Mountain Flowers Bloom Like Brocade, the Stream Deep Blue as Indigo

Someone once asked Zen Master Dalong: "Everything with form is bound to pass away. Does any eternal, unchanging truth exist in this world?"

Zen Master Dalong replied: "The mountain flowers bloom like brocade; the stream is deep blue as indigo."

What a wondrous landscape this conjures!

"The mountain flowers bloom like brocade"—the blossoms on the mountain are as lovely as woven silk. Though they will wither in the blink of an eye, they go on bursting open with wild abandon. "The stream is deep blue as indigo"—deep in the mountain stream, the water mirrors the blue sky, while the surface remains still and unchanged.

These lines hold a hidden truth: the world itself is beautiful, yet with the slightest inattention, it slips away and vanishes. The meaning of life lies in the process of living itself.

In our material world, there is an arrow of time, and everything is profoundly influenced by it. Blooming is destined to end in fading, yet the mountain flowers don't hold back their vibrancy simply because they must wither; the clear stream doesn't stop reflecting the blue sky simply because it flows on. The arrow of time moves in only one direction. As living beings, we must all seize the present—today, this very moment.