Buddhist<\/a> monastery. The experience was quite vivid and I continue to recall the details rather precisely even now, some forty years later. Instead of those personal details, I was philosophical, and tried to work in how I wasn\u2019t denying anyone\u2019s experience, but that my conclusions about such matters, the meaning I derive is almost always informed by Occam\u2019s razor. That is I\u2019m inclined to believe the simpler explanation of most any event. In this case a naturalistic and psychological explanation makes the most sense to me.<\/p>\nThat\u2019s the good spin on my response. But I also spoke from a deeply rationalistic, very reductionist, and, to be brutally honest about myself, too much of the time highly judgmental place. Now this perspective has served me well in many aspects of my life. For one, being a Unitarian Universalist minister, at least when I\u2019ve occupied the more or less academically inclined pulpits to which I\u2019ve been called.<\/p>\n
But. I believe we were moving into deep waters. And in that spirit, the deeper response, heart to heart, to that question which I could have said, and should have said, and I wish I had said, was \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d The commentary could have come later, where it might have had some use. But, not then. Not there. The heart\u2019s response to such things, the deepest, and may I say, simplest place from which to respond to such queries is \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d Which itself is a surrender into mystery. And important place to explore.<\/p>\n
Now, here\u2019s the more difficult part for me, and the larger point of today\u2019s reflection. What I actually said matters more than what I felt or wished or wanted to do. That\u2019s a harsh reality, and one I have to face. It is one I feel we all need to face if we wish to grow more deeply in life and to be of more use in the world. So, I hope you won\u2019t mind as I take this little experience of discomfort, of, if you will, maladjustment to the way things are, as an invitation to shifting who we are.<\/p>\n
Next week I\u2019ll be addressing the miracle of second chances. Have no doubt about it; second chances are miraculous things, suitable subjects of wonderment, and celebration. As are intentions, something vastly under-rated in a culture that describes them as the paving stones to hell. I\u2019ll cover a bit of that next week, as well. Today, however, I want to go in another direction. I want to address a specific moment in our lives, that moment where we actually manifest who we are. I want to unpack the moment, what it is and what it can mean.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know if I wounded my new friend, or that she cared one way or another what I thought about such things. But, that almost doesn\u2019t matter. We had waded out into deep waters, and we were talking from a very vulnerable place. And, I didn\u2019t respond from my vulnerability. That was an inescapable truth.<\/p>\n
There is a push comes to shove moment where it all happens. In that moment, in this moment, all is revealed. We do something. Or, we say something, you or me. And, in that moment, whatever it is we do or say, that is who we are, you and me. It is the \u201cis\u201d of things, the \u201cthisness\u201d of things. And at that moment I was less than useful. I can\u2019t figure a way out from under it. This seems pretty axiomatic. We are what we do. There is a unity of spirit and action and we are what we do.<\/p>\n
For a few of us this realization might seem like heaven. For more of us this might seem like hell. I think of my failure in this encounter, and so many more like it, my falling short of my highest aspirations, of my dreams of who I am and what I can be; and if it isn\u2019t hell, well at the very least it\u2019s a pretty good approximation of purgatory. The question I\u2019m concerned with is if this is the fact on the ground, we are what we do, then what?<\/p>\n
Martin Luther King Jr, one of my deepest heroes, had a couple of tropes he revisited constantly in his sermons and speeches. One was that compelling line \u201cWe are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.\u201d Here is the primary intuition, I believe, of our deepest interconnectedness, of the secret heart of what is. And he constantly returned to the ills of what is and a deep need to feel maladjusted to those ills. We heard a longer version of that call to maladjustment as today\u2019s text. So, what about that? There is a unity of experience; each moment is the way things are. And, within it, there is some dynamic, some possibility. We are not condemned to endlessly be who we are. Change is also part of the deal.<\/p>\n
Another of my heroes, Shunryu Suzuki phrased the situation a bit differently, but to the same point. \u201cEach of you is perfect just as you are, \u201cShunryu taught. \u201cAnd you can use a little improvement.\u201d Here, with the way both Martin and Shunryu joined mutuality and discontent, a noticing that calls forth action, I find something very important. Because, who we are is never a completely private thing. We are, as Martin reminded us, wrapped up together in that garment of destiny, we are bound together, we are all in this mess together. And while perfect in some ways, it is also a perfection that includes hurt, for many considerable hurt.<\/p>\n
John Tarrant, my old Zen teacher had something to say about all this I think relevant to this point, of our deeper interconnectedness, of the fact that brings brokenness into the wholeness, and that we, each of us have a place within that fractured whole, and a call to something out of that reality, a call to a certain motion, to some action.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe normally have the idea that if we are in hell this is a bad thing,\u201d John writes. \u201cAnd we\u2019ll have to spend a long time with a shovel, digging our way out. But this is not so. Somebody asked Nanao Sakaki, the fine poet who saw Hiroshima, \u2018How do we survive nuclear catastrophe?\u2019 He said, \u2018No need to survive. No need to survive hell either.\u2019 Wherever you are, that can be the pure land. (That can be heaven) I have always loved Buddhist paintings in the esoteric tradition that show the sufferings of the hell realms, they are rather like medieval Christian paintings, with flames and pitchforks and horns and so on. But there is always a little Buddha sitting in the hell realm, looking exactly like all the other demons, with horns and a big smile . . . So if you are in hell, perhaps you can be one of those demons, a Buddha demon.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is what I want to draw your attention to. I want to draw your attention to the moment. Right here. Right now. And how we can become agents of transformation. Of course, you know, we are actually rarely consciously here in this moment; we tend to live in the future, planning and scheming, or in the past, regretting or wishing. And when we do consider the moment, it is usually more like the scholar Mark Unno, another wise teacher, observed, where we live \u201cfor the moment\u201d rather more than \u201cin the moment.\u201d For, as in it\u2019s time to scrub out the grime behind the refrigerator, but today may be the last warm day of the year and I\u2019m going to the beach. As opposed to in moment, which is rolling up our sleeves and pulling the \u2018fridge out, and scrubbing.<\/p>\n
