"One day the Buddha was sitting in the wood with thirty or forty monks. They had an excellent lunch and they were enjoying the company of each other. There was a farmer passing by and the farmer was very unhappy. He asked the Buddha and the monks whether they had seen his cows passing by. The Buddha said they had not seen any cows passing by.

The farmer said, "Monks, I'm so unhappy. I have twelve cows and I don't know why they all ran away. I have also a few acres of a sesame seed plantation and the insects have eaten up everything. I suffer so much I think I am going to kill myself.

The Buddha said, "My friend, we have not seen any cows passing by here. You might like to look for them in the other direction."

So the farmer thanked him and ran 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. " (end story)

"That is why, in order to be happy, you have to learn the art of cow releasing.... But now you realize that cows are not really conditions for your happiness; they constitute an obstacle for your happiness. That is why you are determined to release your cows..... Many of us have cows, many cows that prevent us from being happy. That is why we have to learn to release our cows. Also there are many cows inside, so many preoccupations! Many things to worry about, to be angry about, and there's no space at all inside."

25 "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet God in heaven feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

27 And which of you by being anxious can add one bit to his span of life?

28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin;

29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, `What shall we eat?' or `What shall we drink?' or `What shall we wear?'

32 For the Gentiles seek all these things; and heaven knows that you need them all.

33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.

34 "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day.

Our two readings this morning both echo the same theme - our tendency to worry about various aspects of our lives. The Buddha tells his monks as Jesus does his disciples, that worry is not to be embraced. Both, in so many words, teach that worry is not a useful skill for living. The Buddha is cautioning against unnecessary worries when he says don't go chasing after cows. In order to be happy we need to learn to attend to something more important. The Buddhist message, succinctly, is to stop wanting things to be other than they are - happiness comes with trusting the Now, in being present to things as they are, and accepting reality as it is even as we deal with it. Worry doesn't fit into this framework. It isn't useful. Worried thoughts, like those cows that can so preoccupy us, and are distractions that need to be released.

Likewise, when Jesus teaches that one shouldn't worry about things like clothes or food or drink, when he says we people should learn from the birds in the air and the lilies of the field, his message is similar. Neither birds or flowers worry, and yet they are decked out in their own splendor for all to see - His explanation for why we can and should let go of worry is that the same creator that provides for all of creation provides for us, and we can put our faith in that creator.

Another popular language for framing this same message today is to put one's trust the universe, which means, I think, to accept that our life is small in relation to the living cosmos of which we are a part and which, will unfold as it ought. Jesus tells his disciples that worry demonstrates a lack of faith in this process. Our job is to let go of worry and to seek righteousness.

Easier said than done, isn't it? We know that worry isn't particularly empowering, don't we? And still we worry. We all carry our secret burden of countless small worries. For example, I have a pair of plaid sweat pants that are apparently quite unfashionable, and one of my sons worries every morning that I might be spotted in them - and he shoos me away from the doorway when the bus comes. And how many of us stress, thinking that someone might come over when the house is dirty, or worry about asking a question that might make us look ignorant if we ask it? And then there are somewhat larger worries. For example, last Sunday our daughter Annie stepped on a plane for Europe. She arrived in London with plans to meet a friend before heading for Paris. She and her friend plan to visit Spain and the Czech Republic before coming home. A perfect itinerary for someone who has just graduated from college and will be returning home to begin a career of some sort, to be determined later. But she'll be on planes and trains quite a bit in the next few weeks.

As you can imagine, I'm going to worry some - a portion of my energy, a slight preoccupation, will be dedicated to Annie in her travels and I will breathe a mother's sigh of relief when she's home again. But just for this sermon I looked up some risk analysis statistics are for the kind of travel she'll be doing. Based on statistic spanning the past 9 years, .02 commercial airline passengers die per 100 million miles of travel (add the 9/11 passengers to that statistic and it moves up to .07). And .6 train passengers die per 100 million miles of travel. I forget the exact statistic, but something like 70% of all car accidents occur within 10 miles of home. My worry is pretty darn groundless and normal.

But there are also those of us, each of us in turn, really, feeling forced to confront losses or changes in our lives that go to the ground of our being - we face deep stresses in relation to our kids, our health, our aging parents, our finances. I'm not going to clobber us for the fact that we worry. If you are worried you deserve compassion, a listening ear and support.

The wonderful biologist and nature writer, Lewis Thomas, says, "We are, perhaps, uniquely among the earth's creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing the future, discontent with the present, unable to take in the idea of dying, unable to sit still."

