“Learn the art of cow-releasing”
The 2d Sunday in Lent, March 8th, 2008
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Was Jesus influenced by Buddhism?
“These Truths keep popping up, unbridled, irrepressible, unstoppable.
Centuries before Jesus, these same Truths surfaced within Confucianism and Daoism in China, within Hinduism and Buddhism in India, within monotheism in Israel, and within philosophical rationalism in Greece.
The Truth that bubbles up from God is that more is not better.
Release the cows, and look in the other direction.
Discover the real you.”
Centuries before Jesus, these same Truths surfaced within Confucianism and Daoism in China, within Hinduism and Buddhism in India, within monotheism in Israel, and within philosophical rationalism in Greece.
The Truth that bubbles up from God is that more is not better.
Release the cows, and look in the other direction.
Discover the real you.”
+ + + + + + + +
May I speak only the truth, and may only the truth be heard by you, in the name of God our Creator, our redeemer, and our sanctifier.
Audio version is available. Click here.
In the first reading...
In the first reading this morning, we heard the legend of God’s covenant promise to Abraham to identify him as the ancestor of a multitude of nations, throughout all generations.
All subsequent history of the Jewish people has rested on this promise.
The people of Israel were to be God’s people.
Forever.
In the second reading...
In the second reading, Paul argued that God’s promise to Abraham has special value for Christians as well.
As it was for Abraham, it is faith that is crucial, not keeping of the law.
It’s faith that makes the promise effective.
In the gospel...
In our gospel reading this morning, Mark wanted us to understand the kind of messiah that Jesus really was.
Jesus’ participation in human life was total, to the point of death.
Mark wanted us to understand something about what it costs to follow Jesus, to follow Jesus all the way to the cross, and beyond.
This was not the kind of messiah that anyone was expecting.
For that matter, it wasn’t the kind of messiah that anyone would have wanted.
Mark wants us to know that Jesus took an unexpected path.
It was a path into the world of Alice in Wonderland, a world where everything is topsy-turvy.
In the world that Jesus took his followers into nothing was what anyone would have ever expected.
“Those who want to save their lives must lose their lives,” Jesus said, but those who will give up everything, including their lives, in order to follow him, they’re the ones who would save their lives.
Self-sacrifice is the way to saving yourself, saving your true self.
What good does it do to get everything you want, and lose you, the real you?
What could you ever trade your soul for?
Buddhist teachings about giving in order to get
Buddhism embraces a similar teaching.
It is said that if you really want to achieve salvation, it’s very difficult to live as a worldly person, because being worldly, you are subject to problems of the world, the needs of the world, and the temptations of the world.
There’s a Buddhist parable about this.
One day, the Buddha was sitting in the woods with 30 or 40 monks.
They were in he midst of an excellent lunch, and they were enjoying one another’s company.
A farmer passed by, a very unhappy farmer.
He asked the Buddha and the monks whether they had seen his cows passing by.
The Buddha said they had not seen any cows.
The farmer expressed his unhappiness.
“I have 12 cows,” he said, “and I don’t know why they all ran away.
“I also have a few acres of sesame seed plantation, and the insects have eaten up everything.
“I suffer so much I think I am going to commit suicide.”
The Buddha said, “My friend, we have not seen any cows passing by here.
“You might look for them in the other direction.”
So the farmer thanked him and went away, and the Buddha turned to his monks and said, “My dear friends;
you are the happiest people in the world.
“You don’t have any cows to lose.
“If you have too many cows to take care of, you will be very busy.
“That is why, in order to be happy, you have to learn the art of cow-releasing.
“You release the cows one by one.
“In the beginning you thought that those cows were essential to your happiness, and you tried to get more and more cows.
But now you realize that cows are not really conditions for your happiness.
“They actually are an obstacle for your happiness.
“That is why you want to release your cows, one by one.
“Learn the art of cow-releasing.”
Was Jesus a Buddhist?
Well, Mark put it in a different way.
Self-sacrifice is the way to saving yourself, saving your true self.
It’s Jesus’ truth, but it’s also a Buddhist truth.
