Meditation: Learning to be a Christian, Looking to Eastern Religions

Dear People of Christ Church,
Last weekend, I was blessed to join in the Sakadawa Interfaith Celebration at the Kurukulla Center in Medford. The center had invited all of Medford and beyond to join in chanting and prayer for peace in honor of the Buddha’s birthday. Leading worship I do pray in church, of course, but it was also completely delightful to have someone else do the heavy lifting.

I am not, of course, a Buddhist or a Hindu, but Eastern religions have still had a profound impact on my spirituality. When I was in college I studied in India for half of my senior year and I had the chance to stay for two weeks at the Chinmaya Ashram. When I was looking for a place for my retreat, I met a woman who had gone to this community every year for forty years. “Hinduism,” she said, “basically seeks to make people happy. Meditation," she said, "will bring you bliss. The ashram is Hindu. But we don’t want to make you a Hindu. Hinduism wants you to be a better person. It wants Muslims to be better Muslims. It wants you to be a better Christian. If you learn to cultivate this now, your life will change.”

And it did. Two years later I was in seminary, somewhat to my own surprise and even more so to those around me. I think you have to practice for a lot longer than I have to achieve bliss, but there are glimmers. The thing that Buddhism and Hinduism and Christianity all share is the knowledge that true freedom isn’t to be had in always getting your way. Whether Jesus on the cross, or Gautama Buddha under the Bodhi tree, or an 80 year old Hindu woman willing to have tea with a 21 year old American girl, the basic movement beyond ego and self-interest flows in the same direction. Many deeper minds than my own have engaged in serious interfaith dialogue on this.

Buddhism, a religious sibling to Hinduism, teaches profoundly about compassion, particularly compassion for ourselves—the wellspring of our compassion for others. The teacher Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara says the thing that gets us caught is the story we tell ourselves about who we are—we get caught on our former selves and forget that the “we” we are has always been an illusion, a set of ideas that props us up to face the world, but ultimately of no more weight than a breath. These stories we tell are a deep part of the suffering we create. As a Christian, I look behind the un-substance of that breath and see the image of God in which we all are made—and the detritus of sin that separates me from living into it more honestly. As a Christian, too, I know nothing can separate me from the love of God.

I’ll leave you with one of those stronger interfaith minds than my own, the monk Thomas Merton (1915-1968).

Both Christianity and Buddhism show that suffering remains inexplicable, most of all for the [one] who attempts to explain it in order to evade it, or who thinks explanation itself is an escape. Suffering is not a ‘problem’ as if it were something we could stand outside of and control. Suffering, as both Christianity and Buddhism see, each in its own way, is part of our very ego-identity and empirical existence, and the only thing to do about it is to plunge right into the middle of contradiction and confusion in order to be transformed by what Zen calls ‘the great death’ and Christianity calls ‘dying and rising with Christ’.

Blessings,
Sara+

More on Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara here.
More on Thomas Merton here.

Get Over Yourself: Gratitude and Prayer

Dear People of Christ Church,

This Sunday, I'm excited to welcome the Rev. Elise Feyerherm to preach at Christ Church-thanks, too to her for help with blessing animals on Sunday, too. Elise moved to Waltham this summer to join her husband, John, who teaches at a Roman Catholic seminary. Elise will be hanging out at Christ Church while she looks for a permanent position, helping out here and there and lending her beautiful voice to our choir. She has a PhD in Church History from Boston College and was ordained priest in Ohio a few years ago. 

Otherwise, things are pretty much humming along for fall; our Tuesday night conversations are such a pleasure, and stewardship season will kick off on October 20. On Sunday our blessing of the animals went well, with special guests Bear, Momo, Sasha, Scout, and Wilbur behaving themselves in an entirely exemplary fashion. We blessed pictures of cats and dogs, dolls and stuffed lizards and dolphins, and Ken Johnson even brought the weekly Tribune picture of a cat in need of a home, to remember pets who aren't so fortunate. See more of Kristin's great pictures here. 

