The Secret to Happiness

November 12, 2006

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

PRAYER

Mystery of many names and mystery beyond all naming we are here, and wondering where happiness has gotten off to. Most of us can remember moments in our lives that we consider happy, yet each time to try to reproduce those moments the reproductions are faded replicas of the original.

As we chase after happiness it seems only glimpses of it are managed as we race through our hectic schedules. We see it and it’s gone! Thoughts of happiness and sadness are images that arise in the mind and attaching to, or rejecting those images has contrary effects. Attaching to happiness pushes happiness out so fast, we’re not even sure that’s what we were feeling. Rejecting sadness brings sadness closer with every push.

This morning our prayer is to finally let go of the idea of happiness. It’s time to stop eating the menu and start enjoying the meal. It’s time to let go and let it be – whatever it is! Time to stop and watch.

We remember those this morning that because of war, famine, pestilence or circumstances are thrown into situations not of their own making, and are not allowed the luxury of watching their lives. May we attempt in however a halting manner to reach out to them, if not physically, then may we reach out in our thoughts – sometimes referred to as our prayers.

May the peace that surpasses all understanding find in our hearts a place to rest? May we realize that this peaceful happiness is a guest, temporary, but still to be honored.

We pray this in the name of everything that is holy, and that is, precisely, everything.

Amen.

SERMON

Behold, we count them happy which endure.

(James 5:11a (KJV)

Suddenly people were stripped before one another and behold! as we looked on, we all made a great discovery: we were beautiful. Naked and helpless and sensitive as a snake after skinning, but far more human than that shining nightmare that had stood creaking in previous parade rest. We were alive and life was us. We joined hands and danced barefoot amongst the rubble. We had been cleansed, liberated! We would never don the old armors again.

(Ken Kesey, Garage Sale)

You must know beyond any doubt that if a teacher tells you that he or she has something to give you, it is time to run for your life. You’re dealing with a charlatan. The truth is that you lack nothing. Everything you seek you were born with and you’ll go to your grave with. En route, you may realize it or you may not, but the fact remains – it’s with you.

(John Daido Loori, Abbot, Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt. Tremper, New York)

Introduction:

There was a man who loved animals. He traveled to Alaska every summer and hung out with the grizzly bears in remote areas. He took miles of videos of those bears and when he wasn’t with the bears he was traveling to schools and sharing his videos and his knowledge of grizzlies with children of all ages. Perhaps you saw the Werner Herzog documentary concerning Timothy Treadwell entitled, Grizzly Man.

As we humans have a tendency to do this man pushed the envelope with the grizzlies and toward the end of one summer a rogue grizzly ate him and his girlfriend. Still we must imagine Timothy Treadwell happy. He kept trying to erase the distance between himself and the bears and the final margin was eradicated by the bears themselves.

But how can a man who is eaten by a grizzly bear be considered happy?

Not too long ago I preached a sermon that centered on Sisyphus. Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to roll a rather large rock to the top of the hill, and of it own weight it rolled back down again, and then Sisyphus would descend the hill in contemplation and begin his efforts all over again. And as Albert Camus writes – we must imagine Sisyphus happy.

If these two statements are true, if Timothy Treadwell and Sisyphus are both to be considered happy, what is there about happiness that allows this to be said, or better yet, if these two statements are true – Sisyphus is happy – Timothy Treadwell is happy, then perhaps we need to think twice about whether happiness is something we’d like to let in the front door?

In all the Dracula movies there is a particular way a vampire is allowed to enter your home. You must in fact invite the vampire inside.

Have you been having some problems in your life? Are things cropping up that seem to be difficulties you didn’t ask for? Are there annoyances that simply seem to be a part of every day?

Then, consider this – perhaps you have inadvertently invited happiness into your life?

I loved Cub Scouts. In Cub Scouts you had a den mother, and the process of getting badges was arranged around the family, the mother, the home. Cub Scouts was an extension of family life. Then, came the Boy Scouts. The meetings were arranged around the men, not the families. I remember my first Boy Scout meeting. There must have been 150 of us there my first night. We were to be initiated into the Boy Scouts. Up on the stage in front of everyone fifteen of us bowing and chanting three words, foreign words – of course – “Owa,” “Tagu,” and “Siam.” Owa – Tagu – Siam! Owa – Tagu – Siam!

The other Scouts laughed like hyenas, pointing at the stage, holding their bellies, they really letting it out.

We were to chant until we understood. One by one we got up laughing and joined the older Scouts.

What we were saying was, “Oh what a goose I am! Oh what a goose I am! Oh what a goose I am!”

And one other thing I couldn’t understand – why was it bad or funny to be a goose?

