With rising crime and the growing in-fluence of underworld money in politics, these are troubled times for Taiwan, and the people are anxious. Yet on the city streets one often sees stickers bearing the peaceful image of the lotus flower. On the windows of cars and the windshields of scooters, they roam the alleys and avenues. One ring of open petals encloses another clinging to the lotus' cupule, on which the individual lotus seeds are clearly discernible. On some of these stickers, superimposed across the image of the flower, is printed the Chinese character for Buddhism (佛).

Because lotuses grow out of the mud pure and clean, like morning dew from Heaven or water in springtime from a flower creek, lotus decorations and designs are everywhere the eye turns. Even other flowers--like these magnolias--are piled into lotus shapes.

Is the red lotus in the sea of fire reminding the masses that although this world is not peaceful, one shouldn't stop wishing to be good?

When you enter temples, the bodhi-sattvas, smiling and downward gazing, sit cross-legged in the "lotus position" on their lotus pedestals. Guanyin, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy who relieves hardships and suffering, sprinkles sweet water onto the fire raging in the house of humanity while treading on lotuses. A booklet free for the taking in sidewalk arcades features on its cover a lotus blossom surrounded by drooping lotus leaves. Though less colorful than the real live flower in a pond, the image conveys a greater sense of benevolence. And even on the white envelopes that mourners offer the family of the dead at a funeral, there is an outline of a lotus, comforting both the spirit of the deceased and those left behind.

Sukahavati-the Pure Land, the land of Buddha-surely must never lack for lotuses. In Buddhism, what exactly does the image of the lotus represent? And how did this plant become such an integral part of Buddhist thought.

A pure land in a single bloom

The sutras say that the lotus flower has four virtues: its scent, its purity, its softness, and its loveliness. Yet the fact is that many flowers are soft, clean and fragrant. The lotus, however, has special ecological characteristics that set it apart from other plants and make it symbolic of Buddhism. "Early Buddhists' high regard for the lotus was based on the way it propagated itself," writes Lin Liang-yi, one of the older generation of Japanese art scholars, in his work, "The Decorative Lines of Buddhist Art."

Spring, summer, fall and winter, the four seasons turn in their cycle, and flowers bloom and fall. Infused with the vitality of the natural cycle of growth and decay, the flower is a focus of attention in many cultures. Yet whereas most plants bloom and fall before bearing fruit, the lotus blooms when its fruit is ripe. Qunfang Pu, a Ming dynasty botanical treatise that catalogues the characteristics of numerous flowers, specially notes that the lotus "flowers and bears fruit at the same time." Buddhists thus thought that the lotus could reveal past, present and future all at once.

The Buddha stresses that all things-the past, the present and the future; heaven and earth; the myriad beasts of the world; time and space; the poor and the rich; the cheap and the dear-are equal. Amid the paradise of Sukahavati there is no past, present or future. Able to transcend limitations of time and space, the lotus flower enjoys the unique good fortune to be the flower of the Pure Land.

Lu Yen-ping, who has studied Buddhist art for many years, explains that the Lotus Sect of Buddhism views the Western Paradise as the soul's ultimate destination. The Amita Sutra says that people are rewarded for their benevolent acts by leaving the cycle of reincarnation and going to Paradise, where the spirits of the dead are given new incarnations as residents of that Pure Land. Before entering, the spirits are greeted by Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, who holds a lotus in her hand. The lotus will close up after a varying length of time depending upon one's karma and good deeds, and when it does, one enters Paradise.

The Amita Sutra also notes that the Kingdom of Paradise contains the Seven Treasure Pond which brims over with the Water of Eight Deeds and Virtues, and the bottom of the pond is covered with gold dust. . . . The lotuses here are as big as carriage wheels, and the blue flowers give off a blue light, the yellow flowers a yellow light, the red flowers a red light, and the white flowers a marvelous scent.

The Lotus Sutra

The different schools of Buddhism offer different explanations of lotuses, which give the flower an array of symbolic meanings. Whereas it's a symbol of paradise for the Pure Land school, in The Lotus Sutra, the principal sutra of the Tiantai school, the lotus represents the "mysterious law" through which people can gain enlightenment.

In one of the most ancient of Buddhist sutras, the beads of dew on lotus leaves and the pointy shape of the lotus seeds describe life unpolluted by desire. One must cut away the hard outer shell of the lotus seeds to get to the nourishing white seed, which is "like the Buddhist nature of people," says Lu Yen-ping. The small lotus cupule and lotus seeds are viewed as vast and boundless in Buddhism-much like people's inner nature which they must explore and know for themselves. The cupule holding the seeds is like the door to the human spirit.

