The Middle Way

"It begins with breath," my brother, Terry, shared simply with me in a talk about Buddhism. It is also the in-road that Thich Nhat Hahn uses to introduce mindfulness and the way of Buddhism into our overfilled, spiritually undernourished lives. Breath. Something available to us, done without our notice, a part of every moment of life. Breath. We inhale, we exhale and in the midst of it all, we have life. We didn't create it and we can't do without it. And if that basic flow of breath is off balance, we are unhealthy—unable to fully nourish our bodies and selves. It is the balanced relationship of taking in and giving out that supports our well being. It begins with breath. (Breathe)

What I find both intriguing and exasperating about Buddhism is that you cannot attain enlightenment by doing more or being more or following a formula that rewards you in the end. It's about letting go and claiming one's self now, in any context or station in life. There are disciplines to help a seeker stop seeking and open one's heart to being, but its not something that needs to be earned, merely something that is available to be understood. It defies accomplishment. It transcends suffering. It embraces all being.

"When people start to meditate or to work with any kind of spiritual discipline," writes Buddhist nun Pema Chodron, "they often think that somehow they're going to improve, which is a sort of subtle aggression against who they really are.... Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better," Chodron tells us. "It's about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are." (Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape, pp. 3,4)

Try to wrap that one around you in a competitive society like this one, inundating us with messages that we need more, we are not enough, this is what's wrong with your life and this will fix it, this is what's wrong with you and this will hide it, you need protection, be afraid, blame them...(shudder).... It begins with breath....(breathe)

"One day, the governor of Kyoto called upon Keichu, the great Meiji Zen master," so the teaching goes.... "One of Keichu's attendants brought the governor's calling card to Keichu. The card read: Kitagaki, Governor of Kyoto. 'Never heard of him,' said Keichu to the attendant. 'I have no business with nobodies: tell him to go away.' The attendant returned to the governor with the story. 'My mistake,' said the governor, and taking the card he scratched out the words "Governor of Kyoto." Then he handed the card back to the attendant and said, 'Please ask your teacher again.' The attendant returned to Keichu. 'Oh, that Kitagaki!' he exclaimed. 'Bring him here! I want to see that fellow!' (Parabola, Spring 1989, p.43)

The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are, just as we are.... No title, no status, no station impacts the ground from which our life manifests. And we are only truly with another when we are simply ourselves as one among other beings.

Try to hold steady on that thought when fame is what's rewarded: either for shooting that winning goal or shooting a cafeteria full of students. When who we are gets us through doors, and the challenge: "do you have any idea who you are speaking to" effectively intimidates. A society that worships winning, where we say whatever we need to say in order to get what we want and justify the alleged change of plan later. We work a kind of shadow side of "be here now", disregarding whether what we say has any chance of being true tomorrow, or in some cases even true today...as long as it is presented in an appealing way...As long as we want it to be true for what we want, right now...(shudder)....It begins with breath....(breathe)

In or around the year 563 before the Common Era, prince Siddhartha was born in Lumbini, a region in what is today Nepal, a country in the Himalayas between India and Tibet. As a youth he sheltered from life outside the three palaces that his father built to keep his son occupied in mind and body, tending to any whim or pleasure. His father wanted to avoid the prophecy that Siddhartha would be the Buddha, the Awakened One. Despite conditions of extreme luxury and material riches that may have easily created a spoiled, indulgent child, Siddhartha was said to have been a kind, generous and conscientious youth: athletic, talented and well educated. His natural curiosity led him to request a viewing beyond the walls of his cloistered wonderland, and when he did, his sense of life was profoundly shaken. Three observations on three separate outings: that of old age, sickness and death, aspects of life that had been kept from his witness, stirred him so deeply that he chose to abandon the good life to further understand the meaning of life. On his fourth outing, he encountered a holy man, a shramana, who seemed calm and wise. Siddhartha wondered how this man could not be afraid of old age, sickness and death. After many restless nights, he chose to leave his home, supported by a father he loved, to answer the longing that stirred within him.

Siddhartha first sought the distinguished teachers he encountered on his fourth outing, and though he learned a great deal about religious discipline, he remained unsatisfied, unfulfilled. He knew the ultimate truth eluded him. So then he went off to a jungle to submit himself to extreme asceticism, subjecting his body to suffering and starvation, his body merely skin and bones, in an attempt to conquer suffering. In this state Siddhartha still had the forbearing to realize this road would lead only to death and not wisdom. When he took food to begin again, he was denounced by his fellow ascetics and left alone, having rejected all the former ways of his life.

He realized that he had not yet tried the middle way between luxury and self mortification. This is when he found the Bodhi tree to sit under and meditate upon the meaning of life unto death if need be. He began by using the techniques taught him by the teachers he first sought, then he worked a deeper level, insight meditation, when understandings about the nature of human being became clear, which then led to a radical transformation of perception, when he saw past his ego, or the sense of separate identity from the unity of existence. Dualism came know to him as an illusion, there was no object and subject, no individual observing the world...it was all one at the core of existence.