Mark, in a lovely talk at Brown this week described the moment I mean, where he told how not long ago taking a walk with his elderly father. It was a lovely walk in the Pacific Northwest woods, misty and beautiful, filled with smells and birds and small animals. In that moment being with his Dad, he also recalled somewhere in his body how much this man had given him, and how much he meant to Mark being the man he had become. And also somewhere in Mark\u2019s body knowing just as deeply, how frail his father had become and how soon, so very soon he would die. This is the moment full. In this moment everything is there, including the fact that as soon as it births into the world, whatever it is, it is dying. Everything births and lives and is dust and memory and even completely forgotten, right here, right now. All here: beautiful, tragic, and full of potentiality.<\/p>\n
Our longing to be better people, kinder people, more engaged people is part of who we are. As are our secret thoughts, the parts of us we would rather others not see. You may notice how I talk about this part in the most general way. But, even as hard as it is to do, to really acknowledge it all, I\u2019m trying hard to describe a real me, in all my messiness. Like that small failure with which I began this reflection and many larger ones, as well; each is who I am. And, may I suggest, I\u2019m talking about you and who you are.<\/p>\n
When I don\u2019t meet that person fully, whoever the person is, the unbalance of it, the lack of kindness, the lack of genuine depth, becomes who I am. And the way I\u2019m seeing it now, that\u2019s the way I am. It\u2019s complicated. We\u2019re intertwined, so of course it\u2019s complicated. The event is the whole, as well. You inform who I am. I inform who you are. And each moment births a new situation. So, there\u2019s also hope. We are the stuff the cosmos and what we do determines not only you and me; but the fate of nations, and beyond that, the fate of the world itself.<\/p>\n
So, here\u2019s my thought. How should this realization we are what we do now manifest in our interactions with each other? How could this inform how you and I meet in our next encounter? What would be our new rules of engagement if we thought this all might really be true?
Well, how about if we try hard to meet each other as relatives, as stuff of the same stuff? How about we see each other as family? It has the advantage of being true, so why not? How hard would that be? And what would it look like? Would we cut each other a little more slack? Would we care a little more deeply? Would we take a little more time for each person if we thought that person really was a relative?<\/p>\n
This is my practice. Which, of course, I\u2019ve already shown, I fail at, at least as much as I succeed with. But it\u2019s continuing, it\u2019s trying over and over. For me the commitment is to hold on just a breath or two longer than is necessary, to listen just a tiny bit more closely than I have to, to be just a hair\u2019s breadth kinder than the situation calls for. And to hold in the back of my head, in the back of my heart with whomever I\u2019m meeting, the belief this person is some kind of relative. Some, maybe closer, other perhaps a bit more distant: but all relatives.<\/p>\n
This is why something else Martin Luther King, Jr said; those words he wrote from that Birmingham Jail are so compelling. It speaks a truth engraved on our hearts, I believe. \u201cInjustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly\u2026\u201d This is a call to take this presence, this knowing of our deep relationships, out beyond our walls.<\/p>\n
It opens us to a world of action and engagement. In the ancient scriptures of the West blood dripping from his hands, Cain asks, \u201cAm I my brother\u2019s keeper?\u201d Well, the answer is yes. We are our brother\u2019s keeper. We are our sister\u2019s keeper. That\u2019s the deal. Do we live up to it or not? Here is the whisper of maladjustment; here is the possibility of change.<\/p>\n
So, what specifically is the project? To what do we give our attention? Another of my heroes is Ken Jones. He outlines the project perfectly, I feel, when he tell us there are \u201cthree great moral imperatives of our time \u2013 to heal the violated planet, and to enable both the underclass at home and the wretched of the earth to win dignity and freedom.\u201d That\u2019s all. Nothing more. And, of course, nothing less. Help the homeless and outcast, the immigrant and prisoner here at home. Help to make our country a little better place, particularly for those dealt a bad hand. And, not to stop there. But to help those of other countries across the globe. And, not to stop there. But to help tend to this planet, our sacred mother.<\/p>\n
We remember we are all related and we find ourselves creating a new world. Well, except when we forget. But, that\u2019s why it\u2019s called spiritual practice. But, what a place to stand. From there, from here, just here; when we see the need of the world, we can reach out a hand, and we can help. In small ways and large, giving each action full attention; as if the world might depend upon how it is done.<\/p>\n
Just this. Only this.<\/p>\n
And what might happen out of such a perspective? Well, perhaps hell becomes heaven. And the many beings are saved. And the garden and the wild become one, and the earth is healed. This I believe, from the bottom of my heart, is the life and work to which we were all called from before the creation of the heavens and the earth. Nothing less.<\/p>\n
Amen.<\/p><\/div>\n
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