The art of Chinese Brush Painting is considered one of the five excellences. Lotus Painting by Chan Ix Nan, right 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.
Chinese poets also use lotus flowers to inspire people to continue striving through difficulties
and to show their best part to the outside world, no matter how bad the circumstances may be.
This is understood as being just like the lotus flower, bringing beauty and light from the murky
darkness at the bottom of the pond.
Another symbolic characteristic of the lotus flower leads from the observation that the plant's
stalk is easy to bend in two, but is very hard to break because of its many strong sinuous fibres. Poets use this to represent a close unbreakable relationship between two lovers or the members within a family, showing that no matter how far away they might live nothing can really separate them in heart.
In Buddhism the lotus flower symbolizes faithfulness. The golden lotus that is mentioned in
Buddhist sutras has two meanings, one is the symbol for the achievement of enlightenment and
the other points towards a real flower which is beyond our normal perception.
The influence of a lotus flower painting is to open us up to beauty and light. A good lotus
flower painting can act as a reminder of the miracle of beauty, light and life. This reminder,
communicated on an emotional level, is said to aid both spiritual and practical understanding
of Tao, the world and our place in it.
Chinese poets also use lotus flowers to inspire people to continue striving through difficulties
and to show their best part to the outside world, no matter how bad the circumstances may be.
This is understood as being just like the lotus flower, bringing beauty and light from the
murky darkness at the bottom of the pond.
Lotuses are perhaps the most spectacular plants in aquatic environments. The Chinese say that,
once having seen the growing lotus, you never forget it. The lotus flowers have color from red,
pink, pale yellow to creamy white. A separate, long, tubular stalk supports each flower and
each large round leaf. The sacred Lotus, Nelumbo nucifera, is an extreme important spiritual symbol in Eastern
religions. It represents purity, divine wisdom, and the individual's progress from the lowest
to the highest state of consciousness.
Seeded in muddy waters, the lotus rises above the mud and produces beautiful and fragrant
flowers. The big showy bloom may be 8-12 inches (20-30 cm) in diameter. The flowers open for
just three days. Then each petal falls silently into the water, one by one, at a short period.
The large green seed head or pod remains on the top of the stalk for a long time, and gradually
turning to dark color and ripe. The seeds impeded in the cone-shape pod with flat surface at
the top. The pod then reverts to the water, where it floats face down, allowing seeds to take
hold in the mud. The seeds then germinate in the following Spring and give rise to new lotus
plants. All parts of lotus are edible. The immature seeds can be eaten raw or cooked, they have
chestnut like flavor. Ripe seeds are roasted and ground into flour, or boiled to extract oil.
Lotus roots produce starchy tubers and have the flavor of sweet potato. The young, unrolled
leaves are cooked as a vegetable. Lotus seeds have very hard, impermeable seed coats, and can remain viable for very long
time. Sacred Lotus seeds, the most long-lived of all angiosperm seeds, have been known to
germinate after more than 400 years! American Lotus (Nelumbo lutea) can germinate after a
dormancy of 200 years, and recently, lotus seeds of 1,200 years from China had been germinated!
What's an incredible plant! 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. 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. 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? "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. 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. 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! The Lotus Effect (the lotus flower's physical properties).
It is both an art form and a meditation. The process is begun with the
grinding of the inks on a stone with water to create the proper consistency
of the black paint used for the basis of the painting. As the ink stick which
is made from charcoal is ground against the stone, the artist has the
opportunity to center and ground him or herself while contemplating
the consistency of the ink. 
Author: Hans Christian Von Baeyer
January, 2000
The secret of the self-cleaning leaves of the lotus plant, like the subtlest applications of high technology, is simplicity itself.
THE LOTUS FLOWER IS REVERED throughout the world. Its name is actually shared by a number of different plants with blossoms of various colors, but the most celebrated in art and literature is the sacred white lotus of the Hindus: Nelumbo nucifera. Its huge, almond-shaped petals form a shallow bowl around a seedpod that is vaguely reminiscent of the nozzle of a sprinkling can. This magnificent blossom, rising on a tall stalk from a flat base of large, round leaves, is endowed with an exotic aura. In Buddhist tradition, lotus blossoms mark each of the seven steps in ten directions taken, paradoxically, by the newborn Buddha. But without a doubt the color of the lotus--or, more properly, its utter absence of color--a blinding whiteness that speaks of unblemished purity, underlies its magical allure.
The lotus was an important icon in ancient Egypt, the inspiration for the Phoenician capitals that preceded the Ionic order of design, the sacred flower of Hindu religions and the object of the principal mantra of Tibetan Buddhism: om mani padme hum, which means "Hail, jewel in the lotus." Given the mechanical efficiency of prayer wheels that symbolically repeat those words without pause, the lotus may be the most frequently invoked plant in the world. In various parts of the world it has been a symbol of fertility, birth, beauty, sunlight, transcendence, sexuality and the resurrection of the dead. A twelfth-century Sanskrit poem extols Brahma, "the lotus of whose navel forms thus our universe." But above all, the lotus represents purity.
What an enchanting paradox, then, that the lotus grows in muddy waters, emerging from them unblemished and untouched by pollution.
An ancient Indian text refers explicitly to that wonderful quality:
The surface of the lotus leaf is covered with a dense layer of pointy little moguls. The botanists had stumbled upon the secret of the lotus. To celebrate their discovery, Barthlott coined the term lotus effect.
To demonstrate the phenomenon dramatically, Barthlott likes to squeeze a droplet of water-soluble liquid glue onto a lotus leaf. He smears the droplet a little with his finger, then steps back to watch.
The glue quickly pulls itself back together, reforming the droplet, and the droplet rolls off the leaf at a stately pace. Not even glue can stick to an area as small as the tip of a microscopic mogul.
Just as impressive is Barthlott's demonstration of the cleaning power of water: when a lotus leaf is covered with a dusting of fine powdered clay, and a drop of water is added, the water rolls downhill, gathering dust as it moves. In its wake is a long, clean path, like the shiny trail of a snail.
SO THERE YOU HAVE IT, THE SECRET of the sacred lotus: its purity derives from its nubbly surface. Is that all? Does the solution to this little mystery of nature somehow diminish the spiritual value of the sacred lotus?
For me, the opposite is true. When I see a lotus blossom now, or, what is more likely, the leaf of a cauliflower or tulip, I marvel at the ingenuity of nature in bringing forth, after a hundred million years of evolution, such pristine beauty through such an exquisite design. My awareness enhances my appreciation.
For more information on Mr. Von Baeyer's article on The Lotus Effect visit here.
To learn more about these paintings or to purchase an original, click here.
