I am . . .
“A big, tough samurai once went to see a little monk.
“Monk!”
He barked, in a voice accustomed to instant obedience.
“Teach me about heaven and hell!”
The monk looked up at the mighty warrior and replied with utter disdain,
“Teach you about heaven and hell? I couldn’t teach you about anything. You’re dumb. You’re dirty. You’re a disgrace, an embarrassment to the samurai class. Get out of my sight. I can’t stand you.”
The samurai got furious. He shook, red in the face, speechless with rage. He pulled out his sword, and prepared to slay the monk.
Looking straight into the samurai’s eyes, the monk said softly,
“That’s hell.”
The samurai froze, realizing the compassion of the monk who had risked his life to show him hell! He put down his sword and fell to his knees, filled with gratitude.
The monk said softly,
“And that’s heaven.”
Excerpted from Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values.”
(The preceding quote is from the site http://www.onbeing.org/blog/the-little-monk-and-the-samurai-a-zen-parable/5496, accessed 10-31-2016.)
Of course, the truth is that we are not what we do or feel at any given moment. And the truth is that we are what we do or feel at any given moment. We are more than what we do, but we are not less than what we do.
I have been trying a trick suggested by some Buddhist writers. When I am feeling gluttonous, for example, I say, “I am gluttony.” For some reason, this seems to help me not be quite so gluttonous. I’m not sure why.
Of course, I follow up such statements as, “I am gluttony,” with the statement, “I am the awareness of gluttony.”
This approach sometimes has some strangely amusing effects. For example, I was inclined to engage in sexual fantasy, so I promptly said, “I am sexual fantasy.” I then said, “I am awareness of sexual fantasy.”
Then, I felt pride that I had arrested my sexual fantasy in mid-lust, so I said, “I am pride.”
That felt rather foolish, so I said, “I am awareness of pride.”
At this point, I laughed, and forgot to say, “I am laughter.”
In any case, this simple trick seems to be helping me not to yield to evil as much as I usually do.
As is often the case, there is an even deeper truth, I believe: I am ultimately not primarily what I think, or feel, or do. Rather, I am what and who God thinks I am. And I believe that God thinks of me as his deeply flawed, but also deeply loved and forgiven child of his. As helpful as I find this Buddhist koan, I find the doctrine of God’s love and Christ’s sacrificial death even more helpful.
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