Listen:
OPENING WORDS: "This Day"
This day within its fullest breadth
Is all time past, all time to come;
Within its miracles of breath
Are moment, hours, and life, and home.
The sea, a thousand thousand years
Of rushing waves, of tumbling shove,
Holds all our unforgotten fears,
And all its majesties we love.
The sun bombarding is all stars.
All galaxies brought to one fire
The freedom of this day unbars
All doors, all thought, and all desire.
One gathered form within the mind
Holds body, beauty, and the world;
Here is what being we will find,
And our eternity unfurled.
-- Anonymous
MEDITATION: from Siddhartha (adapted by Beaudreault)
The thinker (Siddhartha), slowly going on his way, suddenly stood still, gripped by this thought: The reason why I do not know anything about myself, the reason why Siddhartha has remained alien and unknown to myself is due to one thing, to one single thing - I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing from myself....But by doing so, I lost myself on the way...
...I will no longer try to escape from Siddhartha...I will learn from myself the secret of Siddhartha.
He looked around him as if seeing the world for the first time. The word was beautiful, strange and mysterious. Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green, sky and river, woods and mountains, all beautiful, all mysterious and enchanting, and in the midst of it, he, Siddhartha, the awakened one, on the way to himself...
...Then suddenly this also was clear to him; he, who was in fact like one who had awakened or was newly born, must begin his life completely afresh...it was his intention and it seemed the natural course for him after the years of his asceticism to return to his home and his father. Now, however, in that moment as he stood still, as if a snake lay in his path, this thought also came to him: I am no longer what I was, I am no longer an ascetic, no longer a priest, no longer a Brahmin. What then shall I do at home with my father? Study? Offer sacrifices? Practice meditation? All this is over for me now...
...At that moment, when the world around him melted away, when he stood alone like a star in the heavens, he was overwhelmed by a feeling of icy despair, but he was more firmly himself than ever. That was the last shudder of his awakening, the last pains of birth. Immediately he moved on again and began to walk quickly and impatiently, no longer homewards, no longer to his father, no longer looking backwards.
-- Hermann Hesse
SERMON: "UU Ways, Part Two: Why I Am a UU Buddhist"
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY
Said the Buddha:
I do not care to know your various theories about God.
No theories about the Divine, please, says Gautama Siddhartha, the Buddha who lived six centuries before the birth of Jesus. No God theories, please!
Truly, Buddhism in its basic philosophical approach toward life, allows the individual to interpret and act upon basic humanitarian precepts, rather than to force the individual to respond in absolutist, lock-step patterns as established by a religious organization or leader - crazed or otherwise.
In effect, Buddhism provides an ethical blueprint upon which to act upon one's loving beliefs.
Deeds not creeds is an attitude and a fervent construct for Buddhism, as well as for our own Unitarian Universalism, allowing an open conversation between the two movements - at least in this very specific regard. And in this, I can affirm that I am a Buddhist Unitarian Universalist.
The Buddha, a word meaning "the enlightened one," practiced "karma" yoga - which is the path to God through work or action. "Yoga" simply means to "yoke" in the sense of uniting and disciplining. Said in another way, "yoga" is a method of training undertaken to achieve union with the Divine, with the Universe, with the All in All, with that larger "Self" which cannot be named.
A wonderful image of the Buddha's belief in doing and being rather than in proclaiming or theorizing is illustrated in his so-called "Flower Sermon." Standing atop a mountain with his followers, Buddha began, developed, and concluded his "sermon" by not saying a word. Instead, he simply held up a golden lotus for all to behold.
What was he saying by NOT saying?
That the key to enlightenment is beyond words, beyond concepts. It, like the golden lotus, just is.
This is a far cry from our modern day polemicists, who are so sure that through their verbiage - spoken and written - they will achieve enlightenment for themselves and others.