Sprouting lotuses with every step

The meanings ascribed to lotuses in Buddhism are like the ripples spreading from where a thrown rock pierces the surface of a lake: the ecological metaphors for religious doctrine just keep growing.

There was a stretch last year when there were several high-profile fraud cases involving religion. Among these was the case of the Zen Master Miao Tien of the Sky Buddha Monastery, who was accused of selling thousands of lotus pedestals for NT$100,000 to NT$200,000. Students in college Zen societies believed that the lotus pedestals supplied by temples would allow one to pass quickly through the dead spirit stage and eliminate many karmic obstacles. Some students went so far as to take out loans from banks and place orders for several pedestals, believing that they would "pay one's debt to one's ancestors, thus allowing one to cultivate Zen without interference and enter the ideal realm more quickly."

Yet the Buddha is not supposed to be discriminating, and he laughs holding any flower. Why, then, is the lotus so special? Partly because of its special ecological characteristics, but partly as well because "early Buddhism in India was influenced by Brahmanism and Hinduism, as well as Indian folklore," holds Lu Yen-ping.

"Among the masses, the thousand-leafed golden lotus casts a light as bright as 10,000 suns. On it someone sits radiating immeasurable brilliance. He is the King of Heaven, who gave birth to eight sons, who in turn gave birth to the land and the people. . . ." So reads an account in a sutra that was influenced, no doubt, by the description of the Hindu God of Creation Brahma being born on a lotus flower. There is also a description of the Buddha on a lotus enumerating the six ways to reach Nirvana. "Springing up where Hinduism already existed, Buddhism borrowed the lotus pedestal from Brahma," writes Lin Liang-yi in an essay.

In Buddhist painting and sculpture, one can often see images of the Buddha sitting on three different kinds of pedestals: diamond pedestals, lion pedestals and lotus pedestals. The former two were modified from the thrones of mighty sovereigns and they are sometimes featured in scenes of the Buddha talking with his disciples in informal settings. But when the Buddha is shown delivering a talk that became an important sutra, "He will definitely be sitting on a lotus," says Lu, now a student at Huafan College of Humanities and Technology.

"Getting on top of a lotus and serving as the great god of creation, the Buddha greatly resembles Brahma." And the descriptions of people riding lotus pedestals into the Pure Land quite likely have their origins in the same Hindu legend. These days all Buddhist devotees learn that the Buddha was born in northern India more than two millennia ago, and that when he was born, he walked out seven steps in ten directions, and that with every step he took a lotus flower appeared with fairies spreading flower petals.

Flowers floating on pure water

The lotus' place in the creation myth can be explained ecologically. In the earliest Indian collection of Buddhist sutras, which dates from the reign of Ahyu, there is a description of the beginning of the world: "Between the mountains there were many rivers, flowing in all directions along 100 different routes, moving slowly downhill, without waves. The rivers were shallow and their banks weren't steep, making them easy to ford. The water in them was clean and pure, and flowers floated on the surface in abundance. The currents were full of them. . . ."

At first there were no clouds or fog, just the clear, pure wind. The rivers flowing between the mountains carried many flowers. The first life in the world arose in water, and now botanists know that the lotus was one of the world's first flowering plants. So could it have been that our ancestors knew the lotus was a "living fossil"?

In Indian culture, the lotus is symbolic of rebirth, but in addition to its religious meaning, the lotus is also a symbol of all that is true, good and beautiful, representing good fortune, peace and enlightenment.

Art professor Chiang Hsun offers this view of India, the land where Buddhism originated: The civilization of a tropical nation is like a lush tropical plant, thriving in the humid and hot air. Indian civilization displays all of the languorous charm of a tropical plant. Lu Yen-ping, who is studying Sanskrit, has discovered that in Brahmanism both men and women are described as having sharply contrasting black and white eyes and arms like a soft and open lotus flower. Indian religious stories sound very romantic.

Apart from its importance in classical Hindu thought, the symbol of the lotus appeared in decorations in Egypt, Mesopotamia and ancient Greece, notes Lin Lang-yi. These images may also have influenced how the lotus was portrayed in ancient Buddhist art. "From a chronological standpoint, the water lily's powers of creation and rebirth appeared in Egypt even earlier," notes Lu Yen-ping, who has also researched the symbol of the water lily in Egyptian culture.

Life opens like a lotus bloom

As the lotus flowers in China wither one after another, the seeds ripen and the swamps go dry, and the lotus roots can be dug up for people to savor. In Egypt, where civilization developed along the Nile flood plain and where there are no lotuses, water lilies would float along the river banks and in the marshes along the extensive canal systems fed with river water.

