Lotus Blossoms and Muddy Waters: Buddhist Influences on Our Faith

The lotus flower is a powerful symbol of enlightenment in many Buddhist traditions. This is not just because of how it looks—with beautiful petals slowly unfurling, as if to represent awakening, but also because of where it grows. It puts its roots deep down in mud and then blooms above the murky waters that gave it life. Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “Everyone knows we need to have mud for lotuses to grow. The mud doesn’t smell so good, but the lotus flower smells very good. If you don’t have mud, the lotus won’t manifest. You can’t grow lotus flowers on marble. Without mud, there can be no lotus.”

A year ago, if you asked me about the origins of the American interest in Buddhism, I would not have guessed this church played a role. I say that with deep love, but the stained glass, and Puritan history, and witch trial connections, and tradition of Christian liturgical elements don’t exactly scream “Buddhist.” I probably would have placed the date later and the origin farther west. I picture California hippies in bright, modern, sparse spaces.

But thanks to a question from one of our youth, during the kids question and answer service, I learned an exciting fact. In 1844, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, whose family attended church here, published the very first English translation of a Buddhist text. It was a chapter of the Lotus Sutra, the sacred text which I read from earlier. She worked from a French translation of the original Sanskrit. It was published in The Dial, the Transcendentalist publication edited by Margaret Fuller that helped launch the writing careers of people like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. The Lotus Sutra is a particularly inclusive and universalist Buddhist text, explaining how the Buddha hopes to save all beings, so his teachings are adapted for different contexts and accessible to all.

For years, the translation was misattributed to Thoreau. There are some cheap shots I could make here if I wanted to. Something about how Peabody was busy publishing anti-slavery pamphlets and building the foundations of the American education system, while Thoreau was chilling at Walden Pond letting his mom do his laundry. So scholars would be forgiven for thinking he was the one with enough extra time to do the translating. Apparently I did indeed want to take a cheap shot.

But those jokes aren’t entirely fair to Henry David, who I do quite love. He was a plausible translator, for he wrote frequently about Buddhism and Hinduism in his journals and published works. So did many of the Transcendentalists, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Bronson Alcott. They were searchers, seekers and malcontents, living in times where the religion they had inherited felt inadequate to the moment. Emerson found Christian liturgy to be a lifeless thing and Unitarian preaching spiritually bereft. Thoreau famously wrote that, “most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” And they wrestled with the moral issues of their time, slavery, war, taxes, and the role of women. So they sought new sources of inspiration and spiritual wisdom to help them navigate the times in which they lived, and found Buddhism to be a particularly rich source. They appreciated the emphasis on individual awakening and experience, the reverence for all natural life, and simplicity of the tradition.

Emerson relied on nature as the best and original source of meaning, but when he could not be outside, it was not the Bible, but religious texts from Asia that he turned to, writing, “When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men’s transcripts of their readings. But when the intervals of darkness come…we repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn is.” Thoreau writes vividly about his experiences with meditation, “If with closed ears and eyes I consult consciousness for a moment, immediately are all walls and barriers dissipated, earth rolls from under me, and I float . . . in the midst of an unknown and infinite sea..I am from the beginning, knowing no end, no aim. No sun illumines me, for I dissolve all lesser lights in my own intenser and steadier light.”

Peabody’s translation opened up a whole new world of religious engagement for the Transcendentalist circle. The accuracy and ethics of that engagement however, is about what you would expect for the mid 19th century. It’s not always clear that they understood the differences between Hinduism and Buddhism. Or that they especially cared. The transcendentalists believed no text or tradition surpassed direct experience and individual consciousness. They were deeply skeptical of dogma and doctrine, both in the religion they were born into but also others. So they were perfectly comfortable picking and choosing which beliefs, philosophies and practices of Eastern religions suited them. But without the full cultural context, mistranslations abound. And they were prone to exoticizing and romanticizing the unfamiliar faiths, treating them as more ancient, authentic, and mystical than their own traditions, rather than as living religions practiced by real, complex humans.

And the full extent of influence on their thinking did and still does go unacknowledged. It was radical at that time to step outside of Christian teaching and scripture. Thoreau’s aunt accused him of heresy when he wrote about Eastern traditions. And for all of our romantic notions about these writers, they were still trying to sell books. And Buddhism wasn’t a big seller in the mid 19th century. So they often borrowed Eastern religious ideas about consciousness, divine experience, and the interconnectedness of all beings without directly naming the source of these ideas.

