Satya Robyn leads a Buddhist sangha session with guided meditation and teachings on balancing effort and surrender, using a bird metaphor of flapping and soaring. The group chants, recites precepts, and reflects on inner judgment through an anecdote about misjudging someone in a yoga class.
Chapters
Makna sadhu.
See you all on this really gorgeous midsummer, almost midsummer Saturday morning, and welcome to the people joining us online. We're going to start with a Dharma glimpse, anonymously written by a member of our sangha. So Dharma glimpse is a moment of insight, or of like an aha moment, a moment where you feel that there is something of truth, of importance, that suddenly kind of appears. And we encourage people in our sangha, if they have a moment like that and they've got 10 minutes and they feel like it, to write a short or a longer one. This is a bit of a longer one. Dharma glimpse about that experience, and then we all get to appreciate it. It's called The Inner Judgment of Others. As a practicing Buddhist trying to lead my life with a positive mindset and an outlook to an enriched life of well-being and tranquility. I found my mind wandering down that negative road, and no matter how hard you meditate, occasionally those negative thoughts enter your mind, and internally you find yourself having a negative thought or feeling about others. A wave of shame that this thought had entered my mind fulfills me. And as I remind myself, that's not very Buddhist of you, I feel a sense of calm that this thought has not been shared with others. Furthermore, as a Buddhist shouldn't my mind— furthermore, as a Buddhist shouldn't my mind swarm with sunshine and butterflies. After all, at the temple during practice, I make the precept that I will not fall into wrong speech. Surely this should be the vocal and the inner voice. I find myself at the gym bright and early for my weekly Yin yoga class. As always, I arrive early to ensure I get my favorite spot. At the back in the corner and away from the sight of others, and a sense of relief when I can see that yes, this space is free. A selfish thought, as others may also want this space, and perhaps as someone who has attended this class for over a year now should enable somebody less confident to have this prime spot. I'm sat ready in the shakshuka, easy pose, waiting for the teacher to arrive and listening to the usual complaint of the man next to me that the teacher is yet again late and how this inconveniences his practice. When I noticed somebody new in the class, she appears confident in all dimensions and has the yoga body we all wish for. What I noticed the most about this person was that she couldn't leave her long blonde hair alone. She constantly took it out, put her hands through it, brushed it, and repeated this several times. She looked in the walled mirrors as she did this, and at one point got up and walked past me to the bin. She cleared her hairbrush of hair and stood up in front of everyone to repeat this sequence of hairstyling before returning to her mat as if she was a feather floating through the breeze. It was at this point that the negative thought entered my mind: 'We have a right one here. Body confident, hair lover. Who does she think she is?' As quickly as this thought entered, I reminded myself that this is not very Buddhist, and she clearly takes great pride in how she looks and her gorgeous long blonde hair. It was at this point we made eye contact and we smiled at each other, a silent apology on my behalf, and how thankful I felt that she would never know this negative judgment I just made about her. The yoga teacher arrives in a flurry, sending her apologies about running late as she desperately sets up her mat and salt lamps and prepares the music for the class. The man next to me sends his usual grunt of annoyance, annoyance at her tardiness, and I'm just relieved the class is about to start. The yoga teacher completes her usual ritual of welcoming us all to her class and asks, is there anybody new or anything she would— she should know before the class starts? I noticed the lady with the hair speak up. I'm not new, but I haven't been for a while as I am just recovering from my second bout of chemotherapy. My heart absolutely sank. This woman wasn't showing off her long hair, but she was noticing her own hair falling out. She was putting the strands that came out of her head in the bin. Her vulnerability was portrayed as confidence, but she was secretly fighting her own battle of self-confidence. I wondered how many other people in the class had noticed this woman when she arrived and made their own negative judgments, and just like me, now felt shame. I thought about this woman all day as I hung my washing out, walked the dogs, tried to read my book and reflected on my day. When I got into bed, I thought about how wrong I was to judge and why I allowed this thought to enter my mind. Even though I didn't verbalize this judgment to others, I still thought it and allowed myself to judge. Does this happen as a reminder that we don't ever know what anybody is going through, that we cannot peel back everyone's onion skins to know what's happening in their worlds? And that we should always be kind, even within our own inner voice, as we truly do not know what anybody is really going through. The following week at yoga, I chose a different spot in the room, and I smiled and said hello to the woman who currently still has her head of hair and still brushed it and restyled it. But this time I looked at her and thought, You look absolutely beautiful. Namomi deku. Thank you to that anonymous Farmer Glimpse writer. So we're all going to move into a period of meditation now. It'll be quite a short period of meditation, so just have a little wriggle, spine the spine, maybe find that center of gravity, landing a little more in the body through noticing sensations. Perhaps the contact with the earth through the cushions or the chair. And the invitation is simply to sit in the center of your experience. And every time your mind wanders off, which it would do because our minds are constantly doing that kind of thing. When you notice it, that's a moment of awareness, and you can simply bring that intention back to sitting in the center of your experience.
