Inspired by Faith

Good, so I wanted to talk about faith, obviously, this morning, and some of the things that I'm going to say will be familiar to some of you because they're things that I've been thinking about and talking about a little bit already, so apologies for that. But it's always— I find it helpful to hear things again sometimes anyway, and I'm sure something fresh will come out. So some of my own thoughts here, but also a lot of things that I've picked up that Dharma Vijja's been writing about recently as well. So the first question that came to me when I thought about inspired by faith is what faith in what really? Because we can have faith in lots of different things, in other people, in ourselves, that the sun's going to rise. And for. But we're talking about faith in this tradition, we talk about faith in Amida and faith in the Pure Land. And there's two words in Japanese that speak to different felt experiences of faith. Shinko, which means So this is why I should have got my piece of paper. Shinko and jinko are the two words, and I can't remember exactly— ko is the character for light, and suddenly I can't remember whether shin in this case refers to heart or refers to truth. But the shinko experience is the experience of trusting and maybe even sometimes having a sort of felt sense in your awareness that Amida's light is for everybody. So it's the vastness of the Buddha, or we could even talk about the Pure Land maybe in this category, because that's the sort of container that everybody ultimately is reborn into. It's that sense of, sometimes quite an astounding sense to me when I really tune into it and think, "Yes, that person getting, you know, is Amida really shining his light on that person as well? But they've really irritated me today." So, and that's quite You know, that's actually quite a powerful thing to remember sometimes. So this is the sense of vastness that the Buddha has, and when you read the Mahayana sutras, they talk about, you know, the enormous size of the Pure Land and how many kalpas high the Buddha is when he manifests there, and being surrounded by Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in some of the samadhis. It's a real sense, I guess there's two things, isn't there? One is that sometimes we're gifted, or we come into contact with people who've been gifted with that experience of feeling, "Oh wow, I really feel like I'm in touch with the Pure Lands, and I can see that here in samsara everything is litter." by Ameera's light. That's a little bit maybe like William Blake talking about seeing the world in a grain of sand. But let's just say that was a call and response moment, not me forgetting. Thanks, Satya. Yeah, seeing the world in a grain of sand, and also, you know, when you see some of the beautiful sunrises we've had this week, it's quite quite easy to sort of intuit. If you sort of find yourself having a sort of moment of bliss at seeing the sun rising in the way in the past couple of days, and we've had that really hard frost, and you know, I think I mentioned some people going into my office the other day and it just being flooded with this amazing sort of peach-colored light. That can bring on a certain sort of sense of of bliss. And we can intuit from that something about Amida's light. That's why we use the word light, because it's got that sort of quality to it, that it lights everything up. And when the sunlight has that quality, everything, for me anyway, everything looks a bit more special. And I don't know if you've noticed, in the summer, my experience is, in the summer, when it's a nice summer, people look more beautiful as well. And I don't know, I don't think that there's any physical change. I think it's partly the quality of light and partly that, you know, maybe more people are on holiday. But, um, again, there's something about that sort of experience of the light softening people, and not just me but everybody, that is, uh, that's the sort of— if I've got them the right way around without looking at my piece of paper, that's the shinko experience that speaks to understanding that everybody is loved by Amida in exactly— I was going to say in exactly the same way, which is true in this sense that I'm talking about, but maybe we can switch into talking about jinko, which is the sense, the real personal sense of relationship with the Buddha. Again, this might be something that you experience once or twice in your spiritual life as a real felt sense of the Buddha being close, or it might be something that you hear others talking about and you just trust that it is something that's present. But it's sort of closely associated with awakening, a faith, I suppose, in Shinjin, that Amida is he's saving me. And there's a bit of a paradox sometimes in how these are presented. Yes, he's saving everybody, but in that experience of coming into contact with the Buddha, there's a sense that all the energy is coming into relationship with me as well, which logically they don't make sense, but sometimes in the felt experience of spiritual life, that's how it appears. So this is the, the real person experience. Experience of being saved. And if on the one hand we talk about Amida loving everybody in the same way, we can also say that he loves each of us in a way that suits us the best, which may not be the same as the love that our neighbor receives, because karmically we're very different. In the way that you might love all of your children, all of your sangha equally, but that manifests in quite different ways because of the different personalities and the relationships So this is a real personal experience. It's in one of the liturgies, or in a ceremony, I'm sure I've heard a line sort of talking about the voice of Amida whispering in your ear in that almost sort of secret way, the name that's already been given to you. And this is that real close sense of faith. And just speaking personally for a moment, for a long time in Pure Land Buddhism, the kind of faith that I related most to was the first sense, that sort of experience of vastness. And I was able to get some sense of it in nature, but also in my own spiritual practice as well. I rarely moved into the second form. And my experience of Amida was— I've used this image that I'm about to use, I'm aware that I've used in some sort of circle, but I don't know what conversation it was