Most people live their lives in a constant alternation of heaven and hell. When they get what they want, they go to heaven. Losing or not gaining what they want, they end up in hell. Hell is stubborn resistance to what is. Heaven is our loving openness. Hell is resistance. Heaven is acceptance.
Heaven is an open heart. Hell is a tense womb. Typically, a person is somewhere in between the heart and stomach. The stomach turns everything into itself; it seems to him that the whole world exists for him, that it is his food, and therefore the stomach is the ego. The heart dwells where opposites converge, and all our ideas dissolve into the One, just as ornamental bracelets are melted in a melting crucible and pure gold is obtained.
There is a story about how a great samurai came to see the Zen master Hakuin. The samurai approached the master, bowed respectfully to him and asked:
“Master, I want to know what the difference is between heaven and hell.
“I could tell you, but I’m afraid you don’t have enough intelligence to understand me,” the Zen master replied, measuring the samurai from head to toe.
- Do you know who you are talking to? - blurted out the surprised samurai.
- Well, so what? - answered the Zen master. “I actually think you are probably too stupid to understand me.
- What? - the samurai was indignant. - How dare you talk to me like that ?!
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“Oh, don’t pretend to be a fool,” said the Zen master. “Who do you take yourself to be? And what's that hanging on your belt? Are you saying it's a sword? It looks more like a butter knife!
The samurai flew into a rage, drew his sword and held it above the Zen master's head.
- Look! - said the master. - This is hell.
Understanding flashed in the samurai's eyes. He bowed and sheathed his sword.
“And this,” the master continued, “is heaven.
Anger or fear that appears in the mind can make life hell, but it can also help ascend to heaven. It can be another moment of resistance, repulsion, indulgence in manifestations of the mind. Or it could be a reminder to enter the vastness, the open heart, the essence of acceptance itself.
In one place don Juan told Castaneda that he should live like a warrior, that he should use his life as an opportunity to achieve awakening instead of constantly keeping his mind from going beyond it. He said; “For an ordinary person, everything that happens to him is either a curse or a blessing. For a warrior, every event is a test."
The difference between heaven and hell is that in hell the mind is busy deciding whether it is lucky or not. We weigh each experience on the scales of our desires.
An example would be the story of a wealthy insurance agent who lived in his house "among good people." His children studied hard and he considered his life to be successful. But soon his company went bankrupt, he lost his job, was forced to sell his house and therefore considered himself a failure.
But, having sold the house, he thought: "Now no one can prevent me from doing what I have dreamed of all my life." Using some of the money from the sale of the house, he bought a small farm in the countryside and lived a quiet life in the village. And again it seemed to him that it was luck.
Then a few weeks later, his son was plowing a field, fell out of the tractor cab and was seriously injured. Again he thought he was a failure. But the quick actions of the doctors and the proximity of the hospital saved his son's life, and again he thought that luck was smiling at him.
However, it soon became clear that the son's leg was badly damaged in the fall and therefore needed to be amputated. The victim's father again decided that life was a complete failure.
But after the amputation, the son quickly recovered, and the insurance received for him was enough to cover all the costs of treatment, and then again the farmer decided that he was lucky …
This story can be continued indefinitely. It happens in life.
Life itself is neither hell nor heaven. Both are states of consciousness, its openness or closedness in relation to what is happening.
Just as the nature of the hand implies that it is soft, open and flexible, capable of holding whatever you want to take in it; likewise, the natural mind is an unattached spatial awareness. But the conditioned mind can lose its original openness due to the millions of different attachments that we believe are necessary in order to maintain an illusory sense of security in this world.
This resembles a situation in which a person needs to carry a heavy burden for a while. Perhaps he is in a hurry to catch a plane or train, and therefore carries all the things he has with him until he finally takes his place. But as soon as we begin to unclench our hands, we see that they are numb because we have been dragging our old luggage for so long.
It is difficult, almost impossible, to quickly return the hands to their original state - openness - because the efforts we made disfigured them, after we carried things in our hands for a long time, the hands return to their natural state rather slowly and give us a lot of unpleasant sensations. Because we are so afraid of suffering, we prefer to stay pinched and do not allow ourselves to completely relax.
We prefer the narrow space of our isolated self, our old attachments, over possible release from the cage. We prefer the familiar hell to the suffering that accompanies the exit into the great unknown.
Here is a story about a man who died, left his body, and found himself in a wonderful world.
He thinks to himself: "It is so good here that I must have ended up in paradise." Then a radiant creature came up to him and carried him along to the royal festive hall, where numerous tables burst with the most fantastic dishes. At a banquet, he is seated next to other people and offered to choose a dish to his taste.
When a person takes a fork, someone comes up to him from behind and ties thin boards to his hands so that he cannot bend his arms at the elbows. He tries to poke something on the fork, but sees that he cannot bring it to his mouth, because his arms do not bend. Looking around, he saw that the people around him also could not bend their arms. Trying to taste food, they all grumble and groan, because they cannot reach their mouth with a fork.
