Download 1 DRAWING BELIEFS ABOUT AUTHORITY FROM THE VEDIC

DRAWING BELIEFS ABOUT AUTHORITY
FROM THE VEDIC RELIGIONS OF HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM
Why Believe?
Sermon by Rev. Jack Donovan, January 29, 2017
Unitarian Universalist Church of St Petersburg
READINGS
Invocation
Look to This Day from Vedic poet Kalidasa (5th 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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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READINGS
INVOCATION
Look to This Day from Vedic poet Kalidasa (5th 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.”
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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.
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