Bassui: An Arrow Flies Straight to Hell

"The mind is host, the body is guest."

Zen master and historical figure, Bassui was born in Japan in 1327. Rejected by his mother at birth, Bassui is recorded to have been raised by a family servant. At age 29 he became a monk, but he did not shave his head or wear robes; he did not recite Sutras, like other monks. His practice was the most simple practice. It can be called the practice of no practice. This was to be Bassui's Way throughout his life.

As a Zen master, Bassui was often questioned; often he gave reply. In one instance he was asked: "The spirit is this skin, this skin is the one spirit. Is this correct?"

Bassui replied affirmatively to the question.

"If so,' continued the questioner, 'who will become buddha after the body's dispersed to the four winds? Who will sink into the sea? What will be the reason for keeping the precept that prevents crime?"

To this Bassui replied, "If you continue holding this view, in which you deny cause and effect [karma], like an arrow, you will fly straight to hell. Do you have dreams?

Questioner: Yes.

Bassui: What do you usually see in your dreams?

Questioner: It's not always fixed. I usually see things that occur in my mind and through my body.

Bassui: The rising and sinking after death are also like that. All thoughts that come are by way of the four elements that comprise the physical body. Dreams in the night follow suit and appear in accordance to the good or bad thoughts of the day... An ancient said, 'You receive a body according to Karma, and your body in turn produces Karma. You should realize the continuity of the body in this life and in the next... If you truly understand this, then you cannot doubt the statement that the one spirit in this skin is the one spirit in that skin.

Questioner: Now I realize that the body and the mind are not separate. This being the case, the significance of 'seeing into one's Buddha nature' is relegated to the leaves and branches [of a tree]. If you simply stop doing bad deeds concerning your physical body, practice various good deeds, practice the precepts, and eliminate evil thoughts, will you then become a Buddha?

Bassui:
All thoughts are born of deluded ideas feelings [disordered thinking]. If you do not see penetratingly into your own nature, though you try to eliminate evil thoughts, you will be like the one who tries to stop dreaming without waking up. All evil deeds are rooted in deluded thoughts. If you cut out the roots, how can the leaves grow?... If he were a man who penetrated his own nature, how could he even think of committing a sin in which he breaks precepts?

A Theology of Evil

"The Devil has a whole system of theology and philosophy...which explains that created things are evil...in fact the whole universe is full of misery..." Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

According to the Evil One, the creator rejoices in the sufferings of men; the universe is filled with misery because the creator himself plans it and wills it. In myriad ways, the implication of a move toward what is good within a spiritual tradition, by definition, acknowledges its opposite, what is evil. This is an idea which has not been directly explored here before.

Evil is indeed the counterpoint to many if not most spiritual systems and modes of practice. Yet in a modern, pluralistic society such as the United States, its presence may be easily obscured by many factors, and it may be enveloped and packaged into a number of other ideas. Without clear, careful awareness of the implications of a thought or action, an individual or a mass movement, evil easily arises into our midst.

Thomas Merton writes-- indeed, says within this system, the Creator took real pleasure in the crucifixion of souls; the Christ came to earth so as to be punished. Punishment is in fact his chief goal for himself and for all others. The pair, the Christ and his creator, want nothing more than to punish and persecute; that mankind inevitably is in error, he is wrong, so much so that there is great opportunity to manifest the justice of the wicked.

In the cosmos of the Evil One, the first order of creation is Hell; it comes first, before all else. The proper devotions of the faithful are about evil so as to be cloaked with evil. It is so that man cannot escape his punishments, the justice that this One metes out.There is no escape for individuals, nor for society in this way; there is no mercy, for it has no place in these systems of justice by punishments. The suffering, the Christ and his cross have now been transformed into a new symbol, a symbol for the victory of Justice and Law.

The Evil One declares that it is Law and Justice, not Love that fulfills the teaching. "Law must devour everything,' writes Merton, 'such is this theology of punishment, hatred and revenge."
Those who live by this dogma, live for just punishments, and yet desire to successfully evade the very same for themselves. He or she will take care to see to it that others do not avoid suffering. This concern powers the believer. The chief mark of hell is that there is everything but mercy. God absents himself from hell.

His mercy is elsewhere. Those in agreement with the Evil One are perfect; they no longer have need of any mercy. It is perhaps because "they derive a deep, subconscious comfort from the thought that many other people will fall into hell which they themselves are going to escape."

By this feeling, this conviction they are saved. The Evil One makes many disciples; he furthers his conquest through announcements against sin, the evil of sin which is guilt. So don't feel guilty, lest you fall into sin! In syllogistic logic, the principle of pleasure is explored:
 pleasure is sin; all sin is pleasure.
Next comes the notion that since pleasure is practically unavoidable, indeed planted here by the creator, we have a natural tendency towards evil, our nature is evil; therefore practically no one can escape sins because pleasure is inescapable. And so in the philosophy of the Evil One, what is left except to live for pleasure, to live in the now--with no thought of anyone or anything else beyond the self?

Ironic how those lives are often miserably unhappy ones, isn't it? Yet it's all in the plan of Justice and Punishments devised by this creator who works without mercy or grace, explains Thomas Merton in his essay, "The Moral Theology of the Devil."

C.S. Lewis, Apostle to the Skeptics

"By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient's reason; once awake, who can foresee the result?" C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Chad Walsh writing in his delightful 1949 apology, first serialized in the Atlantic Monthly magazine, later published in book form has much to say about the genius of the Irish author, Lewis whom he likens to Saint Paul. No "Christian apologist in the English speaking world today is as much talked about and argued about as C.S. Lewis." So it remains today, 50 years later.
At Oxford university, England the young Lewis studied the Classics. While there he seemed "a gifted student with a bit more imagination than average," writes Walsh. A favorite author of the young Lewis was G. K. Chesterton. At age 30 he joined the Anglican Church of England. In 1933 Lewis published Regress, a volume which brought him notice.

And now we rejoin him at the Screwtape Letters' apology by Chad Walsh. With the publication of the "Screwtape Letters starting in 1941, Lewis was a surprise to everyone." Walsh describes the book as a "neat turning the tables on everyone... the writing from the viewpoint of Hell--put the shoe on the other foot; he [Lewis] charged the secularists with intellectual fuzziness. And the secularists-- those who had a sense of humor--read the book for a good natured laugh."

In the course of 31 letters, His Infernal Excellency finds "numerous occasions to warn Wormwood that Reason and Thought are menaces to the purposes of Hell. 'The trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle onto the Enemy's ground." Wormwood as Lewis conceives, is not to clarify or reason with one, but to confuse, to befuddle. Some have called this the 'divine lie.' In another passage in the book, Hell is mentioned as having made Wormwood's job all the easier by encouraging 'evolutionary' European thought . This, says Screwtape gives the 'invisible agents' of Hell an excellent opportunity to whisper suggestions to them "while their minds rattle around an intellectual vacuum."

Later he writes that "no one except specialists read old books... In this way, the present period of history is cut off from other periods, and there is little danger that the characteristic truths of the past will correct the typical errors of the present." Ultimately, Lewis, in the voice of Screwtape, has much to say about Faith. Despite his view of Faith, Lewis does not see that, for the most part, Faith is set apart from Reason, unlike most scholars of his time. Lewis insists that Reason is the key to every enduring Faith.