A Hand's Width Above the Water

A water lily rests on the surface. A lotus lifts itself a little above it. That small distance is the whole difference.

Side by side on one still pond: on the left a water lily flower and pad lying flat on the surface, on the right a lotus flower and leaf lifted a hand's width above the water on stiff stems, soft morning light, bare paper above

Most people cannot tell a water lily from a lotus, and the mix-up is instructive. Put them side by side on the same pond and the difference is not in the flower, which can look similar from a distance, or in the color. It is in the height.

The water lily lies on the water. Its round, notched pad floats flat on the surface and its flower floats beside it, or just barely above. Beautiful, and entirely at the level of the pond.

The lotus does something else. Its leaf stands up on a stiff stalk and holds itself in the air. Its flower rises higher still, a hand's width or more above the surface, sometimes much more. Same water, same mud, same light. One plant lies on the pond and one lifts itself a little out of it, and that small distance is the whole difference between them.

Watercolor of a water lily at water level, its white flower and round pad floating flat on the surface — The lily, level with the pond.

In the water, not level with it

It would be a mistake to read this as withdrawal. The lotus is not out of the pond. Its roots go deeper into the mud than the lily's do. Its stalk is in the water from bottom to top. It is more in the pond than the lily, not less. What it has done is lift the one part that opens, the leaf and the flower, a little way above the surface, where the air is.

Not out of the water. Just above it.

Think of where you hold yourself in a room. In the argument that is heating up, in the thread that is filling with outrage, in the family dinner that is going the way it always goes. You can lie on the surface, level with it, lifting and dipping with every ripple. Or you can be fully in it, rooted, present, and still hold the part of you that opens a hand's width above the churn. Not above the people. Above the surface.

Watercolor of a lotus leaf and bloom standing above the water on tall stems, seen from a low angle so the gap of air is clear — The lotus, a hand's width up.

The first leaves float

One more detail, and it is a kind one. A young lotus does not start above the water. Its first few leaves float, flat on the surface, exactly like a lily's. Only as the plant matures do the leaves begin to rise on their stalks and stand up into the air. The lift is not where the lotus begins. It is what the lotus grows into.

So if you are still floating, still rising and falling with every ripple in every room, you are not failing to be a lotus. You are a lotus in its first season. The stalks stiffen. The leaves lift. It takes the time it takes.

There is a small silver lotus, sitting just below the hollow of the throat, that I think of as a reminder of the height: close to the heart, and a little above the surface of the day.

Watercolor of a young lotus whose first leaves float on the water while one new leaf has begun to rise on its stalk — The first leaf to stand.

Find the surface

A practice for the next hard room. Before you speak, find the surface. Notice where the ripples are, the tone, the speed, the thing everyone is reacting to. Then ask what a hand's width above that would sound like. Usually it is slower. Usually it is a question. Say that, and stay in the water while you do.

And once the leaf is above the water, something else becomes possible, under the mud, where one root feeds many flowers. This is one of a series of short essays on the lotus. The rest are gathered here.

On a pond this morning, a lily and a lotus are opening in the same light, and only one of them is in the air.