May I Dwell in the Heart

A Sermon by

James
Ishmael
Ford

26 August 2006

First Unitarian Society
West Newton, Massachusetts

Text

This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born,
May all beings be at ease!

Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.

Metta Sutta

When I first spoke with Cindy about what we might want to explore this Sunday she said she’d heard a song that deeply moved her and thought it might be worth my reflecting on as the subject of today’s sermon. I said sure, what is it? She then described a song written by local musician Carolyn Kingston. Cindy wasn’t sure, but thought the words for the song might have been composed by Stephen Levine, known for his spiritual writings as well as for his work with the dying. Then she recited the text: “May I dwell in the heart, may I be free from suffering, may I be healed, may I be at peace.” She added that there are subsequent verses changing the pronoun to include other configurations including “may you” and “may the world.”

That is, as you might know, actually a version of the Metta or loving-kindness meditation. It’s used in just about every school of Buddhism around the world. In fact it’s a practice that’s traced all the way back twenty-five hundred odd years to the Buddha of history himself, Cautama Siddhartha. The original text as attributed to him is today’s reading.

I said, let me think about that for a minute. Then before she could change her mind, I said I believe I can do something with it.

Actually I spoke on the practice of Metta from the pulpit in the main part of the church a little more than a year ago. I find the subject endlessly fascinating. Metta, or loving-kindness is one of three meditation disciplines taught by the Buddha. It is particularly concerned with the cultivation of an experience of loving-kindness as an overarching perspective, and one that once integrated into our being, is said to lead to a healthy life both for ourselves as individuals and for the communities of which we are all parts.

Many, maybe most Westerners when we think of Buddhist spiritual practices are usually considering the constellation of disciplines that are technically called Vipassana, which is often translated as Insight. These are a deep consideration of what is going on inside our skulls, and while there are aspects of the discipline concerned with how we sense the world, ultimately it’s focused on how and what we think as well as the field from which thought arises. For many Buddhists here in the West it’s all about the mind. And in a larger sense of that word, it’s true. There is no doubt to me this is important, very, very important.

But in fact Buddhism is also very much about the heart. It is concerned with matters of heart just as much, I believe, as it is about the mind, the how of the mind and the content of the mind. How we feel and what we feel is also very, very important. Particularly, I suggest for us here in this room as we cast about for guidance on our own way as Western religious liberals who stand in a tradition that also pays a great deal of attention to how and what we think. How and what we feel is equally important. Today I want to unpack this assertion, just a bit.

I’d like to share a small anecdote in regard to all this. I wrote about it originally back in May as an online Monkey Mind column. Here I’d like to repeat it and unpack it a bit more.

It took place at our former intern Chris Bell’s installation as minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Santa Rosa, California. You may recall that’s the congregation I was a member of when I went off to seminary. So, I was deeply honored to be invited by Chris to preach his installation, and at the same time, looked forward to visiting my old church home. It had been ages since I’d been there. In fact I don’t think I’d been back more than once or twice in twenty years. And I’d never occupied their pulpit since leaving for seminary.

Without a doubt a lot of water had flowed under the bridge in those twenty years since I was a member. Among other things they sold the old building I’d been familiar with and had recently purchased a movie theatre right in the middle of the downtown – a courageous act considering our West coast UU style of going for putting our newer churches in the beautiful grove at the-end-of-a-long-and-preferably-winding-road-somewhere-in-the-countryside. (And always a plus, of course, if there’s no signage along the way to that all-but-hidden church.) Not a bad thing, but it does incline one to see the congregation as sanctuary rather than center of engagement. Well, now they were in the middle of the city, right downtown. I was impressed. They’ve done a very good job of making the old theatre into a sacred space, no mean task in itself. It was obvious to me how with just a little time that new campus will be something very special for the congregation as well as for the larger community.

Among the dignitaries at the service was Santa Rosa’s mayor who expressed the city’s gratitude for this commitment that the congregation has made to being a vital presence within the city. There were various speakers, some quite inspired. Probably my favorite, certainly the one whose words I most clearly recall, and directly germane to today’s reflection, was the UU minister of our Sacramento congregation Doug Kraft.