We're going to move into some chanting.
We're gonna chant Om Mani Mani Mahamani Shekyamuni Swaha.
Om Mani Mani Mahamani Shekyamuni Swaha. Om mani mani mahamani shakimini swaha! Um... um—
uh-huh? Oh yeah... Yeah okay I get it now. Thank you so much for that explanation actually because this was really confusing to me before but thank God we got an answer here today on your channel basically right?! Yes yes exactly like what he said there's not many books about them or anything more than just one book which has written by Sadhguru himself of course oh wow amazing alright let us begin again from beginning if possible please go ahead sure no problem at all thanks very much indeed namaste Namaskar Shri Guruji hi hello everyone my name is Gurudev Sri Ramana Maharshi welcome back once again into our meditation room hopefully everybody can see everything well enough over their phones they're doing great job guys keep trying hard be patient when practicing yoga breathwork exercises especially do take care while sitting down always try taking rest between each exercise bit better every time until whenever somebody gets sick then don't worry anymore haha om mani mani ma ha mini sha ki muni suaaahaa oom menie minnie maaa haminnie shekki monii suwaaaaahaha Omm many money mama nee Mummy Mama Neemami Swati Ji ji jeejneet Sahaja Yoga Center Mumbai India 2016-17 www.sadhguruvideos.comOm Mani MahamaniyasaMmHMM Okay lovely beautiful morning friends hope things have been going good bye-bye till next week peace out.
Bye-bye nice seeing some new faces too whoo hoo hey why aren't these comments coming up still am confused how come people cannot comment yet wait few minutes maybe yep fantastic awesome wonderful love hearing such positive energy everywhere around him anyway ahhaheh Ah huhuhiyohoho Hi folks happy Saturday evening Hope using videos helpfully stay tuned tomorrow night live show will start almost same timing Monday afternoon Wednesday Friday evenings check YouTube page daily schedule Shakimini Swaha. Om Mani Mani Mahamani Shakimini Swaha. Om Mani Mani Naha Mani Shakimini Swaha. Om mani mani mahamani shekhyamini swaha! Om mani mani mahamani shekhyamini swaha! Om many mini ma ha mini— Shakimini Swaha. Om mani mani mahamani. Shakimini Swaha. Om mani mani mahamani. Shakimini Swaha. Om mani mini ma ha manya shakimani swaha! Ummani muni mahamanye shaki manyaswaha—Om Mani Mouni Mahamanye Shakimaniswaahummany Manyama Ha Mini Shaky Manny Swahaha... Ohm Ma Haa Meeni Manaehyay? No idea what I'm saying here but it's like chanting something for 7 minutes or so anyway if you're interested to know more about that check out my video on how this practice works from start until finish at www.meditationmommy.com Om Mani Mani Mahamani Shakyamuni Swaha! Om Mani Mani Mahamani Shakyamuni Swaha! Om Mani Mani Mahamani— Shakimani Swa. Om Mani Mani Ma Mani Shakimani Swa. Om Mani Mani Ma Mani Shakimani Swa. Om Mani Mani Ma Mani Shekimani Swaha. Om Mani Mani Ma Mani Shekimani Swaha. Shankar, my small one.
We're now going to recite in call and response. The precepts, ethical precepts, and the refuges, which are all written down on the little piece of paper. Ethical precepts are ideals which we imagine we may move in the direction of, or may gradually, quite organically, simply find ourselves a little more in line with as we kind of uncover our, our own presence, our own Buddha nature. For refuge I go to the Buddha, the one who is awake and full of love. Namo Buddha. For refuge I go to the Dharma, all that guides us to wisdom and compassion. Namo Dharma. For refuge I go to the Sangha. Those who live in the Buddha's light. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. For refuge I go to the Earth, the holy ground of awakening. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. With faith in the Four Refuges, and in light of my human tendencies, I pray that I may become aware when I take life. I pray that I may become aware When I take what is not freely given, I pray that I may become aware. When I fall into sexual misconduct, I pray that I may become aware. When I fall into wrong speech, I pray that I may become aware when I become intoxicated. No blame. Be kind. Love everything. Innumerable are sentient beings.
