What an odd notion, that brightly colored eggs should be a symbol of a serious religious holiday about resurrection and ultimate triumph over death itself. And that’s without even getting into the whole Easter Bunny thing. But maybe this whole human story of life and death and life is just absurd enough that painted eggs and a bunny that lays chocolate eggs work just fine for symbols.
What symbol of new life makes sense to you?
As a practicing Zen Buddhist, the egg represents the continuity of life, the infinite, the chant of existence, and all things coming into existence and the fragility of all living things–rocks, stars, single cells, even snails and human kind. Each intertwined with the time of birth and death. To figure our lives into great nothingness and being. Living with pain and sorrow, joy and exticy and delight and non-being. This egg will pass beyond into this nothingness and being, form and formless nature, Buddha Nature as all does, and all is void yet exists.
I always get a lift when redbuds and dogwoods bloom. Not so much domestic garden flowers, but these trees, though often found in city yards and gardens, also occur naturally. Sam Houston State Park here in Texas is a great place to visit in March. The loveliest of these small trees with their lavender (redbud) and white (dogwood) flowers blooming amongst the taller pines fills me with joy and optimism.