Sermon copyright (c) 2024 Dan Harper. As delivered to First Parish in Cohasset. The sermon as delivered contained substantial improvisation. The text below may have typographical errors, missing words, etc., because I didn’t have time to make corrections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first reading is an excerpt from the poem \u201cCatalog of Unabashed Gratitude\u201d by Ross Gay:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Friends, will you bear with me today,
for I have awakened
from a dream in which a robin
made with its shabby wings a kind of veil
behind which it shimmied and stomped something from the south
of Spain, its breast aflare,
looking me dead in the eye
from the branch that grew into my window,
coochie-cooing my chin,
the bird shuffling its little talons left, then right,
while the leaves bristled
against the plaster wall, two of them drifting
onto my blanket while the bird
opened and closed its wings like a matador
giving up on murder,
jutting its beak, turning a circle,
and flashing, again,
the ruddy bombast of its breast
by which I knew upon waking
it was telling me
in no uncertain terms
to bellow forth the tubas and sousaphones,
the whole rusty brass band of gratitude
not quite dormant in my belly —
it said so in a human voice,
\u201cBellow forth\u201d —
and who among us could ignore such odd
and precise counsel?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second reading was a poem titled \u201cOver the Weather\u201d by Naomi Shihab Nye (not available online due to copyright restrictions).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The third reading was from the Talmud, Shabbat 31a, the William Davidson translation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere was another incident involving a gentile who came before Shammai and said to Shammai: Convert me on condition that you teach me the entire Torah while I am standing on one foot. Shammai pushed him away with the builder\u2019s cubit in his hand. This was a common measuring stick and Shammai was a builder by trade. The same gentile came before Hillel. He \u2026 said to him: That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation. Go study.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d like to begin this sermon by telling you a story from the Confucian tradition. If you\u2019re my age or older and grew up as a Unitarian Universalist, you might remember this story from the old Sophia Fahs book \u201cFrom Long Ago and Many Lands.\u201d However, Fahs got some of the details of the story wrong. My version of the story closely follows the version given in \u201cThe Sacred Edict, Containing Sixteen Maxims of Emperor Kang-He [Kangxi],\u201d which was translated in 1817 by William Milne (London: Black, Kingsbury, Parbury, and Allen, pp. 51-52).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The story goes like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Kangxi Emperor was the fourth emperor of the Qing dynasty in China; he\u2019s a historical figure who rules China from 1661 to 1722. Early in his reign, China had been torn apart by wars. During these internal rebellions, the people had to leave their farms to fight, and farms were destroyed in battles. Eventually the Kangxi Emperor restored peace throughout the land. The people could tend to their farms, and food once more became plentiful. By the end of his reign, the Chinese Empire was for the most part a land of peace an plenty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Towards the end of his reign, however, the Emperor grew concerned about what would happen to China after he died. His own children had proved to be incapable of ruling. What principles, what rules could he give to the next emperor so that China would continue to be a land of peace and plenty? As he began to write down his maxims for peaceful rule, he recalled an event from early in his reign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During his long reign, he had gone on many Inspection Tours, journeys through China allowed him to inspect for himself that the land was peaceful and the people were happy. On these inspection tours, he was of course accompanied by hundreds of people. Riders on horseback went out ahead on the road to let the people know that the Emperor was coming. Next came the many horses carrying the baggage, tended by more riders on horseback. Then came skilled warriors, with their bows and arrows slung over their shoulders, also riding horses. They were followed by more warriors walking just ahead of the emperor. The emperor himself rode in an open carriage drawn by magnificent white horses; a golden parasol protected the emperor from the sun. Behind him marched more warriors carrying long lances that pointed high in the air. At times, the Emperor traveled on rivers and canals, in which case all these people were on boats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In every village and town he passed through, the Emperor\u2019s advisors asked questions to learn if the people were living happy and peaceful lives. In one place, the townspeople told the emperor and his advisors about a large family which was reputed to be the happiest and most peaceful family in all of China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Curious to see this renowned family, the Kangxi Emperor told his advisors, \u201cWe must go see this family, to find out what makes them special.