UU
Sangha
Volume: V,
Number: 4 Journal of the Unitarian Universalist Buddhist Fellowship Fall 2002
The Jeweled
Net:
Buddhist Reflections on the Interdependent
Web
By Rev.
James Ishmael Ford
In the muggy heat of Columbus, Ohio, at the 1984 Unitarian
Universalist General Assembly, a crowd of rationalists, atheists, Christians,
Jews, Buddhists, pagans and miscellaneous others (our people all) gathered
together to ratify a new statement of principles and purposes for our
denomination.
We Unitarian Universalists
find it useful to posit descriptions of our general perspectives from time to
time. This is a practice of clarification. And it can be a significant exercise
so long as we always include some form of a conscience clause, and so long as
we remind ourselves we’re not setting up a creed or doctrinal test.
And so after literally years
of wrangling, fighting, negotiating, hoping and praying, we were at the
decisive moment. The statements that had been hammered out seemed to succeed in
that mandate to describe, not to proscribe, to reveal what we largely held in
common in this generation. So, at long last it was time to vote.
And wonder of wonders, on
that humid and hot cusp between Spring and Summer, at that 1984 General
Assembly in Columbus, quite unexpectedly, the holy spirit descended upon our
crowd of rationalists, atheists, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, pagans and
miscellaneous others.
The movement of the spirit was
small—not a great rushing wind or fluttering of wings, just a motion from the
floor. But what a motion. We already had a worthy document of high blown
principles that most of us could agree represented our best ideals. Truthfully,
later commentators have suggested just about any westerner could subscribe to
them, and probably the majority of humanity as well. At the same time they did
distill our hopes and aspirations as a specific religious community, clearly
offering our liberal religious hope for the world.
But the magic, what made it
something different and opened us to the movement of some holy spirit turned on
the seventh of these principles. The seventh and last was like the rest,
reflecting our collective perspectives on the most important things,
specifically calling for “respect for Earth and the interdependence of its
living systems.” This by itself is a worthy statement. But, the winds of the
spirit took us in another and, I suggest, a much deeper direction.
One of the ministers present,
Paul L’Herrou, offered an amendment from the floor. He suggested we replace the
proposed language of the seventh principle with new words: “respect for the
interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” It was with those
words the eternal breath of life, the spirit of guidance, the wisdom inherent
in our human condition spoke out once again to the world of a new possibility,
of a new hope, of a new Unitarianism and of a new Universalism.
Now, this perspective of a
radical interdependence isn’t ours alone. This wisdom is in the air we breathe,
and I believe, our heritage from the moment of our creation. So, the Catholic
theologian Thomas Berry, can speak from this perspective, as can many others.
Berry tells us, “In this
mysterious balance the universe and all its grandeur and all its loveliness
becomes possible. Exactly here the presence of the sacred reveals itself. Here
is the exuberance that could fling the stars across the heavens with such
abandon and yet with such exquisite poise, each in relation to the untold
billions of other shining fragments of primordial existence.”
Here
we find a perspective about who we are, and what we might become. With these
words embracing an image of an interdependent web of existence of which we all
are a part, poetry—and something more than poetry—entered our liberal
theological ruminations. We stopped merely being concerned with a
description of what we tend to think, and called ourselves to something sacred.
This is so important.
I find it hard to express my emotions, my feelings, my response to what this
web suggests. To understand how we are related, to find our place on this
planet, and within the great play of the cosmos itself, is to open a way of
acting gracefully in the world. From this perspective Bernie Glassman, one of
the truly interesting Zen teachers in the west today, can tell us: “I define
enlightenment as the depth to which one sees the oneness of life, the
interconnectedness of life.” Then joined with that statement is its corollary.
Bernie tells us, “And the degree of your enlightenment can be measured by your
actions.” I suggest this joined insight can be a summation of all our Unitarian
Universalist intimations, our deepest dreams, as well as a way toward an
authentic healing for both ourselves and this suffering world.
I want to share a
couple of points. The first is that this insight can be our compass, our guide
for a life of meaning and possibility. And second, this is so because it isn’t
just a grand philosophical principle, but is in fact a pointing to a kind of
consciousness accessible to us as human beings, a consciousness that is
salvific, that heals and saves. It is a call to a sacred way of being.
Now if this is true, we need to
clarify, explore, and to find that deeper knowing for ourselves in our
individual hearts and minds. We need to be like that person taking a sip of
water who knows for herself, for himself, whether it is warm or cool. And this
can be hard. The way to making this my own knowing can seem just about impossible.
Fortunately there are those who’ve walked this path before us who can point us
in directions, who can help us as we make our own way, to make this not simply
a good idea, but ours, yours and my lived reality.
