Paradise In A Rotted Apple

Deriving lessons on reality from rotted apples

Recently, I danced salsa with a homeless lady, and this has a lot to do with a Sufi story. I read it in Idries Shah’s The Sufis, and it’s an amusing example of a Sufi throwing shade on Zen:

A Zen story provides an interesting example [of how Nasrudin stories are more intelligible]. In this a monk asks a master to give him a version of the reality beyond reality. The master snatches up a rotten apple; and the monk perceives the truth by means of this sign. We are left in the dark as to what lies behind, or leads up to, the illumination.

The Nasrudin story about an apple fills in a great deal of missing detail: Nasrudin is sitting among a circle of disciples, when one of them asks him the relationship between things of this world and things of a different dimension. Nasrudin says, ‘You must understand allegory.’ The disciple says, ‘Show me something practical — for instance an apple from Paradise.’

Nasrudin picks up an apple and hands it to the man. ‘But this apple is bad on one side — surely a heavenly apple would be perfect.’

‘A celestial apple would be perfect,’ says Nasrudin; ‘but as far as you are able to judge it, situated as we are in this abode of corruption, and with your present faculties, this is as near to a heavenly apple as you will ever get.’

Also consider this, from the Aro gTér (a lineage of Vajrayana (read: Tibetan) Buddhism) book Roaring Silence:

Questioner: What is it like to experience the colour and texture of thought?

Khandro Déchen: [pause] What is it like to see this apple? [Khandro Déchen holds up an apple.]

Q: [pause] Like . . . well, you’re holding an apple – and . . . I can see that. [laughs] There seems to be something strange about that . . .

KD: Have a closer look. [Khandro Déchen throws the apple to the questioner.] What is it like now – to see and touch the apple?

Q: It’s cool and waxy . . . It’s very green, isn’t it! This doesn’t seem to be like an ordinary apple [laughs].

Ngak’chang Rinpoche: [laughs] There are no ordinary apples.

Q: What?

KD: That’s what it’s like – no ordinary apple.

NR: No ordinary anything. You become able to experience the colour, tone and texture of thought because you develop the experience of openness in which you can see thought in its spatial context.

KD: Here we are referring to space as the non-dual perception of emptiness and form. You have the apple in your hand – you can actually feel the apple. The apple is close enough to experience – you’re not distanced from it by thoughts about it, or by thoughts of anything else. You simply catch the apple in space, and there it is – in your hand. You have an immediate impression which is almost startling in its directness.

In both of these, we see something quite innocuous can reveal much. Rightly seen, even an apple can be a vision of paradise, and this is true even if you don’t believe in paradise (like the Aro gTér and most Buddhists).

Relating this to the Nasrudin story is when this gets really interesting. Sure, in Roaring Silence, it’s a fresh apple, but Nasrudin shows that even a half-rotted apple is still a heavenly apple. That is perhaps harder to ascertain, but any true encounter with reality will force you to engage with the half-rotted aspects of it, instead of sweeping them under the rug.

It is not too difficult. Everyone has likes and dislikes, and seeks out more of what they like and avoid what they dislike. The dislikes are the aspects of reality that are rotten (from your perspective at least), and while actively seeking out dislikes is perhaps excessive, it is possible to relate to them in a different way, and it’s a good idea to do so because you’re going to be running into them over and over anyway.

A big source of dislike for me is people. I was a bullied child, and I have suspicions I’m somewhere in the autism spectrum, so basically I don’t feel comfortable or at ease around people. At least I’m not as inhibited as I used to be these days: the anxiety manifests more as being overly excited.

These things are emotional weather in the end. While I’m in a period in my life where I’m learning to be more in tune with my emotions, I’m also learning to be careful with not overshooting the goal and having my emotions run away with me entirely. I know myself much better than I used to now.

For example, I do volunteer work with the homeless. During our most recent outing, I honestly felt a flash of hatred for a particular homeless lady. And I understand why: I want an apple of paradise, and before me is a very rotted apple. Then she delivered a 100% earnest anecdote about a miraculous healing through prayer. There’s no point in reproducing it, you really had to be there to see it. ¹

And I could see the truth in that quote of the Sufi poet Rumi:

The one who sees the ray of divine power in the smallest things in the world is a person of high understanding and high aspirations. Such a person respects himself and others and does not disdain the smallest of tasks, for he sees them as manifestations of divine power.

I could see how this was a manifestation of divine power. Or an incredibly real experience instead, if you prefer that interpretation (same concept, different words). That rotted apple is everywhere, and everywhere, it is an encounter with something beyond corruption.

Later that night, another homeless lady asked me to play her favorite salsa song in the speaker we were carrying around. Then she wanted to dance salsa with me. I attempted to learn to dance salsa recently, but gave it up because I just was not having fun. Whatever. I danced with her. It was very fun: she was an incredible dancer.

And so, while there are parts of me that are very averse to the homeless, I know that these emotional reactions are just my worldly faculties: there are deeper ones, truer ones, that see the value in even the homeless. That see the heavenly apple in the half-rotted apple.

Hilariously, I have a much easier time doing this with the homeless than with normies. The homeless have a certain intensity that normies lack, and I respect that intensity more than normie light-heartedness. But alas, normies too are a vision of paradise, a manifestation of divine power, and I will somehow have to learn to see them that way as well.

1. An interesting observation I encountered once is that Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad, never wrote anything down. They just spoke. The one making the observation also tossed Socrates in that bin.