Garden of Eden
(In)
the Old Testament image of Genesis 2: 8-14, Eden is described as with “the
tree
of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil,” and with a river, moreover, that divides and becomes four rivers, flowing
in the four directions. TMD 193
So
let us return to our consideration of the cross in relation to its
mythological prelude,
the fairy tale of
the serpent who could talk, and the Fall of Man in the garden – which supplies
the upbeat to the downbeat of our story of man’s need for redemption.
We all well know the amusing tale as recounted –without any sense,
however, of its fun – in the second chapter of Genesis. It is
based on a folktalk-type known to folklorists as “the one forbidden things” – of
which “Bluebeard” is a good example (“You may open all the doors in my castle
but one!”). It commences with a scene of pre-dawn peace,
quiet, and wondrous solitude, as do many of the world’s delightful early tales
of the Earth-Shaper and his giving of life to creatures of his imagination.
When
God walked in the garden in the cool of day and saw them, he asked, “Who told
you that you were naked? You have leaves on!
Have you eaten of that tree?” Adam blamed Eve, Eve
blamed the serpent, and the upshot of it all was that this god – who was, as he
later explained, “a jealous god” (Exod. 20:5) – became fearful, because, as he
told the angels, “the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and
now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the
tree of life, and eat, and
live for ever; Therefore,” as our Scripture says, “the Lord God sent him forth
from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.
He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the
cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the
tree of life” (Gen. 3:22-24).
Until
only a few years ago, a person could be put to death for openly questioning the
validity of this fairy tale as the authorized, eyewitness account of an
actual historical, or prehistorical, misadventure: the eyewitness, of course,
being God himself, and this Word of God being revealed to the only people in the
world who know what God is and how he should be worshiped. By
this account, the gods of the Gentiles – of the Greeks and Romans, Germans,
Hindus, and the rest – are, if not devils, then mere figments of man’s misguided
imagination, as Yahweh and the serpent in the garden are not.
TMD 200
First, the mouth of one is closed, and of the other open.
They are thus a pair
of opposites.
Good and evil
are a pair of opposites; so, also, male and female – as
Adam and Eve
realized when, having eaten of the fruit of the tree, they saw that they were
naked. The exile followed this discovery of duality,
opposition, separation: it was then that they become separated from God.
Approaching the imposing gate of the Buddhist temple at
Likewise in ourselves, if our attachment to ego has not been conquered, so that the fear of death and a desire for continued life are still the governing principles of our experience and action, we are unfit psychologically to pass through the guarded gate to the Immovable Spot, where the Buddha sits. Physically we may go through the gate and walk along the broad path into the temple, there to stand taking pictures, or in prayer; but we shall not by that physical act have made the passage psychologically. TMD 203/4
For the Bodhi-tree is not geographically situated – as Eden was once thought to be – but is within us, and to be found there; and what is keeping us away from it is attachment to our separate lives as egos – to ahamkara, as the Indians say, “the making of the sound, I.”
In other words: it is our own attachment to our temporal lives that is keeping us out of the garden. Could we get rid of this, we should walk in truth through what has been called, in a Japanese Zen Buddhist work, “The Gateless Gate,” Mu-mon, since nothing is there, no cherub at either hand, only our own misidentification of ourselves with our mortal part. TMD 204
For as we have heard: When the Lord God discovered that the man fashioned
to work in his garden had been lured by his wife and a serpent into eating the
fruit of the tree of knowledge, which he had reserved for himself, he cursed the
serpent to crawl on its belly, the woman to give birth in pain, and his
disobedient gardener to toil “in the sweat of his face” on an Earth of dust
cursed to bring forth thorns and thistles. And then, as we
read: “lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and live
forever – therefore Yahweh sent them forth from the garden… and at the east of
the garden of Eden placed the cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every
way, to guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3).
It is surely clear (and can be shown) that the two trees in question are aspects of the one Bo Tree of Enlightenment and Eternal Life under which Prince Gautama sat, where the cosmic serpent Mucalinda lived, and the Goddess (here in reduced form as the serpent’s messenger, Eve) testified to the right of Man to come to the knowledge of the now forbidden Light. G xxiv