Meeting Bodhisattvas

I have pretty much abandoned my blog. Not because of anything in particular, but because I no longer could find the time. With my 12-hour-a-day work, it was simply too much trying to maintain two blogs (one in English, the other in Japanese) and two Twitter accounts.

Recent tweets by @jkellie and @simplybetrue motivated me to check out my blog after a nearly two-month break. To my great surprise, there were several people commenting on my review of Seth Godin's Linchpin.

Sometimes at a perfect moment in one's life, people appear to remind you of something very important that you have almost forgotten. Those people are Bodhisattvas, divine beings. It is a variation of a Buddhist thinking that I have adopted over the years. Every one and every thing that one encounters over the course of one's life is there for a reason. Every good deed that you do for a person, you do that for a buddah. Every one carries a blessing with him/her to bestow upon you a gift to remind you of a life's wonder, a teaching, only if you are open to it.

This led me to another thought. Quite distinctly I was reliving the days after my breakup with a partner of seven years. For months after the breakup, I sleepwalked in a shock and a complex mixture of sadness, bitterness, anger and pessimism. I was able to function at work, but that appeared to be the only thing that I could do properly.

Everything else, I did in an auto-pilot mode. Only the feelings that I mentioned before, sadness, bitterness, anger and pessimism, I could experience as real in my flesh. In a state of numbness I told myself that there was a way out of this. I told myself repeatedly that she, my partner of seven years, was also my Bodhisattva.

As difficult as it was to stomach, instinctively I knew it to be true. The idea of her being my Bodhisattva will save me and will give me the strength to climb out of the misery. She too carried with her a precious gift; she gave me joy and made me see what was dear to my heart, what I held to be true in my life. There was a meaning in our meeting, and there was a purpose to her departure.

The story of my recovery was one that I have to tell some other time. Instead what I wanted to say today was this: from that point on, as I reconstructed my life bit by bit, I had opportunities to recognize many Bodhisattvas in my life time and again. Some were my family, colleagues and neighbors. Others were complete strangers whom I encountered only briefly. Today I recognize you as bodhisattvas, people who have commented on my blog, people whom I have crossed path with in this universe called the Internet. You have reminded me that there is power in believing in what you do. That what is hard may be the only thing worth doing. Sometimes you have to keep going even if you are not sure where the road will take you. I thank you for showing up at just the right moment and for reminding me what I, once again, have almost forgotten.