For instance, we can explore this
world of possibility through the lens of the Avatamsakasutra, the wisdom
of the Flower Garland Scripture of Mahayana Buddhism, and the Hua-yen
school that grew out of reflections on this ancient teaching. The Hua-yen
perspective informs and underlies the whole range of Zen teachings, whose
practices are all aimed at leading us to our own intimate experience of this
world of radical interdependence—the same world, I suggest, that the image of
the web calls us to.
Among the images found within
the Hua-yen texts, there is one remarkably similar in spirit to our UU web.
And, I think, reflecting on it can help us to clarify what for most of us is at
this point a gut level intuition, something we know, but only through a
glass darkly. Perhaps the “Jeweled Net” can help. As Francis Cook describes it:
“Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god
Indra,
there is a wonderful net which has been
hung by some cunning artificer in
such a manner
that it stretches out infinitely in
all directions.
“In accordance with
the extravagant tastes of deities,
the artificer has hung a
single glittering jewel
in each ‘eye’ of the net, and since the net
itself is
infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite
in
number. There hang the jewels, glittering like
stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight
to
behold.
“If we
now arbitrarily select one of these jewels
for inspection and look
closely at it, we will dis-
cover that in its polished
surface there are re-
flected all the other
jewels in the net, infinite in
number. Not only that, but each of
the jewels re-
flected in this one jewel is also
reflecting all the
other jewels, so that there is an
infinite reflecting
process occurring.
“The Hua-yen school
(that has arisen from the close consideration of the Flower Garland Scripture) is
very fond of this image, mentioned many times in its literature, because it
symbolizes a cosmos in which there is an infinitely repeated interrelationship
among all the members of the cosmos. This relationship is said to be one of
simultaneous mutual identity and mutual inter-causality.”
Thomas Cleary, the translator of this essential text into
English, explains to us how “The Hua-yen doctrine
shows the entire cosmos as one single nexus of conditions in which everything
simultaneously depends on, and is depended on by, everything else. Seen in this
light, then, everything affects and is affected by, more or less immediately or
remotely, everything else; just as this is true of every system of
relationships, so is it true of the totality of existence.
“In seeking to understand
individuals and groups, therefore, Hua-yen thought considers the manifold as an
integral part of the unit and the unit as an integral part of the manifold; one
individual is considered in terms of relationships to other individuals as well
as to the whole nexus, while the whole nexus is considered in terms of its
relation to each individual as well as to all individuals.”
Heady
stuff, this. But if true, it is extremely important. This perspective tells us reality has two
faces. On the one hand we are unique. You and I are born into the cosmos in
ways that will never again be repeated. Within this uniqueness we share things
in common, but we have eaten from that fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.
As human beings we must make decisions based in our astonishing ability to
parse things out, to differentiate, to weigh and judge.
But
the Hua-yen perspective, and I suggest the intimate
reality pointed out for us in that image of the web, is that reality has this
other face as well. We are so deeply and profoundly bound up together, woven
out of each other. And from this perspective, which is just as true as the
other; it isn’t possible to say a human being or a star or a strand of the AIDS
virus is better or more deserving than any other thing or being woven out of
the same mysterious stuff that is the web of existence.
Many,
perhaps most, of our human problems arise when we make our decisions based on
one of these faces without reference to the other. So, within this perspective,
decisions based in our isolation are made because they are good for us as human
beings, or Americans or Canadians or members of a family, or, most atomically
of all, for me. Choices here are made without any larger perspective, without
acknowledgment of larger relationships. In the worst case scenario, I find only
my appetite or whim motivates me. And with this evil follows my choices like
the wake of a ship.
Or,
I see how everything is connected while forgetting the other truth of the
uniqueness of things and persons. And in the worst case of this, I can dismiss
my humanity as a virus infecting the planet, not able to distinguish between
killing six million Jews or six million chickens. Here is a trap for many of us
committed to a life of engagement and a larger perspective: sometimes loving
the world or the people, some ideal of the great unity, while despising actual
flesh and blood.
In
either case, I am acting from a partial perspective, a false sense of identity.
And the ills of the world flow out of these partial perspectives in a seemingly
bottomless well of poison: greed, hatred, and ignorance. But then there is a
motion of the spirit. There is the possibility of another way of seeing, that
isn’t just my genetic conditioning to eat and procreate, or my thinking of a
grander world of unity.
