Doing Good - How Can We Get Better at Keeping Precepts?

Welcome, welcome to Klati and Leo. Joining us online. So this evening we will begin by reading the Statement of Faith together, and if you would like to read along, I should be able to find it online. I'm on it. So I'll just put it in the chat. So this is just slightly tweaked from the last time we read it out loud. Satya Robyn. Title and ring bell. Statement of faith. The purpose of our practice is to open us to the wisdom and compassion of the Buddhas. Our heart practice is the Nembutsu, the recitation of Amida Buddha's name. We also connect with the Buddha's wisdom through practices like listening to teachings, meditation, and being in the natural world. We treasure Shakyamuni Buddha, who set the wheel of 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 Honen and Shinran. Held in Amida's loving gaze, we come to know ourselves deeply, both our bambu nature and our Buddha nature. As bambu 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 at the center of each of us is the heart that loves all living beings and that 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 for 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 Buddha's teachings. Moved by the Buddha's love, we vow to take care of all living beings. Including ourselves. Held tenderly by the Buddha's love, we find clarity, consolation, and settled faith.

Om Amide Wari. Om Amide Wari.

Om Amide Wari.

Om Amidev Ah Hri. Om Amidev Ah Hri. Om Amidev Ah Hri. Om Amidevaram. Om Amidevaram. Om Amidevaram. Om Ami De Wa Rii. Om Ami De Wa Rii. Om Ami De Wa Rii. Om Namite Wah Bree. Om Namite Wah Bree. Om Namite Wah Bree. Om Amidevare. Om Amidevare. Om Amidevare. Om Nami Deva Sri. Om Nami Deva Sri. Om Nami Deva Sri. Om Ami Te Wari. Om Ami Te Wari. Om Ami Te Wari. Om Mani Padme Hum.

For refuge I go to the Buddha.

For refuge I go to the Buddha.

The one who is awake and full of love.

Woman who is awake and full of love.

Namo Buddha.

Namo Buddha.

For refuge I go to the Dharma.

For refuge I go to the Dharma.

All that guides us to wisdom and compassion.

All that guides us to wisdom and compassion.

Namo Dharma.

Namo Dharma.

For refuge I go to the Sangha.

For refuge I go to the Sangha.

Those who live in the Buddha's light.

Those who live in the Buddha's light.

Namo Sanghaya. For refuge I go to the Earth, the holy ground of awakening. Namo Buddhaya. 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 of 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 of when I become intoxicated. No blame. Be kind. Love everything.

We vow to save them all. We vow to transform them all. We vow to master them all. We vow to fulfill it completely.

So at about 5 o'clock today, I took the dogs, uh, into the cemetery just behind our house for a walk. Um, Iko's well enough now to do 2 walks a day, one little bit shorter. So we just kind of had a poop around the cemetery, and it's really beautiful at the moment. The back of the cemetery is where there's more of the older graves, and it's just all, um, primroses and wild— those pale yellow ones. Um, and I like to kind of— I'm gradually getting to know the gravestones. There's a lot in there. I like to see who's there and what the little quotes are. And on one of the gravestones were 7 words that really struck me, um, and I'll tell you what they are after the next bit of the talk.

Teaser.

Um, because they spoke to the quotes that I chose for this evening's reading, and I opened this Essential Shinran And this was the first little section I read and thought, yep, that's the one. So this is Shinran kind of explaining terms, and it's called Amida 7. Amida Buddha is the light of wisdom. This light is called Buddha of unhindered light. The reason for the expression unhindered light is that it is not obstructed or impeded by the minds of karmic evil and blind passions of all sentient beings of the ten quarters. In order to clarify and to bring us to know that the light of Amida surpasses conceptual understanding, the expression 'I take refuge in the Tathāgata of unhindered light filling the ten quarters' is used. When we constantly hold in mind and say the name of the Buddha of Unhindered Light, since it embodies the virtues of all the Buddhas of the Ten Quarters, in saying the name of Amida, all the virtues and roots of good come to fullness in us. I really like two parts of this quote. The first is this idea that unhindered light is not obstructed or impeded by the minds of karmic evil and blind passions of all sentient beings. And it's kind of interesting that, that Shenran says that particularly that it's not hindered by that, because maybe we might think it was. And also that because when we say the name of Amida, it kind of embodies all the Buddhas, that the, uh, all the virtues and roots of good come to fullness in us. Um, and the, the quote is also talking about light as wisdom, that, that there is something about this light that, that penetrates, that, that travels through everything and that lights everything up. And that I imagine it lighting everything up inside us, including the kind of the dark, tangled places, the self-protection, the layers of self-protection. It goes through them gently and with, you know, with, uh, without intrusion, and it lights up, um, places of suffering or places of trauma. Um, just a really lovely image. So the words I saw on the gravestone, and they were on the gravestone of Edith McDowell who died in the 1930s: In thy light shall we see light. I thought it was really beautiful. In thy light shall we see light. Um, and it felt like it, it kind of illuminated something of the quote, that in God's light, in the light of God, we will see light. And that my, my experience of this quote— other people might have different experiences— that somehow that light is just exuded like Amida. This light just comes out of the Buddha. It's just like a natural, like the sun, it just sort of emerges. It's not like the Buddha is like, oh, I'm gonna shine some light on fee, or I'm gonna get into that nook and cranny, just comes out. Amida isn't trying to do anything. But when we encounter that light, when we step into that light, when we open our hearts to that light, we see light. And I like to think that it's not just the light of God that we see, it's not just the light of Amida, it's the light of Fi and the light of Caspar and Banu and Alison and Leo, Clatty, my light and my dog's light and the light of the primroses, the light of the daffodils, that it allows us to see something that's always been there but that we haven't been opening our eyes to. And that's the nature of light, is that it allows us to see not just the light, but it allows us to see And enlightened beings give that off. And hopefully, if we're lucky, if we call on Amida, that we do receive that light in a way that wakens it up in us and we glow a little too. Maybe just a gentle glow. That we can see when we turn the lights out, but it's the same light. And maybe other people experience that light in us sometimes, and that points them back to the light that is everywhere. So I sometimes talk about dharma as being infectious, as something infectious about the light. And, um, coming across that quote this evening on the grave just out the back of our house feels like it's another little, little beam of light that just kind of lit me up. Hopefully I'll light you up a little bit too in that moment.

By night, how long can it last? In the six realms of vast samsara, there is no fixed abode. Until we are emancipated from the seed of affliction, how can we rest in peace? You cannot be afraid. While we still have strength, we must reach nirvana.

Oh, I'm doing a talk on Fast Day, quarter to 11, which will be on Zoom as well, about the precepts. I think probably everyone knows everything else, don't they? And I will come back and say hello if you're still there on Zoom after I leave now. Blessed by Amma's harvest light, may we care for all living things.

Amma.

Recording's gone missing. Maybe I'm not recording it. I can't do it myself. Thanks, Fanny.