the teaching of a flower

yesterday i got a rush of intense anxiety about an issue i have been struggling with...but instead of letting it churn in my mind...instead of having an imagined dialogue or worrying about the future outcome which could create more suffering in me and others...instead of any unhappy approach i stopped...i witnessed my own anxiety...i let my eyes settle on a flower...the beauty of a rose holding me in place...and there is where i found the softening of my heart...the tenderness i needed to draw upon...to see myself and others as fragile and delicate...yet living in such a perfection and a strength in the face of what comes...

this sweet rose...she is taking the force of the wind and rain upon her delicate petals...one petal tattered...her life brief and yet she opens and gives her inspiration to this world...to me...i am thankful to look to her for guidance...to open my heart to her...to listen to the voice of spirit...to hear with my soul...

the flower said there is nothing more precious than the moment you are in...it will never be lived again...do you want to live in it? and then do you want to live in it fretting or live in it with happiness?

i want to live in it and to live it in happiness...in compassion...in peace...

she shuttered at a blast of wind...raindrops slid down her lovely face...then she continued the teaching...when a difficult emotion comes or a harsh moment rises up before you...have this moment with you...and have this thought with you:

      this difficulty will never come again...it is gone as it happens...a painful death of a loved one or an argument or an unhealthy act...whatever it is has passed...now what?...now exactly...books and teachings have been given on it...songs and poems celebrate it...but it has been lived out by every flower which has ever been...know this...every flower which has ever been lives in the moment...

      your pain is a memory...your suffering is a memory...your unhappiness is a memory...gone...you are here in the moment and you do not suffer that which has happened...you are as the flower...living in the perfection of the moment...

my mind eased...the anxiety left...and here i stood with a flower teaching me to live in the purity of the moment...no matter what is happening or what comes up...each moment is a choice to be happy or live in the past of the previous moment of either happiness or unhappiness...

you know i have had this teaching from humans before but it never got into me...i stayed on the surface of my intellectual mind...this though...this went everywhere in me...

i am grateful for my open heart which was ready to receive the teaching...and grateful for the teacher...

to live as a flower...softly...quietly...a grounded but detached presence...singular yet a part of everything...and...in the moment...