Passion and Compassion:

Jesus and the Buddha

A Sermon Offered at the Unitarian Universalist Church

March 24, 2002

By Reverend Hilary Landau Krivchenia

The teaching masters, like siblings, are harmonious.

Readings

Daniel Berrigan in The Raft is not the Shore  pg. 1

This idea stuck me in thinking about Martin Luther King and his attitude toward his own people.  Even though there were the bitterest memories of bondage and enslavement, the people could arise and create a human future in the midst of their oppression.  In some mysterious way, the bitter and unpromising past had been transformed into a vision—a vision of an entirely new future.  And the most stunning fact of all was that the struggle…also included the keeper, the slave master.  He was never left behind.

From Thich Nhat Hanh:

In Going Home, Jesus and Buddha as Brothers  pp16-17.

We don’t want to say that Buddhism is a kind of Christianity and Christianity is a kind of Buddhism.  A mango cannot be an orange.  I cannot accept the fact that a mango is an orange.  They are two different things.  We have to preserve the differences.  It is nice to have differences.  Vive la difference.  But when you look deeply into the mango and into the orange, you see that although they are different, they are both fruits.  If you analyze the mango and the orange deeply enough, you will see the same elements are in both, like the sunshine, the clouds, the sugar, and the acid.  If you spend enough time looking deeply enough, you will discover that the only difference between them lies in the degree, in the emphasis.  At first you see the differences between the orange and the mango.  But if you look a little deeper, you discover many things in common.  In the orange you find acid and sugar which are in the mango too.  Even two oranges taste different; once can be very sour and one can be very sweet.

Sermon

Last week I talked with you about the filament, the thread of DNA – the thread of life:

This week I was reminded that William Blake wrote:

I give you the end of a golden string –

Only wind it into a ball

It will lead you in at Heaven’s Gate

Built into Jerusalem’s Wall.

Today is Palm Sunday – when Jesus is said to have ridden into Jerusalem along streets lined with people waving palm leaves.  This Sunday I would rather talk with you about the thread that he followed that lead him there – the threads that have lead seers, teachers, and leaders toward their calling in the world – and that lead us – when we follow them.  I don’t believe that Jesus entered Jerusalem seeking sacrificial death but seeking a generous life – I think that he went to Jerusalem, in his own style, seeking that Gate to Heaven which can be opened in every life – though that is not the language I would choose for myself.

What is Heaven’s Gate?  Is it a cult of hapless dreamers lulled to death by mind controlling words.  Is it a Golden Portal guarded by a saint named Peter?  Is it some frothy paradise hidden in a cloud-swept higher dimension?  Is it a place reserved for the chosen, the pure, the saintly?  As you might guess, I think it’s none of these.  It’s both closer and farther away, both harder and easier to attain and, especially, there is no one true path toward it.  Though there are some to avoid.

Emerson said that in “Every wall there is a door” and when Albert Camus read those words while working in the Resistance during World War II, he believed that door was the door to freedom.  For me, perhaps, that’s closer to my vision of heaven – the opening we make in the wall of suffering – freedom and justice -- the liberation we make in our hearts and in our lives.  Not sheltered from the world – like Siddhartha – over protected, constricted by an illusory palace life.  One day he – we – open the door and enter the world – sheltering one another instead.

The gates of Heaven and Hell, incidentally, are here outside this sanctuary, throughout this town and here inside with us in every ray of light, in every corner of beauty or of shabbiness, in every folding chair, or mote of dust, and every soul that is gathered here.  The Buddha said that there are 84,000 doors to peacefulness and loving kindness in this life – but Thich Nhat Hanh says that number is too small and I agree.  Anything in life is a portal to the sacred – even though we have symbols, this chalice, these teachings, our principles.  For Watson and Crick it was the elegance of the double helix that revealed to them a deep beauty in the design of life.

