The meaning of "Bianhua" (Higanbana) blooming: What does "Bianhua" blooming mean?

The meaning of "Bianhua" blooming

Legend has it that after passing through the Gate of Ghosts, there is a path called the Yellow Springs Road, along which blooms the Higanbana, of which only the flowers are visible, never the leaves. Flower and leaf never meet in life after life; they long for each other yet forever lose each other. At the end of the road flows a river called the River of Forgetfulness, and over the river spans a bridge called the Bridge of Helplessness. After crossing the Bridge of Helplessness, there is an earthen terrace called the Terrace of Looking Back at Home. Beside the Terrace of Looking Back at Home stands a pavilion called Meng Po's Pavilion, where a woman named Meng Po waits, handing each passerby a bowl of Meng Po's Soup. By the River of Forgetfulness lies a stone called the Three-Life Stone. Drinking Meng Po's Soup makes one forget everything. The Three-Life Stone records the past life, this life, and the next. Cross the Bridge of Helplessness, take one last look at the mortal world from the Terrace of Looking Back at Home, and drink a bowl of water from the River of Forgetfulness brewed for this life...

Legend says that when people die, they first arrive at the Gate of Ghosts. After leaving the Gate of Ghosts, they pass along the Yellow Springs Road and come to the banks of the River of Forgetfulness, where the Bridge of Helplessness stands. The bridge has three levels: the top level is red, the middle level is dark yellow, and the bottom level is black. The lower the level, the more perilous it is, filled with wandering ghosts and orphaned spirits that cannot be reincarnated. Those who did good deeds in life take the top level, those with a mix of good and evil take the middle level, and those who did evil take the bottom level...
On the Bridge of Helplessness stands Meng Po. To cross the Bridge of Helplessness, one must drink Meng Po's Soup. Without drinking Meng Po's Soup, one cannot cross the Bridge of Helplessness; unable to cross the Bridge of Helplessness, one cannot be reborn or reincarnated. Anyone who drinks Meng Po's Soup will forget all the ties of this present life and enter the cycle of reincarnation without any lingering attachments, beginning the next life's cycle.

Meng Po's Soup is also called the Water of Forgetfulness or the Powder of Forgetfulness; one sip and one forgets past and present lives. A lifetime of love and hate, passion and enmity, and the ups and downs of a life's gains and losses are all forgotten cleanly with this bowl of Meng Po's Soup. Those you cared about in this life and those you hated in this life will all become strangers in the next life, unrecognizable upon meeting. Every person in the mortal world has their own bowl here; the Meng Po's Soup in the bowl is actually the tears shed throughout the living person's life.
Everyone, while alive, sheds tears: from joy, from sorrow, from pain, from hate, from worry, from love. Meng Po collects their tears drop by drop, boils them into soup, and when they leave the mortal world and step onto the Bridge of Helplessness, she has them drink it, so they forget the loves and hates, sorrows and joys of their living days, become clean, and enter the Six Paths anew, whether as an immortal, a human, or an animal.
Not everyone is willing to drink Meng Po's Soup willingly. Because in this life, there is always someone they have loved whom they do not want to forget. Meng Po will tell him: All the tears you shed for her in your life have been boiled into this bowl of soup; drinking it is drinking your love for her. The last trace of memory in the eyes of the one who comes is the person he loved most in this life. After drinking the soup, the image of that person in his eyes slowly fades, and his pupils become as clear as a newborn baby's.

In order to see the one you loved most in this life again in the next life, you may choose not to drink Meng Po's Soup, but then you must jump into the River of Forgetfulness and wait a thousand years before you can be reincarnated. During those thousand years, you may see the one you loved most in this life walk across the bridge, but your words cannot reach each other; you can see her, but she cannot see you. During those thousand years, you watch her walk across the Bridge of Helplessness again and again, drink bowl after bowl of Meng Po's Soup. You hope she will not drink Meng Po's Soup, yet you fear she cannot endure the thousand years of torment in the River of Forgetfulness.
The Higanbana: the flower blooms for a thousand years, the flower falls for a thousand years; flower and leaf are forever misaligned in life, never to meet in life after life. The Higanbana blooms on the other shore; before the Bridge of Helplessness, what can be done? Those heading toward the realm of death tread upon these desolately beautiful flowers to reach the prison of the underworld. "The Higanbana blooms on the other shore; only the flower is seen, not the leaf."

Higanbana (Lycoris radiata), a perennial herbaceous plant. Underground there is a spherical bulb, covered outside with a dark brown membranous tunic. The leaves are narrowly band-shaped, dark green, emerging from the base, sprouting in late autumn and withering in early summer. The flowering period is late summer to early autumn, roughly from July to September. The flower stem is 30-60 cm long, usually with 4-6 flowers arranged in an umbel at the top of the stem; the petals are oblanceolate, the perianth is red (there are also white-flowered varieties), spreading backward and curling, with wavy wrinkled edges; the perianth tube is extremely short; the stamens and style protrude, the flower is relatively small, with a circumference of more than 6 cm. When the flower blooms, no leaves can be seen; when there are leaves, no flower can be seen; flower and leaf never meet, forever misaligned in life. This flower often grows in stone crevices in the wild and on grave mounds, so some call it "the flower on the Yellow Springs Road."

