The
Spirituality of Sadness
Unitarian
Church of Lawrence
August
14, 2016
Today
is a significant day on the Jewish calendar. It is called Tisha B'av,
the Ninth of Av, and it is a remembrance of basically every tragedy
that ever occurred to the Jewish people. Originally it was designated
as a day of mourning for the destruction of the first and second
Temples in Jerusalem, and since then many other tragedies have also
been ascribed to that day, such as the beginning of the first Crusade
in 1095, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, and the
beginning of deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942.
The
traditional practice for this commemoration is a 25-hour fast and the
reading of the Book of Lamentations and selections of mourning psalms
called Kinot. Here are the first 3 verses of a new translation of
Eikhah by Rabbi David Seidenberg
1 Eikhah! How can it be –
that she sat alone, the city so great / so swelled with people? She
was like a widow. The one great among the nations, ministering among
the states, became a slave caste. 2 Crying, she will cry in the
night, her tear upon her cheek There is none for her, no comforter,
from all her lovers. All her companions played traitor with her. They
became for her enemies. 3 She, Judah, was exiled, by poverty, and by
(so) much hard labor She sat among the nations, not finding any rest;
All her pursuers caught up with her between the confined places.
So
the mood is one of sadness, of mourning, even of despair.
And
it led me to think about how we deal with feelings of sadness in our
own lives. I think it's pretty safe to say that we Americans,
preternaturally cheerful creatures that we are, don't like to feel
sad. I guess nobody likes to feel sad, but we tend to think there's
something wrong with it, or with us for feeling it, so we do whatever
we can to avoid it. We distract ourselves. We medicate ourselves. We
anesthetize ourselves with drinking or shopping or television or
Facebook.
Well
my friends, I'm here to tell you that sadness is part of the human
condition, and we cause ourselves a great deal of suffering by trying
to avoid it. Perhaps that's obvious, but sometimes the obvious still
needs to be said.
In
the Buddhist tradition, the second of the three causes of
dukkha/suffering is aversion, or trying to get rid of our avoid
negative mind-states. So the problem isn't the negative mind-states
themselves, it's in trying to avoid them, or suppress them, or
distract or distance ourselves from them. Guaranteed, when we
suppress or repress our negative mind-states, they will reappear
somewhere else, often in ways that are uncontrolled or destructive.
Carl Jung said, “What you resist, persists.”
So
the first, best thing we can do is feel the feelings. Not to try to
figure out the reasons, or to replay the story, or to figure out what
to do about it, but just to feel it – in our bodies, in our souls.
A quote from Jay Michaelson:
Equanimity is not the
banishment of sadness. [Neither does it mean being blissed out,
feeling our feelings less intensely.] It is the acceptance of sadness
for what it is, and the letting go of the desire for it to end.
So
let's do a little practice with this. I invite you, if you're
comfortable, to close your eyes, and let's focus on our breath for a
few moments. Now I invite you to call up an incident from your from
your personal, emotional life that brings up feelings of grief or
sorrow. (pause) Take a few moments to
sense or visualize that situation, tuning into where you feel it in
your body. (pause) Does your face feel flush, does it feel there a
rock in the pit of your stomach? Now drop the story and just notice
the
feeling of sadness. Focus on your breath, and on
your feeling. If images arise, let them, and then let them fall away.
Stay
with that for a moment. It's okay. Now put your hand on your heart.
Say to yourself, it's okay. Your feelings are okay, sadness is okay,
grief is okay. Say to yourself, I love you, I'm here. Now open your
eyes. Look at a person near you. Smile at them with your eyes. Say to
them, it's okay. Say to them, I love you.
Feel
your heart open a bit. You know that feeling when you look into your
neighbor's eyes and you see what they're feeling - what that's
called? It's called compassion. We'll return to that in a moment.
So
the first thing is to feel the feelings. To be okay with feeling this
way – not to be afraid of it, or averse to it, but to recognize it,
even to welcome it, as part of our humanity. Then and only then can
we start thinking about what to do about it, if indeed anything at
all needs to be done.
Now
let's turn our attention to another kind of sadness - sadness outside
of ourselves, in the outer world, in the public square. We live in a
very trying time politically. We have a man running for president who
would be a figure of fun if he weren't so dangerous. We have a
government in our own home state that thinks kicking children off of
food stamps is an anti-poverty program, and that having guns anywhere
and everywhere is security. We probably don't really understand
what's happening with Brexit, or in Yemen, but we know can't be good.
We live with the growing threat of climate change, which is an
aversion we as a society definitely try to avoid. We have black
citizens being killed by police at a rate of one per day. There's a
lot to be sad about.
So
as before, let's take a moment to follow our breath – and now call
up one image of something that is bothering us in the world today.
Feel what that brings up in your body, in your heart. Now drop the
story and focus on the feeling, and on your breath. If thoughts
arise, let them go, and stay in the feeling. Now send out feelings of
lovingkindness to the people in your story. May you be well, may you
be happy, may you be at peace.
I
am often asked when I speak about how we can be sure that whatever
activism we take part in will have a positive effect? I wouldn't say
this in that setting, but the answer is – we don't.
We
feel sad because there's what to feel sad about. Let's take a moment,
before we try to solve our dilemma, to realize that we will never
really solve our dilemma. If we were to miraculously fix one problem,
we would immediately be overcome by all the other problems. The kind
of eschatological, endtime thinking that represents in Judaism as the
coming of the Messiah, in Buddhism as “enlightenment” and in
communism as the Revolution, is a myth, and not in my opinion a
helpful one. There's no magic bullet. Social change, like personal
spirituality, is hard, slow, spade-work. What we have, all that we
have, and all that we will ever have, is this moment, to feel fully
and to do with what we will.
