Hello again, my friend. After walking the musical roads with Bhai Mardana, I found myself thinking about a very different kind of companionship---one shaped not by melody but by loyalty in the harshest of places. Today I want to remember an old man who discovered purpose on the edge of exile.
I remember a morning when the sea winds around Sado Island carried the kind of cold that settles straight into the bones. The sky was a pale, washed-out gray, the kind that makes the world feel a little farther away. Along a narrow cliffside path walked an elderly man, his back slightly bent, a bundle of rice tied in cloth at his hip and a small lantern swinging gently from his hand. That was Abutsu-bo.
The waves below struck the rocks with a force that sounded almost like warning, but he walked on, steady and unhurried. His hair was white, long and unruly in the wind, and his steps made a soft crunch across the frost-hardened earth. He wasn't young anymore---far from it---but there was a determination in the way he leaned into the wind, as if every step carried its own quiet vow.
Ahead, tucked into the cliffside, was a crude shelter where an exiled teacher lived---sleeping on a mat of reeds, writing by candlelight, watched constantly by those who feared his ideas. It was a place meant to break the spirit. But Abutsu-bo came anyway, again and again, with whatever small comforts he could carry across that unforgiving terrain: warm water, a handful of dried fish, a listening ear.
I remember one morning in particular. The old man set down his bundle, knelt in the cramped space, and began to pour hot water into a simple wooden bowl. The steam rose like a thin offering into the cold air. The teacher looked up from his writing, weary but grateful, and Abutsu-bo bowed, not out of duty, but out of love.
There was nothing dramatic in that moment---no miracle, no proclamation. Just an old man showing up where it mattered. And it made me wonder, as I often do: What does it mean to stay loyal when the world has turned away?
To understand Abutsu-bo, you have to imagine Japan in the thirteenth century---a world shaped by political uncertainty, shifting loyalties, and the uneasy relationship between the sword and the scroll. Exile was one of the era's quiet weapons. When a person's ideas were considered too troublesome to kill and too dangerous to ignore, they were sent away---tucked out of sight onto remote islands where the sea itself acted as a prison wall. Sado Island was one of the harshest of these places: cold winds, rocky shores, and an unspoken expectation that whoever was sent there would be forgotten.
Abutsu-bo was not the kind of man you would expect to find on such a road. He had been a samurai in his youth---disciplined, duty-bound, shaped by the strict expectations of his time. Life had aged him into something quieter. He had lost people he loved. His strength had softened around the edges. And yet, as old age settled over him, a strange hunger began to stir: the desire to find a truth that could outlast the rise and fall of leaders.
It was during this search that he first heard whispers about a teacher who had been exiled to Sado---an uncompromising voice who would not bend to political pressure, whose teachings had begun to unsettle those who preferred the world to stay predictable. Some heard those whispers with fear. Abutsu-bo heard them with curiosity.
When he and his wife (in some accounts) first brought offerings to the cave where the teacher was kept, it was not out of allegiance but out of simple human duty. An old man, hardened by winters and battlefields, brought rice and water to another human living in conditions unworthy of dignity. But something shifted during those visits. What began as charity became admiration, and admiration became devotion. Abutsu-bo found in the exiled teacher a sense of clarity he had never encountered in courts or military encampments. The teacher's resilience in the face of suffering awakened something long dormant in him.
He began making the journey regularly across Sado's unforgiving terrain. The path was long and treacherous for a man of his age---steep cliffs, cutting winds, unpredictable storms. And yet, he returned again and again, carrying food, firewood, small comforts, messages from the outside world, and the simple reassurance that someone still cared.
His devotion drew attention. Some viewed him with suspicion---why would an elderly former samurai risk the ire of the authorities for someone condemned? Others whispered that his loyalty was foolish. But Abutsu-bo was unmoved. In a world where allegiance was often rooted in politics or bloodline, his was rooted in spiritual recognition. He saw something in that cave---truth, light, courage---and he chose it.
In time, his home became a quiet gathering place for others who believed the teachings should not be snuffed out by exile. After the teacher's death, Abutsu-bo's family continued his work, carrying forward what he had helped preserve. And so this elderly man---who could have spent his final years fading into obscurity---became one of the earliest pillars of a movement that might not have survived without him.
In his own lifetime, Abutsu-bo was not seen as a spiritual leader, or a scholar, or a visionary. He was simply an old man who kept walking across an island the world had forgotten. But sometimes the deepest spiritual meaning is carried by the people who never imagine themselves important. And in this way, Abutsu-bo became a quiet embodiment of a truth his era needed to remember: that devotion is not measured by brilliance, but by endurance.
