The Diamond and the Lotus

The Diamond and the Lotus

by Notto R. Thelle

The diamond and the lotus are Buddhism's foremost symbols for the truth. The diamond stands for the perfect truth, which casts its rays over everything else. Its crystal structure refracts the light, so that it plays in all the colors of the rainbow. As the hardest of all minerals, the diamond is not crushed when it meets resistance. Rather, it cuts through everything.

The Buddhist knows that truth has the nature of a diamond. The truth is perfect, like the most glorious precious stone. It is immutable, and cuts through lies and falsehood and darkness.

But if the truth possessed only the perfection of the diamond, it would be almost inhuman--cold and hard and unattainable. In its wisdom, Buddhism points to another aspect of reality: the truth has the nature of a lotus. The lotus sprouts and grows from a tiny seed in the mud, reaching upwards to the light. Finally, its blossom opens up in immaculate beauty.

The truth is not only something achieved once and for all. The truth also exists as the potential for growth, and this growth can be delayed and stunted. It is unprotected and faltering--but it opens itself to the light.

Sometimes another image is used too: the womb. Reality is described as two worlds, the world of the diamond and the world of the womb. One world is complete, perfect, and immutable, and crystal-clear like a diamond; the other world has the soft warmth of the womb, with its potential for prenatal growth, for birth, and for growth after birth.

Although each image can be contemplated on its own, they must not be understood as two separate worlds, since they are describing two aspects of one and the same reality.

Perhaps this symbolism can help us look a little more deeply at our own relationship to the truth. When Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God, he was speaking of something perfect--but at the same time, this was still emerging as a visible reality. He described the kingdom as a shining pearl and as a treasure hidden in the field for which one sacrifices everything. But he also spoke of the kingdom of God as a seed that is sown in the earth and then grows into a huge tree.

I do not wish to press these images too far, but the pearl and the seed can function as symbols in a manner similar to the diamond and the lotus. God's kingdom is a perfect reality; but at the same time, it is still emerging, and we can catch glimpses of it when his word takes root and creates new life, when God touches a human person in such a way that hatred yields to forgiveness, or when violence and injustice give way to freedom and justice. We know that the kingdom is God's perfect gift; but we perceive his kingdom chiefly in its tiny beginnings, as an unprotected seed that germinates and grows towards the light.

As Christians, we believe that the truth is one and that it is perfect: it has the nature of a diamond. We have experienced how its light shone into our lives and cut through falsehood and darkness. Sometimes we even stop traveling, and think that we have reached our goal, or that we have grasped the truth in its fullness.

The faith is crystallized in clear formulations with sharp and harsh edges. We stand there with the diamond in our hands, and speak in absolute terms--we have found the answers and solved the riddles. But after a while, we discover that the crystal has stopped glittering and that its surface has dimmed. We try to cut through lies and cheating, but our "truths" have no cutting power. We had failed to see that our little insights and our partial truths were only reflections of a divine reality that we did not hold in our own hands. What we presented as the perfect diamond was only a cut-glass imitation.

We must not forget the other image, the seed that grows. The truth has the nature of a lotus: it lives in us, as a potential for growth, and hesitantly seeks the light. One day, it will unfold as a radiantly beautiful blossom.

The diamond and the lotus are one. The perfect pearl and the seed symbolize one and the same reality: the kingdom of God.

Notto R. Thelle, D.Th., is a professor in the Faculty of Theology, the University of Oslo, Norway. Having studied Buddhism at Otani University in Kyoto, he acted as associate director of the NCC (National Christian Council) Center for the Study of Japanese Religions in Kyoto from 1974 to 1985. He was also a visiting scholar at the center in 1999 and 2000.

This article was originally published in the January-March 2008 issue of Dharma World.

This essay is a translation from the author's 1991 book (in Norwegian) whose title translates as "Who Can Stop the Wind? Travels in the Borderland between East and West."


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