By William Haskell Levine
At first I hardly noticed the pinkish rose. It was a warm L.A. December, and I was rushing around doing what I thought to be important activities (music, yoga, playing with my son), and I noticed a tightly wound rosebud on a neglected backyard bush. An industrious stem had grown a simple, single bloom which perched four feet behind the black, lava stone Buddha that my mom schlepped back from Bali. Still on the run, I rushed off for the holidays and didn’t notice it for another month.
The rose bush grew despite the lack of water and fertilizer. I’d known it was ailing, but because of a chronic obstruction due to nasal polyps, I couldn’t smell. And so I chose to ignore the flower, since it reminded me of my disability.
Often when I thought about the rose, I became a bit depressed. At those times, I turned to the Buddhist practice that was also part of my life, and worked on arousing mindfulness and awareness, doing my best to cut this habit at its root. Since the rose mirrored the state of my perceptions, by changing them, I could change how the rose affected me. At the time, I happened to be studying the Heart Sutra which helpfully reminded me: “…no feeling, no perception, no formation, no consciousness; no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; no appearance, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no dharmas…”
“…no feeling, no perception, no formation, no consciousness; no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; no appearance, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no dharmas…”
Eventually I was able to let go, using my humble amount of Wisdom mind, gathered from my meditation and purification practice. In fact, it was in front of the lava stone Buddha sculpture that I had practiced for three years, either in the morning quiet, or when the sunset seemed to create light Mandalas through the trees, and the flying gnats that gathered in bunches looked like dancing, sparkling atoms.
A month later in January, I noticed the rose had fully bloomed. This time I felt joyous, because due to its new weight, the bending stem positioned the flower exactly an arrows length above the Buddha. Perfectly centered over the fontanel, almost by design. I smiled and admired it as yet another piece of glorious beauty and synchronicity that life brings. I also reminded myself not to exaggerate the significance of these events, rather, to simply receive their blessing and move on.
And yet the rose stayed, orbiting like a grapefruit-sized planet around the “solar axis” of the Buddha’s smile.
At some point I began noticing unusual things about it. For one, it was growing away from the sun. The winter sun was south, and the rose and leaves supporting it were facing north, as if the Buddha sculpture was radiating light of its own. Also, the leaves near the rose had become healthy; the rose bush was mustering all its strength to support the bloom. In fact, from the lowest branch, a six-foot stem shaped a nearly perfect 180-degree arch precisely to the Buddha.
“Since there is no obscuration of mind, there is no fear.”
Another unusual characteristic was the strength and vitality of the rose. For a few days, Los Angeles had 30 to 40 per hour winds blowing constantly. The rose, clinging to its stem, was blown back and forth, four or five feet from its position — just hammered. Thorns tangled fiercely with other branches. The wind tested the flower’s strength to the limit by banging it repeatedly on the Buddha’s head. Then when the wind would subside, each time the rose nonchalantly came back centered, an arrow’s length distance above the head. Maybe it wanted to. Perhaps it liked its spot.
A month later, rain finally arrived. After six months of completely dry weather, sunny southern California got a record deluge. Pummeled for three days, the heavy, water logged rose sank all the way to the bench that held the statue. “Could this be the end?” I thought. Not a chance. After one day, it perked up a bit and rested on top of the Buddha’s head. The rose’s hearty lids slowly dried and as they did, the branch raised in elevation, resting the cherry-pink bloom on the Buddha’s head like a hat. A day later it found it’s final height, seven inches above the fontanel.
This is when I knew it was special. The Pink Wonder. I jokingly considered, “Was this the Buddhist equivalent of an appearance of the Virgin Mary in stone?” Where’s the Italian tour bus? I decided to eliminate all concepts and explanations, and just felt the extraordinary joy in my heart, inspired by the beauty and perfection of this indestructible, regal blossom.
As I practiced in its presence, my deep compassion and devotion grew. Like the rose, I could hardly contain my joy.
“Form is none other than emptiness; emptiness is none other than form.”
My mind naturally contemplated on the rose in Buddhist metaphors:
§ A colorful dash of compassion in a world gone mad.
§ A “visual bell” clanged by the Universe to wake up beings. .
§ An incarnate paradox of existence: How can inexhaustible beauty be time-limited?
From a Tibetan mythological perspective, perhaps this flower was a form of the goddess Tara, my personal favorite. Traditional Eastern artists almost always paint her surrounded by flowers. In a similar manner to the rose, Tara appears and disappears like the moonlight, pacifies fear, desire, envy, and aggression. The falling petals could be seen as tears of Tara’s unobstructed compassion, who herself was formed by a tear from Buddha Avalokiteshvara. Tara can also appear as a perfect Mandala, pulsing in and out of the sky-like Nature of Mind. Her compassion unites with the Wisdom of all the Buddhas, a union seemingly represented by the rose/sculpture.
I found the most graphic Buddhist metaphor in my Tibetan meditation practice, where I visualizes the Buddha Vajrasattva, an arrow’s length above my head. From his energy flowed a stream of benevolent nectar purifying all my negative karma. It tickled me pink to see my visualization practice mirrored by the rose’s appearance.
“I pray to you, the Noble Goddess Tara,
May you protect us from
all fears and misfortune.”
OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SVAHA”
Finally, by the end of February, the rose began to die. The first bright pink petal fell on the Buddha, and then off to the side. This was followed by of various pinkish-whites nesting on the head and landing in perfect serendipity around the sculpture. It appeared that the Buddha held a center of gravity that pulled the petals around it.
Each day, I became more and more eager to blissfully meditate as the rose expressed its glorious Impermanence, petal by petal. I wanted to wait until all the layers disappeared one by one, and ultimately the rose’s core would show itself, perhaps with some further inspiration. But how could I preserve this? Could this be filmed? No, that wouldn’t work, and besides–I was becoming too “spiritually materialistic,” attached to a concrete example of my practice’s progress. I finally decided to simply take some photos with a disposable camera that happened to be around.
It was going to rain again, and I knew today could be too much for the weakening petals, now turning yellowish-pink. I hurried home to see the impermanence of nature in “rose-like” action.
But this was not to be. The weekly gardener had cut off the rose, the dying part of the landscape he was hired to maintain.
For a few seconds I was shocked. But then I saw that indirectly, with a snip of his shears, he had pointed me toward a greater understanding of things. I stared at the spot where the rose had hovered and I saw nothing but space. Having watched it grow for three months, there was now no more time for the rose to measure. My mind flipped through hundreds of thoughts and associations, and for a moment I actually wondered, “Had it actually existed?” Now when I see the Emptiness in the voided spot where it clung, I also see the Bliss in simply practicing without grasping. And although I thought I could somehow prolong existence, I can honestly reflect that death truly comes without warning. As long as I can keep practicing, the lesson of the rose will never end.