Flower

Flower is an amazing natural phenomenon. Something that can give lot of refreshing feelings, memories and lesson to us. The flower blooms in the morning so freshly hued with beautiful enticing colors endowed with enchanting softness and fragrance. It is soft, delicate, fragrant, refreshing in the morning and in the day time...and slowly but steadily that momentary beauty will be gone to oblivion. It is a matter of hours or days to see the end of the beautiful flower. When it is faded and gone, the very same flower can be so unpleasant and stinking and no body would love to touch or smell it anymore. Isn't it an amazing natural law, a lesson taught to all of us silently by the nature? Isn't it the very nature of our own life too? 

Here is how we offer flowers to the Buddha in Theravada Tradition:

Vanna gandha gunopetam - Etam kusuma santatim

Pujayami munindassa - siripada saroruhe.

(This mass of flowers, fresh hued, fragrant and choice,  I offer at the sacred lotus-like feet of the Noble Sage.)

Pujemi buddhas kusumena nena - Punnena metena ca hotu mokkham

Puppham milayati yatha idam me - Kayo tathayati vinasabhavam.

(I offer Thee, Lord Buddha, these flowers. May this virtue aid in my emancipation. Our bodies undergo decay, even as these flowers must fade.)

Here follows the comments on flower by the friends who attended the Meditation Session. The flower is colorful and accepted by all the way it is but the human is accepted to look another way.

• All pretty and beautiful natures grown on this earth must at sometime fade away. so are the humans and all living beings seen and unseen on this earth.
• Impermanence, beauty that fades just as with our life. Joy that turns to sadness. change that happens without choice trying to hold on to something over which you have no control.
• Flowers are fresh, fragrant and inspiring. The flower reflects purity on the one hand and impermanence on the other. The flower blossoms in the morning, radiates fragrance throughout the day time and fades away in the evening. This reminds a great lesson to us. Live like a flower. Fresh and fragrant and still remember life is impermanent. 
• Just like the flower blossoms and fades, our life is also the same. Everything is impermanent. We will be shining, smell good, looks good but it is only temporary. We will be aging every second even if we don't see it.
• Me pivituru mala me moho itama sit ganna spuli. Namut meya adata ho hetata pamanak mehema tibevi. Ape sariyayat me mala wage kalaya samagama jaravata pat wewi.
• This flower is beautiful now but later it will fade away and die just as our body one day will decay and die. 
• Fragility of the heart to hurt and grow old. Wanting to preserve the flower to hold on to change - inevitable. Yet knowing need to accept the flower fading to protect flower create the best environment yet acceptance of its impermanence if it allows us to develop. Flower blossoms in the morning gives fragrance during the day and dies at night.
• Even a flower wilting away maintains it's beauty despite loss of color. Life is as fragile as a flower.
• I wish my life will fade away like this flower with any pain and without any attachment.
• It shows that our life is short. There is an end to our life. It shows that life is impermanent. 
• This flower, in full bloom, pure while pleasing fragrance will not last forever. From a bud - to full bloom, gradually will wither and dry up. So will my body decay some day. Life is impermanent. This is the noble truth. Do not cling as to anything.