re: #225 Barefoot Grin

The Japanese early 20th century writer Akutagawa Ryūnosuke read Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the hands of an angry god” and got the idea for a different kind of story. The Buddha is strolling around a lotus pond and peers over the edge. In the depths he can see sinners struggling and in particular a petty thief named Kandata. He decides that Kandata should have a chance at salvation and so he extends a spider’s web filament down for Kandata to grasp and climb out. But not long after Kandata starts climbing, the others in hell grab the filament and climb after him. Kandata selfishly kicks out at those climbing below. Seeing the struggle, Buddha cuts the web and they all go plunging back down into the darkness.

it’s basically my view of hell. number one: nobody actually has to be there, but number two: the people that find themselves there do so through an active repudiation of god’s salvation, and the reason they are not salvageable is because by the time they are in hell, there is nothing left to salvage. I think Dante was thinking along the same lines when he had a corrupt cardinal wandering around hell while his body was still alive in the world above. The cardinal (I think it was a cardinal) was so corrupt that his soul had already migrated to the Inferno while the body still kind of chugged along above.