Gautama Buddha – Page 2 – Dan Harper

The Power of Stories

The sermon below was preached by Rev. Dan Harper at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto, California, at the 9:30 and 11:00 a.m. services. The sermon text below is a reading text; the actual sermon contained improvisation and extemporaneous remarks. Sermon copyright (c) 2011 Daniel Harper.

I’d like to speak to you this morning about the power of stories, both formal stories with a beginning, middle, and end, and the informal stories that we tell about ourselves. And I’ll begin by telling you a story, the story of the Frightened Rabbit. You may have heard this story before in a slightly different form, but I’m going to tell it more or less the way Buddhists have told it for the last two thousand five hundred years. ¹

One day in the town of Savatthi, some of Buddha’s followers, known as the bhikkus, went out to beg for their food, as they did every day.

Each day, the bhikkus went to a different part of the town to beg. One day, they went past some holy men who lay naked on beds of thorn-plants, in the hope that this would help them become more holy. Further along, they saw more holy men. These holy men had built a large bonfire, and even though the day was hot and the sun was bright, they sat as close as they could to the broiling fire, in the hope that the burning heat would help them become more holy.

The bhikkus continued on their way, stopping at each house to beg for their food. When each of their begging bowls was filled with food, they returned to where they lived with Buddha. And Buddha came to sit and eat with them.

“Buddha,” said one bhikku, “when we were out getting our food this morning, we walked past some holy men who were lying naked on cruel, sharp thorns.” She paused for a moment. “Will doing this make them any more holy?”

“And Buddha,” said another bhikku, “we also walked past some holy men who were sitting next to a blazing fire, out under the blazing hot sun. Will this make them any more holy?”

“No,” said Buddha. “These men are heretics. They have deluded themselves, and so they avoid the truth. They lie on thorns and bake themselves only because someone told them to. Which reminds me of the frightened rabbit and the horrible noise.” And then the Buddha told this story:

Once upon a time (said the Buddha), there was a little rabbit who lived in a forest by the Western Ocean. This little rabbit lived in a beautiful grove of trees, at the foot of a Bengal quince tree, the kind of tree under which the god Shiva was said to have lived. Next to the Bengal quince tree was a palm tree where the little rabbit liked to sit and nibble grass.

A Bengal quince (Aegle marmelos)

One fine day, the little rabbit sat under the palm tree nibbling grass and thinking about what would happen to him if the world got destroyed by Lord Shiva. At just that moment, a large, hard Bengal quince fell off the tree and hit the ground directly behind the little rabbit.

“The earth is cracking apart!” cried the little rabbit, and he ran as fast as he could away from the sound.

Another rabbit saw him running, and said, “What’s going on?”

“The earth is cracking apart!” cried the little rabbit.

The second rabbit ran after him, shouting, “The earth is cracking apart!” Soon, all the rabbits in the neighborhood were running with them.

When the other animals saw all the rabbits running, they said, “What’s going on?”

“The earth is cracking apart!” cried the rabbits, “Run for your lives!”

The other animals began to run, too: the wild pigs, the deer, the buffaloes, the rhinoceroses, the tigers, and even the elephants all began to run, shouting, “The earth is being destroyed!”

Ad lib comment during service: Perhaps this story will
remind you of a story in the news yesterday and today.

Now, in another part of the forest there lived a good and kind lion. She saw all the animals running, and heard them shouting, “The earth is being destroyed! Run for your lives!” The lion was wise, and immediately saw that the earth was not being destroyed. She could also see that the animals were so frightened that if they didn’t stop they would run into the Western Ocean and drown. She ran as fast as she could and got in front of all the animals. She roared three times.

When the animals heard the good and kind lion roaring, they call came to a stop.

The lion said, “Why are you all running?”

“The earth is being destroyed,” said the animals.

The lion said, “How do you know the earth is being destroyed?”

One animal said, “The elephants saw it.”

But the elephants said, “It wasn’t us. The tigers saw it.”

But the tigers hadn’t seen anything. “It was the rhinoceroses,” they said.

But the rhinoceroses said, “The water buffaloes gave the alarm,” they said.

But the buffaloes hadn’t given the alarm. Nor did the deer know anything. The wild pigs said they started running when they saw the rabbits running. One by one, each of the rabbits said that they hadn’t seen anything, until at last the little rabbit said, “I was the one who heard the earth breaking into pieces.”

