The Buddha was in Hell because he had done something wrong,
extremely wrong, that caused a lot of suffering to himself and to others. That
is why he found himself in Hell. In that life of his, he hit the bottom of
suffering, because that Hell was the worst of all Hells. With him, there was
another man, and together they had to work very hard, under the direction of a
soldier who was in charge of Hell. It was dark, it was cold, and at the same
time, it was very hot. The guard did not seem to have a heart. It did not seem
that he knew anything about suffering. He did not know anything about the
feelings of other people, so he just beat up the two men in Hell. He was in
charge of the two men, and his task was to make them suffer as much as
possible.
I think that guard also suffered a lot. It looked like he
didn't have any compassion within him. It looked like he didn't have any love
in his heart. It looked like he did not have a heart. He behaved like a robber.
When looking at him, when listening to him, it did not seem that one could
contact a human being, because he was so brutal. He was not sensitive to
people's suffering and pain. That is why he was beating the two men in Hell,
and making them suffer a lot. And the Buddha was one of these two men in one of
his previous lives.
The guard had an instrument with three iron points, and every
time he wanted the two men to go ahead, he used this to push them on the back,
and of course, blood came out of their backs. He did not allow them to relax; he
was always pushing and pushing and pushing. He himself also looked like he was
being pushed by something behind him. Have you ever felt that kind of pushing
behind your back? Even if there was no one behind you, you have felt that you
were being pushed and pushed to do things you don't like to do, and to say the
things you don't like to say, and in doing that you created a lot of suffering
for yourself and the people around you. Maybe there is something behind us that
is pushing and pushing. Sometimes we say horrible things and do horrible
things, that we did not want to say or do, yet we were pushed by something from
behind. So we said it, and we did it, even if we didn't want to do it. That was
what happened to the guard in Hell: he tried to push because he was being
pushed. He caused a lot of damage to the two men. The two men were very cold, very
hungry, and he was always pushing and beating them and causing them a lot of
problems.
One afternoon, the man who was the Buddha in a former life
saw the guard treating his companion so brutally that something in him rose up.
He wanted to protest. He knew that if he intervened if he said anything if he
tried to prevent the guard from beating the other person, that he would be beaten
himself. But that something was pushing up in him, so that he wanted to
intervene, and he wanted to say: "Don't beat him so much. Why don't you
allow him to relax? Why do you have to stab him and to beat him and to push him
so much?" Deep within the Buddha was a pressure coming up, and he wanted
to intervene, even knowing perfectly well that if he did, he would be beaten by
the guard. That impulse was very strong in him, and he could not stand it
anymore. He turned around, and he faced the guard without any heart, and said,
"Why don't you leave him alone for a moment? Why do you keep beating him
and pushing him like that? Don't you have a heart?"
That was what he said, this man who was to be the Buddha.
When the guard saw him protesting like that, and heard him, he was very angry,
and he used his fork, and he planted it right in the chest of the Buddha. As a
result, the Buddha died right away, and he was reborn the very same minute into
the body of a human being. He escaped Hell, and became a human being living on
earth, just because compassion was born in him, strong enough for him to have
the courage to intervene to help his fellow man in Hell.
When I read this story, I was astonished, and I came to the
conclusion that even in Hell there was compassion. That was a very relieving
truth: even in Hell there is compassion. Can you imagine? And wherever
compassion is, it's not too bad.
Do you know something? The other fellow saw the Buddha die.
He was angry, and for the first time he was touched by compassion: the other
person must have had some love, some compassion to have the courage to
intervene for his sake.
That gave rise to some compassion in him also that is why he
looked at the guard, and he said, "My friend was right, you don't have a
heart. You can only create suffering for yourself and for other people. I don't
think that you are a happy person. You have killed him." And after he said
that, the guard was also very angry at him, and he used his fork and planted
the fork in the stomach of the second man, who also died right away, and was
reborn as a human being on earth.
Both of them escaped Hell and had a chance to begin anew on
earth, as full human beings. What happened to the guard, the one who had no
heart? He felt very lonely because in that Hell there were only three people
and now the other two were dead. He began to see that these two were not very
kind, or very nice, but to have people living with us is a wonderful thing. Now
the two other people were dead, and he was alone, utterly alone there.
He could not bear that kind of loneliness, and Hell became
very difficult for him. Out of that suffering, he learned something: he learned
that you cannot live alone. Man is not our enemy. You cannot hate man, you
cannot kill man, you cannot reduce man to nothingness, because if you kill man,
with whom will you live? He made a vow that if he had to take care of other
people in Hell, he would learn how to deal with them in a nicer way, and a
transformation took place in his heart. In fact, he did have a heart. To
believe that he did not have a heart is wrong -- everyone has a heart. We need
something or someone to touch that heart, to transform it into a human heart.
So this time the feeling of loneliness, the desire to be with other humans, was
born in him. That is why he decided that if he had to guard other people in
Hell, he would know how to deal with them with more compassion. At that time,
the door of Hell opened, and a bodhisattva appeared, with all the radiance of a
bodhisattva. The bodhisattva said, “Goodness has been born in you, so you don't
have to endure Hell very long. You will die quickly and be reborn as a human very
soon."
(Told by Master Thich Nhat Hanh)
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