Could Buddha Be President?
Unitarian Universalist Church of Muncie
May 24, 2009
© 2009 Rev. Thomas Perchlik
Meditation [with quotes From The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida, Chapter 2]
The only way Beyond Suffering is through it. The cross-country runner must go until the lungs feel filled with fire and the legs burn, and then must keep going. The nurse must be with another's pain until compassion overcomes revulsion. The soldier must face the harsh heat of duty before honor is given. In hardship, violence, or injustice the only way out is through. Do not toughen against the pain, for that is only a denial of reality. That way waits only torn ligaments, and broken hearts, and cruelty. "LIVE WITH AN OPEN HEART EVEN when IT HURTS..." stay aware of pain "and act with spontaneous skill and love" in its presence. Imagine a source of pain, especially emotional pain; that someone has insulted you, taken from you, or rejected you. Don't tense the jaw or shoulders, fists or stomach. Let tension dissolve into a cloud of awareness. From the solid ground of meditation stand and face the truth. "Open the front of your body so your chest and solar plexus are not tense. Sit, or stand, up-straight and full, soften your chest and belly, [strong] and free. Breathe down through your chest..., deep into your belly." Breathe out the dust of fear. Only when you are open can you be your best self, your strongest self. Be present. To stand your ground, or move forward with courage, you must be able to feel your body as well as the earth beneath you. This is called living with skillful means. The only way beyond suffering is through it."
Sermon
Each person is responsible, to seek happiness, peace, and purpose in the days of our lives. The problem is that we must do this with others. Thus, we find like minds and support here, and this congregation finds like minds in the broader network of all those that live in the free religious tradition, guided by a cosmic optimism, knowing that revelation is not sealed, that there must be no coercion in religious belief, that faith and virtue require action, that good people must create good institutions. Thus, we must work with others to create communities and systems of justice and compassion. We have heard stories of great communities, perhaps the ancient King Asoka. However, we know that other people do not always share the same vision of the path to righteousness and well being that guides us and we begin to doubt the possibilities.
For example: An investment counselor started her own business. She was shrewd and diligent, so business kept coming in. Pretty soon she realized she needed an in-house counsel, and so she began interviewing young lawyers. "As I'm sure you can understand," she started off with one of the first applicants, "in a business like this, our personal integrity must be beyond question." She leaned forward and continued, "How can I know you have integrity as a lawyer?"
"Integrity?" replied the job prospect. "Let me tell you something about integrity. My father lent me thirty thousand dollars for my education and I paid back every penny the minute I finished my very first case."
"Impressive" she responded, "So what kind of case was it?" At this the lawyer hedged a bit, "Well... um..." and then smiled wryly saying, "Dad sued me for the money."
It is hard to be good. It is even harder to create a community of good people. But it is our faith that it is not only possible, but necessary. This is our mission, to nurture peace and courage in each person, to allow complete freedom of belief, and yet to form a just and loving community with shared principles, shared identity and shared goals. That means we must give up a little freedom in order to form a Free Church. We cannot exist without others, even though at times we find the limits and demands that others place upon us to be the bane of our existence. Is it possible to create a beloved community and how do we do it?
Anyone who pays attention to politics knows how wrong they can go and how disappointing they can be. The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr applied religious ideas to politics and visa versa in the 20th century. He began his career as a Christian minister in Detroit, Michigan. There he spoke out against the Klan in his church of 600 at about the same time that our own Rev. Hersey was doing so in Muncie. Niebuhr went on from there to become a professor of theology at Union Theological School. As a teacher and writer he had a great influence on American religion. He is claimed by both religious liberals and religious conservatives as one of their important thinkers. His most well known words are those adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous as the Serenity Prayer. (Though some forget its exact wording and approximate: God grant me the courage to change what I can, the strength to get rid of anyone who gets in my way, and the serenity that comes from hiding the evidence well.)
In response to the oppressions of war and dictatorship in Europe he famously noted: [I apologize for his gender exclusive language] "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." In 1932 he published his seminal work, Moral Man and Immoral Society. In it he described "...one of the tragedies of the human spirit: its inability to conform its collective life to its individual ideals." This is the tension that is always with us, between the ideal freedom of an individual and the ideals of a small group, or between self interested groups and all of society.
