Today’s Pill #210: “Flowers are only flowers because they fall”

form. As Zen master Dogen says, “Flowers fall with our attachment, and weeds spring up with our aversion.”

Even as ornament, flowers represent life itself, as fertility, mortality, transience, extravagance, and as such they enter our art, rites, and language.

we cut flowers from our garden to place on the altar, that is because we acknowledge the beauty of those flowers. All we can say is, “Although these flowers are beautiful, their beauty is fragile. When, in a few days time, these flowers die, their beauty will die with them.” We understand this, and when the flowers wilt in a few days, we will not s

“Everything passes, Hiroto,” Dad said. “That feeling in your heart: it’s called mono no aware. It is a sense of the transience of all things in life. The sun, the dandelion, the cicada, the Hammer, and all of us: we are all subject to the equations of James Clerk Maxwell, and we are all ephemeral patterns destined to eventually fade, whether in a s

“The fading sunlight holds infinite beauty Though it is so close to the day’s end.”

5. Let things go. Cherry blossoms fall at the height of their beauty, rather than withering on the branch. Allow possessions to fall from your life in the same way, like petals scattered to the wind. (For example: donate your wedding dress or heirlooms before they deteriorate in the attic.)

Your secret lies in the knowledge that fresh flowers soon wilt — for just as your light can infiltrate any group bringing inspiration and joy, so can your melancholy equally draw energy away from the very same group.