I once brought up this apparent coincidence with Jane, my spiritual director.
I asked whether it is just a coincidence that Jesus’ teachings often sound just like Buddhist teachings.
Teachings of the Buddha had been proliferating in the ancient world for about 500 years by the time Jesus began his ministry.
So that’s why I asked Jane if she thought Jesus might have been influenced by those teachings.
Her answer was twofold.
“A lot of people think so,” think that Jesus was influenced by Buddhism.
“Some claim that during the years in which we know nothing about Jesus’ life, that would be the period between the story of Mary and Joseph losing their 12-year-old son Jesus in the Temple, the period from that incident until Jesus’ baptism as an adult in the Jordan River, some claim that during those “lost years,” he very well may have traveled and may have been influenced by Buddhism.
But Jane doesn’t think so.
She thinks that Truth-with-a-capital-letter, like today’s Truth about how to save your True self, about the art of cow-releasing, she thinks that Truth like this simply bubbles up comes from the Very Spirit of Life, comes from the Heart of the Universe, bubbles up from the living God, from the One who transcends all things yet is present in them.
These Truths keep popping up, unbridled, irrepressible, unstoppable.
Centuries before jesus, the same Truths surfaced within Confucianism and Daoism in China, within Hinduism and Buddhism in India, within monotheism in Israel.
One One of those truths that has bubbled up from God is that more is not better.
“Release the cows, and look in the other direction.
“Discover the real you.”
What really matters...
Clearly, we’re in the midst of a terrible global financial crisis, and an equally terrible environmental crisis.
These are crises that ask us what is real, what is lasting, and what really matters.
A crisis reminds us that circumstances always change.
And in the midst of the current crises, right now might be just the right time to seek this thing called “contentment.”
Now might just be the moment when spiritual gold can be found, treasures of character and strength.
Spiritual gold does not depend on the economy, or on politics, or on health, or on security, not on any of that.
Treasures of character and strength depend on “contentment.”
Contentment.
It’s the path to “enlightenment.”
It’s the path to salvation, here and now, in the ordinary moments of life.
An affirmation for these days
May we release all burdens of guilt.
May we release all burdens of shame and fear.
May we release all burdens of loss from the past burdens that no longer serve us.
May we release needless fear, and anxiety about the future.
May we be present, in the moment, and filled with loving kindness.
May we be centered, peaceful, and at ease.
May each of us enjoy both material and spiritual well-being.
This is my prayer.
In the first reading...
In the first reading this morning, we heard the legend of God’s covenant promise to Abraham to identify him as the ancestor of a multitude of nations, throughout all generations.
All subsequent history of the Jewish people has rested on this promise.
The people of Israel were to be God’s people.
Forever.
In the second reading...
In the second reading, Paul argued that God’s promise to Abraham has special value for Christians as well.
As it was for Abraham, it is faith that is crucial, not keeping of the law.
It’s faith that makes the promise effective.
In the gospel...
In our gospel reading this morning, Mark wanted us to understand the kind of messiah that Jesus really was.
Jesus’ participation in human life was total, to the point of death.
Mark wanted us to understand something about what it costs to follow Jesus, to follow Jesus all the way to the cross, and beyond.
This was not the kind of messiah that anyone was expecting.
For that matter, it wasn’t the kind of messiah that anyone would have wanted.
Mark wants us to know that Jesus took an unexpected path.
It was a path into the world of Alice in Wonderland, a world where everything is topsy-turvy.
In the world that Jesus took his followers into nothing was what anyone would have ever expected.
“Those who want to save their lives must lose their lives,” Jesus said, but those who will give up everything, including their lives, in order to follow him, they’re the ones who would save their lives.
Self-sacrifice is the way to saving yourself, saving your true self.
What good does it do to get everything you want, and lose you, the real you?
What could you ever trade your soul for?
Buddhist teachings about giving in order to get
Buddhism embraces a similar teaching.
It is said that if you really want to achieve salvation, it’s very difficult to live as a worldly person, because being worldly, you are subject to problems of the world, the needs of the world, and the temptations of the world.
