This is a paper I wrote for my Honors Core class on religious studies. I'm presenting it at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Ligonier Valley at the end of may. Thought maybe you might like to read it, too.
People are fascinated by the idea of a wizened old monk dwelling in a mountain cave. The monk is enlightened, living in harmony with the world. He has achieved this blissful state by renouncing the modern world, along with all of its temptations and distractions. He has chosen to live instead in a remote hermitage, surrounded by tranquil scenery, rippling blue lakes, and gently-drifting clouds. By sacrificing the pleasures of worldly society, he was able to find peace and has come to know the sacred as it reveals itself in nature. We might envy this man, but few of us would ever choose to take up his lifestyle. His peace seems elusive to us, something we might admire, but never achieve. We do not feel capable of giving up all that we know in order to pursue the sacred. We set the monk on a different plane, and decide that since his is the path that leads to true enlightenment, we must resign ourselves to an imperfect understanding. This is the wrong attitude to take. It is not necessary for us to renounce the modern world, even though we often feel that it is the root of our stress and confusion. The modern world is not incompatible with the idea of spiritual peace. In fact, this peace can actually be found within the technology and complexity that characterize today's society.
Many people complain that life in this mechanized world is too complicated. We say that we want peace, and many of us look to religion as a route to this peace. We do not want simply "peace and quiet;" the tranquillity we are looking for is more than warm milk and a good night's sleep. We want peace of mind and of spirit. We want to stop feeling like a leaf tossed about in a river; we want to understand the world around us and our roles in it. These are basic needs that we have, and we often turn to spirituality for help in dealing with them.
This is because the sacred is frequently associated with feelings of peace. People who feel that they know their place in the cosmos, who believe that they are part of the divine order of the world, are less likely to worry excessively over details. We use the sacred as a window through which we view our lives and see how we ought to be living. But it is difficult to understand the concepts of the sacred when we are tearing around madly from place to place, or from worry to worry. To listen to that spirit which we seek, we must first calm ourselves down.
Natalie Goldberg, a student of Zen Buddhism, said that "stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath" (Goldberg 229). Because we tend to take the processes around us and within us for granted, we ignore them. Then we feel like we are missing something. Some people would respond to this by heading for the woods to spend a weekend breathing fresh air. This can be a healthy response, but unfortunately, not everyone has a schedule that will permit such a retreat. Still, we need to center ourselves somehow, to escape the stress of living. How can we do that?
The answer can be simple: slow down. If only to deal with the newfound free time, we will naturally notice and appreciate more of the things around us if we space our schedules out a bit. We will have more time to think and to come to know ourselves. "If you want to touch base in the moment, first find your breath," one yoga teacher advised (Lister 128). Find your breath: concentrate on the simple fact of your breathing, and be glad of it. We can breathe consciously anytime, anywhere, by closing our eyes and thinking about our bodies, not being distracted by the world. This is a practice that can help us to be aware of the moment, and to enjoy it for itself, not as a step on the way to somewhere more important. As the teacher said, "The closer you can get to right now, the more vast the possibilities -- to hear your own inner voice or God's" (Lister 128).
We can include the modern world in the search for meaning. The search need not take place in a vacuum. As the Bamboo Pin Recluse said, an answer will mean nothing if it is only understood in the void outside the material world (Blofeld 142). If we cannot live a productive and fulfilling life through the answers we find, they are of no use to us. A society molds the people who live in it, shaping their perspectives and their values. Why, then, should we abandon our world, when it is a part of us? We can find peace and meaning within that world. It's in there. People can be creative in "inviting spirituality into their lives" (Lister 127). Working within the structure of the modern world, there are many ways to discover peace. Many things can make it easier for us to stumble upon the face of the Divine in our lives.
Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monk, believes strongly in the value of walking meditation. "We walk slowly," he said of the members of the community he founded in France, where people practice "mindful living." "We massage the Earth and plant seeds of joy and happiness with each step, and follow our breathing at the same time. We don't try to go anywhere. We arrive with every step." He tells us to consider our bodies, and "breathe as if we were breathing from the souls of our feet" (Hanh 43). This life-affirming exercise can be practiced anywhere and everywhere, he said: between business meetings or classes, walking to the market or the car (Hanh 44). This meditation fits perfectly into today's lifestyle, where people are always on the go. It can help us very much to be thankful for the earth beneath our feet, whether it is covered by pine needles or concrete. It can help us gather our energy and build love for the Earth or the divine spirit that brings us into existence. It can bring us peace.
In a recent magazine article, one writer offered people a list of suggestions for adding peace to their lives. She included advice like "Get up early" (Lister 127). Before the rest of the world wakes up, things look a little different: less crowded, more serene. Some people find themselves more clear-headed when waking up after a restful night; some feel that they are more wide-eyed and observant. We notice more when there are fewer things going on at once.
