Durham Shambhala Center

Dharma Corner

Go to Hell

My friend told me about the real meaning of the blindfolded figure of Justice holding the scales. Justice stood at the gates of Hades deciding who would go in, and to go in was to be chosen for refinement through suffering, adventure, transformation, a punishing route to the reward that is the transformed self. It made going to hell seem different. And it suggested that justice is a far more complicated and incalculable thing than we often imagine, that if everything is to come out even in the end, then the end is farther away than anticipated and far harder to estimate. It suggests too that to reside in comfort can be to have fallen by the wayside. Go to hell, but keep moving once you get there, come out the other side.

Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

 

©2007 Elizabeth Brownrigg