A Buddhist Perspective 

By Nancy Thompson

To reconcile is to bring back together two things that have been separated. It’s what happens when a couple that has separated decides to give their relationship another try, Or when you balance the checkbook and bring your numbers in line with the bank’s. Or in the Roman Catholic sacrament, when you confess your sins and do your penance, taking away the stain that has kept you separate from God and the church.

In Buddhism, we experience this type of reconciliation when we see the truth of interdependence and the false nature of our separate constructed selves. We experience reconciliation when we let go of thoughts that carry us to the past or future, ruminating or projecting, and come back to the present moment with kind awareness, when we awaken to our true nature — which is not separate from others’ true nature. All beings have buddhanature, the inherent dignity and joy that is our unfabricated state.  We build identities on that, constructing shells that we collect and defend from questions or contradictions.  When we see that those identities are illusory and impermanent — not the solid, weight, unchanging things we imagine them to be — we can relax into a state of non-self or non-duality.

“What is meant by nonduality? It means that light and shade, long and short, black and white, can only be experienced in relation to each other; light is not independent of shade, nor black of white. There are no opposites, only relationships. In the same way, nirvana and the ordinary world of suffering are not two things but related to each other. There is no nirvana except where the world of suffering is; there is no world of suffering apart from nirvana. For existence is not mutually exclusive.” (Lankavatara Sutra) Thich Nhat Hahn calls this “inter-being.”

But even as we inter-are, we are. Even if we all have joyful, wise buddhanature — if the process of Buddhist practice is simply to find a way home to that — we have separate bodies, we act in different ways, not all them seemingly the actions of wise, joyful beings. How do we reconcile this?

Merriam Webster’s second definition of reconciliation encapsulates the conundrum of Buddhist study: the process of finding a way to make two different ideas, facts, etc., exist or be true at the same time. Our natural enlightenment, our ultimate identity, is hidden under the muck of constructed identities and be­liefs, our relative identity. (The relative level of reality is the one where you deal with your relatives, one teacher says.) The challenge is to act in the relative world with the knowledge of the ultimate, to bring to­gether the beautiful truth of interdependence and our mundane existence.

The first step to that is to see that others, who appear to be separate from us, actually are connected. And just like us, they want to be happy and safe and at peace. Understanding that as the source of their ac­tions, we may be less inclined to be oppositional and more apt to find common ground.

A Buddhist Perspective
Ministry Theme for January: Evil

By Nancy Thompson

“Surrender Dorothy,” the Wicked Witch of the West wrote in the sky in the movie “The Wizard of Oz.” What she meant was, “Give up. Stop fighting. Stop struggling.”  Taken out of the “us vs them” context, that doesn’t sound so bad. No fighting, no struggling – sounds pretty good, actually.

In Buddhism, surrender is not about handing over our power to another entity or becoming subservi­ent. It’s about giving up, not giving in – as the song says, “I’m gonna lay down my sword and shield … ain’t gonna study war no more.” It’s about surrendering our small, limited concept of ourselves in order to see the larger, interconnected, fullness of being. We give up the things that keep us trapped and gain freedom. Surrender is similar to the concept of renunciation in Tibetan Buddhism. In “The Wisdom of No Escape,” Pema Chodron writes that “it has to go with letting go of holding back. What one is renouncing is closing down and shutting off from life. You could say that renunciation is the same thing as opening to the teach­ings of the present moment.”

What we surrender are the self-defensive strategies that keep us separate from others, that lock us into the self-other binary. Instead of measuring ourselves and our accomplishments against others, clinging to what we’ve managed to accumulate, we see that we can be OK without that. “The ground … is realizing that we already have exactly what we need, that what we have already is good,” Chodron says. It’s also seeing that everyone stands on that same ground, that everyone is inherently whole and worthy of respect and dignity. If we are truly living in that place, there’s no need to struggle, to fight for a bigger piece of the pie, to try to defeat everyone else and come out on top.

Letting go, surrendering the things that keep us apart and opposed ends the struggle and lets us relax. “The purpose of a spiritual discipline is to give us a way to stop the war, not by our force of will, but organi­cally, through understanding and gradual training,” Jack Kornfield writes in “A Path with Heart.” … “When we let go of our battles and open our hearts to things as they are, then we can come to rest in the present mo­ment.”

