Arrows and Flowers

Here's just a random short post about one of my favourite stories in Buddhism.

So when the Buddha was meditating under the Bodhi Tree, Mara came with his army and instructed them to shoot flaming arrows on the Buddha. However these arrows turn into flowers, as they fall gently in front of the Buddha. I'm pretty sure that the Buddha doesn't have the ability to turn arrows into flowers. But I think it's a beautiful metaphor that we can learn in our daily lives!

There are times when people would say/do mean things to us. Things that hurt us and offend us and so on. I think this story is telling us that we can let these words or actions be arrows that stab our heart. Or we can also turn them into arrows that fall gently inside our heart.

So well, here's me wishing that at the end of our lives, may our hearts be filled with scattered flowers.