I
can know, and I can act from that knowing, that we are each of us precious in
our creation, passing in and out of existence within that web of unity: both
together. This is, I believe, the fundamental intimation that draws so many of
us to that image of the web. And as this understanding has been developed in
Buddhist thought, and particularly the Hua-yen
perspective, we begin to see how dynamic and rich this is. And, I suggest this really
can be our Unitarian Universalist perspective, as well.
Now,
let me remind everyone here that one of the great insights of our free
religious movement, is that escape clause. I remember
as I was closing in on the end of formal koan study with
my Zen teacher, John Tarrant. It was very early in the morning during a seven
day intensive meditation retreat. He leaned in so close I could smell the
English breakfast tea on his breath. And he said, “James, remember. Even
enlightenment is just an idea.”
These
words that I share intending to point a way of possibility and life, can
themselves become a snare, entangling the unwary with simply another list of
rules. Beware! In the past the winds of the spirit have blown through the lives
of our ancestors. Pagan wisdom, particularly the insights of Athens, the story
of Exodus and the divine unity, the perspectives of birth and death and the
hope of rebirth told through the life of a person, the exuberant joy found
within human reason birthing modernity: each a fresh breath of the spirit. Each, in turn, opening possibilities for us. And each, within the crushing embrace of literalism becoming dead
letters, false paths. Beware thinking the web is the truth.
But,
if we are careful, if we allow the possibility to flow, the spirit to light as
it will; if we come to realize that what we’re actually being called to here is
not a “knowing,” but rather an unknowing, a forgetting, a letting go: then
something amazing may well birth once again among us. It might truly be the
life of the spirit that informed our ancestors so many times, opening ways of
possibility, of new visions for what is and what might become.
Here
we find we are so intimately woven together and out of each other. Here we find
we live more closely with each other and the world itself than is found in a
lover’s kiss. You and I, together: and moving between us, among us, within us,
is that spirit.
It
is the spirit that descended at that1984 Unitarian Universalist General
Assembly, in the muggy heat of Ohio, and upon our crowd of rationalists,
atheists, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, pagans and miscellaneous others. It is
the spirit that sings to us of that new Unitarianism, of that new Universalism.
So,
this is my Buddhist reflection on our UU image of the Interdependent Web. It is
a beautiful image. But it is also so much more and less. It is in fact an invitation
to a lived life. I hope each of us will take up the challenge.
I hope we will follow our intuition,
our intimations of uniqueness and interrelatedness that have informed our
romance with this image of the web, right down to the depths. Who knows where
it will take us. To a meditation hall? To a soup kitchen? To a political
action? To telling a story to a child? Perhaps to each in its time, and rhythm,
to each as we, as you and I, open to know with that truly open mind, that mind
which forgets selfishness and isolation, and experiences fully the strands of
uniqueness and interrelatedness, strands that bind and create and liberate.
James Ishmael Ford is senior minister of the First
Unitarian Society in Newton, Massachusetts.
He also serves as guiding teacher for the Zen Community of Boston.
Editorial
Insights
Welcome to UU Sangha’s
Fall 2002 issue! I hope that as the
seasons change and families gather for the holidays, that all our readers are
enjoying happiness and good health. This
issue we’ve got a lot of material for y’all: an essay by Rev. James Ford,
poetry from ancestor Henry David Thoreau and contemporary UU Roy Money, and a
quirky mini-photo spread of Buddhist baked goods. One feature I’d like to call your attention
to is UUBF President
Speaking of the website,
by the time y’all receive this issue, I expect to have some new content
up. I often update the practice groups
page, but look for new UU sermons on Buddhist topics, links, information about
UUBF leaders, and more. You can check it
out at http://www.uua.org/uubf. If you
have essays/sermons on UUism and Buddhism that you would like to contribute to
the site (either by hosting on our site, or with a link to where the material
is currently stored), please send them to jwilson403@hotmail.com
This issue we welcome a
new Publisher, Richard Swanson, who is also our Treasurer. Previously Rev.
I’m interested in feedback
about the UU Sangha. What do
y’all like about it, and what would you like to see changed? Do you have suggestions for themes for future
issues? Remember, this journal depends
on your submissions and input.
The next issue of UU Sangha will be published in January 2003. Submissions are open: if you have an essay, poem, story,
artwork, or other appropriate material to share with us, please feel free to
submit or query to jwilson403@hotmail.com.
The deadline for the Winter issue will be January 1st.
—Jeff Wilson, Editor
Relation
By Roy Money
Flags are proliferating again
in a
proud nation doubled in grief
after
a horrible crime against all
and
people want to express their concern
to
stand united across internal divisions
now
unimportant in a period of crisis
for
those who have suffered and died.
