Buddhist<\/a> 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\u2019s focused on how and what we think as well as the field from which thought arises. For many Buddhists here in the West it\u2019s all about the mind. And in a larger sense of that word, it\u2019s true. There is no doubt to me this is important, very, very important.<\/p>\nBut 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.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d 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\u2019d like to repeat it and unpack it a bit more.<\/p>\n
It took place at our former intern Chris Bell\u2019s installation as minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Santa Rosa, California. You may recall that\u2019s 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\u2019d been there. In fact I don\u2019t think I\u2019d been back more than once or twice in twenty years. And I\u2019d never occupied their pulpit since leaving for seminary.<\/p>\n
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\u2019d been familiar with and had recently purchased a movie theatre right in the middle of the downtown \u2013 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\u2019s 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\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n
Among the dignitaries at the service was Santa Rosa\u2019s mayor who expressed the city\u2019s 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\u2019s reflection, was the UU minister of our Sacramento congregation Doug Kraft.<\/p>\n
He gave the charge to the minister. Doug framed it all within a reflection from a twentieth century Hindu teacher, Nisargadatta Maharaj who said: \u201cWisdom says I am nothing. Love says I am everything. Between the two, my life flows.\u201d Let me repeat: Wisdom says I am nothing. Love says I am everything. Between these two, my life flows.<\/p>\n
I found those words taking my breath away. I also felt it was the most eloquent \u201celevator speech\u201d any UU could hope for. Talk about beyond East and West. Talk about what we\u2019re about at core, we Unitarian Universalists. \u201cWisdom says I am nothing.\u201d If that isn\u2019t Unitarianism, I\u2019m 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\u2019s also, I suggest, what Unitarian Wisdom can be, and often is.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s 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\u2019s the Western spirit, I suggest, at it\u2019s best, at it\u2019s best. And I really believe it\u2019s 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\u2019s made all this so exciting to so many UUs is how it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
But, as they say on latest night television: wait, there\u2019s more! Right on that call to cultivate the mind is another assertion, the assertion of the heart, the Universalist way of deepest reconciliation: \u201cLove says I am everything.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all about the mind and it\u2019s all about the heart.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s a description of what can really be, if we\u2019re willing to let it: \u201cBetween the two, my life flows.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Then the rubber hit the road.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Alive and dancing. So terrible, so joyful. From one pole to the other and then back again. Really, really, it\u2019s all about the dance.<\/p>\n
Wisdom says I am nothing.
Love says I am everything.
Between the two, my life flows.<\/p>\n
Amen and amen.<\/p>\n
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