Now if attachment and craving are the reasons for suffering, then detachment, surrender, and letting should help us get free from suffering.

Transcription

1 DETACHMENT, SURRENDER, LETTING GO Sermon preached by the Rev. Lilia Cuervo First Parish in Cambridge Unitarian Universalist April 14, 2013 My first big aha! regarding impermanence, the only constant in our lives, came very early in mine. I was a care free child playing with marbles, chasing after amazingly colorful butterflies, hypnotized by the ants formations, each carrying their little bundles to their burrows. At the time, my mother and I were living in a rural health outpost where she was the sole health care provider. One morning when, as usual, I was playing outside, there came this young mother rushing with a baby in her arms, crying, supplicating to see my mother. With a look at the baby my mother knew there was no hope. In fact, the baby died even before we went inside the dispensary. In a flash, I saw the lifeless little body which seconds before had been breathing, and witnessed both the agonizing wailing of the desperate mother and the helplessness and sadness in my mother s face. In my child s mind, somehow I understood the fragility of life, the deep sorrow that accompanies death, and the human impotence to reverse the effects of terminal conditions. Many years later I learned that from time immemorial, faced with the changeability and shortness of life, and with all the pain inherent in the human condition, philosophers and religious people have searched for the causes of human suffering and for ways to be freed from them. Perhaps the most well-known of the seekers, Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha or the enlightened one, found that the reason for the suffering of the world was attachment to desire; also the craving for individual fulfillment. Now if attachment and craving are the reasons for suffering, then detachment, surrender, and letting should help us get free from suffering. 1

2 A modern influential teacher, Achaan Chah, founder of monasteries in the Thai tradition, who died in 1992, tells us that through detachment and surrender we can attain complete peace and freedom. He said: Do everything with a mind that lets go. Do not expect any praise or reward. If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will know complete peace and freedom. Your struggles with the world will have come to an end. What amazing simplicity and wisdom! And what a hopeful and exciting promise. And yet, so much of our potential is wasted because of the way we allow ourselves to become prisoners inside of our own bodies, and minds, and homes. Often, self-imprisonment and isolation are born out of fear of the new and different, and out of fear to connect in a more intimate way with those around us. Attachment and clinging to our own ideas can become the imprisonment of the mind. This is not only sad for the waste this represents but could lead to very dangerous situations. We all have seen, throughout history, how a few powerful fundamentalists, be they religious or political, supported by mindless followers, have oppressed and even tried to destroy entire ethnic groups they consider their worthless enemies. Even in these last decades, in the 21 Century, we still learn every day of the horror of mass incarceration of the young and of women, of elimination of rights so valiantly won, of horrendous walls erected between neighbors, of millions of children living and dying in poverty, and all of these and more, in this the richest and best country in the world. So much wrong that could be righted if only the will and diligence to do so would overcome the complaisance and the fear of going against the narrow minded forces that keep leaders in our nation s capital and in some states, from working diligently to advance social justice. 2

3 Detaching, surrendering, and letting go.... These are difficult spiritual and psychological paths to follow as nations, as well as individuals. National egos and personal egos tend to tenaciously cling to anything that can bring pride and comfort. The paradoxical aspects of letting go are fascinating. We all have heard and perhaps repeated the observation the more we give the more we receive. Likewise, it is a tested and sound truth that the more we detach from the results, the more the things we need to succeed come to us, and the more connected we become with the universe. One of the great paradoxes of human attitude is how impossible we find it to surrender to the Mystery, to the Spirit of Life, and how easily, almost without thinking, we surrender our power, our pride, and often our lives to total strangers. Yet, the only way to function in this world is to let go, trust, and surrender to other fellow humans at almost every step. Whenever we take a plane aren t we totally surrendering our lives to the ability and integrity of the crew? When we go for a surgical procedure, particularly with total anesthesia, aren t we letting go and surrendering our egos, and our survival to the hands of the hospital teams? Don t we let go and surrender our fate and our lives, when we take a taxi, in a city where we barely can speak the language? Paradoxically, we are unable to properly surrender when the driver is our husband, or wife, or son or daughter. Have not we ruined trips because of our inability to trust the person that, having our best interest in mind, was driving the family car? Great opportunities to detach and surrender to what is, to the unknown, present themselves when tragedy visits us personally. Perhaps one of the most difficult situations is to witness members of our family or friends engaged in addictive and destructive behavior. Nothing can be more painful than wanting to rescue them from their own doing, knowing that any intervention on our part, no matter how loving and 3

