is needed is to hold hands, to drink together from the fragrant, clear well, so that our presence—like a flower standing still by the fence, like a wondrous smile—may blend into the great symphony of the wondrous Dharma body.