I would like to begin with a meditation by the Vietnamese
Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh:
Present moment,
Wonderful Moment.
In our busy society,
it is a great fortune to breathe consciously from time to time, we can practice
conscious breathing not only while sitting in a meditation room, but also while
working at the office or at home, while driving our car, or sitting on a bus,
wherever we are, at any time throughout the day.
There are so many
exercises we can do to help us breath consciously. Besides the simple “in-out”
exercise, we can recite these four lines as we breath in and out:
Breathing in, I calm my body
Breathing out, I smile
Dwelling in the present moment,
I know this is a wonderful moment!
Breathing in, I calm
my body: Reciting this line is like drinking a glass of cool lemonade on a hot
day – you can feel the coolness permeate your body. When I breathe in and
recite this line, I actually feel my breath calming my body and mind.
Breathing out, I
smile: you know a smile can relax hundreds of muscles in your face. Wearing a
smile on your face is a sign that you are master of yourself.
Dwelling in the
present moment: While I sit here, I don’t think of anything else. I sit here,
and I know exactly where I am.
I know this is a
wonderful moment: It is a joy to sit, stable and at ease, and return to our
breathing, our smiling, our true nature. Our appointment with life is in the
present moment. If we do not have peace and joy right now, when will we have
peace and joy? Tomorrow? Or after tomorrow? What is preventing us from being
happy right now? As we follow our breathing, we can say simply, “Calming,
Smiling, Present Moment, Wonderful Moment.”
This exercise is not
just for beginners. Many of us who have practised meditation and conscious breathing
for forty or fifty years continue to practice in this same way, because this
kind of exercise is so important and so easy … (Pg 9-11 Peace is Every Step)
How often are we still and fully present to life? To God? To
the Holy? To the cosmos? To our breath?
This past week I realized how overwhelmed I’ve been with the
things I carry … struggles, illness, deaths, accidents, broken relationships …
all of the things I hear of as minister – things I hear – I listen to and then
that I carry …
I was struggling to find Thankfulness as Thanksgiving
approached, then a friend reminded me over coffee this past week to stop
rushing and to be present to THIS MOMENT … I was reminded to practise the
mindfulness training I have done, to heed the counsel I offer to others, and although
she didn’t say it directly, I was challenged to really practice what I preach …
It drew me back to Hanh and his teachings, and his many
books that were simply sitting on my shelves … it drew me back to the
mindfulness workshops I took a few months ago … and it drew me back to
realizing that the truly great minds in our world have the ability to step back
and see the big picture beyond economics, politics, and mundane day to day
worries. These wise minds see our place in the Cosmos as part of a great
interconnected tapestry and when we fully open ourselves to that connectedness
we begin to see things differently, we begin to live differently, and the world
begins to be transformed starting with us …
One of my favourite passages from the writings and spoken
texts of Martin Luther King Jr is from his Christmas Sermon on Peace where he
describes that interconnectedness as we get up in the morning and begin our
day:
It really boils down
to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable
network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects
one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of
the interrelated structure of reality. Did you ever stop to think that you
can't leave for your job in the morning without being dependent on most of the
world? You get up in the morning and go to the bathroom and reach over for the
sponge, and that's handed to you by a Pacific islander. You reach for a bar of
soap, and that's given to you at the hands of a Frenchman. And then you go into
the kitchen to drink your coffee for the morning, and that's poured into your
cup by a South American. And maybe you want tea: that's poured into your cup by
a Chinese. Or maybe you're desirous of having cocoa for breakfast, and that's
poured into your cup by a West African. And then you reach over for your toast,
and that's given to you at the hands of an English-speaking farmer, not to
mention the baker. And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning,
you've depended on more than half of the world. This is the way our universe is
structured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren't going to have peace on
earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all
reality.
Now let me say,
secondly, that if we are to have peace in the world, men and nations must
embrace the nonviolent affirmation that ends and means must cohere. One of the
great philosophical debates of history has been over the whole question of
means and ends. And there have always been those who argued that the end
justifies the means, that the means really aren't important. The important
thing is to get to the end, you see.
So, if you're seeking
to develop a just society, they say, the important thing is to get there, and
the means are really unimportant; any means will do so long as they get you
there? they may be violent, they may be untruthful means; they may even be
unjust means to a just end. There have been those who have argued this
throughout history. But we will never have peace in the world until men
everywhere recognize that ends are not cut off from means, because the means
represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process, and ultimately you
can't reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed
and the end represents the tree.
We live in a world that is interconnected and interrelated.
We seek justice and peace and yet we struggle in the face of
poverty, violence, economic uncertainty, refugees, conflict and all the things
that fill our news – ALL the things we are finding our fear-mongering
politicians wanting to protect us from …
But the world doesn’t work that way – fear breeds fear,
distrust breeds distrust … love breeds love, respect breeds respect and trust
builds trust … If we choose to be fearful and fearfilled the world becomes a
truly horrifying place, but if we chose to free ourselves from our fear the
world opens with wonder and awe …
It is a choice.
And that’s the heart of our reading from Job today. It is as
one commentary puts it: Job is bitter.
