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Transforming Garbage into Flowers: Watering Happiness with Mindfulness and Love
The Dharma talk opens with the incense offering ceremony to the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and ancestral teachers, with the aspiration that all beings may be liberated from the cycle of suffering and that the flower of enlightenment may bloom in the midst of the muddy pond. Through the metaphor of the wilted flower—if we cut the stem under water and place it back, the flower will become fresh again—the method of caring for human beings is revealed: to understand correctly their needs—water, air, understanding, and love—so that the seed of happiness may blossom. Meditation helps us look deeply: in the flower there is garbage, in the garbage there is a flower; when contemplating the garbage bin, we see that it produces compost to nourish vegetables and fruits; human beings have both flowers and suffering, and the practice is to accept both and to transform the garbage into flowers.
Applying this to family and relationships: love and marriage are not based solely on choice but require the experience and wisdom of parents, avoiding argument and blame, and nourishing with a smile, freshness, understanding, and loving-kindness. Practice mindfulness through breathing, smiling, and mindfulness itself to transform ourselves first, then help others; build the family as the first practice center, accepting the Suchness roots of each member, cooperating between the two generations to preserve the foundation of happiness, and to avoid the phenomenon of family breakdown and human alienation.