A Buddhist Perspective
Ministry Theme for January: Evil

By Nancy Thompson

Buddhism proposes that everyone and everything has buddhanature—that everything is inherently peaceful and joyous and without stress. Good and evil are a duality that arises from confusion. Nothing by nature is good or bad (although Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche used the term “basic goodness” to describe buddhanature to Westerners).

On a personal level, Buddhism talks about evil as stemming from the illusion that we have a separate, permanent self that has to be defended. Often described as “demons,” evil is seen as a psychological state. “Without ego, there could be no demons,” says Lama Tsultrim Allione, who has modified a traditional Tibetan practice for non-Buddhists, which she calls “Feeding your demons.”

The Buddha sent his first followers off into the woods to meditate, and they came back frightened of the demons there who tormented them. The Buddha taught them lovingkindness meditation – to wish happiness to their demons – and the fears were quelled.

In a story from a later school of Buddhism, Milarepa was meditating in a cave and was bothered by demons. He tried everything he could think of to get rid of them, and each method would chase some off. Finally, he invited the remaining ones to tea; they were satisfied and left.

Even Mara, the demon that tormented the Buddha on the eve of his enlightenment, can be seen as psychological – Mara tempts the Buddha with food, drink, and dancing girls; has armies shoot arrows at him, and finally tries to instill doubt. The Buddha declines each of Mara’s offerings, saying, “I see you, Mara,” a recognition that the distractions and dangers are in his head.

People who don’t see the impermanence and insubstantiality of their demons might perceive them as a real threat and in their confusion act in unskillful ways that cause suffering for others in the world. Again, those actions are seen as the result of confusion and suffering and don’t stem from any inherent evil in the person. Hitler had buddhanature, but he didn’t act from that – he acted from fear. Buddhism teaches that everything that happens (all compounded phenomena) arise from causes and conditions.

What we do as a society creates the conditions for what arises. In the Lion’s Roar sutta, the Buddha uses a parable to say that poverty and the failure to care for poor is the root cause of much of what we consider evil:

Thus, from the not giving of property to the needy, poverty became rife,

from the growth of poverty, the taking of what was not given increased,

from the increase of theft, the use of weapons increased,

from the increase use of weapons, the taking of life increased, and

from the taking of life increased, lying increased,

from the increase in lying,

the speaking evil of others increased,

sexual misconduct increased,

harsh speech and idle chatter increased, and

from the increase of harsh speech and idle chatter, covetousness and hatred increased, and

from the increase in covetousness and hatred, false opinions increased, and

from the increase in false opinions, incest, excessive greed and deviant practices increased, and

from the increase of excessive greed and deviant practices,

lack of respect for mother and father,

for ascetics and Brahmins, and

for head of the clan increased,

and in consequence, people’s life-span decreased, their beauty decreased.

A Buddhist Perspective

Ministry Theme for November: Journeys

By Nancy Thompson

One of my favorite Buddhist teachers, Noah Levine, says that Buddhism is not what happens in sitting meditation, it’s how you walk in the world. Buddhist study and practice has the idea of journey built into it, of constantly moving with intention – even while sitting still. The Buddha described an eight-fold path from suffering to liberation; to walk a path takes engagement and exertion.

But Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who did a lot to introduce westerners to Buddhism, describes it as “a journey without goal.” It’s not a path that leads to a place where you stop or ascend, and rest. It’s not a summit you achieve to great acclaim. It’s a path that you walk for many lifetimes, maybe with greater ease, with practice. (Trungpa wrote another book entitled “The Path is the Goal,” again emphasizing that the process is the whole game.)

The Eight-fold Path described by the Buddha as the way to liberation is not sequential, although the components do seem to build upon one another. The eight aspects generally are broken down into three groups: wisdom, ethics, and concentration. Wisdom includes view and intention, which are like taking out a map, choosing a direction, and deciding to set forth. The ethics group includes speech, action, and livelihood, the ways we move along the path. Concentration comprises effort, mindfulness, and concentration.

And if you walk the Buddhist path of reducing suffering, you’ll find it circles back again to view – because by working with the other aspects, your view of what is possible has changed, and you continue to walk the path, seeing things differently. Everything in life is part of the journey – you bring it all onto the path: work, speech, effort, intentions. Buddhist scholar Bhikkhu Bodhi says the Eightfold Path brings to life the intellectual teachings in the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths. “The path translates the Dhamma from a collection of abstract formulas into a continually unfolding disclosure of truth. It gives an outlet from the problem of suffering with which the teaching starts. And it makes the teaching’s goal, liberation from suffering, accessible to us in our own experience, where alone it takes on authentic meaning,” he writes. (Dhamma is the Pali word for the Buddha’s teachings.)