It's a lot to be grateful for, this full parish life. Gratitude is, on the surface of it, a simple response to good; I'm thankful that our handicap bathroom is finally in progress. I'm thankful that Suzanne is organizing the parish Fieldstone Fair again. I'm thankful that first grade is going better than kindergarten for my son, that my raspberry bushes are still exploding berries into October. I'm thankful for shelter, work that I love, health, wholeness. Simple gratitude for simple pleasures. 

The complicated part (there's always a complicated part, isn't there?) is to discern-to think, pray, and somehow figure out-how that simple gratitude can inspire us to move beyond ourselves. This is the pattern of God's life: taking on human being as Jesus was a divine self-emptying. Somehow that self-emptying is how, and who, God is. In doing so, we are given a pattern for how we can come near to God, how we can participate in that divine Life. Gratitude can be a practice of de-centering, of acknowledging that what we have and who we are isn't our sole accomplishment and possession, but God's. And if it's not just ours, then we can take the hint that it's not supposed to end with us. 

How? It's another one of those "hardest to learn is the least complicated" things. One of the classic ways is in contemplative prayer, the silent meditation that the Buddhist tradition teaches so well. Somehow by sitting in silence in the presence of God, we're given a little wiggle room to separate out our own freight train of thoughts and emotions. Another thing a lot of people do is to have a gratitude journal or prayer practice, where the intentional recognition of gifts received helps you remember that you're not quite so much the star of your show. What works for you? What works for you when you need to get out of your own way?  

Blessings,

Sara+

Feb. 3: A Psalm for the Weather

I hope you have not gotten too buried or strained under all of this snow! There is something about all of this Weather (with a capital W) that gives kind of a sense of perspective. We humans have figured out a lot of things, but there are certain immovables that we just can't force our will upon. It's a good metaphor for the spiritual life-we can do a lot, and we can be in control of a lot, but we aren't the ones with all the power.

Another image comes to mind which, I think, comes from Buddhism: a contemplative practice is like opening a window; you can open it, but you can't force the wind to blow. You can prepare yourself in prayer, but only God decides how and when to be known. But if you don't open the window, it's a lot harder to know the wind is there.

Anyway, along with the doings of your very faithful vestry, I thought I'd share a psalm for the season-the inclusive language translation comes from the Episcopal order of Saint Helena. Please also keep those who are homeless in your prayers--the weather is not just an inconvenience (or a metaphor) for those who are outdoors.
Blessings,
Sara+

Alleluia! Praise God from the heavens; sing praise in the heights.
Praise God, all you angels, sing praise, all you heavenly host.
Praise God, sun and moon; sing praise, all you shining stars.
Praise God, heaven of heavens, and you waters above the heavens.
Let them praise the Name of God; by whose command they were created.
God made them stand fast for ever and ever; and gave them a law which shall not pass away.
Praise God from the earth, you sea-monsters and all deeps;
Fire and hail, snow and fog, tempestuous wind, doing God's will; Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars;
Wild beasts and all cattle, creeping things and wingèd birds;
Sovereigns of the earth and all peoples, leaders and all rulers of the world;

Young men and maidens, old and young together.
Let them praise your Name, O God, for your Name only is exalted, your splendor is over earth and heaven.
You have raised up strength for your people and praise for all your loyal servants, the children of Israel, a people who are near you. Alleluia!

How to pray?

This week, I'm still working out a bit for myself what it is to enter Lent. I mentioned at our Tuesday supper and Bible study that I find myself looking for a discipline, but that everything seems so trivial; I am saving water with 4 or 5 minute showers, but it feels short of transformative. I could try to eat less or skip dessert more, but then I'd just be focused on losing my pregnancy weight, not the fasting of Christ in the desert. So I am still trying. In general, I'm trying to pay attention more, to move a little more slowly, in spirit if not in practice. And praying.

