Missing the Mark, Our Initial Delusion.
A follow-up to Avowal of Karma. Link below.
Ignorance
The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden is a story of mankind’s original misconception which is rooted in ignorance. Their story is often described as the first sin which I translate as missing the mark. They missed the mark.
A more comprehensive understanding is:
Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way. Proverbs 19.2
Consider the reference of desire as greed, hate and delusion and those who make haste…and miss his way as captive to mental formations of form, feeling, perception, impulse, and ego-consciousness.
Each of these formations are in two categories.
- The first category includes the three poisons.
- The second category includes the mental formations (in the mind).
Both are studied and mastered as one would master a team of horses. The team of horses need training. Each of us needs to learn and practice how to train the mind which is the head of the other five horses.
Eve and then, Adam
Adam and Eve did not have knowledge of good and evil until after they ate from the forbidden tree. In other words, they were ignorant. Since they were both unaware and uninformed, desire and the other poisons got the best of them as Proverbs describes. It is not good to be unaware and uninformed and leads to hasty actions that bring unwanted results.
This newly minted pair were unaware and uninformed about the power of desire (greed) hate and delusion. Furthermore, the five mental formations were not under control. The gatecrasher (an unknown form) came to tempt Eve. Without knowledge she misses her way with a hasty decision to eat the fruit.
Tempted by her innate desire born of body, speech, and mind made her easy prey.
Despite the directive:
“You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.”
The gatecrasher persuaded Eve she would not die but would be like God if she did eat the fruit.
“You will not die, 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,[a] knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:4
Eve believed the gate crasher because she did not know it was a lie. She walked with God, so she did not know birth and death, truth from lies and even the sense of temptation. The temptation of the gatecrasher countermanded the Divine directive.
Eve believed the added information. She forgot, overlooked, was tempted, and impulsive, because she lacked knowledge in the form of experience. She knew she could eat all the fruit from all the trees except for one. She forgot the caution not to touch the tree in the middle, nor eat of it… for if she did, she shall die.
The gatecrasher assured her:
“You will not die, 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,[a] …knowing good and evil.”
Eve is ignorant of the knowledge that would help her master her mind.
If we follow the insight of Proverb 19.2 above, we see that the odds were stacked against Eve. She did not know what it would mean to know good and evil. And she did not know what death meant?
Proverbs 19.2 sheds light on her misconception and ignorance. She mistook the gatecrasher’s deception as true because she lacked an understanding of the consequences of action. In other words, she, much like a child, did not understand deception or cause and effect.
The gatecrasher deceived Eve, and Eve offered the ill-gotten fruit to Adam. Their actions resulted in effects that were not expected because of ignorance and misconception (delusion).
The lesson in the story is potent for the rest of mankind since we are not as ignorant and those of us who study our mind know consequences or effects follow our actions. Take for instance a toddler. We are vigilant of the toddler’s actions since the toddler is unaware and uninformed of the dangers of the things in a house. We plug electrical outlets so the toddler will not jab something into the holes. We keep the toddler away from sharp objects and fire.
Vigilance is the price of safety. Vigilance is a practice of parental mind for us.
We attend and master the mind and the five other sense doors to prevent harm, to cultivate equanimity and to purify our mind.
In Buddhism it is called, parental mind.
Parental mind (literally “old mind”) takes great care with whatever, and whomever, one encounters, not distinguishing between self and other. Unforgettably, Dogen instructs cooks to handle ingredients “as if they were their own eyes.” Parental Mind
Adam and Eve, at least in the story, did not have an aware and informed mind to make them aware and inform them of danger. It is no surprise that their innate desire got the better of them.
If one is unaware and uninformed of the reality of cause and effect (karma), one is certain to make errors. It is their ignorance of good and evil and the lack of knowledge of cause and effect which made them easy prey for the gatecrasher.
They were unaware of consequences that follow actions and lacked the knowledge to understand the good and evil. AND…they were so innocent not to recognize that desire was an inborn part of being human.
Rather than see Adam & Eve as an ancient story of the first humans, it is more useful to see us as we are in the same boat of lacking knowledge of our misperceptions and our forgetfulness of the consequences of our actions. We have not gone far from the ignorance of thinking the material world of desires is where peace and equanimity exists.
We start out in ignorance. Blind to what it means to be born in a body, with speech and mind. We have a semblance of what is good and evil, but even that is up for debate. What does seem more entangled for modern man is that good and evil encompasses a countless array of
“opposites.”
Opposites abound. Up and down, in and out, male and female, birth and death, hot and cold, and the list goes on. We have already received notice that doing work would be toil and birth would be laborious, which to a great degree, is true. But the movement of Adam and Eve out of ‘paradise’ is another chance, a gift to learn and mature.
Now it is true humans do eventually die, the body ages, gets sick, and dies, however, we have an opportunity to find our true nature for as long as we live. In other words, to gain knowledge of our true nature and to develop awareness of reality.
We each have the chance to awaken and liberate ourselves from temptation, expectation, entanglement, and attachment.
When we count on the material world for satisfaction, we remain caught in ignorance.
A Tailpiece
I have heard many people exclaim the misery and suffering of their lives. Depression, anxiety, and rage accompanies the dissatisfaction of a miserable life. No one is spared. Each one of us has been lured away by some gatecrasher of some sort to take a taste of something that is never going to satiate our hunger and thirst. BUT we think and hope it will.
We are more like Adam than we would like to admit. Yes, Adam! That fellow who took no responsibility for being lured into eating what was prohibited. He pointed blame at his wife. We blame others, circumstances, things, situations for our foul and harmful acts as well.
Blame is a trap door which invites us into a delusion which we think and believe will bring relief. But what we find is more suffering in the form of depression, anxiety, sluggishness, and feelings of failure and isolation.
Many of us do not recognize that we have innate power to avoid the trap door. We have the power to decide to say, “No!” to the gatecrasher.
Link
