Wake Up & Stay Woke Rev. Catie Scudera

Transcription

1 Before the Buddha was the Buddha, he was Prince Siddhartha Gautama, a person eager to wake up. Though his parents attempted to guide him toward politics, hiding Siddhartha from the suffering of a world desperate for a great spiritual teacher, Siddhartha eventually saw past the palace walls and his fabricated painless life, and he began to realize he was, existentially, asleep. After adolescence in a bubble, Siddhartha wanted to know the real world. And so, he abandoned his family home and he wandered into the wilderness, as many seekers had done before him. Siddhartha tried the traditional methods of his culture to find the Truth, but none of the other seekers he met had achieved enlightenment. So, in what is now the pilgrimage site of Bodh Gaya in northeast India, Siddhartha settled under a fig tree and declared to himself and to any god who was listening that he would not move from his seat until he had woken up. I can imagine Siddhartha thinking to himself, Wake up, O my soul! In one scriptural story of the life of the Buddha, it is written, The light emanating from the hero s body reached even to those realms where Mara, the Evil One, reigned supreme. It dazzled Mara, and he seemed to hear a voice saying: The hero who has renounced royalty is now seated under the tree of knowledge. He is concentrating his mind, he is making the supreme effort, and soon he will bring to all creatures the help which they need. The road he will have taken, others will take. Once set free, he will set others free. Once he has found peace, he will bring peace to others. He will enter nirvana, and he will cause others to enter. He will find wisdom and happiness, and he will give them to others. Because of him, the city of the gods will be crowded; because of him, the city of the Evil One will be deserted. And you, Mara, a commander without an army, a king without subjects, will not know where to take refuge. In case you haven t heard of him, Mara is a multi-purpose bad dude in Buddhist cosmology. In some texts, he is Death, the exterminator ; in others, he is the ruler of the sensual world; in still others, like in this story, he is the Tempter.

2 Upon realizing how close Siddhartha was to enlightenment, Mara appeared at the Bodhi tree with what is described as an army of divine but malevolent beings to harass and frighten Siddhartha. Mara raised up powerful winds and rain to discomfort Siddhartha. He went to Siddhartha and whispered in his ear, O, you are thin and you are pale, And you are in death s presence too Live, Sir! Life is the better way What can you do by struggling now? The path of struggling is rough And difficult and hard to bear. For those of you who know the Christian narrative of Jesus in the desert for forty days with the devil, this story s theme of temptation might sound familiar. But Siddhartha, and later Jesus, would see through the false promises, because of their years of spiritual practice and devotion to Truth. Neither would fall prey to the enticement of solely material, physical comforts; like our Universalist ancestors, they knew that happiness and holiness are inseparable, and spiritual fulfillment is necessary for a good and righteous life. In reply to Mara s distractions, Siddhartha resolved, I sally forth to fight, that I May not be driven from my post. Knowing he could not defeat Mara and his armies alone, Siddhartha called upon the goddess spirit of the Earth for encouragement. As is pictured on the cover of your order of service, Siddhartha moved his right hand from its usual position in his seated meditation, and touched the Earth. And, from the Earth rose the goddess, who addressed Mara directly: Yes, I, the Earth, I, the mother of all beings, will bear witness to [Siddhartha s] generosity. A hundred times, a thousand times, in the course of his previous existences, his hands, his eyes, his head, his whole body have been at the service of others. And in the course of this existence, which will be the last, he will destroy old age, sickness, and death. As he excels you in strength, Mara, even so does he surpass you in generosity. 2

3 With the Earth-goddess as his advocate and ally, Siddhartha chased away Mara and his armies. Within just three more days of sitting meditation, Siddhartha realized the Four Noble Truths (1) the existence of suffering, (2) from whence suffering comes, (3) that suffering can end, and (4) how to do it through the cessation of material desires. Siddhartha woke up to the reality of the world one he had been sleeping through his whole life, seeing through a fog of cultural assumptions and deceitful assurances and Siddhartha, awoken, became the Buddha. To defeat Mara s temptations and distractions, Siddhartha reconnected with the Earth with the reality of the present moment. By being present, Siddhartha could see through Mara s lies and stay focused on his goal to discover the way to end suffering. Before we can accomplish our covenant s promise of action and care for our world, we must be present, we must wake up. We cannot defy evil and transform our hearts and others to goodness if we can t see reality can t discern the difference between good and evil if our senses, hearts, and minds are asleep. And, then, once awoken, we must stay woke. After Siddhartha achieved enlightenment, he lived the rest of his life and, some say, many lives after that teaching others and continuing meditation so he would never fall asleep again. He left his monastics with strict instructions about conduct and spiritual practice, because discipline is necessary to stay woke. The broader culture then and our dominant American culture now encourages us to remain asleep. It lures us, with continued temptations of materialism and the ease of conformity, not to resist the status quo that generates great suffering. This time of year, with the consumerist pressure and unrealistic expectations for the holidays, the lures are everywhere; after a difficult November, we might even welcome the numbness that comes with being existentially asleep. Turn off the news, ignore an offensive joke, buy from whatever store with money in whatever bank, no matter the practices of the company Perhaps you ve heard that phrase, stay woke, from the Black Lives Matter movement. Racial justice activists, like the Buddha, challenge us to wake up to the reality of the world the reality and truth of cyclical suffering, such as that unchecked cultural racism can infect a gun owner or law enforcement officer, and an unchecked racist legal system can excuse anti-black violence and death, and that lack of accountability and victim-blaming can lead to the cultural 3