The lion said, “Where were you when you saw this?”

“I was at home in the beautiful grove of trees,” said the little rabbit, “next to my house at the foot of the Bengal quince tree. I was sitting near my favorite little palm tree nibbling grass, when I heard the earth start to break up behind me. So I ran away.”

The lion knew that the Bengal quinces were starting to ripen, and she suspected that one of the fruits had fallen from the tree and hit the ground behind the little rabbit. “Stay here for a while,” she said to the animals. “I will take the little rabbit with me, and we will see what is happening there.”

The kind lion had the little rabbit jump up onto her broad back, and off she ran to where the little rabbit had been sitting nibbling grass. When they got to the Bengal quince tree, the little rabbit pointed in terror and said, “There! There it is! That’s where the earth is breaking up!” And he closed his eyes in terror.

“Little rabbit,” said the lion in a kind voice, “open your eyes and you will see that the earth is not breaking up. I can see just where you were crouching under the little palm tree nibbling on some grass, and right behind that a large fruit from the Bengal quince tree is lying on the ground. What you heard was the sound of that big quince hitting the ground behind you. It must have made a loud sound, and no wonder you got scared, but there really is nothing to fear.”

The good lion went back and told the other animals what she had found. The animals all sighed in relief, and everything returned to normal.

“That’s the story,” said the Buddha.

One of the bhikkus said, “Those animals should not have listened to the little rabbit without checking for themselves that the earth was breaking up. Common sense should have told them that the earth wasn’t breaking up.”

Another bhikku said, “I guess those men who lie naked on the thorns are like the animals in the story. They didn’t pay attention to their common sense.”

A bhikku added, “The lion was truly wise and compassionate. If it had not been for her, all the animals would have drowned.”

Then, because Buddha and his followers all believed that they had lived many different lives, the Buddha said that in one of his previous lives he had been the lion in the story: a wise and compassionate being who helped others.

Did you notice what happened in this story? — or I should say, in each of these stories: the story about the animals, and the story about Buddha’s followers?

In the story about the animals, a Bengal quince, a piece of fruit, falls to the ground. The little rabbit hears the sound and thinks the world is cracking apart! When the wise lion hears the little rabbit’s story about what he thought had happened, she figures out what really happened, and she helps the little rabbit to retell the story in a better way. In the story about Buddha’s followers, they see some holy men lying on thorns and baking themselves in intense heat, and they’re trying to make sense out of what they see. Buddha tells them a story to help them understand what they already knew — lying on thorns and baking in intense heat are not going to make you any more holy.

We have our educational goals, and there are the Seven Principles printed on those wallet cards you can get outside the main door to this room; as important as these are, they are not nearly as important to our religious community as the stories we tell to one another.

At the beginning of the service, Jack Hardy told us: “When I listen to stories at church I imagine what the person in the story is feeling and thinking what I would do in that situation.” So when Buddha tells the story about the little rabbit to his followers, his followers imagine that they are the little rabbit, and they imagine that they are the wise lion, and they realize that it is better to be the wise lion than the little rabbit. And in listening to the story, and using their imaginations, Buddha’s followers are changed, transformed for the better.

At the beginning of the service, Heather Chen told us how our congregation is a unique community for kids. Now even though she didn’t start with “Once upon a time” and end with “they lived happily ever after,” Heather was really telling us a kind of story about how our kids experience our congregation: she is telling us that while our kids are learning a lot, more importantly they are becoming a part of the community that is our congregation. We are constantly telling each other little stories about who we are and what’s important to us, and these little stories shape us, transform us for the better.

The writer Ursula K. LeGuin once wrote, “We shape each other to be human.” ² This is why we tell each other stories — big formal stories that may begin with the words “Once upon a time…” and informal little stories and conversations that reveal what is in our hearts and souls. Story by story, conversation by conversation, bit by bit, we shape each other, transform each other into better human beings.

Notes

Note 1:

The story in the sermon is Jataka tale number 322, Duddubha Jataka. My source was The Jataka: Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births, ed. E. B. Cowell, vol. III, trans. H. T. Francis and R. A. Neil (1895; rpt., Pali Text Society: Oxford, 2005) pp. 49-52.