Egyptians, whose national flower is the water lily, traditionally regarded the water lily's opening and closing as an extraordinary process. The ancient Egyptian monarchs that ruled over the Nile River Valley longed for eternal life and were wrapped up as mummies, in the hope that they would come to life again "like a water lily reopening." Water lilies were often used in funeral ceremonies, and people would pray that the deceased would, like a closed water lily flower, have the chance of blooming again.

In 1361 BC, the tomb of King Tutan-kamen was finished in Egypt, and wasn't unsealed until 1922. One of the few Egyptian tombs whose treasures had not been plundered, it is virtually a kingdom of water lilies. Their outlines adorn the tops of columns. The oar King Tut was supposed to use to row his model ship to the land of rebirth is made in the image of a half-open water lily. On the walls, a beautifully dressed woman resembling Cleopatra turns to hold a half-opened water lily in front of the nose of the woman behind her. Though the lines of Egyptian carving are often regarded as rather stiff, here they manage to convey the sweet fragrance of the soft water lily. Are most of the water lilies depicted as half open to put stress on the ability of the water lily to open and close?

The water lily, which grows from the depths to above the surface of water, seems to bring a tremendous hidden vitality out of nowhere, hinting at the true source of creation.

Many ancient Egyptian myths are connected to the water lily. In Egypt, where they worshipped the sun, they have discovered designs in which the sun god Ra sits as a child on a water lily.

Who influenced whom?

Many believe that the use of lotus and water lily pedestals is connected to the flat cupule of the lotus, which makes it easy to imagine sitting upon. But since water lilies, which have no cupules, are native to Egypt but lotuses are not, was Egypt influenced by images of Indian lotuses before lotus pedestals appeared in India itself? Or did Egyptian ideas about the creative powers of the water lily spread to India, where there were both lotuses and water lilies, and where subsequently figures sitting on lotus pedestals started to appear? Or did Egypt have lotuses 3000 years ago?

On many questions, "people are just guessing"-a state of affairs that spurred Lu Yen-ping to return to school and study Sanskrit, so that he could read the original sutras and get to the bottom of these questions. There are even many people who believe that just as Buddhism was deeply influenced by the older religions of Brahmanism and Hinduism, it would also later influence them. After all, in Brahmanism the Buddha is regarded as Brahma's ninth incarnation.

There are white, blue, red and yellow lotuses described in the sutras. Different colors have different meanings. White, for instance, represents "purity"; blue represents "goodness"; and red represents "enlightenment." In Asia there is only one species of lotus, which has red and white blooms. People who are engaged in the research of Buddhist art hold that the lotuses mentioned in the sutras include several different species. For instance, the seven flowers referred to in the expression "all life grows out of the seven precious lotuses" include two lotus species and five water lily species.

The blue lotus flower described in Buddhist texts, which is often compared to the clear light in one's eyes, is conjectured to be the water lily, whose petals are narrower. Yet the yellow lotus described in the sutras poses some problems, since the only lotuses with yellow blossoms-at least in this day and age-are found in North America. How did it get to India to become one of the seven treasured lotus blooms?

In order to prevent insects from feasting on them, the necks of true lotuses are covered with small thorns, and the sutras, in order to distinguish between them and water lilies, refer to them as the "thorny lotus." For instance, "lotus and thorny lotus, in the water, in the mud, you appear to be floating in a sea of desire."

Today Buddhists call each other "lotus friends" and when talking among themselves "have lotus on their tongues". . . . Among the believers there is in fact no distinguishing between the lotus and the water lily. To them, it makes no difference what you call the flowers, because, as is recorded in the sutras, "The lotuses of heaven can change according to people's wishes, flowering when needed. In this way they bring joy to the hearts of all. There is no need to declare one false and the other real. Both are called the wondrous lotus flower."

Bright blooms from the muck

"Purity, trustworthiness, the Buddha, the virtuous man: these are what the lotus signifies," writes Huang Yung-chuan, assistant director of the National Museum of History, in his book Chinese Flower Arranging. Buddhism came to China in the Wei and Jin dynasties, at which time the lotus, which had been simply a source of food, became a symbol for purity and the subject of many poems. "Bathing in the clear water of the spiritual pond, the lotus' roots dig deep into the soil." For the literati, the lotus represented distancing oneself from vulgarity. It was a metaphor that related to contemporary utopian notions, but was surely connected as well to the Buddhist ideal of "keeping apart from the world, like the lotus."