Speaking of birds, when it comes time for their fledglings to fly Mother birds bring their customary worm to the nest, but sit too far from the nest for the fledglings to reach the worm. She sits there dangling the worm as if she didn’t have a heart. They screech and cry, they chirp and wail, but to no avail, the mother comes no closer, she sits there out of reach dangling that worm. Then a strange thing happens. The tiny little birds that have been totally dependent reach a fever pitch of excitement and leap to their deaths. Voila! Flight happens. And they didn’t even know they had wings! And they didn’t even know they had wings!

Does this mean that grace is a lie? That the universe never gives you anything? No, I don’t think it means that. I think it means that grace is what’s dangling in front of you – grace is what you’ve been hoping for, wishing for, grace is the possibility that you may, in fact, deserve happiness.

But the grace of happiness is like that damned worm, dangling there on television every night, the sex is there, the food is there, the cars and girls and guys are there, the clothes are there, the money is there, it’s all there dangling!

The problem may be that happiness is not what we expect it to be – we’re thinking Owa – Tagu – Siam! when in reality it’s Oh what a goose I am!

Zen Master Soen was meeting a group of students at Kennedy International Airport. All the students were there except one! The last student showed up late, harried, sweating and not at all at peace. Soen Roshi said to him, “Oh it’s too bad you’re late you missed the Tea Ceremony.” “Tea Ceremony,” replied the student, “here at Kennedy Airport?”

“Well,” continued Soen Roshi, “perhaps you’re not too late.” Taking the student by the arm Soen Roshi pulled him into a nearby doorway. People were rushing by dragging their heavy suitcases; couples were embracing fond goodbyes, or fond helloes. Soen Roshi took a small porcelain container from the flowing sleeve of his robe, and opened it. Inside there was powdered green tea. Producing a small bamboo spoon, Soen scooped some powdered tea up and placed it into the student’s mouth. “Now,” said the Zen Master, as he closed the student’s gaping jaw, “make water!”

In the Regular Army and undergoing Basic Training we were taken to the firing range at sunset. They passed out clips of ammunition. The senior drill sergeant locked and loaded and for the first time we saw in person tracer bullets – beautiful arcs of light flying into the Carolina night.

What we learned there that night was how to shoot someone when it’s dark. Well, you know the enemy doesn’t always attack in the daytime.

The retina contains two types of photoreceptors, rods and cones. The rods are more numerous and sensitive than the cones. However, they cannot see color. The cones provide the eye’s color and are concentrated in the center – the spot known as the macula. To see something at night one must look to the side of what one wishes to see.

A more common way to experience this is when you’ve let your black dog out at night and she’s running around the yard the only time you see her is when she runs out of the center field of your vision, and the minute you turn your head she disappears.

Happiness is the night vision of our souls. Happiness isn’t direct. It’s the Medusa of feelings; jealous, protective and perhaps not immediately discernable; not a product – nearly always a process.

Happiness the by-product of behaviors. That’s why Timothy Treadwell and Sisyphus must be imagined as happy. That’s why George and Martha, the characters of Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf – the characters in our Sunday short must be imagined as happy.

The Great Way is gateless, yet –

There are a thousand roads to it.

The shakuhachi playing Zen Master, Doso, came to visit Zen Mountain Monastery. The shakuhachi is the traditional Japanese bamboo flute. Loori Roshi writes;

“When Watazumi Doso came to visit Zen Mountain Monastery, I gave him a tour of the grounds. We came upon a plumber who was working on our new bathhouse. Cast-iron piping lay outside the building. Doso playfully picked up a three-foot-long piece and began to play it as though it was a shakuhachi flute. Although the pipe had not holes in it, he was able to create a surprisingly wide range of sounds and haunting melodies.

At another time Doso gave a concert at the Zen Center of Los Angeles and soon after the performance started, a LAPD helicopter flew into the area and hovered overhead. TUM! TUM! TUM! TUM! Doso’s flute immediately picked up the rhythm and developed a counterpoint. An infant cried. Doso’s flute responded. A car drove by at high speed. The flute whizzed with it. Doso’s concert included the totality of all the sounds that were happening around us. He blended, merged, answered everything he heard, incorporating it into his experience and expression, rather than being distracted by it.”

Conclusion:

We are on the launch pad. Our vehicle of happiness fueled and ready to go. The count down began years ago. Will we die on the launch pad, gussied up in our earth suits, not sure we can fly? Or will we allow ourselves to enter the way, to travel the path!

Take time to show who you are. Don’t worry that you won’t be liked, or that people will run away when you unmask. That fear is nothing more than our own heart’s racing with the possibility of our own freedom. Do the world and yourself a favor and show us who you really are! That feeling you have when you’re real, when you show and tell others what makes you tick, when you own it and tell your story – that feeling – it’s happiness.

Owa! Tagu! Siam!

Amen.