Casper leads a Buddhist practice session for newcomers, including guided meditation, chanting the Nembutsu, reciting the refuges and Five Lay Precepts, and bowing rituals. Kusuma reads a submitted reflection on attachment and memory from a participant named Frankie.
Chapters
Namaste. Welcome everybody, lovely to see you all. No one's joining us on Zoom right now, but somebody might jump drop in, but welcome if you're watching on YouTube later as well, I guess. Yeah, we've got Philip in real life who usually joins on Zoom, and this week I have got the microphone settings correct. On Wednesday night, a couple of people joined and they couldn't hear a word that was happening because I set it up wrong. Anyway, there's no one here today even though I've got it set up perfectly. So we'll begin as we always do by listening to a Dharma glimpse. A Dharma glimpse is something written by a member member of the community that describes a moment of insight or learning or contemplation that sort of arises out of their own life, sometimes connecting it explicitly with a Buddhist teaching, but sometimes just kind of working out the meaning of that for themselves. This week, Frankie has sent one in, and Kusuma has agreed to read.
Thank you.
So I'm just going to pass the mic over.
Frankie has entitled this 'Warning: War and Peace Ahoy,' and we have a subheading of 'Yogurt and Honey: A Spoonful of Memories, Crete, 1983.' Attachment is the source of all suffering. Non-attachment, nikhāma, not clinging, not grasping, etc., is a fundamental of Buddhist teaching and philosophy. It is at the core of the Four Noble Truths, often the first lesson that students of Buddhism are exposed to. It's often taught quite simply at first, involving attachment to physical objects, and then moves to a deeper level: attachment to our likes and dislikes, conditioned thinking, thoughts themselves. In my case above, memory. As an excuse to keep my elderly mind active, I often do online jigsaws. One evening recently, I came across a jigsaw featuring— I'm probably going to say this wrong— Agios Nikolaos in Crete, somewhere I had spent a 2-week holiday back in 1983 with my late ex-husband. We were lucky, I did a very late booking, and when we arrived, we had been given a lovely 2-bedroom— sorry, 2-bed rustic style apartment on the outskirts of town. It was a great holiday. While I completed the jigsaw, I couldn't shake myself free of memories, mixed as they were: the beauty of the town and the surroundings, lovely food and weather, feelings of general love and happiness combined with terrible sadness at how our marriage eventually failed. Wondering what the apartment looked like today, I started what turned out to be an agonizing and obsessive search on the internet. And Google Earth. I could find no trace of it, nothing that resembled it, almost nothing apart from the port that I recognized. Somehow I just couldn't get it out of my head that over 40 years places change, despite my knowing full well from experience that they can change drastically in half that time. I had such a clear picture in my mind of the apartment, the road it was on, the two walks we used in town— into town, one down a winding lane full of olive groves. I clung so steadfastly to those memories that I spent days in a futile search online for anything that proved the permanence of them. Then I was sure that I must still have some actual photos from that time. I had brought some from the UK when we moved, and that became another obsessive search. Which did indeed end in more suffering. A few photos of us in Crete, which only made me sadder than my ex-husband's suffering and all that we had lost. And after everything I've learned as a student of Buddhism, more than 11 years of being immersed in the Four Noble Truths, and still here I was clinging to the things that were impermanent. Not just physical spaces, but memories and narratives distorted by time. It was more than 3 weeks before the pain started to recede. Yes, I clung to that for a little while too. The past can be like a hungry ghost, bloated on useless memories, feeding on the present, stealing it away. I'm happy to still be able to remember, but I need to remind myself to remember with love and acceptance and awareness. That it's in this precious fleeting present that I now reside.
Namaste.
Thank you.
