Frontlines

A sermon offered at the Unitarian Universalist Church Of Lafayette, Indiana

On March 16, 2003

By Rev. Hilary Landau Krivchenia

A young friend called me this week and, in her quiet voice, asked if I was scared about the possibility of war.  Of course, I told her.  Although not nearly as scared as I might be if I were on the front lines with the troops or waiting in some poor Iraqi village for distant powers to decide my fate.  If you’re scared, she asked, what do you do?  Whatever I can.  I answered. 

Also, this week the US troops in the desert built and then practiced destroying a replica of the border between Kuwait and Iraq.  Lt. Col. Steven E. Landis, executive officer of the Third Division's First Brigade said: "If it's not carefully controlled, we'll get all tangled up."  I can’t pretend -- seems like things are already pretty tangled up.  My heart is with those troops – those young people waiting and playing deadly military games – so far from home.  I think about the young people who have been sent to the other side of our conflicted world to fight out what their leaders cannot settle.  When people say we should support our troops – it’s always seemed that the best support of troops – of those on the front line – is to work for a peaceful settlement so that they do not die for lack of our vision and effort.  Those of us who’re at home, I think owe it to those on the front line to empathize with their responsibility, their position, and their fear. 

When I have questions about my own fear – I turn to people of wisdom and experience – who’ve been close to the front line.  People who’ve known more than the fear of fear.  For two reasons: one, to see what the deep resources of the human spirit are in the face of fear and, two, because no matter how far away the danger seems – between empathy and risk – we’re all on the front line.  I want to know how people retrieve humanity from war -- from the fear that infects – because we need, ourselves, to retrieve this quality to move humanity forward.

This summer I worked a bit with a Vietnamese Buddhist nun who practices long silences, mindful walking, and deep compassion.  She’s 65 years of age with inexhaustible energy.  I believe if there were just fifty more of her the world might find peace.  She’s spent her life on front lines, harnessing her brilliance and creativity to the work of peace and the care of the poor. 

I got to know her when I handed her a note to give to her dear friend Thich Nhat Hanh.  I was almost shaking with energy, excitement, and a little tension – there was no guarantee that she would pass this on or how might it be interpreted.  Brother Phap Ung, a young monk, had told me to pass the note to her, and said that she would read my heart in it.  Sure, I thought.  I went ahead and gave her the short letter.  She looked briefly and deeply at me.  I’d heard her sing but I didn’t really know her – didn’t really know the eyes that would look over my words.  Since then I’ve gotten to know Sister Chan Khong – a tiny bit better – she is a survivor, a creator, a healer – she teaches me about the power of resisting despair and moving toward the front line.

Born in 1938, she grew up in the city of Ben Tre in a loving family -- her ancestors were farmers in the lush Mekong Delta in Vietnam.  Her name at birth was Cao Ngoc Phuong.  She witnessed the cruelty of Communists as well as French Catholics and nationalists.  Vietnam for many years was a country where allegiances were demanded – first by one side and then another.  Her family was Buddhist by tradition – you know Buddhism is called the middle path – and for a divided and exploited country like Vietnam – the middle way was the only way that made sense to Cao.  Her heart was set on alleviating suffering in very concrete ways.  Her Buddhist teacher didn’t understand her intense desire to help the poor -- the real path of a Buddhist should be one of inner discipline and discovering that life was illusion, he said.  Then she might merit rebirth as a man….  Cao Ngoc Phuong didn’t need to wait for some other lifetime, she wasn’t sure that the Buddha had intended people to contemplate the air, and she didn’t believe that life was an illusion: she could see that starvation was real, murder was cruel, loss cut deep, and war was evil.  And she was ready to risk all to make a difference.  In 1959 she met Thich Nhat Hanh – or Thay – which means esteemed teacher. Both were creating in their own lives and communities a new form of Buddhism – engaged Buddhism.  Buddhism in and for the world.

