sermon by EDM- I can't dance well if I have a stick up my butt

 

“I can’t dance well if I have a stick up my butt”, a sermon by Ed Miller at OUUF, 4/10/05      Back in December when Barb asked me if I wanted to lead a service I said I didn’t particularly have any topics I was working on, but if I did I would call her back.  Then, on January 10th, when everyone else was sleeping, and I was up dancing by myself, a bright lightbulb turned on in my head & I thought of a great sermon topic, “I can’t dance well if I have a stick up my butt.”  So, today, over the next  20 min, let me help you understand why these 12 simple, one-syllable words summarize the essence of my spirituality .  . . and now they[re my spiritual motto.           My guess is that probably no one here has ever put a real stick up their butt—and it’s not all that often that we actually dance, in the usual, literal sense.  So today, I’m going to be like a poet, and explore many different metaphoric meanings of this very rich, very true statement that “I can’t dance well if I have a stick up my butt.”  So, what is “dancing?”           To me, to dance is to move consciously, or           To move with attention to aesthetics, or           To move because of an intent to make an artistic statement, or        to move rhythmically with music.        To qualify as dancing, it doesn’t really matter how much of one’s body is moving . . .I can dance with my fingers. . .my arms . . .my head . . .or my whole body.           To dance is not crucial for most people’s spiritual health.  I doubt if the Pope or Mother Theresa, or the Dalai Lama dance much . . .But for people like me, and Jo, and Bill and Nancy and Christa, dancing plays an significant role in the health of our bodies, minds, hearts and spirits.  For some of us, dancing, whether alone, or with a partner, is a readily available, free prescription for happiness, without side effects.  When I dance, I often let go of worries and stress and ‘lose myself’ temporarily.  This can also happen skiing, or with sports. . .my monkey-mind is quieted for awhile, and I’m fairly solidly implanted in the now.  If I’m in a snit about something, or distracted by some ‘issues’ I’ve been ruminating about, my skiing or tennis playing is awkward, and I’m much more likely to fall or double fault.  Sports psychologists & coaches for the last 2 decades have been studying this paradoxical phenomenon. . .how our verbal minds tends to hold back athletic performance . . .how our ‘animal minds’, with sensations, perceptions and emotions but without a verbal train of thought, is more conducive to graceful, effective movement.       I highly recommend the books by Csikszentmilalyi on how important it is for us to have “flow” experiences,  and the books by Ekhart Tolle about the importance of often being in the NOW, and the books on sports psychology by Tim Galway (Inner Tennis, Inner Skiing) about how our egoic verbal mind, which he calls “self 2,” way too often chatters and nags and doubts and distracts our ‘core self’, which he calls “self 1.”  They, and many authors of self-help books all talk about our self-inflicted psychological troubles, which I’m today calling the sticks up our butts.
A	I can’t dance well	If	I have a stick up my butt
B	I can’t move gracefully, be in ‘flow’,  or ‘in the now’	If	I am preoccupied and distracted by verbal thinking about the past or the future that junks-up my consciousness. (eg. Ekhart Tolle)
C	I can’t ski or play tennis/soccer well, ’ be ‘in the groove’,   ‘in the zone’,  ‘play out of my mind’ or be “unconscious”	If	‘Self 2’ is often distracting & nagging ‘self 1’ with doubts or ‘self’ commentary (eg Inner Skiing, by Tim Galway)
But today’s talk is not just about physically dancing. . .Living well, with good spiritual health, is, in many ways like dancing well.  When I dance well, or I’m living well, I flow with my surroundings. . .I harmonize with the interconnected web of all existence of which I am a part . . .I’m in tune with, and not oblivious to others . . .  And I’m In The Now.   And I’m certainly NOT: judgmental, angry, depressed, pissy, whiny, anxious or uptight.  So my social health, how well I interact with others, is also held back by my junky, verbal thinking in my monkey mind.  When I recognize that my thoughts and feelings have a lot of intensity. . .I say to myself that I have a stick up my butt.  . . .and I try to take control of my thinking. . .and try to take the self-inflicted stick out of my butt. . .because THE REAL ME is the one who has responsibility for what I allow to go on in my egoic mind.  I see myself as a gardener of my mind. . .and as gardener I have to both pull weeds, and nourish the seeds of new, healthy alternatives..
The Dalai Lama suggests that:  “One of the major aims and purposes of religious practice for the individual is an inner transformation from an undisciplined, untamed, and unfocused state of mind towards one that is disciplined, tamed and balanced. “   -His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Another Tibetan Buddhist in exile, Sogyal Rinpoche, helps us understand the gentle nature of nurturing healthy habits, when he writes: “Training” the mind does not in any way mean forcibly subjugating or brainwashing the mind. To train the mind is first to see directly and concretely how the mind functions, a knowledge that you derive from spiritual teachings and through personal experience in meditation practice. Then you use that understanding to tame the mind and work with it skillfully, to make it more and more pliable, so that you can become master of your mind and employ it to its fullest and most beneficial end.” So no  matter WHAT I’m attempting to do well in life, my natural but unfortunate mental habits need to be watched.  Let’s look at rows D thru K on the handout:  If I’m playing online bridge, but,
