Flower Everywhere

The dominant feature of life in this age, people just prefer flower (perfection) and do not want any waste (imperfection). Not a few couples who had married less than a year, then broke up. The new business partnerships split within months. The same thing happens to political figures, they are just in line  in a very short span of time. The fundamental thing behind this, people attach to flower and reject waste.

Crying for Completion

To be honest, every longing - longing for some lovers, parents, God, enlightenment - is the mirror of crying for completion. To all commoners, there is always a feeling of being incomplete here inside that force the ordinaries to seek external tools of satisfaction. Hence, in ancient Greece there was a legend that the human soul was initially complete. But a group of demigod creature divides the human soul. From this myth then it was born the idea of human being keep searching the soul mate. This explains why teens looking for boyfriend/girlfriend, the adults want to get married, the old miss the experience of unity. And it has been recorded clearly in history, all people who seek means of satisfaction outside must be disappointed at the end.

That is why the Saints with touching realization all found it inside. At the beginning, it was an external experience of separation, but separation is not punishment, it is only the key opening the gate. In the language of social anthropologist Gregory Bateson: "it takes two to know one". That's why, almost all spiritual seekers begin the inner journey with deep painful disintegration.

Some are divorced, dead parents, spouse passed away and all sorts of variations. The point is only one, there is something inside which split into two. Desire and reality, expectation and realization are all split into two. People who are born with sufficient spiritual grace, then use this moment as a starting point of inner long  journey of finding completion.

Psychology of Flowing

While  most people feel there is something incomplete here, meditation - especially at the perfection stage, not at the development stage - began with the belief that human soul is complete from the beginning. Like a diamond, diamond of completion is already inside. The old habit of looking for external tools of satisfaction, make the diamond of completion covered with mud. The more one search, the thicker the mud covered the diamond. That is why, the main features of external seekers, their life is full of confusion.

Through meditation, sludge is then cleared. The approach is very simple, whatever that is happening both in daily life and meditation just keep witnessing without judging. Initially, the sludge so gripping. Angry then slammed goods, offended then asked for a divorce. With diligent witnessing without judging, then the grip of emotions, perceptions, mind loosening. As a result, there is a distance between the witness with the witnessed. At the peak of meditation, one can see and experience, there is flower in the waste, there is waste in the flower. Flower is in the process of being waste, waste is in the process of becoming flower. As a result, not only the muds are cleared, one also can have a direct experience of completion.

In contemporary language, this approach is called psychology of flow. Whatever the meditation experience is, whatever the daily life is, learn always to flow. In the language of zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, washing the dishes for the sake of washing the dishes. Most people wash the dishes as fast as possible. That's why they lose the beautiful experience of oneness with the moment. In psychology of flow, eating for the sake of eating, showering for the sake of showering. Every single experience of the moment is transformed into an experience of oneness. In one of meditation ever heard: "flowing then flying". Flowing then life is so light like cotton.

Empty with Luminosity

Illuminated by this kind of understanding, it does not mean life is passive and apathetic. In all cycle of time - including at the time of the prophet - flower and waste are cycling. In psychology of flow, rubbish is not the enemy of flower. Both are the same stream of the same perfection. There are three meditative steps that are available here, it starts with the number two (duality) that is transformed into the number one (unity). This unity which later dissolved into silence (zero). It is not the ordinary silence, silence (empty) with luminosity. Sometimes referred to silence that give birth to compassion.

Lama Surya Daas (an American origin who later become spiritual master) spent long time together with His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Nobel peace prize winner 1989), his conclusion is simple, the enlightened being is perfectly in one with the moment. A friend who ever lived in Plum Village France the residence of Thich Nhat Hanh (has been named to receive the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr.), comes into similar conclusion. The main characteristic of awakened being, no flower to attach no waste to reject. Both flower and waste are parts of the same perfection.

In other words, perfection is not like the finish line of a race, but a stream that never stops flowing. It is similar to the clouds that pouring into rain, then flowing as water in the river, this latest water merges with the ocean, the sun makes it back as clouds again. With this framework, perfection is not a condition without imperfection, but an ability to always smile  in every stream of life. Seen in this way, life is nothing but flowers. Flowers everywhere. In a poetic language, life is like tree. Similar to tree, the Enlightened is mostly silent, in silent then keep processing carbon dioxide of suffering  into oxygen of the Way for all without any discrimination.