You must rise above _x000D_ The gloomy clouds _x000D_ Covering the mountaintop _x000D_ Otherwise, how will you _x000D_ Ever see the brightness?
Ryokan TaiguRead
With no mind, flowers lure the butterfly; With no mind, the butterfly visits the blossoms. Yet when flowers bloom, the butterfly comes; When the butterfly comes, the flowers bloom.
Interpretation
This quote illustrates the interconnectedness of nature, where flowers and butterflies influence each other's existence.
In this quote by Ryokan Taigu, the essence of mutual dependence between flowers and butterflies is highlighted, emphasizing how the presence of one leads to the flourishing of the other. It reflects the beauty of nature's harmony, suggesting that the absence of attachment ('no mind') allows them to thrive together, illustrating the flow of life and the importance of coexistence.
In practice
This quote can be used during a nature conservation speech to highlight the importance of maintaining biodiversity.
You must rise above _x000D_ The gloomy clouds _x000D_ Covering the mountaintop _x000D_ Otherwise, how will you _x000D_ Ever see the brightness?
When Summer lies upon the world, and in a noon of gold, Beneath the roof of sleeping leaves the dreams of trees unfold; When woodland halls are green and cool, and wind is in the West, Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is best!
I've travelled all around the world to see the rivers and the mountains, and I've spent a lot of money. I have gone to great lengths, I have seen everything, but I forgot to see just outside my house a dewdrop on a little blade of grass, a dewdrop which reflects in its convexity the whole universe around you.
Planet Earth is our shared island, let us join forces to protect it
Nothing in all nature is so lovely and so vigorous, so perfectly at home in its environment, as a fish in the sea. Its surroundings give to it a beauty, quality, and power which are not its own. We take it out, and at once a poor, limp dull thing, fit for nothing, is gasping away its life. So the soul, sunk in God, living the life of prayer, is supported, filled, transformed in beauty, by a vitality and a power which are not its own.
The creatures that inhabit this earth-be they human beings or animals-are here to contribute, each in its own particular way, to the beauty and prosperity of the world.
The vocation of being a 'protector' [. . .] means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world, as the Book of Genesis tells us and as Saint Francis of Assisi showed us [. . .] In the end, everything has been entrusted to our protection, and all of us are responsible for it. Be protectors of Godβs gifts!
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.