I Am Not the Buddha (And Neither Are You) A sermon by Rev. Fred Small First Parish in Cambridge, Unitarian Universalist January 5, 2014 A couple of weeks ago I made a mistake. No big deal. I make mistakes every day sometimes every minute. But this mistake was serious, because it threatened a relationship I really care about. A leader from another faith tradition, a friend not a truly close friend, but a good friend, whom I ve known and worked with for decades bcc d me on an email he was sending to someone who had challenged him to expand the fossil fuel divestment campaign to bar investment in nuclear energy, as well. Now, I had already responded to this same critic explaining my position, which is that, as a longtime opponent of nuclear power, I am nonetheless honoring the leadership of the fossil fuel divestment campaign in their strategic decision not to condemn nuclear power so long as they don t endorse it, either. In his email, my friend said he agreed with Fred Small s reasoning and added some of his own. I was flattered... until I scrolled down. You know how it goes: you forward an email but you forget to read all the way down to make sure everything in the email chain is something you actually want to share. Sure enough, deep in this email chain was a message from my friend to someone else defending his approach to fossil fuel divestment and then, in an aside, deriding Unitarian Universalists. Note: he wrote dismissively, the Unitarians voted to study the issue!!! Three exclamation points! Not content to celebrate the position of his faith community, he had to disparage ours. When he knew very well because I had told him that the reason we voted only to study the issue last June was that the deadline for a binding resolution had passed months before, so our only option was a nonbinding resolution calling for a denomination-wide conversation" on fossil fuel divestment. So my friend bcc d me to flatter me, but when he thought I wasn t looking, he was throwing Unitarian Universalists under the bus. I was steamed. 1
Now I have two policies on email that have served me very well over the years. One is, never use email for communication with any emotional charge. If you re upset, you might use email to ask, When we can talk on the phone? or When can we meet in person? And second, never respond to an irritating message, much less an infuriating message, the same day you receive it. Sleep on it. The odds are very good it won t feel nearly so bad the next day. But in that moment I was so full of righteous indignation that I forgot all about my policies. I took his quote the Unitarians voted to study the issue!!! with the three exclamation points and I made it the subject line of my email to him. I told him I was saddened to read [his] disparagement of Unitarian Universalist efforts for divestment. Saddened of course is the language of the morally unctuous for pissed. (I ve never used that word from the pulpit before, but I thought it was worth it.) I explained how our nonbinding resolution had laid the groundwork for the binding business resolution I feel confident will be passed at our General Assembly this June. I said that while our means may be different, our ends are the same: stopping global warming. As you defend [your] strategy from critics left and right, I admonished, I hope you won t belittle ours. We re on the same side. In love and solidarity, Fred. Then I hit send with gusto. Two hours later, the adrenaline of sanctimony had worn off, and conscience and prudence had overtaken my self-righteousness. What if, instead of instantly replying to my email with the abashed apology I expected, he also got mad? What if he got madder than I did? What if it harmed our relationship? What if we stopped speaking? It would be ridiculous. So I sent him another email. Subject line: apology for my previous message. 2
I know very well, I wrote, that whenever I feel offended, my ego has taken over. Life is too short, and this work too important, and you're far too good a guy, to waste a moment in quarrel. I hope you'll accept my apology, and I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas. Then I hit send this time with relief. But I wasn t off the hook, because this was his work email address and it was the night before Christmas Eve. So I waited four days for an answer. Four days to wonder whether he would accept my apology. I mean I thought he would, but I couldn t be absolutely sure. Finally, his answer came: Dear Fred, Absolutely NO worries AND I accept your earlier email s point that I was WRONG in belittling the UUA s approach.... I apologize to you for that!!! [Three exclamation points!] For our solidarity in struggle, and honesty with one another, I am most grateful! [Singing:] Sweet Forgiveness! Bonnie Raitt. 1977. Daniel Moore wrote the song. Bonnie Raitt kills it. I tell this story not for the revelation that your minister makes truly bonehead mistakes. Cause you already know that. I tell this story as a meditation on feeling. Twenty-five hundred years ago, Siddhartha Gautama, known to his followers as the Buddha, the Awakened One, posed a question: If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful? Yes, his disciple answered, it is painful. The Buddha asked, If the person is struck by a second arrow, is it more painful still? Yes, the disciple answered, yes, it is. In life, the Buddha explained, we cannot control the first arrow. But the second arrow is our reaction to the first. And with this second arrow comes the possibility of choice. The first arrow is ordinary suffering: the conditioned reactivity, the addictive pull, the anger, fear, sorrow, judgment that spring up unbidden and catch us before we even have a chance to think, let alone prevent them. The second arrow is the feeling about the feeling, the judgment about the judgment, the interpretation, the guilt, the shame at being fallible, at being human. Yes, I feared the damage to my relationship with my friend, but more than that, I was ashamed of my blunder, ashamed that I had acted out of anger when I should have known better. 3