The Buddha’s path provides a framework for moving from suffering to liberation, but it’s up to the practitioner to follow it. The path is like a blue line on a flat map – it gives you a general idea of where you’re headed, but when you actually go down it, you’ll discover hazards, twists, slopes, and vistas all your own. And working with your reactions to those is how you make progress.

For upcoming Monthly Ministry Themes, click here.

Two perspectives by:

• Abundance of Choices: Abundance of Ideas by Marlene J. Geary
• A Buddhist Perspective by Nancy Thompson

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“Abundance of Choices: Abundance of Ideas”

by Marlene J. Geary

Autonomy and freedom of choice are critical to our well-being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has be­fore, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don’t seem to be benefiting from it psychologi­cally.

[from Ch.5, The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz, 2004]

Is abundance always a good thing? Have you ever had too many options? Often having too many choices gives a person choice paralysis: we’re unable to decide any directions simply because there are too many options to analyze.

Humans often go with what we know. If we have 20 menu items to choose from when we’re going out to eat, we usually select our favorite. But why? Was our favorite meal simply the easiest option? Did our favorite become our favorite simply because it was the first choice? What if there’s a better menu item? How does one choose to change our favorite? Why would one want to break out of our favorite choice?

What’s more – do we use that same thinking and decision pattern when it comes to our beliefs and ideas? How do we react to the overabundance of choices and opinions that we’re exposed to?

In 1953, a philosopher named Isaiah Berlin offered up this light-hearted grouping of the writers and thinkers of the world, based on an analysis of Aesop’s Fable “The Fox and the Cat”:

“…uses the fable … to divide writers and thinkers into two categories: hedgehogs, who view the world through the lens of a single defining idea; and foxes, who draw on a wide variety of experiences and for whom the world cannot be boiled down to a single idea.”

[Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Cat_(fable)]

If you always order a particular pasta dish off of a menu, you might think of that restaurant solely in terms of that pasta dish. If you regularly order many items off of that restaurant’s menu, you might think of the restaurant in terms of your collective menu experience. But how do you then describe that restaurant to another person – in hedgehog or fox terms?

So, here are some questions to ponder this month: Each of us has a vast array of experiences, stories, ideas, and beliefs. Where in your ideas or beliefs are you a hedgehog? Where in your beliefs or ideas are you a fox? Are there hedgehog ideas that you have because they were simply your first idea, or because they were easiest? Are you a fox in some areas because you’re frozen by analysis paralysis? Where is the blend in your life? Does the blend serve you well?

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A Buddhist Perspective: Abundance

By Nancy Thompson,
UUS:E Buddhist Group

Before becoming a spiritual leader, the Bud­dha was a prince who lived in a palace with an abun­dance of material goods, none of which satisfied his hunger for meaning. Before he became enlightened, he nearly died from the ascetic lifestyle he was fol­lowing. His revelation was the Middle Way, that path between the two extremes.

Abundance is a relative term that has mean­ing only by measuring it against scarcity. We have an abundance of what we need to be content and ful­filled, but we suffer because we don’t recognize it, we fear losing it, or we want more. The cause of suf­fering, tanha, is often translated as desire – but it’s more like grasping, clinging, or desirous attachment. It’s the sense that we have to have something in or­der to be safe and happy, and that we have to ensure that we will always have it, that if we can store up enough money or love or chocolate to last for our lifetimes, we’ll be fine. And that creates anxiety, stress, and fear.

“We have a largely materialistic lifestyle characterized by a materialistic culture,” the Dalai Lama says. “However, this only provides us with temporary, sensory satisfaction, whereas long-term satisfaction is based not on the senses but on the mind. That’s where real tranquility is to be found.”

Now, your experience of your mind may not be one of tranquility. More likely, it contains thoughts, plans, ruminations, snippets of songs, con­versations with people who aren’t present. In Bud­dhist terms, that’s not your mind – that’s stuff that you’ve stuffed into your mind, covering up the clear, luminous nature of mind. When all of that settles out (through meditation, in the Buddhist path), what’s left is ease and equanimity, the ability to be with whatever happens externally without being tossed about or tied up by conditions.

The nature of mind is limitless and infinite, beyond abundance. And it is always present. Bud­dhism provides practices to tap into that – starting with learning to settle your mind in meditation and continuing with practices to train your mind. Those include practices of lovingkindness, gratitude, and appreciation, all of which help us connect with the abundance that’s available to us.

