There is a famous Zen parable that tells the story of a rich man’s son who was lost or kidnapped. In the parable, the rich man searches for his son everywhere, but to no avail. Years pass, until one day a beggar comes to the rich man’s house looking for alms. The beggar is fed and turns to leave, but as he is going out of the compound gate, the rich man looks out from his upstairs window and recognizes the beggar as his long lost son.
Overjoyed, the rich man sends one of his servants to bring the young man to him. However, when his son the “beggar” hears that the nobleman has summoned him, he becomes afraid that something is wrong. “What do I”, he declares, “a simple beggar, have I to do with such a great nobleman?” and runs away.
The rich man then realizes that his son must slowly regain his trust and confidence before he is ready to take his former place in the household again. So he sends a loyal servant, dressed as a beggar, to befriend his “beggar” son.
After they have been wandering together for a good while, the servant convinces the beggar son to take a menial job in the rich man’s house. Then the rich man slowly promotes the “beggar” to higher and higher positions of responsibility until he is responsible for running the whole household. Finally, after many years, the rich man makes a feast and in front of all his friends and household declares:
“This servant who has served me so well is in fact my long lost son. I give to him everything that I own.”[i]
There are times in our life, when we are so low that everything around us looks dark and gloomy. We feel that God has abandoned us and that there is no hope left. We feel like a lost beggar wandering aimlessly in the world.
This Zen parable comes to tell us in response: “do not be worried, do not be afraid; God is watching over you. In fact, He is slowly bringing you back home into His arms, if only you have the eyes to see Him at work.”
Like the lost son in the story, there is a particular path that will lead each of us back to our rightful place. The journey for some of us is the gentle movement of the parable from gardener to trusted servant to son. For others, the way is more tangled and bumpy, where we must pass through a great deal of suffering and difficulty before we discover our true identity. But for all of us, the central truth of this story remains: God is watching over us and preparing our way forward, even if sometimes it is very hard to imagine how this could possibly be true.
On the Shabbat after Tisha B’Av, we read the portion from the prophet Isaiah that begins with the words: “nachamu, nachamu ami” – “comfort ye, comfort ye my people.” In fact, this Shabbat is traditionally known as Shabbat Nachamu – the Shabbat of consolation. Many commentators have asked why there is this double repetition of the word nachamu – comfort in Isaiah’s prophecy. This Zen parable gives us one possible answer to this question.
After the destruction of the Temple, the Jewish people were like the lost son in this story. Exiled far from our home with no hope of coming back, we wandered all over the world like beggars, thinking that our Father in Heaven had abandoned us. But the truth is that He never abandoned or forgot about us at all. God recognized us as “his lost son” and was bringing us slowly towards Him over the past two thousand years.
This is the double consolation of Isaiah’s prophecy: The first consolation was God’s promise and assurance that He will bring us back to the land. The second consolation is neither a promise nor an assurance. It is the sudden realization that we were never really alone: in everything that we went through as a people, during all our wanderings, God was always there with us, guiding our journey home.
In his explanation of the parable of the rich man’s son, the Zen Master Zenkei Shibayama points out a striking detail in the story: When the lost son first comes to his father’s house as a beggar, his father recognizes him immediately and sends one of his servants to bring his son to him. However, when the “beggar” hears that the rich man wants to see him, he becomes afraid – thinking to himself: “what do I have to do with such a nobleman?” and runs away. It is only after the failure of this first attempt to bring the son home that the father goes through the long charade of treating him first like a beggar and then a servant and finally revealing that he is reality his own son.
Master Shibayama explains that this is exactly what happened to the Buddha after his enlightenment:
On the morning following his realization, the Buddha cried out: “Everybody is endowed with the wisdom and appearance of Tathagata [the enlightened One]!” or “All beings are primarily Buddhas!”
However, when the populace heard the Buddha’s teaching, like the lost son who thought he was a beggar, they would not even listen to him. “How absurd”, they said, “we are so sinful, greedy and ill tempered. How could we be enlightened beings? Don’t deceive us”, they told the Buddha and ran away.
