Walking between the raindrops

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
October 20, 2013

It’s the final installment of our series on the Buddhist Eightfold Path. “Right Concentration,” or meditation, is the practice recommended by the Buddhist teachers, and recently by the medical community. What is involved in it?

I began this series on the Buddhist eightfold path last year, and in the first sermon I asked how many of you remember the old Hollywood Buddhist movie that came out fourteen years ago called “The Matrix.” In it our hero woke up to the knowledge that his life was an illusion, that he had literally been sleeping through his life entertained with phantoms of a dream of work and relationships, none of which were real. He joined the community of other people who were awake to the true nature of reality, who were living in real time.

The first part of the Buddhist eightfold path to the end of suffering speaks to this dynamic of “waking up” to the true nature of reality. You are called to understand that life is not as it should be, that everyone is suffering because they are (quite rightly) chasing happiness, but chasing it by grabbing at shiny wisps of illusion: the right job, the right look, the right car, the right clothes, the correct cultural experiences, the right education. In order to prepare one’s life for happiness one must understand the way things work. Grasping at things that pass away is the path to misery. Understanding that, one trains oneself to live in the world with grace and compassion. Speaking in wholesome ways, acting ethically, making ones living in a helpful way, holding one’s heart open to the suffering and the joy of others.

Our hero in the movie, though, trained his mind to be so stable, so powerful, so concentrated that he could, in the midst of a gun battle, see where each bullet was and move to avoid it. Even bullets, moving as fast as they do, were no match for his extreme present-mindedness that parsed each second into enough discreet sections that he had plenty of room to move within them.

That is what we’re talking about today. Present-mindedness. You will be able to leave here today and walk between raindrops. Well, maybe after a few years of training. The eighth element of the path to the end of suffering is the most technical of all, so we are going to have a couple of experiences that will show us what my words can’t. Here at the beginning, lets breathe together for ten breaths. Try just to count breaths. If you have thoughts, just notice … “hm, thoughts … ” and gently bring your attention back to your breath. Start counting again if you lose track. Don’t worry about doing this correctly.

TEN BREATHS

Did your mind wander while we were breathing together? Most people’s do. Buddhist teachers call that “Monkey mind.” They describe our thoughts as a jungle full of monkeys chattering and swinging from tree to tree. Another teacher says, no, they are a jungle full of drunken monkeys, chattering and swinging from tree to tree. Some people like the quiet of just breathing and other people dislike it so much they get mad. “What are we doing this for?” is a common question. Some people want rapture, and they get it, but the teacher will say “just keep breathing and meditating and the rapture will fall away and you’ll get equanimity, which is better.” Some want visions. One student is said to have called his teacher over during a meditation session, very excited, and told him “Teacher! I saw the Buddha all shining and golden and he smiled at me.” The teacher nodded, and said “just keep breathing and he will go away.” What is the goal of learning to concentrate one’s mind? To be calm, compassionate and deeply happy. To be psychologically sturdy, less easily thrown by a crash in one’s bank account, a bad diagnosis, trouble in the family. To be able to have a good emotional cushion so you’re not scraping on raw nerves, to be able to feel your mind warm, loose and relaxed instead of stuffed, pushed, overwhelmed and snappish.

These are not all of the benefits, though, as studies at MIT , Harvard and Yale discovered in the nineties. The “gray matter” in one’s brain actually thickens in those who meditate regularly, especially in older people. That’s the gray matter that thins as one ages. It thickens again if you meditate. Slow wave sleep patterns improve. The immune system works better, creating more of the the things that fight disease in those who meditate regularly. Skin conditions clear up better. Every disease process that is exacerbated by stress may benefit from mindfulness meditation, vhich lowers stress. The actual practice of meditation has these effects, while subjects who just sat and thought about whatever they wanted did not exhibit the changes. What is this concentration, this training, this mindfulness meditation? How do you do it?

You begin by sitting still and breathing. Counting your breaths, the way you were just now invited to do. As you count, just go to ten and start over again, as those numbers might be easiest to keep track of. The goal, the experiment, is to see if you can occupy your mind with counting your breaths. Your awareness is of sensations in your body: hunger, discomfort, thirst, restlessness, your awareness is of sounds in the room and outside, and you acknowledge that awareness and then gently invite your attention back to your breaths. Your thoughts may start careening around making lists of things to get at the store, conversations you would like to have with your spouse or partner, things your children said, something you feel guilty about or resentful over. Acknowledge the thoughts and gently bring your attention back to your breath.

It is like exercise, hard at first, then easier. Harder on some days than on others. Some people like to say a word while they meditate, and you can say any word that makes you feel peaceful. Shalom, Buddha, peace, love, Om, Shanti, which is Sanskrit for “peace.” There are traditions of meditation in every faith. Mostly they fall into the “full mind” or “empty mind” techniques. Full mind asks you to chant, or pray the same prayer over and over, which occupies the mind. Counting breaths is meant to occupy the mind. If you are doing a walking meditation, then your mind is occupied with feeling the ground against your foot, first heel, then arch, then toes. Repeat. Empty mind meditation asks you to picture something empty and calm: a valley full of snow, a glassy lake, an ice rink, an empty riding ring. When you have thoughts, you gently sweep them away, inviting yourself back to the calm surface of the lake, or the snow. It’s not hard to do, except that it’s really hard to do. When I do it, I benefit. I’m always about to get back to doing it. It’s only been about ten years. Anytime now, I’ll start again.

This path is part of our Unitarian heritage, as Emerson and Thoreau both were reading the Hindu and Buddhist scriptures, which shaped the Transcendentalist movement, lending them the notions of the Oneness of all things, the over-arching one mind permeating the universe, and the idea of living correctly in a way that is not connected to a Divine being watching you, being pleased or disappointed.

I will not say that, if you get good at this, you will be able to dodge bullets. You may, however, be able to be in the present moment more, the moment in between the bullets of what might happen, who you used to be, what they did to you, what you did to them, how you might end up, everything that could go wrong, what you hope will go right. This practice is not new, it is ancient. You do not have to accept it on faith. The teachers say just to try it and see what happens.

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776