In a wartime setting, they spoke of peace, helped the people, and educated the world to the evils of the war.  Some deep well refreshed her then to move through deserts of danger and still refreshes her now.  While attending school and then college, studying biology, teaching at University, and studying Buddhism, she immersed herself in social service – at great risk.  From gathering rice, to raising money for farming tools, establishing poor people in small businesses, to building schools, rebuilding villages, setting up farms, advocating for peace, and burying the dead she became a non-violent force to be reckoned with.  Enough peace to become a Buddhist Nun, shave her hair, and earn the name Chan Khong.  She moved through a world at war but she was cultivating peace.  Remember that hermit who attained peace alone on the side of a mountain?  It was a story that I heard Thay tell two summers ago.  The hermit is alone and so peaceful until a prankster monk shows up to test his practice.  He moves the hermits bowl this way.  The hermit remains calm.  He moves the hermit’s cushions around.  The hermit tries to remain calm.  He takes the hermit’s bowl, turns it over, and the hermit finally looses his temper – are you trying to drive me crazy?!  The prankster monk laughs.  Thay laughs as he tells this story – for he and his old friends – especially Cao have remained centered as all around them was destroyed.  They have honed their practice and stilled themselves.  And not always succeeded in finding that still point – but worked diligently so that they could be of effective help – even when the dangers were great.  In spite of real things to fear, they practice to put fear in its place. 

In Learning True Love Sister Chan Khong tells a story of being out after curfew with some of Thay’s books in her bike bags.  She was stopped by police: “when he began to leaf through a copy of Don’t Forget Those Who Suffer I became frightened. In my mind, I invoked the name of the bodhisattva of compassion and fearlessness and regained my serenity.  I saw that my only motivation was to wake people from forgetfulness and help them realize the suffering of the people in the war zone.  I was able to smile.  The policeman smiled back and read the first line of the book. “Little sister,” he said, “this is a love story isn’t it?  It’s okay, you can go.”

Fear constricts the heart, narrows the mind.  It obscures the capacity to reason.  Forgive me for quoting a Frenchman, Camus, who said, “A man with whom one cannot reason is to be feared.”  Fear makes our choices seem more limited than they truly are.  It stifles creativity – so needed in our troubled world.  Is it fear of creativity that makes so many cultures feed fear?  A monster in the heart of the cosmos that we nourish on our own courage and life force. 

Like my friend on the phone, we all live with a certain level of fear.  Some founded and some unfounded – perhaps even manufactured to keep people on the anxious edge – anyone checked the terrorism alert color this week?  Had an inoculation against killer bees?  Noticed the power of the insurance industry?  It is a sort of sleight of hand – if we look over here with fear – we may become immobilized enough to overlook the real dangers over there.  We can be rendered passive and ineffective.  Barry Glassner wrote: “Immense money and power await those who tap into our moral insecurities and supply us with symbolic substitutes.”  Power.

It is hard to avoid the anxieties – but this is part of what I mean when I say that we are all on the front line.  There is, in fact, a battle being waged – it is within us – but there, at least, we have real power – the power to make peace.

It’s a truism that we can’t make peace in the world if we don’t first establish it in our hearts.  It can’t stop there, but it begins there.  The tempter Mara is all our false hungers and crippling fears.  Mara came to distract the Buddha from enlightenment.  Mara is the temptation to fall into fear and not to see beyond it to life.  Mara entices us to build a bomb shelter spending thousands of dollars when we might just work to reduce the madness and injustice in the world that make war possible in the first place.  Mara gets us to arm ourselves against our neighbors and kill innocents in our fear.  Mara makes us believe that there is a war to end all wars – or that a constant state of war will make us safer than pursuing a course of peace.  Mara makes us believe that evil is one man, one scapegoat, maybe two, maybe a small dangerous network, maybe a nation.  Mara makes us think that if we eliminate that one – or one after another we can be safe.  But there is no perfect safety – and the tragedy is to awaken one day and find that we have become – without knowing – monsters ourselves. 

Mara fools us into thinking that we’re smart enough to fight a just war but not smart enough to wage a just peace.  Thomas Merton said that “At the root of all war is fear, not so much the fear men have of one another, as the fear they have of everything: they do not even trust themselves.”  The more fear a person feels the more dangerous that person may be.  Those who fear the most imagine the worst of other persons.  Fear of the unpredictability of life.   Mara makes us think that our allies are our opponents instead of voices in a dialogue.  Mara makes us think that all opponents are enemies instead of our teachers or the impoverished – whether of money or sanity, mercy, and love. 

It should be the task of religion to help us become stronger than our fears – not to manufacture them so that we will throw our money into the collection plate and hope that its enough to save our souls.  Not to build false fortresses to construct false hopes.  Religion ought to give people the resources to rise above fear and find the kind of strength and loving courage of a Thomas Merton, a Thich Nhat Hanh, a Martin Luther King, a Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, Chan Khong.  It should be the task of religion to debunk, to scare off the devils and monsters so that we can face the other beasts of our own making.  It is my wish that our religion can address our fears for two reasons – one small reason is that every minute of our lives is precious and, while I know that fear intrudes, it is my hope that we can hearten one another and lighten our path in the world.  The other reason is that this religion celebrates life at the very core – pure and simple – and removes the demons from their niches.  It is time now for us to move into our own hearts and unseat the demons, set upon us by generations of fearful thinking.