Yet for many there is another division
that
shadows our standing together
it
is the specter of supremacy
that
places all outside underneath
we
who have depended on so many for so much
and
so many who were separate and alien to us
natives
and slaves and immigrants and others.
Our borders have changed repeatedly
as
we took what we wanted
and
called it our destiny
but
boundaries cannot contain us
we
stride forth and straddle the world
gaining
increasing fortune and influence
that
is surely not due alone to our efforts.
We
glory in our preeminence
and
many mistake it for license
but the world is always one
and there
are inevitable consequences
to
whatever action is chosen
we
cannot hide behind our borders
and
ignorance will not secure our innocence.
It is good to be grateful and proud
for
our noble ideals and deeds
and
uphold them with honor
but
also never forget that relation enmeshes us all
each
as a node in a far reaching net
and
nothing is fully separate from the rest
we
simply could not be without the others.
Roy is
a biostatistician who lives in New Haven, Ct. He is a member of the Unitarian
Society of New Haven and practices vipassana
The UU
Buddhism of
Tomorrow
By Rev.
Ever
since I got involved with the UU Buddhist Fellowship I’ve been trying to figure
out what the potential of this organization is.
Are we just an information and referral service? Do we lurk in Unitarian Universalism looking
for spiritual seekers, introduce them to our favorite brand of Buddhist
practice and lure them into that tradition?
Do we provide cover for Buddhists who don’t like organized Buddhism but
still want a sangha? Are we a place for
Buddhists to get an expansive religious education for their children? Do we exist just to invite interesting
speakers to a workshop at General Assembly?
Do we provide cover for non-theistic folks in our movement that want to
be religious without a lot of God talk?
Do we exist as the seed of an Americanized version of Buddhism
universalized and adapted to western culture?
I present all these questions
because, as your new President, I feel a desire to work towards articulating
what we are about and clarify and prioritize what goals this organization might
work toward achieving. As a deeply
committed and devoted practitioner of Vipassana meditation (Theravadan -
Insight Meditation Society, Barre, MA) and a minister serving a mid-sized
congregation, I regularly struggle with how my intense commitment to practice
and Unitarian Universalism fit together.
I lead a meditation group that meets once a month. Two or three times a year, I have a
meditation weekend (Friday night and Saturday) where I offer the basics of the
technique I practice. I encourage people
to go to retreats and attend other sitting groups if they want more than I know
or can offer.
I worry about how much to use
Buddhist ideas and concepts in my sermons.
Most of the members of my congregation know very little about
Buddhism. If I pull out quotes from
Buddhist Suttas, they do not reinforce people’s beliefs or support their faith. The illustrations are interesting
curiosities, like visiting a museum and reading about something unusual in a
guidebook.
Much as many in our movement reject
Judaism and Christianity, the vast majority of Unitarian Universalists carry in
their subconscious Jewish and Christian metaphors and images either from their
youth or from our culture. Almost no one
in our congregation chanted the Lotus Sutra as a child or practiced meditation
with their family growing up. At best
they witnessed a Buddhist ritual like Tibetan sand painting or perhaps they had
a tray of sand and some rocks to arrange as a Zen garden.
Where my Buddhism is most helpful to
me in my ministry is as a personal support.
Daily meditation practice keeps me sane as I deal with all the pressures
and competing demands on my time. That
hour at 5:00am each morning is my time just to be alive and present to “the
verities and realities” of my existence.
The teachings and guidance, the Four Noble Truths, the Three Gems, the
Seven Factors of Enlightenment, the Five Precepts, and the Eightfold Path, all
organize my perception and action as I face each day. The dual lens of concentration and awareness
tune my mind as I encounter the moment.
Metta connects me to the members of my congregation.
I mention all this because
I’d like to see Buddhism gradually become more integrated into Unitarian
Universalism and the UU Buddhist Fellowship can be part of that process. I feel our organization has the potential to
be more than it is and I would like to lead us toward that goal.
Right now, here is what the UU Buddhist
Fellowship does. We put out this journal
four times a year. I took it over from
James Ford in the fall of 1997. I handed
it over to Jeff Wilson in 2001 and am pleased to see the excellent ways he has
developed UU
Sangha. We maintain a website (http://www.uua.org/uubf). We support an electronic conversation on the
discussion list uubf-l@uua.org. Every
year we present a speaker at UUA General Assembly. We also host a table during GA with books,
old UU
Sanghas, and
other information.
The meditation groups that
are listed on our website and at the back of this issue are all independent of
the UU Buddhist Fellowship. The only
requirement for their association with us is that the groups have some Buddhist
connection and some Unitarian Universalist connection. Many of these groups are just small groups of
people who have sitting practices and are just looking for others to sit
with. Others have strong leadership and
are developing their own cultures.
