The Paradoxical Life of a Bodhisattvic Mirror

“A bodhisattva is a being who carries out the work of the buddhas, vowing not to personally settle into the salvation of final buddhahood until she or he can assist all beings throughout the vast reaches of time and space to fully be free. A bodhisattva is a buddha with her sleeves rolled up.”

— TAIGEN DAN LEIGHTON

The paradoxical situation of the mirror is his ever-present pursuit to be of the highest service to a world drunk with blind and dualistic conviction—a world armed to the teeth with the means to sustain its illusion and the willingness to do so.

Most of his days he considers and holds in his view the full spectrum of the human condition, unbiased in vision, like the eagle which observes the entire canvas of the world down below—alert for the right opportunity to dive down to momentarily become part of the madness he seeks to infuse with a truer light and remembrance of freedom.

It’s a delicate balance that even this world’s greatest scriptures and works of art have never been able to teach him directly. He had to awaken to the Infinite One within, and break new ground based on his own intuition, backed by the infinite intelligence—alone.

He can no longer look to his fellow human beings for guidance, for they all, for the most part, choose to live only on ground level and think of themselves (and therefore of him) as just a human being, assumed to also be drowning in the dualistic mess they call ‘life’.

After all, the mirror being, to the untrained eye, looks and does the same as any other body on the surface of the Earth. The remarkable evidence of a mirror is hidden in his presence, and can be found deep within his eyes, only by those ready to be humbled to utter perfection. In any other condition but utter humility, this evidence remains safely hidden in plain sight, so as not to disrupt the free will of this world.

Although he realizes the essential perfection of the imperfect world that lies within his view, he cannot help but feel the energy of the millions of souls as they call out in despair all day every day, in search for clarity, hope, relief, guidance, answers, light and support. The call for enlightenment lives secretly in the hearts of all living beings. The greater their distortion, the greater their pain—thus the greater their calling.

And so every day he chooses all over again—if indeed he does—to make his body and mind available for the beautiful mess, which is the dualistic world, to help accelerate its spiritual evolution by allowing that world to see itself mirrored back, and thus then, gain more consciously the Great Choice to awaken from the cyclical nature of the patterns of the inherently painful human condition—most of which are unnecessary and perpetuated by the lack of awareness that there even is this Great Choice to look forever upwards and within—to the sky of Infinite Love and Liberation.

The mirror sees the matrix from a distance, yet knows that he needs to enter the world he feels he can serve, if he wants to reach the conscious mind of man. Some days he settles for just reaching the subconscious minds of man. On those days he unwinds and is simply himself. Those days are rare.

He needs to enter that matrix in order to offer those still caught in its clutches a visible representation of the Great Choice that will lead them swiftly to a resolution beyond their normalized but painful condition.

For, without a body on the ground pointing up at the infinite sky beyond—a body made up of the of their very own perceptual matrix—how can the other bodies ever recognize that Great Choice, when all of them are trained by their fellow men to blindly pursue what’s on ground-level only? They need a reminder, a pointer, a hint they cannot deny—a mirror being. For without such entities walking around in their matrix, ascension is painfully slow.

Indeed, to be-clean-yet-get-dirty is the greatest and only remaining puzzle that the mirror chooses to face every day for the sake of those whom he loves like the heart loves all parts of the body.

He does not absolutely need to play that role—although he still learns on a relative level about how to improve the effectiveness of his presence in the matrix, his role is purely a gift to the rest of his Self. He needs nothing more from this world for himself, for he has, indeed, found the keyhole out of duality and has essentially transcended.

Out of a paradoxical love, he is holding off on his final reward. He knows his home, he sees his home, he feels his home—and above all, he knows he IS his home. Yet the love for the illusion of the rest of his Self compels him to remain available to this dualistic world of minds, as long as his body and mind can endure the stretch between infinity and limitation.

He is well aware of this role’s inevitable expiration date, where he will no longer be able to serve the conscious minds of man directly, for he will be fully released from this world, even if his physical body still appears to the minds of others past this date—to him the world will be no more.

Although it is his final liberation and release, this weird thing, which can only be called ‘love’, has him paradoxically push that liberation as far away as he can, even though he is ever tempted by the promise of eternal release—which is now so obviously available to him. He has to but choose to be done, and his will shall forever merge with the Infinite One. 

He understands the unique value of his body and his mind in the space/time nexus of the world into which he chose to be born for a reason. With no mirror being instruction manual in sight, he chooses to do the best he can; he tries to stay as clean as possible while playing with the mud required to be visible to the world he is wanting to serve.

The mirror loves all as himself and will serve his fellow-selves until the expiration date has become unavoidably inevitable. This date is his no-more-birthday.

What a beautiful disaster—the paradoxical life of a mirror.

Such perfected loneliness is he.

How unexplainable this love, which the Creator carries for itself.

What a fabulous last sight to behold before looking forever away into the One Infinite Creator.

What a perfect world to leave behind; an imperfect trail of enigmatic evidence of a desire to serve in the world while never really being of it. He knows it will take people many centuries to decipher this trail with some semblance of accuracy. Being eternally misunderstood seemed to be his curse until he realized it to be his blessing. For had he been understood, he might have forgotten his nature and his duty.

What a perfect final memory to let go of last.

It’s been an honor already.

If you ever doubt that he loves you and sees your perfection, don’t.