It’s easy to know to grab a child out of the street.  But most of the challenges we face are more complex than that.  They require that reflection that Camus spoke of.  They require clarity and inner balance.  They require that we see a situation and act in compassion.  A tough job.  I was struck a number of times by situations of great suffering that Sister Chan Khong described – situations that filled her with grief and with fear for those she loved and for the country that she loved.  But early in her life she discovered that if she acted in haste – she would sometimes do harm rather than good.  So again and again she writes: “We went out on the hills for walking meditation.  In time that enabled me to know what steps to take next.”  Whether it was the rescue of boat people, release of political prisoners, or the creation of retreat centers to teach peace making from within – hours of reflection precede the decisions that she makes later.  What it is it that happens in such meditation?  We gain insight, courage, move beyond our own agenda and find love.  Our own William Ellery Channing said: “We look forward to the time when the power to love will replace the love of power.  Then will our world know the blessings of peace.”  Almost two hundred years later, the time must be now – and the place must be here.  (The heart.)

            I wish I had the composure and practice of some monks or nuns – but I can only share with you bits I have gathered, that seem borne out by reality.  Peace is first achieved here.  I don’t mean like it’s fine if the world goes up in flames, long as I can find my fiddle.  I don’t mean that if I just refrain from killing someone directly that’s one less murder to contend with.  I mean that if I can slow down my fearfully beating heart and calm myself I will be able to be a servant of relief.  I mean that I can find, with enough practice, the path to be with other people without inflicting pain by thoughtless words or disrespectful deeds.  I mean that at the same time that we find peace in our hearts we become able to make paths to a greater peace in the world.

            “We live in terror because persuasion is no longer possible; because man can no longer tap that part of nature, as real as his historical part, which he recaptures in contemplating the beauties of nature and of human faces; because we live in a world of abstraction, of bureaus and machines, of absolute ideas and of crude messianism.  We suffocate among people who think they are absolutely right, whether in their machines or in their ideas.”

            First, it is necessary to slow down.  That’s not easy in itself – life is so busy – but I’m reminded of story of the monk who was asked how he can meditate for one hour a day and get so much done and he replies – it is not easy – when I have even more to do I meditate for two hours first.  Slowing down helps our heart find again a more natural rhythm and feel again the pulse of nature, hidden just underneath clocks and watches.  That helps us, as Camus said, “tap that part of our nature, which we recapture in contemplating the beauties of nature and of human faces” that helps us to reclaim our souls from the world of bureaus and machines, absolute ideas….”

            Slowing down it is possible to feel the pulse again instead of simply having it race.  Feeling the heartbeat and slowing to organic time.  Sometimes just breathing and focusing are not quite enough.  Sometimes the sight of nature is really needed – to distract me from the hamster wheel of anxiety.  But meditation calms over time by allowing you to turn and face the battleground within and without entering the fray and fighting the battles again.  Letting you reach for compassion and understanding until the pain begins to take its proper perspective. 

We calm fear by acknowledging it.  Thay wrote: “Meditation is being aware of what is going on - in our bodies, feelings, our minds, and in the world. Each day many children die of hunger.  Superpowers have warheads, enough to destroy our planet many times. Yet the sunrise is beautiful, and the rose that bloomed this morning along the wall is a miracle. Life is both dreadful and wonderful.  To practice meditation is to be in touch with both aspects."

The thing is that rather than feeding the fear – or sorrow or anger – we move toward the larger picture – there, there, my little fear, see the great universe in which we dwell.  It can hold us both and you can find release while I seek a better path. I hold the tangle in my heart or the world in my awareness and gradually the individual strands begin to show and I can slowly slide them apart rather than cutting them out like my heart was stuck with gum.

Peace requires this cultivation of the self – not instead of action – but in concert with action.  I always appreciated the irony in protest signs like smash the state – or kill the fascist pigs.  It always seemed that a protest anger and violence should be offered in a genuine spirit of love.  Recently I enjoyed a sign that asked “Who would Jesus bomb?

Jawaharlal Nehru said, Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.

It was when I saw that more clearly that I really met Sister Chan Khong.  A daughter of a war torn country.  A teacher who has experienced suffering and chooses to live in a community with their hearts and minds set upon the easing of suffering.  A woman who grew up on the frontline and choose to keep her heart both on that front line and at peace.