Like the rich man in the parable, the Buddha then had to adopt a different method of teaching whereby he slowly revealed to the people the ultimate truth.
First he taught: “You are sinful creatures and are in defilement. Repent, and purify yourselves”…Then, he went on to say…”Everything with form changes. Everything in the world is just a result of causes and conditions. The happiness of life is to come to this realization and live with no attachment.”
In this way, the Buddha gradually went on to expound higher and higher teachings until the day came at last when he could declare the great truth:
“The time has come”, he said, “for me to show you the Truth. Everyone listen to me carefully. All Buddhas appear in this world in order to awaken human beings to the true wisdom [that all being are Buddhas].”[1]
Now the people were ready to receive his words.
Most of us find it difficult to believe that God is within us. We feel so limited and imperfect that we can’t imagine ourselves being one with the Creator of the Universe. It is only after many lifetimes of spiritual searching and practice that we reach the place where we are able to internalize this extraordinary truth.
This explanation of the experience of the Buddha provides us with a novel approach to Biblical history.
In the beginning, God infused the first humans with a spark of the Divine Mind and then placed them on a higher plane of consciousness, which we call the Garden of Eden. On the plane of Eden, humanity lived in bodies composed of light and communed freely with the Lord. They lived in their rightful place as “children of the rich man.”
Unfortunately, humanity was unable to hold on to this sublime state of consciousness – they were unable to live as Divine beings. As a result, they fell from Eden and were forced to live as “wandering beggars” lost in the exile of this material world.
After many years of wandering, God again recognized his “lost children.” He sent His servant Moses to the people of Israel to start the process of bringing them back home. At Sinai, the people of Israel were told that “you are all Buddhas”, you are all “children of the rich man” - you are all “a nation of priests.”
However, the Children of Israel were unable to accept this truth and enter into the lofty state of consciousness that it imparts. Instead, they chose the familiar reality of the Golden Calf. And again when they were commanded to conquer the Promised Land, they could not hold on to the higher vision. They became terrified by the grim report of the spies, decided not to fight and wanted to return to Egypt.
As a result of this lack of faith - this lack of vision, the generation of the Exodus was condemned to die off in the desert. The teaching of the “ultimate wisdom” was abandoned for the time being, and a much longer and more gradual process of awakening was begun.
The Midrash gives us an inkling of this truth, when it uses their similar Hebrew spellings to make a connection between God’s cry of “ay-eikah?” – “where are you?” (Genesis 3:9) after Adam and Eve have eaten of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge in Eden, and the cry of the prophet Jeremiah over the destruction of Jerusalem “Eichah yashva baddad haear rabotai am!”, “How does the city sit solitary that was full of people!” (Lamentation 1:1)
This Midrash is telling us that Tisha B’Av is not a solitary event; it is part of a larger picture – part of a greater process that is working out through the length of human history. It is part of the ongoing relationship between God and His creation. It is one expression of a universal paradigm that underlies all our experiences in this world.
This is yet another way of understanding the double repetition in the words of the prophet Isaiah “Nachamu, nachamu ami” – “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people”: The first consolation is that one-day we shall realize that we are all Divine beings – we are all “children of the rich man.” The second consolation is that we will realize that we always have been “Buddhas” – in fact, we never have been anything else. We have always existed on this exalted plane of consciousness.
When the appropriate moment in our spiritual evolution arrives, the Lord will once again ask us the question “ayeikah?” – “Where are you” or “who are you” or “who am I?” This time, the answer will radiate from our very being: “we are all sparks of our Father, we are all enlightened, we are all Divine.”
With these words, our incarnation on this physical plane will have reached its culmination. The tikkun or spiritual repair of the Great Fall that took place in Eden will be complete. And the double consolation vouchsafed for humanity will have finally been fulfilled.
Copyright ã 2007, by Yoel Glick
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