What is Heaven? What is Hell?

~ What is Heaven? - What is Hell? ~

In feudal Japan, the fierce Samurai Warriors were revered as Kings. They carried large swords and were highly skilled at using them.

One day, a famous samurai set out to find an aged monk who was known to be very wise. When he arrived at the monastery, he flung open the door and demanded of the old man, "Tell me, you are learned in these matters. What is heaven and what is hell?"

The monk sat still for a moment on the tatami-matted floor. Then he turned and looked up at the warrior. "You call yourself a samurai warrior," he said. "Why, look at you. You're nothing but a mere sliver of a man! I doubt you could cut off the head of a fly with your sword."

For a moment, the samurai stood gaping. No one talked to a samurai like that! Then, as if someone had waved a red cloth in front of a bull, the samurai's face contorted in rage. He bellowed, "How dare you! I won't let you get away with such an insult." Pulling his huge sword from its sheath, he raised it high above his head, ready to kill the old monk.

Unperturbed, the monk looked directly into the eyes of the furious warror and said, "You asked what hell is. *This* is hell."

The samurai froze, his sword still raised, as the hatred and anger that had consumed him drained away. He looked at the old monk in amazement, realizing that this small, stooped man had risked his life to answer his question.

Lowering his weapon, the samurai bowed to the monk, as tears appeared in his eyes. "Thank you for your teaching," the samurai said humbly, his heart filled with gratitude for the monk's gift.

The monk smiled at the samurai and said, "And this, my friend, is heaven."

From here .

Thoughts? Opinions? Violent disagreements?

When I saw the question in the thread title, I was going to post this story as a response. How funny

The lesson in the insult ...

... my cry of "how dare you ?!" tells me more about me than I may want to accept.

It doesn't even matter if what the other said/did was true or wildly erroneous -- the 'reaction' to the insult is the lesson.

In the parable, the monk was probably familiar with the samurai's training and resultant skill with the sabre, but even had he not been, even had he merely spoken from whatever limited, hear-say "knowledge" he had of "samurai", the samurai would have had the same reflection back upon himself - his own phenomenal "I". Thus, the truth-value of the insult is of little relevance ; only the revelation of the reflection ...

As per Frankl's (et al.) "space" between stimulus and response where "choice" is found, that is where the old monk was able to insert the answer to the query. The 'lesson' for us in the parable is to find that "space" within which one can choose hell or peace.

As it were, the phenomenal "I" often skips the "space" and jumps straight into "hell". Sometimes it gets to 'peace' but another pretty common thing is getting stuck in the "space" and not choosing at all. This could be analogous to "Purgatory" - neither letting it be nor going to hell. The thing about Purgatory is, one can always still make the choice ... and still make the wrong one.

Those are just the thoughts that crossed my mind. There may be others later. Undoubtedly ...

I love it! Some days we ourselves in our decisions and break thrus hold heaven for one another some days. very nice ima keep that one in my heart TBZ! you are a blessing! to me you are!!!

Heaven and Hell (for me) are merely colloquial terms for good and bad situations.

One would have to understand Shinto and the complex interworking of the Japanese class system during that time to best answer this question using this story.

To bring it in to a more recognizable light I will compare it to something more familiar with Western eyes. One translation, or understanding of Hell, is the absence of God’s presence. The Japanese at the time primarily practiced Shinto, a religion of many gods. But what the Shinto gods passed on was enlightenment. They had many ways of doing so whether it was through monks, ancestors, spirits, martial arts… the list goes on and on. And in a similar fashion, the Christian’s God’s presence is one of enlightenment.

At the moment the Samurai was going to strike down the monk he allowed his rage and the ego, the things of this world, to dictate his actions. He had gone seeking to add to his enlightenment and instead abandoned that and was controlled by the whims of the mortal realm. Thus, not being in the presence of enlightenment.

The fear of death was not something that greatly concerned most Japanese during that time period. It was actually an honor to die depending on how, why, etc. Just as Miyamoto Musashi won a dual before ever setting foot on the field of battle by playing to his ego and vanity, so does this monk. And the monk had risked his life to answer the question, thus showing his devotion to his path of enlightenment. And it moved the Samurai to a state that he might have described as Giri. But I have not gone and looked at the original story in Japanese, so who knows.

I could actually go on and on about this… I love this sort of thing. I will not bore any of you anymore.

What is Heaven? What is Hell?

Marriage :laugh: :woohoo:

The inquiring samurai was famous, probably for swordsmanship.
He is demanding. Too much swagger and too little humility.

The monk provokes by questioning his strength which the samurai hears as an attack to his pride and the response is a murderous rage. Yet, in the midst of his hellish rage he hears the monk's reply and recognizes its truth - not only with his reason, but also with his heart.

Knowledge.
Gratitude.
The gifts of Tian.

Upon further thought, my reference above to Tian requires some elaboration. If the Koan (legend or lesson) that tzb has shared with us is situated in medieval Japan then the monk was probably Buddhist, but not necessarily. There were Daoist temples in Japan at this time, and of course, the Chinese Buddhism that migrated to Japan was influenced by Daoism and so also was the indigenous animism of Japan, Shinto. In each of these religions, there are beliefs in supernatural places of paradise and punishment but any association with Abrahamic monotheist conceptions of Heaven and Hell is mistaken.

Tian (Ten in Japanese) is an essential Daoist concept that I use in my syncretic Jediism to denote the principle of the Force. It is translated in English as Heaven but this is a mistake. Literally it is "the force above" and is the source of the order of the cosmos. Not creator. Source of the order in nature. Tian orders the cosmos and this way of order is called its dao, way or path. It is in this way that the implementation of the dao of Tian is the foundation of the moral order and ethical choices of the Jedi.

Rather than thinking of heaven in the story as some kind of spiritual paradise it might be more coherent to think of it as the moral order of the universe. The samurai is one with this moral order when he is not ruled by murderous anger and foregoes the need to protect a fragile sense of self worth (pride based upon worldly class distinctions). This is as far from the Tian that one could be - hell. On the other hand, Tian is the source of this oneness.