Of Practice and Perfection

"Not a having and a resting, but a growing and a becoming, is the character of perfection..."
-- Matthew Arnold

Reading: by Tenzin Gyatso, the 14^th Dalai Lama, from Beyond Religion – Ethics for a Whole World (p. 113)

The world religions have long recognized that we humans have the capacity to change from within. But in a purely secular context, demonstrating the reality of this capacity can be challenging. A committed materialist, for instance, may argue that we are completely determined by biology, or, to use a contemporary phrase, that we are “hard-wired” in certain ways. In such a view, some people are determined by nature to be angry, while others are naturally more inclined toward kindness; some are genetically disposed to be optimistic, while others have an innate propensity for depression…

If there really were nothing we could do about our emotions, we would truly be slaves to them. However, evidence is gradually emerging from science…. to suggest that it is possible to achieve meaningful change… through conscious effort. … It seems that the recent discovery of what is called “brain plasticity” may well offer a scientific explanation for this possibility…. ...We may be able to train our emotional instincts by literally altering the physical patterns in our brain.

Reading: a folk tale, the origins of which (according to Wikipedia) reach back to the 3^rd century BCE in India

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, “How do I know you won’t sting me?” The scorpion says, “Because if I do, I will die too.” The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp “Why?” Replies the scorpion: “It’s my nature…”

Reading: by Ron Padgett excerpts from "How to be Perfect"

Get some sleep.

Eat an orange every morning.

Be friendly. It will help make you happy.

Hope for everything. Expect nothing.

Take care of things close to home first. Straighten up your room before you save the world. Then save the world…

Don't stay angry about anything for more than a week, but don't forget what made you angry. Hold your anger out at arm's length and look at it, as if it were a glass ball. Then add it to your glass ball collection.

Wear comfortable shoes...

Plan your day so you never have to rush…

After dinner, wash the dishes...

Don't expect your children to love you, so they can, if they want to.

Don't be too self-critical or too self-congratulatory.

Don't think that progress exists. It doesn't.

Imagine what you would like to see happen, and then don't do anything to make it impossible.

Forgive your country every once in a while. If that is not possible, go to another one.

If you feel tired, rest.

Don't be depressed about growing older. It will make you feel even older. Which is depressing.

Do one thing at a time.

If you burn your finger, put ice on it immediately. If you bang your finger with a hammer, hold your hand in the air for 20 minutes. You will be surprised by the curative powers of ice and gravity...

Be good.

Be honest with yourself, diplomatic with others.

Do not go crazy a lot. It's a waste of time.

Drink plenty of water. When asked what you would like to drink, say, "Water, please."…

Love life.

Use exact change.

When there's shooting in the street, don't go near the window.

Of Practice and Perfection

A Sermon Delivered on October 7, 2012

By

The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann

God, give me grace to accept with serenity
The things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things which should be changed,
And the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

These words are from a prayer by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. The prayer has been altered and adapted over the years. But it was first written during the height of the Second World War. World War II followed only two decades after what had been called “The Great War,” which had been considered the war to end all wars, but now was simply called World War I.

I imagine Niebuhr wondered: Are we humans destined to create a world defined by violence and blood shed, or can we change our ways? Are we destined to live in conflict, or can we find a better way?

* * *

There are those who say we are hard-wired for war. We are defined by our biology, destined to act aggressively and yield to anger. We are driven by self-interest, and in order to maximize personal gain, we are willing to inflict suffering on others. It is a natural consequence of our instinct for survival. We can’t help it. It’s in our genes.

There are some who say this is just the way we are. But this perspective is not a recent insight. It is a belief that has been held for millennia, conveyed in myth, legend, and morality tales.

We are like the scorpion, who aspires to live peacefully and cooperatively, but in the end is constrained by impulses he cannot control. It would be evil and wrong for him to sting the helpful frog. It would be foolish and self-defeating, because in hurting the frog he himself would drown. And yet, that’s what he does. He can’t help it. It’s his nature.

* * *

It is our nature to sometimes do what is wrong. Even if we know better. Even if we know the consequences of our actions will catch up with us. Even if we know we ourselves will suffer.

All great religions grapple with our human capacity for both good and evil. In Christian history it took the shape of teachings on human sin. The story was told of the first man and women in the Garden of Eden. A commandment was broken. An apple was eaten. The consequence for humankind is the reality of original sin.

We are sinners. We don’t like it. But we can’t help it. It’s our nature.

We are all destined for hell fire and damnation, unless we repent and accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We are sinners in the hands of an angry God. This is the way Jonathan Edwards put it, in the sermons he preached during the so-called Great Awakening in 18^th century America.

The notion that we are essentially evil, and that our deepest being is sinful, is a belief many of us hold to this day. It is a harsh view of life, but it makes sense to millions of Americans.

Which one of us hasn’t had moments when we weren’t at our best. Who among us hasn’t done things we regret. Who among us hasn’t had moments when we spoke in anger, or acted out of hurt. Who hasn’t felt guilty for a wrong committed in a moment of short-sightedness, or selfishness, or greed? Who hasn’t had moments when we have felt acutely aware of our failures and limitations?

The doctrine of Original Sin, and the belief that we are all essentially sinners, is one way to make sense of our existential experience of inadequacy and guilt. We can’t help it. It’s our nature.

Or is it?

The Dalai Lama says we have the capacity to change from within. We can change our actions. We can even change our emotions.

Does this mean we can change our deepest being? Can we change our nature?

* * *

William Ellery Channing was perhaps the most prominent Unitarian minister in the early 1800s. He considered himself a Christian, but he offered a very different perspective on sin and salvation. He disagreed sharply with Jonathan Edwards, and all his Christian colleagues who preached a gospel of fear, with fire and brimstone sermons, and threats of eternal damnation.

