A Lotus Grows in the Mud she calls her "Gifts". This spiritual quote, which led to the title of the book, Hawn received from the Venerable Thupten Ngodrup. He is the Nechung Oracle of the Nechung Dorje Drayang Ling Monastery in Dharamsala, India. "The lotus is the most beautiful flower, whose petals open one by one. But it will only grow in the mud. In order to grow and gain wisdom, first you must have the mud --- the obstacles of life and its suffering. ... The mud speaks of the common ground that humans share, no matter what our stations in life. ... Whether we
Chinese garden of friendship. Of the flowers in the Chinese garden, the most appreciated were the orchid, peony, and lotus ("Nelumbo nucifera"). During the Tang dynasty, the peony, the symbol of opulence and a flower with a delicate fragance, was the most celebrated flower in the garden. The poet Zhou Dunyi wrote a famous elegy to the lotus, comparing it to a "junzi", a man who possessed integrity and balance. The orchid was the symbol of nobility, and of impossible love, as in the Chinese expression "a faraway orchid in a lonely valley." The lotus was admired for its purity, and its