The realm of heaven is at hand, said Jesus, and much longer ago before that Siddhartha said: One dwelling in loving-kindness would attain that state which is bliss.  Today I want to visit their lives – Jesus and Siddhartha.  It is of these lives I speak.  Hearts separated by continents and hundreds of years, shrouded in layers of retelling and reinterpretation.  It is of these lives I speak – the Christ – the anointed – and the Buddha – the awakened – these lives which have intended to point in this world toward loving, holy Passion and Compassion.  The lives of prophets are legion – I choose today these two echoing voices, joined threads -- because they are like mirrors of one another and like opposites and I love them both for that.

Also that I speak of these two not because they embody perfection – but because they embody humanity – flawed, struggling, sharing that struggle.  I was at my daughter’s gymnastics class the other day and a teacher  -- looking for a good demonstrator, asked about the somersault that her class was going to do, “who thinks they have it perfect?” And a crystal voice rang out, “Not me!”  The voice of authenticity.  No false saint hood, no perfection – no absolute or complete or perfect selfhood or godhead but authentic human struggle toward – whatever heaven we are able to make and which will change as we draw close.  The second precept of the order of Interbeing – the Buddhist order founded during the war in Vietnam says: Do not think the knowledge you possess is changeless, absolute truth.  Avoid being narrow minded and bound to present views.”  These two were men of different classes – one wealthy and one poor who left behind their stations in life – the privileges and the limitations. 

It is said that at the birth of Siddhartha many wise men came and said that he would be a great leader – but one holy man – Asita Kaladevala, aged and trembling, leaning upon a cane, wept streams of tears.  Siddhartha’s father was worried and asked urgently if the holy man had some sad foreboding for his child.  “No,” the holy man said, “I see no misfortune at all.  I weep for myself, for I can clearly see that this child possesses true greatness and will penetrate the mysteries of the universe.  And I will not live to hear his voice proclaim these truths.[1]”  It is not unlike the story of the birth of Jesus when Joseph and Mary took Jesus to the Temple to be blessed.  The man, Simeon, righteous and devout, took the child in his arms and said to his God “My eyes have seen your salvation, a light for revelation and a glory to your people, Israel.”

Thus, there were intimations early that neither one would be a follower or a simple believer his whole life.  Each would look through things toward the deeper meanings – each of you know what that is like for even to be here is to have trusted yourself enough to chose and to re-choose a path less taken.  There is a story told about the Buddha as a teenager on the banks of the Baganga River.  The folk from the area believed that the waters of the river could wash away one’s bad karma – evil deeds and thoughts not only from this lifetime but from all lifetimes.  Siddhartha was sitting with a friend one day at the river’s edge and asked the friend “Channa – do you believe that this river can wash away bad karma?”  His friend replied that it must be thus if so many people would come in all kinds of weather to bathe in the river.  Siddhartha smiled: “Well, then, the shrimp, fish, and oysters who spend their entire lives in these waters must be the purest and most virtuous beings of all.”

To which his friend replied, “Well, at least I can be sure that bathing in this river will wash away the dirt and dust from one’s body.” Siddhartha laughed and said, “With that, I certainly, agree.”

When Siddhartha left his palace, he saw suffering all around him and could not return to forgetfulness.  From the time he saw suffering he was devoted to alleviating it – in as many ways as he could find.  He took time in meditation, in prayer – seeking with one teacher and then with another and then found, beneath a Bodhi tree, on his own, the wisdom he sought.  Out of a complex of stories of Gods in struggle he drew a core of life giving, living ideas – the Four Fold Truths – That there is suffering in life.  That suffering originates in our clinging to particular ideas and desires.  That there is a living state in which there is no suffering and that there is path to realize this state free of suffering – which is the eightfold path.  And this eightfold path is how we are saved from the hell of our lives and the hell we create in the lives of others. Right Understanding, seeing through illusion – like Barbie is an illusion; Right Thought, acting beyond self-interest to help the oneness that is life; Right Speech, using our words in not in emptiness, pride, cruelty, or power but for peace, healing, or truth; Right Action, using our actions to help and not to harm, honoring our commitments, acting from love and not from fear; Right Livelihood, working in ways that heal the world; Right Effort, staying with the path knowing that this is no easy choice; Right Mindfulness, being awake and aware in every moment; and Right meditation, stilling the mind and making peace within the self.  Seems simple enough – like a beautiful flower that keeps one afloat in a sea of cruelty and injustice.  Yet it is very challenging – quiet, deeply feeling, aching in compassion and yet returning, through pain, fear, and anger to the calm center.  The Four Noble Truths face suffering in the face and embrace it rather than inflicting it upon others.  The eight-fold path does nothing more nor less than demand that one offer her or his being for the welfare of all sentient beings – of all this world.  As the Buddha said “Hatreds do not ever cease in this world by hating, but by love; over come evil by good, the miser by giving, the liar by truth.”  Does this really work?  Does it yield power, healing, or peace?  I would suggest looking at Vietnam where the self sacrifice and the peaceful resistance of the Buddhists inspired Americans to work for peace and brought activists together in a vision of a new and just world.  I would suggest looking at the case of Tibet – where the indigenous Buddhists were cruelly driven out by Communist soldiers.  Did their passive resistance save them?  They could not keep their country, but as they were spread in a great Diaspora, so the seeds of Buddhism have blown through the world changing lives and communities, and making new workers for peace where there were none. 