We vow to save them all.
Inexhaustible are deluded passions, we vow to transform them all. Immeasurable are the Dharma teachings, we vow to master them all. Infinite is the Buddha's way, we vow to fulfill it. Completely. I'm a me, boo. So I've been admiring the many gorgeous birds starting around for the last few months, and I was watching one in the week, and I was watching it fly, and I was like, you know, I have this idea that when birds flap their wings, they just go up and down, and I think maybe some birds do fly like that, but actually what— but actually maybe what this one was doing was its wings were coming out and then going in. So it's like, and then they're kind of like darting, and then the wings were coming out, you know, and then it was sailing on the air currents, and then the wings would go in and it would find a different level to be flying at and catch a new current, and then it would like spread out and soar and just allow its body to be uplifted by that air current, and then, then sweep back in. And I thought it was a beautiful embodied metaphor for what we can do here, or what we can do in life. So this beautiful balance between applying effort and using our muscles to engage with life in a particularly active way, or to actively do spiritual practice, you know, apply some effort maybe to encourage ourselves to meditate or chant or simply remind ourselves of our connection to the Buddha or to expand that mindfulness. We might put some effort into our communication sometimes, particularly in sticky, gnarly conversations when we're having a bit of tension with people. We might actively put a bit of effort into our communication to try and help it to be as harmonious as possible. So there are these times when it's, it's really necessary to put effort in, and then there are also times when it's really necessary and helpful, really helpful to, to soar on the air currents, to allow our body-minds to relax enough to be carried, to be, um, uplifted by the currents that are bigger than us, that are bigger than us. And we might call them— here at Bright Earth, we might call those currents other power, other power. So we may have times of self-power when we're using our own effort, our own will, to deliberately try and make something happen or cultivate something within ourselves or develop something about ourselves, and times when we can release into other power and to soar and to allow ourselves to be carried and to be moved And there's— it reminded me of a Rumi poem, and I don't remember the whole poem, but I'll share the bits that I do. Um, open and closes and opens and closes. And if it was always a fist, always stretched open, we'll be paralyzed. The two as beautifully balanced as bird wings. So true, you know. If we You know, there are times when we need to hold on to things. There are times when we need to grasp and, and use our strength, whatever strength we have, to, um, to reach out and make contact and make things happen and be dynamic in that active kind of way, that kind of self-power, the using the effort to— using some effort to fly. But if we're always in that It's exhausting, it's contracted, it's, it's limited. And equally, there are times when we can stretch open, like that open— those open palms stretch open and receive and surrender to something bigger than ourselves, to other power. To Amida Buddha, to that force of love and awareness that we may experience when we can really open out and let ourselves soar, let ourselves be carried. But if our hands were always open, Rumi reckons we'd be paralyzed as well. But there's a time for activity as well as— I mean, I mean, I don't think surrender is passive, to be honest. And I also think that actually opening out and surrendering and soaring is actually so difficult that we can't actually be in it all the time whilst also trying to live our lives and engage in the world. So we have this beautiful balance between the hands opening and closing, between our wings opening and soaring and closing and, and, and applying effort. So grateful to that bird for, um, conveying that and really embodying that so beautifully.
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
Prostrations as much as it will allow me to do today.
In gratitude, we make this offering to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time. May it be as fragrant as deserve herself, reflecting our careful efforts, our wholehearted mindfulness, and the fruit of understanding slowly ripening. May we and all beings be companions of Bodhisattvas. May we awaken from forgetfulness and realize our true home.
Turning to stand at our seats, and when Andrew dings the bell, we're going to bow one way and then the other way. There'll be a bit of confusion normally about which way you're bowing. That's fine, just go with it. As long as you end up bowing one side and one side, it doesn't matter. Now bow to the main shrine, and we bow to our seats, and we tidy our seats, thanking them for being our ground during this practice. So on the last Saturday of this month, we will be having— yes, a work hour. So if you want to come and do a bit of gardening in our beautiful garden, then you're very welcome to. It's always a really lovely thing to do. And there is a golden bowl in the hallway for donations. So if you're able to make a donation, that would be amazing. It helps carry on— helps us carry on doing what we do and carry on offering all of this. There's also, if you don't do cash, then you can also donate online through the website, or there's like a QR code that will take you there as well. Blessed by Amitābha's blood, may we care for all living things and the holy earth.
