Rev. Joseph Boyd December 8th was the worldwide celebration of Bodhi Day, the anniversary of the Buddha’s Enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. This time of year is so special, because often I find there are parallels between different traditions that can help us appreciate our life. Some of you may be familiar with the story of Siddhartha, who was an actual person, though most of what we know is still in story form which is wonderful. The story goes that Siddhartha was born into a royal family where his parents had the goal of giving him a life without want, disappointment, or pain. His parents went to great lengths to insulate him from many of the problems that people faced, and instead gave him a life of pleasure and comfort. They did a really good job of this. They did such a good job that it wasn’t until Siddhartha was a married adult and thought to leave the comforts of the palace he was raised in, that he encountered acute stress and discomfort. As he ventured into the city outside his palace where common, ordinary people lived, he saw three things he had never before seen, three things that disturbed him so much, he had no way to make sense of them. The first thing he saw was an old person. Nobody including his parents ever told him about aging, and the decline of the body over time. He lived under the illusion that he and everyone he loved would be youthful and healthy forever, and he never noticed anything that would contradict this belief. The second thing he saw which contradicted everything he had ever known was a sick person. He never experienced or was told that it was possible for someone to be compromised through sickness. The last sight he saw disturbed him the most – he saw a corpse, a dead body. Up until that moment, he never knew he was going to die, and that this is what human beings do. His parents never mentioned death, and he was never allowed to know of anyone who died. So he had no way to process any of this. In his confusion, he spotted a fourth sight he had never seen before: a monk walking in the village, and he had an intuition that religious life would help him answer the question he had: How do we live and free ourselves from old age, sickness and death?
Siddhartha studied with many religious teachers, some of whom recommended that he live the life of an ascetic, the exact opposite of his upbringing. He was instructed to deny his body warmth, calories, and comfort in order to answer his questions. This didn’t work for him, and he nearly died from hunger. In sadness and desperation to find the answers to his problems, it is mentioned in certain versions of the story that he did what he did naturally as a child – he found a tree and sat at its roots in silence. He did this before he knew about old age, sickness and death. It was a source of comfort and renewal for him, and I think this is a very important point: he did it without any purpose or trying to get something out of it. It was just something he did naturally. As an adult who had now some experience of suffering both of himself and the suffering in the world, he sat at the base of the Bodhi tree, and after a period of time he looked up and he noticed the Morning Star in the sky, and was awakened. He felt complete, and he felt in his body a sense of belonging with life. He experienced being relaxed and at peace. This is my favorite part of the story. He felt so good, he just wanted to stay there and do nothing, and just enjoy that experience. But the story says that gods came to him and told him that he must share what he discovered with others, he must go back into the world and live his realization in the midst of old age, sickness, and death. Siddhartha resisted this. He resisted it three times actually, according to the story, until he was convinced that this was the only right thing to do.
The stars were commonly thought in many different traditions to hold our destiny. All we had to do is pay attention, be awake, and inquire. Whether it’s the Morning Star for the Buddha, the star the Wise Persons followed to the place of Jesus birth, or the alignment of stars during the Winter Solstice, the stars have held the possibility of not just our present, but our future.
I am moved by the Christian story during this time of Advent when we are instructed to keep our appointment with life, to pay attention, and remain awake during this season. We are instructed to be awake to old age, sickness, and death, and also the sense of ultimate belonging and acceptance. We are instructed to pay attention to the miracle of pregnancy, and look forward to the birth of a child, a child who will deliver to the world a salve, a balm, a gift of healing and glad tidings. Salvation is a very true thing. There is delivery from constant misery, fear, and loss. There is a path that leads to hope and peace, belonging and acceptance. Often I think this is misconstrued as a fairytale or an avoidance of reality, much like Siddhartha Buddha’s upbringing, but I think the real path is here in the world, in the marketplace, in the place of what we fear and what haunts us most. It is that place, and only that place where hope and peace have true meaning, the only place our life can be joyfully lived, where we can know what true belonging feels like.
This period of Advent in the Christian tradition is traditionally thought of as a time of waiting and learning, a time of preparation. We are not in the place yet of understanding hope and peace in the circumstances we are in. In fact, we most likely think the opposite – that it’s the place we need to escape from. We seek our deliverance, our salvation, by “getting out of dodge,” leaving perhaps even denying our circumstances. And perhaps that needs to be our path. Perhaps some of us may need to leave what we’ve known, to discover what is deep and true and life giving, to know who we really are and what our life is about. But I do think there is another way. And that other way is to discover this reality of hope and peace, and yes healing in the place that we are. The place we are now has old age, has sickness, has death. The place we are now also has pregnancy, and the hope of new life which will save us all from despair and suffering.