"My Love for the Lotus" by the Song scholar Zhou Dun-yi has exerted an influence on the Chinese down to the present. In this essay, the lotus is compared to a man of great virtue for being able to live in muck without being tainted by it. Qian Zhong-shu, a Republican-era writer, wrote that Zhou's "inspirations" stemmed from Buddhist ideas. Buddhism explores how to transcend the troubles of human existence, to leave behind the sea of pain, the house of fire that is human existence. Becoming Buddha-like is the highest ideal. Out of the muck the lotus springs forth beautiful blooms, much as Buddhas free themselves from worldly worries. In the Middle Works of Hinayana Sutra, the Buddha says, "In this way the human heart doesn't give rise to evil desires or evil thoughts. It's like the blue, red and white lotuses that grow in the water but bear no water."

Chinese literati believe that a lotus is a pure world unto itself in which both body and soul are clean. According to the book Jian Nan Shi Gao, when the Song dynasty poet Lu Yu was 78 years old, he once dreamt that an ancient spoke to him: "I am the lotus scholar and responsible for the mirror lake," he said. "But now I am leaving, and I was wondering if you could take my place minding the moonlight, wind and dew and protecting the lotuses? Every month you will receive 1000 jugs of wine in payment." Afterwards Lu couldn't forget this beautiful dream. A few years later, when he was very ill, he had another dream in which he walked amid 10,000 acres of lotus flowers. Lu's dreams can be said to combine Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist elements.

Muck is a field of blessing

In comparison to the literati's notions about not getting tainted by the mud, the Buddhist description of the lotus leaving the muck has even broader meaning.

Mahayana Buddhism stresses finding a release from worldly affairs while in the world, taking the path of a bodhisattva amid the five filths of the world. The bodhisattvas take the human masses as their "field of blessing"-the muck is luck, evil is good, pollution is purity and no clear dichotomies can be made. Hence, Mahayana Buddhism stresses the idea that "this flower doesn't grow in the highlands but rather it blooms in the vile swamps." The root and flower merge into one, in which there is no distinction between pollution and purity.

Apart from pursuing inner cultivation, meditation and deep thought, experiencing muck is also a form of cultivation, for it tests one's ability to endure misfortune and to sacrifice. Only by going to hell and being tempered by fire there, can one rise to religious exaltation and radiate the brightest and most beautiful light.

The Investiture of the Gods offers a lively description of the use of a lotus flower in rebirth. Li Nuo-cha disobeyed the laws of Heaven, and as a result both he and his parents were punished. In order to redeem himself, he cut off his flesh and gave it to his mother and cut out his bones and gave them to his father, and with the help of his master Taiyi Zhenren, he arose anew out of a lotus flower, rode on his wind-fire wheel and became an immortal. Through this rebirth he became an exalted folk deity.

Collectively, the numerous different descriptions of the lotus are fitting, in that each lotus bloom is a magnificent world in itself. It is quite natural that images of the lotus are everywhere to be found in Buddhist lands.

At Tantric Buddhist retreat centers, the lotus is often chosen as an object of meditation. At typical Buddhist home altars, the "Lotus-Holding Guanyin" is depicted holding a lotus in her hands with her eyes cast downward upon it. Her inner world is completely enlightened and without obstacles, and friends of the lotus believe that frequently invoking the name of Guanyin, who holds a lotus, can put them at a distance from their desires. In the "lotus reclining Guanyin," one of her various incarnations, she lies in an expanse of lotuses. This incarnation is said to help people to leave the sea of troubles that is the earthly world.

Before Buddhism arrived in the "Eastern Land," the image of the lotus had already begun to appear on objects in China. Archeologists have dug up Zhou-dynasty tea pots shaped like lotuses, and bronzeware with the outlines of lotus petals. After the arrival of Buddhism, Wei, Jin and Tang dynasty implements, decorative carvings and Buddhist statues commonly bore depictions of lotuses. It was the great age of lotus decoration. Lu Yen-ping, who has written a paper on the lotus motif, notes that there is a great diversity to Chinese images of lotuses-in contrast to the single way water lilies were depicted in ancient Egypt.

In one of the Dunhuang Caves, you can find yourself surrounded on four sides by the petals of a giant lotus decoration, in which one peaceful Buddha after another sits in front of its own huge lotus petal. Since lotus petals and leaves have unusual shapes, you can always tell when a lotus flower is being depicted no matter if it has been stretched long, pressed flat, or molded into a square. Apart from actual representations of lotus flowers, petals and leaves, the ways gourds, dahlias, pomegranates and a variety of other fruits were depicted "were all adaptations and extensions of lotus designs," notes Lu.