He gave the charge to the minister. Doug framed it all within a reflection from a twentieth century Hindu teacher, Nisargadatta Maharaj who said: “Wisdom says I am nothing. Love says I am everything. Between the two, my life flows.” Let me repeat: Wisdom says I am nothing. Love says I am everything. Between these two, my life flows.

I found those words taking my breath away. I also felt it was the most eloquent “elevator speech” any UU could hope for. Talk about beyond East and West. Talk about what we’re about at core, we Unitarian Universalists. “Wisdom says I am nothing.” If that isn’t Unitarianism, I’m not sure what is. Unitarianism, with its relentless analysis, admittedly mostly intellectual, but also ever offering the opportunity to take the mind to its greatest depths, to the field out of which thoughts arise, toward a non-dual encounter with what is. This is what wisdom really is, as I understand it. And it’s also, I suggest, what Unitarian Wisdom can be, and often is.

It’s so very important to cultivate wisdom, to see into the deepest aspects of who we are as we are, to minutely investigate everything, right to the end, to the no-thing, the nothing. That’s the Western spirit, I suggest, at it’s best, at it’s best. And I really believe it’s Unitarian spirituality. This is why I suspect so many UUs are interested in Buddhist mindfulness practices like Vipassana and its cousin Zazen, Zen meditation with their meticulous investigation of the function of mind. What’s made all this so exciting to so many UUs is how it’s the discovery of a technology that can focus an intuition commonly held within Unitarian Universalism which is only partially satisfied by Western logic and the scientific method.

But, as they say on latest night television: wait, there’s more! Right on that call to cultivate the mind is another assertion, the assertion of the heart, the Universalist way of deepest reconciliation: “Love says I am everything.” Here reality as love asserts itself, that sense of something larger within which we all rest. And, I think, it reveals the missing part that has led many Unitarians who only attend to the functions of mind down wrong paths. And shows us a way through.

It’s all about the mind and it’s all about the heart.

Indeed, following close upon these assertions taken together is the major invitation to an authentic spiritual life, to what our shared Unitarian Universalist life can be, and increasingly is. That old Hindu teacher put his finger right on the matter and described an authentic spiritual way for us as contemporary Unitarian Universalists. It’s a description of what can really be, if we’re willing to let it: “Between the two, my life flows.”

Doug wrapped up his reflection. I felt really inspired. Not long after, the service ended, I could only stay a little while as I had to drive down sixty miles to Oakland from which I would leave quite early the next morning. But I got lots of kisses and hugs on my way out. What a wonderful time. I felt the dual way of mind and heart that is our liberal religion had been amazingly well expressed.

Then the rubber hit the road.

Rita and Chris stayed for another hour or so, packed up the family and returned home. It had been a triumphant afternoon, the culmination of so many years of work. How could Chris feel anything but joy? Well, maybe a little exhaustion. He had a call waiting for him. His father, who was at dinner in Ohio at about the same time as the installation service was going, had been stricken with a massive heart attack and died. Chris had to leave for Cleveland on the next available flight.

And like onto it, a second anecdote, much briefer, but to the same point. A lovely young couple from the San Francisco Zen Center moved to Cambridge and are now sitting with our Zen group here in Newton. This last week Sarah who was seven months pregnant went into labor and delivered their baby whose lungs never cleared and who after just a few hours died in their arms. There is an expression Sun Face Buddha, Moon Face Buddha to describe the fullness of life that can be ten thousand years, or a single day. They held a moon faced Buddha in their arms.

No doubt the way of the mind is important, critically so. But, we also need the way of the heart. There is a moment to remember we are nothing, how our being, yours and mine, rises and falls in something so much vaster than we can ever imagine.

Then in that moment of need, when your father drops dead, when your baby dies in your arms, that truth revealed by mind clearly isn’t the last word. Not at that moment. What is the last word at that moment is love, the movement of our hearts calling out to each other. It’s the weaving of you and you and you and you and me and me and me and me into the tapestry that is the cosmos.

Alive and dancing. So terrible, so joyful. From one pole to the other and then back again. Really, really, it’s all about the dance.

Wisdom says I am nothing.
Love says I am everything.
Between the two, my life flows.

Amen and amen.