Unitarian Universalist Congegation of Castine
Nurture your spirit. Help heal the world.
Readings
From the Buddha, the Dhammapada, “Give Up Anger,” reprinted in God Makes the Rivers to Flow, edited by Eknath Easwaran, Nilgiri Press, Tomales, CA, 1982
Conquer anger through gentleness, unkindness through kindness, greed through generosity, and falsehood by truth. …
Use your body for doing good, not for harm. Train it to follow the dharma. Use your tongue for doing good, not for harm. Train it to speak kindly. Use your mind for doing good, not harm. Train your mind in love. The wise are disciplined in body, speech, and mind. They are well controlled indeed.
From the Epistle of 1 John 4:7-8, 12 ~ based on the NIV and NRSV translations
Friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is Love. … No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God live in us, and his love is perfected in us.
From the Qur’an 85:14 ~ The Qur’an, A Contemporary Translation, by Ahmed Ali; first published by Akrash Publishing, Karachi, 1984; Revised Edition, Princeton University Press 1988
He [God] is the forgiving and the loving.
The Sermon
It is said that in Turkey in the 13th century there was a Sufi Muslim cleric named Mullah Nasrudin. Many stories and jokes are told about him. He is portrayed as having been both wise and foolish. Here is one of those stories.
Mullah Nasrudin decided to start a flower garden. He tilled the soil and planted the seeds of many beautiful flowers. When the flowers came up, however, they were accompanied by a nearly equal number of dandelions. He sought advice from gardeners all over Turkey, and tried all of their methods to get rid of the dandelions, but the dandelions persisted and continued to spread. Finally he walked all the way to the Sultan’s palace to speak to the royal gardener.
The royal gardener suggested many remedies to get rid of the dandelions, but Nasrudin had already tried them all. They sat together silently for some time. Finally the royal gardener said to Nasrudin, “Well, I suggest you learn to love them.”
Our lives are full of dandelions, and dandelions are tenacious, persistent. We can’t ever completely get rid of them. Can we learn to love them?
Our lives are full of frustrations. Sometimes we are frustrated by the way other people behave; some people are illogical, unreasonable, controlling, or so self-centered that they are difficult to be around. But we should love them anyway.
And, while other people can be annoying, we are just as often frustrated by our own faults and foibles. All of us have moments of poor temper, of temptation, of weakness. All of us have done things that, looking back, we wish we had not done.
Anger is self-destructive. Have you ever noticed that your own anger makes you feel terrible? Why would any of us want to feel that way? Anger doesn’t just make us feel bad, it literally makes us sick. There are at least forty-five studies on the medical link between hostility and anger on the one hand, and coronary heart disease on the other. Angry and hostile people, in general, are more prone to heart disease than those who are not habitually angry. Buddhism teaches that anger is never useful. When we are angry we are less rational, more likely to make mistakes, more likely do things we are going to regret later, and we are less effective over all. Therefore Buddhism teaches us that the wise person controls her or his anger. The Buddha taught his disciples to conquer anger through gentleness; to train the tongue to speak kindly, and train the mind in loving-kindness.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow once observed that love is as essential to the growth of a human being as are vitamins, minerals, and proteins. Kent M. Keith, author of Anyway, The Paradoxical Commandments, writes, “I believe we human beings are built to run on love. We are designed that way. If we are not giving and receiving love, we are not operating on all our cylinders. We are not who we are supposed to be.” His advice is, “People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.”
Keith reminds us of the old story of the blind men and the elephant. Each one of the blind men is touching a different part of the elephant. The one who has hold of the tail says the elephant is like a rope. The one who is touching the ear says the elephant is shaped like a big fan. The one touching the leg says the elephant is like a pillar. The one touching its side says the elephant is like a wall. The one touching the tusk says it is like a spear; and the one holding the trunk says it is like a big hose.
Each of the blind men might think that he knows the truth, and the others are being illogical and unreasonable. So, when I encounter someone I think is completely wrong, pig- headed and unreasonable, maybe I should remember that he or she is simply encountering a different part of the elephant than I’m encountering. We should keep in mind the saying, “There are always three answers to any question: yours, mine, and the right one.”
How do we speak with one another?
I’ve been concerned for some time about the kind of political discourse we have in our nation today. It seems to me we are more divided as a nation than at any time since the Vietnam War. Now as it was then, the trauma of war may be a contributing factor in the anger that I often hear expressed. In Congress, Democrats and Republicans find it nearly impossible to work with one another, and “compromise” has become a bad word. Of course, each side thinks their side is reasonable, and the other side is not. Perhaps, however, we are like the blind men and the elephant, each of seeing only one part of the picture.
In her recent book, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, Karen Armstrong talks about Socrates and the Socratic method of discussion. There is very little like the Socratic dialogue in America today, or anywhere in the world. Our conversations are more like the political discussions of the Greeks in the governmental assemblies in Athens. There the idea was to debate competitively, to put together effective arguments that would cause your side to win, and cause the other side to be defeated. The object was to defeat and discredit your opponent. Nobody was expected to change his mind (only men could participate in Athenian democracy). No man was going to enter into empathy with his opponent, or learn from the wisdom of a rival. No, you weren’t trying to convince your opponent, just defeat them, and win for your own side. And that’s how we practice politics in America today as well.
