The Blooming Lotus Flower Mudra
(Lian Hua Shou Yin)
View Teaching/Information: This simple adaptation is from a larger practice, here for the web. It is one I learned from my teacher Wen Lei Chen of Emei Mountain Lotus Tradition. Emei Lotus Tradition is a hybrid system that has Buddhist and Taoist practice in a tradition.They are seated meditations that have many movement sequences to nourish life force and periods of formless meditation. In my classes most of the people whom follow it use it for personal healing and balance. Some follow the spiritual tradition, but not a mandatory aspect for the daily health benefits.
The blooming Lotus Flower Mudra as depicted above is the Mudra of Compassion. In Buddhist Traditions and Taoism it connects to the Spiritual power of Kuanyin Buddha, deity of compassion.There is not enough space here although to go into depth conversation although. In Chinese Lian Hua ( 莲花) "Lotus Flower" the lotus hold special significance in many East Asian practice systems. Commonly taught as though rooted in the mud, the lotus blossom rises above to blossom in the sun. Although it grows in pools of water the leaves of the lotus always remain dry. The symbolism of the lotus points to the purity of consciousness and the journey of transformation from ignorance to awakening. Some give the analogy before we learned practices we existed in the emotional mud of life!
Meditation practice for "Compassion" is a wonderful practice for anyone. The purpose of Meditation of Compassion is to help us eliminate anger and arouse the desire to alleviate discontent and suffering in others. We practice Meditation of Compassion with aspiring mindset of a enlightened adept to help family, friends, and coworkers free themselves from bodily and mental anguish, and if causes and conditions are right, to help them derive happiness from the teachings of Healing Meditation, and ultimately to reach personal enlightenment. Here are some ways to practice Meditations of Compassion:
(1) Generally first step is always connect to entering in tranquility, essentially formless meditation. Just be yourself and get comfortable with coming into harmony of the session. Utilize a position that is conducive to your body type and adopt a mudra/hand position that you like. The common meditation mudra of left hand resting on top of right and thumbs touching is traditional. The left represents formlessness and right represents skillful means of practice. The mudras are important for shaping the consciousness of practice.
(2) Then after a certain amount of time, you shift into focused insight practice; - activate insight on how you tend to see people as either beneficial or harmful to you, or as neither beneficial nor harmful. Therefore, we should contemplate our relationships to others to better understand how you can help them.
(3) Next, we could use insight to see how we respond to others with like or dislike.We see that our feelings are often based upon the perceived benefit or harm we receive from others. If we understand that the mind is an ever-changing succession of sense impressions and illusory thoughts, we would see there is no reason to like or dislike our interactions with others.
(4) Next we could investigate what really happens when we interact with others. We see that praise and blame are only sounds or vibrations entering our ears; a smile or a frown is only light rays perceived by our eyes. Just as the body is illusory, so are these external stimuli illusory. Once we realize this, we no longer need to give rise to feelings of like or dislike and we will treat all family, friends and coworkers as equal.
(5) Next we could, contemplate why people we know suffer from discontent, which is that they are ignorant of the true nature of the self. So up to now, there is still no true compassion in our meditation. How can we feel compassion towards people that possess an illusory self?..lol, so not knowing why they act in certain ways, our family members, friends or coworker don’t know why they feel happiness or anger. They are attached to emotions and possessions and are fearful of loss. This causes personal discontent or just plain personal suffering. They are not as free in body and mind as they think; they know they shouldn’t do certain things but do them anyway, and this also causes a endless circle of reoccurring discontent/suffering. Kinda like never ending personal Chaos.
Sometimes it seems we have two selves, each struggling towards different ends. Kinda like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde persona with many we know. All of us are born, grow old, get sick, and eventually die. In the very short life span, each of us endures all kinds of afflictions of body and mind. Because of the discontent of life sometimes our loved ones undergo this and everyone should have compassion for them. I know this sounds like a lofty goal in world of "Me-ism"...:)
(6) Finally, next we could contemplate people not as beneficial, harmful, or neutral, but as equals. We realize that our relationships with them are not fixed or unchanging. We cannot say that those with whom we now share affinity with, were not once our enemy or vice versa. There is no definite, unchanging relationship of closeness or adversity. Seen from the perspective of the infinite past, present, and future, all family, friends and coworkers beings have had some interaction with each other in the past, and probably will have in the future. From this point of view we can see all people as equal to ourselves, and can feel compassion for them.
(7) You can close the practice with returning to formlessness meditation as in number (1). In the beginning it could make you feel tired especially if meditation skill is new.
Closing Thoughts: I hope you find this practice inspiring and useful as I did when I first learned it. Give yourself a few months to work with it. Could be a perfect meditation for fall and holiday season. East Asian Traditions aim to liberate anyone not just the devout or special in crowd participants. Even the many who don't believe in good sense of the traditions message; or who engage in bad deeds. Are worthy of personal healing and salvation from darkness. Likewise, other practice systems and spiritual practices that are dedicated to compassion and awakening of the self, are accepted as welcome participants on the path. No matter how different traditions may be anyone that shares the healing ways of these indigenous world traditions is considered to be worthy and of value. With that being said we can say that all spiritual people lives a life that contains all other lives and practices a path that contains all the other paths...GWA