Then the man turned to the creature that brought him here: “This must be hell. What is heaven? " And then the shining creature showed him the passage to another large hall, where the festive table was also laid. "Oh, this is more like heaven!" He thought. And sitting down at the dinner table, he was about to start eating, when someone came up to him from behind and again tied the planks to his hands so that his arms did not bend at the elbows.
Complaining that there was the same desperate situation as in hell, he looked around and, to his surprise, found that the people at this table were behaving in a completely different way. Instead of trying to bend their arms and shove food into their mouths, each person kept their arms straight and fed those sitting next to them. The conditions were the same there, but the reaction was different.
Considering everything from the standpoint of "I" and self-gratification, we live in hell with unbending hands, denying our unity with other people. By recognizing that we are part of the whole, we feed each other and thereby saturate ourselves.
We become attached to almost all pleasant moments, turning a fleeting heaven into an unbearable hell. We are afraid that we will lose our brief bliss, and therefore we sit huddled in a corner and try to deny the inevitable. Attachment to him makes our life hell. We continue to live according to the old models, and we expect that sooner or later they will be able to meet our expectations.
This is reminiscent of the famous parable of the mad Sufi Nasruddin, which says that one day Nasruddin returned from the market with a large basket of hot red peppers. Then he sat down in his room and began to eat pepper pods one by one. A disciple came in and asked him why he was eating what was obviously hot red pepper. There were tears in Nasruddin's eyes, his lips were swollen and cracked, and his tongue could hardly move in his mouth.
- How can you eat this awful pepper? The student asked.
“Well, I saw him in the market, and I liked him so much that I simply could not pass by,” Nasreddin replied.
- But why do you mock yourself like that? - Perplexed, asked the student. - How can you eat one pod after another?
“It seems to me all the time,” Nasrudin replied, “that a sweet pod is about to come across.
Our incessant search for satisfaction confuses us. The path twists and turns, and we feel suffering whenever it takes us away from our goal. We are like phantoms trying to grab the world with transparent, ghostly hands. Like a hungry spirit, our conditioned mind craves satisfaction, craving what it cannot have and what it cannot hold. The mind is disfigured by painful yearning. Desire pounces on every tidbit, although it is not able to swallow it.
We struggle to take another bite of the cake. When the desire is great and there is no satisfaction, we think we are in hell.
Hell is our inability to easily play with the hungry spirit of past fears and temporary disappointments, the inability to give up. Only when we find ourselves cornered and trying to avoid the unpleasant and move further away from the fire of our unfulfilled desires, we move to hell.
And now we are already there and do not know where to turn; we are in a desperate situation, caught in our attachments and unwillingness to give them up. Our heart contracts with fear and doubt. It is when the suffering becomes too great, when we can no longer resist, that we begin to open up to our position.
When the heart lets go of its suffering with a sigh, hell dissolves before our eyes. Thomas Merton said about it this way: "A person comprehends what genuine prayer and love are only when it is impossible to pray, and the heart has turned to stone." Only by letting go of hell, we ascend to heaven, enter the light that is not of the mind. The Old Testament says: "I will go down to hell, and there You are."
Desperate and asking yourself: "What should I do now?", You can get an answer. After all, this is the first time we have not used a ready-made solution. In the end, we don't know. We have known so much and for so long that the space in which truth can dwell becomes rather narrow. There is not enough room in it for our true nature. It is in the mind that says “I don’t know” that the difference between heaven and hell disappears. It is in this open, unconditional investigation of truth that reality is grasped.
Richard B. Clarke has made a unique translation of a short treatise by the third Zen patriarch called Xin-hsin-ming. In Chinese, the concepts of "mind" and "heart" are designated by one word - xin. After all, when the heart is open and the mind is pure, they turn out to be the only begotten, woven from one reality. Having comprehended this fusion of mind and heart, he begins the treatise with the words:
“The Great Path is not difficult for those who have given up preferences. When there is neither love nor hate, everything becomes clear and obvious. However, one has only to make a slight distinction, and heaven and hell are separate from each other. If you want to see the truth, do not have an opinion “for” or “against”. To oppose the pleasant to the unpleasant is a disease of the mind. When the true meaning of things is not grasped, peace of mind is disturbed in vain."
Confusion is action against what is, the result of our compulsive search for answers to fill our minds and overcome the failure of our preferences and models. Embarrassment is a state of alienation from who you are. Painful misunderstanding of existence. Yet, by examining the confused mind, liberation can be achieved. It is only necessary to realize that the silent witness is not confused. It is in a space that is not tied to "understanding", which does not try to fill itself with information, that truth can arise.
It is in the mind that “does not know” that truth is experienced in its spatial and timeless involvement in being. Embarrassment is going against the tide, craving for an answer at any cost. Whereas “I don’t know” is only space; there is room for everything, even the most embarrassment. There is no power in “I don’t know”. No effort should be made to the mind, because it immediately closes the heart.
