Good Morning! You all aready know how fortunate you are to have Pastor Rick. Because I am part of the Carmel Valley Womens' Chorus and we have sung here my introduction to him and to you is rather recent. So I have experienced the open-minded and open-hearted spirit your congregation has. I want to thank Pastor Rick for support and guidance and allowing me to present some of my experiences and beliefs.

Last week the meaning and story of the Epiphany was presented: The Magi following the light of the bright star were led to the Christ child. This is a time of the year we need light and are attracted to it. Our wisdom traditions all have ceremonies and stories that invoke the light. As I get older I find that I need more light -- especially around the winter solstice. I have chickens and, without light, my chickens stop laying eggs and they lose their color and look scraggly—me too!!

In Buddhism this is the time of year that Shakyamuni Buddha, after turning inward, reflecting on himself and sitting still, was Enlightened —had an Epiphany— and it happened when he saw the bright morning star. His revelation, his enlightenment was that living, that this life brings suffering and dissatisfaction; he saw the cause of that dissatisfaction, that dis-ease, is clinging or grasping; and he saw that there is a way to end the suffering, to be free; and that way is available to all of us. It is what we call the Four Noble Truths. He also realized that he needed to share what had been revealed to him. Very similar to the passage in Matthew:

"No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket, but, rather, on a lamp stand, so it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before all, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."

Buddha's Enlightenment is usually depicted as a 'Big Bang' experience but actually it was the culmination of six years of practice which seems arather short time — ( I've been practicing for over 20 years and, as yet, no 'Big Bang!') — but his was a highly focussed, energetic spiritual quest. Most of us don't bring that energy to our study of self and spiritual practice. We can't as we have jobs and family. Gotama Buddha left his wife, pregnant with child, to embark on his spiritual journey; it was that important to him. She by the way did not understand and was angry with him. I can't blame her! But for us it is a slow awakening to the fact that we all are enlightened right now and we just don't realize it.

I know I don't need to tell you and I realize that I speak to myself to encourage myself but we create our own heaven on on this heavenly Earth and we do so every minute of every day—whether we know it or not. Wouldn't it be NICE to know it? Actually it is very important for us to know what we do and how it impacts both ourselves and others. I believe it is our Responsibility to know how we can let this light shine from our hearts (aside) and maybe –more importantly—how we allow and/or live with the darkeness. The duality is necessary and to understand the duality as a unity, as oneness, is also necessary—you don't get one without the other.

Stephen Mitchell in "The Gospel According to Jesus" says that this light is called God in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic cultures and is called Mind by the Buddhists. I liked that as it gives me an acceptable meaning for God. The Zen sect I belong to grew out of a school called Mind- or Consciousness- Only school. Mitchell quotes a ninth century Zen monk, Huang Po,

"This pure Mind, which is the source of all things, shines forever with the radiance of its own perfection. But most people are not aware of it, and think that Mind is just the faculty that sees, hears, feels, thinks. Blinded by their own sight, hearing, feeling, and knowing, they don't perceive the radiance of the source. If they could eliminate conceptual thinking, this source would appear, like the sun rising through the empty sky and illuminating the whole universe."

This sounds beautiful; but also we need to know that this 'Mind that blinds' is what allows us to be mindful. And it is this mindfulness that helps with eliminating the conceptual or creating space around the conceptual. This is the function of meditation!

There was an image in the Hindu story from the Upanishads Pastor Rick read last week about the young man who was granted three blessings by Death. Those of you who were here no doubt remember it. But what caught me was the ending. The young man had been meditating for three days without food or water so he had reached a threshold, a liminal space between worlds where truth is revealed and from this place he understood what he needed. He asked for forgivenes; he asked for inner fire, strength; and lastly he asked for that which is immortal, that which is beyond life and death. Death was startled by the request, tried to talk him out of it by offering him any thing in the material world but the young man persisted and was finally granted his blessing. And Death did a strange thing and handed him a mirror! Saying "You yourself must look directly into your Self. Then you must repeatedly ask yourself the greatest of all human questions: 'Who am I? Who is it that is born and dies?"

Twelth-century Japanese master and founder of our sect in Japan, Eihei Dogen wrote:

"To study the buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly."

It is immortal!

Like the young man in the story, in the Zen tradition we meditate-- sometimes for three days, seven days, sometimes 30 minutes or 10 minutes; we 'just-sit' Actually we do other things but when we meditate we 'just-sit' and let thoughts arise and pass. We don't even try to eliminate conceptual thinking; we simply notice the thought and release back into the ocean it came from—and we do this over and over and over—and at some point we notice there is some quiet space without concepts, a brief moment without a grasping of self or thoughts and the universe comes to us.

The Buddha said that we should be 'lamps unto ourselves.' We are our own light and carry our own wisdom, each one of us responsible for ourselves. When I was a monk at Tassajara one of my teachers, Blanche Hartman, sang this song of encouragement during a lecture:

"I'm going to let it shine, this little light of mine. . . . .
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine."

Thank you
Sara Hunsaker

14 You are indeed the light of this world; a city that is built upon a mountain cannot be hidden.
15 Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lamp stand, so that it gives light to all who are in the house.
16 Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify you Father in heaven.

This pure Mind, which is the source of all things, shines forever with the radiance of its own perfection. But most people are not aware of it, and think that Mind is just the faculty that sees, hears, feels, and knows. Blinded by their own sight, hearing, feeling, and knowing, they don't perceive the radiance of the source. If they could eliminate all conceptual thinking, this source would appear, like the sun rising through the empty sky and illuminating the whole universe.