Dr. Richard Boeke, Secretary, International Council of Unitarians and Universalists Forest House, Mannings Heath, Horsham, RH 13 6 LZ, England

As a Unitarian Universalist Minister, I often buy books on spiritual practice, looking for insights. Recently, I found an excellent book by Harry Moody and David Carroll. It is titled The Five Stages of The Soul. In one telling passage, a New York woman says,

"I had this unquestioning belief in the importance of achievement. ... Now when I look back, I can see that it was all a kind of con job I did on myself. I once heard a public speaking coach say that the greatest thing in speech making is sincerity. If you can fake that, he said, then you've really got it made. It is a funny way to put it, but I think that is what I did in my thirties and forties. I was faking it. But in complete sincerity." A Fake.

When I came as minister to Berkeley twenty-five years ago, I remembering confronting a Mahaguru with the words, "But then, you've a fake!" He said,"But I'm a real fake!" Ah! ... But it is not enough to be a "Real Fake." It is not enough to be like T.S. Eliot's Prufrock,

"To Prepare a face to meet the faces that I meet. 

All of us want the "REAL THING." No longer to need to fake it. That's a good deal of what my spiritual quest has about. One REAL PERSON I met was Dr. Viktor Frankl, who survived the death camps of Auschwitz and Dachau and wrote one of the great books of our century, Mans Search for Meaning. Frankl taught that we always have some power. We cannot always control our circumstances, but we can control our attitude, our response, our prayer. In 1997, I visited Auschwits the week that Viktor Frankl died.

Auschwitz, Dachau, and Hiroshima are all places that I have visited in my spiritual pilgrimage. Matching the journey in the world has been the journey of the soul. Especially from the Orient, I have learned spiritual disciplines that have become part of my life. It is not enough to know them. If you don't practice, dust collects on the "mirror of your soul." On the streets of New York, a young musician was looking for a famous concert hall. He asked an old man, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The old man replied,

"Practice, Practice, Practice." 

After I read The Five Stages of the Soul , I thought about four spiritual practices which are important to me. Like the Four Directions, I have Four Daily Practices.

The first practice comes each morning: The Waterfall. On my half dozen visits to Tsubaki Shinto Shrine in Japan, the high is always standing under the ice cold waterfall, cleansing body and soul. Most of us do not have a waterfall nearby, but we do have a shower. Each morning I take my body and spirit into the waterfall of purification and renewal. With a cold shower each morning, again I am under the sacred waterfall, leaving the past behind, entering a new day. We can learn from the past. But at some point, if we do not leave it behind, it will crush us. In the morning waterfall, I wash off yesterday and start today.

The second practice is The Mirror, taking a moment to look at the soul. The mirror is important, not only in Japan, but in many traditions. Especially for Unitarians, it reminds us of the call of Socrates and Emerson, "Know Thyself." Some morning I put off shaving and looking myself in the face, because I have not done the spiritual work I need to do. Other days I go to London and sit before the self-portraits of Rembrandt or Van Gogh. There is a bandaged ear in the Van Gogh: a reminder that self-torture does not lead to enlightenment. A little devotional each day can clean the mirror: Good stories like A Christmas Carol can "So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." Bobbie Burns was sitting in church when he was inspired to write:

"O Wad some power the giffie ge us to see ourselves as others see us.

It Wad from many a blunder free us, and foolish nation. " 

The third practice is Waking Meditation: out of the house and into nature. Moving breath, body and blood to take in the wonder of public footpaths through the changing seasons. In April, we will be in the full blossom of the England with millions of daffodils, bluebells, and singing birds. Read some Emerson and Thoreau. Then go out and practice what they practiced. Life is breath. We journey in, and we journey out.

The fourth practice is Giving: Giving self & money to what I care about. A Japanese Christian wrote: "Penniless for a while I can live, but it breaks my heart to know I cannot give." Especially in countries that have had State Supported Religion, one of my hardest jobs is to teach new Unitarians the importance of giving to support what you love. In the words of Unitarian poet James Russell Lowell at die end of The Vision of Sir Launfal:

The Holy Supper is kept indeed, in what so we share with another's need

Not what we give, but what we share, for the gift without the giver is bare."

Let me move through the paces now...

Awaken to the dawn

Raise the Chi

Center me.

In my bath discover new birth

In my mirror affirm my worth

in my walking, awaken to earth

In my giving share sorrow and mirth.

When they asked him who he was, the Buddha said, "I am awake."

The answer became his name. Buddha means, "one who is awake."