DRAWING BELIEFS ABOUT AUTHORITY FROM THE VEDIC RELIGIONS OF HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM Why Believe? READINGS Sermon by Rev. Jack Donovan, January 29, 2017 Unitarian Universalist Church of St Petersburg Invocation Look to This Day from Vedic poet Kalidasa (5 th Century CE) Meditation A Cup of Tea Readings Before the Sermon When You Know for Yourselves, from Buddha s Kalama Sutra Arjuna s Vision of Krishna, from the Bhagavad Gita What is Extraordinary from the Zen Blue Cliff Records koans Benediction May All Beings, from The Loving Kindness Teaching (Metta Sutta) and the Bodhisattva Vows SERMON My experience with Hinduism is thin: in high school, Emerson s poem, Brahma, Thoreau s references in Walden to the great wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita; in Peace Corps, Huston Smith s scholarly book, The World Religions; in Vietnam working with refugees learning from the back-alley antique dealer who sold me this statue of Ganesh that Vietnam had once been Hindu; in graduate school for ministry, a course on Hindu sacred texts especially the Upanisads and the Bhagavad Gita and a course on Gandhi s development of his satyagraha philosophy; in Gainesville a friendship with a Hindu-Jewish mixed family for whose son s wedding I officiated about five years ago, getting educated in some of the ritual aspects of a Hindu wedding; and lastly, over the span of a few decades, a few other books pretty thin. But that surface suggests a depth and richness that I can only imagine with a little help by comparison to my own spiritual up-bringing as an Irish Roman Catholic with its quadrinity of gods if you count Mary. The seminary course on Hinduism, for example, exposed me to an understanding of religious faith that at first seemed different than the one I d been raised with, but then corresponded. For example, with the word for faith srdha. In Sanskrit, it means to rest your heart on to trust a particular belief with your whole self, your very core. It need not be a matter of blind acceptance, but can be those beliefs you have discovered trustworthy for your life. Who knew that could be faith, the results of your own searching and testing of trustworthiness and who knew that the English word creed and the Latin word credo have the same Indo-European language base as the Sanskrit srdha- heart core and rest. 1
When we talk about the Authority behind the religious beliefs of the world, I think it is helpful to remember that there is often an unseen depth of wisdom, experience, and tested tradition about which our knowledge may be quite thin. Echoing the Bhagavad Gita, Emerson says of the core god Brahman, I am the doubter and the doubt; they reckon ill who leave me out. A little doubt of our own views can be divine. Earlier this week I was sitting in the balcony of the Mahaffey Center, looking down over the great span of varied musicians performing on the stage under the conductor s eye and baton. I could see that without the conductor, this wonderful, together orchestra would be chaos. And I thought to myself, This is a metaphor for Hindu culture. The notes of symphony music are written like inspired scripture and the musicians translate the inspiration into the music of the spheres. But they must attend to the conductor as their authority to stay in touch with how their individual performances sounds as a whole to the world on key or off, on beat or off, on mood or off. Otherwise their goal is lost and they are without fulfillment. The score and the conductor are the authority by which the musicians do their duty, or else. In a Hindu culture, the society could be said to function like an orchestra. Each person has a part to play in the order of things so the world can function in harmony and fulfill its goals. The rules for caste, gender, and stage of life must be played out. By what Authority are you and I to believe that or doubt it? Though the majority of people in India still live in the thousands of disparate villages across the nation, my understanding is that the beliefs about religious Authority are held pretty much in common: - Above the individual person is the communal people; - above the communal people are the priests and rulers; - above the priests and rulers are the scriptures, taught from memory and ritual over generations; - above the remembered teachings are the divine vibrations of the universe which the ancient seers who heard as teachings; - above the vibrations or generating them is ultimately the most high god, Brahman, the knower and the known, the revealer and the revelation. The people are under a divinely ordained social and spiritual order in which each caste, gender, and age stratum has its duties to perform in support of the order of the universe. The mass of people have long accepted this order, at least given the distribution of power that has gone with it. Is that the way it is for American society? For a Unitarian Universalist church? For you and your personal beliefs? 2