As legend goes, during these months of meditation, Siddartha was visited by Mara, a kind of Buddhist Satan, whose role in this existence is to distract beings from enlightenment. Mara is the keeper of samsara, the world of illusion, and so tempts people into delusions, distortions and desires which inhibit wisdom and cloud clear sight. And so it is said that Siddhartha endured all tyrannies of thought and distraction, such as worry and anger and fear of death and existential terror, that sense of nothingness—and eroticism and visions of an army of demons...any darkness and doubt that would sway him from coming into the clear light of wisdom, compassion and joy.

But at the dawn following the night of the full moon of May, Siddhartha became the Buddha—The Awakened One. Touching the earth to ground himself in his new awareness, he saw the morning star rise with undeluded eyes. (Information taken from The Buddhist Handbook, John Snelling, pp. 17-23)

At first, the Buddha remained under the Bodhi tree within this newly found bliss, doubting that humans could come to this awakening, but soon he decided to teach what he had learned, having gotten the inspiration that there were some "with only a little dust in their eyes."

He then gathered the ascetics and a few others to preach his first sermon. This was the first utterance of the four noble truths and the path of the Middle Way.

Buddha began his teaching with this simple concept: suffering.... The first self help book I picked up in my twenties was Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled. I'm sure many of you are familiar with the book. His first phrase in the book is: "Life is hard." Yes! Name it! Don't tell me I'm wrong to feel that way. Don't pretend its easy. Talk to me where I am. Life is hard....

The Buddha, some 2500 years ago already said it. Suffering exists. To be human is to feel discomfort. Don't fight it. Let it be. Move through it. He was not teaching us to avoid or deny suffering or to try to control suffering or to feel weak because suffering bothers us or to dwell in suffering because that's all there is. Suffering happens, no more, no less and there's a way to work through it, to flow with it, to understand it, to transcend its hold on our sense of self. We have somehow differentiated our unity...we have become particular beings within the whole and with that sense of separation comes suffering. The concept of suffering here includes the spectrum of agony to a kind of malaise, when things don't feel quite right. You don't have to change what you are feeling...just see it in a different way.

The four noble truths are that suffering or discomfort exists, that it has an identifiable cause, that you have the ability to end that cause and finally, there the ways to end the cause of your suffering.

Pema Chodron comments in her book, The Wisdom of No Escape: "I've always experienced these teachings as a tremendous affirmation that there is no need to resist being fully alive in this world...the first noble truth says simply that it's part of being human to feel discomfort. We don't have to call it suffering anymore," she offers, "we don't even have to call it discomfort. It's simply coming to know the fieriness of fire, the wildness of wind, the turbulence of water, the upheaval of earth, as well as the warmth of fire, the coolness and smoothness of water, the gentleness of breeze, and the goodness, solidness and dependability of earth. Nothing in its essence is one way or the other...the first noble truth recognizes that we also change like the weather, we ebb and flow like the tides, we wax and wane like the moon. We do that," she affirms, "we do that, and there's no reason to resist it. If we resist it, the reality and vitality of life become misery, a hell." (The Wisdom of No Escape, Pema Chodron, pp.38-40).

In the fourth noble truth, Buddha laid out an eight-fold path that weans one from self centeredness, pinpoints habits of mind that distort reality, and ever reminds us of our interdependence. The eight-fold path begins with right understanding, which claims that none of the teachings will work if they are not personally experienced. Understanding comes from experience. Ultimately, in Buddhism, we each must find our own way, for we each express life in our own created way. We make manifest what is uniquely our existence that is merely an expression of the whole. We are exquisite in our impermanent beauty...like a rose.

Buddhism is a way of life. It is not a religion that can be rendered in a talk or a weekend's retreat, but it is a religion that has much to offer this suffering world, this world of distortions and whole lives lived to defend distortions. The four sublime states of Buddhism are loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. Loving kindness is a warm-hearted concern for the well-being of others, increasing in ever widening circles as kindness strengthens within. Ajahn Sumedho pointed out "that it is unrealistic to expect to be able to actually like every person who happens into our sphere. We can, however, control our impulses to reject or do them harm, and it may be possible to do them good, even though we don't feel particularly inspired by their presence." (The Buddhist Handbook. John Shelling, p.70)

Compassion helps break down the rigid boundary of self that we create. Our addiction to the sense of "me" is dismantled as we open our hearts to the suffering of others. Sympathetic joy celebrates the successes and achievements of others. Again the addiction to "me" and "my accomplishments" unravels in shared joy. And equanimity brings about the intuition of the interdependent web of existence in which we are a part.

Pema Chodron: "through this simple practice of paying attention—giving loving-kindness to your speech and your actions and the movements of your mind—you begin to realize that you're always standing in the middle of a sacred circle, and that's your whole life. This room is not the sacred circle...wherever you go for the rest of your life, you're always in the middle of the universe and the circle is always around you. Everyone who walks up to you has entered that sacred space, and it's not an accident. Whatever comes into the space is there to teach you."

May we each embrace all that comes into our space and all that we are within our space. May these days of holiday cheer and loneliness, bright lights and darker nights, missed opportunities and delicious surprises be the teaching you need for your highest good. May we honor each other as teacher and student and humbly thank the ways of the world that brought us together.

So may it be. Amen.