There’s a Buddhist parable about this.
One day, the Buddha was sitting in the woods with 30 or 40 monks.
They were in he midst of an excellent lunch, and they were enjoying one another’s company.
A farmer passed by, a very unhappy farmer.
He asked the Buddha and the monks whether they had seen his cows passing by.
The Buddha said they had not seen any cows.
The farmer expressed his unhappiness.
“I have 12 cows,” he said, “and I don’t know why they all ran away.
“I also have a few acres of sesame seed plantation, and the insects have eaten up everything.
“I suffer so much I think I am going to commit suicide.”
The Buddha said, “My friend, we have not seen any cows passing by here.
“You might look for them in the other direction.”
So the farmer thanked him and went away, and the Buddha turned to his monks and said, “My dear friends;
you are the happiest people in the world.
“You don’t have any cows to lose.
“If you have too many cows to take care of, you will be very busy.
“That is why, in order to be happy, you have to learn the art of cow-releasing.
“You release the cows one by one.
“In the beginning you thought that those cows were essential to your happiness, and you tried to get more and more cows.
But now you realize that cows are not really conditions for your happiness.
“They actually are an obstacle for your happiness.
“That is why you want to release your cows, one by one.
“Learn the art of cow-releasing.”
Was Jesus a Buddhist?
Well, Mark put it in a different way.
Self-sacrifice is the way to saving yourself, saving your true self.
It’s Jesus’ truth, but it’s also a Buddhist truth.
I once brought up this apparent coincidence with Jane, my spiritual director.
I asked whether it is just a coincidence that Jesus’ teachings often sound just like Buddhist teachings.
Teachings of the Buddha had been proliferating in the ancient world for about 500 years by the time Jesus began his ministry.
So that’s why I asked Jane if she thought Jesus might have been influenced by those teachings.
Her answer was twofold.
“A lot of people think so,” think that Jesus was influenced by Buddhism.
“Some claim that during the years in which we know nothing about Jesus’ life, that would be the period between the story of Mary and Joseph losing their 12-year-old son Jesus in the Temple, the period from that incident until Jesus’ baptism as an adult in the Jordan River, some claim that during those “lost years,” he very well may have traveled and may have been influenced by Buddhism.
But Jane doesn’t think so.
She thinks that Truth-with-a-capital-letter, like today’s Truth about how to save your True self, about the art of cow-releasing, she thinks that Truth like this simply bubbles up comes from the Very Spirit of Life, comes from the Heart of the Universe, bubbles up from the living God, from the One who transcends all things yet is present in them.
These Truths keep popping up, unbridled, irrepressible, unstoppable.
Centuries before jesus, the same Truths surfaced within Confucianism and Daoism in China, within Hinduism and Buddhism in India, within monotheism in Israel.
One One of those truths that has bubbled up from God is that more is not better.
“Release the cows, and look in the other direction.
“Discover the real you.”
What really matters...
Clearly, we’re in the midst of a terrible global financial crisis, and an equally terrible environmental crisis.
These are crises that ask us what is real, what is lasting, and what really matters.
A crisis reminds us that circumstances always change.
And in the midst of the current crises, right now might be just the right time to seek this thing called “contentment.”
Now might just be the moment when spiritual gold can be found, treasures of character and strength.
Spiritual gold does not depend on the economy, or on politics, or on health, or on security, not on any of that.
Treasures of character and strength depend on “contentment.”
Contentment.
It’s the path to “enlightenment.”
It’s the path to salvation, here and now, in the ordinary moments of life.
An affirmation for these days
May we release all burdens of guilt.
May we release all burdens of shame and fear.
May we release all burdens of loss from the past burdens that no longer serve us.
May we release needless fear, and anxiety about the future.
May we be present, in the moment, and filled with loving kindness.
May we be centered, peaceful, and at ease.
May each of us enjoy both material and spiritual well-being.
This is my prayer.
1 comments:
Great sermon, Great MSG, Great Priest, Great Church, Thanks Father Jerry, Love and miss you all. that couple From Marlboro.
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