Achieving Enlightenment Through Tragedy, and Becoming Transcendently Happy

THERE IS A MAN in France who has gotten off the wheel, the ever repeating cycle of birth, life, suffering, and death, and elevated himself to a higher, transcendent level. This he has done through an extraordinary act of self control, a simple act of the will, of restraint. When terrorists killed his wife in Paris, a wife with whom he is and will always be in love, he simply refused to give her killers the gift of his anguish and his hatred. We are born into this world again and again, so says the philosophy of Buddhism, to live, to suffer, and, hopefully, to spiritually grow. With sufficient growth, we remove ourselves from the wheel of eternal struggle, and reach a state of eternal peace. In the Dhammapada, a book of wisdom, it says: "Mind foreruns all conditions. Mind is chief. Of mind are they made. If one speaks or acts with wicked mind, because of this, evil follows one, even as the wheel follows the hoof of the draft ox. He beat me, he abused me, he defeated me, he robbed me. The hatred of those who harbor such thoughts is never appeased. If one speaks or acts with pure mind, because of this, happiness follows one, even as the shadow which never leaves. He beat me, he abused me, he defeated me, he robbed me. The hatred of those who do not harbor such thoughts is always appeased. And this is a law eternal." And so it seems, and therefore so it is.According to Buddhist belief, we live many lives in order to ascend, which, with enough growth, we do. Some of us are old souls with many lives behind us, and some of us are young souls, with many lives ahead. This man in France, whoever he is, has done what few can do. He has, it seems, lived enough lives to know wisdom, and because of this, has escaped the cycle of birth and death. Perhaps he beckons the rest of us to join him. He must be very happy. He deserves to be.