In September 2022, after months of return visits to hospitals for investigation, I was eventually diagnosed with a locally advanced, moderately aggressive adenocarcinoma in the pancreas. The doctors’ best guess is that it started growing in June 2021.
With the support of other fellow Buddhist practitioners I galvanised myself with a personal campaign – to transform the ‘mud’ of this difficult karma into the beautiful ‘lotus’ of Buddhahood through my Buddhist practise- which, encouraged to do so by my Buddha-warrior friend Dave W, I gave a name: MUD INTO LOTUS! In one of the long nights of insomnia that at first accompanied the disease and its treatment, I felt inspired to create an emblem to encapsulate my campaign, the result of which I have shared above.
I came to realise that every one of us has that seemingly intractable ‘thing’ in our lives that we want to change and I encourage all those I talk to about it to use this campaign to transform the mud of their own negative karma into the beautiful lotus flower of the expression of their own Buddhahood in the world.
I like image of the fist of determined defiance combined with the lotus of the Lotus Sutra, the core teaching of my practise which teaches that every single person can change the path of their life, right now, in this moment. That there is always hope.
Lawrence O'Connor 