Note 2:

Ursula K. LeGuin, “Coming of Age in Karhide,” in New Legends, ed. Greg Bear, (Tor, 1995).

Buddha’s Sermons

This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2006 Daniel Harper.

Responsive reading

Siddhartha Gotama, the Buddha, said: “There are two extremes which a religious seeker should not follow:

“On the one hand, there are those things whose attraction depends upon the passions, unworthy, unprofitable, and fit only for the worldly-minded;

“On the other hand, there is the practice of self-mortification and asceticism, which is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable.

“There is a middle path, avoiding these two extremes — a path which opens the eyes, and bestows understanding, which leads to peace of mind, to higher wisdom, to full enlightenment.

“What is that middle path? It is the noble eightfold path:

“Right views, right aspirations, right speech, right conduct;

“Right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right contemplation.

“This is the middle path. This is the noble truth that leads to the destruction of sorrow.”

This noble truth was not among the religious doctrines handed down. But within the Buddha there arose the eye to perceive this truth, the knowledge of its nature, the understanding of it, the wisdom to guide others.

Once this knowledge and this insight had arisen within Buddha;

He went to speak it to others, that others might realize the same enlightenment.

adapted from T. W. Rhys Davids’s translation of the Dharma-Chakra-Pravartana Sutra [1881]

Readings

The first reading is from Dhamma-Kakka-Ppavattana Sutta, translated by T. W. Rhys Davids [1881]:

8. “Now this, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth concerning the way which leads to the destruction of sorrow. Verily! it is this noble eightfold path; that is to say:

“Right views; Right aspirations; Right speech; Right conduct; Right livelihood; Right effort; Right mindfulness; and Right contemplation.

“This then, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth concerning the destruction of sorrow.

9. “That this was the noble truth concerning sorrow, was not, O Bhikkhus, among the doctrines handed down, but there arose within me the eye (to perceive it), there arose the knowledge (of its nature), there arose the understanding (of its cause), there arose the wisdom (to guide in the path of tranquillity), there arose the light (to dispel darkness from it).

The second reading this morning is from an essay titled “The Historic Buddha” by P. Lakshmi Narasu.

“The [Buddha’s] method of exposition differed entirely from those of the brahmans. Far from presenting his thoughts under the concise form so characteristic of the Brahmans, he imparted his teachings in the form of sermons. Instead of mysterious teachings confided almost in secret to a small number, he spoke to large audiences composed of all those who desired to hear him. He spoke in a manner intelligible to all, and tried by frequent repetitions to impress his meaning on the least attentive minds and the most rebellious memories. He adapted himself to the capacities of his hearers….” [in A Buddhist Bible, ed. Dwight Goddard, p. 16]

SERMON — “Buddha’s Sermons”

If you were here last week, you heard me tell about how Siddhartha Gotama sat in meditation under the Bodhi tree, and finally achieved Enlightenment.

Let me quickly review the story for you: Siddartha Gotama was the son of a king, a prince poised to inherit his father’s vast and wealthy kingdom. But Siddartha became troubled by the problem of suffering: why is it that we human beings must suffer? In search of an answer, Siddartha Gotama left the palace, left his life of ease, and went to live in the woods with the other religious seekers. At first he tried the usual methods of religious seekers in those days: he sought our religious teachers (none of whom he found satisfactory), he went to live in a temple (but was disgusted by the animal sacrifices and attendant cruelty), and finally he lived in the forest for six years with five other religious seekers who all worked hard at “keeping their senses in check, subduing their passions, and practicing austere penance” [Narusa, p. 7]. To put it more plainly, Siddhartha Gotama ate as little as possible, to the point where he almost died of starvation; at which point he realized that if he died from starvation, he wasn’t going to get any closer to whatever spiritual answer it was that he sought.

So Siddhartha Gotama went to sit in meditation under the Bodhi tree, or the tree of enlightenment. And while he sat there in meditation, he reached enlightenment. Not that I am altogether clear on what, exactly, enlightenment is; but it seems clear that Siddhartha Gotama somehow achieved a direct insight into the nature of reality, an insight which allowed him to understand the nature of suffering and allowed him to be released from further suffering. Upon which, he got up and walked back to where he had left his five companions.