4 well intentioned, is going to be perceived as meddling, and as taking control over their lives. And yet, surrendering, letting go of our need to rescue those unable to rescue themselves and unable to accept our help, is one of the hardest things a human can accomplish. The sense of helplessness and of inadequacy can be maddening. Still, to continue just as witness or, worse yet, enabling a destructive behavior is to become an accomplice and facilitator of the very destruction we want to see end. What an act of wise balance is required to know when to intervene and with what strength, and when to leave things alone and surrender our guilt and desire for control. Detachment and letting go in normal times require effort and sacrifice. In times of tragedy, when we lose a parent, spouse, partner, or a child to death, or when we lose our home, our job, or a treasured relationship, or when we lose a beloved pet or an object dear to us, surrendering and letting go requires an immense amount of courage. We all know how easily pain, horror, anger, despair, and any other attendant feelings could paralyze and even destroy us, if we are not alert and willing to overcome them. Voluntary surrender in the face of tragedy, loss, and deep hurt also demands an immense amount of trust. Trust that if we do whatever is in our power to improve a situation, to correct a wrong, to forgive those who cause us hurts, to love those who reject us, life will continue growing in us. Not just any kind of life; a much better life, more vibrantly and consciously lived, more deeply enjoyed and appreciated. Realizing that all things are impermanent, that compared to eternity all pain, hurts, and disappointments last but a speck of time, can help us be patient, put things in perspective, and attain peace and resolution, sometimes even under dire circumstances. For many of us, knowing when and what to let go of, and when and what to hold onto, becomes a great dilemma and a challenging balancing exercise. Rumi, the foremost Thirteenth Century philosopher and poet, illustrates the joy of letting go 4

5 as well as the devastating effect of rigidity and attachment in the following excerpt of his poem Birdwings*: Your grief for what you ve lost lifts a mirror Up to where you re bravely working. Expecting the worst, you look, and instead, Here s the joyful face you ve been wanting to see. Your hand opens and closes and open and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, You would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birdwings. How amazingly true and simple. Balance in opening our beings to receive and to share in the bounty of the generous and inexhaustible universe. And balance in closing our minds and hearts to potential harm on the one hand, and to retain wisdom and compassion on the other. Your grief for what you ve lost lifts a mirror Up to where you re bravely working. Expecting the worst, you look, and instead, Here s the joyful face you ve been wanting to see. How sad and incomprehensible to knowingly cling to the past, to prefer the cocoon of the familiar immobilizing comfort, to let fear and inertia in this case, another word for spiritual laziness to imprison us. So sad to see ourselves, all of a sudden, isolated because little by 5

6 little we grew complacent, attached and clinging to the known even if hurts us, or hurt others. How sad when instead of trusting that when our grief for what we ve lost lifts a mirror, we will see the joyful face we ve been wanting to see, we continue expecting to see the same face, gripped by fear and attachment to what never can be restored and brought back. We have been reflecting on different aspects of detachment, surrendering and letting go. Perhaps you are wondering, in whom should we trust? To whom should we surrender our thoughts and the results of our labors? For millennia humans have tried to answer these same questions. Here are some of the most popular and enduring answers. If we were Buddhists of the Nichiren Daishonin stream, we would probably recite over and over one of the most common mantras in the Buddhist repertoire: nem miongo rem gue kio. One of the interpretations of this mantra is: I recognize that I am part of this universe, and I dedicate myself to the infinite expansion of which I am a part.** Another interpretation is, I surrender to the universal intelligence. If we were Christians, we would surrender to the Creator and Savior saying: Your will be done, not mine. If Muslims, we would recite the same words of surrender but in this case to Allah. Now, if we were Hindus we would recite the mantra: O, Namo, Vaghavate Vasudevaya. If we were true humanists, our egos would surrender, to the equal love for all people as Maharsi explained in the dialogue that Mike and Linda read for us. Then, when we attain that universal love, as Maharsi said, we will feel that the whole world is our home. The ultimate level of detachment, surrendering and letting go, would be to yield, to lose ourselves in the infinite ocean of love. That ocean comprises not only humans, but any being, any thing that exists in our vast, unfathomable universe. The ultimate surrender, the sweet 6

7 surrender of the heart and mind, will occur when one is able to think and act in complete harmony with the universe, with our ultimate reality. Attaining peace and freedom by surrendering to what is. Isn t this a most desirable vision for us Unitarian Universalists? May our lives be in balance as we open and close our minds and hearts guided by our internal wellspring of wisdom, compassion, and love. May all of us be able to consciously grow into that harmony, that brings peace, love, and joy, and may we feel anywhere, and any time, that the whole Universe is our home. Let it be so. 7

8 * The Essential Rumi. Translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne. Page 174. **Introduccion al Budismo. Nichiren Shoshu Soka Gakkai de Venezuela