"May we exist like a lotus, At home in the muddy water. Thus we bow to life as it is."

The lotus, a symbol of Buddhism, grows in water, and appears to float on the surface. In reality, though, its long stem holds the flower just above the water. As the water moves, it tugs on the stem, so that the blossom seems to bow.

The sermon at church yesterday related to this concept of "being at home in muddy water"-- that may seem strange to some, because it is from Zen Buddhism. But I found it very interesting.

There was reference to the book "At Home in the Muddy Water: A Guide to Finding Peace within Everyday Chaos" and an experiment that is described to demonstrate this concept of finding peace within the chaos....

If you take a glass of water and add mud to it, the mud will eventually settle to the bottom of the glass, and the top of the water will be clear. But if you stir it up, the water becomes muddy and unclear throughout -- chaotic in a sense. Stop stirring it up, let it calm down, and the mud will again settle. It is still there, but it is not permeating everything. There is clarity, there is peace, even though the mud -- the troubles, the difficulties, the grief, the uncertainty, etc. -- is still there. Being at home in the muddy water is about being able to live in the moment -- not in the past, not in the future, neither stirring up things from the past nor worrying about the future -- but being able to find peace in this moment. To me that doesn't mean that you avoid or ignore those things, but that you can find peace even within them.

I don't know if I am explaining this as well as I had hoped (sometimes the things in my head don't come out properly when I try to put them into words). I wish I would taken notes of the sermon, because there were a number of things that I wanted to remember, but as always they escape me within a short time.