So we're going to go into a period of quiet meditation together. Before we begin, an invitation just to check your posture, maybe just swaying side to side or forwards or backwards and just feeling into the place where your sort of spine floats above your pelvis, upright with a gentle curve. I know if I'm— if my back— if like, if I sit up too straight, then I'm creating a load of tension in my system. If I'm hunched over, I'm more likely to fall asleep. So there's a kind of middle space between both of those that feels open and a bit more relaxed. And then typically in meditation, we give our awareness to one thing, understanding that paying attention to something means we're not engaging in the mind's usual busyness, which slowly allows it to settle down. And in fact, even without paying attention, the act of sitting still in this way already begins that process of easing our thoughts and feelings. And this morning, we'll— I'll invite you to notice your breath, cooler air entering at the tip of the nose, warmer air leaving. Not trying to breathe in any particular way, just noticing how it is moment to moment. And if, when your attention goes elsewhere, just gently noticing it and bringing it back. We, we'll just do this for about 10 minutes. This morning together. We're going to move from silence into chanting a mantra. This mantra is called— or this practice is called the Nembutsu. It's a central practice of Pure Land Buddhists. The word Nembutsu means bringing the Buddha to mind. The Buddha in this case being Amida Buddha, or which is the Japanese name, in Sanskrit Amitābha. When we think of the Buddha, we might think of the living human being who lived and became enlightened and taught for 50 years. In Northern India and Nepal about 2,500 years ago. Amida Buddha, Amitābha, didn't exist in that way. They're not a historical figure. They're a symbolic or mythical figure that points us towards something that is true. And what Amida teaches us, or suggests to us, is that there is a force of loving kindness that is intertwined with everything in the universe. We can find it within our own hearts, but we also— it also exists all around us, if only we're able to notice it. So when we recite the name Amitābha, we're experimenting with the idea that we can be held and supported by that loving kindness. Maybe we've had some experience of that which we remember. Maybe we experience some of it in the chanting. Maybe we're just experimenting with trusting that it might be true because I'm telling you this morning. And with all of these practices, the meditation, the chanting, the bowing, I can sort of say a few words about what they mean or what they're designed to point us towards, but really we only discover that for ourselves by entering in and doing it and noticing, oh, how is this for me? Today it's a kind of continual discovery. The meaning of these practices is a continual discovery, but we trust there's something worth discovering by doing them. So the word we'll recite is Amitābha, and there's a little tune over the course of 4 recitations, so do join in. When you get the sense of it.
Mita, ah, Mita, ah, Mita.
Amitabh.
Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh.
Me ta ba.
Ah, me ta ba. Ah, me ta ba.
Amitabh.
Amitabh. Amitabh. Buddhist practice.
Typically directs our attention in two places. One, to noticing our own human nature, how flawed and fallible we are, how we engage with the world and with other people, how we cause harm. And on the other hand, Buddha nature, the sense that there is the possibility of compassion, of wisdom, of loving kindness, that in this dance of impermanence that the universe is, there is also this loving presence. So in a moment, we'll recite the Buddhist refuges and the lay precepts together, which direct us in both of these directions. The refuges are the things Buddhists express our confidence in— the Buddha, the Dharma, which is the teachings of the Buddha, and the Sangha, the community of people who practice those teachings. And then the Five Lay Precepts, which encourage us to be curious about how we are in the world. They're sort of, uh, they're things that we aim towards rather than strict rules that we beat ourselves up with. And finally, the Bodhisattva Vows, which is the kind of heart's longing to offer this loving kindness to all beings. And these are all variations on traditional forms that go back right through the generations. The words are on the little A5 liturgy sheet that's next to you. The first part I'll ask you to repeat after me, and the Bodhisattva vows will be sung in call and response. So please repeat after me. 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.
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.
Namah Jamaya.
Namah Jamaya.
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.
Namah Sangaya.
Namah Sangaya.
So when we say with faith in the Three Jewels, those three refuges are the three jewels that we're referring to. With faith in the Three Jewels— I pray that I may not take life. With faith in the Three Jewels— I pray that I may not steal. With faith in the Three Jewels— I pray that I may not fall into sexual misconduct.
I pray that I may not fall into sexual misconduct—
With faith in The Three Jewels!
—With Faith In The Three Jewels!
I pray that I may not fall into wrong-speech—
I pray that I may not fall into Wrong Speech!
—with Faith In The Three Jewels! —With Faith In The Three Jewels! I pray that I may avoid intoxication—
I pray That I May Avoid Intoxication!
No blame. No blame. Be kind. Be kind. Love everything.
Love everything. Innumerable are sentient beings.
We vow to save them all.
Inexhaustible are deluded passions.
We vow to transform them all.
Innumerable are the Dharma teachings.
We vow to master them all. Infinite is the Buddha's way. We vow to follow it completely.
