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Unitarian Church of Sharon
4 N. Main St.
Sharon, MA 02067
781-784-3652
E-mail UCS
Book of Transformations
Sermon by Rev. Deborah Cayer
October 7, 2007
I appreciate how Robert Alter is able to observe the workings of his mind. In the space of a few minutes while waiting for his wife on a street corner, he noticed his mental cravings, annoyance, dislike, judgment, anxiety, impatience, anger and envy. He also imagined that the worst might have happened to his wife. While it’s a mild form, all this mental activity causes him to suffer. And yet, the simple act of noticing our thoughts can help us unhook ourselves from their power and reduce our suffering.
We suffer from the actions of others; that’s true. But more often, we suffer from our own mental gyrations about what others do, and even more than that, we suffer from what another person or object represents to us. One way we can free ourselves from this kind of suffering is to pay attention to the difference between what actually is, and the intricate and subtle ways our minds constantly construct drama.
When we do this and get a good look at what’s really going on just below the surface of our minds, it can be tremendously liberating, even if we have begun to believe that nothing about our suffering is ever going to change. But as Sam Keen says, “The great metaphors from all spiritual traditions — grace, liberation, being born again, awakening from illusion — testify that it is possible to transcend the conditioning of my past and do a new thing.” The traditions offer their followers lots of ways to grow and change: prayer, meditation, fasting, pilgrimage, charitable giving, confession, just to name some ways. Unitarian Universalists don’t often use the language of grace, or being born again, or even of awakening. I think the form our efforts to transform often take is a quest for truth. And I believe our own kind of process of exploring for what is essential can free us from suffering. But it’s real work.
All the world’s religious traditions tell us that transformation is possible. But no matter what your tradition is, transformation is very slow work. It takes time and persistence. It happens little by little. Rumi told his followers, “Little by little, wean yourself. This is the gist of what I have to say. From an embryo, whose nourishment comes through the blood, move to an infant drinking milk, to a child on solid food, to a searcher after wisdom, to a hunter of more invisible game.” He was telling them that just as bodies and minds develop and become capable of more complex experience, spiritual selves do likewise.
And yet, we always want shortcuts, like children who long to be all grown up without going through their whole childhood, or anyone who fantasizes about being a virtuoso in their chosen field immediately, or in as short a time as possible. This seems to be true about us human beings in all times and places. To illustrate the point, a teacher in India often told his students this story:
“The Mullah was enamored of Indian classical music. He eagerly sought out a teacher to take private lessons. ‘How much will it cost?’ asked the Mullah.
“Three pieces of silver the first month and one piece of silver from the second month onward,” replied the teacher.
“ ‘Excellent!’ replied the Mullah. ‘Sign me up from the second month!’”
We want instant results for everything, including enlightenment, and we don’t want it to cost us too much. But like other major changes, enlightenment can take awhile for most of us. Our progress is helped along if we exercise our spiritual muscles so that we’re ready to embrace enlightenment when it comes. I have friends who do extended silent retreats, sometimes for a few months at a time. But they didn’t start out with such long stretches; they began their practice by sitting for 10 or 20 minutes at a time. It helps to start little by little.
We can also support our spiritual efforts in small does right in the middle of regular life. For instance, you can support your spiritual practice by simply taking a different route home from work. The “fresh eyes” you begin to develop will also help you notice something new in your practice. For similar reasons you can sit in a different chair at a meeting. Or pick a seat you normally wouldn’t choose at a movie. Or the next time you’re at a restaurant, order something completely new off the menu. This kind of openness to what’s new can support your efforts at transformation.
After you’ve been practicing awhile, you might find that you’re ready to go deeper. If that’s so, you can notice whatever comes up in your practice. Something always comes up, just as it did for Robert Alter. All the usual stuff we carry around. But now when you notice something’s bugging you, you can talk to it. Ask, what does it want? What information does it come to offer you? You can ask yourself how you want to respond. And you can consider what might be getting in the way of your intended response.
In one of his best loved poems, the poet, Stanley Kunitz, who was once the Poet Laureate of the US and died last year at the age of one hundred wrote, “…I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered! How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?” What do we do, he asks, when we’ve lost the ones we’ve loved the most? His poem is full of images of devastation and ruin, until he says, he hears a voice. “In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: ‘Live in the layers, not on the litter.’ ”
“Live in the layers, not on the litter”….Live, the voice seemed to tell him, on the good experience, not forever upon suffering and loss. Sometimes our suffering does overwhelm us; there is some grief that doesn’t seem capable of healing enough so that it might become a comfortable, portable size. It is so huge, it’s as if it somehow chains us to the burnt over, ruined place in our lives. And we live on the litter and wreckage of what once was, or might have been, if only…
At times it’s good and necessary to lie down, curl up and weep. Or curse and kick and cry. But no matter how long it might take, we’re meant to move through this devastated place and bring some tough won wisdom with us so that life might be more abundant. Somehow the hero in Kunitz’s poem finds the strength and courage to continue on, and when he does, discovers not more of the same suffering, but instead new life. “…no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written. I am not done with my changes.” Life changed. He changed. Transformation happened.
