Mirror, Mirror On the Wall
One of my favorite stories about the Buddha recounts his arrival back at his parents home after he attained enlightenment. Now the Buddha, known by the name Siddharta to his family, had left the royal compound years before in order to understand the true nature of suffering and its relief. Siddharta left behind riches and royalty and family obligations in his role as prince and took up a life of poverty, of ascetism, and finally of monasticism. To his family, he was a disgrace - arriving back at his family home in robes, dedicating his life to walking among and teaching the people. The Buddha's parents didn't buy his spiritual awakening, didn't understand his experience of enlightenment, and they put all the pressure they had to bear on him, urging him to come home, to stop being a monk, to get rid of his ridiculous clothing, and to take up his rightful place as prince. No matter what Siddharta did - they would not and could not believe him - until finally, fed up, he performed a miracle - floating in the air while spouting both fire and water - and it was this that finally began to convince his family that he had learned anything worthwhile.
Now most of us cannot float in the air while spouting both fire and water - but sometimes, it may feel like that is what it would take - a miracle - pure and simple - for our families to understand our approach to and our desire for a spiritual life - and sometimes it feels like it would take just that - a miracle - in order for us to live out our spiritual values and aspirations in the challenging world of our families.
Spiritual teachers from all backgrounds and denominations find common ground in one clear statement. Our families - whether they are given or chosen - are often the single most difficult place to live out our spiritual lives.
And many of us already know this from experience. Practicing our spiritual life alone in a room is one thing - and it is quite another thing to bring our values and our aspirations, our feelings of boundless compassion and our ever-expanding heart to the day to day challenges of dirty laundry and unwashed dishes, of late morning starts and midnight illness, and it is another thing still to bring our spiritual lives out of isolation and offer our intentions and our hopes for ourselves and for the world - to those life-changing moments of pain and joy that come up with those we hold most dear.
When we attempt to live out our spiritual lives in our families - things can go seriously awry. We might mistakenly take on the role of teacher - assuming that we know more than the others and unconsciously slipping into a holier than thou place that no one likes. We might approach our families looking for something that cannot be given there - returning over and over to a dry well, pounding on the ropes and the bricks in anger, wondering why we cannot get a drink. We might lose ourselves in old assumptions, forgetting to look at each individual and each interaction with new eyes, with a curious heart, searching for the uniqueness and the gift inherent in every person. The traps and challenges in our family interactions are many - they are different for each of us and they are quite simply too numerous to name here.
But each of these traps, whatever form they take in us as individuals, can form the basis of deeper awareness and transformation. Our families, after all, whether they are chosen or given - are often the sources of our deepest longings and of our deepest wounds. And they have much to offer us. Our families often act as the counterweight to the spiritual arrogance we may develop - balancing us and bringing us back to center as we come to appreciate the uniqueness and the suffering of their hearts - while simultaneously working to expand our own. And of course, our families are often the places where our pain and our joy emerge without anesthesia - and while this may be difficult - it also makes it a perfect place to practice our spirituality.
One woman, speaking of her husband, a Hindu teacher, reported, "My husband came home from his last visit in India in an amazing state. He was enlightened for six months, until he spent time with his mother."[1]
It's different for all of us - but for most of us, there is someone in our family, someone in our circle of close connections who challenges us like no other - someone whom we must put our spiritual principles to the test in every interaction.
And I want to be clear this morning. I am not asking all of you to leave church this morning and go home and call your mother. I know that things are much more complicated than that. We all live with very different circumstances - with different experiences and relationships and realities - and no worthwhile approach to living our spiritual lives in our families can offer a one-size fits all prescription for growth and healing. What I am saying -is that for those of us wishing to live a spiritual life - our families, in whatever form they take - can be a mirror to the challenges that remain in us, and they can be a place of intense spiritual practice and amazing growth.
But as with any area so fraught with challenges and with traps - it is wise not to travel alone - and it is wise to begin the journey with some sustenance and a few guides in your pack. After all, living out our highest values and aspirations in our families is a life-long process - and as one dear friend of mine frequently reminds me, the spiritual life is a marathon, not a sprint. So the suggestions I have to offer this morning come in three forms - and stated simply they are: time takes time, let go, and look for the gifts.
The first of these suggestions - time takes time - can be extraordinarily difficult when we have found good news that we want to share and when we are seeking acceptance for some crucial part of our selves.
When I was 17 years old, I finally became comfortable enough in my own skin to admit that I was a lesbian. The feelings had been coming up for me for years - and while I tried hard to push them away - I just couldn't do it anymore. Surrounded by friends and fellow travelers, I began to explore how I might come out to my parents. Terrified of their rejection, I read every book I could get my hands on - and while most of what I read washed under the bridge in my mind - one piece of advice stood out clearly. Remember, this book said, that when you tell your parents or anyone else that you are gay - remember, that you have had months and maybe years to go through the process of coming out - a process of fear, of education and of acceptance. And remember - that when you come out to whomever this is - that often - your disclosure is the beginning of the same process for them. They too may need to go through a process of fear, of education, and hopefully, finally, of acceptance. Remember that your parents will be getting this news for the first time when you share it, and it may take them just as long or longer than it took you to get comfortable with it.
What I wanted, of course, was my parents' unconditional love, immediate acceptance and support - and this warning allowed me to see that even if I didn't get it at first, I might get it over time, if only I could acknowledge that they too would have their own, individual process to go through.