We are all on the front line – that may seem more obvious in the global conflict that confronts us – but it has been building – study enough intelligent history and you will see the footprints that carried us here – as a planet.  No one is out of harm’s way – at the very least our minds are besieged.  But more than that our energies are drained away by small acts of violence – by the television that drains us, the movies that exploit our fears, the increasing pace of so-called life, the small disputes that take place in the workplace, the school, the meeting room.  Peace is every step that we take in conscious commitment to peace – with concrete goals ahead – like writing this service for this morning, or providing shelter for the poor, or listening to someone else’s story and learning to understand our varying hearts. Giving hands and feet to our principles – to make our principles and our faith a healing force in the world.  Discovering compassion and letting that lead to action.

Thay says: “you need a strategy.  You need a lot of intelligence, deep looking, also a lot of compassion and love. In the context of social change, we have to practice together. We have to unite our insights -- to bring our compassion and insight together in order to succeed.”

Yes, We have to unite our insights.  We have to bring our compassion and insight together in order to succeed.  We are stronger in community – together we can practice the art and craft of making peace.  Simple but not easy. 

It begins with going to the front line – within each of us – that place where temper flares, where fear thunders, anxiety paces, hunger distracts, and each is a gateway to peace.  Gandhi said to be the change you hope to see – what did we think he meant?  Always activists in the world?  But more than that – if you want leaders who advocate peace – you must be that peace.  If you want to teach the people the power of kindness – you must exercise it.  If you hope not to get tangled in the barbed wire and blockades, you must work to un-build those barriers – first in your own heart.  There’s no better time.  When the fear rises – that’s the time.  When the bullets whistle that’s the time.  When you walk in this door that’s the time to practice peace and justice.  It’s very hard and very easy – I imagine the cleverness of the Buddha fooling Mara into letting him spread his yellow cloak over the land of Viet – and imagine that we spread that cloak over our hearts and throughout our land.  It isn’t just the cloak of the Buddha – it’s the sunlight of peace.  There’s the magic of practice and hard work.  Of knowing that we’re made of the same stuff that made the generals – but also made the nuns and monks.  We have the cloak within us if we practice unfurling it.  It quiets the noise of bullets and makes a path for help.  It feeds the soul and imparts courage to the fearful heart.   For within that heart is also the heart of peace.  The breath of love.  It begins with our every earthly breath and may extend to every breath on earth. 

So I ask you to practice with me.  Hear the traffic noises outside, the children downstairs, be aware of all you have to do today, of all the people around you and know that these are facts with us in every moment.  We are all on the front line and carry peace to every place in which we choose to breathe and bring peace.  Breathe in, becoming aware of your in-breath.  Breath out and be aware of your out-breath.  Breathe in noise and breath out quiet – just the gentle sound of your breath.  We are united by this breathing.  The person next to you is breathing, struggling with thoughts, with feelings.  Perhaps you, too, struggle.  Perhaps you are sad – breathe into your sadness and hold it tenderly as a lost child.  And when you breathe out hold tenderly the lost children all around you.  With every breath, you can become more connected to those people around you.  With every shared breath let your awareness move through the walls of this church and breathe your awareness of the world around you, around us.  Love and struggle, peace and challenge, fear and groundedness, noise and quiet.  Breathe in peace, breathe out love, and transform fear, struggle, noise, and challenge.  Here, on the frontline, you are the hands and feet of our principles, you are the heart of this faith, you walk on your own feet but you do not stand alone -- together -- we are the robe of peace, we are the breath and the path.  We are the beloved community.

READINGS

Albert Camus c.1936

“What with the general fear of a war now being prepared by all nations and the specific fear of murderous ideologies, who can deny that we live in a state of terror? We live in terror because persuasion is no longer possible; because man has been wholly submerged in History; because he can no longer tap that part of his nature, as real as the historical part, which he recaptures in contemplating the beauty of nature and of human faces; because we live in a world of abstractions, of bureaus and machines, of absolute ideas and of crude messianism. We suffocate among people who think they are absolutely right, whether in their machines or in their ideas.”

Open wider the Road by Thich Nhat Hanh

For the ordination of Cao Ngoc Phuong, Sister Chan Khong

Her hair is the color of precious wood,

Now transformed into incense,

It’s beauty reaches into eternity.

How wonderful is impermanence.

Her true mind decides to practice the way.

Hearing the sound of the rising tide,

She makes one more step in that direction.

The wind is singing on Gritakuta Mountain.

All attachments are released.

Her song radiates the wonderful teachings.

The way is immense and everlasting.