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so the Emperor\u2019s entire retinue went to this family\u2019s compound. A man named Chang-kung greeted them, bowing low, and asking them to partake of what humble food and drink he could offer such distinguished guests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy dear Master Chang-kung,\u201d said one of the advisors, \u201cwe do not need refreshments, but we would like to know about your family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are nine generations of our family living here,\u201d said Chang-kung. He pointed to an old woman sitting nearby, who was attended by two young men, and said, \u201cThis revered elder is of my great-grandmother\u2019s generation.\u201d He next pointed to a woman carrying a new-born baby. \u201cThat child is my brother\u2019s great grandchild. That makes nine generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The emperor\u2019s advisor said, \u201cWe have been told that yours is the happiest and most peaceful family in all the land.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI cannot say if ours is the happiest and most peaceful family anywhere,\u201d said Chang-kung. \u201cYet we do live in peace and happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Indeed, the advisors saw that everyone they could see appeared to be happy. The children played together, but there were no tears, no arguments, no shouting. The adults worked at various tasks, and again there were no arguments or raised voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe emperor would like to ask you this question,\u201d said the advisor: \u201cHow it is that so many people live together so peacefully?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chang-kung turned to a young man who stood near by, and asked him politely to go and fetch ink, paper, and a brush. The young man returned in an instant with the paper and brush, and a young woman followed him carrying a small table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the paper, Chang-kung wrote the same word over and over again, the Chinese word r\u00e9n.(1) This word can be translated into English by several different words, including benevolence, forbearance, patience, kindness, humanity, and humaneness. The Chinese character for this word is made up of two radicals: first, the character for \u201cperson,\u201d and second the character for \u201ctwo.\u201d Thus, the character itself shows that r\u00e9n is what is required whenever there are two or more people together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chang-kung pointed to the word he had written. \u201cThis is why we live in peace and harmony,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut this is exactly what Master Kong said,\u201d said one of the Emperor\u2019s advisors. (English speakers say \u201cConfucius,\u201d but he is known in Chinese as Kongzi.) Quoting Kongzi, the advisor said, \u201c\u2018To behave to every one as if you were receiving a great guest; \u2026[and] not to do to others as you would not wish done to yourself\u2019 [Analects 12.2] — this is ren.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A second advisor said, \u201cKongzi also said: \u2018when alone, to be sedately grave; in the management of business, to be reverently attentive; in intercourse with others, to be strictly sincere\u2019 [Analects 13.19] — this too is ren.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A third advisor said, \u201cKongzi also said, \u2018Kindness is not far off; the person who seeks for kindness has already found it.\u2019 This, too, is ren.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs to all that, I cannot say,\u201d said Chang-kung, bowing low. \u201cI do not know the classics as you do. I can only say that in our family we respect the humanity of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Kangxi Emperor heard all this, and saw how Chang-king\u2019s family lived in peace and harmony. And this he remembered when, late in his life, he wrote down his maxims for maintaining peace and harmony in society.(2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So why do I tell you this story?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First of all, I\u2019m telling you this story as a reminder that through most of history, human society has been neither kind nor fair nor humane. Chang-kung\u2019s family was remarkable precisely becuase it was so unusual to have so many people living in harmony with one another. We may have complaints about the United States — and there are many valid complaints to be made — but the many armed rebellions in southern China in the early years of the Kangxi Emperor\u2019s rule made life far, far worse. Yes, it is true that the United States has seen brutal and vicious behavior, such as the epidemic of lynchings in the twentieth century, but from what I\u2019ve read, those Chinese rebellions were even worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A second reason I tell you this story is because we\u2019ve just gone through a bruising election cycle. During this election cycle, I feel as though the best word to describe many Americans is \u201cfrantic.