The true union with living loved ones is to be one in direction (such as reaching of Āmítuófó’s Pure Land).
In traditional Greek mythology, the immortal goddess Calypso was exiled to live on an island alone… Till she falls in love with Odysseus when he washed up ashore, whom she offers immortality to be with. However, he pined to return to his also mortal wife, while gazing out to sea. Later, ordered by Zeus, Calypso had to let him go. In turn, she pined for his return, while also gazing out to sea… Some say she was so heartbroken that she even ended her life. (This differs from ‘The Odyssey’ movie’s depiction.)
In Rick Rordan’s modern ‘mythology’ in his Percy Jackson universe, Calypso was condemned to fall in love with every hero who washed ashore, (though the complicated Odysseus was far from being a perfect hero). Like Odysseus, however, they could never stay, as they keep leaving her heartbroken ‘forever’, time and again. This is as if the ‘infinite’ looping of Calypso meeting ‘Odysseus’, only to see him leave, while semi-unwittingly falling in love again, to suffer the pain of heartbreak again.
While the classic Calypso-Odysseus episode is fictitious, with deeper reflection, are we not somewhat like them? While being mortals, we do crave to have immortal love with the beloved. Paradoxically, the very transience of our mortal loves make them all the more precious in the moment, to be cherished in time, before time together ends. The karmic repercussion of keeping those loving apart is to be parted from one’s own loved one(s), to be forced to taste the bitter grief once forced upon others.
The extended episode draws more parallels with our lives. With existential ‘dementia’ from life to life in the rounds of rebirth, we are also attracted to the valiant and beautiful in each life, yet forced to let departure tear us apart, including death. Even Odysseus, back with his wife, were not spared from the impermanence of their earthly reunion. While we are as if ‘blessed’ to keep forgetting, with Calypso as if ‘cursed’ to remember each heartbreak, are we not indefinitely ‘cursed’ too, if we keep failing to wake up?
The true reunion with departed loved ones is to be one in liberation (such as in Āmítuófó’s Pure Land).