But, let’s return to our more familiar Galilean. Jesus did not need to do more than to look at the suffering of his own people at the hands of the Romans, or to see the poverty and disease that crowded his streets, or the hypocrisies that cursed his temple.  And, in the words of John Dominic Crossan, he was a passionate Mediterranean peasant – a child of fire and light.  Bishop John Shelby Spong suggests that the idea of Immaculate Conception – must have haunted Jesus’ early life so that he may have felt a need for a father he could securely call his own.  Abba! He would say – father in Hebrew.  There are few stories of his childhood but I am fascinated by the story in which he was left behind by his parents as they went out and was found later in the Temple discussing Scripture with the Rabbis -- on equal footing.  When his parents expressed their concern that they did not find him at home he replied “Did you not know that I must be in my father’s house?”  Yet he found his father’s house also in the desert – seeking wisdom in solitude and the searching of his own soul.  He grew to be a passionate young man – a prophet speaking with confidence and equal power in the line of Isaiah – calling down waters of righteousness and justice to a thirsting world.  He did not reject the laws of his Judaism but sought to rekindle the spirit in which they were kept.  Certainly, like many a radical, he may have been arrogant – certainly he was a man with a temper that flared like the sun and who burned with a holy light – a radiance like that, perhaps, of the Buddha.  Certainly, he was a strong-minded man who spoke in parables and metaphors.  When, he said: “Love your brother like your soul, guard him like the pupil of your eye.”  “When you do not serve the least of these – you do not serve me.”  Out of that one is condemned to Hell – not in a future judgment but now.  What else is hell but to be distant from love and from peace?  And he was echoing the words of Leviticus.  He was calling his people to a more demanding justice.  Jesus lived in the light of the ancient prophets and their vision of the truly lawful community.

In the lives of both Jesus and of the Buddha there were stories of miracles and wonders – of painless child birth, the blind made to see, the protection of a cobra in a falling rain, the lame made to walk, the flowers made to bloom, the wealthy made generous, of an emptied tomb, the beauty of a rain of flowers.  I had a professor – Goldman – in a psychology course in college who asked us to write a paper on whether or not miracles had vanished from the world.  I remember my essay – that the world was alight with miracles but they seemed so ordinary that we could not see them – that our struggles and small victories, that the return of spring – our love for one another -- were all miracles greater than those credited in the scriptures.  What greater miracle than that a person should find himself and gain the world – for that is the teaching of both of these ancients – to look within – the heart, the fire, the lily of the field, the drop of water, the offering of milk, the offering of love and protection and find the holy of holies.  One – speaking of love with deep engagement, attentiveness, and clear reflection – the other speaking of love in tones of passionate engagement and blazing hope.  The world can be cruel beyond our wildest dreams and yet these two have offered teachings of compassion – in love and practice that have survived threading over centuries of distortion, waves of invaders, empires of zealots. 