Perhaps the meaning of the teaching is: "Can you keep your heart open to the truth?" When we are blocked by anger, resistance, fear, can we be open to ourselves? When we are afraid, we can still have a space in which we allow the fear to exist without limitation. Or does everything turn out to be so suppressed, pushed so far into the shadows that our old structures are triggered, we find ourselves enslaved and suppressed, and life becomes an incessant confusion, a cruel joke?
The legend of one great Tibetan lama says that when he died, he prayed to go to hell. After all, he felt that it was in hell that they needed the truth most of all. He suspected that Dharma was most needed there. A few days before his death, he dreamed of heaven, where he was to go for his piety. When he woke up, he began to cry.
Meister Eckhart was nearly burned for saying, "I prefer hell with Jesus over heaven without him."
Our minds are very crowded. We are constantly chasing the answer to every question that arises. We rarely let our minds not know. We want to know the answer, and so we stop asking: "Who am I?" Most of the answers the mind offers are excuses for not going deeper. It is the responses of the mind that generate confusion. There is no embarrassment in “I don’t know” itself. There is only truth in it.
Here again I will quote the story of an ancient Zen master, who was approached by a famous scientist and philosopher and asked to tell him his teachings.
“I know many of the physical laws of the universe and the way things are, but you could probably add something to that. May I know your teaching? The philosopher asked.
The Zen master invited him to his house and offered to drink tea. The scientist held his cup, and the master poured tea into it, but when the cup was overfilled, he did not stop pouring further, although the tea spilled on the floor.
- This is not good. My cup is already full, - said the scientist, looking at the master.
“Right,” the Zen master replied with a smile. - Your mind is overflowing like this cup. Empty your cup and then come for teaching. Maybe then you will find a place for the truth.
Our cups are too full, we know so much that we do not understand anything. There is so little room in all of us! In fact, we are extremely incapable. And we notice that there is suffering in our hearts because of this. Our entire container is filled with false knowledge. This is a very expensive substitute for the freedom that is inherent in being.
It is by rejecting old models, opening up to our “I don’t know,” that we comprehend life. It means going out of your way the way a healer goes out of your way, allowing the great nature of the universe to manifest through him. He doesn't do anything. In fact, his egocentric activity ceases and he becomes a conductor of the energy of wholeness. Thus, in the openness of “I don’t know,” we observe how the healing takes place. We are witnessing the melting of our old knowledge and expectations. We begin to experience the joy of pure being, life with everything that is.
When we no longer attach ourselves to our knowledge, but simply open ourselves to the truth of every moment as it is, life goes beyond heaven and hell - beyond the constant pursuit of the mind for satisfaction.
Anger arises in the mind - but who is angry? I don't know, anger is just there. Fear settles in the mind - I don't know; things are good. Jealousy in the mind - I don't know; There is nothing wrong. After all, when you think that this is bad, your heart closes. There is nothing wrong with a closed heart, but it is very painful. In “I don’t know” there is no “should”, there is only infinite non-knowledge.
When I worked with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, she used to joke that someone should write a book called You and I Are Not Good - And It's Good.
There is so much room to discover. There is so little attachment to the old vanity of vanities, to the old illusions of comfort and safety. By focusing on the natural openness of the heart, we begin to see that nothing needs to be pushed back, nowhere to be, nowhere to go. That we are infinitely indefinable. We strived so hard to be that we never asked ourselves who we are and who we can be.
Letting go of our knowledge, we open up to being itself. We experience something that does not die. Our fear of death and our lust for life merge. Heaven and hell become in an instant. The saturation, suchness of life becomes evident. Nothing more to protect, nowhere else to hide. Only new inspiration and openness to life.
Don Juan leaned back in his chair and smiled at Castaneda: 'The main difference between an ordinary person and a warrior is that a warrior accepts everything as a challenge, while an ordinary person treats everything as a blessing or curse.'
The warrior is endowed with the wisdom to approach every event with an open mind, not knowing how it should end. He makes no effort to achieve the goal. His “I don’t know” is the joy and courage that fills his life.
The truth is within you, and within me;
You know that a seed is always hidden in a seed.
We all struggle; but none of us got far.
Let the ignorance go and look inside.
The blue sky stretches into the distance
The usual feeling of failure is gone forever
The misfortunes I have caused myself are forgotten
Millions of suns pour out their light
When I am established in this world.
I can hear bells ringing that no one else has rung
There is more joy inside "love" than we think.
There is a downpour even though there are no clouds in the sky
Light flows in deep rivers.
The universe is permeated in all directions by one love.
How strongly this joy is experienced in all four bodies!
Anyone who hopes to understand this fails.
The ignorance of the mind has separated us from this love.
Say the word "understanding" and you will be far behind.
How happy Kabir is that, being in this joy, He sings inside his little boat.
His poems are reminiscent of the meeting of two souls.
These are songs about forgetting dying and loss, They rise above the transience of this world.
Kabir (in Bly's show)
Stephen Levin