But Socrates had a different idea. Like all free male Athenians, Socrates had taken part in these debates. And he didn’t like the way the debates were conducted. Socrates said to the young aristocrat Meno, that if he (Socrates) was one of those “clever and disputatious debaters,” he would simply state his opinion and let Meno try to disprove it. But this was not an appropriate dialogue between friends. In true dialogue, participants “must answer in a manner more gentle and more proper for discussion.”
The Socratic dialogue was designed to produce a change in the participants, because its purpose was to show that each one of is ignorant. In this regard, it was a spiritual discipline. Once we understand our own ignorance, we will be more compassionate toward others. In a Socratic dialogue, there are no winners and no losers, but one does gain a better understanding of the other person.
Socrates’ disciple Plato, like his master, insisted that dialogue be conducted in a kindly, compassionate manner. Questions and answers were to be exchanged in good faith and without malice. No one was to be pushed into a position about which he felt uncomfortable. Each person should make room for the other person in his mind, listening sympathetically to the ideas of the other, and allowing those ideas to help better inform and perhaps change his own position.
Armstrong says that both the Buddha and Kung fu-zi (Confucius) seem to have conducted discussions in a similar manner. Socrates claimed that he really knew nothing at all, that he was the most ignorant of men. Similarly, Kung fu-zi said that he was no sage; his only talent was an “unwearying effort to learn and unflagging patience in teaching others.” The Buddha also taught his monks to converse kindly and courteously with one another. One day King Pasenadi told the Buddha that he had a conversation with his wife in which both of them admitted that nothing was more important to them than their own selves. Now, the Buddha might have given King Pasenadi a lecture about the value of selflessness, but he did not. He accepted King Pasenadi just as he was rather than where he ought to be, and used that selfishness as a starting place. He told the king that if he found nothing dearer than himself, he might understand that everyone else felt exactly the same way. Therefore, the Buddha concluded, teaching the king a version of the Golden Rule, “A person who loves the self should not harm the self of others.”
In our highly contentious world, is it possible for us to develop a twenty-first-century version of the Socratic dialogue? Can we talk with one another as the Buddha and his disciples, Kung fu-zi and his disciples, or Jesus and his disciples did? Can we Americans, left, center, and right, Democratic, Republican and independent, tea party, coffee party, single-malt Scotch party, lemonade party, and no party at all, speak with one another in ways that are respectful and kind?
Compassionate assertiveness ~
I’m not suggesting that we should have no point of view. We have our points of view. I want our religious faith to stand for justice for those who have been left behind by society, those who have been pushed to the margins, those who denied the rights that others take for granted, those who are struggling to get by. We must stand for our planet earth, the animals and trees, the air we breathe and the flowing waters. Loving our neighbor as ourselves implicates us in the whole network of life.
We can be assertive about our faith without being aggressive in our speech. Mahatma Gandhi is a good example of a person who stood firmly for his goals, stood firmly for fairness, and did it without violence or violent speech. Karen Armstrong calls Gandhi’s approach “compassionate assertiveness.” While advocating nonviolent resistance, he frequently asked people whether they struggled to change things, or merely to punish the other side. When Jesus told his followers to turn the other cheek, Gandhi believed, he was urging them to show loving courage in the face of hostility. This was the way to transform hatred and contempt into respect. But nonviolence didn’t mean complicity with injustice – his opponents could have his dead body,
Gandhi would insist, but not his obedience. Next Sunday our guest speaker is Mrs. Jenan Jondy, an active member of the Islamic community in Orono. Since the 9/11 attacks most Americans have had a one-sided stereotype of Islam based on hearsay rather than actual knowledge or understanding. And yet Islam is one of the three great monotheistic religions that claim descent from one man, the biblical patriarch Abraham. And all three, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, teach us to love our neighbor as ourselves. The Epistle of 1 John even tells us, “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is Love.” Likewise, the Qur’an teaches that “God is the forgiving and the loving.” Every chapter of the Qur’an begins by proclaiming that God is merciful and compassionate.
Can we from our perspective enter into respectful dialogue with Islam, the way Socrates or the Buddha would? Can we be good listeners, good learners, and good neighbors?
Love first, not as a last resort ~
The Rev. Rebecca Parker, president of our Unitarian Universalist seminary in Berkeley, Starr King School for the Ministry, sees the discipline of love for our neighbor as a practice we must begin with, and not something we turn to as a last resort. We must love first, love from the very beginning.
Rev. Dr. Parker writes, “Our task now is to do what we can to advance reverence for life and deepen the promise of love. Let us dedicate ourselves to the thinking, researching, practice, and learning that will bring more love into the world. Let us be witness for the new science that tells us how connected all life is and let us work for social policies that embody our responsibility for one another and for the earth. Let us give reverent attention in our worship life and our educational work to serving the beauty and goodness of life. Let us be a shelter for truths that the dominant culture would rule out. Let us make love the first – not last – resort.”
Amen.