So much of change and transformation involves letting go of illusions, of fantasies, of the urge to control. It can be especially difficult to let go when it feels as if we’re losing a part of ourselves, or something that we once loved to do, or someone whom we deeply loved. It’s similar to what happens in our emotional lives. And yet, this spiritual work is separate and different from our emotional work.
And so at various times, the inner demons pile on. There comes a time in everyone’s spiritual life when you’ve been practicing for awhile, things have been growing nicely, and then you find yourself slipping backwards. And after awhile you can’t remember how you started on this path, or what you did to practice, or why you tried so hard. One teacher talks about this kind of regression as a kind of “sunset effect.” She says that the issues we struggle with are like the sun or a planet on the horizon that shines brightest just before it’s about to retire from view. She says you know that you’ve just about accomplished your spiritual homework when you find yourself blindsided by the dazzle of some issue you’ve worked really hard to let go of; such things shine with intensity just before you detach from them once and for all.
At other times we lose our ability to trust in something larger than ourselves and we get stuck; we dig in our heels and refuse to let change happen in our lives unless we first stamp it with approval ourselves. In essence, we loose faith. We begin to function under the illusion that we have to have our hands on everything; we have to know every little thing that’s going on; and sometimes we have trouble letting others complete their own tasks and projects. We loose touch with the fact that we’re not in charge of the universe.
But actually, sometimes our effort to control is a smokescreen to hide this disturbing reality. Personally, I would design the universe in much friendlier, hospitable, predictable ways if I were Queen. So it takes courage at times to acknowledge that you’re not in charge and that the chaos around you just is. Such chaotic moments are particularly good ones to practice resting in the courage and strength of your faith; reminding yourself to do this is a spiritual practice. And it’s a good thing when we do this, because all our fearful efforts to control usually end up separating us from others, sometimes the very people we fear losing the most. But acting from a source of faith builds trust and relationship. Our best hope is to let go of control, act from faith, and let change happen around us, through us.
William Martin says, “We let go of the notion that our efforts at control will keep us safe. We let go of the countless conditioned beliefs that have promised safety and happiness, only to deliver anxiety and suffering. We eventually let go of even the ideas of who we are as a separate ego.
“This path accepts that developing an ego is an essential element in human growth. But it also suggests that this development might be a stage of human development rather than its end product. Developing a cocoon is a natural and essential part of being a caterpillar. But the time comes when the cocoon softens, wears out, and opens up. What if this is the case for all our opinions, possessions, and even for our ego? What if, when the cocoon of ego opens, instead of the feared abyss we find a butterfly?”
I would ask, what if, when the cocoon of ego opens, instead of the feared abyss we find spirit…we find soul?
It can be exceedingly difficult to have faith that the messy, agonizing process inside the chrysalis will produce a butterfly and not some soupy, mixed up mess. We know a butterfly usually is the result, but at times the agony is so much of a challenge that it’s difficult to keep moving forward. And even in the end, sometimes when the change has been accomplished, it’s very hard to leave the cozy place we’ve taken refuge while the world has changed all around us…while we’ve undergone some kind of fundamental transformation.
For the past couple weeks downstairs there has been a glass box full of monarch chrysalises. When it’s time for the butterfly to hatch, the cocoon will soften and split. Most likely monarchs will hatch out, spread their wings, get strong and fly off to have the varied experiences that make for a good life. When they hatch, someone will take the lid off the box and as soon as they’re strong enough, the butterflies will fly away. They leave once the process is finished.
“You are destined to fly, but that cocoon has to go,” the theologian Nelle Morton says. After awhile, no matter what the reason for our retreat into safety, it’s time for us to come out of our refuge. Because, ultimately, this is the process of growth, and new life. Growth is about opening our hearts to new experience, new ways of being in the world; new ways of loving one’s self and others. Transformation happens and our individual lives are better.
And ultimately, transformation is not only for ourselves alone. When we let go and let the great forces of life work through us, the process leaves us with new power to make a contribution to humankind and the great work of universe, however we are newly and uniquely equipped to do so.
I want to close this morning with the words of Lao Tzu…..
This is a path of letting go so there will be room to live. If we hold on to our opinions, our minds will become dull and useless. Let go of opinions. If we hold on to possessions, we will always be at risk. Let go of possessions.
If we hold on to ego, we will continue to suffer. Let go of ego. Working without thought of praise or blame is the way of true contentment.
This is a path of letting go so there will be room to live.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sources for this sermon:
Robert M. Alter with Jane Alter, How Long Till My Soul Gets it Right? 100 Doorways On the Journey To Happiness, Harper Collins, NY, 2001.
Caroline W. Casey, Making the Gods Work for You: The Astrological Language of the Psyche, Three Rivers Press, NY, 1998.
William Martin, A Path and a Practice: Using Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching as a Guide to an Awakened Spiritual Life, Marlowe & Co., NY, 2005.
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