This past Spring, I started a photo project titled “Contemplate the Flowers”. I was inspired by the Buddha Flower Sermon. The legend tells how Buddha, nearing the end of his life, took all of his disciples to a pond. He stood, with his back to the pond. Usually he would now begin to speak, but he didn’t. Throughout the entire time that he would normally give a sermon, he stood silent. Eventually the old man reached into the pond, and from within it he drew out a lotus flower, which he showed to his disciples. He came close to each one of them, and each one wondered in silence what the lotus meant, what it could symbolize. The last of the disciples to be shown the flower was Mahakashyapa, who suddenly began to laugh, though rather quietly. Buddha then remarked What can be said I have said to you, and what cannot be said.