Niebuhr explained, "As individuals, men [and women] believe they ought to love and serve each other and establish justice between each other. As racial, economic and national groups they take for themselves, whatever their power can command." This insight does not mean that the desire for power is not all bad. For example, think of the tragic closing of Conely Library in Muncie. I know how hard it was for the Library Board and leaders to make the decision to close a library branch, but they were guided by the need to serve everyone in the most efficient-effective way possible. From the point of view of a particular neighborhood what is best for the greater good is a deep loss and a continuation of a history of marginalization for them. So they try to claim what power they can and make sure their pain is at least noted and they come into conflict with the power of the whole. Is there a way to temper the good of the whole with the inefficiency of serving individual communities?
Niebuhr argued that this would never be resolved. He noted that our desires should be in service of ideals and reason, and yet it often seems that we use our reason only to justify our will to power, our abuses of power, and our addiction to those things that hurt us in the long run. In his book "The Irony of American History" Niebuhr noted,
"Our dreams of bringing the whole of human history under the control of the human will are ironically refuted by the fact that no group of idealists can easily move the pattern of history toward the desired goal of peace and justice. The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning."
Now, I don't know about you but I am not as pessimistic as Niebuhr was. Still, I find his skepticism vital and truthful. Also, I don't choose to ground my hope and faith in a supernatural transcendence so much as he, but in what I see as a very natural one. Yet I agree, as he noted in The Irony of American History, and included as a reading in our Singing the Living Tradition Hymnal:
"Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own; therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness."
The tension between our individual and religious views and the good of the community was again raised in the recent media storm around Obama's recent speech at Notre Dame. The President spoke of our divisions, of our anger around differences of opinions. Then he asked,
"The question... is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without... demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?" Then he answered his own question in saying words that echo the core teaching of our meditation today, "When we open up our hearts and our minds to those who may not think precisely like we do or believe precisely what we believe -- that's when we discover at least the possibility of common ground."
The name of common ground varies. Some call it the Kingdom of God, or Shambala, the Just Society, The Common Good, or the Beloved Community. The point is that there are many variations on this one vision. Today I hold up the example of the King Asoka the Great, who ruled from 273 to 232BCE, and called it Dharma.
The story is that he had been a violently aggressive warrior and leader. A prince of the Mauryan dynasty it was said that the King suddenly converted to Buddhism at the end of a war around the year 265BCE. Details of his conversion vary, however all the stories say that as a result of his conversion he stopped the violent expansion of his nation and established a deeply Buddhist rule of peace and justice that lasted many decades beyond his own life. For 400 years most European scholars assumed the story of Asoka was pure fantasy from a mythical past invented buy Buddhists to make Buddhists look good. Indian and Sri Lankan scholars believed he was a historical figure, but they had only Buddhist biographies written hundreds of years after Asoka had lived to support their beliefs.
Then a creative genius named James Prinsep in 1836, discovered how to translate ancient edicts carved in stone that no one had been able to read for centuries. He and others were impressed with the humane, humanistic quality of these edicts. Some thought that they might be from Asoka, but the name on the stones was a common kingly name Priyadarsi "favored of the gods." Then in 1915, almost 80 years after the rock edicts began to reveal their secrets, a British scholar, John Marshall, found a dynastic list that linked Priyadarsi to Asoka Mauriya. As the Buddhist writer S. Dammika puts it: "Having been forgotten for nearly 700 years, one of the greatest men in history became known to the world once again."
His name a-soka means "Without-sorrow." But he was with sorrow. In his early life he was a great warrior, a soldier and leader of armies. He expanded the Mauryan India as far west as Kandahar. To the east he had some trouble. One nation along the east coast was Kalinga. Rock Edict 13 speaks of his conversion and his regret at conquering: "Beloved-of-the-Gods, King Priyadarsi, conquered the Kalingas eight years after his coronation. One hundred and fifty thousand were deported, one hundred thousand were killed and many more died [from other causes]. After the Kalingas had been conquered, Beloved-of-the-Gods came to feel a strong inclination towards the Dharma, a love for the Dharma and for instruction in Dharma. Now, Beloved-of-the-Gods feels deep remorse for having conquered the Kalingas." [Rock Edict Nb13 (S. Dhammika)]
He made ahimsa, or non-violence, an official policy of his government. Today the current symbol of modern India, the Dharmachakra with its 24 spokes, or wheel of Righteous Duty, comes directly from one of Asoka's pillars. The wheel was his image of the Dharma, the ideal that guided his rule, and that guides India today despite all its diversity and tensions.