\u201d Confucius understood that to be spiritually centered is to have some measure of calmness. When we are frantic, it often means we have drifted away from our spiritual center. I feel as though many of us in the United States have drifted from our spiritual centers. It has been my observation that when we human beings become frantic, when we drift from our spiritual centers, it is too easy to forget our ideals of human equality and liberty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you are uncomfortable using the concept of spirituality, we can also describe this tendency using the model of the triune brain. We human beings all have the \u201clizard brain,\u201d what some psychologist call the \u201creptilian brain,\u201d that part of us which is in charge of more basic impulses such as fear, hunger, territoriality, and so on. We humans also have the \u201cpaleomammalian brain,\u201d that is, the \u201cold mammal brain,\u201d which controls our emotions and motivations, as well as many everyday behaviors like parenting. The third part of the triune brain is the \u201cneomammalian brain,\u201d or \u201cnew mammal brain,\u201d which is the seat of language, reasoning, planning ahead, and abstract thinking. By using the model of the triune brain, it\u2019s easy to understand that when we are frantic, we are not using our neocortex, our neomammalian brain; we are probably using our reptilian brain. Thus when we are frantic, we can actually become incapable of reasoning and planning and higher thought. Andrew E. Budson, a cognitive behavioral neurologist, puts it this way:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGiven that there have been 10 million years of evolution developing our neocortex — our neomammalian brain — why does it seem to fail so often in normal individuals? Why do we so often hear about politicians and celebrities acting on their primitive drives and urges and committing horrendous acts? The answer is one that any small child can give you: We all can make a choice, a choice as to whether we are going to give in to the primitive urges and desires of our reptilian brain or, instead, use our neocortex to control them.\u201d (3)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This lies behind the secret of Chang-kung\u2019s family. Indeed, this lies behind the spiritual path of Confucianism. There is much to criticize about Confucianism (just as there is much to criticize about any human institution), but over and over again the teachings of Confucianism emphasize both that we can use our higher selves to control our actions; and also that remaining spiritually centered helps us to use our higher selves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One reason to stay spiritually centered is that it keeps us from being frantic. Imagine living with nine generations of your family in one family compound — this could be enough to make anyone frantic! Yet when we keep ourselves centered, keep ourselves from being frantic, then our higher brain — the neocortex, our neomammalian brain — can function.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Remember, this is a choice we get to make. This is the choice that Chang-kung\u2019s family made. When dealing with the needs of a couple of generations of elders, and also the needs of families with young children, it would have been easy for Chang-kung to let his reptilian brain take over. But he didn\u2019t. He stayed focused on the teaching of Confucianism — we might say, he stayed spiritually centered — and so he was able to retain his higher brain functions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I suspect the reptilian brain lay behind behind the internal rebellions in the early years of the Kangxi Emperor\u2019s reign. When we let the reptilian brain take over, we become frantic, we become susceptible to engaging in stupid actions. And there will always be those, like the unscrupulous leaders of the internal rebellions in the Kangxi Emperor\u2019s rule, who want to tempt us into engaging in stupid actions so that they can take advantage of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Indeed, we are seeing this right now in the United States in all the negative talk you can find on social media. Social media generally bypasses the neocortex, and goes straight for the lower brain functions. Social media directly engages our reptilian brains and our paleomammalian brains. We get frantic, we lose our spiritual centers, and we do stupid things. This benefits the owners of the social media companies, who are just like the leaders of the Qing dynasty rebellions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not just social media, of course. Our society has so many ways to bypass our higher brain functions, and activate our reptilian brains and our paleomammalian brains. We even do this in our face-to-face interactions. When you hear someone demonizing a political opponent, that person is trying to bypass your higher brain functions. They may be doing it unwittingly, but the effect is the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, it may seem wrong when I say that religion and spirituality can help us keep us from bypassing our higher brain functions. After all, isn\u2019t religion nothing but superstition and false belief? Well, first of all, this is where we can learn from certain progressive Buddhists, who tell us that practices like meditation are simply technologies that we can choose to use for the highest purposes. Confucians adopted this technology for their own purposes, removing the Buddhist theology and calling it \u201cquiet-sitting.