Thirteenth-century Japan honored strength, lineage, and loyalty---so long as those loyalties aligned with political power. But Abutsu-bo's loyalty flowed in a different direction. He offered allegiance to someone who could offer him nothing in return: no status, no protection, no safe place to stand. The teacher he supported was a condemned figure, watched by authorities, criticized by rivals, dismissed by the comfortable. To show kindness to such a person was already an act of courage. To show unwavering loyalty was something else entirely.
Abutsu-bo challenged the assumptions of his society simply by showing up. The image of an elderly former samurai bowing before an exiled teacher---in a cave, in the cold, under the threat of surveillance---was a quiet rebellion against the idea that wisdom belonged only to the powerful or the young. He revealed that truth could call to anyone, at any age, in any life.
His devotion also reframed what it meant to be steadfast. In the samurai world, loyalty was often tied to valiant acts in battle, dramatic gestures, or rigid duty. But Abutsu-bo offered a different model: loyalty as care. Loyalty as presence. Loyalty as the willingness to walk a difficult road repeatedly, without applause or recognition. It was a gentler form of strength---one rooted not in conflict, but in compassion.
In the spiritual community that formed around the exiled teacher, Abutsu-bo became a symbol of pure-hearted faith. He wasn't versed in doctrine, and he didn't speak in theological terms. Yet his life taught others how to live those teachings: with humility, patience, and a devotion that persisted even when the world turned hostile. His actions said what his words never needed to: that spiritual truth is not proven by rhetoric, but revealed in the way a person loves.
For followers who came later, Abutsu-bo's example became a reassurance. Many of them were ordinary people---farmers, artisans, widows---who felt they had little to offer. But then they would hear his story: an elderly man, past the age when society expects anything of you, rising before dawn to carry rice and warmth to someone the world had cast aside. And they would realize that devotion did not require greatness. It required sincerity.
Even the authorities, who may have hoped exile would silence the teacher's message, inadvertently revealed something important: that truth sometimes survives not because of its champions, but because of its caretakers. Abutsu-bo tended that truth like a flame sheltered from the wind. In the darkest hours of the movement's early years, he became the quiet guardian of hope.
In this way, his life carried a spiritual meaning far larger than he ever intended. He showed that a humble act, repeated with love, can alter the direction of history.
When people look back on the early years of a spiritual movement, they often focus on the teachers---the ones who wrote the words, spoke the ideas, or challenged the powerful. But movements don't survive because of teachers alone. They survive because someone protects the flame when the wind rises. In the story of Abutsu-bo, that protector was an old man who believed in a truth the world was trying its hardest to erase.
During the teacher's exile on Sado Island, the threat was not merely isolation. It was obliteration---the disappearance of his writings, the discouragement of his followers, the quiet erasure of his influence. Exile was meant to scatter memory like ash. But Abutsu-bo, with his slow steps and unwavering loyalty, became a living bridge between the cave where the teacher wrote and the distant communities still hungry for his words.
He carried messages. He carried news. He carried food and firewood. But more importantly, he carried continuity. Without men like him---ordinary, steadfast, unglamorous---the teachings might never have made it back to the mainland. What the authorities hoped would dissolve into the cold winds of Sado was instead preserved through the devotion of someone who refused to let the light die out.
Later traditions remembered Abutsu-bo as one of the most faithful disciples of that harsh period, not because he spoke eloquently or converted multitudes, but because he protected what others needed in order to continue. His acts were small in measure but enormous in consequence. He did not write treatises. He did not debate doctrine. He did something far more difficult: he persisted. When others fell away in fear or doubt, he kept returning to the lonely place the world had abandoned.
And this persistence had ripple effects. After the teacher's death, the manuscripts he had written in exile---some of his most essential works---were safeguarded by Abutsu-bo and his family. They transported them, hid them, copied them, and shared them with early followers. Those works became the backbone of a movement that would have had only fragments without them. If the teacher was the source, Abutsu-bo was the channel through which that source flowed into the lives of generations.
His contribution also reshaped the spiritual imagination of the movement itself. People began to see discipleship not as a matter of status or privilege, but of sincerity. If an elderly former samurai could discover the depths of devotion late in life, then anyone could. His story offered a quiet democracy of the spirit: that faith was not the province of the young, the educated, or the powerful. It could be claimed by anyone who chose to walk a difficult road for the sake of love.
In this way, Abutsu-bo expanded the meaning of spiritual legacy. He showed that history is not only shaped by brilliance or charisma, but by steadfast hearts willing to bear the weight of continuity. His steps across the frozen paths of Sado Island echo through time as reminders that great truths survive because someone---someone humble, someone unseen---keeps carrying them forward when others cannot.
