Heaven or Hell?

Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one that gets burned.

The Buddha

There is a couple of buddhist tales I recently heard.  I may be stepping beyond my rights here, but I combined the two into one. My bad. 

There is  zen story about a Japanese monk. During feudal times, samarui warriors were set out to eliminate all buddhists from Japan. Led by a ruthless general, they were vicious, slaughtering, disemboweling, and hanging out the dead bodies of buddhist monks as a sample of what they would do to practicing buddhists. Everyone was terrified. Monks fled in great number, abandoning their monastry's, and went into hiding. All but one. 

Word got out that one monk refused to abandon his monastry.  The general heard this news and was furious. "Who would have the nerve not to be afraid of me and what I can do?" he screamed before jumping on his horse and riding to the monastry. When he and his army burst through the monastry doors they discovered a small and frail looking monk standing in the center of the  courtyard. Still, quiet and unarmed this monk watched the sword yielding general jump off his horse and approach him.  

When the general was close enough, he stood up to his full height and looked down at the little monk. 

"Don't you know who I am???" he shouted pointing the tip of his sharp sword at the monk's belly. "Don't you know I could drive this sword through your belly removing all your insides?"

The monk, unflinching with nothing but equanmity in his eyes slowly  looked up at the warrior general and calmly said,

"Don't you know who I am?" his voice was calm and free of emotion." Don't you know I could allow you to drive the sword through my belly removing all my insides?"

The general shook his head in disbelief . "You do not know what hell is, do you?" 

Again the monk just looked at the warrior and pointing to his heart where this hate was festering, and calmly said, "This is hell." 

The warrior paled with those words and began to tremble recognizing instantly the truth in the small man's words. As if he was being controlled by some other entity he placed his sword, back in his sheath, bowed his head, and began to cry. 

The monk placed a small hand on the warrior's shoulder, an act of complete empathy and forgiveness.

"And this" he whispered. "Is heaven."

All is well.