D	I can’t creatively solve problems, or play bridge well	If	I’m in a snit about the situation or indignant about my partner’s criticism of my bidding on the last hand
E	I can’t appreciate the pleasurable sensations of a massage	If	I’m too distracted by verbal thinking
F	I can’t listen to a musical performance well	If	I’m distracted by too much thinking
G	I can’t see clearly & have good intuition with others & be fair to them	If	I’m too often stuck in a ‘mood’ –if my thoughts & emotions too often have a propensity to go a certain way (e.g. irritable, sad, angry, afraid) because of the ‘tinted glasses’ I’m wearing
H	I can’t be an empathic & helpful friend & spouse	If	If I’m not aware of and able to ‘control’ (?laugh about) my own ‘issues’, my ‘baggage’
I	I can’t be a nourishing father & have good ‘quality time’ with my kids	If	I’m preoccupied in ‘adult’ thoughts about the past or future that make me not ‘present’
J	I can’t practice the art of healing well	If	I’m too patriarchal & sure of myself (e.g. this patient needs x, y & z)
K	I can’t survive long as an activist/ idealist/ agent of positive change	If	I burn out with excessive intensity in my thoughts/feelings . . .if I’m too tightly wound. . . I can’t lighten up/  chill out often (e.g. Eric Stewart’s talk)
So far I’ve discussed dancing and physical, mental, and social health, but for the rest of my talk, I want to try to share how this 12 word phrase serves as my spiritual motto.           For the last 35 years, since reading the most important book in my life The Book: on the taboo on knowing who you really are, by Alan Watts, I ‘ve enjoyed studying Buddhism, which, to me, and many others, is much more a psychology than it is a religion.  Buddhists don’t tend to believe in a separate God or Gods, and often don’t go to a church or temple, or belong to a local religious community, or participate in religious rituals, or study with or worship particular spiritual masters.            To me, the 2 basic ideas of Buddhism are first, that we are much more than our consciousness, our minds.  Our real spiritual essence is the same as everything that exists, the same as God.  I am God , You are god, The Atman is the Brahmin. this is called monism. . .as opposed to theism, or atheism.  It’s an extreme form of mysticism.  Sometimes, when I’m dancing really well, like the Muslim whirling dervishes, my train of thought goes away, my separateness from the environment melts away, and my ego dissolves. . .and I am at one with the evolving universe, in a sweet, mystical high.  Perhaps some of you can reach this state when you meditate or pray. . .but for me, this dissolving of my powerful ego is easier when I’m dancing. . .or doing my Tai Chi. . .or yoga. . .or even playing sports.           The 2nd basic idea of Buddhism is that our train of verbal thoughts in our minds is what gives us trouble and gives us suffering and gives us unreasonable stubbornness, judgementalism and wars.  I have a very natural but unfortunate tendency to get very attached to ideas about the way others should be. . .in other words, I put sticks up my butt . . .so I often have suboptimal spiritual health. . .and can’t dance well with others and can’t dance smoothly with the evolving universe . . .I can’t surf the waves of change. . .often I foolishly try to fight the waves, fight the way things are, when they or the system are not just the way we think they ought to be.
Another Tibetan Buddhist, Pandit  Rajmani Tigunait, cautions us about our dangerous tendency to get excessively attached to things and ideas:  “The mind plays a game called “Attachment” and is fooling itself by pretending that external forces are responsible for your happiness.  Attachment is the root cause of all mental disturbances, and expectations play the biggest role.  Your expectations breed likes and dislikes.  Then you get attached to your likes and dislikes and cling to them.  It is your expectations that create distractions and disturbances when you do your meditation practice—not the outside world and not the people around you.           . . .If we expect worldly objects and relationships to secure our happiness, we will be disappointed.  Disappointment leads to misery.           . . .How foolish I have been to forget that invisible, benevolent force that accompanies us always, protecting, guiding, and nurturing.  Instead of remembering that force, I am complaining and worrying.            . . .Once the virtue of pure faith begins to blossom in your heart, you will no longer be dependent on the world and worldly relations to make you happy.  Contentment will become your nature.”                                                 - Pandit Rajmani Tigunait (spiritual head of the Himalayan Instit)
