January 13th, 2019
When I was little my brother and I would spend hours watching the Olympics on TV, especially the Winter Olympics. While the snow swirled outside on those cold night in Ohio we sat in front of the fireplace with hot chocolate and watched twirling figure skaters, daring ski-jumpers, super coordinated hockey players. These Olympians, the most skilled in the whole world, made sports we knew nothing about look like so much fun. We didn’t ice skate, play hockey, or ski, not even on the bunny slope. And yet the pros made it look so easy. And they were having a great time.
Every night during the Olympics I would watch, fascinated, whatever sport was on- curling, ice dancing, bobsled, luge- and then tell my parents that I wanted to do that sport in the Olympics when I grew up. A different one every night. On Monday I was a passionate about bobsled, Tuesday figure skating, Wednesday cross-country skiing. And my parents, never ones to crush my dreams, always said the same thing: okay, if you want to, it will take lots of work and lots of time practicing. But if you want to do it you can.
Of course as soon as the Olympics were over I started reading Little Women, the Louisa May Alcott classic featuring Jo, the aspiring writer. Followed by the Anne of Green Gables series, featuring another historical character, a young girl, who longs to write. And I decided- I want to be a writer.
My parents had the same response as before: go ahead, work hard, practice. I was also entering adolescence and gaining a new favorite hobby- arguing with my parents regarding any and all perceived injustices, especially ones related to doing the dishes or cutting the grass. I would speechify endlessly, spending more time fruitlessly arguing about doing a task then it would have taken to just do the job and be done with it. And so my mom started to say, as I started to argue, why don’t you save that for your book? You can put that in your book. Save all that self-righteousness for your writing.
I am recalling all this today because, as you know, I am working on a book, a book soon due to the publisher. And when people hear I am writing this book they always ask, How did you become a writer? In the nicest possible way they are asking, How and when and why did you decide that your words were worth publishing? Not because people are mean, but because I think we all wonder- am I good enough to do that? Could I be a writer? An Olympic bobsledder? A doctor or peace corp volunteer or teacher? A musician or senator or social worker? How do I know if I am good enough? How do I know if my heart’s longing to be x is just foolishness or a deep insight I should follow?
The Buddhist teacher and founder of Insight Meditation Society, Sharon Salzberg, writes about the difference between blind faith and bright faith. Faith is a sticky, difficult word for some of us. In other congregation’s you might have heard that Faith was something you didn’t have enough of, as if faith is a noun, faith is a thing. Not having enough faith like you don’t have enough sugar for a recipe.
But in Buddhism faith is a verb. Sharon Salzberg says “Faith links our present day experience, whether wonderful or terrible, to the underlying pulse of life itself.” This part is a little complicated but it’s worth it, so stick with me. A big principle in Buddhism is transience- that everything is always changing. Human life is hard because we want things to stay the same, because stability makes life less scary, but in reality everything is always shifting, dying, being born, nothing holds still. And if we except that transience we enjoy life more because we can relish the good moments in life, treasuring them– because we know we can’t take them for granted because everything is temporary. And we are also less distressed when life is difficult, because we know that the difficulty will eventually move on as well.
So in Buddhism faith is remembering that feelings and experiences are temporary. But also it is having faith in yourself, in your own resilience, in your ability to withstand change and hardship. And remembering that you also are constantly changing.
Siddhartha, the man who become known as the Buddha, was the son of a king and lived in an opulent palace with his kind wife and delightful son. But he was miserable. He felt a spiritual hole inside of him. So he left the palace to try and figure out the meaning of life. Why are we here anyway? Why do people suffer? Why do we die? And for a while Siddhartha fasted and did yoga and meditated with the Hindu yogis and still he didn’t discover any big truths. And he fasted to the point of almost dying, and then said “hey, maybe starving to death isn’t the way to go,” and he ate some milky gruel and saved his life. He decided to follow the Middle Path, a path halfway between opulent living and total deprivation. And he sat under the Bodhi tree and meditated.
Now meditation drives me a bit nuts because I struggle with letting go of my thoughts. I am sitting there, trying to watch my thoughts rise, without judgment. But I keep thinking, am I doing this right? Am I a good meditator? I feel like I’m doing this wrong. But Siddhartha managed to stop judging his own medition skills and just watched his thoughts arise. He observed his anxious mind, which was saying “you loser, you are a failure at fasting, a failure at being a yogi, a failure at being a prince. Why on earth do you think you can find any kind of spiritual truth sitting under a tree? You are an idiot.”
