Satya Robyn leads a Buddhist meditation group practice. One participant shares a lifelong fear of deep water and how she's learning to sit with it. The session includes guided meditation, chanting, prostrations, and refuge recitations.
Chapters
practice with.
This one is about facing your fears and it's called Getting to Know My Nemesis. A colleague of mine once said that everybody was entitled to one big phobia in their lives. So my husband Steve is petrified of snakes, and my phobia is deep waters. I can't swim, not properly anyway, and I'm absolutely terrified of drowning. My parents say this has actually nothing to do with water as such, but with a severe respiratory illness that I had as a child, one that I could have died of had I not been brought to the hospital on time. So my brain manifested a fear of suffocating as a fear of drowning. I forced myself into a swimming school in my 20s to face it, and they did teach me the basics, but in a way made my fear even worse. When all my friends went on holiday to the seaside, I'd hide away mountain biking. I do appreciate the irony of the universe in that I moved from landlocked mainland to live on an island. I used to get chilled when flying over the Channel on a plane. However, once moving here I made it my task to get to know the sea. My relationship with it was complex. I admired its power and vital role in pretty much all life and the ecosystem of our planet, and it also is just so gorgeously beautiful. But I was still petrified. So I traveled to various beaches around the country, from highly cultivated to the remote places in Wales, the little gaps in the cliffs you can only get to low tide. And with certain climbing skills. I went to the edge of the water, making deep breaths, and looked at the sea. I listened to it. I learned about the tides and to anticipate the weather changes. It eventually culminated with me ending up in Aberystwyth during one nasty storm in 2020, just before the first lockdown, with 90-mile-an-hour gales and waves all over the promenade. What I realize now, being by the sea again— well, not at the moment, but when I wrote this in Pembrokeshire— is that our phobia should not be a nemesis. It is in fact an opportunity to learn. Why do we fear what we fear? Can we mitigate it, turn it around? Can the irrational part be tuned down with more knowledge of the subject? Like, for example, I never head out to wild beach walks without checking tide times. In the end of the day, fear is what we bring with us. It is inside us and not out there in the spin of the fear. I often meditate upon my fear and learn that there is a part of me that gets more and more fascinated with its subject, almost as if a part of me used to deny a whole raft of experience because of it. Even though I still can't swim. Namaste.
Namaste. Thank you.
We'll sit quietly together for a while now. Birds aren't shouting quite so loudly as they were on Wednesday night. As you sit in the silence, Maybe just allow whatever is with you to be with you. You can notice what's there physically, emotionally, and just give it a nod of recognition. Say hello, achy knee. Hello, sadness. Hello, thoughts about dinner. And just let them go on their way. Whatever arises, just meet it in that neutral way and let it pass by. You might find yourself becoming more peaceful. If you do, just enjoy the peace. And if thoughts and feelings and sensations keep coming up, just keep, keep meeting them one by one. And then after some time, we will begin chanting together. We will chant Amitabha, which is the Buddha of infinite light. So as soon as you roughly get the tune, do join in with us.
Amitabha, Amitabha, Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh.
Now we'll recite some words together which are on your bits of paper, but most of them 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 Buddhaya. For refuge I go to the Dharma.
For refuge I go to the Dharma.
All that points us to wisdom and compassion. All that points us to wisdom and compassion. Namo Dharmaya.
Namo Dharmaya.
For refuge I go to the Sangha.
For refuge I go to the Sangha.
All who live in the Buddha's light.
All who live in Buddha's light.
Namo Dharmasangaya. 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! Be kind! Love everything!
Innumerable are sentient beings.
We vow to save them all.
Exhaustible 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.
Namaste. So what are we doing here? We'll all have different reasons for being here today, but I would propose that one of the things that we are learning to do here in the shrine room, in the temple garden, on the hills later is float. So hopefully this will be an okay metaphor for you, Maria. If it becomes too much, just— I was thinking about swimming and, and, and water, and I was thinking about how we can swim in different ways, or we can be in the water in different ways. And the easy metaphor is the kind of thrashing around when we are afraid that we are going to sink. And I think many of us would recognize that kind of activity that is driven by a kind of a compulsion. Or fear, that we're desperately trying to get something, we're desperately trying to push something away, we're desperately trying to not think about something. And that in those activities that result from that, maybe compulsive shopping or zoning out or, or, you know, drinking too much, whatever it is, ironically, we think further, but it gets us into trouble and it causes other problems. But then I was also thinking about swimming, about using the water to swim well, and how certainly for me, um, being occupied with doing and achieving and ticking things off lists and organizing and being seen by the world as productive and useful and admired by the world is almost another form of avoidance. Well, it is another form of avoidance, because the problem with swimming, even if we're swimming really well is that we can't keep swimming. It's not a sustainable way of being in the water. So that what we are learning to do is find a way of coming into relationship with a sacred presence and trusting that No idea if I'm saying anything that Casper's going to say because I don't know what he's going to say. Hopefully there won't be too much overlap. And that when we can trust, which is what the refuges ask us to do, the refuges that we recited, that we take refuge in— I didn't get all the words right because we've just rewritten them— but we take refuge in the Buddha, the one who is awake and full of love. We lean into an awakened being, someone who is perfectly wise and compassionate, and we take refuge in the teachings of the Buddha, all that guides us to love. And we take refuge in the community of people who try to follow the teachings of the Buddha, or Jesus, or Rumi, or any great teacher. What, what taking refuge means is learning to float, is learning to trust that if we stop thrashing around, or if we stop our beautiful crawl, or whatever it is that's getting us really far and giving us all kinds of stuff, that we can just be held. We can just be held. And we can bob around a bit and look at the sky and rest our weary body. And everything just begins to relax a little bit. And we're human beings, so before long we'll need to swim somewhere again, or we might get panicky and thrash around again. But as we come back to this shrine room again and again, we get better at remembering that the Buddha is always there, ready to hold us. All we need to do is stop thrashing around. All we need to do is stop swimming and just pause and allow that little moment of fear when we're not sure if we're going to be caught or not, and then just rest into the water. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. So we will now get up and do prostrations towards the Buddha. Do, do as much or as little as your body is willing for you to do. You can just stand and bow if that's easier. And as we bow, we will chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
Namaste. We invite to you here for this instance to put us in bodhisattva space and time. May it be as fragrant as earth itself, reflecting our careful efforts, our wholehearted awareness, and the fruits of understanding so enlightened. May we all beings be companions of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. May we awaken from forgetfulness, realize our true nature.
So if you'd like to return, stand at your seats. And we always finish practice by first of all bowing to each other. So I will start by bowing to the Rinpoche, and then you can work that yourself. And then the other side. And then we bow to the main shrine, and we tidy our seats and bow to our seats. Didn't quite lean into the water. And then we finish with the closing verse, which is on your bit of paper. Starts blessed, so do unmute and read it with us. Blessed by Amitābha's light, may we care for all living things and the holy earth. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. So we've got 15 minutes to have a cup of tea and then back into here for half 10 if you're staying. The money, the bowl for money is on the hallway, in the hallway. Toilet sits at the top of the stairs. Namaste. Namaste.
