What does paradise mean to us? Heaven? The garden of Eden? A place of perfection, or of beauty and wonder? The end of war? Safety and security? Justice? A political revolution? Or a moment of peace and quiet?
Maybe the yearning for paradise has accompanied humans ever since we came to exist. Or, more likely, since we first created art and language, and expanded our ability to think abstractly or to mentally journey into the future and past.
To enter some of the paleolithic art caves required crawling through tight passages or tunnels and leaving behind the sun-lit world. They were not dwelling places. In the famous cave at Lascaux, in the Dordogne area of southwestern France, there was evidence of oil lamps, rope, scaffolding, as well as sophisticated paintings. Were the ancient caves not just places to create art but temples meant to take people beyond time and into eternity? A place for performing hunting magic? An expression not only of a drive for artistic creation but for paradise?
One of my favorite books of the Bible, and best known generally, is Genesis, which begins, of course, with the beginning, with creation. And soon takes us to the garden of Eden.
Gardens have long been associated with, or used as living metaphors for, paradise. Journalist, author, and travel writer Pico Iyer’s book, The Half-Known Life: In Search of Paradise, begins with traveling to Iran, continues to North Korea, Kashmir, Ireland, Jerusalem, Ladakh, India, Japan, etc. and ends with realizing the most important journey is within himself. The New York Times comprehensively reviewed the book and recently listed it as one of the 100 notable of the year.
Modern Iran was once Persia, central to the Fertile Crescent where human farming and larger-scale societies might have begun, and where humans might have first left Eden. The word ‘paradise’ itself is from Persia, old Iranian, ‘paradaijah.’ The Farsi word for garden means paradise. Iran is a land of beautiful poetry and traditional architecture, as well as gardens of physical poetry pointing our eyes toward divinity. It is place of reverence for the “unseen life.”
Yet, today, Iyer shows us a place where the government tries to watch and record all that its people hide, think, and do, while the people try to find out what the government is hiding. One motif of the architecture is the inclusion of tiny mirrors, hints of an infinity of reflections and creations. But the mirrors, today, also might remind the people to keep a perpetual watch over their shoulders.
Maybe all nations have such contradictions. Iyer describes the “People’s Paradise” of North Korea as a place where people “seemed beside the point and perfection was the ruthless elimination of every imperfection.” Or I’m reminded that in the U. S., the “land of the free,” and leader of the democratic world, one of the two probable presidential candidates in the 2024 election promises to end democracy and rule as a dictator.
We must be careful with our yearning for paradise. As a metaphor, or momentary time of peace, it can be so wonderful, so beneficial. So needed for our health and even clarity of thinking.
But as a yearned-for resting place, or final solution, or final anything it undermines the clarity of our thinking, and can be deadly. It can lead to imagining heaven is obtained by destroying hell, good attained by destroying all those labeled “evil.” Some Hamas fighters, who invaded Israel October 7th and committed atrocities, did it for political reasons, to start a war to win statehood for Palestinians, or to exact vengeance on Israel. Many were allegedly given synthetic amphetamine to dull their natural empathy and moral restraints so they could kill and torture non-combatant Israeli women and young children and thus find their way to an after-life in paradise.
And because of the invasion by Hamas, so many Israelis were reminded of over 2000 years of atrocities against Jews and felt their very existence threatened. And some Hasidic or very religious, conservative Jews were in a state of spiritual ecstasy expecting the awful violence presaged the arrival of the Messiah who would lead the world to its ultimate state of perfection.
And maybe this is one not very popular interpretation of Genesis. That the expulsion from the Garden is caused not just by disobeying God’s commandment, but by dividing the world into only two sides, good and evil, heaven and hell.
But everything changes. So how can there be a final anything, except maybe in death or the destruction of everything? To try to impose an idea, an abstraction on reality is to live a half known life or to live at war with ourselves and others. Ideas can be so useful to steer or explore the best course of action. But as an expectation or demand of how people should behave or how the world must be, they can also lead to disappointment⎼ or to bombs, hate, and delusion.
Two Zen stories help clarify for me two aspects of what paradise might mean. One illustrates our interdependence or identity with others and the world. The second reminds us to be as intimate as we can with the silence within each breath and feeling.
In the first story, a Zen teacher, in deep meditation, visited the after-life. First, he went to hell, where he found people seated around long tables, loaded with delicious foods. But they had to eat with chopsticks over a meter in length, and so were unable to feed themselves and were deeply hungry and frustrated.
Then the master went to heaven and found the same situation, people seated, facing each other around tables filled with glorious foods. But instead of feeding themselves, they were using the chopsticks to feed their neighbors. Everyone was quietly smiling, enjoying the situation.
In the second story, a samurai went to visit the 17th-18th century Japanese Zen Master Hakuin and asked, “Is there a paradise and hell?”
Hakuin responded, “Who are you?”
“I am a samurai.”
“You, a samurai! You look more like a beggar. You’re unfit to carry a sword.”
The soldier, angered, started to draw his sword.
“That is hell,” said Hakuin.
Realizing Hakuin’s point, the samurai paused and sheathed his sword.
“That is heaven.”
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock