The Holyman and Harlot in Heaven

Seth Auberon, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly

Prostitution in Zurich (now.msn.com)

 

Nudity in China (blog.holachina.net)

A holyman lived happily on a peaceful street. One day the empty house across from him was bought. 

 

He stared out of his window at it and before long, seeing many men coming and going, became convinced that it was being used as a brothel.

 

He soon saw a beautiful woman coming to the window staring out across the street at him. 

He became incensed, "She's mocking me! That woman of ill repute has no right to live across from the holy precincts of this temple!" 

By chance that woman died and the holyman died as well. He was eager to see heaven for the dispensing of some karmic justice; the woman was abashed. 

But he was alarmed when he found himself being pulled back to Earth to be reborn, whereas the woman was drawing up to be reborn in some minor paradise in space. 

"Something's gone wrong!" he shouted. "I'm a holyman; she's a wh*re! Why am I being cast away while she advances?!"

Buddhist heavens (Angelo G.I.O./flickr)

A gentle messenger (gandharva) explained that he had been a corrupt man in life, his heart/mind defiled, always condemning others for the faults he thought he detected. And this in spite of the fact that he lived what could have been a peaceful life of spiritual development with the blessing (benefit) of being taken care of as a holyman with time to cultivate spiritual qualities as others worked for their livelihood.

 

That woman, on the other hand, had led a life of hardship and even desperation that led her to resort to what she could do to get by, and nevertheless did not give up hope of one day gaining something better for herself.

One cutting example was shown to the holyman. The messenger recounted that she would frequently come to her window between visitors to a house she felt trapped in. There she would look out across the street in admiration of the temple and the peaceful old holyman in the window looking back at her. 

She wished more than anything that she could live as peacefully as he lived, cared for and contented, rather than being sunk in the mire of her degrading existence.

 

"What had you done?" the messenger asked. "What had you been thinking?" Abashed, the holyman fell back to Earth more humble, less judgmental, full of appreciation that he could again live on a planet only half sunk in mire. 

Instead, what might have come his way had he not lived and cultivated some beautiful karmic impulses (cittas) that enabled him to enjoy another rare opportunity to live on Earth.

"If you want to make GOD* laugh, tell [it] your plans."

*"GOD" here is not "God," the supreme god of various warring religious factions in the world but rather what they be hinting at and crediting their god with, which was understood by ancient Indian seers as that ineffable, impersonal, unimaginable godhead the Brahmin priests called Brahman, which should never be confused with Brahma. GOD in this sense is the all, the interplay of karma and results, the enduring reality behind the transient illusions in life.

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Selfishness is "Heaven and Hell"

I once heard a story about a visit to heaven and hell. In both places the visitor saw many people seated at a table on which many delicious foods were laid out. In both places chopsticks over a meter long were tied to their right hands, while their left hands were tied to their chairs. In hell, however much they stretched out their arms, the chopsticks were too long for them to get food into their mouths. They grew impatient and got their hands and chopsticks tangled with one another's. The delicacies were scattered here and there. In heaven, on the other hand, people happily used the long chopsticks to pick out someone else's favorite food and feed it to him, and in turn they were being fed by others. They all enjoyed their meal in harmony.

--Shundo Aoyama Roshi

James: Now I don't believe in a physical, separate "Hell" or "Heaven" from the ones that we create and live in right here, right now. However, I agree with this parable in the sense that it points out the problems that come from being selfish, dualistic and trying to fight the Universal Law of inter-dependency and co-arising.

When we try to go it alone then we will always suffer sooner or later but when we work together we all grow, benefit and reduce our collective suffering. This all reminds me of the story of the monkey and the orange:

Apparently there is a trick to catching monkeys. You find a tree with a hole in it and put and orange in the tiny, tight hole. Then wait until the monkey arrives at the tree to take the orange. According to the story the monkey will hold onto the orange which prevents him from freeing himself from the hole in the tree because he is so greedy and thus you can come up and grab him without much fighting. I remember reading from Dr. David R. Hawkins (who's books are fantastic by the way) that the ego is so selfish and deluded that it will is willing to let the body die in order to get what it wants--such as drug addictions.

May we all always remember that liberation and true freedom comes from remembering our interconnectedness and striving for the good of all. If we only look after ourselves then we are sowing the seeds to our own destruction because as Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me (Matthew 25, verses 31-40 in the Christian Bible). So in other words when we hurt others we are hurting ourselves. In not caring about the environment or thinking that animals are not our equals we kill ourselves because as the animals, plants, fish insects, etc. go--so goes man.

PHOTO: The Dalai Lama in profile.

~Peace to all beings~

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