I wish that I had Jessie’s girl.
Rick Springfield
The Problem
The children of Eden suffered when they wanted something more. They lived in paradise, a garden gifted from God, made just for them, yet weren’t satisfied. In their search for something more, paradise was lost.
Looking deeper into Eden and the loss of the garden life for insatiable desert, we see how the children of Eden’s problems didn’t come just because they want something more; their problems came when they want something else.
The Text
Genesis 3: 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.
Pretend you are Eve or Adam, looking at the fruit, the appealing fruit, the one you desire. For whatever reason, you see this piece of fruit differently from others, this fruit seems to be the key piece to your life, one fruit better than others, one which fills the incomplete hole in belly and soul, the one preferred above all the rest, forbidden, prohibited, banned, but, for whatever reason, now indispensable, essential, one you cannot do without and be happy, a must have, at all cost, or all is lost.
Now, consider your life, and the lives of those you know. What are your perceived indispensible fruits, your must-haves for happiness?
Does Anthony De Mello describe you in this following quote?
There is only one reason why you’re not experiencing bliss at this present moment, and it’s because you’re thinking or focusing on what you don’t have.
Do you focus on what you don’t have? Are you in search of some unattained thing, circumstance, relationship on which your happiness depends? Are you incessantly looking for something else in which you’ve put your hope?
The Eden story points us to why our lives may be so unsatisfying. The tree Adam and Eve found so appealing yet so damning was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Other translations of the Hebrew words for good and evil here are helpful for a clearer understanding of the tree in the story and of our suffering. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil may be translated as: the knowledge of good and bad, good and not so good, or of good and less-than.
This dualistic, dividing, labeling, classifying knowledge is often what we seek.
Think of how frequently you discern between good and bad, or good and less-than. Walk through any grocery store, on a single aisle, how many times do you rate items from the good to the not so good or bad?
Think of people you know. How often do you rank a person’s behavior as good or not so good, or the persons themselves?
Think of life experiences. How often do you rate your life experiences?
Think about the experiences in the following list. Which do you think is better?
Being rich or being poor?
Being married or being single?
Being healthy or being ill?
Having children or not having children?
Having a job or being unemployed?
Being younger or being older?
Living or dying?
Were those questions difficult for you? Probably not.
Our general, often unspoken, consensus is that being rich is better than being poor, being married is better than being single, being healthy is better than being ill, having children is better than not having children, having a job is better than not having a job, being younger is better than being older, and living is better than dying.
This judging, this preferring one over another, this quest to know the good from the not so good, or the good from the less-than, could have been the source of the suffering for Adam and Eve in the Eden story, and it can be that same labeling is the source for our suffering.
Jianzhi Sengcan (d. 606) wrote that it is our attempts to discern good from less-than which causes us to suffer. And our liberation from our suffering, our key to a happy fulfilled life, comes from doing away with preferences. Sengcan wrote,
The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate (like and dislike) are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the mind’s essential (stillness) is disturbed to no avail.[1]
If you’re like me, when you read have no preferences… you think, ‘What do you mean, ‘have no preferences? How can you not like being rich over being poor? being healthy over being ill? being in a relationship to being alone? being employed to unemployed? being alive over dead? That’s crazy! After all, isn’t being well better than being ill, being in relationship better than being out, being rich better than being poor, being alive better than being dead?’
Well, is it? In the world as you observe it, are riches, health, or relationship any guarantee of happiness? Are healthy people necessarily happier than sick? Are rich people necessarily happier than poor? There are plenty of people with money who are unhappy, plenty of physically healthy people who are chronically sad, and, there are terminally ill people who are happy, divorced people who are satisfied, and unemployed people who are content. The difference is not their circumstances.
In Eden, isn’t it as soon as they pursue the forbidden fruit as their something more, their something else, as their if only…, that paradise is lost? Isn’t it true with us, as soon as we pursue something else, convinced that our lives short of this next desire are deficient, that we begin to suffer?
Consider these following people. Will their if only thinkinglead them to or away from happiness?
The single person: If only I was married, then I’d be happy.
The married person: If only I had kids, then I’d be happy.
The parent: If only my children respected me, then I’d be happy.
The unemployed person: If only I had a job, then I’d be happy.
The employed person: If only I got paid more, then I’d be happy.
The sick person: If only I were healthy, then I’d be happy.
The adult: If only I was younger, then I’d be happy.
The child: If only I was older, then I’d be happy.
All of these assume, if only I had something else then I would be happy. Are they right? Of course not. After all, if marriage was the end all to happiness, would there be so many divorces? If parenting brought nothing but joy, would there be so much abuse and neglect? If employment or pay gave us happiness would so many people leave their jobs for another?
If only leads us to the mistake of Adam and Eve, thinking that our happiness results from that one more piece of fruit. If happiness was something gained outside ourselves, through some formulated circumstance, then with all the change over the past two hundred years, wouldn’t we be the happiest people on earth? If more brought happiness, wouldn’t we be the happiest people who ever lived?
