This morning's sermon draws its inspiration from a tree.
The tree's Latin name is Cercis Canadensis and it is well known to those of us who live in the Shenandoah Valley as Eastern Redbud.
Spring is fully upon us and Redbud trees, with their purple-pink blooms, are an excellent indicator of warmer days ahead.
The redbuds are now in full blossom all around our church grounds and all about our beloved Shenandoah Valley.
Trees in this genus are sometimes called Judas trees, or Flowering Judas and according to myth, Judas hung himself on the related Judas-tree of western Asia and
southern Europe, after which, the story goes, the white flowers turned red with shame.
I love the contrast of pink flowers against the dark branches. I love that the blooms are each tiny marvels—little hearts you might say—of nature.
When I look out the windows of my office and see the woods filled with this lovely tree I can find a peace in my heart which at busy times like this can be hard to come by.
I can rest for a while in the reflected beauty of the redbuds and for a while I am free.
Free of the worries of my job, free of the concerns for my family, free of the hurt and pain of watching people I love enduring these hard times in which we live.
But however spectacular they may be right now, their beauty will all too soon be caught up in the rush of the season and the redbud that now draws my eyes will soon be no different from any of the other trees in the woods.
In the early weeks of spring, we are uncertain about when the flowering of the redbuds will start, or of the day when it will end;
We do not know where the petals come from or where they might be going.
I read that there is an ancient Japanese aesthetic convention, known as "elegant confusion", a turn of phrase that seems to describe best the fleeting beauty of spring flowers.
"Elegant confusion" is what these three little poems by a variety of Japanese poets seem to be speaking of:
They blossom, and then
we gaze, and then the blooms
scatter, and then...
-Onitsura
On the plum tree
one blossom, one blossom-worth
of warmth.
-Rensetsu
As bell tones fade,
blossom scents take up the ringing -
evening shade!
-Basho
This season of spring is also the time of year when many observers of Buddhism celebrate the Buddha's birthday.
On what day is Buddha's Birthday?
According to one source that is a fairly easy question to answer.
Just calculate the first full moon day of the sixth month of the Buddhist lunar calendar, which would be the fourth month of the Chinese calendar, except in years in which there's an extra full moon, and then Buddha's birthday falls in the seventh month.
Well, except where it starts a week earlier.
And in Tibet it's usually a month later.
This year In Korea the festival around Buddha's birthday is celebrated between May 2 and May 8.
Oh, and in Japan, Buddha's Birthday always is April 8.
The time of his birth and death are equally uncertain: most historians date his lifetime from 563 BCE to 483 BCE but apparently the dates can vary by as much as a hundred years.
But what we think we know about his life is this:
The people of a certain city in northern India were celebrating a spring festival, and the queen of the city, Queen Maya, celebrated with them.
One day, she arose early, gave money to many beggars, ate a delicious meal, and then went back to the palace to sleep.
As she slept, she dreamed that the four Guardian Angels of the world lifted her up and took her to the highest mountains in the Himalayas.
They set her down under a huge Sala tree. Next four more angels came forth, clothed Queen Maya in heavenly garments, and led her to a silver mountain.
Inside the silver mountain was a house of gold, and there the queen lay down to rest.
It was not long before a great and gentle white elephant came into the silver mountain, carrying a white lotus flower in his trunk.
The elephant trumpeted, walked around the bed where the queen lay, and gave her the lotus flower.
When the queen awakened the next morning, she told her dream to her husband, the King.
The king called sixty-four wise Brahmins. After serving them food in gold and silver bowls, the king told them the dream and asked them what it meant.
The Brahmins told the king, "Do not worry, great king. This dream means that Queen Maya will soon give birth to a baby boy.
If this child chooses life at home he will become the greatest king the world has seen; but if instead he chooses to forsake home life and become a hermit, then he will become a great religious teacher."
When it came time for Queen Maya to give birth, she told the King that she wanted to return to the city where her parents lived.
King called a thousand officers to carry the queen and escort her on the journey.
Along the way was a beautiful place called Lumbini Park, and at that time of year the trees were covered with blossoms, and flocks of singing birds flew among the flowers.
The king rejoiced to see his new son, and they named their baby Siddhartha Gautama of the Sakyas—Siddhartha was his given name; Gautama was his surname and Sakya the name of the clan to which his family belonged.
Siddhartha was kept amused and entertained for some time by this privileged life behind the palace walls until one day in his late twenties a discontent and he decided to visit a near by town.
The king called for everything to be swept and decorated, and any ugly or sad sight to be removed.
But these precautions were in vain for while Siddhartha was traveling through the streets, an old and wrinkled man appeared before him.
In astonishment the young prince learned that aging is the fate of those who live life through to its end in death.
Still later he met an incurable invalid and then a funeral procession.
Finally he came across an ascetic, a beggar, who told Siddhartha that he had left the world to pass beyond suffering and joy, to attain peace at heart.
All these experiences awakened in Siddhartha the idea of abandoning his present life and embracing asceticism.
He opened his heart to his father and said, "Everything in the world is changing and transitory. Let me go off alone like the religious beggar."
Huston Smith, in his wonderful book on world religions dramatically describes the transformation of Siddhartha into the Buddha. He writes:
"While the Bo Tree rained red blossoms that full mooned May night, Gautama's meditation deepened (hour after hour) until, as the morning star glittered in the transparent sky of the east, his mind pierced at last the bubble of the universe and shattered it to naught, only, wonder of wonders, to find it restored with the effulgence of true being.