On the other hand, the father of Existentialism, Kierkegaard, speaks of the importance of moving beyond categories, beyond words, beyond knowledge:
The majority in every generation even those who devote themselves to thinking, live and die under the impression that life is simply a matter of understanding more and more, and that if it were granted to them to live longer, that life would continue to be one long continuous growth in understanding. How many of them ever experience the maturity of discovering that there comes a critical moment when everything is reversed, after which the point becomes to understand more and more that there is something which cannot be understood. (Understanding Buddhism, Nolan Pliny Jacobson, p. 94)
So, the first point we must make this morning, is that Buddhism desires to create connection between human beings and the world in which we live by calling forth acts of love - it is an ETHICAL PHILSOPHY. It is, in effect, a form of Karmic Yoga - a life of work and action, not one of merely philosophizing or accepting the status quo. By accomplishing these, we gain spiritual peace and deep meaning - that is to say, a relationship with that which transcends what we usually perceive as "reality" - those categories in which we or others would put ourselves.
SEARCH FOR FREEDOM AND TRUTH
A second major point about Buddhism that connects with our first point and with Unitarian Universalism is seen in the Buddha's words:
Do good and be good and this will take you to freedom and to whatever truth there is.
The Buddha learned this by living it. He gave up the rich life he had been living, realizing that material possessions did not make him ultimately happy. Then he turned to a path of extreme self-denial and asceticism. But that, too, did not bring him contentment.
Part of his enlightenment was to understand that only the Middle Path - the mean between the extremes of materialism and asceticism - was the way to achieve happiness - or at least a modicum amount of release from suffering.
As Philip Zaleski phrases this concept:
Buddha has extinguished all illusions and attained a perfect balance beyond self and no-self. This has ever been the heart of spiritual search: a striving for balance, for right proportion between the constituent members of our inner life, and between our inner and outer lives, and between our total being and the Ground of Being. (Restoring the Imago Dei)
This was part of the "truth" Buddha attained.
.
The Middle Path of Buddhism includes following the Eightfold Path, which allows one to be begin effecting release from suffering. By practicing Right Knowledge, Aspiration, Speech, Behavior, Livelihood, Effort, Mindfulness, and Absorption, one can move beyond the purely materialistic or purely ascetic strivings.
And one moves beyond one's self, one's culture, and begins to embrace the other selves on the planet, and in doing this, one "yokes" with the other "Self" - the Higher Self and Purpose, the Creative Life Force, a god - however so one might call the human experience of transcendence of individual "self."
The grand philosopher John Dewey explains to us that there are really only two philosophies - one that allows for freedom to pursue truth and one which does not. Says he:
One of them accepts life and experience in all its uncertainty, mystery, doubt, and half-knowledge and turns that experience upon itself to deepen and intensify its own qualities, pursuing ends instituted by the infinite fertility of life. The other philosophy interposes itself into the organic rhythm of nature, flying like a homing pigeon toward fixed form and immutable entities variously called "Reality, Truth, Being, and the Cosmos at Large..."
Dewey (and the Buddha, I believe) are urging us to discover that first choice, that "infinite fertility of life," that uncertain, mysterious, and doubtful place. This is the open way, ever progressive. To journey on that path, to be a Buddhist, is ultra revolutionary in this narcissistic and materialist world society most of us live in, this culture which touts property, performance, personality profile, and prestige. These things are of the "ego" says the Buddha - they are closed, false, spiritually dead, illusionary aspects of "Being." Ultimately they bring darkness, not light; suffering not joy.
By being on the open path, and by our generous loving deeds, our spirituality is known. And no theories about God need be propounded then.
William Ernest Hocking is getting to this point when he defines "religion" outside the usual context of an organized or established definition of the term:
We know religion when we meet it in persons. We are in no need of definition to guide our eyes, to help in identifying it. We are perpetually seeing its fruits, or missing them in our neighbors. We are sensitive even to its shade and degrees; aware of its depth, its texture, its resistance. Indeed, we are instinctive connoisseurs on this subject. (The Meaning of God in Human Experience, p.27)
A Karmic approach, to be sure - one which speaks of acting upon one's ethical precepts, not merely propounding them.