I judged myself more harshly than any friend would have judged me, more harshly than God would judge me. I was suffering from the second arrow. I know that you do, too. Because you tell me all the time. So many of you come to talk with me in my office and the first thing you talk about is the second arrow: how embarrassed, how ashamed, how terrible you feel about your feelings. Sometimes you weep. And as the tears come, you apologize! I m sorry, you say. I didn t mean to break down. I told myself I wouldn t cry. As if you were a burden to me. As if you were a burden to God. My God, if there s one place you ought to be able to cry, it s your minister s office! There s nothing wrong with feelings. Feelings are meant to be felt. They are not rational. They happen for a reason, but they are not rational. That s why they re called feelings. We are not responsible for our feelings, because we don t ask for them. They just happen. We are responsible for what we do with our feelings. I grew up in a family with a lot of anger. My father had a temper. My mother had a temper. Hey what a surprise! I got a temper, too! When Julie and I were first together, my anger frightened her, because it reminded her painfully of her father s anger, his hair-trigger rage. I couldn t wish away my anger when it arose. I couldn t suppress it. But I could choose how to express it. Instead of yelling and throwing things, I learned to say, I m going for a walk now. I ll be back! But I m going for a walk now. 4
And I would walk as long as I needed to, which usually wasn t very long, cursing a blue streak under my breath and out of anyone s earshot until I was myself again. Thich Nhat Hanh, the Zen master and peace activist, teaches a beautiful practice with emotions, especially the emotions we don t like so much. He invites us to welcome them as old companions, old friends, and to bow to them in recognition, in honor. Welcome, anger, my old friend. We have been together a long time, you and I. I bow to you. Because often these old friends, our feelings, helped us survive when we were children. Sometimes they were our only friends. Though they may serve us poorly now that we are grown and living more powerfully in the world as adults, we can still be grateful for their protecting us when we were helpless children. And if we do not resist and oppose them so fiercely, sometimes their grip on us loosens. Thank you, anger, for protecting me when I most needed protection. You can rest now. I ll take it from here. Vipassana Buddhist teacher and clinical psychologist Tara Brach offers a four-step practice called RAIN: R-A-I-N, each letter corresponding to a step in the practice. I ve found it helpful. First step, R: Recognize what is happening. What am I feeling right now? Is there a feeling beneath that feeling? What is going on inside me? A (and this for me is the clincher): Allow life to be just as it is. If I m feeling anger, allow the anger. If I m being judgmental, allow the judgment. In other words, pull out the second arrow! And allow the first arrow to be what it is, however painful. I: Investigate, inquire with kindness about my inner experience. Whence does this feeling arise? What is it in my environment or relationship that has triggered it? Is there an assumption or belief underlying the feeling? This inquiry must be made with tenderness, in the spirit of holy curiosity, without judgment or blame. And finally N: rest in natural awareness, with nothing to do, nothing to fix, nothing to figure out. Just natural, relaxed, alert awareness or presence. RAIN. It can be a cleansing rain, a healing rain. We are so hard on ourselves. We forgive so many others before we forgive ourselves. In 1967, Richard Luttrell was an 18-year-old soldier in the Vietnam War. On a mountain trail in Chu Lai, he encountered the first Vietcong he d ever seen up close, just thirty feet away, looking 5
at him down the barrel of an AK-47. But somehow the V.C. didn t fire. They just stared at each other... until Richard pulled the trigger on his M-16 and shot him dead. In the dead man s pocket they found a color photograph of him and a young girl, maybe 7 years old, with long braids, her head tilted slightly toward him probably his daughter. Richard tucked the photo in his wallet and kept it for 22 years. In 1989, he left the photograph on the wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, along with a letter he d written: Dear Sir... Forgive me for taking your life. I was reacting just the way I was trained to kill V.C. So many times over the years I have stared at your picture and your daughter, I suspect. Each time my heart and guts would burn with the pain of guilt. I have two daughters of my own now. I perceive you as a brave soldier defending his homeland. Above all else I can now respect the importance life held for you.... It is time for me to continue the life process and release the pain and guilt. Forgive me sir. Later Richard took the photo with him to Vietnam, searched for the daughter in the picture and found her. Through an interpreter, he asked the young woman s forgiveness. She burst into tears and fell into his arms. Her brother explained that they believed their father s spirit lived on in Richard, and that day their father had come home. None of us is the Buddha. We hurt each other. We hurt ourselves. We are not yet awakened. But we begin to awaken when we feel what we need to feel and forgive what we can forgive, including ourselves. Amen, Aché, and Blessed Be. Benediction By Steven Charleston Draw in the breath of peace. What you face will be resolved. What you need will be supplied. What you hope revealed. Faith is your strength. Do not worry or waver. Peace in heart and mind, body and soul, enfold you. Peace, deep peace, surround you. Breathe in as if you were God s first creation. Breathe in life and breathe in healing. No matter where you [go] today, you [go] in peace unfailing. 6