Buddhists call this negative self talk Mara, and describe it metaphorically- as a demon shooting arrows at the Buddha at close range. But Siddhartha turned the arrows into flowers. He had compassion for himself. He thought, “oh, these voices are so silly. This is the human condition, to batter ourselves with doubt. We humans are so mean to ourselves.” And with this realization, that so many of our thoughts are just us being awful to ourselves, just mental junk that tears us down, that tirade quieted. Once he named it, it quieted. And his soul blossomed. He thought of himself with the unlimited, unconditional love many parent feel for a newborn- just pure love. He felt pure love for himself, and for all humans, because we are so goofy, being mean to ourselves when life is already so hard. He felt connected to all of humanity, because we all do this self-critical nonsense. He felt compassion for everyone. And the arrows turned to flowers.
Siddhartha sat under the Boddhi tree and touched his finger to the earth, to remember- he was connected to the pulse of life itself. Remember that Sharon Salzberg quote from earlier? “Faith links our present day experience, whether wonderful or terrible, to the underlying pulse of life itself.” Faith reminds us that we are the uncontaminated being under all the self talk. Under the voices saying “who do you think that you are? What makes you think you are good enough to be a writer, a doctor, a teacher, a parent?” is the real you, the you that feels unconditional love for yourself and every other person.
Saddha is the Sanskrit word for faith, and it literally means to give your heart, to hand your heart over. Saddha is what we call being brave enough to step out from under all those labels in your head, all the labels Mara puts on you, and define yourself. Saying I am good enough to be whatever it is I want to be. Saddha is faithing, faith the active verb.
So back to blind faith verses bright faith. Buddhism has a very simple set of four fundamental principles, the Four Noble Truths, to lead to less suffering and more understanding. The first we talked about right at the beginning of the sermon-life involves suffering. That is it, the whole First Noble Truth. 2nd Noble Truth: we suffer because we don’t think things should change, we want things to stay the same and they can’t, that isn’t how life works. So life changes and we are crabby about it and that is avoidable suffering. We especially suffer because we believe the negative thoughts in our heads and the labels other people put on us. You think you really are a loser, because that is what your ex said. Or that what is most important is who we are professionally- I am a teacher and that makes me worthy, that is where my self-esteem comes from. But what if I stop being a teacher? Then I am suffering again, because my self-esteem is built on external titles.
3rd Noble Truth- when we get free from misconceptions about what makes us us, we feel unlimited love for ourselves and all creatures. This is where blind faith versus bright faith comes in. Blind faith is believing that a religious idea or guru or minister is going to make all your problems go away. That now you don’t have to do any critical thinking or tough spiritual work because you have found the answer in a group or idea or person or Ted talk. Yuck. Don’t have blind faith, it doesn’t ever work out. That’s how you end up in a cult or pyramid scheme.
Bright faith, on the other hand, is having the courage to step into unknown spiritual territory, to explore new ideas and spiritual practices, to feel the giddy excitement of being on the beginning of a journey. A journey that will involve struggle and frustration and lots of work, but also freedom and peace. We need bright faith to start questioning our interior voices, to start questioning our labels. Bright faith is the start of the spiritual quest. You keep your critical thinking, you keep your intellect, because you need it on a real spiritual journey. Bright Faith, not Blind Faith.
The 4th Noble Truth is that meditation leads to freedom from misconceptions, to an acceptance of life’s constant changing, and real love for all creatures, including ourselves. But it isn’t just sitting beneath the Bodhi tree. It isn’t just silent meditation. We reach this freedom using the Buddhist Three Jewels: the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha. This is simpler than it sounds. The Buddha is the divine spirit that lives in each of us, our Buddha nature. The part of us that seeks holiness and greater meaning. The dharma means, literally, the path or the road, meaning the teachings that guide us. The dharma is religious literature, spiritual practices like meditation, prayer, singing. And my favorite, the Sangha, is the religious community. This is our sangha. We are here to love each other forward in this holy quest. To share our Bright Faith when your supply runs low. Remember, you aren’t in this alone.
Next week we will begin a new worship service series, a new theme, to explore for ten weeks. We are looking at how the dharma, or teachings from three different religious traditions, apply to our modern lives today. I hope that you will bring Bright Faith with you as we start this spiritual quest.
Every big endeavor requires Bright Faith. I am a writer because at some point over the last few years I found a break in the negative self-talk. “Who do you think that you are?” became “so, who do you think you are?” I found where my heart was leading me. I found Bright Faith- excitement for all the difficult work ahead on my quest. I gave over my heart- Saddha, active verb faith. It, like ministry, has been the most difficult effort of my life, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Who could you be, if you cut through all your illusions and labels? At some point every Olympian found Bright Faith, knowing that although the path would be brutally hard they wanted to do it anyway. Knowing they had the heart strength to move forward on the quest. The Bright Faith to begin. Where is your faith leading you? Who do you think that you are?
