LOTUS IN A SEA OF MUD

If You Sit
Near a Famous Person
The Urge to Speak
Becomes Uncontrollable

If You Sit
Near a Tree
The Urge to Be Silent
Becomes All Powerful

Down By The Lotus Pond
Frogs Busy Themselves with Chatter
Fathoms Deep, the Mud Settles Quietly
So Quietly, Only Leaves Can Hear It -

Above,
We Make Our Choices
To be Frogs
Or Lotuses.

No Matter What We Choose
The Mud Is Inescapable.

(c) Shaista Tayabali, 2012
Son Ha Temple, Plum Village

The idea of the lotus in a sea of mud applies to so many people who smile deeply and laugh beautifully with their eyes and mouths, but are really the final product of many years of suffering intensely. In Plum Village, you see many lotuses. 
Here in dear old Shelford, I am not much of a lotus - am mostly mud in a sea of infections. I developed a fever a few days after arriving in PV, not helped by the fierce French sun, and fabulously new foreign bacteria. Have just visited the doc and am set up with 'special' antibiotics. Which is all rather depressing, so to cheer you up, here is our updated telephone booth character :)