So welcome everybody again. I already said that, I'm just repeating myself. Okay, come on Casper, get into gear. Um, yeah, so I'm thinking about ceremony and ritual this morning. We're in a ceremony, in a ritual right now, and of course In an hour there's going to be a huge ceremony in London for the coronation. That ceremony is more or less unchanged for the last few hundred years, so it feels fairly ancient. And that's partly why it fascinates me, because I want to sort of see— to see this thing that's unfolded all this time, sorry, history. But we're also taking part in something that has been done in a very similar way for thousands of years, for a couple of thousand years certainly. And Buddhists all over the world do things slightly differently. As Buddhism moved through India, south into Sri Lanka, Thailand, and so on, and north into Tibet, China, Vietnam, Korea, and then across the sea into Japan, there were little changes. People emphasized meditation or chanting or following the precepts, but the building blocks essentially stayed the same. And if you went into a Buddhist temple anywhere in the world, you'd recognize the feel of what we're doing here, even if some of the detail was different. And when we think of what the Buddha handed down to us, we often think of the words that were handed down, particularly in the West where we enjoy— I mean, I'll speak for myself— where I enjoy using my mind so much. But I think that is a characteristic of much of Western Buddhism, not just Western Buddhism, but trying to work out what the, the earliest example of what the Buddha's words were, all that sort of thing. And that is a really important transmission that has been handed down to us initially from mouth to ear for a few generations, as people memorized things that the Buddha spoke and then put them into writing. But there were other things that were handed down as well, like meditation, like bowing, like making offerings to a shrine, like the water that I poured when I came in to the room first thing this morning, like the practices of lay people that we don't know so much about, uh, in the global north. If you go to, uh, I read a lovely little story recently of a Western Buddhist who ended up at a temple in Sri Lanka, sitting in front of the huge Buddha. And one of the local people came over and said, "Oh, what are you wishing for?" And she said, "Oh, peace in my heart." And he's like, "No, no, no, be more specific. Do you like, I want my son to get good grades." my friends wishing for, you know, so that they can pay their bills for over the next time. And this sort of practice, like, oh, we don't want to hear about that, we're far too refined. But it is what lay people do in Buddhist countries all over the world. I was saying Satya yesterday, one of the things that happens in the coronation is that they carry in a sceptre at the beginning and they take away, take it away at the end. And the reason that it exists is because after, when after the coronation was restored, after the kind of Oliver Cromwell period, Oliver Cromwell melted down a lot of the crown jewels, but they'd kept a list of what they were and this thing was listed, but there was nothing written down as to what you're supposed to do with it or what it means. And, and yet they remade it and they carry it in and they take it out. And in some ways that can seem like, well, why are you doing that? That's really frivolous, doesn't make any sense. Um, and yet if you're the person carrying it in and taking it out, I imagine that you discover a meaning in that activity and, and, and that there will be some meaning not just an intellectual meaning, but some way of meeting the shape and the form and the weight of it that connects you through history and evokes a sense of feeling or, or meaning. And a lot of Buddhist practices are similar. We have lots of texts about meditation and descriptions of chanting and instructions on how to bow. But actually, the, the meaning of them is something that's passed down outside of the words, through the doing of them, through observing somebody bowing and learning to put your body in the same shape as theirs. And there is a transmission of feeling and of heart-to-heart connection and of meaning that can't— that you can discover a little bit of through reading. And in fact, sometimes through reading you can have a very big experience of it, but I think you're missing out if you're not using your body to practice with. One of the things we discover, first of all, of course, we might discover our conditioning that makes us think this is all really strange, and why am I doing this on a Saturday morning? But that there are deeper and deeper layers of meaning, some of them very personal to us. This is how, this is how I make sense of it. This is how it feels for me today to be sitting here. And dropping through those, ultimately coming into something that is more universal, that is about understanding something of the nature of how it is to be human and the nature of the universe and the existence of Buddhas and bodhisattvas. So I guess that's just an invitation to pay attention to your own experience as much as what I'm saying. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. So we are going to stand and do some bowing now, and you can, yeah, just notice how that is. So when we bow, we say the words Namu Amida Butsu, which is another form of Nembutsu, just slightly different words. There's, there's words, there's actions, there's a tune. Don't worry if you don't get it all, but we bring our hands together above our whole bodies. So this The explicit meaning of this is with my whole body, but as I'm, as I'm pointing out, actually you discover the meaning of it by trying out. And then here is like with my speech and my thoughts, and then here with my heart, so with my feelings, and then we'll bow down to the ground. But really I just say those things to get people to sort of try it out. Um, so we'll try it out now.
Namaste.
Make sure you've got some space in front of you.
Face the main shrine together. Namoh Amida. Namoh Amida. Namoh Amida.
Namoh Amida.
Namoh Amida Buddha! Namoh Amitabha Guru! Namo Khenyi Dharma Guru! Namoho Amidita— —Guru! Namah Mitabhudu... Namoh Amida Buddha.
Namoh Amida Buddha.
Namoh Amida Buddha.
In gratitude, we offer this incense to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time. May it be fragrant as Earth herself, reflecting our careful efforts, our wholehearted awareness, and the fruits of understanding slowly ripening. May we and all beings be companions of Buddhas and bodhisattvas. May we awaken from forgetfulness and realize our true home.
So come back to stand in our places. We'll bow to each other, first to one side and then the other, when Satya Robyn sits down. Into the main shrine again, tidy our places and bow to our seats. In a moment we'll finish with the closing verse, which is on the top of one of the sides of the literature sheet. Before we do, just to let you know, we're here every Wednesday and Saturday doing the same thing. You're welcome to stay now and have a cup of tea with us. There's a donation bowl in the hallway, and if anyone wants to help in the garden tomorrow, hopefully it will be drier. We'll be doing some shared work together from 10:30 in the morning. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. So we'll finish with the closing verse. Blessed by Amitābha's light, may we care for all living things and our holy earth. Namomi. Thanks, everybody.