Now, unfortunately, it’s very easy to study (with our minds) the teachings of spiritually wise people like Siddhartha Gotama Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Rumi, John Fox, Emerson, Whitman, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Ekhart Tolle.  But it’s very difficult to practice what they preach. I know I should have loving-kindness for all, and unconditional loving-kindness for our partners, but it’s hard to practice.  Because I’m not a saint, I have judgementalism . . .I often have sticks up my butt.  But as I get older I’m slowly learning how foolish it is to have unskillful thinking (judgementalism, conceit, vanity, materialism, narcissism, hedonism) and negative emotions (anger, despair, hatred, fear). . .and I’m fighting those tendencies with some very powerful counter-measures.   Along with self-awareness and self-acceptance, tempered with a commitment to evolve in a healthy way, I need some psychological chilling out techniques to bring about healthy emotional switching.  Perhaps the easiest and most available in any setting are 3 relaxation breaths:  “I am breathing in and making my whole body and self calm and at peace.  I am breathing out and making my whole body calm and at peace.”  Plus there are many forms of meditation, which I won’t have time to delve into.  And then there’s laughter. . . . by chuckling more and more at myself and other absurd situations . . .I’m often able to take the stick out of my butt. . .and that allows me to dance better. . .to flow better with the evolving universe that I’m an aspect of . . .to surf the waves of change. . .to harmonize with , instead of having discord with others and the universe . . .to lighten up. . to more smoothly and joyously dance with, instead of bump elbows with others.  In many situations, the soft approach of the Tai Chi marshal arts is paradoxically more effective than the ‘hard’ martial arts like karate.  For me, I’ve found that a better way to live is to control my thinking and emotions in my mind and heart. . .to chill out my monkey-mind, be aware of and my unskillful thinking and negative emotions . . .to acknowledge them and give them their due.. . .but then practice “emotional switching” and replace them with more humility, more softness, more acceptance of the way things are, more equanimity and inner peace, and act with more loving-kindness and compassion for the happiness and suffering of others. . .even when I’m currently seeing them as quite difficult.       Now let’s run thru the last 6 rows of the handout for various spiritual formulations of my 12 word motto:  On the left are the good virtues I want to nourish; on the right are the ways my egoic mind holds me back.
L	I can’t have good kindness & compassion for others	If	I am too dwelling too often on my own agenda or pain
M	I can’t have a lot of love & love well (i.e. care about & care for another’s happiness & suffering with generous kindness & compassion)	if	I’m too ego-centric, self-centered, self-absorbed, narcissistic
N	I can’t have optimal, balanced, dynamic, resiliant spiritual health	If	If I too often manifest too much yang (or too much yin). . .if I’m too hard, or cocksure about the way things ought to be
O	I can’t have good spiritual health, with minimal ‘existential suffering’	If	I am too often attached to certain things & ideas about how things & systems & people should be (2nd & 3rd Noble Truths)
P	I can’t have good spiritual health (i.e. with a good amount of peacefulness, equanimity, acceptance, gratefulness)	If	I am too often judgmental & on a mission to change people & things . . .and blame others
Q	I can’t have a lot of happiness	If	I too often focus on the negative aspects of people or systems
It’s important to me that my 12 word spiritual motto is expressed in the first person.  As a universalist, I affirm the validity of many different approaches to good spiritual health.  What works for me won’t work for many others.  Monism works for me—the belief that I am God and you are God and God is all that is and that spiritual health involves appreciating the sacredness and essential oneness of everything.  I strive to nourish the Buddhist spiritual and psychological and emotional virtues—acceptance, equanimity, generous loving-kindness and compassion.  But others, especially conservatives, often strive to have stability, faith in a higher authority, and obedience and servitude to the will of God.  And who am I to say they shouldn’t be doing what works for them.  There are beautiful dancers who are both conservatives and liberals from all religious traditions.  My guess is that a diversity of conflicting and complementary religions on Earth is better for human evolution—even if that leads to frequent conflicts and wars, as it always has and probably always will.       So, in summary, what works for me is to try to dance well often, with my body, mind, heart and soul.  And often remind myself that what holds me back is not other people, but the unskillful thinking in my own foolish, egoic mind, and the negative emotions in my heart.  I’m my own worst enemy . . .and that’s absurd . . .so it’s often worth a good laugh. . .which is one of the best things about being 50. . .I’m chuckling about myself and difficult things at least 5 to 10 times daily.  Life’s a lot more fun when I don’t have a stick up my butt!  Thanks for your attention.  Namaste. *** Other quotations, probably not time for: We have been taught to spend our lives chasing our thoughts and projections. Even when the “mind” is talked about, it is only thoughts and emotions that are referred to; and when our researchers study what they imagine to be the mind, they look only at its projections. No one ever really looks into the mind itself, the ground from which all these expressions arise; and this has tragic consequences. "The bird of paradise alights only on the hand that does not grasp."                                                                         