Time Magazine has run an article entitled "Understanding Anxiety" as its cover this week. The magazine notes that, post 9/11, we live in a particularly anxious time. Medical experts say that if worry persists to the point where it interferes with one's life then we are suffering from something called an anxiety disorder. And here's the news - according to Time, anxiety disorder is the most common medical disorder in the United States.

Because worrying is built into our nature, we need first to have compassion for one another as we try to cope with this very human burden. And we also need to develop some means of coping with it.

I want to read to you the following words, by Unitarian Universalist minister Elizabeth Tarbox, which give voice to a very healing compassion:

The word worry comes from an Angolo-Saxon root that means "to strangle" or "to choke." When it gets a strangle hold on us it can literally cut off the air supply that allows us to breathe! Physical stress caused by worry can affect the circulation, the heart, the glands, the whole nervous system." Left unchecked, chronic worry can slow decision-making and impair thinking, learning, even memory, " says Dr. Thomas Borkevec a professor of psychology at Penn State. "When we're worrying, we're living in our heads, either in the future or the past, rather than attending to what's going on in the present moment. The preoccupation of obsessive worry may be traced to a breakdown in the mechanism that signals the brain to stop responding, somewhat like a car with a stuck accelerator.

Many years ago when my daughter Annie was pretty young, I remember driving her home from a doctor's appointment on a warm spring day quite a bit like today. As we drove down the hill past Oliver's Mills she called my attention to the beautiful, lush smell of flowers in the air, and she said, "Oh, that smells so good! Before my appointment, I couldn't have even noticed it." And she breathed in the flowers deeply.

That kind of preoccupation is what we suffer when our accelerators are stuck. We don't notice the flowers, the beauty of the world around us - many blessings become lost to us.

So what do we do with our worries? There are as many ways to relieve anxiety as there are things that make us anxious. The key is to find the way that works for you and use it.

According to Time Magazine, one of the most effective techniques to reduce anxiety is simple exercise. A brisk walk can take the edge off even the most acute anxiety. Many anxiety suffers have found relief through meditation which provides a time tested, noninvasive method of controlling thought patterns. Yoga, which is both a form of exercise and a way to quiet the mind by focusing attention on breathing, has also proven effective in reducing anxiety and in slowing a racing heart. Another recommendation that specialists make, believe it or not, is that we begin to limit the amount of time we allow ourselves to worry. I have heard different versions of this technique - as worries come to you, write them down and put them in an envelope in a prominent place. Then, on a day of the week that you choose, call it, Worry Wednesday, perhaps, pull out each concern and read it. Teachers of this technique say that most of the things that get placed in the Worry Category have usually settled themselves or been taken care of in some other way.

I very much like the following anonymous story, which is a variation on this theme.

"The carpenter I hired to help me restore an old farm house had just finished a rough first day on the job. A flat tire had caused him to miss an hour of work, his electric saw quit, and now his ancient pick-up truck refused to start. As I drove him home, he sat in stony silence. When we arrived he invited me in to meet his family. As we walked to the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree, touching the tips of the branches with both hands. When opening the door he underwent an amazing transformation. His tanned face was wreathed in smiles, he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss. Afterward he walked me to the car. We passed by the tree and my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about what I had seen him do earlier.

"Oh, that's my trouble tree," he replied. "I know I can't help having worries on the job, and sometimes they can really get to me. But one thing's for sure, they don't belong in the house with my wife and children. So, I just hang them on the tree when I come home at night and then I just pick them up again in the morning.
Funny thing, though," he smiled, "when I come out in the morning to pick 'em up, there aren't nearly as many as I remembered hanging there the night before."

Maybe you and I can try that— writing down all our worries and putting them in an envelope or hanging them on a tree, and dealing with them only at selected times that we control. We just might come to the same discovery— the things we’re so concerned about seem smaller or have a way of working themselves out.

Talking to someone outside a situation can be helpful. So, if none of the above techniques work, and if you are significantly preoccupied by worry, a counselor might prove beneficial, to help you sort out what's going on.

What the Time Magazine article spent a good deal of print pointing out, is the physical/chemical component of anxiety. When we feel heightened concern, a series of changes in brain chemistry and hormones get triggered that puts the entire body in anxiety mode. if we can't control those reactions adequately through exercise or talk therapy, then doctors can prescribe antidepressants or mild tranquilizers to help the brain to be less reactive. Drugs should, of course, not be the first line of response but there is no doubt that they have been able to improve many lives.

Please consider your own response to worry.  Become aware of how you feel when you are in its grip.  There are things you can do to lessen its impact.  If you are not worried at this moment, it may be an even better time to think about developing a response, a plan for what to do when worry comes.  Let us have compassion with ourselves and with each other as we deal with this pain which is so basic to the human condition.

 Go in peace.