"Flowers arouse in us an instinct to protect them, to appreciate them and to shelter them. The world is too ugly, too violent. There should be something delicate to care about. To do so is to be lifted above the brute and to go toward the refined...The tenderness of flowers arouses mercy, compassion and understanding. If that beauty is delicate, so much the better. Life itself is fleeting. We should take time to appreciate beauty in the midst of temporality."
#51 Beauty
365 Tao: Daily Meditations
Deng Ming-Dao
Posts
5 comments:
Thank you Jane for posting this. I believe this is the reading you gave in class last week. I didn't get it copied and hoped to see it again. It is a perfect meditation for the work I do and the work I do with other women.
Thank You,
Pat
beautiful website, Jane
so glad I found you!
One of my favorite things about the grocery store that I go to is that the floral department has displays near the entrance that I use. I stop and look, smell, feel, appreciate the beauty of the flowers and especially at this time of year(spring won't be here for at least a month). I get this feeling of tenderness and nurturing when I stop to smell the flowers. This reading reminded me of this bit of respite in my busy day. Thank You Jane! Diane
What a gem you are? Along with beautiful images, poignant and meaningful words. (I've been enjoying Stephen Mitchell's Tao and I've just placed an order for this one, thanks.) But beyond meaning is the photo--the focal point is moved yet again--that rich red in the lower right. A great range of values with the ubiquitous red and green. I think the lines and shapes of petals and stems move us around and back. Well done! and Thank you.
How can such a simple photo evoke such feelings of sadness, and of "yesterday" ?????
Perhaps the yellow coming into the sepals, perhaps the downward curve of the stems, perhaps the soft downward curving texture of the largest petal..........
Thanks Jane
fay
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