4 confirmation of stereotypes, and then more people are infected, and the suffering begins again. Black author Raven Cras writes, Woke(ness) is an encouragement for people to wake up and question dogmatic social norms. It requires an active process of deprogramming social conditionings, focusing on consistent efforts to challenge the universal infractions we are all subjected to In order for one to stay woke, one must first, be woke Those who are woke must engage themselves in ways that actively challenge the world we live in. This request, this demand, for all Americans to wake up and stay woke, has been echoing for decades, centuries. And, we have seen when the call is answered when reality is recognized, of Jim Crow, of gendered voting restrictions, of the horrors of war the moral arc of the universe bends closer to justice. Yet, again and again, I hear Americans, especially those like me who are white, putting their heads in the sand of fake news and polite societal etiquette and remaining asleep. We seem like the Buddha when he was still Prince Siddhartha: contained within walls of privilege, not seeing racial inequity and suffering because of the privilege of having white skin, leading a fabricated, insulated, less painful life. I see that we are still asleep when we excuse the police killing a black man for carrying a BB gun he s planning to purchase in a store, or killing a black boy for carrying a BB gun outside in an open carry state. I see that we are still asleep when we excuse the government s inaction as a corporation bulldozes native burial grounds and sends the police to disperse water protectors with fire hoses and concussion grenades. I see that we are still asleep when we doubt that a spike in race-based hate crimes has anything to do with the election of a man who publicly denigrated Mexican immigrants, inner city life, and Muslim-Americans. I remember times when I have wanted to stay asleep, to believe in a dream more pleasant than reality: that I was colorblind, and that was good; that America was a meritocracy, and that it was just coincidence that white families like mine were more likely to succeed; that the Civil Rights movement solved anti-black racism, as much as the women s rights movement solved sexism, as much as the LGBTQ rights movement was on the way to solving heterosexism and cissexism. I wanted to live in the dream of an almost perfect America. The first time I took a workshop series on anti-racism, it was like my whole world was being remade. 4

5 Wake up, O my soul! In his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Civil Rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King wrote, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the [African-American s] great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action ; who paternalistically believes [one] can set the timetable for another [person s] freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises [black people] to wait for a more convenient season. Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. I think about these words from Dr. King a lot these days. I say to myself, Wake up, O my soul!: do not help maintain a negative peace, do not denigrate the non-violent resistance of the oppressed, do not delay the cause for a more convenient season. Stay woke, O my soul! Wokeness is lifelong work of paying attention, for the present situation and present problems are always changing. Mara is always developing new strategies to keep us distracted, discomforted, unfocused on our goal of wokeness and global peace. As we know, the racism of today is different than the racism of the 1960s, different than the racism of the 1930s, different than in the 1860s or 1660s. Staying woke requires us to pay attention our whole lives long. I m reminded of our church member of blessed memory, Betty Byers, who choose to read four books about modern racism and mass incarceration in the last six months of her life, knowing cancer was likely going to take her soon. She told me she didn t want to die ignorant, asleep. And, becoming present to reality does not only make us aware of suffering, but gives us sustenance of joy, interconnectedness, and gratitude. Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, from whom we heard our chalice lighting, said, When you are mindful, you are fully alive, you are fully present. You can get in touch with the wonders of life that can nourish you and heal you. And you are 5

6 stronger, you are more solid, in order to handle the suffering inside of you and around you. I know we won t all travel to the sacred fig tree of Bodh Gaya and take as much time as it takes to achieve enlightenment. But, we can each commit to being present, waking up, and staying woke right here in our own context, under our own trees. We can choose to pay attention to the assumptions of our upbringings and the messages and temptations we currently receive from the wider culture, and choose to seek the Truth despite such noise. As the Buddha did, we can touch the earth, focus on our breath, and open our hearts and minds to the possibility that there is Truth out in the world which we do not know. We can sustain ourselves through mindfulness of joyful present moments, so we can be spiritually prepared to be woke during hard times. May we renounce any royalties and walls of our privileges and instead toil for justice and comfort of those in need. May we follow the road laid out for us of freedom, peace, wisdom, happiness, and nirvana. May we wake up, all of our souls, to create a heaven on earth. Blessed be, and amen. 6