Themes :
Blossom

Spring blossoms — the cherry blossom, plum blossom, peach blossom — suddenly appear on seemingly dead branches, heralds of the coming spring. They represent the delicate, almost unnoticed flowering of enlightenment, the surprisingly quiet recognition of the Buddha-mind. These spring blossoms appear only after the hard, lonely winter of meditation and spiritual practice, yet when they peek forth, their appearance is natural, effortless. Spring blossoms are the new life that emerges from the dead branches of the little self, they simply emerge when the limited ego has passed through its seasons and withered away.

Alternately, spring blossoms can represent the fleeting nature of life. They appear brightly, seemingly out of nothing from bare branches, but all too briefly... then they are gone. They can represent the Buddhist insight that all things are fleeting and change, that everything like the seasons themselves keep changing, where the only thing of value is the cultivation of awareness in order to appreciate this very moment.

Sometimes the sheer beauty of color and perfume Spring flowers express transports us to an awareness of the sacred.