\u201d So religion and spirituality can provide us with technologies for calming ourselves, and keeping our neocortex engaged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Equally importantly, it depends on how you use religion and spirituality. Just about anything we humans do is capable of being misused, so that we bypass our higher brain functions. I\u2019m a big supporter of education, but education can (and has) been misused to indoctrinate rather than to educate. I\u2019m a big supporter of democracy, but demagogues can (and do) misuse democratic processes and institutions for their own manipulative purposes. Similarly, religion and spirituality can be misused to manipulate us, rather than to help us use our higher brain functions. But just because bad actors can misuse them doesn\u2019t mean these human institutions are irredeemably broken. We can make a choice about how we use them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have come to believe that the most useful technology that religion offers us is a values-based community. This may not sound like a technology, but it is. Religion and spirituality offers us the technology of intentional communities in which we come together specifically to keep from being frantic, to keep us engaged with our higher selves. (That\u2019s one of the primary purposes of our First Parish community.) We know that human beings are susceptible to being sucked in to groups that appeal to our reptilian brains. We humans are social being, and we need to be in communities. So joining an intentional community designed to engage our higher selves can be a useful tool to keep us out of other communities that deliberately engage our destructive reptilian brains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We live in a time and place where we are incredibly divided. I\u2019m watching otherwise good and kind people say things like, \u201cI can no longer talk to anyone from the opposite political party.\u201d That is the reptilian brain talking. That is not the higher brain talking. And this is an incredibly destructive trend. It erodes civil discourse. It leads to violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Faced with this trend, it\u2019s all too easy to say, \u201cWell, everyone else is doing it, so I\u2019m going to do it too!\u201d But a little thought shows us this is illogical; this is in fact a case of bypassing our higher brain functions. Just because our political leaders and other celebrities are bypassing their higher brain functions doesn\u2019t mean we should bypass our higher brain functions. On the contrary, we really want to keep our higher brain functions engaged. In times like these, we really want to be our best selves. Having spent twenty-five years in education, I think about it this way: somebody has to be the grown-ups in the room; it might as well be us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the thing is, if we manage to stay engaged with our higher selves, if we manage to keep our higher brain functions engaged, we will be calmer and happier. Remember the nine generations of Chang-kung\u2019s family living together in one family compound. They ordered their lives with the Confucian value of r\u00e9n — benevolence, forbearance, patience, kindness, humanity, humaneness, however you want to translate it. And perhaps the best way to translate it is in that phrase from the Confucian Analects: Do not to do to others as you would not wish done to yourself. This is almost identical to the wisdom of the rabbis in the Torah, who taught us: \u201cThat which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation. Go study.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May we study benevolence, forbearance, patience, kindness, humanity, and humaneness. May this spirit fill our hearts and minds, and fill us with a sense of peace. Then may that peace within spread outwards to our families, even unto nine generations. When our selves and our families are regulated by humaneness, patience, and kindness, then too will our nation be so regulated. And then perhaps peace will spread throughout our land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(1) This word is also transliterated as \u201cjen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(2) For a brief summary of the story, see entry on Chang-kung in Herbert Giles, A Chinese Biographical Dictionary (London, 1898). Lin Yutang tells the story differently in his essay \u201cThe Chinese People\u201d (The China Critic, vol. IV, no. 15 [9 April 1931], 343-347): \u201cThere was once a Prime Minister, Chang Kung-ni, who was much envied for his earthly blessedness of having nine generations living together in one household. Once the Emperor, Tang Kao-chung, asked him the secret of his success, and the minister asked for pen and paper, on which he wrote over a hundred characters of the word \u2018patience\u2019 or \u2018endurance\u2019. Instead of taking that as a sad commentary on the family system, the Chinese people have ever after envied his example, and the phrase \u2018hundred patience\u2019 (po jen) has passed into current phraseology.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(3) Andrew E Budson, \u201cDon\u2019t Listen to Your Lizard Brain,\u201d Psychology Today \u201cManaging Your Memory\u201d blog, 3 Dec. 2107, https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/managing-your-memory\/201712\/don-t-listen-your-lizard-brain accessed 6 Nov. 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sermon copyright (c) 2024 Dan Harper. As delivered to First Parish in Cohasset. The sermon as delivered contained substantial improvisation. The text below may have typographical errors, missing words, etc., because I didn’t have time to make corrections. Readings The first reading is an excerpt from the poem \u201cCatalog of Unabashed Gratitude\u201d by Ross Gay: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[77,359,361,263,360],"class_list":["post-1805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion-in-society","tag-democracy","tag-kangxi-emperor","tag-kindness","tag-rabbi-hillel","tag-ren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1806,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805\/revisions\/1806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}