The great awakening had arrived. Gautama's being was transformed, and he emerged the Buddha.
"Are you a god?" asked his followers. "No." came the reply. "An Angel?" "No." "A saint?" "No."
"Then who are you?"
"I am awake."
The event was of cosmic import.
All created things filed the morning air with their rejoicings and the earth quaked six ways with wonder.
Ten thousand galaxies shuddered in awe as lotuses bloomed on every tree, turning the entire universe into a 'bouquet of flowers sent whirling through the air.'
The bliss of this vast experience kept the Buddha rooted to the spot for seven days. On the eighth he tried to rise, but another wave of bliss broke over him.
For a total of forty-nine days he was lost in rapture, after which his 'glorious glance' opened onto the world."
For nearly fifty years the Buddha traveled throughout India preaching is message. At the age of eighty he died.
James Ishmael Ford, in his book, in this very moment, observes:
"The person known to the world as the Buddha was a real human being.
He breathed and worked and loved and suffered. When his time came, he died.
He was not a god. He was a human being, no more and no less."
I think that for me the essence of what the Buddha taught, what might be called our Buddha nature is quite easy to understand. I think the message was that we are to live our lives fully and head on. As Ford goes on to say, "What we are is the total of all these experiences, all that happens to us and all that we do."
Each of our thoughts and feelings is real.
Each voice in our being needs expression; each action we take needs notice.
The bottom line is that we need to attend; to pay attention to life in all of its goodness and pain.
As practicing Buddhists would tell us we must be mindful of life.
However, as we attend, as we are mindful, we needn't let any of these experiences or thoughts rule our lives.
What is important is that we broaden our individual consciousness.
We need to broaden ourselves so that each thing may stand and walk and have its existence—but not to the exclusion of the rest."
From time to time it is important that we stop for a moment from the headlong rush into the next moment and to take a moment to be aware and to be grateful for the gifts in our lives.
In our lives we will always be confronted with unhappiness-our own and that of those we love and cherish and often the pain we experience in confronting this unhappiness can stop us from living life as gladly and as freely as we might want to.
Sometimes we can be overcome by a pervasive sadness that keeps us from interacting with the world in ways that are positive and productive.
Sometimes, when we look out at nature we cannot see the flowers as they were; we can see only the shriveled petals of where they were.
But this is why we plant bulbs in the fall—we trust that in the spring they will return to give us joy. Joy which may be fleeting; but joy nonetheless.
This is why we so eagerly anticipate the coming of every spring because we know that after every winter, no matter how long, or how cold and how severe, there will come a spring with fresh flowers and new life.
In our journey through life we frequently encounter brokenness, separation, loss and despair and we can dwell in that valley of the shadow or we can strive to emerge with the realization that sadness and despair are as much a part of life as joy and happiness.
Phyllis Tarbox, one of my favorite Unitarian Universalist writers, expresses this thought in these words:
"The Buddhist path to enlightenment is understanding, accepting impermanence to the point where we no longer struggle against it.
Here in the West we search for that which is permanent even as we live with ceaseless change and uncertainty.
We search for a sure footing on a path strewn with fallen leaves; we notice the buds of next year's growth tightly curled and waiting; we hold on to the things we can count on; our church, our community, our memories of those who went before us, our love and our hope, and our life long search for meaning in our lives."
Or as the poet Mary Oliver writes, "Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? ....Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
Remember the story of the dog and heartless king that I told earlier?
Well, in that story the dog barked and barked until the king woke up to the problem of hunger through out the kingdom.
But sometimes we hear equally loud noises in our hearts and minds that we must tend to just as the king tended to the problem of hunger.
Sometimes we are distracted by the noise of broken relationship that bring hardship and pain in our lives.
Sometimes we are kept awake at night by the noise of worry about our children and their fortunes as they navigate their way through life.
Sometimes we can not hear the simplest of truths for the cacophony of distracting thoughts they keep us from being able to focus on what is of greatest importance to us.
Sometimes by all the busyness that comes with the responsibilities of jobs, and families, and aging parents seems and it is hard to be open to the love we know is all around us but cannot hear or feel or share.
Sometimes the physical pain that comes with illness can keep us awake just as a barking dog next door can keep us awake.
Sometimes it feels as though the roaring is just to much to bear.
And like the king in our story we must find a way to silence the barking.
To find quiet place.
To settle down and be at peace with ourselves and others.
To rest in the world and be calm so we can be at one with our selves.
We need to sit under a redbud tree or in a garden or in our favorite chair and let go, if only for the time it takes to have a cup of tea, we must way let go, center ourselves and still the wind in our ears.
The Japanese poet Ryokan writes:
First days of spring—the sky
Is bright blue, the sun huge and warm.
Everything's turning green.
Carrying my monk's bowl, I walk to the village
to beg for my daily meal.
The children spot me at the temple gate
And happily crowd around,
Dragging at my arms till I stop.
I put my bowl on a white rock,
Hand my bag on a branch.
First we braid grasses and play tug-of-war,
Then we take turns singing and keeping a ball in the air:
I kick the ball and they sing, they kick and I sing.
Time is forgotten, the hours fly.
People passing by point at me and laugh:
"Why are you acting like such a fool?"
I nod my head and don't answer.
I could say something, but why?
Do you want to know what's in my heart?
From the beginning of time: Just this! Just this!
So tell me, what is it you are doing with your one and precious life?
May the answer be: Just this...Just this.