All
too readily our disappointment and sadness becomes anger and hatred.
Anger at Republicans, anger at Israelis or Palestinians – depending
on your point of view - anger at the “terrorists”, anger at the
corporations, anger at Sam Brownback. Anger. Outer-directed, focused
on the guilty other, the problem, the cause. I put it to you that
this anger, as natural as it is, as normal as it is, in unhelpful in
three ways – it is in fact a distraction from our real feelings –
of sadness, of loss, of fear – in other words, it's just another
drug to take us away from our aversions; it doesn't give us the
strength we need to work on problems that seem overwhelming; and it
doesn't produce the ends we want. It doesn't enable or promote
effective action or produce the kind of world we're trying to reach.
It's okay, obviously, to feel the feelings, because we're not to be
afraid to face any of our feelings, as long as we don't act on the
anger but can get beneath it to the sense of loss that produces it.
The
Zen monk and peace activist Thich Naht Hahn is an amazing example of
working with sadness on both the personal/spiritual and
public/temporal levels. He came of age during the Vietnam War, during
which, as a young monk, he started a social service organization
called School of Youth for Social Service. He carefully and
purposefully didn't take sides during the war, for which he, and his
organization, was harassed by both sides. At the beginning of the
war, members of his Buddhist order immolated themselves to protest
what was going on; in the middle of the war, members of his
organization were kidnapped and killed by the Viet Cong; and at the
end of the war he was sent into exile by the new government. So, a
lot of political unhappiness, a lot of personal unhappiness. And what
does he do with it? For the rest of his life he builds sanghas –
Buddhist communities – and travels the world teaching mindfulness
and peace.
A
quote from Thich Naht Hanh:
We must be aware of the
real problems of the world. Then, with mindfulness, we will know what
to do and what not to do to be of help. If we maintain awareness of
our breathing and continue to practice smiling, even in difficult
situations, many people, animals and plants will benefit from our way
of doing things.
He
felt his feelings deeply, and was able to find there the strength to
walk peacefully but with purpose through the world.
What
comes out of working with this sadness? What was the feeling when you
looked into your neighbor's eyes earlier? Compassion. Now I'm going
to offer you four things you can do with these feelings I'm forcing
you to pay attention to. And the first tool is compassion. When you
look around this room you realize that everyone is feeling the same
feelings you are. And when you look out in the world, you realize
that way people feel is the way you would feel if you were facing
similar circumstances. Another aversion technique we seem to have
perfected is judgmentalism. If this person is suffering, it's because
of their stupid behaviors or beliefs. But we know, as the Buddha
taught, that it's the conditions of peoples lives that lead them to
their particular beliefs and behaviors, and that if we were in their
situation we might do likewise. And when we realize that, when we
really feel it – in our bodies, in our bones – then we feel, not
hatred of them, not judgment of them, but compassion for them, and
even love.
And
the second tool we have is gratitude. Because we realize that for
everything that we have gone through – and all of us have gone
through a lot – we have a lot of advantages. We live in the
wealthiest country in the world, we had decent educations, most of us
have white skin, which in this country accounts for a lot. We have
the ability to feed and clothe ourselves, we have friends and loved
ones, you guys have an awesome fellowship, we have antibiotics, and
farmers markets and recordings of like 3,000 Grateful Dead shows.
That's a lot, right? Making a gratitude list is one of the most
powerful spiritual techniques available to us.
And
the third tool is connection. Connection to ourselves through this
feeling of our feelings, connection to each other through spiritual
community, connections to others working on issues that we're
concerned about, connection to the earth. As EM Forster famously
said, “Only connect.” I haven't spent much time talking about it
today, but I believe that one of the key reasons for the the increase
of depression and alienation in our society is our alienation from
nature. Whenever someone asks me about increasing their spiritual
connection (often framed as “connection to God”), I recommend
spending time in nature. It is there we can often feel more
connection with creation, and, if we are so inclined, to a creator,
than in any other setting.
And
the fourth tool to positively utilize our connection with our
sadness, with our compassion is in service or action. Getting out of
ourselves and helping another. Whether this be – on the service
side - serving at LINK, or being a Big Brother/Big Sister, or
mentoring a younger person in our profession, or – on the action
side – organizing or just showing up at a Black Lives Matter event,
or testifying at a City Commissioners meeting or in the state
legislature, or – perhaps – getting involved with a great group
like Kansas Interfaith Action, when we put our values and our
feelings into action, when we get out of ourselves and help someone
else, it helps to turn our difficult feelings into something that can
change the world for the better.
A
brief poem, by Gregory Orr:
Some
say you're lucky
If nothing shatters it.
But
then you wouldn't
Understand poems or songs
You'd
never know
Beauty
comes from loss.
It's
deep inside every person:
A
tear tinier than a pearl or a thorn.
It's
one of those places
Where
the beloved is born.
I
started by talking about Tisha B'av, the date that commemorates the
destruction of the Temples. It is said that the messiah, the
harbinger of a redeemed world, is to be born in the afternoon of
Tisha B'av. It is thus that – to use a Thich Naht Hahn image and
thereby mix spiritual metaphors - the lotus of redemption itself
forms in the mud of destruction. I've already told you I'm not really
into messianic imagery. But by accepting our sadness, by tending to
it – not wallowing in it, but caring for it – we can use the
tools it gives us – the tools of compassion, gratitude, connection
and action – and turn thereby turn our sorrow into a force that can
bring a little bit of redemption to the world.