His friends have been offering all the traditional kinds of explanations for
his suffering – “Job God rewards the good and punishes the bad … look
around, clearly you are not as good as you think you are … evildoers suffer,
and Job you are suffering – what does that tell you?” But this only makes Job
MORE angry. Immediately before this his friend argues: Is not you wickedness
great? … If you return to the almighty, you will be restored.” But Job protests
that he has done nothing to deserve this. Job demands his day in court before
God to prove his case and to be exonerated. God however is inexplicably absent,
and Job’s cry is more than just a demand for a hearing – it is a lament that
when God is most needed God seems far away. The logic of Job’s friends is still
potent and relevant for us today. It is so easy to assume that those who suffer
must have caused their suffering or have been responsible for it in some way –
it’s easy to tell the poor to just get a job, or a homeless youth to make better
choices, or to jump to simple conclusions about the causes of suffering. It is
so easy to tell those in difficulty that prayer will solve their problems … Job’s
experience that God seems absent is much more common … perhaps instead of
laying blame we ought to learn more about lamenting – lamenting with those who
are suffering and themselves lamenting …
It is a choice … a
choice to be present with God in the world or to walk away …
Our readings today call us to be fully present to the world –
to face the suffering and the dark stuff and not shirk away … in Buddhist
teachings that is mindfulness.
In our tradition we can be fully and faithfully mindful by
standing present to the world and the way it is – seeing and living the
connectedness we have to each other and to all of the cosmos.
In the face of suffering, we can’t simply wave it off and
pretend it isn’t there, but we can CHOOSE differently. We can choose to live
generously, compassionately, faithfully, and mindfully!!
To guide us into that choice, I would like to share another
meditation by Hanh that takes us back to a simpler time and place in our world –
for a moment imagine being a child once again, sitting out in the sun and about
to enjoy a fresh baked cookie … when I
was four years old, my mother used to bring me a cookie every time she came
home from the market. I always went to the front yard and took my time eating
it, sometimes half an hour or forty-five minutes for one cookie. I would take a
small bite and look up at the sky. Then I would touch the dog with my feet and
take another small bite. I just enjoyed being there, with the sky, the earth,
the bamboo thicket, the cat, the dog, the flowers. I was able to do that
because I did not have much to worry about. I did not think of the future, I
did not regret the past. I was entirely in the present moment, with my cookie,
the dog, the bamboo, the cat and everything.
It is possible to eat
our meals as slowly and joyfully as I ate that cookie of my childhood.
Maybe
you have the impression that you have lost the cookie of your childhood, but I
am sure it is still there, somewhere in your heart. Everything is still there,
and if you really want it, you can find it. Eating mindfully is a most important
practice of meditation. We can eat in a way that we restore the cookie of our
childhood. The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are
attentive you will see it … and live it.
(pg 20-21 Peace is Every Step)
What if we truly became like little children?
Over and over Jesus challenges his listeners to become like little children.
What if his point was that we are to let go of our
assumptions and our biases and our fears and become more like children? … How
many things could be solved by becoming more childlike? How many issues would
disappear if we became like our children?
Martin Luther King tells the story of the day his children
realized they were different and couldn’t go to the amusement park advertised
on tv because of the colour of their skin – he describes the clouds of inferiority
crowding their mental skies … Former President Jimmy Carter shares the story of
the moment when his life long friend stopped and let the “white owner” pass
through the gate first because that’s what was expected by his skin colour …
children have to be taught that they are different … children have to be taught
to hate … children learn differences of colour, gender, sexual orientation and
so on – otherwise, they simply accept people for who they are …
My own children used to ask as we worked with Food Banks in
Manitoba – Why is there hunger and poverty? Why can’t people share like we are
told to do?
What if we are to become more childlike and put aside our
biases and and our fear and look beyond the differences and truly see and
experience the world as a child would?
What if we choose to live in the world differently?
Thankfully?
What if we choose to live in the world differently?
Thankfully?
Mindfully?
Faithfully?
It’s all a choice … and I would like to end by sharing the
words of comedian Bill Hicks – much of Bill’s stuff is TOTALLY inappropriate
for use in Church, but his parting words from his routine about life being a
ride, and our facing a choice is pertinent today. Bill says:
The world is like a
ride at an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it, you think it's real,
cause that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and
round and round; it has thrills and chills and it's very brightly colored and
it's very loud and it's fun... for a while. Some people have been on the ride
for a long time, and they begin to question: "Is this real, or is this
just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us,
and they say, "Hey - don't worry, don't be afraid - EVER - because... this
is just a ride." And we... KILL those people. "Shut him up! We have a
lot invested in this ride - SHUT HIM UP! Look at my furrows of worry! Look at
my big bank account, and my family! This just HAS to be real!" It's just a
ride. And we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever
notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter because... it's
just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No
effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. A choice, right now, between fear
and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns,
close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. Here's
what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride: Take all that
money that we spend on weapons and defense each year and instead spend it
feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many
times over - not one human being excluded - and we could explore space,
together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.
It’s a choice … may we have the courage to choose mindfully
and to live accordingly … thanks be to God …
