The Giving of Dandelions: The Purest Ethics of Existence Between My Mother's Skirt and God's Breath

Soyo's Existence Ethics (Existence itself is ethics)

People go to the fields to pick flowers. However, I did not go to pick dandelions, but to find that indelible fragrance again. By the river, on the mountainside, wherever the wind had passed, I caught dandelions with my eyes. On the day I returned with that one small flower, I carefully placed the dandelion on the cold barley rice and added chili paste. That one bite was life, and that one bite was tears. I couldn't chew. I bowed my head, closed my eyes, and began to cry. My tears continued to fall onto the barley rice. That spoonful of rice, which I couldn't even swallow, wasn't just stuck in my throat; it was the moment when the weight of time blocked my throat. And I remembered. When my mother was alive, she gave me a book by the paper artist Kim Young-hee. My mother silently placed the book in my hands. Within that book was something more profound than words, and now I understand. Why that book, why the expression of dandelions within that book, and why my mother’s white apron still lingers in my heart.

Dandelions, the philosophy of giving. Dandelions are both flowers and food. Dandelions are both beautiful and valuable. Dandelions do not exist to bloom, but to bloom for the sake of others. And through dandelions, I learned the most noble instinct of existence: giving. That giving reminds me of my mother's scent. The scent of a white apron, the moisture on the fingertips squeezing boiled radish greens in the kitchen, the warmth of the chest I nursed from...I remember that scent. It was not just a fragrance; it was the trace of existence left by love within me. On the day I cried because I couldn't eat dandelions, it wasn't because I feared their bitterness, but because dandelions resembled my mother's life too closely. A life that blooms even when trampled, withers even when blooming, and becomes someone else's life even when withered.

Existence is not sentimentality, but a reflection of suffering. I am not an emotional person. These tears are not for nostalgia, but because the pain of a human being who endured a life was transformed into contemplation within me. The mother I saw never spoke of her own hardships. She always gave, and in that giving, she disappeared. I now understand that her disappearance was the most excellent way of existence. And it posed a question to me. “If the path of life that everyone must go through is suffering, did humans have the freedom to choose another path?” I answer firmly, "No." Humans were not created to avoid suffering, but to “transform suffering into love.” And humans were created from the beginning with unconditional freedom and equal souls.

Hardship is fleeting, wounds are the vanguard of hope. Many ancient philosophers sought to explain human existence through reason. Still, they could not account for the essence of suffering, the weight of silence, the ethics of disappearance, or the glory of giving. Their philosophy was great, but it was not a philosophy that remembered the scent of a mother's milk. They discussed existence, but they were philosophers who could not cry before a dandelion.

"Suffering is fleeting. Wounds are the vanguard of hope. Pain is the trembling of a Soul standing before the Gate of blessing."

My philosophy does not seek to glorify the tears of this world. I merely wish to show the direction in which those tears flow. Dandelions leave life through giving, and my mother left me through disappearance. And I, as the one left behind, write today to give to someone else.

God hears humans even in silence. This philosophy of giving is not merely a matter of human aesthetics. It is because God created humans that way. Humans are not isolated beings before God. God knows our pain, our memories, our scent, and even the smell of our milk.

God never turns away from our existence, and the time and effort we give, our hard labor and silent tears are all recorded in God's consciousness. That is why I know that human existence does not die. Humans do not disappear, but are completed before God. And dandelions quietly bear witness to that philosophy of completion. Existence is completed through giving. And that completion lives on in someone's memory, through the quietest touch, the deepest fragrance. I learned this from the dandelion, from my mother, from God. The most remarkable testimony of life is not words, but a handful of fragrance given in silence.

“Existence is not about blooming for oneself, but about giving oneself to remain in someone's memory.”

Soyo (逍遙) – Founder of Soyo's Existence Ethics, Author of 'The Silence of Existence' and 'The Flame of Truth'

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