in. But I used to have a sense of Amida as being like a lighthouse. That was the personal sense. So quite distant, but inspiring and guiding and calling me forward. And if you think of the parable of the white path, it almost like in that experience to me, the path is very long. So Amida's right at the end calling me forward, but there's a considerable distance to be walked. So that was the— I struggled to get any closer than that. But once or twice, in different circumstances, there was a sense of closeness. Once, a few years ago in London, I went into a church and in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary, actually suddenly had a real felt sense of something sacred being very close, and that felt very personal, and that was quite overwhelming. And alongside that experience of faith, of being loved, there was also a sense of loss or regret, which to me spoke about that distance between the lighthouse and myself. And I guess in that sense of loss or regret, the beginnings of some self-awareness that it was me that had created that distance, actually, which I used to think was to do with education, was to do with sort of learning that faith wasn't something of the intellect, and I used to be very proud of my intellect. I mean, I still suffer from pride, but that's a different story. But now looking back, I wonder if there's also a cultural element to it, that in the circles that I was moving, it was unacceptable to have faith. It was unfashionable to have faith. And even moving into Pure Land Buddhism and spending some years practicing as a Pure Land Buddhist, whilst I could connect with that sort of sense of infinity or have some idea of it, to have the sort of personal kind of faith felt a bit weird still. I remember reading an account of a Shinshu priest in Europe who talked about having a sense of Shinran being present with him on a car journey and just sharing what was going on and sort of getting some feedback from Shinran about his spiritual practice. And I really had a sort of ambivalent feeling when I read that. On the one hand, I was a bit jealous about it, because there was something quite nice about it, but on the other hand, there was all this sort of prickliness, "Oh, that's a bit of a strange thing to be doing," or "That's not— you've just made that up, it doesn't fit with—" whatever. But in that moment of loss, when I did feel the closeness, it told me that there was part of me that was missing that experience. But more recently I've started to tune in, or been gifted through grace, a sense of closeness to the Buddha. And in the dining room you'll see that Wendy comes on her Friday morning sometimes, has painted a lamp for us with a phrase from Shantideva's The Bodhisattva's Way of Life on it. And I guess now, instead of being a lighthouse over there, it's like actually, not that I always have the felt sense of this, but I've got more faith or trust that the Buddha is also holding a lamp just here. To illuminate something very personal, and that there's such a closeness and softness to that. And with that, when I remember that, a real sense of solace and that sort of being relieved that there is, there is someone manifesting a in a realm that isn't the physical realm that I can make contact with, that is able to hold me in the way that a parent holds a child. Perhaps it's this Japanese phrase, oyasama, uh, mommy daddy, that's sometimes used for Amida. And it is that, I guess, trying to get at that sense of unconditional love, like what everything doesn't matter what you've done wrong or how unskillful you've been, you can still relax into this, uh, trust that there is something that will hold you. So that's, uh, that's the sort of shinko, jinko, jinko. I'll let you know afterwards once I've looked Yeah, we don't need to worry about the Japanese words. And I'm sure there's lots of other experiences of faith as well, but those are two that I wanted to highlight particularly this morning. The second thing I wanted to reflect on was this thing that we've heard about before and that Dominic just talked about before, is because the topic is inspired by faith, and you talked about action already this morning. This understanding that we have that as our faith increases, or in the moments when we've got more faith, which often we don't know about actually until we notice our actions, it becomes easier to follow the precepts, and naturally good behavior manifests. And actually, how we work with the precepts in this tradition is not so much as a 'I'm going to mold myself to 'fit them and see what happens,' because often when we do that, a load of resentment comes up. Even when we've chose to do it ourselves, we sort of rebel against the fact that we've created this structure for ourself. Whereas the closer, or the more often we remember, or the closer we get to Amida Buddha, or as our faith deepens, actually good behavior tends to follow naturally from that. Partly just because we're less afraid. A lot of the reason we don't follow the precepts is because there's bits of us that are afraid or insecure. And what faith in the Buddha does is it speaks to the sort of existential insecurity. Often the more— well, you know, the great thing about the precepts is as we do tend to follow them more naturally, actually lots of things start working out in our lives. We receive things from the world because that's a sort of, that's built into the universe somehow. So that's a really wonderful gift, but it's not guaranteed, and we've got lots of karma, and we don't, you know, we trust that when we put good into the world, it stays in the world, but we don't know where it's going to manifest or when it's going to manifest. So think, even as our faith grows, there's plenty of things There are things that still go wrong and trip us up, people let us down, and so on. But what faith in the Buddha does, it sort of speaks to something that says, even when worldly things let you down, you'll still be loved, you'll still be okay, you'll still be held. And that sort of existential sense of security, right at the very bottom, allows you to start acting in good ways. It frees you up from a particular sort of worry that can get in the way. And so there's that. But there's also this idea that Dhammaji wrote about yesterday, which is that we can also take part in that dynamic ourselves. You know, as you said