Both suffering and happiness are of an organic nature which means they are both transitory - they're always changing. The flower, when it wilts, becomes the compost. The compost can help grow a flower again. Happiness is also organic and impermanent by nature. It can become suffering and suffering can become happiness again. --- Thich Nhat Hanh, page 12 in "No Mud, no Lotus"
Brother Phap Dung, at 28:29:00 (https://youtu.be/RoS-zshhF2I?si=qB8famyKy4Xg-Cib) uses the term 'organic' to describe this practice. He has just finished talking about how mindfulness practices create the conditions to see oneself, to see all parts of oneself with compassion, and without judgment (if that's possible)....a self that is continually mutating, changing... and he reminds us that 'of the nature of being organic', we use the suffering as compost to grow happiness in this present moment. Happiness will invariably change into suffering and back again.
Brother Phap Dung: 28:23:00 - "We don't create a agenda and then okay after three months you get this, a year you get that --- so our practice practice is very organic and some yeah sometimes you get you know kind of surprises -- which is wonderful. So here we uh we have um many practices to uh create that condition for us to return and to check in -- that's basically what it is. So what i just share with you that is the essence of why we do everything here."
