Heaven and Hell
Good Morning,
It is good to be home and pleasure seeing some of your many smiling faces again. During a discussion with one of the staff I met on my trip to the Dominican the subject of religion came up. It was the usual discussion about who is who and what is what (more Catholic than this or more this than that), when the subject of Heaven and Hell was brought up. The interesting part was not that such concepts are universal, but that there interpretations can be so vastly different.
When i was younger the pain in my life often made me feel as if Hell were actually my life here on earth. Many years have passed since those feelings and the following story rings of some truth with me personally:
The old monk sat by the side of the road. With his eyes closed, his legs crossed and his hands folded in his lap, he sat. In deep meditation he sat. Suddenly his meditation was interrupted by the harsh and demanding voice of a samurai warrior. "Old man! Teach me about heaven and hell!"
At first, as though he had not heard, there was no perceptible response from the monk. But gradually he began to open his eyes, the faintest hint of a smile playing around the corners of his mouth as the samurai stood there, waiting impatiently, growing more and more agitated with each passing second. "You wish to know the secrets of heaven and hell?" replied the monk at last. "You who are so unkempt. You whose hands and feet are covered with dirt. You whose hair is uncombed, whose breath is foul, whose sword is all rusty and neglected. You who are ugly and whose mother dresses you funny. You would ask me of heaven and hell?"
The samurai uttered a vile curse. He drew his sword and raised it high over his head. His face turned to crimson, and the veins of his neck stood out in bold relief as he prepared to sever the monk's head from its shoulders.
"That is hell," said the old monk gently, just as the sword began its descent.
In that fraction of a second, the samurai was overcome with amazement, awe, compassion and love for this gentle being who had dared to risk his very life to give him such a teaching. He stopped his sword in mid-flight and his eyes filled with grateful tears.
"And that," said the monk, "is heaven."
Peace and Love, Jim jim@thedailybuddha.com www.thedailybuddha.com
posted by The Daily Buddha at 6:09 AM
3 Comments:
what a great story, I really like this one :) thank you for sharing Jim! It's so great to hear teachings derived from life that we can associate with because it's so much easier to make sense of them and to take them to heart.
great story, I too liked this one a lot. Makes perfect sense of how "heaven" is really the sense of "awakeness" and realization.
On a different subject, at Easter dinner with my family last night, I thought it was ironic that we ate a piece of a blessed egg, just a hard boiled egg that was blessed by the church. Then, just after I finished, I followed it up with a deviled egg :D Random, but funny I thought, as I ate my deviled egg.
I am so glad the story makes it mark. You are always deserving of any knowledge that makes sense to you. My goal with this blog has always been to be like the rain, pure in it's form (always water), but taken in and used individually by the plants that need it(individualized learning).
Namaste, my friends.
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