Consider our advances. Over the past two centuries, statesmen and political leaders have broadened the ability of government to shape communities for the better. Scientists have developed theories that set the foundation for industry after industry. Engineers in large companies have designed tools, machines, vehicles, electronics and appliances that have altered our daily lives. Professors and researchers have written books upon books about how our minds work and how we behave socially. Psychologists have developed therapies, and doctors have developed medicine and treatments to make us healthier. Yet, with all these advancements, with so much more than any generation of people has ever had before in the history of humanity, there is no evidence that we are happier today than people were a hundred or a thousand years ago.
We still think there is something more, something else in order to be happy, one more if only… which if we could get it, would make us happy. So we search our gardens, looking for the preferred thing, person, or experience, and like Adam and Eve, our hope for living in paradise is lost.
We know their story, but we keep chasing after the next apple, even though the next apple won’t make us content, finally once and for all happy. The reality is no fruit, experience, or situation will make an unhappy person happy. Studies of past lottery winners show that people who were happy before winning the lottery are happy after winning the lottery, and people who were unhappy before winning the lottery are unhappy after winning the lottery.
It is not the piece of fruit, the lottery ticket, the job, the spouse, or any other desirable that will give us satisfaction or contentment. Those must begin within, not changing the world but our orientation toward the world.
What we need is something Adam and Eve didn’t know. We need enough, and we need another word, another word to help us find happiness regardless of our circumstances, another word to help us find contentment even in the midst of great challenges, another to help us not only live differently but be differently. We need a word like… Ahhh
The Text Revisited
What if Adam and Eve had known Ahhh as well as Enough? If they had, their story would have likely gone something like this…
Genesis 3: the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise… but then she said to herself, “What are you thinking? You live in a beautiful garden. This is paradise. You have everything you need to be happy right here. You have enough.” She said it to herself again, “Enough.” Adam, who was with her affirmed, “Yes, we have enough.”
She thought, “Lots of trees here have good fruit just like that one. There’s no reason to think I’d be any fuller or happier with fruit from this tree.” She looked at the piece of fruit in her hand, a piece of fruit she had picked earlier from another tree. She took a bite from it and said, Ahhh. She gave some to her husband. He took a bite and said, Ahhh.
Then the two walked on, together.
Transformation
There once was a king who was so worried that he couldn’t sleep at night. He was worried, not because things were going badly in his kingdom, but because things were going well. Things had been going so well since he took his father’s throne, so well that he knew they couldn’t go that well for long. So he worried.
One evening, as he sat on his throne, the young prince of four years old sitting beside him, he called his advisors before him.
“Sages, I am troubled as king. I am worried for the future and I need your help. The one of you that gives me the best advice will receive this as his reward.” In the kings hand he held a very precious jewel. “What I want to know is, what is the most important thing for me to do as king, and when should I do it?”
Advisor after advisor came, with suggestions on planning, diet, exercise… none seemed to answer the king’s question of what he should do and when he should do it.
The king became bored, but not as bored as the young prince sitting next to him. The young prince rocked in his chair. He tottered then fell over backward. He wasn’t hurt but he was stuck underneath his chair and couldn’t get up. The king was so busy thinking about the future of the kingdom that he didn’t notice his young son fall over.
“Father…” the boy cried out.
“Not now my son, I’m listening to my advisors…sort of…”
“Father, I need you…”
“Not now…”
“Father, I need you now!”
The king looked over to his son, seeing his imprisonment he got up from his throne and turned over the chair and rescued his son. “You did need me now, didn’t you?” the king asked, and there was his answer.
“Thank you, my sages,” he said to his advisors, “I appreciate your help. But the best answer came today from my son.” Then he handed the prince the jewel. “The best thing for me to do as king is act, the best time to act is always now, for now is all that I have.”
He called for his son. Took him into his arms. He held him tight. He laughed. “I love being with you,” he said. Then, so soft only his son could hear it, he said, “Ahhh…”[2]
In moments other than now, we cannot be content. Contentment comes now. The king in the previous story learned that peace is only found in the present, no matter what good advice he got for the future, he could only say Ahhh in the present.
Hinduism offers a sound, Om.This sound is said to connect us to God, a form of prayer. I haven’t had much success praying Om.However, I have found Ahhh to be quite helpful.
For Adam and Eve in the garden, their quest for something more, something else, distanced them from God, I wonder if Ahhh would have helped them see just how close God was. It does for me. Ahhh relaxes me, opens my heart and mind, and creates in me a sense of peace. Joseph Wood Krutch, American naturalist, said, “Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude.” I find in Ahhh a sound, a prayer of gratitude, thanking God for the present moment, the present life, the present breath.
Consider your life.
Consider this moment right now.
Concentrate on your breathing.
Feel your chest and stomach move with each breath.
Open wide and say, Ahhh.
Say it again, Ahhh.
Once more, Ahhh.
[1]Jianzhi Sengcan (d. 606), Hsin Shin Ming, or Trust in Mind, this translation from the book Trust in Mind by Mu Soeng.
[2] I searched for the source of this story and couldn’t find it. I’m not sure if I read it or heard it, but to the unnamed author, please accept my apology for not crediting you and my gratitude for a wonderful story, one essential to this chapter.