Regarding some of the Hindu beliefs about Authority, you might ask whether there has been no liberation theology movement to challenge the distribution of wealth and power and authority, as there was in Latin America for a while in the 1960s and 70s. Could it be that the energy for such a challenge has been siphoned off for millennia into fulfilling the duty of removed ascetic self-liberation ordained for the latter half of a Hindu person s life. Does that happen in American life? Could you be at peace with such a hierarchy of religious and social authority? Could you accept this hierarchy s Authority regarding your life-activating beliefs on the nature of the Creator and its creatures or its teachings on how we creatures should live? Are there other Authorities in which you might rather trust for your beliefs? Who is your life symphony s conductor? You might say, Me! I am my own boss! But it seems to me we have many influences which become authorities over our beliefs, often without us being conscious of it family, friends, teachers, employers, media, corporate advertising, culture, history - all added to our innate propensities and our developed preferences and our personal experiences of mind and heart. Also we are imbued genetically with many influential needs and potentials - like survival, safety, security, belonging, love, productivity, esteem, and creativity. Each has a claim to some innate Authority. Each has influence as to what one finds acceptable or unacceptable for oneself or for others. It seems to me that Hinduism, or at least the overall Vedic tradition, has had liberation theology movements from its earliest days that continue right up to Gandhi declaring untouchables to be children of God. Even in the Hindu depiction of the gods themselves there is a hermeneutic of suspicion, to use a key phrase from Latin American liberation theology. Witness Ganesh or Shiva their unrealistic depictions (eg, an elephant head on a human body) tell the believer, Don t take this literally; go deeper on your own into the life of life to find the truth of the symbol. Another Vedic liberation theology movement was started some 2600 years ago. The Vedic liberator taught against the duties of caste, gender, life-stage, and theology. His name was Siddharta Gautama also known as the Buddha, the Awakened One. In Hinduism, all suffering comes from ignorance that all life is a unified whole. The Hindu solution is that through prayer and ritual and study and meditation we should give up the illusion of being separate selves and come to realize the divinity of our Inner Self as not separate from God. That is when the Authority of Lord Krishna takes effect, making practical the idea of devoting all we are and do to the divine, because it composes and rightly conducts us and all things in magnificent concert. 3
That is not a bad step up from some societal power holders asserting our obligation to perform in duty and servitude. But Buddha authored still another Vedic alternative, teaching that suffering fundamentally comes, not from misidentification with the ungodly, but from ignorance of impermanence and from obsession for permanent possession of our things, status, and relations. The solution according to Buddha is to give up the illusion of permanence and instead embrace and appreciate the awesome blissful nature of the flowing creative energy of life. Of this flow you are the conductor. On what Authority does Buddhism hold and teach these beliefs? I think it is important to note that Buddha explicitly warned that these teachings are not grounded on divine authority or on the Authority of seers representing the divine or on the Authority of priests and rulers claiming to be heirs of shamanic power. You heard the Buddha s guidance on Authority in the Kalamas Sutra that Michael read a few minutes ago: in essence it is, Believe and live by what you learn from personal and shared experience and from due consideration of what leads to well-being and happiness and causes no harm. To his original five companions he advocated for honoring the authority of their own deep meditation on the life that runs deep deep within them, and which they must find for themselves. And for those questions beyond human observation and testing and concern, don t bother because in them there s neither benefit nor need. My experience with Buddhist practice and life is a good bit more substantial than with Hindu practice and life. Again, similar reading experiences, but also living a year in Vietnam, a Buddhist country where I witnessed reverence and courage and persistence of extraordinary degree, training as a lay person at the Berkeley Zen Center during my years at the UU seminary, continuing my practice and reading and participation in longer retreats they have all led to what Buddhism calls a gradual awakening that is still much in process. Life becomes the enactment of the Buddhist guidance, wherever you go, whatever you do, whether chopping wood or carrying water, do just that thing with total focus on the pure stream of your consciousness and with devotion to the service of the world - then you will be blessed. In short, as a Buddhist teacher put it: Pay attention; pay attention: pay attention. To what? To the life within all life, starting here, in you. I could stop with those words. But I d really like to add just a bit more because perhaps you d like a little more input before you would want accept or reject the sources of Authority that Buddhism suggests. The Buddhists say, Seek liberation and fulfillment bolstered by three helpers: the support of a Sangha, the model of the Buddha, and the teachings of the Dharma. 4
