“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
—Henry Ford

  seeker gets to the edge of a wall. It’s the wall keeping him in suffering. He climbs to the top, sees freedom on the other side and gasps. It’s beautiful! He’s having a Wizard of Oz moment. You know how the beginning of the movie starts in black-and-white and the land over the rainbow is in full color just beyond the door? Well, that’s what it’s like for him now. Black-and-white where he was and in full color straight ahead. He’s up there with his jaw dropped in full amazement. Life was previously suffering and now he sees the possibility of something else.

And while he’s at the top, several other seekers have climbed, gasped, and leaped over to Nirvana. They’re rushing through the lush paradise below, yelling at him to come on down and join them. How wonderful!

But what does he do? He climbs back the same way he came and goes on to help others find the wall. His work is to show them the way so that they can have this experience as well. It’s too good not to share.

This man is a Bodhisattva. Someone who doesn’t just wake up and retire alone to the mountains enlightened for himself. He doesn’t stay silent in meditation under a tree. His personal attainment isn’t the end goal. His mission is to assist others. He wants them to have enlightenment as well. He vows to tirelessly save all sentient beings.

He knows that much of suffering is a result of people thinking, seeing, and doing what they’ve always done. Never changing that. While freedom is nothing more than having an alternative view and choosing something different.

However, the story I told didn’t include the enormous resistance there was to follow this path. Scaling the wall can be frightening.

So the Bodhisattva is down in the crowd saying that freedom is over there on the other side of this wall. It’s possible to climb it and it’s possible to be free. Most of the people listening are not joyful, but many of them have no problem getting what they’ve always gotten.

“Hey, it’s a black-and-white film over here but at least it’s a film!” they say to the Bodhisattva. “How are we to know there’s really anything good over there? At least we’re safe below. Maybe we’ll come back to this wall later when we finish what we’ve been doing. When the time is right…”

It’s a really hard sell.

Some, however, perk up. Those who are either the most downtrodden or the most optimistic, realize that staying isn’t worth it. “If this is all there is,” they say to themselves, “then I want to experience something else!”

They are the adventurous ones who see the vision the Bodhisattva is painting. And they know that if they’re to have a different life experience, they’re going to have to choose something else.