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to do anything against his will. And he has not left his monastery for thirty years. If you want to see him, you will have to go to the mountains to his monastery."
The emperor said, "If that is the situation, then I will go. I don't want to kill him. I have a question, and many people have suggested to me that there is only one man, Nan In, who can answer the question."
He went to Nan In; he was sitting just in front of his house, on the lawn. The emperor bowed down, sat in front of Nan In, and asked him, "I have come to get an answer: What is hell and what is heaven? I have asked many people, but all that they give as an answer is not their own experience. They are not eyewitnesses, they are only scholars -- they have read about it. That I can do myself, but how can I know hell really exists? or heaven?"
At that very moment Nan In said, "You are such an idiot -- who made you the emperor of the country?"
The emperor could not believe it! He had never expected, never dreamt that he would be received with such rudeness. And he has not done anything wrong -- just asked a question. He was a warrior. He pulled his sword out of its sheath, and was going to kill Nan In, then and there. When the sword was just hanging over the head of Nan In, Nan In said, "This is hell. You are standing exactly at the door of it."
Suddenly, a great realization... and all anger settled; a silence descended. He put back his sword, and Nan In said, "You have turned your back towards hell, and in front of you is the gate of heaven. This is my answer."
The emperor had never thought that answers can be given through situations too; in fact, real answers can only be given through situations. But he became perfectly aware that anger, violence, rage, jealousy and the whole gang of these kinds of qualities what constitutes hell. And love, silence, blissfulness, compassion, joy... a moment-to-moment living in gratefulness towards existence, is what heaven is constituted of.
He touched the feet of Nan In and he said, "You have answered me -- and this is not the answer of a scholar, this is the answer of a man who knows. I am immensely grateful. But
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