earlier, yes, we're a vehicle for something, but there is also something, some actions that we take. And he was writing about this in the context of making a vow and saying actually making a vow, being inspired to make a vow that's a dharmic vow, so to say, that sort of has some selflessness in it to save all beings, or to bring people closer to the light. If we're able to take some actions in the directions of keeping that vow, we'll be supported by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. So it becomes a joint enterprise, if you like, a task that we share, that we're supported. As our faith grows, it becomes easier to act, but maybe there's also some choices we can make to do some small things or larger things that support that vow ourselves. Now of course, this is a mystical process and you can talk about it in lots of different ways. This is one way of thinking about it that some people find helpful. You can also take that step back further if you want to and say, "Yes, but when I'm inspired to act in ways that support my vow, that inspiration comes from Amida." But we often, on a day-to-day basis, we experience ourselves making choices, so sometimes it's helpful to think about how we join in with the dance of the Buddhas. I think one of the words that Dharmavijja's been using recently is 'li', which is a Taoist or Confucian word that means ritual, and it's about performing the right steps in the dance, I suppose. And we do that in the shrine room, but we can also do it in our lives. When a situation appears in the universe, it's possible to dance in a better or a worse way in response to that. You know, we can make a kind response, or we can make a selfish response. Sometimes it's sort of out of our power what happens in that moment. But as our faith grows in both of those ways that we talked about at the beginning, it becomes slightly easier to make a better choice. So as well as there being a sort of natural uprising of choices, which is like that experience where you look back and go, "Oh yeah, I behaved a bit differently there, even though I had these thoughts," or whatever. Sometimes we do think, "Oh, actually I'm going to make a choice to behave differently." today. That's our experience of it sometimes. Whether it is a choice or not is a topic for another talk, I think. So this is about thinking about how we respond, and maybe even the idea that when we're in that personal relationship with the Buddha, and he's very close, manifesting very close to us, he or she sees us and the situation we're in, and maybe also has some sense of what a good response for us to make would be. And maybe we can sort of start to tune into, rather than simply, "What can I get from the Buddha?" "What can I offer to the Buddha in this moment?" "What is the— what's the Buddha's pet?" What does the Buddha hope for this situation that's been presented to me? Can I make my act an offering to the Buddha and to the universe in this moment? And in the— Dhammavijja said in his piece of writing yesterday, in the sutras it says that what Buddhas do is make offerings to other Buddhas. And the more our faith grows, the easier it is to to do that. But I have a sense that these, if we're thinking about our own actions and the support of the Buddha, that these are two things that support each other. So to recycle an image that I used on Tuesday evening, apologies Lexi, the image that came to me was of one of those old hoops that you see Victorian children playing with where they have a stick stick and a hoop. And you can think of faith as being set in the hoop at the top of the hill, and then sort of naturally it starts to head downwards. That's the sort of unconscious faith. That's the— it's not a perfect image, but it turns under its own steam. And maybe the impulse to make offerings in the world, the impulse to to respond to the world in particular ways. It's like using the stick just to keep it going. So we can see perhaps that the downhill maybe is a little bit more powerful, but also begin to appreciate that moment to moment, maybe there is, to switch metaphors, there's a space that I can step into. There's a step in the dance that the Buddha is encouraging me to take. And I guess the final thing to say about that is that the Buddha loves us and will still be there for us to lean back into and relax into, and will still light up the world in exactly the same way, regardless of whether we step into that space or not. But stepping into that space is still a good thing. To do, if we can do it. It supports the Buddha's project. So, those are my— I guess that sort of covers my opening remarks really, thinking about these two aspects of faith, the really universal sense of everybody being saved and the whole world being lit up, and then also the deeply personal sense. Thinking about how both of those experiences support us and inspire us to behave in different ways, sometimes without us even noticing it, you know. We'll often look back and think, "Oh, was that what I was doing a year ago?" Because it changes us, it works on us like water slowly rubbing away at a stone until all the edges have become smooth. But also that occasionally we find ourselves with the experience of having a choice and that we can think, "Oh, I wonder if I can make an offering here that will support the Buddhas and support the universe." And I guess what, just to finish with that image of the wheel and both supporting each other, often when we act with faith, it takes us slightly outside of our comfort zone. But of course, if we go outside of our comfort zone and have the experience of the Buddha being there as well, that deepens our faith. Potentially, that's one way that our faith can become deeper. So the act of acting, of deciding, "Oh, I'm gonna take that, I'm gonna dance a bit differently today, even though it feels a bit edgy," 'Even though all the lights are up, I'm going to do my crazy dance moves.' That takes us out of our comfort zone. Regardless of whether it fails or succeeds, if we keep one eye on the Buddha, can deepen our faith, which sort of allows the wheel to keep turning of its own accord again. And, you know, it reminds us that the Buddha is present in a way that we can forget sometimes, particularly if we're just repeating the same hundred and things over and over again. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.