For help from the support of a Sangha or community, participate in a group of fellow seekers whose conduct and practice support and advance your own; For help from the model of the Buddha, hold in your mind and heart the images of the great buddhas as models until you have the mind and heart of a buddha; And for help from the teachings of the Dharma, pay careful attention to the dynamic of consciousness and life inside and outside of you so that you may turn to deep appreciation and caring for all that is. The state of mind thus coming is, as the hymn says, the place just right that becomes your Authority for judging good or bad, right or wrong, true or false. Remember the Zen master who slapped the monk who bowed after the master answered the question, What is extraordinary? Why the slap? There are many true answers because the question was a koan a mind puzzle. There is no definitive answer to a koan only answers that themselves demonstrate a liberated mind. So, quite likely, the slap was because the monk needed a sharp reminder to find his or her own answer, not try to get by on another person s answer, not even a Zen master s answer. Yes, you must empty your cup of untested beliefs. But you do so in order to fill it up with tea you have grown and harvested and brewed yourself then you taste your light and truth, your bliss and peace. Well, now to close: So the Vedic tradition offers three beliefs about Religious Authority that is, about who or what will be the conductor for your life. One, believe in the Authority of the ancient divine revelations which prescribe the ordained duties that hold the world together. Or, two, believe in the Authority of the philosophers, perhaps divinely inspired, who advocated devoting your living, without selfish thoughts, to the divine oneness in everything, so all will be one in bliss. Or, three, believe in the Authority in yourself gained by following the Buddhist eight-fold path to spiritual liberation, which path comes down, I would say, to paying deep attention to the Realities and Moralities of life, thereby discerning what works for well-being and happiness for you and all living beings and growing in courage and energy to help them all. Are any of these ways for you? You have the gifts of mind and heart for adding what you learn from other sources to what you learn from your own experience, discovering new dimensions of fulfillment. Perhaps something important can be learned from all three Vedic approaches to Authority. Duty, Devotion, Discernment -- our potentials await our efforts. 5
READINGS INVOCATION Look to This Day from Vedic poet Kalidasa (5 th Century CE) Leader: Let us look to this day. Women: It is life the true life of life. In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of our existence: Men: The bliss of growth, the glory of action, the splendor of beauty. Women: For yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow is but a vision Men: but today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. All: So let us look well to this day. WORDS FOR MEDITATION A Cup of Tea Nan-in, a Japanese Zen master, received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor s cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. It is overfull. No more will go in! Like this cup, Nan-in said, you are full - of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup? READINGS BEFORE THE SERMON When You Know for Yourselves from Buddha s Kalama Sutra "Come, Kalamas. Do not base your beliefs upon beliefs you hear people commonly repeat; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in religious scriptures; nor upon logic or inference or probabilities; nor upon some previous conclusions; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor because your teacher says so. Kalamas, when you know in yourself that some beliefs about life lead to good; that some beliefs about life are blameless; that some beliefs are praised by the wise; that some beliefs, if undertaken and observed, will lead to well-being and happiness, then enter in and abide in such beliefs. 6
Arjuna s Vision of Krishna from the Bhagavad Gita Wind, Death, Fire, Water, Moon, Living Beings, Creation, Primal Being, Foundation of All Things, Knower and Known that is my universal form, primordial and endless. No one can see me in this form by knowledge, sacred texts, sacrifices, study, generous acts, rituals, or austerity but only through devotion to me alone, through love of me alone, without other desire, without ill will toward any creature at all then, knowing, you come to me. What is Extraordinary from the Zen Blue Cliff Records koans A monk asked the Zen master Baizhang, What is extraordinary? Zen master Baizhang said, Sitting alone on the mountain. The monk bowed. Zen master Baizhang then slapped the monk s face. CLOSING May All Beings from The Loving Kindness Teaching (Metta Sutta) and the Bodhisattva Vows May all beings live in consciousness and bliss. May all strengthen and grow. May our views not be narrow or fixed. May our wills be liberated from hate and ill-wishes. May our hearts not be ruled by craving or by fear. May we not deceive or harm. May all spirits be free and pure. With boundless mindfulness, may we cherish all. As a mother protects her child with her life, so may we take care of all that live. May all beings live in consciousness and bliss. May we strengthen and grow and be whole. 7