Dear Diary,<\/p>\n
Yesterday was Memorial Day, and something clicked last night.\u00a0 In the Army, we have a mentality drilled into us; I believe all of us soldiers who ever for a moment wanted to be a soldier never needed the drilling, which can be stated plainly: \u201cNever Leave a Man Behind.\u201d\u00a0 While its primary usage is to ensure we recover the fallen in battlefields and bring them home, in practice we apply it to those needing assistance in various areas in life; we try to offer help to our brothers (sisters, and gentlethems) in arms to not \u2018leave them behind\u2019 when we see them struggling.<\/p>\n
In the early stages of Buddhism, the goal was to escape the cycle of death and rebirth through enlightenment.\u00a0 However, a bit later (The 1st Century CE, give or take), a different thought emerged, known as the Bodhisattva Vow, in which practitioners promise not to attain the final goal until every last soul has done so.\u00a0 My personal favorite Bodhisattva is Ksitigarbha, who travels through hell.\u00a0 Ksitigarbha does not atone your karma for you, but ensures you will not be alone or unseen, stays with you, and gives you an opportunity to burn your karma off and give things another, better try.<\/p>\n
I feel I have aspects of Ksitigarbha and Bodhisattvas as a whole.\u00a0 I work with troubled people who yearn to be seen and heard, and who have often made it far too late in life to have never (or at least too rarely) had an ear present without judgment.\u00a0 I\u2019m a lighthouse; I show people where to go and where not to, but I do not walk a path for them.\u00a0 However, I feel strongly about keeping the light on for all passing souls, whether they choose to interact with me or not, and whether they need me for just a glance or the whole journey.\u00a0 I refuse to leave anyone in the dark.<\/p>\n
Days like Memorial Day are difficult, as I try to balance my desire to have done more for the fallen with an understanding that it isn\u2019t my sole responsibility to have carried them through the entire journey.\u00a0 I also try to balance understanding that there are people who wish to be more helpful, but lack means, with people of means who couldn\u2019t care less about anyone but themselves.\u00a0 It is challenging to live in a consumption-based society where we put profit above people at every opportunity. I do not feel at home here.<\/p>\n
For my Christian audience, I am not the first to ponder if Jesus was also a Bodhisattva, someone who refuses to give up until there are no more vagrant souls.\u00a0 While the methodology may differ, the idea of compassion is similar, and therein lies the underlying point of my sadness.\u00a0 The general lack of compassion at a societal level.\u00a0 While there are plenty of individuals, like myself, and small organizations from churches and monasteries to individual businesses, which do not forget about people and the environment (one and the same), at some level of scale, compassion is sacrificed for capitalism and it causes more casualties.\u00a0 Will it ever be enough?<\/p>\n
Leave No Man Behind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Diary, Yesterday was Memorial Day, and something clicked last night.\u00a0 In the Army, we have a mentality drilled into us; I believe all of us soldiers who ever for a moment wanted to be a soldier never needed the drilling, which can be stated plainly: \u201cNever Leave a Man Behind.\u201d\u00a0 While its primary usage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[304],"tags":[340],"class_list":["post-240526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dear-diary","tag-340"],"yoast_head":"\n