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“If you want to see the essence of a lotus flower, you must see the lotus present in all the dharmas normally thought of as non-lotus, such as the sun, pond water, clouds, mud, and heat. Only by looking in this way can we tear asunder the web of narrow views, the web of mental discrimination which creates the prisons of birth, death, here, there, existence, non-existence, defiled, immaculate, increasing and decreasing … reality in itself cannot be expressed by conceptual knowledge or by written and spoken language. Only the understanding which meditation brings can help us recognize the essence of reality.”
Pages 466-467, Thich Nhat Hanh Old Path White Clouds: Walking in the Footsteps of the BuddhaPhoto by Myth Girl
