by Donna Quesada: This story was first told to me by one of my Zen teachers.
I used to share it in my own classes, as a way to demonstrate the peace that is available to us, when we go beyond the external concepts of things like “heaven and hell,” and bring our awareness to the way that these ideas are self-inflicted.
A little note… with traditional Zen stories, it helps to remember that they are often short, cryptic, and can often come off as a bit unorthodox, and even eccentric in their approach:
The Story—
A big, burly samurai warrior comes to a Zen master and says, “Tell me the nature of heaven and hell.”
The Zen master looks him in right in the eye and says, “Why should I tell a scruffy, disgusting, miserable slob like you? A worm like you… Hah! why would I want to tell you anything?”
Consumed by rage, the samurai warrior draws his sword out of the scabbard and raises it to cut off the Zen master’s head.
The Zen master says, “That’s hell.”
Instantly, the samurai warrior understands that he has just created his own hell… a fiery hot, inner torment, filled with hatred, self-protection, anger and resentment. He sees that he was so deep in hell that he was ready to kill someone.
Tears filled his eyes as he put his palms together to bow in gratitude for this insight.
The Zen master says, “That’s heaven.”
Watercolor by Donna Quesada
My commentary—
As mentioned above, Zen stories, often called koans, are meant to jolt us out of our usual way of thinking, especially with regard to dualistic conceptual ideas, like heaven and hell, and even birth and death. The trouble is that usually, we create grandiose, sometimes intimidating mental pictures of these things that only serve to cause anxiety.
Instead, we are invited to look within, at how fluid these notions are… for example, how hell can so easily slide into heaven by way of our ever fluctuating state of inner peace, often just with one thought! Even something like “death,” which we often think about in static terms, is rather elusive, when we break away from medical definitions and consider that death sometimes appears in many gradual steps, often long before the heart actually stops.
What the Zen Buddhist teachings emphasize is that it is WE who create our own internal heaven and hell, right here, right now. And when we get out of our heads, and into the present moment, we can so easily create a sacred heavenly space.
