Enlightenment Arrives When You Least Expect It

Sometimes you climb a mountain to find enlightenment from a great sage, in my case, the wise man came to me on an airplane.

It was late winter in 2012 and I was traveling home from a karate seminar. As I sat at the gate waiting for my flight out of Minneapolis, I passed the time by people watching.

Standing near the check-in counter was an interesting looking man. He had long, coarse black hair that was peppered with strands of silver. It was tied back with leather cord in a loose pony tail with wispy strands falling around his round face. I couldn’t place his age as his face was absent of any wrinkles. His tall, lean body had the olive skin of a native American. But, his almond-shaped eyes, round face and faint fu-man-shu facial whiskers made him look Asian.

His most striking feature was his smiling blue eyes that stood out like sapphires behind his tortoise-shell glasses. He wore jeans and a blue gingham shirt which, to me, seemed out of place for such an exotic-looking man. I could easily visualize him wearing a monk’s robes or even, Native American ceremonial clothing.

As often happens with me, the one person whom I find most interesting ends up being assigned the seat right next to me.

Serendipity, perhaps. He was assigned the seat next to mine.

I wanted to learn more about him, but didn’t want to offend him if he desired peaceful silence on the flight. So I pondered how to work in a polite conversation. As I was pondering this, I watched him unzip a messenger bag and pull out a digital tablet to begin reading an eBook. I saw this as an opening.

“Is that a Kindle Fire?” I asked inquisitively. *Tablet reading devices were relatively new at this time as it was early 2012.

He turned and made eye contact. His blue eyes seemed to penetrate me for a moment before he responded. In a soft-spoken voice with a slight foreign accent that I couldn’t place, he replied that it was a Sony tablet. I asked what he was reading. I smiled when I learned it was “Great Expectations.” The book was required reading when I was in grade school. I had fond memories of the main character, Pip, and his journey through life.

I made more small talk about travel and final destinations. I learned he was traveling to New York to visit friends and to search for job opportunities. He mentioned he had only been in the U.S. for a couple of years and hadn’t settled into a permanent career yet but for now he was working at a retail store in Minneapolis with his family. I saw this as an opportunity to inquire where he was originally from and learned he was from Nepal.

So began our discussion.

I learned that his name was Phunjo (poon jow). I told him that recently my parents had traveled to Nepal and Tibet. They had witnessed a “Sky Burial” while there and it had made quite the impression on them. I wanted to understand more about it, so I asked Phunjo if he could tell me about it.

He explained the process and that it was quite common. The monks cut up the dead and crush the bones with mallets. These are made into cakes for the buzzards.

The buzzards are the only birds allowed to take the pieces of the dead. This is because they are the only birds that ingest all of the body, including bones. Other birds are shooed away by the monks.

It is a great honor for the dead to be disposed of in this way as it is thought to lead one into rebirth much more quickly.

He then spoke about the difference between rebirth and reincarnation.

A rebirth means the human can return as any living thing. A reincarnation is simply returning back into the human form.

He explained there were five different categories of rebirth: animals, birds, ghosts/demons, humans and Gods.

According to him the best is human.

He went on to explain that a God can only experience peace, joy and happiness. They are whole with no understanding of pain or hell.

An animal lacks the intelligence to realize there is Heaven or Hell.

A ghost or demon has no comprehension that there is goodness and light.

But, a human being is in balance. A human being can experience both joy and pain. This allows us to grow, learn and strive to be better. We have the mental capacity to understand both heaven and hell. The compassion to help other people and animals and the ability to worship Gods.

During a lifetime there are talents and skills that we learn or are God-given gifts. They are like rings that you hook onto and transcend a cycle into a new elevated existence. They take us closer to an enlightened life.

He asked about my visit to Minneapolis and what brought me there. I discussed my martial arts briefly and how I attended a weekend workshop. He then asked if he could see my hand. It was kind of an odd request, but I felt compelled. So I displayed my left hand. He turned it over, palm up and looked at my open hand.

After studying it for a while, he turned his haunting sapphire eyes towards mine and said, “you have found your ring.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You are on the right path with your martial arts. And your life is making a change right now. A good change. You are blessed.”

With that he gently folded up my hand and placed his hands back in his lap.

We spoke a little bit more about this before he retreated back into reading his book.

The message I took from this brief encounter was to live, love, fail forward and to focus on a positive mindset. Embrace change, don’t fear it. Do not be ashamed of the past or dwell upon “mistakes” that were made.

If one thinks about it long enough, you’ll find that nothing really is a mistake.

The choices we make affects us, affects others and we all learn from it. Even things that seem to randomly “happen” to us are actually a bump along the path of life guiding one in a new direction.

This one small encounter bumped me into a journey of self discovery and continuous personal development.

I began to look more deeply at my experiences in life as learning opportunities. I began taking responsibility for my part in this journey and decided not to blame anyone or anything for my experience. This was the hardest part, as its easier to blame people, places and things for disappointments in life. I also began to enjoy life more by showing gratitude for everything I could.

I made the decision to live more in the present… Not the past or the future. I chose to focus on love as it is the closest a human can get to God.

Wherever you are, Phunjo, thank you for your wisdom.