You know not what you say

People really don't think about what they say, do they?

(Wow, this is going to take a lot of background before I can even begin to explain what someone said tonight that hit me so wrong. I guess I better get started.)

The Setting 

You know that I attend a Buddhist Sangha once a week, practicing in the Plum Village Tradition of Thích Nhất Hạnh (or "Thầy" for short) and affiliated with a local Unitarian Church. (I have regularly called it "the UU Sangha" and I wrote about it recently here.) Typically we practice sitting meditation, a little walking meditation, and then we read a text or watch a video and discuss it for dharma study. 

For the past several months, we have been reading Thay's book Fragrant Palm Leaves: Journals 1962–1966. It's a good book in a number of ways, among them that it shows what Thay was like when he was a young monk, before he had acquired the aura of the World-Famous Great Teacher that surrounded him for much of his life. Tonight's reading finished the next-to-last chapter, and included the following story by Thay.

Last year I went to the British Museum. I was fascinated by the preserved remains of a human body buried five thousand years ago.... Every detail of the man's body had been preserved. I could see strands of hair, his ankles, each intact finger and toe. He had been buried in that position five thousand years ago in the desert. The heat of the sands had dried and preserved his body.... A little girl, about eight years old, stood beside me and asked in a worried voice, "Will that happen to me?"

I trembled and looked at this tender flower of humanity, this vulnerable child without any means to defend herself, and I said, "No, this will never happen to you." Having comforted her, I walked with her into a different room. I lied about something that Chandaka, the Buddha's charioteer, never lied about to Siddhartha.* [If you don't know the story of Siddhartha and his charioteer, you can find it here.] 

The Remark

After we finished our reading, we discussed it. One of our newer members—he joined just a few months ago—is a retired UU minister. I guess for now I'll call him The Reverend. He had already delivered himself of a short speech when we were all checking in, about the bombing of Iran on March 1. He explained that he opposed bombing other countries and that he considered his role now to be one of public opposition and activism.** When we came to discuss the reading, the Reverend immediately referred back to the story of Thay comforting the little girl in the British Museum. Then he said, "I want to take this as the text that I live by, from here going forward." He talked about how Thay spent so much time around small children: helping them, supporting them, comforting them, and encouraging them to see the beauty and the love in the world. And he concluded by quoting the very end of this chapter (a few pages later), where Thay writes:

I want to tell Steve not to worry about a thing. Tomorrow when peace returns to Vietnam, he will be able to visit Phuong Boi. Phuong Boi taught us what this love is, and Phuong Boi will share it with Steve in the language of wildflowers and grasses.... Flowers don't know how to hate. We will return to the circle of life as flowers, grasses, birds, or clouds to bring people the message of eternal love. Like the village children who, even in this time of war, sing:

"We will love others forever and ever, hand holding hand. We will love others forever."***

As the discussion progressed, many people said they found the Reverend's words inspiring. 

So what's my problem?

Many people found the Reverend's words inspiring. But do you know what I heard?

Basically, I heard the Reverend say two things:

1. Thay lied to a little girl. ("I lied about something that Chandaka, the Buddha's charioteer, never lied about to Siddhartha.")
2. The Reverend wants to do just like Thay. ("I want to take this as the text that I live by, from here going forward.")

Isn't it obvious that this means the Reverend intends to lie?—whenever he preaches a sermon, whenever he protests the war, or perhaps even (if he is idealistic enough) whenever he opens his mouth? How can anyone not see this? 

Or is it just that I was taught by Straussians, so I pay unusual levels of attention to the exact form of words that someone uses?

Or is it just that everybody else thinks lying is perfectly acceptable as long as it is in a good cause?****

Or is it just that no one paid any attention at all to what he said, so long as he sounded like he was on the right side?

I suppose if I had to put money on one of these propositions, I'd put most of it on the last alternative there, that no one was paying attention. The quip about Straussians would be worth a small side bet.

And in fact he was lying!

Mostly by omission, of course. But the Reverend's big concern right now seems to be war. His answer seems to be "All you need is love!" And he called Thay as a witness to support his position.

This is a lie in two respects. 

First, it is simply not true that All You Need is Love. People who love others still go to war—often, in fact, to defend their loved ones against Bad Guys. When some malefactor threatens to kill, maim, or enslave your loved ones, the failure to go to war in their defense is variously read either as spinelessness or as treason. Nobody ever excuses pacifism as evidence of "Love" unless they personally are not affected by the war.

Even Buddhism isn't enough to guarantee peace. Buddhist countries have gone to war.

Second, Thay's vision is a lot darker than anything the Reverend quoted. I leave open for now the question whether Thay himself is too idealistic (though I have posted some criticisms here, for example). Even in the gentlest of his writings, Thay never loses sight of dukkha—the pain, suffering, or unsatisfactoriness that pervades all human life. Thay never loses sight of illness, old age, and death; and as he writes in the middle of the Vietnam War, Thay never loses sight of violence, either. He deplores it, but he knows it is ever-present. In the passage which the Reverend quoted above, there is a section delicately dropped out by ellipsis. Thay's full remarks there, though, are stark even while they are serene:

Phuong Boi taught us what this love is, and Phuong Boi will share it with Steve in the language of wildflowers and grasses. Phuong Boi had a house called Montagnard, which is now a pile of ashes where wild mushrooms grow. Yet Montagnard House is still with us. It remains, just as love remains despite impermanence and emptiness of self, despite so much cruelty and blind ambition. Tomorrow, if we are burned to ashes, those ashes will be love and will nestle in the heart of the earth to nourish the flowers. Flowers don't know how to hate....***** [Emphasis mine.]    

That Thay can contemplate being burned to ashes and still look forward to love in spite of all impermanence is remarkable, though it does make me wonder what he means by impermanence if love remains in its despite. But then, Thay impresses me, even when I disagree with him. The Reverend does not.

Long story short: After reading a few pages from Thay, the Reverend promised to lie in the name of antiwar activism, and then lied. And the people loved it. Maybe something is wrong with me, that I'm always so grumpy about this kind of well-meaning stupidity. 

__________

* Thich Nhat Hanh, Fragrant Palm Leaves: Journals 1962–1966 (New York: Riverhead Books, 1966), p. 200.

** On the first point, I'm certainly glad to know that the Reverend thinks bombing people is bad. On the second point, I doubt too many people in the Pentagon are losing sleep over the opposition of a retired Unitarian minister. 

*** Ibid., pp. 203-204. 

**** Nietzsche would understand, especially as Unitarianism can be seen as just a very radical form of Protestant Christianity.        

***** Ibid., p. 203.