Bodhi Day Practice (dharma talk)

Chris, I know you want to watch practice later because you weren't here this morning. I'm really sorry I didn't press the button at the start, so you've missed Matt's beautiful Dharma glimpse. Read Satya Robyn's You've missed some silence and you've missed some anicāvakaṃkhaṇa and some kūpakkhaṇa. So I'll do my dharma talk about mistakes. We've been anticipating this day for a little while, and there are lots of different layers forming up for about this day. There is of course the connection with the Buddha that in our tradition, in our experience, this is the big day of the calendar, the Buddhist calendar. So there's something about it, it's a bit like Christmas.

Casper said last night, "I don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep, it's like the night before Christmas." Yeah, there you go. And at Christmas we, for better or worse, get together with our family. And that's what we're doing today as well. We're, we're getting together with the people that practice here. Some new faces, which is always lovely, and some people we haven't seen for a while, which is always very lovely. And so there's something about that kind of knowing that we're making a space for people to come and have, uh, hopefully a good day sets off all kinds of parts in me. Um, have we done this? How's that looking? What about this? During practice earlier, I was thinking, have we got enough milk? Or have we, will we have enough food? And there's some planning and some preparation, but really the way that life is, is however much you plan and prepare, things happen. I forget to press record at the start of the practice. Kema drops one of her favorite mugs in the porch on the way in and makes a dent in it. That's, uh, that dukkha happens. That's the first noble truth. We can't avoid suffering.

We can't avoid dukkha.

It just, it just is a part of life. And the other word that's been really with me this morning is the word fresh. I was thinking about how listening to the glimpse this morning, although I've read it before a couple of times, there was something that really felt fresh again in those, in those moments of, of Matt encountering the flinch of the snail. And that's still fresh for him many years after that little encounter. And then I think again about the Buddha touching the earth And it strikes me in a fresh way because enlightenment is alive. Enlightenment needs to be alive. We can't just say the words that people have said for hundreds and thousands of years, like by rote or by without any, um, if we, if we, if we If we just follow the form, it becomes fossilized, it becomes dead. So if we really want to be inspired by the Buddha, we need to find a fresh way of encountering Buddhism. We need to find a way that's meaningful for us. We need to open our ears and our eyes and our hearts to all the teachings that we're, we're so lucky to have and to encounter them in a fresh way. In our book groups, we're all reading the same chapters week after week, and people say completely different things about them. Some people hate them, some people love them, sometimes the very same bits. And that's the joy of it. It's like, let's bring it alive. Let's bring it all alive. And that's what I would really like today to be about. It doesn't matter if we run out of milk, as Casper would say, we can go and get some milk.

We aren't going to run out. We are going to run out of milk.

We have actually got plenty of milk. But if there are any other disasters, might run out of chocolate, who knows. If there are any other disasters, we will deal with them and it will be okay. And we can be creative and we can be connected and we can get to know each other and we can look after each other and we can enjoy ourselves.

That is my hope for today.

And of course, even my hope is another form of planning. So really, I just hand it over to the Buddha and I trust that the Buddha knows best. The Buddha's in charge of this boat today, not me. Namomiti. So this is going to be challenging. We'll need to find a little bit of ground in front of us to do some frustrations.

So do—

some of you might need to just come sort of backwards. Um, and if you haven't done this before, just copy everybody else.

We dedicate the merits of the May this incense offering to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time. May it be prayed by Geshe-la herself, reflecting our careful efforts, our wholehearted awareness, and the fruit of understanding slowly ripening. May we all and all beings be companions of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

May we awaken to mindfulness and we realize our true home. So do return to your seats, bow down at your seats. So now we will bow to each other. Beautifully done. Namaste, Buddha. Satsang. We'll find our seats and bow to our seats. Then we finish with the closing verse, which is on the bit of paper. If you don't know it, do unmute if you'd like.

Blessed by Amitabha's light, may we care for all living things.

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. So the people that can make tea, please go and make tea for the people that are new.

And we will gather again here at 11 in the shrine room.

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

And if you want to come and say hello to Sejatan and Claire, then