When the French entered Vietnam, they attacked the Buddhist religion.  One cleric wrote in the late 1600’s: “Just as when a cursed tree is cut down, the branches that are on it will also fall, when the sinister and deceitful Buddha is defeated the idolatries that proceed from him will also be destroyed.”  Thich Nhat Hanh, growing up in French and then American occupied Vietnam, wrote, “in such an atmosphere of discrimination and injustice against non-Christians, it was difficult for me to discover the beauty of Jesus teachings.” 

There was a time when it would have been hard for me, too.  The Buddha would have seemed too far out – because I did not really know his connection with the brave peacemaking nuns and monks of the Vietnam War.  Jesus would have been harder even than that – raised by post Holocaust Jewish parents.  As kike had turned out to mean Christ killer, when I asked my mother about it – so did Christian come to mean – Jew-hater, hater of diversity, harsh judge of hearts, wizard transmuting love into shame.

When later, Nhat Hanh met Daniel Berrigan, Thomas Merton, and Martin Luther King, Jr, who nominated Hanh for the Nobel peace prize in 1967, he found he could discover that beauty – he wrote: “The moment I met Martin Luther King, Jr., I knew that I was in the presence of a holy man.”  And centuries of pain began to heal.  King took the teachings of the East and the West and made simple and powerful our ability to transform the world with love.  During the protests against the War in Vietnam and in the Civil Rights Movement healing was found – a deeper power was found.  At the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, near a bus of civil rights activists that was firebombed I found a quotation from an activist, James Lawson:  “We will accept the violence and hate, absorbing it without returning it.”  Two weeks ago, pain wracked, after displays of segregated theaters, bathrooms, water fountains, schools, the displays of hatred and shame, and in the shadow of the 16^th street Baptist Church – I witnessed those words.  “We will accept the violence and hate, absorbing it without returning it.”  Moved by the courage and love in that statement, I heard the echoes of Jesus and the Buddha.

The Buddha died at the age of eighty – from a piece of bad food – pork or mushroom or something that had been given him by a householder on one of his travels.  By the time the Buddha reached home he knew that he was dying.  He settled himself and asked for someone to take a message to the householder whom he knew would be heartbroken when he realized that the bad food had killed the beloved teacher.  His message thanked the man for the meal – saying that the gift had still been meant with love and that was the real nourishment and had been received.  And not to worry.  And then he shared with his students that his Dharmakaya – the body of his teachings would live on with them – that as long as his teachings remained alive he was the living Buddha.  And that he lived in every one of them – a Buddha to be. 

As Jesus shared his last Seder with his disciples, he called the matzo the bread of memory, saying: eat this in this memory of me – as Jews have done since the dawn of the Jewish calendar.  In this bread I live on – in you, in your memory, in my teachings, in the body of the world – of which I am, all as each one of you is, all.  Forgiving, loving, knowing.  How do I leave for heaven – he might have asked in a scripture that didn’t make the cut – when the kingdom of heaven is here?  To know that is to be anointed by life, it is to truly arise.

So, the thread remains among us – and the door to heaven opens in every moment – not least of all these moments we share together.  And no – it is not complex – but it is hard.  The peace we seek is within each one of us – I learned that through September 11 – that the peace I seek is in my church, my family, and in my heart.  It can be easier to yell out in protest than to offer our hands and even our lives to the creation of peace where we most need it.  Easier to complain than to offer vision.  Easier to cry out about manna in the desert than to notice freedom and community that abound.  How easy to be caught in fear and in the mean details, how easy it is to forget the beloved community and see only the business of the moment.  Take a moment and take a deep breath – everything in this space is connected by those golden threads – they lead to every ray of light, to every seat, to every crack, and each flower and every heart every one and every thing here – is alive with heaven – with promise, with challenge – our prophets sit among us – because their insights – our insights are ever available and ever expanding.    Knowing this we can transform this church and our world with our love.

The words of Audre Lorde, which I learned in a chant in Birmingham come to me – as I look at you in love and in hope

We are the ones, we are the ones, we’ve been waiting

We are the ones, we are the ones, we’ve been waiting

We are the ones, we are the ones, we’ve been waiting for.  

To be able to look into the eyes of one true master is worth one hundred years of studying his doctrine.

Thich Nhat Hanh