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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
May 19, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
Western psychotherapy has emphasized insight as a way of healing emotional pain. Dr. Shomo Morita, a Japanese doctor, created a way of treating patients’ emotional pain that draws wisdom from Buddhism.
Call to Worship
Barbara Wells
O Spinner, Weaver of our lives,
Your loom is love.
May we who are gathered here
be empowered by that love
to weave new patterns of Truth
and Justice into a web of life that is strong
beautiful, and everlasting.
Reading
O. Eugene Pickett
WE GIVE THANKS THIS DAY
For the expanding grandeur of Creation, worlds known and unknown, galaxies beyond galaxies, filling us with awe and challenging our imaginations:
We give thanks this day.
For this fragile planet earth, its times and tides, its sunsets and seasons:
We give thanks this day.
For the joy of human life, its wonders and surprises, its hopes and achievements:
We give thanks this day.
For our human community, our common past and future hope, our oneness transcending all separation, our capacity to work for peace and justice in the midst of hostility and oppression:
We give thanks this day.
For high hopes and noble causes, for faith without fanaticism, for understanding of views not shared:
We give thanks this day.
For all who have labored and suffered for a fairer world, who have lived so that others might live in dignity and freedom:
We give thanks this day.
For human liberty and sacred rites for opportunities to change and grow, to affirm and choose:
We give thanks this day. We pray that we may live not by our fears but by our hopes, not by our words but by our deeds.
Sermon
I’m trained in the Western world’s methods of counseling. Listen to the pain. Explore the feelings. Look for patterns in the person’s life. Do the life archeology that tells you where the patterns start. When the client has insights into why she reacts the way she does, into why he self-sabotages, why she suffers from self doubt, why he is beset by anxiety, the insight will help things change. And sometimes it does. Over the years, though, I began to lose a little faith in insight. I knew why. People know why they drink, or why they gamble, but nothing stops drinking like – stopping drinking. People tell me they have a book in them, they just can’t get it written. They know all of the reasons why they can’t get it written, but the main one is that they don’t sit down and write.
Most of feel stuck sometimes, as if a piece of our life has become a mountain that is steep and forbidding, impossible to climb.
I was fascinated when I found my lack of faith in insight was shared by a school of therapy based in Japanese philosophy, developed by a doctor Shomo Morita. It has evolved into a school called Constructive Living.
Life they say, is like playing ball on running water. So much is coming at us. So much is disheartening, shocking, so much is sweet, and then terrifying, and then joyous, then disappointing. At times we go into overwhelm. Some of us grind to a halt.
Morita said: “There is a limit to the progress that can be made through insight.”
Morita saw that getting stuck in anxiety is a result of misunderstanding life. Life is hard. You can’t change your thoughts. You can change your actions. Remember that Buddhism teaches that our cations are all that we have. It’s natural that this school should arise in a culture where Buddhism is foundational. There is a famous Zen saying: “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” It’s the day to day where character is built, where relationships are built, where a life is built.
Lots of times, in the midst of officiating at a wedding, I feel moved to talk about how relationships are built on ten small decisions a day. Do you look up and smile when the person comes into the room? Do you apologize first? Do you forgive first? Do you offer the first foot rub? Do you offer to make the tea? These are small things, but for most of a life there are only small things. That’s where the love lives.
Morita therapy was developed to help with overwhelming anxiety. In its early days it started with seven days of bed rest, just bed, no reading, no visits, meals in bed, just get up to go to the bathroom. This hits the reset button in someone who has been overstimulated, overcome by all that is to be done, all the decisions to be made. After seven days most people really want to get up and do something. For the next week you go into nature and sit. You may do light activity, like feeding the birds. In the next week you start by sweeping the patio, washing the car, paying attention to what you are doing.
The idea is to create in yourself the habit of doing the next thing. That’s the way to manage anxiety. Do the next thing. One thing. You trust your inner voice that tells you what the next thing is to do. You write a page. You cook a meal. You make a phone call. What if it doesn’t work?
