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Who will master this world and the realms of Yama and the gods? Who will select a well-taught Dharma teaching as a skilled person selects a flower?

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Welcome to The Imperfect Buddhist, where we discuss mindfulness and applying Zen principles to modern life. My name is Matthew Hawk Mahoney and today's episode is titled Buddhism and the Mexican Petunia.

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Lately, my wife and I have been trying to cut back on our use of the TV as a distraction device. We've experimented with taking the plug out of the TV or taking the batteries out of the remote, and it's never really stuck. This time, we've made it about three days. I've been trying to take more inspiration from nature. I've been trying to take more walks outside along our 1950s neighborhood streets. I've got these brick houses. They all look pretty much the same.

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This morning I went for a walk at about 6.30 a.m. as the sun was rising. I've been trying to pay attention to the natural world around me and notice things and try to look at the trees and the flowers and the plants without labels, looking to see what this being is in front of me. It's a lot easier for me to do that than it is with human beings. Human beings, we have all of our emotions and projections and wants and desires and all that stuff. So it can be easier for me to start with

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tree beings and plant beings and bug beings.

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The name of this episode's an interesting one, Buddhism and the Mexican Petunia. You might be wondering where I'm going with this. But today's episode, we're gonna talk about this Mexican Petunia that's growing outside of my window and the little lessons that I've learned from it over the two years that I've been living in this house. We're gonna learn from this unassuming flower, resilience, embracing impermanence, finding beauty and simplicity, growth and transformation.

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and non-identification with labels. That's a lot for a little plant that most people consider to be a weed to teach us.

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We bought our house about two years ago. When we moved in, there really wasn't a whole lot of landscape and we have the classic front and backyard grass. We have a magnolia tree that's beautiful in the spring that has beautiful white flowers. We have various other plants and shrubs. My wife pulled up some and I remember distinctly when we first moved in, there was this one plant that was growing near my office window down the ground, scrubby looking little thing. It looked different than a lot of the other plants around.

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mowing the yard. I was wondering should I mow it down? And my wife said, oh no don't do that. That's a Mexican petunia. Some people think it's a weed, but it's actually a really pretty flower. So we can just leave it. And the plant wasn't anything special. It has these long spear-like leaves to it. It's got a really dark green, pretty skinny small stem. And so some time went by and I think one or two little purple flowers popped up on it and I just

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was so blown away that a lot of people would consider this flower to be a weed or a pest. I was really surprised when I saw how beautiful the purple flowers were. Over time, we left it, we let it grow, and a couple small offshoots turned into a whole bush. After being here for a year, springtime rolled around again, and all of a sudden we got all of these beautiful purple flowers, and they're blooming right below my office window, so...

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I'm sitting at work and I look out the window and this purple flower will catch my eye. I noticed a heavy rainstorm would come and all the flowers would drop. And I was like, oh man, I really like to look at those. And the next morning there'd be brand new flowers. I remember telling my wife, holy crap, like this is an amazing plant. It drops its flowers and it has brand new flowers the next day.

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The Mexican petunia is very resilient too, with all the really strong storms we get here with wind and heavy rain, or when it gets really hot and humid, or even when it gets really cold too during the winter. It seems like the Mexican petunia just stands there. It's never looked like it's been that surprised by any of the weather. It may not have flowers year round, but I've never really felt like it died back severely or anything when some plants, man, it gets cold for a while and they're just...

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dead, you have to baby him and cover him and all this stuff. But the Mexican Petunia, it's just made it through.

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drawing some inspiration from the Mexican petunia and its ability to withstand so many conditions. Not only is it dealing with extreme heat and cold and wind and rain, but also the glaring eye of gardeners who look at it as like a pest. I'm not a plant, but I don't think it's aware of those distasteful glares that it's getting every now and then from our neighbors.

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reminds me of this section out of Returning to Silence by Katagiri. He says, human beings are apt to attach to the aspect of life called pleasure. This is why we often say enjoy life. Why then does Buddhism say look at suffering? Because suffering is the one aspect of human life that people don't want to see. We try to close our eyes to suffering but we cannot do it. It is because we can't close our eyes to suffering that the Buddha has to say.

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Look at this other aspect of human life that you don't see. Suffering is a holy truth. So to say that life is characterized by suffering is not a pessimistic teaching. And reading that and looking at the petunia, I see that it can withstand all of these adverse situations. It doesn't even label them as adverse. It's completely with whatever the environment is doing. And it's just saving up its energy for spring to put out flowers and to drop them and create new flowers.

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We can learn from this Mexican petunia selflessness. The Mexican petunia doesn't sit there and think, oh, poor me, it's so hot out right now, oh my God. And oh, Matt's neighbor across the street just keeps looking at me with his little trowel that he wants to dig me out. Oh, it's so cold. Oh, nobody even stops and notices my flowers. It keeps making its flowers and it drops them. It doesn't hold on to those old flowers or think how hard it worked on those flowers.

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budding of the flowers, the letting go of those flowers so that new ones can be made with new pollen so it can spread its sweetness throughout the land.

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Learning from this giving and dropping away and giving, I'm learning that we may have a great meditation. Things may be flowing really well and it's this flower blooming and it's gorgeous and you're experiencing it and you're one with it. The bell rings or somebody knocks at the door. We start to think how good we are at meditating, how great it's going, and we start to hold on to that. Letting that fall away and allowing the new bloom to come up, whatever that next experience is.

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This is from the Dhammapada. It says, the mindful apply themselves. They don't amuse themselves in any abode. Like swans flying from a lake, they abandon home after home.

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One other thing I want to mention is the simplicity and elegance of this flower. It's very unassuming in non-blooming times with spear-shaped leaves and a dark green. Now that I know that it creates such beautiful flowers, I appreciate its simplicity and elegance in non-blooming times. It's a very unassuming plant and we can draw that parallel to our own practices, especially in zazen.

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And some people, especially if you're practicing at a Zen temple, would be like, what? This is not what I would expect when it comes to a spiritual practice. Everybody's in these black robes and bells ring and you go sit down and it's pretty plain and it's not over the top. There's something to learn about that in our own spiritual lives about not being extravagant or over the top, that we can be simple and natural and plain and produce these beautiful ways of being.

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these beautiful experiences that we can share with people. We can be an example of simplicity, yet brilliance. Simple brilliance.

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Bye!

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This is a study in how much one plant could symbolize for one person, if they really took the time to look at it. Concepts of simplicity, renewal, letting go and endurance. All things that I found symbolized in a plant, most people would consider a weed in my front yard.

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If we're looking for it in our own practices, our own lives, we can find inspiration. We can find symbolism for resilience, growth, simplicity, and embracing imperfection. I would encourage you, in your own life, taking a look at the world around you. Hopefully you have some type of nature. Maybe it's just a small bush out in front of your house, but take some time to look at it. Pay attention to it with the passing of the seasons. Try not to label it.

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or come up with a bunch of stories in your mind about what it is to pay attention to as the months and the seasons go by. When we start to get to that place where everything is usable, we start to see teachers all around us. We have flower teachers, tree teachers, bug teachers, and bitchy Karen teachers. Those ones are harder to learn from, but they definitely have a lesson to teach. I'm still trying to learn the lesson there.

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inspired to honor this beautiful simple plant in front of my house. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. I look forward to talking to you next time.

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