There are flowers that somehow take on some kind of symbolism due to their beauty. The rose is quintessentially the king of that kind. Probably no one will refuse the compliment of ‘you are beautiful like a rose flower’, but maybe it is a phrase that we only see nowadays in song lyrics. Perhaps the beauty of flower, which will die and be lost in the end, holds an ephemeral quality which is seen in the beauty of not only plants, but any living creature.

To Japanese people, or in Buddhism more precisely, I trust that a beautiful flower means a lotus flower. Legend has it that when born, Buddha chanted ’Holy am I alone throughout heaven and earth’. Supposedly this happened while Buddha was sitting on a lotus flower, which was shooting towards the sky from the mud. The symbolic flower of Buddhism became the lotus seat for Buddha. At the occasion of Sange (Buddhist mass), many pieces of paper in the shape of lotus petal are scattered to pray for departed souls. The lotus has a fixed image of a special flower in a religious context.

There are many different designs of lotus. We can see the symbol on roof tiles of ancient temples, and in a sublime Buddhist space, there are various patterns of lotus flowers. People want to express their wishes with lotus flowers, probably because of their symbolic nature.

I have a favourite photograph of a lotus. It is a red lotus flower at a cave temple in Sri Lanka taken by Tomohiro Muda, the photographer who has ‘spaces for prayer’ as his main theme. When the photographer glanced at an aged wooden altar in the temple, this flower was offered to Buddha. With bright yet elegant beauty. I was not able to move when I came across with this picture in the exhibition ‘As Pure As the Lotus – East Asian Ceramics and the Eyes of the Photographer MUDA Tomohiro’ held at The Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka in 2014. I acquired one copy. For a moment, it almost deceives my soul, but I try to concentrate on the ethereal figure of lotus, and look at somewhere beyond the prayers. I think of the brightness and transience of life.

I think it is from the period of the Korean Dynasties. I own a lotus-shaped incense burner in copper. It has the style of a cultured person who lived in integrity. In the morning, there is a line of smoke rising up from an incense stick standing in the burner. I lit a fire wishing the existence of the universe of Buddha beyond this exquisite object of the beautiful formation of sixteen lotus petals – while thinking of my wife who passed away at a young age this spring.

It is said that the flowers of lotus come out in summer, and our ancestral spirits return from other world at Obon festival time. The form of beauty might come out from the sorrow of losing someone you love. Through the flower of lotus, we see both the memory of and prayer for the people who departed to the invisible world.

Masato Kurotani, Director, genra art