White flowers from heaven

When Chan (Zen) Buddhism bloomed in China, the lotus did not lose stature, but Buddhist art became more subdued, and the use of color in depictions of the lotus declined. After the Song dynasty, folk culture grabbed hold of the lotus with gusto, giving it symbolic meaning that was no longer purely religious. In mass-produced art works, fat babies danced while holding lotus leaves or lotus flowers. These were used in the hope that people would give birth to several boys in succession (a Chinese character meaning "one after another" is a homonym for the character meaning lotus). And the lotus leaves provide protection for goldfish under them, which to the Chinese symbolize abundance year after year. In the folk uses of lotus flowers it is often hard to discern whether there is any connection to religious belief. For instance, in the Tang dynasty one Buddhist deity was depicted as a baby holding a lotus flower and laughing. On a festival for unmarried women on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, children would come out onto the city streets and imitate him. Is this deity somehow connected to the idea that lotuses would help mothers produce boys? Such questions interest Buddhist scholars. "Chinese flower arranging also has roots in the Northern Dynasties' Buddhist 'flower offering' ceremony," writes Huang Yung-chun, assistant director of the National Museum of History.

Down to the present, even if Chinese don't understand the Lotus Sutra or lotus-related Zen esoterica, they will surely know that you light lotus lanterns on the Ghost Festival and that Songzi Niangniang allowed the Gold Boy and Jade Girl to get on a lotus and float to the world of men. In which case it's not hard to imagine that a small lotus pedestal can remove bad karma, direct souls of the deceased to proceed with reincarnation, and help cultivate one's inner spirit. The White Lotus Sect during the Ming dynasty once made this chant: "When the white lotus descends to this world, it changes everyone's life for the better."

The various Buddhist images of the lotus appear to help people live according to the Buddhist ways, and now the lotus has virtually become a symbol for Buddhism in art and appears in many Buddhist ceremonies. But by fixating upon the lotus, devotees stray from the Buddhist path. "The sutras never tell people to go out and buy a lotus pedestal!" remarks one Buddhist master. The Pure Land sect holds that all one needs to enter the Pure Land is to repeat "Amitabha."

Purity, not fragrance and beauty

Nitpicking botanists might note that a lot of the explanations Buddhists have for the lotus are now far removed from the realities of the living ecology. When the lotus flowers, its ovule, cupule and shape are beginning to form but are not fully mature. This entomophilous flower requires insects to gather pollen in order for its fruit to ripen, and thus to say that it flowers while bearing fruit is not strictly accurate. Yang Yuan-po, who has researched water plants, says that the unusual platform-like cupule is shaped the way it is to attract bugs to its pollen, rather than to get human beings to imagine what it would be like to sit on it.

As for the way the lotus and the water lily close up, nimosa grass does the same thing. Chen Chin-yuan, a graduate student in the department of horticulture at National Taiwan University, says that flowers close up to make it easier for the plants to control their inner circulation of water, so as to avoid being affected by the weather, the humidity or even being touched by people.

It was the lack of understanding about plants, of course, that allowed people's imaginations the free rein to produce such fecund religious symbolism. Yet the Diamond Sutra urges people to "cultivate the heart of a Buddha, by living nowhere." Hence, don't clutch tight to phenomena of this world and to things you are not supposed to desire.

Letting go of the lotus pedestal to find enlightenment is similar to the idea that you can only get to land by leaving your boat!

p.38

"Lower your head, lower your body, lower the mind, the false mind, the mind that thinks it can acquire, deeply lower it, so low that you know the soil of the bodhisattvas, so low that you come to the center of the lotuses. . . ."

p.41

(opposite) Holding a lotus flower, sitting in the lotus position, the bodhisattva's inner mind is like a lotus, standing apart from the vile crowd with a peaceful heart. (this page) This ancient Buddhist carving that has survived decrees outlawing Buddhism, wars and disasters of all kinds, is like the lotus born in fire- free in body and spirit after experiencing great torment.

p.42

Because lotuses grow out of the mud pure and clean, like morning dew from Heaven or water in springtime from a flower creek,

lotus decorations and designs are everywhere the eye turns. Even other flowers-like these magnolias-are piled into lotus shapes.

p.45

The trials and tribulations of human existence drag people down. Under the guidance of the lotus, can ordinary people escape the evils of this world and free both body and spirit? (photo by Pu Hua-chih)

The trials and tribulations of human existence drag people down. Under t he guidance of the lotus, can ordinary people escape the evils of this world and free both body and spirit? （photo by Pu Hua-chih）