“I can live happily in the present moment simply by remembering that I already have more than enough condi­tions to be happy.” Thích Nhat Hanh

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Two perspectives by:

• A Humanist Perspective by Jerry Lusa
• A Buddhist Perspective by Nancy Thompson

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A Humanist Perspective: Transformation

By Jerry Lusa, Sunday Services Committee

The dictionary definitions for “transformation” include false hair, metamorphosis, modification of bacterial DNA, mathematical opera­tions and grammatical operations.  Who knew? Let’s stick with the more common definition: a thor­ough or dramatic change in form or appearance.

At first glance, Humanism does not have much to say about Transformation.  The most recent revision of the Humanist Manifesto talks about how “values and ideals…are subject to change as our knowledge and understandings advance.” That’s it. There are no miraculous transformations in Humanism.  Hu­manism doesn’t ask us to transform, and it doesn’t offer us transformation into something else.  It takes us as we are. Well, most forms of Humanism any­way. There is the loosely related Transhumanist movement.

From Wikipedia:

“Transhumanism is an international cultural and intellectual movement with an eventual goal of fundamentally transforming the hu­man condition by developing and making widely available technologies to greatly en­hance human intellectual, physical, and psy­chological capacities.”

“Transhumanism shares many elements of humanism, including a respect for reason and science, a commitment to progress, and a valuing of human (or transhuman) exis­tence in this life. Transhumanism differs from humanism in recognizing and anticipat­ing the radical alterations in the nature and possibilities of our lives resulting from vari­ous sciences and technologies.”

UU’s here at UUS:E should already know some­thing about Transhumanism, because one of the movement’s leaders is among us: James J. Hughes Ph.D, who has spoken and lectured at UUS:E about his field.

My first reaction to Transhumanism was the same I got from watching the movie Frankenstein for the first time, but with modern technology.  Car­bon nanotubes running through our brains, making us smarter and interfacing us with computers? Tita­nium exoskeletons giving us great strength? Not for me!  I don’t want to end up a cyborg. I want to stay 100% all natural H. sapiens!

But do I really want to be an “organic” hu­man?  I would be unable to chew most foods were it not for the metal (older) and composite (newer) fill­ings that have kept my teeth from falling apart.  Had I not worn metal braces to reposition my teeth, I would not be able to cleanly bite off a piece of lico­rice (see previous problem with fillings).  Without the use of custom-shaped light refraction prostheses (alright, eyeglasses), I would not be able to read eas­ily, nor thread a needle, nor take out a sliver, nor… you get the idea. For a while I had two metal im­plants in my left hand to help reconnect a torn liga­ment after a skiing accident.  Without them I would be unable to grasp things with the thumb of my left hand, a condition romantically called Gamekeeper’s Thumb.  Metal implants? Yes, thank you!

We might want to think of ourselves as “all natural” but many of us, perhaps most of us, ingest manufactured chemicals to keep our blood pressure within bounds, or to make up for an underachieving thyroid gland, or to be able to digest certain critical proteins, or… stop by any pharmacy and see what it takes to keep human bodies and minds alive and well. Some of us rely on machines and devices for our mobility, others to simply stay alive.  Do we consider someone who wears a Pacemaker to be a cyborg? Of course not.

My point?  Some of us, maybe even most, are already transhuman.  And while we might recoil from the technologies that will be available in the future, when we are faced with the choice of suffer­ing a failing [insert body part here] or signing the consent form for the next new fix, most of us will reach for the pen.

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A Buddhist Perspective: Transformation

By Nancy Thompson,
UUS:E Buddhist Group

Transformation is at the heart of the Buddha’s teach­ings. At the individual level, it’s about liberation from suffering by transforming our attitude of disasisfaction and complaint into one of ease and wisdom.  The Buddha’s teachings were “never intended for  those who are already perfect saints,” teacher Bikkhu Bodhi writes. ”It is addressed to fallible human be­ ings beset with all the shortcomings typical of unpolished human nature: conduct that is fickle and impulsive, minds that are tainted by greed, anger and self­ishness, views that are distorted, and habits that lead  to harm for oneself and others. The purpose of the  teaching is to transform such people — ourselves —  into ‘accomplished ones’: into those whose every  action is pure, whose minds are calm and composed,  whose wisdom has fathomed the deepest truths, and  whose conduct is always marked by a compassionate  concern for others and for the welfare of the world.”