When his five companions saw Siddhartha Gotama walking towards them, at first they didn’t want to talk with him. After all, he had broken their vows of austerity, and they assumed he had gone back to living a normal life. But when he approached, he seemed a changed man, and they greeted him by name. But he replied that they should no longer call him Siddhartha Gotama, for he had achieved enlightenment. Now he should be called a Buddha, an Enlightened One. And then immediately, according to ancient Buddhist tradition, the Buddha preached his first great sermon to these five religious seekers.

In this sermon, — which is known as the Dharma-Chakra-Pravartana Sutra — Buddha gave the first comprehensive statement of how all human beings can achieve enlightenment, just as he did. He starts off by saying that there are two extreme approaches to spirituality. He said:

“There are two extremes, O Bhikkus [a “bhikku” is a follower of Buddha], which the religious person, one who has reunounced wordly things, should not follow: –on the one hand, the habitual practice of those things whose attraction depends on upon the passions, especially anything having to do with sensuality; –on the other hand, self-mortification and asceticism, which is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable.” [paraphrased from the Dharma-Chakra-Pravartana Sutra].

To his five listeners, Buddha preached further that: “There is a middle path,… avoiding these two extremes… a path which opens the eyes, and bestows understanding, which leads to peace of mind, to the higher wisdom, to full enlightenment.”

So it was that almost as soon as Buddha had achieved enlightenment, he promptly went and told others how they, too, could find release from suffering. Not only that, but Buddha made it quite clear that he spoke from direct experience. He was not repeating to them some received tradition; he was not passing on what others had said. He spoke from what he knew directly, saying: “This… noble truth concerning sorrow, was not… among the doctrines handed down, but there arose within me the eye (to perceive it), there arose within me the knowledge (of its nature)….”

Somehow, Buddha got a direct insight into the way the universe works, an insight which did not come from tradition. It was an insight which came fresh from the universe. I won’t say it was a new insight never before realized by humankind, but it was an insight direct from what I’d call the light of the ages; and within Buddha arose the capacity with which to grasp this essential truth.

Buddha preached about this insight to his five friends in his very first sermon, and a remarkable thing happened. He told about his insight with much repetition, which of course is the natural thing to do when you are speaking aloud, for sermons and speeches should always be filled with repetition; although let’s just say that this first sermon of Buddha’s had rather a lot of repetition; this first sermon of Buddha’s was, shall we say, a little slow and redundant. Maybe even a little boring. Yet at the end of the sermon, a remarkable thing happened: Kondanna, one of the five people listening, achieved enlightenment.

Which is why Buddha ended his first sermon in a very unusual fashion, saying: “Kondanna has realized it. Kondanna has realized it!” The sermon may have been a little boring, but there was something in it that went to the hearts of his listeners, and led one of them, Kondanna, to instantaneously realize his full religious potential.

Speaking as a preacher, I would be pleased as Punch if one of my sermons ever led anyone to enlightenment. I would be just as pleased if one of my sermons would lead me to enlightenment. Indeed, I wish at least one of the hundreds of sermons I’ve listened to over the years could have brought me to full realization of my religious potential.

Yet even though sermons in my world don’t lead to instantaneous enlightenment, something powerful can and does happen when you sit together with other people and listen to a sermon. Something powerful can happen even when the sermon, or the preacher, is boring, or redundant. Some months ago, I sat and listened to a fairly boring sermon, yet I left that worship service feeling a million times better than I had felt when I went in; the experience is with me still. It wasn’t the content of the sermon that moved me; it wasn’t the preacher’s technique, for he was just an average preacher; but something moved me.

Here’s what I think happens when you listen to a sermon.

First of all, there is the feeling that comes to you when you sit together in a community of religious seekers — a community of people who have come together as they try to figure out how to make sense out of an absurd world. When you’re sitting together with such a community, you can put aside ordinary, mundane concerns; you can focus on your deepest spiritual concerns. Being with other people helps that focus. One of the most powerful worship services I ever attended was a Quaker meeting, a silent meeting for worship in which no one was moved to stand and speak; yet the silence of that group of people, that group of religious seekers sitting together, was as powerful as any sermon I’ve ever heard. So being together in religious community is the first thing that happens.

Second, there’s something powerful about sitting and listening to a real live person speaking to you. When you sit and listen to a real live person — when hear the words coming from their mouth, still warm from their breath — there’s this direct connection between you and that person that you just can’t get by watching television, playing video games, or surfing the web. Not that I have anything against those activities, for heaven knows I spend far too much of my spare time surfing the Web. Sitting and listening to a real live person speak is, or can be, infinitely more powerful; there’s a direct, embodied connection with that person’s words.

