NVC 以い心しん傳でん心しん

拈花微笑 "Pick up flower, subtle smile"°

Line upon line, or 頓悟*

“When I run after what I think I want,

my days are a furnace of stress and anxiety;

if I sit in my own place of patience,

what I need flows to me, and without pain.

From this, I understand that

what I want also wants me,

is looking for me and attracting me.

There is a great secret here

for anyone who can grasp it.”

―  شمس تبریزی‎ (Persian: Shams-i Tabrīzī or Shams al-Din Mohammad, 1185–1248)

Love is the ark appointed for the righteous,
Which annuls the danger and provides a way of escape.
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment intuition.

• The Masnavi, Book IV, Story II, as translated in Masnavi I Ma'navi: The Spiritual Couplets of Maulána Jalálu-'d-Dín Muhammad Rúmí (1898) by Edward Henry Whinfield

I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar
With angels blest; but even from angelhood
I must pass on: all except God doth perish.
When I have sacrificed my angel soul,
I shall become what no mind e'er conceived.
Oh, let me not exist! for Non-existence
Proclaims in organ tones, To Him, we shall return.

• "I Died as a Mineral", as translated in The Mystics of Islam (1914) edited by Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, p. 125
• Variant translation: Originally, you were clay. From being mineral, you became vegetable. From vegetable, you became animal, and from animal, man. During these periods man did not know where he was going, but he was being taken on a long journey nonetheless. And you have to go through a hundred different worlds yet.
• As quoted in Multimind (1986) by Robert Ornstein

° The Flower Sermon is a story of the origin of 禅 Zen 禪 Buddhism in which सिद्धार्थ गौतम बुद्ध Sid̪d̪ʱārt̪ʰā Gaut̪ama Bud̪d̪ʱa (Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha) transmits direct प्रज्ञा prajñā (般若, bōrĕ / bānruò / wisdom) to the disciple महाकश्यप, Mahākaśyapa (摩訶迦葉 / Móhējiāyè). That is 血脈, Kechimyaku, the Dharma transmission. In the original Chinese, the story is Niān huá wéi xiào (拈花微笑, literally "Pick up flower, subtle smile").

In the story, the बुद्धा Buddha gives a wordless sermon to his disciples (संघ saṃgha, sangha) by holding up a white flower. No one in the audience understands the Flower Sermon except महाकश्यप, Mahākāśyapa, who smiles. Within Zen, the Flower Sermon communicates the ineffable nature of तथाता, tathātā (suchness: 真如) and Mahākāśyapa's smile signifies the direct transmission of wisdom without words. The बुद्धा Buddha affirmed this by saying:

I possess the true धर्म Dharma eye, the marvelous mind of निर्वाण nirvāṇa, Nirvana, the true form of the formless, the subtle [D]harma [G]ate that does not rest on words or letters but is a special transmission outside of the scriptures. This I entrust to  महाकश्यप, Mahākāśyapa.

Carl G. Jung and Kerényi Károly (in Jung, C. G. & Kerényi, C. (2005). Essays on a Science of Mythology: The Myth of the Divine Child and the Mysteries of Eleusis. Routledge; 2 edition. ISBN 0-415-26742-0.) demonstrate a possible commonality in intent between the Flower Sermon and the Eleusinian Mysteries:

One day the Buddha silently held up a flower before the assembled throng of his disciples. This was the famous "Flower Sermon." Formally speaking, much the same thing happened in Eleusis when a mown ear of grain was silently shown. Even if our interpretation of this symbol is erroneous, the fact remains that a mown ear was shown in the course of the mysteries and that this kind of "wordless sermon" was the sole form of instruction in Eleusis which we may assume with certainty.

History

The story of 拈花微笑, the Flower Sermon appears to have been recorded by Chinese Chán, 禪那 [chánnà, from संस्कृत (Sanskrit) ध्यान (dhyāna)] Buddhists. The earliest known version of the tale appeared in 1036.

* The term subitism points to sudden awakening, the idea that insight into Buddha-nature, or the nature of mind, is "sudden," c.q. "in one glance," "uncovered all together," or "together, completely, simultaneously," in contrast to "successively or being uncovered one after the other." It may be posited as opposite to gradualism, the original Buddhist approach which says that following the dharma can be achieved only step by step, through an arduous practice. The application of the term "subitism" to Buddhism is derived from the French illumination subite (sudden awakening), contrasting with 'illumination graduelle' (gradual awakening). It gained currency in this use in English from the work of sinologist Paul Demiéville. His 1947 work 'Mirror of the Mind' was widely read in the U.S. It inaugurated a series by him on subitism and gradualism.

The Chinese term 頓, dùn, as used in 頓悟ㄉㄨㄣˋ ㄨˋ, translated as "subite," sudden, has a broader meaning than "sudden." It is more apt translated as to come to a sudden realization; to have an epiphany, to attain enlightenment "in one glance," "uncovered all together," or "together, completely, simultaneously," in contrast to "successively or being uncovered one after the other." It means that all aspects of Buddhist practice are realized, or actualized, simultaneously, and not one after another as in a gradual or linear school curriculum. Specifically, the defilements are not erased gradually, by good works, but simultaneously.

Subitizing, also derived from the Latin adjective subitus, is the rapid, accurate, and confident judgments of numbers performed for small numbers of items. It is important to be aware subitism can also be used in this context.

The distinction between sudden and gradual awakening has its roots in Indian Buddhism. It was first introduced in China at the beginning of the 5th century CE by 道生 Dàoshēng. The term became of central importance in 禪, where it is used to denote the doctrinal position that awakening, the comprehension or realization of the Buddhist teachings, happens simultaneously, and is not the fruit of a gradual accretion or realisation.

花和尚: 魯智深，本名魯達，綽號花和尚，是施耐庵所作古典小說《水滸傳》中的角色。

Oshō, Japanese reading of 和尚, hé shang is a Buddhist priest (in charge of a temple);  an honorific title of a preceptor or high priest (especially in 禅 Zen or Pure Land Buddhism, 淨土宗 Jìngtǔzōng, 浄土仏教, Jōdo bukkyō). The same 漢字, kanji are also pronounced kashō as an honorific title of a preceptor or a high priest in 天台宗, Tendai-shū, Tendai, or 華厳宗 Kegon Buddhism and wajō as an honorific title of a preceptor or a high priest in 真言宗, Shingon-shū, Shingon, Citta-mātra 唯識宗; Wéishí-zōng, Yuishiki-shū 'Consciousness Only' school or法相宗 Fǎxiàng-zōng, Hossō-shū "'Dharma Characteristics' school" Hossō (East Asian Yogācāra "yoga practice" 瑜伽行, yújiāxíng from योगाचार), 律宗 Ritsu or 浄土真宗, "The True Essence of the Pure Land Teaching" Shin Buddhism.