Picking Flowers, Dodging Thorns

I don’t have to pick every flower.

And I shouldn't worry about every thorn.

These are mantras to help me guide myself into my near future.

They relate directly to the core Buddhist teaching that I’ve been trying to internalize: to eliminate both craving and aversion from my life.

I remind myself that I don’t have to pick every flower, so as to focus better on what I do want. Because, while there’s no crime in picking a flower, in my experience, simple wanting turns into craving at the point of ‘more’. It’s where ‘enough’ loses meaning, and wanting becomes a frame of mind in which I willfully imprison myself.

And I tell myself not to anticipate thorns because it only creates the illusion that thorns are everywhere. A thorn encountered, though it stings, is a simple thing. But the feared and avoided thorns burn and never stop burning, and they’ve kept me out of too many gardens.

Let me learn to more deeply appreciate each and every flower I encounter, but to pick only a few. Sometimes, more isn’t really more at all.

The thorns…I can trust them to be there, dance around them when I can. And when I’m pricked, don’t holler. Whatever harm is already done.

Why flowers? Because we think of picking flowers as a natural thing to do, generally disregarding the fact that in doing so, we kill them, while leaving them as we find them, allows theiir beauty to endure. The thorns were a fitting afterthought.