Shatter Resistant, Flame Retardant
I would like to spend some time this morning examining the delusion of strength and reflecting upon the fragile state of our bodies, lives, and world. Recently, I began to notice how much energy I expend on convincing myself that my life and world is much more stable and stronger than it actually is. I think we often find ourselves in this common delusion, in energy absorbed denying the truth of our bodily and worldly limitations. Energy spent that distracts us from real sources of bliss.
It as Ram Dass writes of his suffering in this morning's reading when he attempted to suppress the true state of his aging body. Not only did Ram Dass experience physical pain from his foolish delusions, but he also suffered spiritually for this denial. So long as we deny the body's limitations, according to Ram Dass, we further deny the body's possible incarnations.
Nothing will tell you more about the body's limitations than driving through the desert. There is something raw about the landscape, the weather, the very ground you drive across that begs one to consider how fragile we really are.
Several weeks ago my girlfriend Stephanie and I headed out for a cross-country road trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico where Steph will begin her masters in geology. So we packed her 1990 Acura Integra full to the front seats with clothes, pots and pans, and of course lots of geology textbooks. As we began our 2,000-mile journey from Connecticut I opened my laptop prepared to take in the fullness of scenery. Unfortunately, Ohio at 2:00 am isn't terribly scenic, but as we coasted into Saint Louis, Missouri by the second day I could tell the landscape was shifting
As we departed for Oklahoma, I began to notice for the first real time the beauty of the Western landscape. Pulling into Tulsa that evening we found a much drier climate. As we crossed the Texan border in our fourth day of the journey the climate became even more arid and the scenery even more desolate.
I looked for miles and miles around the car, only to find more land. Heading into Albuquerque we found beautiful mountain ranges and desert sunsets. It was simply breathtaking, but also a bit frightening. As we stood at a rest stop near Santa Rosa, I looked over the desert suddenly realizing as we read in today's reading just how insignificant my small self could be. As we pulled onto the onramp I noticed a rock literally hanging over the road. I looked startled. Stephanie chuckled, pointing. "Oh yes, those rocks are amazing, many of them are formed by the wind-blowing sands patterns until they get down to that small point. Fragile really. Someday they will tumble when the erosion has reached the tipping point."
I drove a little faster past this 'fragile' rock.
But it started me thinking. Here was this shifting landscape, this vast expanse. Here I was driving by this seemingly delicately balanced rock, just nearly on the tipping point.
I wonder if our bodies aren't like that rock, a delicate balance that is often maintained for days and years at a time. It is a wonder when you consider the relative intricacy of our internal system that it all functions so well so often. It is a wonder that we haven't given way to the wind blowing sand erosion.
I started considering, there in New Mexico, the delicate balance my own life shifts upon. The way the winds have formed the particular outcroppings of my life and how seemingly miraculous the normalcy of my days really can be when you consider the complexity of events and processes that it depends upon.
We are fragile in so many ways, though we often try to tell ourselves otherwise. We buy wrinkle defense creams, anti-aging vitamins, electronics with lifetime warranties, and self-help books offering the secrets of eternity. We are surrounded with messages that convince us that our bodies, our lives, our world are not nearly as fragile as they really are. We find so many ways to tell ourselves that we will live forever, that our bodies are stronger than they are and that we have found ways to eliminate one of the essential truths of living embodied-living fragile.
Living fragile is first step toward incarnation. For me, incarnation is a tricky word, but when I hear Ram Dass speak of incarnation I think of that shear bliss produced when we succumb to the mystery and wonder of our daily existence. The miracle is our ability to rise in the morning and go to bed in the evening with little interference. Fragile. Yes, but incarnate too.
So we continue on our road trip, with me still pondering the rock hanging in balance, still awed by the shifting landscape. We are fragile I think. Hmmm. Then suddenly I hear the gears shift awkwardly as we climb a small hill. Then another noise. This one a new one, followed by more gear shifting. Suddenly I look to the dial thing-you can tell her that I did my mechanical research for this sermon-to see the indicator go from cold to hot. We both know that this is not a good sign. In fact, it is probably a very bad sign. Apparently cars are fragile as well as bodies. So we arrive at the rest stop and we must wait for the tow truck. We've blown the water pump, no saving it now.
It's getting cold, after all it is the desert and so we sit inside the car. I giggle, considering the state of the car and our relative dependence on another human being 60 miles outside of Albuquerque. We are quite literally in the middle of nowhere. I suddenly feel very fragile in this unknown place. We don't know really know our destination, we've never seen this new town, and we are dependent upon the work of strangers.
What a fragile web it hangs on. Our trust of whomever arrives. The car's safe return. All with a gearshift on a hill, I suddenly realize life is really quite fragile.
And suddenly I am filled with bliss.
