Armed with my best defence, I went to get coffee. As I watched the hard, angry faces impatiently pushing and bustling against one another for the best seats and first place in the line, I used my Gatha. I looked at each one in turn, ‘A lotus for you; a Buddha to be’ and offered them a glowing white lotus flower from the palm of my hand. Then something miraculous happened.

During my twenty years (or so) of dating, I had many well-meaning people in my life say ‘be careful’ in response to sharing my latest love interest. It was intended as some form of positive advice, I’m sure. But they were saying something that was basically unintelligible to me. No matter how hard I tried, I was constitutionally unable to fathom this advice.

‘Be careful?’ I would say to myself incredulously. ‘How do I be careful? I’m not exactly going to meet a random stranger down a dark alleyway at night, am I? So what do they mean? Be Careful. Hmph!’

I was naive in thinking that each time I found peace, I had found final enlightenment. Then the past pain would rear its ugly head again. In those desperate moments, I found myself asking; ‘How deep is this well of pain!? and ‘When? When will it end!?’ Twenty years later, I no longer ask these questions. I no longer seek to be enlightened or free of suffering. I understand that each moment is a choice.