This is the complicated beginning of Buddhist influence on Unitarian Universalism. A murky start marked by cherry picking bits of Eastern thought out of their cultural context, often without attribution, and exoticizing the other. At the same time, it paved the way for beautiful new explorations and expressions of faith. The line to modern UU Buddhist practices is not especially straight. Thoreau did not start a loving kindness meditation group in the basement of the Concord church. Elizabeth Palmer Peabody and her sisters were not teaching the eightfold path as an alternative ethical framework. But this is the beginning of our belief that perhaps revelation isn’t closed and divine wisdom can be found in a variety of sources. That maybe there is something to be gained intellectually, but also spiritually from studying different religious traditions. These are the beginnings that will eventually lead to us naming “Pluralism” as one of the six explicit values of Unitarian Universalism.

Now there are hundreds of organized UU Buddhist sanghas and UU Buddhist fellowship chapters across the country, and many more meditation groups that meet at UU churches. UU ministers and lay leaders incorporate guided meditations and Buddhist practices, like the ones I lead the kids in earlier, into worship or retreats. And many individual UUs have their own meditation practices and relationships to Buddhist thought that have proven life changing and in some cases even life saving. All because our spiritual ancestors, including one from this very church, decided, even if imperfectly, to open their hearts and minds to new sources of wisdom.

Now, much like the transcendentalist, I think we too find ourselves in a time of seeking and searching. A time where the religious beliefs and practices that served us before, may not serve us any longer. I know I struggle with how to maintain a sense of spiritual balance these days. I want to believe in a higher power that sides with the poor and the oppressed and who will let justice roll down like waters, but I’m so often left wondering where they are and what they’re waiting for. I know that my faith values call me to pay attention to what’s happening in our world, to not turn away from injustice, but I also know my spirit and soul grow weary if I read and watch the news constantly. I’m often not sure if I’m striking the right balance of contemplation and action. Anger and gratitude. I don’t know what I need to do more, march or meditate. And I know I’m not alone, because I talk to many of you about these same challenges.

In looking for new sources of wisdom to help me find a better spiritual balance in these trying times, I find myself gravitating to the contemporary Buddhist teachers, scholars, and communities who are having really rich conversations about these dilemmas. For example, Rima Vesely-Flad is a Black Buddhist scholar who just published The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde. The book looks at Buddhist concepts like acceptance of suffering and karma, and examines how they can be used in service of not just compassion but justice. She encourages the use of Buddhist practices not as a way to just get past anger at injustice, but to transform it into a generative force, so that we aren’t consumed by it. She’s part of a movement called “engaged Buddhism,” that religion scholar Liz Bucar defines as “a modern movement that reinterprets Buddhist practice toward collective liberation rather than individual enlightenment.” This modern movement is attempting to balance contemplative practices with action for social justice in ways that are spiritually nourishing and sustainable.

This movement from the individual to the collective is something many modern Buddhists have been thinking about. You might have heard political thinkers and activists quote Thich Nhan Hanh’s assertion that the next Buddha will be a Sangha (The Buddhist term for a spiritual community). He said, “It is possible the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community, a community practicing understanding and lovingkindness, a community practicing mindful living. And the practice can be carried out as a group, as a city, as a nation.” I love this idea. It feels hopeful and actionable and reminds me I’m not alone in the work or in my faith.

There is much here to engage with that can deepen and strengthen our own faith. And that can equip us to better face the social challenges of our time. So, I am so glad we’re part of a religious tradition that values pluralism and encourages us to incorporate other religious ideas into our spiritual frameworks. But, like our transcendentalist ancestors, I know we’re not always going to do it exactly right. We are, by and large, westerners exploring ideas deeply rooted in Eastern cultures that are not our own. We are people who have been saying the Lord’s prayer every week for 400 years, trying to figure out how to responsibly bring more diverse spiritual traditions alongside the ones that have been passed down to us. We too are likely to take teachings out of context, misappropriate, misstep or offend as we try to broaden our own spiritual horizons. No one said pluralism was easy!

But perhaps this imperfect pluralism we’ve been working at for almost 200 years is the mud in which our lotus flower will take root. I said the beginnings of our engagement with Buddhism were murky, but remember, in Buddhist thought, mud and muck is where the path towards enlightenment must begin. Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Thoreau, and Emerson might not have fully understood the difference between Buddhism and Hinduism, but why would we have expected them too so early after these texts crossed their paths? Not knowing wasn’t a reason not to seek. It was a reason to start, even if they didn’t get it exactly right. They were willing to step outside the frameworks they knew, into the murky waters of spiritual exploration.

So the lesson I’ve taken away from my exploration of our own church’s connection to western Buddhism is to stay in the mud and muck. Keep engaging with different points of view, different faith traditions, different sources of divine wisdom. And then keep questioning the ethics and responsibility of that engagement. Be willing to mess up, be open to correction, and then be ready to try and do better. Be willing to change your mind. Be willing to keep learning more and keep your minds and hearts open. Stay present in these murky waters of curiosity and exploration. Because I think that’s where we grow a faith that nourishes us in the present and will move us into the future. That’s where the lotus flower of enlightenment will bloom.

May it be so.