That transformation clearly would change the com­munity and the world.

Transforming ourselves is a process of looking “It’s not what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong; not what we gain but what we save that closely at the views and attitudes that guide our ac­tions, questioning whether they are accurate for the current moment or remnants of past experience that color our views, and mindfully choosing how to act rather than reacting automatically.  Tibetan Buddhism teaches that emotions are energies that have both enlightened and deluded aspects. For example, while anger can be poisonous and destruc­tive, the flip side – the enlightened aspect — is wis­dom. Think about it: There’s often a reason behind anger – we feel threatened or scared or disregarded or like our needs aren’t being met. With mindful­ness, we can transform the anger at what is happen­ing to wisdom that sees whether there is an injustice and looks for a compassionate way to right the wrong. By working with ourselves mindfully, moment by moment, the transformation from suffering to libera­tion is possible.

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Two perspectives by:

• A Humanist Perspective by Jerry Lusa
• A Buddhist Perspective by Nancy Thompson

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A Humanist Perspective: Unitarian Universalism’s Six Sources

By Jerry Lusa, Sunday Services Committee

This summer’s UUS:E ministry theme is the six sources from which the UU tradition draws its principles.  When I consider the sources, what stands out for me, grammar aside, is how much they are seated in our imagination and the imaginations of others.  Let’s have a look…

1. Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;

Direct experience by itself is actually not from our imagination. In fact, experience is the opposite of imagination.  Imagination is defined as “the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present in the senses or never wholly perceived in reality.”

When the first source talks of direct experience, it refers to specific kinds of experience: that of mystery and wonder.  We’re walking a fine line here.  We can feel mystery and wonder without forming mental images – this is unadulterated emotion, but how often do we leave it at that and bask in primal awe?  Or we can feel mystery and wonder and then conjure up imagery in the form of metaphors, analogies, nostalgia, and the like. And the resulting imagery can lead to other mysteries and wonder, like a mysterious dog chasing its own wonderful tail.

2. Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;

When we hear or read of the words and deeds of prophetic women and men, we rely on our imagination to construct meaning.  Our imaginations are like a computer’s memory in which we build ideas as we try to understand them.  We can decide if we want to let our imaginations wander wide of the prophetic message, or to focus on the prophesy and understand its original intent.  Either way we are experiencing our own imaginings.

3. Wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;

In past decades I would have said “ditto” here, but the term has lost its luster of late.  Like with the words and deeds of prophetic women and men, wisdom from the world’s religions first passes through our imaginations before we take inspiration from them.

4. Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;

By itself, loving our neighbors as ourselves is pure emotion and doesn’t require imagination.  Then again, there are some neighbors… (be nice Jerry).  Once we start reading or hearing those teachings, our imaginations come alive and where it will lead us is anyone’s guess.

5. Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;

Do science and reason reside in our imaginations?  They are nothing if not imagination!  It takes a great deal of imagination to understand mathematics, electromagnetic fields, chemical reactions, or the dance of DNA that makes life. To understand them well, we amend our own imaginings and learn to understand the imaginations of others who have built up human knowledge.  When we ignore the science and reason that others have discovered, we run the risk of idolizing our own imaginations.

6.  Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

The sacred circle of life and the rhythms of nature: some feel them, some imagine them, and for many there’s some of each.  In his early book titled Biophilia, Edward O. Wilson, the “Darwin” of our times, makes the case that we instinctively connect with nature.  Wilson defined ‘biophilia’ as “the innate tendency [in human beings] to focus on life and lifelike process. To an extent still undervalued in philosophy and religion, our existence depends on this propensity, our spirit is woven from it, hopes rise on its currents.”

Imagine that!

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A Buddhist Perspective: Direct Experience

By Nancy Thompson,
UUS:E Buddhist Group

One of Unitarian Universalism’s Six Sources is “direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, that moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life.” Buddhism says direct, personal experience of the Buddha’s teachings is essential in walking the path to liberation from suffering.

The Buddha often ended his talks by saying, “Don’t believe anything just because I tell you it is like this. Investigate it for yourself and see if you find truth in it. Only then should you believe in it.” (That’s a paraphrase.)

It’s said that studying the dharma, the Buddha’s teachings, without putting them into practice is like reading a recipe but not preparing it. Reading the recipe doesn’t alleviate hunger – if anything, it may intensify it. To satisfy hunger, you have to follow the recipe. And once you’ve made it and tasted it, you may decide it would taste better if you tweak it a bit, adding more of something to increase the nutritional value or throwing in a complementary ingredient. Then it has value to you.

