Sermon “Cultivating a Joyful Heart”

The Rev. Rali Weaver

January 31, 2010

There is a very interesting phenomenon that I have noticed over the past three years that I have been preaching in Dedham. It seems that whatever subject I choose to preach on turns out to be a particular struggle for me that week.

For example the week we had the pet blessing service and I stood in front of you encouraging you to consider the quality of your animals lives and ways you might communicate with them more directly I found my own two cats and dog frustrating to deal with. Or on the week I chose the title “Dancing with All Aspects of Self” I found myself not liking all the aspects of myself very much. Or when I preached to you on new measures of progress I found myself unable to get out of the rut of the old measures I had put in place for myself. There are countless ways this phenomenon raises its ugly head. And this week was no different.

On Monday I found myself at the car shop with my car needing more repairs than I could currently afford. On Tuesday I spent my day tearfully planning the memorial service for Frances Brooks. On Wednesday I found myself rushing to finish the order of service in your hand in time to get it copied. On Thursday I was confronted with countless miscommunications and personal errors. Friday while consumed with the memorial of our dear friend, Frances, the heat went out on the downside of my house and McFarland had to come and replace the Transformer on the heater and on Saturday I found myself distracted by countless non sermon writing activities and then having to plunge and re-plunge a downstairs toilet only to find that the problem isn’t in the toilet but in the sewage line.

Just as Billy Collins suggests in his poem my days have felt as though they pile up on each other one at a time in the same fashion that entertainers used to build impossible towers of dishes. One saucer, one cup, one saucer, one cup… For those of you too young or not privy to such a trick let me demonstrate.

It would be as if each day of the week were represented by another set, and we would find ourselves tottering under their weight. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. A good entertainer would pick this pile up and walk through this audience swaying, until Friday or Saturday or Sunday the days would either crash or begin again.

Is it any wonder that amidst the weight of my concerns of the week that I might have found it difficult to cultivate a joyful heart?

I am confidant that we all encounter weeks such as this and that for some of us every week might feel like this.

And yet when I hear stories such as Christopher Reeve’s and I read Buddhist Philosophy I believe and I hope that there must be a way out of my personal suffering.

For this sermon today I have relied upon two texts, The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living by the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler and Calming the Fearful Mind : A Zen Response to Terrorism by Thich Nhat Hahn. I highly recommend both of these books and authors if you are seeking simple step-by-step instructions on how to liberate your heart and mind from the endless cycle of weekly distractions.

I would in fact be happy to lend you mine so long as you promise to give them back, as I am in no way finished learning what these two books have to teach.

I find the outlook of Buddhists particularly helpful when trying to open my world-view. And I turn to books such as these over and over to regain my ground.

The Art of Happiness begins with the premise that the purpose of life is Happiness and explores what shifts of perception might be necessary to achieve such happiness. The idea is that once our basic needs are met of food and shelter that we can systematically reshape our hearts and minds toward happiness and joy by deepening our connection to others, fostering compassion and increasing self- esteem.

In Calming The Fearful Mind, Thich Nhat Hanh examines the roots of terrorism and fear and encourages the use of compassion, deep listening, and mindful communication to over come them.

It all sounds so simple right?

Compassion, deep listening, and mindful communication I know from experience these are not always easy traits to embody.

From a Buddhist perspective in order to cultivate a joyful heart we must learn to approach each obstacle in our path with mindfulness and compassion and this requires a lifetime of practice. Life is practice.

There will always be times when our days pile up as cups and saucers in a week or an uncomfortable event hits us like a hammer. Turning our heart to Buddhist ideals will not automatically end our suffering.

And I want to acknowledge right off the bat that there are countless tools to support us in our quest to cultivate a more joyful heart and the Buddhist ideal is just one tool we may place in our toolbox.

Everything from exercising and eating right to doctor prescribed medications are acceptable and useful tools in steadying the ground under our feet when life is piling up in ways that lead our spirits away from joy.

To these more recognized and accepted cures to heartsickness I want to encourage us all to practice a few more.

First I want to encourage each of us to begin as Walt Whitman does and meditate upon what it would require for us to head out “Afoot and light-hearted”. Ask yourself what it might take for you to feel “healthy and free, with the world before you.” and start to walk in that direction.

I know from experience that when difficult things happen that sometimes it helps to get away, and sometimes it helps to stay put. Awakening in each moment to truly listen to your heart and respond with mindfulness to what it needs is a first most vital step in calling yourself “good fortune”.

When I was finished with Seminary and was setting out to San Francisco from Maine I felt driven to dispose of worldly goods in order to have that feeling of setting out lighthearted.

Last week when the parsonage was having all its problems my heart needed to stay at home and to settle in and stay put in order to feel lighthearted about the things that were going on.

What we each need in any moment to ground our hearts is different. I encourage you to pay attention to your own heart’s longings.

The Dalai Lama also points out that after our basic needs for food and shelter are met “the prime factor of achieving happiness” is in identifying our mental state.

We are reminded that our individual mental state can be affected by a wide variety of conditions from chemicals such as alcohol and drugs to conditions of physical, sexual and emotional abuse.

He suggests that just as removing a toxic substance such as alcohol or drugs is necessary in healing an addiction, so too removing negative thoughts is necessary in healing the spirit. In this line of thinking the first step in fostering a joyful heart is in learning how negative emotions are harmful to us and how positive ones are helpful to us.

Now I know there are always times in our lives when we cannot trust our own instincts. And so I want us to turn toward the thoughts of Thich Nhat Hahn. In his book he writes “The mind consciousness is like a living room. Underneath, is a very big basement, the store of consciousness. Everything you don’t like you store down in the basement.” He goes on to describe the way we store consciousness as being in seed form, just as the seeds that are put into the earth. And he says there are 51 kinds of seeds that go into the earth of our consciousness. These seeds can be both wholesome and unwholesome. He tells us that: “Wholesome seeds are seeds of love, forgiveness, generosity, happiness and joy. Unwholesome seeds include hatred, discrimination and craving…. when these seeds manifest they are called mental formations. For example our anger is a mental formation… all of us have the seed of anger lying in our basement, our store of consciousness, we can play and have fun, but if someone comes along and waters that seed of anger it will begin to sprout up and come into our living room.”

What Thich Nhat Hahn suggests is that we water the wholesome seeds within each other and try to find ways to offer nourishing food for each other’s consciousness.

Keeping the storehouse of our consciousness in mind I want to encourage each of us to as Hahn suggests selectively water. Let us offer food and water and oxygen to the seeds that foster joy within our spirits and refrain from watering those that cause discomfort. Just as we must do to keep our actual plants alive we must always be aware of which seeds are asking for water and nourishment and which ones really need it.

The final step I believe we need to focus upon today in our quest to cultivate a more joyful heart is the cultivation of compassion. In the Buddhist word-view compassion “is roughly defined in terms of a state of mind that is non-violent, non-harming and non- aggressive. It is a mental attitude based on a wish for (everyone) to be free of their suffering…”

This compassion is more universal than our western view which is defined as a “sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others”. Buddhist compassion encourages us to wish for the liberation of all spirits from suffering, even our own.

To foster a joyful spirit it seems we need to foster compassion both for others and for ourselves. To do so we must stop piling our cups in an endless tower of errors, but instead begin to see our lives as a mosaic, each fragment lying side by side with the blessings in our lives, which beautify the pattern.

So I don’t know about you but I am ready to dismantle my tower of cups and begin with mindfulness, to cultivate joy within my heart. Let us from this day forward practice by watering the seed of joy and compassion within our own hearts and within each other.

May it be so.