I remember the date and time exactly. It was Friday, December 30th. I ordered my lunch at the Bagel Cafe around the corner here at the Charlotte Square Shopping Center and met the Willbachs who had just returned from White Plains, New York. We had a pleasant lunch together catching up on the events in each other's lives. I returned to the Fellowship and resumed my work. That's when I noticed a little irritation in my throat I hadn't noticed before. I cleared my throat but the sensation did not go away. Gradually a prickly dryness spread as my sinuses began to drain a little more quickly. I had a cold and suddenly I was unhappy. The enjoyable morning of getting things done was clouded by the prospect of perhaps losing my voice when I had the World Healing Day service at 7:00am the next morning and a service to do on Sunday morning as well.
I don't know about you, but for me getting a cold is not a happy moment of my life. There usually arise feelings of distress, regret, remorse, and irritation. I become distressed that the disease I have caught might turn into something serious or I will not be able to do what I need to do. I regret the previous week's behavior when I stayed up late working or reading. I regret I haven't washed my hands enough - a primary method to prevent cold transmission. I feel remorse that my behavior may have weakened or threatened my immune system making me vulnerable to infection. I feel irritation at the prospect of not being able to do everything I want to get done. Generally, I start feeling miserable even before the cold virus has a chance to begin its attack.
Sickness and the diminished functioning that comes with aging are powerful reminders of the imperfectibility of our physical form. Whether of high station or low, rich or poor, wise or ignorant, young or old, we all get sick from time to time. Sickness is a powerful metaphor of a profoundly troubling aspect of existence - its unsatisfactory quality. Rarely are things exactly the way we want them to be, and when they do happen to get there - it doesn't last. We want what we don't have and flee from what we have and don't want. Even if we have everything we want, the fear of losing it can trouble us. We can't completely avoid death and taxes. Much as we strive to build a New Jerusalem, a great society, it doesn't ever get close to finished, one step forward and two back. It was this unsatisfactory quality of existence witnessed in sickness, old age and death that engaged a young Indian prince with the question, is this all human life amounts to or is there more?
The man who would become the Buddha (which means one who is awake), named Siddartha, born to a royal family, was raised to become a great king. Siddartha, so the legend goes, lived in great luxury protected from the unpleasantness of the world in a walled palace. But like the caged animal, he longed for experience of the greater world. One day he snuck out for a ride with his charioteer and saw four men. One was very old and hunched over, with little hair, gnarled hands and bony legs. Another was a very sick man who was coughing up blood and near death. Another was a body of a poor dead man decomposing and covered with maggots. And the last was a mostly naked renunciant forest-dweller seeking spiritual awakening. The sight of these four men profoundly disturbed the young Siddartha and awakened in him the yearning to understand the nature of their suffering and see if there was a way to escape it. He abandoned the comfortable life in the palace to become a forest- dweller seeking answers to his questions.
By Sunday afternoon my cold was going strong with my nose running, my throat raw from coughing, and my body aching. All I wanted to do was to sit in front of the television set and watch football. Although I'm aware that a loss of energy is common when one gets a cold, I became troubled. What if I felt like this all the time? How could I accomplish all the goals I have set for myself in my ministry here? Blessed with lots of energy and enthusiasm, I noticed how unpleasant life appeared without it. In the foggy-headed mental state of sickness, every effort seemed to take more energy than it was worth. So, even though I was not really all that sick in comparison to the horrific things I have had happen to me in my life like getting hit by a car, I had worked myself into a very unpleasant mental condition.
The connection between our mental anguish and the intensification of our feelings of suffering during illness are likely to be familiar to all of us. What may not be as familiar is one of the discoveries Siddartha made as he investigated the nature of suffering. The study of pain management has confirmed his understanding.
If a researcher were to press a pin gently against my finger, I would report that the experience was unpleasant but not bothersome. If that researcher would then press a pin gently against my rear end, I would likely have a much stronger reaction as I remembered getting painful iron supplement injections as a child. Even though there are far fewer nerve endings in my rear end than in my finger tip, the subjective experience will be much more painful.
In this example is the seed of understanding the distinction between the raw sensory information presented to our brains and our mental formulations in response to them. We are deeply conditioned to react to the world as we move through it. A careful investigation of this mind-body process can be done at a meditation retreat where the outer stimulation is reduced to the bare minimum so the inner processes become more apparent.
The fruit of investigating the relationship of sensation and mental suffering is that they are inherent and determined. Buying several bad apples may cause one to condemn the whole barrel, or the store or the fruit. Yet the taste of an individual apple is separate from one's opinion of the apple's quality and value. A bearded man taking a cookie away from you as a child can set up a dislike of bearded men. Yet in reality few bearded men are untrustworthy. A painful visit to the dentist sets up the expectation of pain for the next visit. Yet a visit for a cleaning by an attractive, friendly hygienist could be quite pleasant. A previous negative experience can set up a mind state of negative reaction which reinforces and intensifies the negative mental state, blinding one to the truth of the moment. This process of conditioning is necessary for us to survive, yet it can be extremely limiting if we assume that this moment is exactly like the one in the past.
If we take the view that human beings have no free will and are only products of their genes and their experience, the human condition can seem pretty bleak. After six years of investigating many spiritual practices and practicing severe austerity, Siddartha gave up trying to free himself from this cycle of stimulus and unpleasant mental response through purification by will power. The conventional wisdom 2500 years ago was that purification of mind could free one from these conditioned reactions of the mind. Siddartha understood through his own experience that this was not the answer he sought.
