Do Not Add Flowers to Empty Sky
One with an ailing eye sees flowers in empty sky, and insists they truly exist.
The thing I cling to and suffer over — is it really there?
📝Reflection
When the eye is ailing, flower-like specks shimmer in the empty air. To the sufferer they are plainly visible, yet those flowers are not really there — phantoms made by the eye's condition. The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment says much of our suffering is like these flowers in the sky. "He definitely looked down on me," "this is bound to fail" — these verdicts our mind manufactures are utterly vivid to us, and so they torment us as if real. But pausing to look closely, most of those flowers are in fact not there. This teaching is not "deny everything." It is: when suffering strikes, distinguish once whether "this is a real matter, or a flower made by my eye."
🌱Apply It Today
For one painful thought today, ask: "is this a fact that happened, or just a sky-flower I am painting?" If a flower, it simply scatters.
This verse is read as universal humanistic wisdom, not religion — no faith is promoted, and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.