That’s what UUs do when they undertake “a free and responsible search for meaning.”  Study it, contemplate it, try it out, and see if it holds true. And if not, what are the aspects that seem wrong or uncomfortable? Is it an old resistance or habit of thought, or is something there that’s not right?

Buddhism offers tools to facilitate this direct experience, specifically many methods of meditation.  It’s said that the Buddha taught 84,000 ways to meditate in order to reach as many people as possible.

The first step, though, is always to make contact with the moment, which means dropping your stories about what is happening in the moment or what should happen in the moment, what happened before this moment began, and what will happen 20 moments from now. Finding the breath – which takes place in this moment and no other – is a handy way to do that. More broadly, being in your body (without judgments or comparisons) anchors you to the present moment and its transcendent mysteries. You can let your thoughts settle, like mud in water, to reveal the natural clarity of your being.

To find a moment, start by becoming still in whatever posture you want (sitting, standing, lying down). Feel the parts of your body, the parts that are in contact with the earth or things on the earth, the parts that are held up by your skeleton, the parts that touch clothing and the parts that touch air. Just notice. Then find your breath – see if you can locate a point where you’re most aware of it – and observe it. What is the quality of it – long, short, deep, shallow? How does the air feel in your lungs? What is it like to be a body breathing, just breathing, with no particular effort?

Maybe you can feel the transcendent wonder of the fact that all of the very complex internal systems in your body are working right now, without your effort. That your life, and all life, goes on within and without us. Maybe you want to open your eyes and look at your surroundings – you can connect with the wonder of nature without praise or blame (you can add those later when you analyze; now you’re investigating). Even in an office, the computer becomes a marvel of science, not “this outdated piece of garbage.” Your coworkers become marvels of transcendence in their own right, breathing the same air and using the same light but coming to different conclusions  than you because of the causes and conditions that brought them here.

You’ll find what you find, not what I or the Buddha tell you to. It’s your experience, after all.  And that’s what you should believe.

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On reflection, it seems that the extra phrasing in the official sources really gives an important refinement of these otherwise general statements. So let’s rephrase them with restrictive clauses and see what we get…

Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, that moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life;

Words and deeds of prophetic women and men that challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;

Wisdom from the world’s religions that inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;

Jewish and Christian teachings that call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as our- selves;

Humanist teachings that counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;

Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions that celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

There, I feel at peace. A heretic’s peace, but peace nonetheless. I’ve heard from Marlene Geary that the sub- ject of the sources’ grammar has come up repeatedly in past General Assemblies, so I’m not the only heretical UU.
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A Buddhist Perspective:Unitarian Universalism’s Six Sources

By Nancy Thompson,
UUS:E Buddhist Group

Buddhism, which began in India more than 2,500 years ago, obviously predates Unitarian Uni- versalism, but our Transcendentalist predecessors were instrumental in bringing Buddhism to the West. James Ismael Ford, a UU minister who is authorized to teach in two Zen lineages, says that Western religious liberals have been fascinated with Buddhism from as early as 1844, when Elizabeth Palmer Pea- body published an anonymous rendition of a chapter from the Sadharmapundarika Sutra in the Transcendentalist journal, the Dial. This chapter, “The Preaching of Buddha,” was the first Buddhist text published in the English language; for years the credit was given to Henry David Thoreau. Almost a century later, Buddhism again drew attention from liberal religious groups, this time from Humanists. (You can read Ford’s article at http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/ articles/23667.shtml)

The intertwining of Buddhism with other UU sources is a display of Buddhist teachings on interdependence and karma. Everything arises from causes and conditions, the Buddha taught; Because this happens, that happens. Information is published, interest is generated, the thread runs through generations and becomes a source for later developments.

Historical developments aside, I see Buddhist views woven throughout the Seven Principles. The Buddha urged his followers not to take his teachings on faith but to try the methods he taught and see if they had value for them. Don’t do anything just because I tell you, he said. Do it because you’ve seen that it works. In other words, be skeptical, but not cynical, as you fearless search for truth.

The teaching that every sentient being has buddhanature, or innate goodness, is the ground for respect for the worth and dignity of every being. Interdependence is a central theme in both Buddhism and UUism.

Buddhism teaches that liberation is possible, that guidelines exist, but that each person is responsible for their own progress. There is no outside salvation and no eternal condemnation – you are accountable for your actions and their results.