Constructive Living encourages actions without attachment to outcomes. I’ve told you about the box of envelopes I bought to send out my writing. It’s scary to put yourself out there, to offer your words to the evaluation and judgment of strangers. Over the glue on the flap was a paper you peeled off to reveal the stickiness. “Detach before mailing,” it said. I thought that was good advice, so I hung one of those over my desk.
You can’t control or change anyone but yourself. Your mom is still going to bail your brother out of every mess. Your sister is still going to choose the wrong loves. You can say your piece, but you have to detach from results. Just do the next right thing. Maybe it’s eating breakfast, then washing the breakfast dishes. Action calms anxiety and lifts the fog of overwhelm. Not flailing random action. The next right thing. Breathing. Mindfully.
What if you think something is the right thing to do but it’s not? What if you make a mistake? I found out this week that I’d made a mistake. I still don’t know how big a mistake it was. I have already learned (or been reminded of something I already knew) from it. I still have the job of feeling out what the next right thing to do is. There is no same action that fits every situation. Morita says mistakes are good teachers.
They show you the next right thing. If you don’t know what it is, be quiet for a while and see if it comes to you. Mistakes teach you that you were paying attention to the wrong thing, they warn you about future embarrassment, frustration and trouble if we don’t adjust to the reality that confronts us.
You’re in traffic. You’re in a hurry. You can suffer by wishing all the cars out of your way. You can yell and pound the steering wheel, but the traffic is the traffic. You can choose another road, and then you can deal with the traffic on that road. Your computer is your computer, and sometimes it doesn’t do what you think it should do. You can pound the same keys as before, only harder. You can express your frustration. The reality of your computer doesn’t care about your feelings. It will be more likely to do what you want it to do if you press the correct keys.
You have feelings, but the goal is to do the next right thing in spite of the feelings. I hate going to the post Office. I mean, I HATE it. The PO doesn’t care. If I want something mailed I have to go. Or ask someone to go for me. Morita therapy is fairly blase about feelings. There are no “bottled up” feelings, they say. If you’re not feeling something right now, it’s not there. Your feelings are like clouds moving across the sun.
Most of you know the Buddhist story about the student who had a vision in group meditation. “Master,” he says proudly, “In my minds eye I saw the Buddha himself, and he was all made of gold.”
“Just keep paying attention to your breath and it will go away,” said the teacher.
Accept your feelings. Know your purpose. Do what needs to be done. These are the stepping stones toward skillful living. OF COURSE I fight with this. “What about the unconscious? What about fate and deep urges, intuition and desire? No one school of therapy has a big Theory of Everything that works and makes sense. I like the Buddhist-ness of this school, which says “Just try it and see if it works for you.”
One of the things you do in this school of therapy, as in others, is to write your epitaph, and write your obituary. You can see what you’d like to be remembered for, what stories people will tell at your memorial service. You can make adjustments if you don’t like where your current path is taking you. You write out your bucket list we call it in the west, of things you would like to do and see before you die.
I would suggest adding another list of things you want to let go of doing, things you don’t want to spend energy on any more. In my life, the title of that list rhymes with “bucket” but has more of a “I’m going to let this go,” meaning.
Knowing when to act is as important as knowing when not to act. Sometimes productive waiting is what needs to be done. Letting the water boil. Letting the glue set all the way before testing it. Letting a friend have time to get their thoughts together before responding to us.
The fully functioning human being isn’t one who is pain-free and happy all the time. We feel horrified by the suffering caused by unjust laws and the actions of elected officials. In addition to stewing and shaking, we go get trained to register people to vote, then we register people to vote, and then we VOTE. We are disheartened by our guest in sanctuary’s situation, so we ask the Sanctuary Network what needs doing, or, if we have Spanish, we come over to visit Alirio. As we say in the Carolinas: You can extrapolate from there.
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