The advice offered by this book on coming out has stuck with me - and I've found it helpful not only as I share the truth of my sexuality - but with any major new piece of news I have to share. Time takes time, my friends remind me, and I can't expect everyone around me to be in the same place I am just because I want it so badly.
The second guide I keep in my pack as I take up the challenge of living my spiritual life at home is another simple phrase. Let go, it reminds me.
In the poem we heard this morning about a daughter leaving home - pumping the pedals of her bicycle as she charges away from her mother screaming with laughter - hair flapping like a handkerchief waving good bye - in this poem we can feel the mother's apprehension - her longing to hang on to the back of that bike just a moment longer, racing behind her ever more distant daughter trying desperately to prevent the crash she knows is coming.
If from my far away perspective I could distill the lesson I take from this poem into two words they would be this - let go, let go. We cannot know if the other person will fall, and at some point it is no longer our responsibility to protect them. Our job then is simply to stand behind cheering and loving and letting go with all of our hearts.
This is no easy task, I know, and as the practice of parenting looms large in front of me, I say these words sure that I am about to learn more than I ever imagined. So I offer us a tool to go with them - the let-go meditation. The let-go meditation comes from Ajahn Sumedho - the first American abbot of a Theraveda Buddhist monastery. Ajahn describes the meditation practice this way:
"For minds obsessed by compulsive thinking and grasping, you simplify your meditation practices to just two words - 'let go' - rather than trying to develop this practice, and then develop that, achieve this, and go into that. The grasping mind wants to read...to study...to learn...to get ordinations...to write and become a renowned authority...instead...why not just 'let go, let go, let go?' For years I did nothing but this in my practice. Every time I tried to understand or figure things out, I'd say 'let go, let go, let go' until the desire would fade out. So I'm making it very simple for you, to save you from getting caught in an incredible amount of suffering,"[2] he says. Why not, I wonder, just let go, let go, let go? And what would this look like if we applied the let-go meditation to our family lives?
The third and final suggestion I offer for living into our spiritual lives in the challenging and fruitful arena of our families is quite simple as well. Look for the gifts, I suggest.
Looking for the gifts means using different eyes, eyes of blessing as my friend, the Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd calls them. When we look through eyes of blessing rather than through eyes of fear or judgment or contempt - we see the broken hearts that everyone carries, we see the uniqueness and the wonder and the gift that each person possesses simply by their being. When we look through eyes of blessing we refocus our energy, using our intention and attention to bring curiosity to the table - eager to see the unexpected gifts that will surely take shape before us if only we can look and listen. Seeing through these eyes of blessing takes some adjustment - especially when we move in circles of people we have come to expect the worst of. Our judgment can sneak in and throw us off task.
As the teacher, Jack Kornfield, writes - "We so easily become judgmental of one another. Sometimes the closer we are to a person, the stronger out judgment and frustration can become. That is why family is one of the final frontiers of spiritual development."[3] The closer we are to someone, the harder it can be, at times, to see them through eyes of blessing.
But isn't this what Mary Oliver did in her poem this morning? Did she not see the gifts present in her grandmother whom others may have seen as crazy as she laid out newspapers on the porch floor each night creating a blanket under which the garden ants could crawl and keep warm? The poet saw the loving heart - left behind and still beating even after the lightning of years had taken away so much. As we read this poem earlier this week in the poetry group I lead - one of the wise members of the group spoke up and said - "isn't this what you have to do when you age - to look for the gifts - that you might still know happiness despite the losses?"
This past year I learned more than I ever thought possible during a few rowdy moments at a wedding reception. The reception, you see, followed the blessing of a wedding of two women. Their love for one another was apparent to everyone - and the excitement and joy as they pledged their lives to the common aspiration of their relationship was tremendously moving. But what was most moving for me - wasn't what was happening on the surface - it was the story behind it all. Behind it all was a family that had refused to be torn apart by differing religious views - behind it all was the story of fundamentalist Christians wrestling with their view of homosexuality as sinful and their simultaneous love and commitment to their sister. It was the story of years of assertiveness and challenge, years of hurt and anger, all echoing in the background as there on the dance floor everyone came out - dancing and waving their arms, clapping and standing in one circle as the DJ played the song, "We Are Family," as loud as the speakers could go. Standing on the sidelines nursing a soda my faith in love was renewed that day as the entire family hit the dance floor, and my commitment to look for the gifts in my family, in every family, rather than staying stuck staring at the wounds - took on a new shape and intensity.
Looking for the gifts can be no easy task when we are hurt or wounded or betrayed by our families - and I want to be clear that I am not saying this morning that anger is bad or that distance is not sometimes necessary in order to protect ourselves. What I am saying is that I agree with Booker T. Washington - who once said - "Don't ever let them pull you down so low as to hate them."
It is one thing, we know, to develop our spiritual lives through solitary prayer and meditation, through participation in a chosen community, to work for justice alongside like minded folks. These tasks take conscious effort, of course, and they may often feel hard enough in this busy and broken world without adding on anything more. But there is more, if we are called to the journey of a spiritual life. There is more, as we take these guides of patience, of letting go, of looking for the gifts, into our family lives and into our most intimate relationships.
The good news though, my friends, is that we are all in it together. The good news is that when we walk together, when we fill our packs with sustenance and trail guides, we can make progress - we can learn - and together we just might find the ultimate joy that comes from an ever-expanding heart.
May we take up the challenge, together.
May it be so, and Amen.
July 15, 2007
- Jack Kornfield. After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path. (Bantam Books. New York, NY. 2001) p. 217.
- Ibid. 134-5.
- Ibid. 223.