Digging a Lotus Pond, Making My Self

Digging a Lotus Pond, Making My Self

During the pandemic, I built a small pond in my backyard, making a home for various flowering aquatic plants, including a spectacular pink lotus. To build this pond, I labored at digging a properly sized hole and struggled to excavate the hole so that it precisely matched the contour of the liner that I placed in the depression. This was much harder than expected. It was difficult and frustrating work at times. I was forced to confront my sense of injustice, much like the proverbial soldier who is ordered to dig a hole and then refill it, only to be ordered once more to dig it out again. In the end, I overcame my frustrations—my back and forths—and made a pond, and, most importantly, controlled my emotions and identifications.

“Don’t you know that afflictions are nothing more than wisdom. And that the purest blossoms emerge from the mire?” − Benming (11th century Chinese)

So it goes in our lives. Difficulties and challenges come to us as the raw materials for internal growth. The lotus itself speaks of something fine, emerging from something unrefined, the mud. When I experience friction, the mechanical, usual response is to become identified and express negativity, often in the form of resentment or self-pity in many cases.

The poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, wrote that man was a “waster of sorrow,” meaning that our frictions or personal difficulties are often wasted opportunities for self-remembering and for resisting the expression of negative emotions. The Work is as much about transforming one’s life as it is about anything else. We take raw materials and make finer ones out of them. We separate from our friction by remembering ourselves and transforming the suffering produced by such friction to generate a bridge to Higher Centers.

“It is difficulties that show what men are.” − Epictetus

When you encounter friction, it is an invitation to your soul. Don’t resent the friction. Don’t ignore the friction. Embrace and transform your suffering, your personal friction. Make something from nothing. Don’t be a waster of sorrow. The Work provides the answer.

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My lotus in bloom