- lucasbfoley
Adam & Eve: our story (1:34:08)
Here I explore the biblical myth of Adam & Eve. After briefly running down the story, I dive into a series of teachings.
I overlay the Buddhist concept of the 3 poisons/kleshas onto the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil, showing how the Buddha's framing aptly describes the fall of man & the dawning of original sin.
I look closely at the wording of the serpent & God, noting how the word "like" foreshadows the folly of Adam & Eve's ambitions. I map Adam & Eve's fall onto our spiritual evolution as individuals and a species, noting how the story begins with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil, and ends at the Tree of Life, which ironically stood beside each other in the garden's center.
I trace the origins of blame & delusion to Adam & Eve's first acts after eating the fruit, which are various forms of hiding. I explore notions of good & evil, contrasting the pre-fall view and the post-fall view, the latter defined by its rootedness in scarcity.
I end by drawing a moral from the story that maps onto Buddha's notion of the Middle Way, which I believe has two overlapping middles: a middle for our divinity, and a middle for our humanity. Both of which are in the opening heart, poised between the tugs of infatuation and aversion, which perhaps mirror the tug between our finite and infinite expressions.