But how to pray? A while ago I was listening to the radio program Speaking of Faith (http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/), where they interviewed one of my favorite writers, Roberta Bondi. Her books bring together contemporary life and theology with the early monastic desert fathers and mothers. She says,
We often have a kind of notion as part of this highfalutin, noble picture of ourselves as pray-ers that when we pray we need to be completely attentive and we need to be fully engaged and we need to be concentrating and we need to be focused. But the fact is, if prayer is our end of a relationship with God, that's not the way we are with the people we love a large portion of the time. We simply are in their presence. We're going about our lives at the same time in each other's presence, aware and sustained by each other, but not much more than that.

She went on to tell the story of how exhausted and lifeless she felt when she began teaching (she's now retired from Emory University). She said she came home from work and felt totally useless to her family. She was already so tired, and would then be overwhelmed by all the things they needed her for--the washing machine had overflowed, or there was too much homework, or whatever. And she'd just want to run away. What she also knew, though, was that the important thing was that she was there--that part of being a family was showing up for meals. She continued, "However we are, however we think we ought to be in prayer, the fact is we just need to show up and do the best we can do. It's like being in a family."

I certainly know my prayer is like that--I have joked about how the dog's crate in my office had replaced my meditation cushion, but that since the dog died, the meditation cushion is back. For a year, most of my prayer time went to walking in the woods with him. Now, I'm back trying to sit down there in the corner--both examples of a certain kind of holy "showing up"--not always so regular, not always so focused, but doing the best I can.

Here is a line from TS Eliot (I found myself quoting him in my Transfiguration sermon, too).
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
Amen.

Blessings,
Sara+

Grappling with Ideas

On Tuesday, I was with the Sisters of Saint Anne in Arlington, where I celebrate Mass regularly. The service was a celebration of the Confession of St Peter; Jesus, asking the disciples who others think he is, finally corners Peter, in an almost aggressive way: but who do you say that I am? For once, the disciple who seems so frequently to not quite understand things, nails it right on the head: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16: 13-19).
It's an important passage for all of us, but it becomes especially relevant at the turning points in our lives. Our confirmation class has been meeting since last fall with Michele Driscoll, and I've been able to sit in with them several times since I got back from leave. It's so exciting to see someone really grapple with ideas and meaning, to see a light go on.

One of the most stimulating conversations we've had since I've been back was last Sunday, when we had a member of a local Zen community speak with us about his practice. We were all impressed by how clearly and practically he framed his spiritual practice--not just the doing of it (meditation) but also the reasons behind it. What was even more exciting was that as he spoke, I found myself checking off similarities with our Christian belief. We come to similar conclusions, but from a very different place. Mike sat down and said that he was a little nervous, but was telling himself one of the core beliefs of Zen Buddhism--that he was already perfect-- that each one of us is perfect.

In Zen, that idea grounds the practitioner in the idea that however much he or she works in their spiritual practice, s/he simultaneously still has a ways to go, and is already "there." The basic belief is one of acceptance--we spend a lot of energy trying to convince ourselves that things are a certain way (generally, we are trying to convince ourselves that we are right!), but frequently who is right or wrong is beside the point. We can undertake different actions to shape our future, but if the sky is blue, there is nothing I can do to make it pink, except wait for the sunset.

Thinking about our "perfection"--Buddha nature--brings me to the Christian belief in the imago dei, the notion that we are created in the image of God. Our baptism brings us into communion with Christ, and we become his body here on earth. We are joined to the love that brought him to the cross and through the resurrection: a love stronger than death. In the words of one friend of mine, rather than thinking of our "original sin," we should remember our "original blessedness" (this will sound familiar to those of you who participated in the "Connect" course we did a few years ago). We are created in God's image--beautifully, perfectly, whole--though we so frequently behave in ways that betray that essential blessing.

Comparing religious beliefs in this way will only get you so far; after all, even if I can come up with analogies between Buddhism and Christianity, at the end of the day I still find "the way, the truth, and the life" in Jesus Christ, not in Buddha. But insofar as encounters with other faiths cast light on our beliefs in a new way, it's a powerful way to remind ourselves of the truths we believe in as well-and to reconnect with Christian practices we've lost. We always associate meditation with Buddhism, but there is a powerful strain of that kind of practice in Christian history as well. Of course, we call it contemplative prayer--but that's a story for another day.

Blessings,
Sara+