The monk Shuzan said, ‘If there’s even a hair’s breadth of difference, heaven and hell are clearly set apart.’
There are some advanced Buddhist metaphysics underlying this statement, I am sure of that. But Watashi-wa understands it in a more simple way. Or rather, I would like to rephrase it to express a more mundane truth: the difference between heaven and hell is the breadth of a hair.
I often find myself thinking that what I am doing is not what I should be doing. For example, I will be doing my Greek homework, but the thought that I should really go to the supermarket will be niggling away at me, a sort of low level hum of discontent.
Eventually the hum will get louder and I will close my book and go to the supermarket. But when I am in the supermarket, I will be thinking that I really should be studying Greek! Or if not that, then I will think that I am wasting my time shopping and that I should be doing something more productive, like painting. Unbelievable, isn’t it?
But I think most Western people are like this, most of the time. Most people don’t realise it, but once you do, you realise that it is a sort of hell. There is no peace in it.
The solution is simple to state, but difficult to live by. When I am studying Greek, I should just study Greek, with all my attention. Then I will enjoy it. And when I go shopping, I should just do that, and enjoy the experience of shopping. That is heaven, whereas hell is being in one place or state but wanting to, or feeling that you should, be in another.
This is why I think that the line between heaven and hell is very fine.
watashi-wa in the snow 