Letting Go and Letting

It is said that Buddha gave an entire lecture in silence, simply holding up a flower and contemplating it.

The other day I was bustling along the sidewalk, rushing somewhere to do something important (can't remember for the life of me what it was so it must have been really important), I was probably texting on my iphone when I nearly bumped into a floral stand where my attention was hijacked by a delicate little pink flower.

I stopped momentarily but quickly carried on because, after all, who has time to stop and look at flowers? But after a few steps that little flower compelled me to go back. That little flower had it's hooks in me. So I returned to the stand and when I left this time a smug little pink flower accompanied me.

I brought it home, placed it in a vase and said,

            "OK Flower - wassup? Yes, you're a natural beauty, yes we all need to slow down and appreciate life, yadda yadda, yadda. But why did you trip me and then make me take you home?"

I was about to walk away but then that delicate little flower gave me a jolly good wallop across my consciousness. Here's what came to me via the flower.

This little flower has mastered the art of allowing. It does nothing, yet leaves nothing undone. This little flower doesn't try to accomplish being a flower and muddle it up; this little flower doesn't have an ego that dominates its natural ability to blossom. No, this little flower has surrendered, has let go and as a result is perfect. This little flower is enlightened For &*%# Sakes!

Imagine what this little flower would look like if it took on our human qualities of striving and control and self-doubt? Well, for starters it wouldn't look like a flower, that's for sure. It would doubt itself, it would wonder what it's purpose was and beat itself up for not knowing, it would think it was ugly, it would compare itself to all the other flowers, is my stem too fat? Is my color dull? Why is she taller than me? She has more petals than me! Why won't that bee look at me? What's wrong with me? You get the point.

But taking it one step further than that, what is in the flower that looks after everything so perfectly? What is it that grows the bloom at the perfect time, that keeps everything in perfect balance, that returns the bloom to the earth to nurture the soil, that nourishes the bees and birds and countless other organisms (assuming humans don't come along and spray it with a toxic chemical -to make it 'perfect' while poisoning the ecosystem).

What is in the acorn that grows the oak tree? What is in the tiny dot of protoplasm that makes it grow into a perfect baby? (Without any help from us by the way)

Max Planck, Noble Prize Winning Scientist and the father of quantum physics theory said, while receiving the Noble Prize, "As a man who has devoted his whole life to teh most clear-headed science, to the study of matter. I can tell you as the result of all of my research about atoms, this much; that there is no matter as such. That all matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force, which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this minute solar system of the atom together. We must, as scientists all assume that behind this force is the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."

Wayne Dyer sums it up perfectly this way; particles do not create particles. Particles come from energy, this energy that is in everything - from a delicate baby-pink flower to you and me.

The only difference between this little pink flower and us? We come equipped with extra features called free will and ego and that's why we tend to forget about this divine intelligence of perfection within us. Some say we were given these extra features to offer us 'maximum opportunity for learning and growth'. Yep, I don't know about you but I get lots of opportunities for growth every day...

But one cannot deny that we share this infinite, intelligent mind with every other living thing in our universe from complex solar systems that hold planets in alignment to this delicate, albeit know-it-all little pink flower.

Who knows, maybe that's what Buddha was contemplating when he held up the flower that day.