These are the words of his first edict: "Formerly, in the kitchen of King Priyadarsi, hundreds of thousands of animals were killed every day to make curry. But now with the writing of this Dharma edict only three creatures, two peacocks and a deer are killed, and the deer not always. And in time, not even these three creatures will be killed."
Asoka was perhaps the first emperor in human history to ban slavery, limit hunting, create wildlife preserves to protect Elephants and fish, and to condemn deforestation. He declared:
"Those nanny goats, ewes and sows which are with young or giving milk to their young are protected, and so are young ones less than six months old. Cocks are not to be caponized, husks hiding living beings are not to be burnt and forests are not to be burnt, neither without reason or to kill creatures (within them)."
He planted trees, created wells and watering holes and said, over and over, "I have done these things for this purpose, that the people might practice the Dharma." And he explained, "Dharma is good, but what constitutes Dharma? [It includes] little evil, much good, kindness, generosity, truthfulness and purity." These words he had carved into stone: "Respect for mother and father is good, generosity to friends, acquaintances, relatives, Brahmans and ascetics is good, not killing living beings is good, moderation in spending and moderation in saving is good." Another common good is a system of health care. In his second pillar edict he noted:
"Everywhere King Priyadarsi has made provision for two types of medical treatment: medical treatment for humans and medical treatment for animals. Wherever medical herbs suitable for humans or animals are not available, I have had them imported and grown. Wherever medical roots or fruits are not available I have had them imported and grown."
In UU Communities we pride ourselves on religious tolerance and diversity. In Asoka's nation, Brahmanism, tribal faiths, Buddhism and Jainism were all powerful forces. Instead of declaring one religion of the state he encouraged religious tolerance, even respect and interaction: "Contact (between religions) is good. One should listen to and respect the doctrines professed by others. Beloved-of-the-Gods desires that all should be well-learned in the good doctrines of other religions." (Rock Edict Nb12) He also declared, "Whoever praises his own religion, due to excessive devotion, and condemns others with the thought "Let me glorify my own religion," only harms his own religion. Therefore contact (between religions) is good. One should listen to and respect the doctrines professed by others." On another stone he wrote: "All religions should reside everywhere, for all of them desire self-control and purity of heart."
He promoted religious virtues through special officers: "In past there were no Dharma Mahamatras but such officers were appointed by me thirteen years after my coronation. Now they work among all religions for the establishment of Dharma, for the promotion of Dharma, and for the welfare and happiness of all who are devoted to Dharma. They work among [foreigners such as] the Greeks..." One edict mentions spreading the Dharma, even to the land of "Antiochos, Ptolomy, Antigonos, Magas, and Alexander." His Mahamatras worked "among soldiers, chiefs, Brahmans, householders, the poor, the aged and those devoted to Dhamma -- for their welfare and happiness -- so that they may be free from harassment." (Rock Edict Nb5)
Ashoka's oldest twins, a brother and sister Mahindra and Sanghamitra, are most famous for not taking the reins of government but instead becoming Mahamatras traveling to one of Asoka's nearest enemies. They are still well known as the two people who converted Sri Lanka to Buddhism. Thus Asoka created international peace without warfare but by encouraging individuals to conquer their own minds and hearts.
The Monk and scholar S. Dammika said of Ashoka, "We have no way of knowing how effective Asoka's reforms were or how long they lasted but we do know that monarchs throughout the ancient Buddhist world were encouraged to look to his style of government as an ideal to be followed... Today, with widespread disillusionment in prevailing ideologies and the search for a political philosophy that goes beyond greed (capitalism), hatred (communism) and delusion (dictatorships led by "infallible" leaders), Asoka's edicts may make a meaningful contribution to the development of a more spiritually based political system."
But maybe you are not inclined toward Buddhist thought and draw instead upon Existentialist, or Christian roots. For the Christians, I remind you of the great words of Hosea Ballou, American Universalist leader and theologian. Ballou would say God was certainly Judge over all, but more centrally God is Love. Near the end of his great work, A Treatise on Atonement, knowing that some would disagree with his theology, he proclaimed: "If we agree in love, there is no disagreement that can do us any injury, but if we do not, no other agreement can do us any good. Let us endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace." Let this be the vision that helps us temper the good of all with individual goals, freedom within the bonds of love, or with the common ground of our human existence, walking together on this good earth.