Origin of the name
Because the characteristics of the Lycoris genus are that the scape (the main stalk) is first drawn out to bloom, and leaves emerge at the end of flowering or after the flowers fade; there are also other species that first draw out leaves, and after the leaves wither, draw out the scape to bloom. Therefore, when the Higanbana blooms, no leaves can be seen; when there are leaves, no flower can be seen; flower and leaf never meet, forever cherishing each other in life. Hence the saying "The Higanbana blooms on the other shore; only the flower is seen, not the leaf, forever misaligned in life." In spring it is a bulb, in summer it grows leaves, in autumn it stands up and blooms, in winter the flower stem slowly fades away again. Because it carries the meaning of a tragic love that can never meet, it is called the Higanbana.
"At that time, the World-Honored One, surrounded by the four assemblies, was honored, respected, and praised with offerings; for the Bodhisattvas he preached the Great Vehicle sutra, named the Teaching of the Bodhisattva Path of Infinite Meaning, protected and remembered by the Buddhas. After the Buddha finished preaching this sutra, he sat cross-legged and entered the samadhi of the station of infinite meaning, his body and mind unmoving. At that time, heavenly flowers rained down in profusion; there were four flowers, namely: the Mandarava flower rained from the sky, the Mahamandarava flower, the Manjusaka flower, and the Mahamanjusaka flower. And they scattered upon the Buddha and upon the great assembly." - The Lotus Sutra
Higanbana
, Volume One
"Resolving Doubts about the Lotus Sutra of the Wondrous Dharma" also says:
What is the Mandarava flower?
A white round flower, like the flower of the mandrake.
What is the Manjusaka flower?

A red clustered flower.

The Higanbana, Manjusaka, and Mandarava are flowers of the heavenly realm described in Buddhist scriptures.
Manjusaka, Mahamanjusaka, Mandarava, Mahamandarava, Pundarika, Mahapundarika, and so on - these names originate from Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures and were once recorded in the "Mahayana Lotus Sutra of the Wondrous Dharma." "Maha" means great; the Sanskrit pronunciation of Mahayana is "Mahayana," and as for "yana," it means carrying. "Hua" in ancient Chinese means "flower." It refers to flowers on the earth. In the West, she was born from the mixing of the blood of gods and demons.
According to the "Foguang Great Dictionary," Manjusaka, Sanskrit manjusaka, Balinese manjusaka. Also translated as soft flower, white round flower, wish-fulfilling flower, threshold flower, Manjusaka flower. The larger of its flowers is called Mahamanjusaka. Manjusaka is one of the four kinds of heavenly flowers, a name for a flower of the heavenly realm. Its flowers are fresh white and soft; the heavenly beings can make these flowers fall at will to adorn the place of Dharma teaching, and those who see them can cut off evil karma.
Also, according to Volume One of the "Record of the Meaning of the Lotus Sutra" by Faxiang of the Liang Dynasty of the Southern Dynasties, Manjusaka is translated as red clustered flower.
After the leaves wither, the scape is drawn out to bloom, so when the Higanbana blooms, no leaves can be seen; when there are leaves, no flower can be seen; flower and leaf never meet, forever cherishing each other in life. Hence the saying "The Higanbana blooms on the other shore; only the flower is seen, not the leaf, forever misaligned in life." In spring it is a bulb, in summer it grows leaves, in autumn it stands up and blooms, in winter the flower stem slowly fades away again. Because it carries the meaning of a tragic love that can never meet, it is called the Higanbana.
"At that time, the World-Honored One, surrounded by the four assemblies, was honored, respected, and praised with offerings; for the Bodhisattvas he preached the Great Vehicle sutra, named the Teaching of the Bodhisattva Path of Infinite Meaning, protected and remembered by the Buddhas. After the Buddha finished preaching this sutra, he sat cross-legged and entered the samadhi of the station of infinite meaning, his body and mind unmoving. At that time, heavenly flowers rained down in profusion; there were four flowers, namely: the Mandarava flower rained from the sky, the Mahamandarava flower, the Manjusaka flower, and the Mahamanjusaka flower. And they scattered upon the Buddha and upon the great assembly." - The Lotus Sutra
Higanbana
, Volume One
"Resolving Doubts about the Lotus Sutra of the Wondrous Dharma" also says:
What is the Mandarava flower?
A white round flower, like the flower of the mandrake.
What is the Manjusaka flower?

A red clustered flower.

The Higanbana, Manjusaka, and Mandarava are flowers of the heavenly realm described in Buddhist scriptures.
Manjusaka, Mahamanjusaka, Mandarava, Mahamandarava, Pundarika, Mahapundarika, and so on - these names originate from Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures and were once recorded in the "Mahayana Lotus Sutra of the Wondrous Dharma." "Maha" means great; the Sanskrit pronunciation of Mahayana is "Mahayana," and as for "yana," it means carrying. "Hua" in ancient Chinese means "flower." It refers to flowers on the earth. In the West, she was born from the mixing of the blood of gods and demons.
According to the "Foguang Great Dictionary," Manjusaka, Sanskrit manjusaka, Balinese manjusaka. Also translated as soft flower, white round flower, wish-fulfilling flower, threshold flower, Manjusaka flower. The larger of its flowers is called Mahamanjusaka. Manjusaka is one of the four kinds of heavenly flowers, a name for a flower of the heavenly realm. Its flowers are fresh white and soft; the heavenly beings can make these flowers fall at will to adorn the place of Dharma teaching, and those who see them can cut off evil karma.
Also, according to Volume One of the "Record of the Meaning of the Lotus Sutra" by Faxiang of the Liang Dynasty of the Southern Dynasties, Manjusaka is translated as red clustered flower.