It might sound strange to be so happy, broken down 60 miles outside of nowhere but when the realization hits that you have traveled 1,840 miles in perfect safety you are suddenly filled with a deep sense of bliss in the face of your fragileness.
I think this is the boldest piece that our spirit receives when we stop deluding ourselves into believing we are stronger than we are that we can do it alone. When we just sit with how fragile our bodies, our lives, and our world really can be it fills the soul with bliss to consider how well it often turns out. This may be a very class privileged view, but I am not speaking just about doing well in life, but the shear fact that we find ourselves breathing -that we have survived this far - that the sun has again risen in our skies. This fills me with an unexpected joy, that makes my otherwise well planned, neatly compacted, supposedly predictable life astounding.
We continue on our road trip arriving safely in Albuquerque. The following morning as we visit the geology department at the University of New Mexico we come across a museum. Inside, I find a seismograph-not that surprising for a geology department, but what does surprise is the movement of the earth. On a large screen above the seismograph the earth is color-coded according to tectonic activity. The ground beneath our feet is moving every minute. Every second somewhere around the world the earth is shifting. It's startling to think how even fragile our own world is, the ground which we walk upon constantly moving. Yes, despite the consumer messages of a culture obsessed with strength and might we are still fragile.
While it can be frightening to consider the shifting planes of our lives, I believe in doing so, when we surpass our fears there is a space for the miraculous. I know, miracle that is a dangerous word that we often shy away from in our rational religion. But consider the real miracle in living, the real miracle in waking up to the sun kissing your face on another morning.
It worked! You somehow made it through the night and your fragile body will probably go on to live in this fragile network of existence, standing on this fragile earth. Despite all the countless things that go wrong in our lives every second of every minute, there is something quite miraculous about it all that goes right. I am not suggesting that there is some grand design. I think that is a larger question than this sermon could possibly address, but rather that bliss is possible and useful as a spiritual practice.
It is as Ram Dass writes in Still Here, once liberated from the delusion that we are stronger than we are, we find the possibility of incarnation. We can, once we consider the reality of this life, find bliss in living in bodies that are neither shatter-resistant nor flame-retardant--bodies that do not come with lifetime warranties.
We are still here, still survivors of the fragile. This space of bliss in the spirit that results from our own incarnation, I believe is when we open the Self to its greatest possibility. The world is no longer predictable. If each morning is unexpected, then the possibilities resulting from blissful living are unending.
So you may be asking at this point, why live in bliss? This sermon is some feel-good Western rip-off of Buddhism. What about suffering and pain? I think that we suffer in this world because we fail to ignore how fragile we are. Living in delusion is real suffering. We needn't suffer in this world. We needn't suffer to our delusions that the world is eternal, that our bodies are indestructible or that our lives are bound to flow on in effortlessness. Meditating on our fragile state and living into bliss from incarnation is not meant to remove us from pain.
Rather, bliss opens a space within the Self to consider what Suzuki, a Zen Buddhist teachers calls the beginner's mind. Meditating on our fragile state and living into bliss does not remove us from pain, but rather it gives us the space of possibility. We cultivate a beginner's mind that is free from the restraints of our ego. It is the space that Suzuki writes of where possibility is born.
When we cease to take life for granted, and realize the miraculous in our living, this is the moment we open the Self to possibility. Just as we rejoice in the sun rising, and the rock remaining in balance, when we open ourselves to the reality of the fragile, I believe we open ourselves to possibility. The beginner's mind sees the world anew, as a child rejoices in the face of surprise. Life is bliss inducing. We needn't seek false miracles or strong bodies.
Being fragile is enough. Being open to the reality of living this life is just enough. The challenge here is to cultivate the beginner's mind, to seek bliss in the mundane of our lives. Traveling out West, I was presented with shifting landscapes, strangers, and foreign situations. It is perhaps easiest at these times, when we are out of our element to understand how fragile we are, and rejoice in our daily living.
Finding bliss in the ordinary, and cultivating an embodied beginner's mind is a much more difficult spiritual practice. But if we are willing to release our delusion of strength, to succumb to our own vulnerability then I believe bliss and the beginner's mind are not far off.
Living in bliss and cultivating the beginner's mind are the first steps to ending suffering in this life. Pain is essential, but suffering is rooted in ego filled delusions.
My hope this morning for us is that we seek new ways to meditate on our fragile bodies, lives, and world. May we engage our delusions thereby shattering suffering and opening the possibility of the beginner's mind.
It is reason enough to smile as the sun kisses your face in the morning. It is reason enough to wonder at the rock on its tipping point, laugh as the car brakes down, and shiver as the ground beneath us shifts. It is reason enough to be fragile. It is reason enough to find bliss.
May it be so. Amen.
Masters student at Harvard Divinity School
August 19, 2007