And finally, there’s something very powerful about taking the time out of your busy life to sit and listen to someone talk about what is most important in life. You set aside time to think upon what is most important; the preacher and the congregation consider that which is most important in the universe; between you and the congregation and the preacher, something happens that is worth listening to.

I don’t know what enlightenment is, but I’ll venture a guess: enlightenment is something that happens in the intersection of you; the light of the ages; and your religious community. To see how this might be so, let’s get back to the story.

Buddha finished his first sermon, and immediately Kondanna achieves enlightenment. The Dharma-Chakra-Pravartana Sutra tells us what happened next:

“The gods of the earth gave forth a shout, saying:

“In Benares… the supreme wheel of the empire of Truth has been set rolling by the Buddha — that wheel which no one, not any Brahman, not any god, not anyone in the universe, can ever turn back!

“And when they heard the shout of the gods of the earth, the guardian angels of the four quarters of the globe gave forth a shout, saying:

“In Benares… the supreme wheel of the empire of Truth has been set rolling by the Buddha — that wheel which no one, not any priest, not any god, not anyone in the universe, can ever turn back!…”

If you think about it, that’s quite a bit of shouting! But there was more noise to come:

“And thus, in an instant, a second, a moment, the sound went up even to the world of Brahma [who was considered the ultimate god]: and this great ten-thousand-world-system quaked and trembled and was shaken violently, and an immeasurable great light appeared in the universe, beyond even the power of the gods!

“And the Buddha gave this exclamation of joy: ‘Kondanna has realized enlightenment. Kondanna has realized it!'”

And what caused all this commotion? What caused this outpouring of religious enthusiasm? Three things caused this outpouring of the universe: the Buddha, the enlightened one, both as an actual person and as the potential for religious greatness in each of us; the Dharma, or Buddha’s sermon or teaching about truth; and the Sangha, or the spiritual community as symbolized in the enlightenment of Kondanna.

When we Unitarian Universalists think of religion or spirituality, we are tempted to think that religion and spirituality are things that we can do entirely on our own. We are religious individualists; we like to think we can be religious do-it-yourselfers. We like to think that we can sit down with a popular book about Buddhism, and achieve enlightenment on our own. But Buddhism, and indeed every great religious tradition, teaches us that the capacity for religious greatness which is truly within us is, in of itself, insufficient. Of course we know pretty well we can’t realize that capacity for greatness within, that inherent Buddhahood, without reference to the Dharma, the great truths of the universe. But no more can we realize the greatness within ourselves if we don’t have a spiritual community. That’s why we come to church. That’s why we invest all this time into maintaining and building a religious community. That’s what a sermon really is: it isn’t a lecture, it isn’t an intriguing title posted on the sign outside the church, it’s an embodied version of the great Truth of the universe, and of the potential within each of us to know that truth.

Before I close, I want to leave you with one last thought. Our spiritual community goes beyond the people who are sitting here this morning. Our spiritual community goes beyond the other members and friends of this church who can’t be here this morning. Our spiritual community even goes beyond the community of all humankind.

Remember that when Buddha finished his sermon, when Kondanna suddenly achieved enlightenment, the whole of earth shook and the gods of earth shouted in praise. The poet Gary Snyder, an American Buddhist, writes that “human beings… will wish to include the non-human in their sense of community…. Our community does not end at the human boundaries; we are in a community with certain trees, plants, birds, animals. The conversation is with the whole thing.”

Remember that Siddhartha Gotama became the Buddha, the enlightened one, by sitting down under a tree to meditate. The tree was a part of his meditations; he was a part of the meditations of the whole forest; the conversation got taken up by the whole universe.

Though we are Unitarian Universalists and not Buddhists, this we can learn from Gary Snyder and other Buddhists: we are nothing without our community, and our community includes the human beings in this room, all of humankind, and indeed all living beings and the whole of earth. A sermon is nothing without a community; a community can meld Truth into a boring sermon making it into something truly enlightening. When we can finally expand our community to include all living beings we will expand what we can know of the truth to its fullest extent.

So may enlightenment come to us all — whatever enlightenment may be.