Another suggestion from the article is that listening to "great" music at a high volume can lead to a time of spiritual peace (Lister 128). Music has a tendency to carry us away, especially if it is particularly beautiful or timeless, or if we have a special emotional connection to the piece. It is interesting to note, however, that although we often use music to take us away from the material world and prime our hearts and minds to be touched by the sacred, this experience would not be widely accessible at all without modern technology. It is the blessings of CD players and tape decks that allow us to experience great music whenever we choose. We cannot ignore the ways in which we benefit from technology; on the contrary, it is important that we recognize and accept it as a vital part of our existence. We can move along the path toward spiritual peace through technological wonders as well as through natural ones. These aspects of our lives are valid spiritual tools.
As you can see, it is not the modern "things" themselves that set a block between us and tranquillity. They can, in fact, help us on our way. Our difficulty lies in an attitude that we have about technology. We tend to see machines as workers that are able to complete tasks more efficiently than we can; we thus remove ourselves a few spaces from the processes of our lives. We don't take so active an interest in what we do, because we do not feel attached in any solid way to the action.
Robert Pirsig, an author and student of Zen, sees this as an obstacle in our quest for understanding. He fears that we too often want to take the quickest possible route through the tasks of our daily lives. "That in itself is a poisonous twentieth-century attitude," he wrote. "When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things" (Pirsig 35). When we look at our lives this way, moments spent waiting seem like moments wasted. If we do not take an active interest in even the simple tasks that we perform, like making toast or printing out a paper, our lives can seem robbed of meaning. Instead of being impatient for our machines to work faster, we can take the moment of waiting to think about what it is we are doing, and why we want to do that. We can be glad of the technology that makes it possible for us to accomplish such a vast variety of interesting things. We can touch the sacred when we consider the meanings of our actions (and, thereby, our lives) in this way. We can feel the peace of knowing where we are at any present moment, and why we are there.
To be able to find spiritual peace within the modern world, one needs to accept it as a valid face of the sacred. One must decide for herself that our technology-enhanced lifestyle is no less worthy than a Spartan existence on a mountainside or canyon cliff. This is our world; we were born and bred into it, and its values and ways of seeing run in our veins. But if one view can reveal the sacred, another must as well, for they are but two aspects of the same small world.
In his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsig wrote, "The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha -- which is to demean oneself" (Pirsig 26). We treasure and worship that which is sacred. We look to it as a guide for living a satisfying life. Therefore, it should manifest itself in all important aspects of our life. Otherwise, it would be of little value to us. We can see the sacred everywhere, in everything we do. According to Rabindranath Tagore, it is "in the planets, the sun, and the stars, the joyous dance of the atoms through endless time" (Tagore). Some call that everywhere-power the Holy Spirit. Some say that it is the Buddha who is everywhere and in everything. Others call it God, the Tao, or the Great Spirit. But if it is anywhere, if it has any power at all, then it must have as much of a manifestation in an electrical appliance as in an oak tree. They are all parts of the same world. The sacred can be found in all aspects of our lives, if we care to look. It is to our benefit that we incorporate it into our full awareness; thus we can be thankful for it, and it becomes a face of the sacred.
Natalie Goldberg holds up as an example a friend who "wanted to become intimate with everything. He bowed to trees and books and rows of lettuce in grocery stores" (Goldberg 75). He is an example of a man on the path to peace within the modern world. He recognizes the sacred as it can be seen in all aspects of our lives and our world. He is working to understand the world. He is aware of the existence of things, and is glad of them. The material goods of this world help lead him to peace; he sees that they have a necessary place in the order of the world. The very fact that such things as heads of lettuce exist can be sacred, as evidence of the glory of life on earth. The same can be said for automobiles or personal computers.
We must be open to unexpected appearances of the sacred, Lister tells us. One woman had a moment of deep spiritual peace while standing in the middle of New York City, one of the most hectic places in the world. She was standing on the Brooklyn Bridge, "feeling this tremendous natural high at the sight of Manhattan and instantly knowing and feeling [she] had to live there" (Lister 128). She believed she was being guided by a higher power, being filled with the sacred, if only for a brief spell. Even in the city, we can touch (and be touched by) the sacred. We must only be ready to listen; it will still speak to us, even when we are surrounded by modern confusion.
Seeing the world for what it is, being aware of the wonder of things, can free us and leave us in awe. It can inspire a stillness within us, if we learn to contemplate those wonders that we now take for granted. If what we want from the sacred is spiritual peace and well-being, we can find it in the modern world.
Just because one is not making a pilgrimage to the mountains of Asia, that doesn't mean she is not searching for the voice of the Spirit. It takes courage and faith to pursue the peace of the sacred within the setting of the modern world. It is a difficult journey, with many obstacles and distractions, but the reward can be great, and the journey itself can be exhilarating.
Works Cited
Blofeld, John. Beyond the Gods: Buddhist and Taoist Mysticism. London: George & Allen Unwin, 1974. Reprinted in Viewpoints, distributed in class.
Goldberg, Natalie. Wild Mind. New York, NY: Bantam New Age Press, 1990.
Hanh, Thich Nhat. Touching Peace. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1992.
Lister, Pamela. "Staying Sane." Redbook May 1997: 127-8+.
Pirsig, Robert. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. New York, NY: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1974.
Tagore, Rabindranath. "The Peace of Autumn." Singing the Living Tradition. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993.
Take me back home.