John Berry Friends, I know nothing which brings suffering as does an untamed, uncontrolled, unattended and unrestrained heart. Such a heart brings suffering. -Anguttara Nikaya From "Teachings of the Buddha," edited by Jack Kornfield, 1993. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Boston, www.shambhala.com. Isn’t it extraordinary that our minds cannot stay still for longer than a few moments without grasping after distraction? They are so restless and preoccupied that sometimes I think that living in a city in the modern world, we are already like the tormented beings in the intermediate state after death, where the consciousness is said to be agonizingly restless. We are fragmented into so many different aspects. We don’t know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home.  Meditation, then, is bringing the mind home.                                                      Rigpa thought for the day Because in our culture we overvalue the intellect, we imagine that to become enlightened demands extraordinary intelligence. In fact, many kinds of cleverness are just further obscurations. There is a Tibetan saying: “If you are too clever, you could miss the point entirely.” Patrul Rinpoche said: “The logical mind seems interesting, but it is the seed of delusion.” People can become obsessed with their own theories and miss the point of everything. In Tibet we say: “Theories are like patches on a coat, one day they just wear off.” The practice of mindfulness, of bringing the scattered mind home, and so of bringing the different aspects of our being into focus, is called Peacefully Remaining or Calm Abiding. All the fragmented aspects of ourselves, which had been at war, settle and dissolve and become friends. In that settling we begin to understand ourselves more, and sometimes even have glimpses of the radiance of our fundamental nature. 'I am breathing in and making my whole body calm and at peace. I am breathing out and making my whole body calm and at peace.' This is how one practices." -The Sutra on Full Awareness of Breathing Since everything is but an apparition, Perfect in being what it is, Having nothing to do with good or bad, Acceptance or rejection You might as well burst out laughing! LONGCHENPA To end the bizarre tyranny of ego is why we take the spiritual path, but the resourcefulness of ego is almost infinite, and it can at every stage sabotage and pervert our desire to be free of it. The truth is simple, and the teachings are extremely clear; but I have seen again and again, with great sadness, that as soon as they begin to touch and move us, ego tries to complicate them, because it knows it is fundamentally threatened. However hard ego may try to sabotage the spiritual path, if you really continue on it, and work deeply with the practice of meditation, you will begin slowly to realize just how gulled you have been by ego’s promises: false hopes and false fears. Slowly you begin to understand that both hope and fear are enemies of your peace of mind; hopes deceive you, and leave you empty and disappointed, and fears paralyze you in the narrow cell of your false identity. You begin to see also just how all-encompassing the sway of ego has been over your mind, and in the space of freedom opened up by meditation, when you are momentarily released from grasping, you glimpse the exhilarating spaciousness of your true nature. Anger or hatred is like a fisherman's hook. It is very important for us to ensure that we are not caught by it. -His Holiness the Dalai Lama *** If a man should conquer in battle a thousand and a thousand more, and another should conquer himself, his would be the greater victory, because the greatest of victories is the victory over oneself. -Buddha When anger arises, whoever keeps firm control as if with a racing chariot: him I call a master charioteer. Anyone else; a rein-holder-- that's all. -Dhammapada, 17, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. The mind plays a game called “Attachment” and is fooling itself by pretending that external forces are responsible for your happiness.  Attachment is the root cause of all mental disturbances, and expectations play the biggest role.  Your expectations breed likes and dislikes.  Then you get attached to your likes and dislikes and cling to them.  It is your expectations that create distractions and disturbances when you do your meditation practice—not the outside world and not the people around you.           . . .If we expect worldly objects and relationships to secure our happiness, we will be disappointed.  Disappointment leads to misery.           . . .How foolish I have been to forget that invisible, benevolent force that accompanies us always, protecting, guiding, and nurturing.  Instead of remembering that force, I am complaining and worrying.            . . .Once the virtue of pure faith begins to blossom in your heart, you will no longer be dependent on the world and worldly relations to make you happy.  Contentment will become your nature.                                                 - Pandit Rajmani Tigunait (spiritual head of the Himalayan Instit)

 

Comments

[irondon]

Ed-
Thanks,
I can't help it - I "judge" this good:)

Don