That was Abutsu-bo's gift to history: not brilliance, not fame, but endurance. And endurance, in the end, is often what saves the world.
I've lived long enough to see how many people believe their most meaningful years are behind them. Some feel "too old," or "too late," or "too worn down" to matter anymore. Others think that the world has changed so quickly that they've been left on the margins, unsure where their gifts might fit. I've heard that quiet worry from young people too---this sense that unless they achieve something dramatic, their lives won't carry any real weight.
Abutsu-bo's story unsettles all of that. He didn't find his purpose when the world thought he was promising. He found it when society had already decided his story was finished. He was elderly, solitary, a former fighter whose usefulness seemed long past. Yet he is remembered not for what he accomplished in youth, but for what he chose to do when he thought he had nothing left to offer.
And isn't that one of the great illusions of modern life---that value must be measured in exceptional deeds, perfect timing, or public recognition? Abutsu-bo reminds us that history is shaped just as much by persistence as by brilliance. His devotion wasn't a dramatic gesture; it was a daily one. A pair of worn sandals on a frozen path. A bowl of warm water poured into cold hands. A presence offered in a place designed to strip hope away.
Most of what keeps the world stitched together is still made of small acts like these, carried out by people who believe no one is watching.
There is also something deeply modern in his experience of exile. Today, exile isn't always geographic---it can be emotional, economic, cultural, or private. I've seen people feel exiled in their own homes, their own workplaces, even within their own families. Isolation takes many forms now. And devotion, like his, still bridges them. A message sent at the right moment. A meal dropped off without fanfare. A hand on the shoulder when someone begins to unravel. These small gestures are often the only lifeline a person receives.
Abutsu-bo also offers us a lesson in loyalty in an unstable world. It is easy to stand with someone when they are admired. It is harder to stand with them when they are misunderstood, inconvenient, or condemned. He teaches that loyalty is not agreement but courage---the courage to stay present when others retreat into silence.
Modern life teaches us to abandon people when they become difficult or unfashionable. He teaches us the opposite: that fidelity is a kind of love that does not waver when the winds turn cold. His devotion invites us to imagine how many lives could be held together if someone---just one person---had the courage to keep showing up.
And this brings me to one final truth: small, consistent acts carry movements farther than grand declarations. Abutsu-bo didn't lead armies or write manifestos. He simply took care of someone whose voice was not allowed to be heard. Without him, there would be gaps where whole teachings should be.
From him we learn that supporting the right person at the right moment may be one of the most consequential things a soul can do. Sometimes the greatest spiritual path is the one in which you steady a truth that someone else is trying to carry.
And that is how loyalty becomes legacy.
When I think of Abutsu-bo, what I remember most is not the cold wind on Sado Island or the rough cliffs he climbed, but the way he carried himself---slowly, steadily, as if each step were a small promise kept. There was nothing grand about him. He didn't move with the swagger of his samurai youth. His hands were rough, his shoulders slightly bent, his breath sometimes unsteady. And yet, there was a clarity in his presence that even the storms could not diminish.
I watched him walk those lonely paths many times. Each journey looked so ordinary, almost forgettable. But that is the secret of devotion: it hides its greatness inside simple acts. Abutsu-bo never spoke as though he were doing something brave. He never imagined that future generations would remember him. He simply saw someone who was suffering in exile and thought, I can walk there. I can bring warmth. I can listen. And then he did.
His life made me wonder how many times we underestimate the weight of our quiet choices. How often we think we are too small to matter, or too late to be useful, or too ordinary to be remembered. But I have seen the opposite again and again. The world changes not only through the brilliance of visionaries, but through the love of those who walk beside them---carrying rice, carrying news, carrying comfort, carrying the belief that truth should not be abandoned.
Maybe there is someone in your life who needs that kind of faithfulness. Or maybe you have already been that person without realizing it. So much of devotion is hidden from the one who offers it. You never fully know the warmth you have carried into another person's exile.
I hope you remember that. And I hope you keep walking your path with the same quiet courage Abutsu-bo once carried across the frozen ground.
There's someone else I'd like to tell you about---another quiet soul whose devotion helped shape a life that changed the world. His name was Volmar of Disibodenberg, a humble monk who became the tireless companion and protector of Hildegard of Bingen. While she carried visions that would echo across centuries, Volmar stood beside her with patience, clarity, and a courage that asked for no recognition. Some people are called to speak the truth; others are called to steady the one who must speak it.
But that is a story for another day, my friend.
Until then, may every small act of loyalty you offer become a light in someone else's wilderness.
Much love.
I am, Harmonia.