Why I can be a Buddhist and a Unitarian Universalist, then, is that both tell me to act out my deepest spiritual strivings, and seek connection with others and a creative life force (a transcendence) - to do good and be good. By doing these things I can achieve freedom and truth, or to be more accurate, glimpses of truths, however so fleeting.
Hoping these things are possible, let us consider these words of Rabindranath Tagore who echoes the Buddha's message of interconnectedness:
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and death, in ebb and in flow. I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
LIVING IN THE NOW
In addition to understanding Buddhism and its Unitarian Universalist connection as 1. An ethical philosophy and 2. A search for freedom and truth is Buddhism's emphasis on 3. Living in the now.
What is of significance is not a theory about eternity, or even about the past or future as defined in human terms - but THIS instant, THIS very moment. Here again, there is a breakdown of definitions. In truth, how can we ultimately define "time"?
Although we should strive to live fully each moment, says the Buddha, we should not get trapped by the idea of time. The construct is artificial. Time cannot really be measured. The past is the present, is the past, is the future. What was is now and shall be. The continuity of it all! What are a few thousand lifetimes in the overall scheme of things?
An illustration of the subjectivity of time is seen in this description of Gautama the Buddha's achieving enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree (as so exquisitely expressed in today's meditation reading by Hermann Hesse).
Although it is a specific moment, the moment is one which travels through time and space; is one which transcends such categories. Here is that great world religionist, Huston Smith's description of the event:
The Great Awakening had arrived. Gautama's being was transformed, and he merged the Buddha. The event was of cosmic import. All created things filled the morning air with their rejoicings and the earth quaked six ways with wonder. Ten thousand galaxies shuddered in awe as lotuses bloomed on every tree, turning the entire universe into a bouquet of flowers sent whirling through the air." (The Religions of Man)
Now, who among us has not had our own "Little" Awakening when it seems that time has stopped for us? When all past, present, and future just are, existing somehow beyond construct, rhyme or reason. When we are aware of something "far more deeply interfused" (Wordsworth) in our lives.
All this happening before we move back into the human-made construct of "time.
The philosopher Charles Hartshorne speaks of the importance of seeing time beyond strict definition. He labels this a "creative synthesis" that occurs within us every moment of our existence - as one moment leads into another - and as we connect with others. As he puts it concerning human relationship:
...even one's past self is, strictly speaking ‘another'... (Understanding Buddhism, p. 128)
In other words, we are inter-connected in a kind of seamless web to all time and to all other sentient and non-sentient beings. And in this so-called "synthesis" there is the "creative" impetus to bring forth the next moment.
This is not merely a philosophical argument, but one of physics as well. David Bohm echoes Hartshorne's reasoning with:
Ordinarily, people think of the essence as something permanent and unchanging, fixed or reified; we are saying that movement or flux or flow is fundamental... There is no future except the future that is being generated from the now...Everything emerges from the creativity that sustains all... (Understanding Buddhism, p. 14)
Hartshorne and Bohm and we Unitarian Universalists address the importance of living in the now - just the way Buddhist teachings do. The NOW is all we really have. The past has brought us to the NOW and the NOW will creatively advance us to the future, but it is the NOW which is paramount. The past and the future are but abstractions; only the NOW is real. We have it and must use it wisely, living ethical precepts.
So then, Living this Ethical Philosophy of Buddhism beyond any creed or dogma or discipline established by others; being vigilant in the Search for Truth and Freedom by thinking and feeling and doing good acts; and Living in the Now, realizing that this is all we really have to relate to our self and to all others - these are three ways of connecting the principles of our own Unitarian Universalism within the Buddhist context.
All this is within you and within me. The Buddha within us all is waiting.
Let me close with these words from Buddhist tradition:
Therefore, O Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves. Betake yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the Truth as a lamp. Hold fast as a refuge to the Truth... Work out your own salvation with diligence.
CLOSING WORDS: "The First Precept" from "Fourteen Precepts"
Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory or ideology, even Buddhist ones. All systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth.