A Buddhist practice session explores pain and suffering through body-based inquiry and guided meditation. Speakers lead recitations, mantras like Nam Myoho Tsoo and Om Mani Padme Hum, and a Dharma talk about slowing down. The group also covers volunteer gardening and an evening kirtan.
Chapters
So let's start with practice.
Statement of faith.
Our practice is to open us to the wisdom and compassion of the Buddhas.
Our heart practice is the Nam Myoho Tsoo.
The recitation of Amida Buddha Sutra. We also connect with the Buddha's wisdom through practices like listening to teachings, meditation, and connecting with the natural world. We treasure Shakyamuni Buddha, who set the wheel of the Dharma turning. We learn from Buddhist teachers throughout the ages.
Awakened beings everywhere and the world itself. We especially revere the great Pure Land sages Kūryūnen and Shinran. Held in Amida's loving gaze, we come to know ourselves deeply, both our worldly nature and our Buddha nature. As worldly beings, We grasp at unreliable refuges and sometimes we cause harm.
Knowing the harm we cause offers us the chance to lessen that harm.
Seeing our fallible nature also strengthens our refuge in Amida Buddha. The more deeply we take refuge in Amida, the more our greed, ill will, and delusion will melt like ice into water, allowing our natural compassion to flow into the world. We trust that the center of each of us is the heart that loves all living beings and wishes for their liberation. We take action powered by this love in response to suffering in the world.
We pay attention to the causes of suffering.
We mitigate the power. We practice discerning what work is ours to do. We wish that all who may benefit are able to access the jewels of the Buddhist teachings. Moved by the Buddha's love, we vow to take care of all living things, including ourselves. I was tenderly guided by the Buddha's love.
We find clarity, consolation, and settled faith. Taking a moment to notice the floor beneath us, the cushions, our supportiveness. Sound out.
Sounds closer.
Sounds further away.
Nai tam tu sound.
Sip sip sip at the center of your experience. In a moment, we're going to move into some chanting, and I'm going to chant the mantra Om Ananda Hridayam. Om Ananda Hridayam. Feel your muscles heavy down as you lift your Om Mani Deva Sri.
Om Mani Deva Sri. Om Mani Deva Sri. Oh, Mami, jump, hurry! Oh, Mami, there, there, there! Oh, Mami, there, there, there! Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Devi Om Mani Devi Oh my dear Wari! Oh my dear Wari! Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Oh, there are— Oh, there are— Oh, there are— Oh! Oh my dear Wariyee! Oh my dear Wariyee! Oh my dear Wariyee! Om Mani Deva Om Mani Deva, free me. Om Mani Deva. Oh, Mami, hey, why? Oh, Mami, hey, what? Breathe. Oh, Mami, hey, what? Oh, man.
We're going to recite the Refugees and Precepts, which are written down on the little piece of tissue, close to the Mahalantra. No, they're not call and response, they're the opposite of call and response actually. They're I say it and you say it again. The only bit which is call and response is Bodhisattva Gatha. For refuge I go to the Buddha.
For refuge I go to the Buddha.
The one who is awake and full of love.
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 Dhamma. For refuge I go to the Sangha. Those who live in the Buddha's light.
Namo Sangha.
For refuge I go to the Earth, the holy ground of awakening. Namo Gomyai. With faith in the Four Refuges, and in light of my human tendencies, I pray that I may become aware of when I take life. I pray that I may become aware of 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 of when I fall into wrong speech. I pray that I may become aware When I become intoxicated. No blame. Be kind. Love everything. We vow to save the We vow to transform them all. We vow to master them all. We ran too far, but it completely— No need to be. So a friend of mine who isn't in the best of health said to me something, and I thought, well, that's, that's, that's really quite wise. I thought, oh, I'm going to make a Dharma, little Dharma talk out of that. So he said, you know, I wake up and I think everything hurts. And then I have a look, like a really detailed look, I don't know, internally, and I discovered, oh, it's actually this specific bit that hurts and that bit that hurts and this bit over here, but actually the rest doesn't hurt. And I was like, wow. That's— there's some teaching there, you know, because there's probably more than two, but there's like— there's another way that of responding that could have happened. In that he really, you know, when he woke up and he thought everything hurts, he could have got in this dialogue and this story about like, oh, it's going to be a shit day because everything hurts. I mean, this has just set me up for a bad day, and, and it's never going to get any better, and it's all downhill from here. And you know, I'm getting old, and more things will just carry on breaking. Never going to have, you know, nothing, no joy. You know, I'm just clearly going to have a bad day. And then he would have gone into his day with that, and then things would have happened because he would have been in this really grumpy mood, and he would have had tensions with people. And then he would have been like, see, I knew it, I knew it, it's going to be a bad day, it's only going to get worse, you know. And it goes on, and then he would have more pain because he was adding all this other layers. To pay stress and attention, all that, to his experience. But he didn't do that. He didn't do that. He actually inquired. He inquired deeply into his soma, into his embodied experience, to pinpoint precisely where the pain was. And that meant that he didn't get caught up in all their story and all the judgments and all the negativity. And it also meant that because he, he slowed down enough to notice what was happening. And then to me, oh, this doesn't hurt, this bit hurts. His nervous system, and actually his whole system, had been doing this tracking of actually what was going on, and it would be coming back into a more regulated state because of that slowing down and from acquiring and from witnessing. To. And then you probably felt less pain than if you'd been caught up in the tension and the story that we all can get caught up in sometimes. And obviously that can be applied to lots of different scenarios, you know, like we have How many times when we've been in a relationship with somebody and then it comes to a difficult end, and then we're like, I, I knew them, but really they're just this horrible person. And you know, all these good things we saw in them just disappeared. And then, you know, over time, sometimes We come back into a more balanced view of them. We go, oh, actually, yeah, those good qualities are there, and there are also some shadow sides that we, you know, that we, we encountered, some difficult sides as well. For some people, that doesn't happen, and you just see them more and more clearly as the incredibly difficult person that they are. But either way, there's that kind of inquiry that stops things being a blanket and actually becomes a bit more precise. Or like, you know, we start our morning and like something goes wrong, like, you know, like we knock over tea or the computer crashes just as we're about to start before the meeting, or, you know, got a puncture, or any of these things And then we could do both things. We could be like, right, that set the tone for the day, I'm gonna have a shit day now, you know, and let that, you know, dominate the rest of our day. Or we can be like, oh, that experience was difficult, and oh, in this moment there's something else And I think, you know, it's quite freeing. It's quite freeing. And I do think sometimes the weight of the judgments and the stories and stuff like that, it's heavy. Sometimes it's really hard not to get sucked up into them, and we're all going to get sucked up into them sometimes. And sometimes they're there to be listened to as well. Sometimes they're communicating to us. About previous times when we've been hurt, or we've got caught up in shame, or that kind of thing. And if we follow that, that deep level of inquiry, then we can bring a bit of love to those past times. A lot of times we just get caught up in the story, we rumble along, and that's how it is. And then sometimes maybe we do manage to be like, okay, that That bit hurts, and that bit doesn't hurt. Well, I thought it was a really nice example of the power of slowing down and inquiring and noticing. Sangha, we're going to stand up and we're going to do some prostrations whilst chanting. So these prostrations are like a physical expression of like surrendering to something that's bigger than ourselves. And doing that in embodied movement and embodied practice. And you can talk, or you can join in, or you can do whatever your body is comfortable doing today.
Alas, people busily engaged in secular matters take no notice of life wearing away day by day, night by night. Like a laughing wind, how long can it last? In the six realms of fasts on sorrow. There is no fixed abode until we are emancipated from the sea of affliction. How can we rest in peace? Should we not be afraid? While we still have strength, let us each hear the Dharma. Let us strive and diligently seek the path to return.
And when bell dings, we're gonna bow in one direction, be a little bit confusing. Now we tidy our seats and we bow to our seats following— no, we don't, thank you very much, Boo. We bow to the main shrine. Now we bow to our seats, thanking them for supporting us. Announcements. So we have on Saturday at 11 to 12, we've got volunteer hour. That'd be nice, getting out in the garden, um, spring. Join the Daffodils doing a little bit around there, and that'll be after practice. So be the normal practice, 9:30 to 10:30, and then a tea break until 11, and then an hour we go. And then on Sunday evening, kirtan and sacred chanting. So that's chanting and singing short, simple devotional songs from a variety of different traditions, so Buddhist, Sufi, Bhakti yogis, so Hindu traditions, and Celtic ones. That's always a really beautiful evening, so that's 7:30 until 9. I think that's it for announcements, so we'll close with the closing words. Bless my Amitābha's light. May we care for all living things. Hey, Kleti, I will come back and hang out with you in a moment.