One of the things I’d like to see is
more intentional networking of these meditation groups. We are all exploring the boundaries between
Unitarian Universalism and Buddhism, looking for ways they are compatible and
reinforce each other. Maybe we could
have a conference to share ideas, stories, sit together, and share
fellowship. This might be done around
General Assembly.
I’m particularly interested in
exploring what a Unitarian Universalist Buddhist retreat might look like. I organized a one-day retreat in 1998 when GA
was in Rochester, New York. It attracted
about 20 or so ministers to spend the day doing basic awareness practice in the
Rochester Zen Center. Everyone who had a
practice was encouraged to do his or her own practice. This was probably the only time an eclectic
approach to a retreat has ever happened there!
I think there is value for us to come together and share our different
traditions with each other. This
affirmation of diversity can strengthen our individual practices.
The last thing I’d like to
accomplish, as President, is to institutionalize the UU Buddhist
Fellowship. We currently do not have any
bylaws. I’d like us to become more
official in our connection with the UUA.
I’d like us to become a 501(c)3 organization so people’s dues are tax
deductible. If anyone out there can help
us with these tasks I’d be tremendously grateful. I’d also like to develop a more democratic
leadership than a loose connection of UU ministers and senior students.
Way back when I accepted the
invitation to take over UU Sangha, I did so because I believe the nexus between Unitarian Universalism
and Buddhism is extremely strong.
Meditation is the antidote to many toxic elements of our culture. Unitarian Universalism’s sense of community
and our evolving vision of interdependence find many points of contact and
support in Buddhism. The practical and
non-theistic approach of Buddhism appeals to the Unitarian Universalist
temperament. I expect over the next
hundred years, as more people become familiar with Buddhism, we’ll see strong
growth of this organization.
If anything you’ve read here
excites your interest and willingness to act, please let me know
(strumbore@uumin.org or at my address on page two). As your President, I can agitate and organize
but have little time to make some of these ideas happen. I need your help to realize our
potential. I invite you to step forward
and help actualize the potential of the Unitarian Universalist Buddhist
Fellowship.
I am a
Parcel of Vain
Strivings
Tied
By Henry
David Thoreau
I am a parcel of vain strivings tied
By a
chance bond together,
Dangling
this way and that, their links
Were
made so loose and wide,
Methinks,
For
milder weather.
A bunch of violets without their roots,
And
sorrel intermixed,
Encircled
by a wisp of straw
Once
coiled about their shoots,
The
law
By
which I'm fixed.
A nosegay which Time clutched from out
Those
fair Elysian fields,
With
weeds and broken stems, in haste,
Doth
make the rabble rout
That
waste
The
day he yields.
And here I bloom for a short hour unseen,
Drinking
my juices up,
With
no root in the land
To
keep my branches green,
But
stand
In a
bare cup.
Some tender buds were left upon my stem
In
mimicry of life,
But ah!
the children will not know,
Till
time has withered them,
The woe
With
which they're rife.
But now I see I was not plucked for naught,
And
after in life's vase
Of
glass set while I might survive,
But by
a kind hand brought
Alive
To a
strange place.
That stock thus thinned will soon redeem its hours,
And by
another year,
Such as
God knows, with freer air,
More
fruits and fairer flowers
Will
bear,
While I
droop here.
Buddhist
Elements in
UU Rituals
From the editor: This issue
was supposed to include a look at the use of Buddhist images, liturgy, and
practices in UU rituals: weddings, naming ceremonies, services, etc. But we didn’t receive any appropriate
material. So, to fire up your
imagination, here are a couple of Buddhist images put to use in UU
contexts. Although we didn’t receive
much word from y’all, I do believe there is an increasing amount of Buddhist
material being used by UUs in a ritual context, both for individual rites of
passage and in communal worship services.
Just as an anecdotal illustration, when my wife and I were married last
year in a UU ceremony, one of the readings was a metta meditation, there was a
Buddhist wheel altar cloth, and we hung Tibetan prayer flags all over the
backyard for the reception. The current
UU hymnal, Singing
the Living Tradition, includes a Buddhist responsive reading, and a brief benediction
culled from the Mahaparinibbana Sutta:
Be ye lamps unto yourselves; be
your own confidence.
Hold
to the truth within
yourselves as to the only lamp.
Mmm, mmm, Buddha is good eatin’! Two examples of Buddhist images put to
creative uses: a stupa-shaped cake with traditional Buddhist designs from a
Unitarian-Universalist wedding (left); two cookies in the shape of monks
(complete with malas and robes) made for a UU birthday celebration (right).