In the past

Her fragrant hair soaked in herbal leaves,

Drying every afternoon in sunlight.

This morning,

This morning the compassionate water of Avilokita purifies and makes her

 Awakened mind more beautifully appear.

Her hands have learned to love and care

Hsaring wiyth joy a humble and simple life.

With patience, for more than twenty years,

Her love for suffering people remains faithful.

The road has opened even wider

Worries and anxieties are removed.

Her heart is moving people in 10,000 directions.

Smiling to the Fear by Thich Nhat Hanh

I smile to the star that still shines in the sky,
To the sun that slowly rises out of the night
To the day that begins, to the enchanting birds,
I smile to world, and the world smiles to me.

I smile to the child that crosses my way,
I remember also all those who are hungry,
Those who live in misery, all over the planet,
Who have to face a war, who lost their mother.

If sometimes my smile is moistened by tears,
When I see the great pain that spreads over the world,
I shall still be smiling with tears in my eyes,
Smiling to life, smiling to death.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Having learnt and practiced the teachings of Interbeing, I no longer see anyone as my enemy and in my heart is a feeling of lightness and immense space. I do not even feel hatred towards people who have made me or my people suffer because I know how to look at them with the eyes of understanding and love. You may ask: "Then are you going to give that band of mad, cruel, fanatical thieves and murderers freedom to continue to destroy and make misery without doing anything to stop them?" No! We have to do everything we can to stop them, we cannot allow them to continue to kill, plunder, oppress and destroy, but our actions will never be motivated by hatred. We have to stop them, not allowing them to cause misery.  If necessary we can bind them, put them in prison, but this action has to be directed by our bodhisattva's heart and while we act like this we continue to maintain our loving-kindness, wanting them to be able to have a chance to wake up, and change. Our enemy is not our enemy or, in other words, the person who hates us is not the person we hate.

The Robe of the Buddha

Visualization and story for all ages retold from a story told by Sister Chan Khong

Long ago, the country of Viet was often bothered by the evil doings of Mara, the monster tempter.  One day the people’s suffering touched the heart of the Buddha.  He went to Mara directly to find a peaceful solution.  "You can have our land," said the Buddha, "to do with as you wish.  But can you leave one small spot where we can live in tranquility? This spot can have clear boundaries, -- as long as we stay within them, you will agree to leave us alone.  In turn, we will not bother any of your new territory." "How much land do you want?" asked Mara.  "Only a piece large enough to stretch my yellow robe over," said the Buddha.

Hearing so easy an offer, Mara accepted and promised not to touch the spot of land covered by the robe.  But when the Buddha stretched out his robe, it extended miraculously and covered all of Viet. Houses, farmland, and animals were all under the protection of the robe.  Frightened by the Buddha's powers, Mara fled into the forest.  The Buddha advised the people to plant a bamboo in front of each house, and each year to hang from it a yellow cloth to remind Mara that Viet is Buddha's land and Mara cannot enter.

This story is about how to find the strength and calm to face life as it is.  Life has hardship but Mara teases people and makes sorrows deeper and worries worse.  The yellow robe of the Buddha isn’t a real robe – but a deep calm that helps people face troubles more easily.  It helps when life is troubling, whether the trouble is a test at school, a quarrel with a friend, or the possibility of war.  These are real challenges but with the wonderful cloth, the wonderful peace we can spread in our hearts, we can face these things with less pain. 

Imagine: that the yellow robe of the Buddha is simply a great blanket of love and warmth that’s settling around you now.  Feel the softness and strength as the fabric cuddles you.  Imagine that whenever the yellow cloth billows around you, your heart feels calm and peaceful.  You know that you have a deep source of strength inside you – you don’t have to imagine that – it’s simply true – somewhere inside you is deep peace.  If you take a deep breath, let yourself calm, you will find it.  Of course, this takes practice.  Maybe sometimes it’s hard to sleep at night: imagine that over your ordinary blanket there’s a magic blanket of protection and love that snuggles and soothes you and makes your bed a safe island of peace in the night – sunshine in the dark.  That’s a good time to practice.  That blanket is always with you – you can just see it in your imagination.  Next time you feel troubled – just let your mind return to the yellow blanket and let its warmth cover you.  The blanket will hold you and bring you peace.  There is no monster stronger than the peace that waits inside.  There is no blanket of peace like the blanket you weave from your own heart.

And you can sing this song.  I wear peace like a robe, I wear peace like a robe, I wear peace like a robe in my soul, I wear peace like a robe, sweet peace like a robe, I wear peace like a robe in my soul. Let us sing it together.