How is this possible? Samuel Beckett, the great playwright believed in the journey toward hope and peace, but he didn’t believe it would be fulfilled, it seems anyway. There is a line from Waiting for Godot, the play about two people meeting for someone that will fulfill their lives. There is a line from the character Vladimir that has always stayed with me: “Why are we here, that is the question? And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. We are waiting for Godot to come…We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment.” Waiting for Godot is often seen as an absurd play, a play without any clear meaning or conclusion, but I see something in Beckett’s work that perhaps he never saw or intended. The hope and peace we seek is in keeping our appointment. For me, the point of the play is not two persons waiting for someone to come who never shows up, it’s about two people faithfully keeping their appointment together, and in that togetherness the real secret of the season comes alive in a profound and everyday way: friendship, real friendship that is formed by keeping our appointment together. Hope and peace for me is not found in Godot’s arrival or missed train, it’s in the friendship we find in staying true to what gives us life.
Likewise I have never thought of Advent as a time before hope or peace arrives. Advent is keeping our appointment with life in the midst of old age, sickness and death. Advent is a time for us to be still and appreciate that hope and peace do not come and go according to a calendar; they are realities here, if we take time to appreciate it. I think we need each other in order for this to become real. That is why Siddhartha had to leave the Bodhi tree and go back to the marketplace, the place where his journey began. It needs to manifest and be made real in the circumstances he attempted to overcome.
Did the Buddha succeed? You may notice there is still old age, sickness, and death. He didn’t do away with these realities, realities that disturb us and that we try to avoid. But I think he succeeded. He succeeded in translating a moment of awe, awe in seeing the morning star, awe in his own being, into a way of being in the world that gave people less fear and more love.
Those moments of awe are all around us in this season. It is literally and figuratively a pregnant moment. But the true path is not just having moments of awe. It’s bringing that sense of awe – that sense of how beautiful it is to be born and feel that we belong into our circumstances, to create a life based on this experience. This is possible. It is possible in stillness to reconfirm our commitment to life, our commitment to each other, our commitment to life that is on the cusp of being born and bringing to the world glad tidings.
This is not some kind of passive waiting. We are not waiting for the messiah. Our life instead can be a declaration: The Messiah is coming. Healing in grief is coming. Joy that knows no limits is coming. Love that knows sorrow and yet is not overwhelmed is coming. Peace is coming. I am much more interested in that kind of Advent. The days of stillness are upon us but we are not waiting idly. We are declaring through our actions of care for one another: hope is coming, and yes, it is real. It is a gift that you were born, and you are a gift to all of humankind in this season.
I love when we have the opportunity to dedicate a child in this community. A child reminds us that we don’t ever have to wait. It is all right here, everything we love, everything we need. Through the eyes of a child we do what is natural, what is natural to us is awakening, enlightenment, a message of peace and joy to the nations. This is not a fairytale. It is natural, and it is part of us. Each child that is born is the coming Messiah. That includes you, it includes me. All of us are still becoming who we actually are, and with intention and the support of a community we can actually feel and know this for ourselves.
It is a wonderful life, a life we never expected. I look forward to the coming weeks when it gets cold enough outside that you can see your breath, another visual reminder that we are alive. This wonder and aliveness doesn’t just happen under the Bodhi tree or in a far off manger, it exists in our life, even if we’re having a hard time right now. It’s still there – friendship, bonds of affection that show us the true meaning of this season, the opportunity to give and the opportunity to receive. We may think that we are waiting for a different era, an era where we don’t have the problems we have today. But I think we are not waiting for anything. We are still not because we are waiting. We are still because deep down we know – what we need is here. When we keep our appointment with the life we are living, we see something deeply stabilizing: We may not be saints, but we are fortunate to know what we are meant to be doing right now. We are keeping our appointment to be present for our life, to be present to those around us, to be present to the problems that are ours to face not alone but in community. And in this season, it is possible even in this state of affairs, to see and experience the truth: our life is awesome. Our life is wonderful. Your life is awesome. Your life is wonderful.
Keeping our appointment is not drudgery when we allow awe in, which we can find through stillness. Each of our lives holds the breath of the Messiah, a message through our actions that the world needs to hear. Will we wait around for someone else to deliver that message, or will we declare the truth of our lives: a truth that knows pain and sorrow, but knows that they never have the last word. A message of deliverance from the captivity of self into a greater sense of belonging. A message of salvation for all those who suffer that suffering will not endure forever, and that joy is present here, and always on its way.