By Wednesday my sinuses had stopped draining through the front of my nose, yet continued full tilt down the back of my throat. I was able to sleep through the night without having a coughing fit at 3:00am. My previous colds haven't caused congestion in my lungs but this one did. Even though people commented on how bad my cold sounded as I hacked and coughed, the progression of symptoms reassured me that the cold would get better and go away completely. My symptoms were still quite distressing, but inside I was relaxed and peaceful. What had changed most dramatically was my mind.
The Siddartha's great discovery is something we take for granted today as it is spewed forth from the television talk shows and trumpeted from the self-help book stand. We may not be able to control the circumstances of our lives completely to our liking, but we can control to a large degree our mental response to those circumstances. How we feel about an event is profoundly affected by how we view the event. As I speak to you now, no two of you are going to understand me exactly the same way even though you will all hear exactly the same words. Some may have strong positive associations with my words and others may have strong negative associations. There can be no objective hearing of my words. There can however be a clear and centered awareness of one's mental response to my words that does not disturb its peace and tranquillity.
The Buddha taught that the internal experience of unsatisfactoriness can cease and one can experience a state of peace, tranquillity, and equanimity. Not only can this occur but we can by our actions make it more likely to occur in our own lives. Basically our state of mind can be detached from the circumstances and the events in our life. Mind over matter.
Yet to know something is possible is not enough. I have seen people juggle many objects at once and I have always been awestruck that such a thing is possible. If the juggler handed the balls to me it would be extremely difficult for me to figure out how to do this on my own. Yes, a great violin player I can certainly appreciate but that does not mean I too can attain such greatness.
The last Noble Truth the Buddha taught was that the cessation of the unsatisfactory quality of existence could be cultivated in our daily lives through the practice of ethical living, development of mental powers, and disciplined awareness of moment-to-moment experience.
The Buddha stressed that leading an ethical life by refraining from harming others, lying, stealing, exploitative sexual practices and the use of intoxicants to cloud the mind were the foundation of happiness. No peace of mind could be found if one were harming others or oneself. The Buddha also understood that a certain mental ability was required. He recommended practices to develop one's powers of concentration. These two steps were the preliminary work. They are not the goals in and of themselves but rather means to create fertile ground for the enlightened mind to grow.
Ethical living and developing the powers of the mind were well-known in the Buddha's time. What was different about the Buddha's enlightenment was his realization that the way to end suffering was not a lofty far-off attainment at the end of an arduous spiritual discipline but rather freely available and observable in moment-to-moment experience. The path to freedom lay in careful, disciplined observation of what is happening now.
I think all of us here already know this. My most profound teacher currently about the nature of suffering is my son Andy. I watch him carefully and he teaches me again and again. I will ask Andy what he wants for lunch. We will open the refrigerator and he will see a jar of strawberry jelly. He will then report that he wants strawberry jelly for lunch. If I tell him we are not going to have strawberry jelly for lunch, but suggest another food he also likes, he becomes distraught with sorrow and anguish. This isn't a show, he really feels horrible that he will not get what he wants. He is not able to let his desire go once he has fixated on an object until we are able to distract him or he loses interest. Andy cannot see the suffering he creates by his attachments. We can.
This is the power we all possess to greater or lesser degrees. The ability to choose. In each moment that arises we have a choice in how we will respond. We can act in a way that will bring harm to ourselves and others or we can act in a way that will alleviate the suffering of ourselves and others. But just as important as the act is the careful, attentive observation of the results of one's action. It is by witnessing oneself in each moment what helps and what hurts that one learns directly how to end suffering for oneself and others.
The Buddha never asked anyone to accept his teaching on faith that it was true. When questioned repeatedly, he would encourage questioners to sit down, quiet the muddy waters of their minds and see directly for themselves the reality of their experience. No one can wave a wand or say a blessing which will cause this awareness to appear in one's head. Everyone must do it themselves. The key is not to have read the correct book or have collected a complete set of facts and theories, but rather in developing the power of one's awareness to observe the truth directly.
In a way, the Buddha was the first scientist. He was unwilling to take what others said for granted. He tested all the spiritual practices of his day and found they did not solve the riddle of human suffering. It was only by deeply understanding the Four Noble Truths - the unsatisfactory quality of existence, our mental participation in creating this quality, the reality of freedom from this dissatisfaction and the path of freedom which breaks the cycle of suffering - that opened the door to unshakable peace, satisfaction, harmony and tranquillity.
Ever since I first was introduced to the Four Noble Truths in a Buddhist meditation class, I was struck by their profundity. Now, ten years later, they remain a doorway to a world of wisdom. This teaching has also been a doorway for me to greater appreciation of other religions of the world and understanding their teachings.
I present the Four Noble Truths here in a Unitarian Universalist service because I feel strongly that we have great compatibility with this Buddhist understanding. We are different traditions coming from very different cultures, but we complement each other well. Some of the inspiration for Transcendentalism came from this kind of thinking. One of the goals of my ministry is finding ways for us to borrow from the Buddhist tradition understanding and practices which will invigorate and strengthen Unitarian Universalism.
Today, I hope borrowing the Four Noble Truths has stimulated, invigorated and strengthened your own development of wisdom, understanding, and compassion.
Closing Words
Here these words of encouragement from the Buddha:
Do not hark back to things that passed, And for the future cherish not fond hopes: The past was left behind by thee, The future state has not yet come. But who with vision clear can see The present which is here and now, Such wise one should aspire to win What never can be lost or shaken. Go in peace Make peace Be at peace.
Copyright (c) 1995 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore, All Rights Reserved.