The crux of the Christian scriptures, according to Channing, is not that we are all sinners. The crux of Christianity is that we are all children of God. We are made in God’s image, the scriptures say. This means in our deepest being, we ourselves are holy.

Channing makes a case for his convictions in an ordination sermon he preached in 1828, entitled, “Likeness to God.” The great end of true religion, he says, is in our “growing likeness to the Supreme Being.” We are partakers of divinity. And the goal of our religious practice should be to “turn [our] aspirations to [the] perfection of the soul.”

Unlike his contemporaries who imaged a God who is all-knowing and all-powerful, but otherworldly and distant, Channing preached of a God who is present within us. Where others imagined a great gulf separating a lofty and unapproachable God from lowly and sinful humanity, Channing preached of a God we can see “in every thing from the frail flower to the everlasting stars.” “We see God around us, because [God] dwells within us. It is by a kindred vision, that we discern [God’s] wisdom in [God’s] works.”

And because we have a “kindred nature with God” we have the capacity to “be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect.”

God exists within our own spiritual nature. The sacred exists within the “original and essential capacities of the mind.” It is up to us whether we choose to build upon our innate abilities. We can develop our spiritual nature. We can strengthen our moral vision. In doing so, we ourselves approach divinity.

Seeds of the sacred rest within us. It is within our power to help them unfold. Or as Channing puts it, “God becomes a real being to us, in proportion to [God’s] own nature unfolded within us.”

* * *

Channing is firmly grounded in the Western liberal Christian tradition. But his understanding of religious practice and the divine dimension of human nature is in some ways remarkably similar to the Buddhist perspective.

Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg writes, “for those who aspire to the freedom from suffering taught by the Buddha, the primary [source] of abiding faith is our own buddha nature.”

Buddhist teachings arise out of the experience of being human, she says, and thus they emphasize the importance of having faith in oneself, and one’s true capacities.

As human beings, we often have a clear sense of our own limitations and short-comings, what some would call our sinfulness. But according to Buddhist teachings, “whatever we might be conditioned to believe, the teachings say that beneath our small, constricted… identity lies the innate capacity for awareness and love that is buddha nature.”

Buddhist scriptures describe buddha nature before it is awakened as “flowers before their petals have opened, a kernel of wheat that has not yet had its husk removed…”

“Our potential for love and awareness… is present regardless of our particular conditioning or background or traumas or fears - it is not destroyed, no matter what we have gone through or will go through,” Sharon Salzberg says. “Although some people are completely out of touch with that capacity - they can’t find it, or don’t trust it - it is always there.”

* * *

For the Buddhist an essential tool to help us awaken to our buddha nature, is the practice of meditation or mindfulness. Meditation allows us to relax, and experience a sense of clarity and spaciousness.

As Buddhist nun Pema Chodron describes it, through practice we can experience moments of being fully present, right here and now, moments that feel simple direct and uncluttered. “It feels like stepping out of a fantasy world and discovering the simple truth,” she says.

And yet, she says, there is no guarantee that meditation will create that experience. “We can practice for years without penetrating our hearts and minds. We can use meditation to reinforce our false beliefs.” We can use meditation as a kind of escape, as a way to withdraw from the world, and insulate ourselves from others.

We can approach religious practice as a way to fix ourselves, but that is also a mistake. “Trying to fix ourselves is not helpful,” Chodron says, “it implies struggle and self-denigration… Trying to change ourselves doesn’t work in the long run because we are resisting our own energy… Lasting transformation occurs only when we honor ourselves [- as we are -] as the source of wisdom and compassion.”

As Lao Tzu put it, “true perfection seems imperfect, yet it is perfectly itself.”

Or as the eighth-century teacher Shantideva put it, we are “very much like a blind person who finds a jewel buried in a heap of garbage. Right here in what we’d like to throw away, in what we find repulsive and frightening, we discover the warmth and clarity [our buddha nature].”

* * *

I agree with the Dalai Lama and with William Ellery Channing. I believe we have the capacity to change from within. We have the capacity to help our true nature unfold more fully. But it does require effort. Religious practice requires time and attention. We need to take time – every day – to remind ourselves of our buddha nature, the divine dimension, which exists within us and around us.

I am not a Buddhist. I am not convinced that meditation is the right path for me. I am not a Christian. I am not convinced that embracing Jesus is my path to salvation, and I am not sure about how to imagine God.

I am a Unitarian Universalist. I agree with the Unitarian educator Sophia Fahs, who said, there is no special “religious knowledge” that needs to be found in a particular church or temple or synagogue. If we fully accept that all nature is one and that the spiritual and material are intermingled and interdependent… then all life, all existence, is appropriate subject matter for religious investigation. Then any moment, any experience of our lives can become an avenue of religious practice.

Instead of wondering about “religious things” we need to think about ordinary things until insights and feelings are found which have a religious quality.

I would like to close with Sophia Fahs’ understanding of the religious way. She writes:

“The religious way is the deep way, the way with a growing perspective and an expanding view.  It is the way that dips into the heart of things, into personal feelings, yearnings and hostilities that so often must be buried and despised and left misunderstood.  The religious way is the way that sees what physical eyes alone fail to see, the intangibles at the heart of every phenomenon.  The religious way is the way that touches universal relationships; that goes high, wide and deep, that expands the feelings of kinship.  And if God symbolizes or means these larger relationships, the religious way means finding God; but the word itself is not too important.”

May we have the serenity, the courage, and the wisdom,
To live in a religious way.

Amen.