No Mud ~ No Lotus

The prompt at Illustration Friday is "muddy". (See one of my favourite interpretations here)

Thich Naht Hahn has four words "No mud - No lotus" for his teaching on suffering. Thay explains:“It’s like growing lotus flowers. You cannot grow lotus flowers on marble. You have to grow them on the mud. Without mud, you cannot have a lotus flower. Without suffering, you have no ways in order to learn how to be understanding and compassionate.... Happiness is the lotus flower, and the suffering is the mud. So the practice is how to make use of the suffering, make use of the mud, to create the flower, the happiness, and this is something possible."

"For someone who has wisdom, insight, when she looks into the heap of garbage, she can already see the flowers in the garbage. If the flower is on her way to the garbage, the garbage also may be on her way back to the flower. "