Satya Robyn leads a guided Buddhist practice with readings from John Blofeld about Kuan Yin, group chanting, and loving-kindness meditation. The session includes reflections on the trikaya teaching with stories from Uchiyama Roshi and Norman Fisher, and a transfer of merit for someone on life support.
Chapters
Lovely to see you all. Hi to everyone joining soon, anyone watching on YouTube later. We're going to begin with a reading from John Blofeld's book about Konyon. Just to give some context, this book was written in the 1970s, and the stories that John Blofeld his telling from his travels in China will be from even earlier than that. Thanks, Charlie. All right.
Often during a journey in South China, having halted at a townlet about an hour before sunset and arranged for a night's lodging at an inn, if I strolled beside the river or along the seashore, or come to some pleasant spot in the outskirts where stood a temple to Kuan Yin, Set amid clumps of trees or near the top of some rocky crag would be a gateway where, suspended beneath the curving eaves, would hang a lacquered board inscribed in gold calligraphy with characters bearing some allusion to her name. Beyond would lie a courtyard so narrow in some cases as to be called a sky well, and then a fantastically roofed temple with walls of grey brick and doors of lacquered wood. The first time this happened, the temple proved to be scarcely more than a shrine room about the size of the chapel in some modest old Catholic house in England, or smaller. The goddess was represented by a crumbling plaster statue from which the colours had long faded. A clumsily built table, doored with flaking scarlet lacquer, did duty as an altar. The place, though redolent of poverty, had an air of being much frequented. I had barely had time to take in the ancient beams, the faded calligraphic inscriptions, tattered banners, and coarse china furnishings on the altar when I heard the sound of many footsteps in the courtyard. Not wishing to be in the way, I would have left had not the caretaker, an old man clad in shabby trousers of black cotton and a single singlet gray with long use, given me an understanding smile and gestured for me to stay. A group of boat women came hurrying in dressed in pajama suits of cheap black cloth. Some had broad-brimmed bamboo hats strapped to their backs while others carried their babies there comfortably seated in cocoons of crimson cloth tied to their mothers' jackets, legs wide apart and dangling. Glancing somewhat askance at the tall foreign devil from the western ocean, they sank to their knees and kowtowed 3 times with a grace I had not expected from people of such coarse appearance. Coarse is perhaps too strong a word to be apt for Chinese peasants, but they certainly looked like people who led hard lives. Soon they rose from their knees except for one young girl in an advanced state of pregnancy who remained with her face to the floor cushion. Lighting incense sticks and candles taken from a table near the door, they chanted a brief and far from tuneful melody, then repeated their kowtows and hurried away led by the pregnant girl. The whole performance took perhaps 3 or 4 minutes. What was that about? I asked the caretaker in my still rudimentary Chinese, though I scarcely needed to be told. The young one has happiness in her, did you not see? The others are her relatives. They came to pray that the child will be a boy. She will surely get a son, I said smiling. Huan Yin is kind. I see. And that must be the mother—
that—
and what must the mother do to earn Kuan Yin's favor?
Do?
When her son is born, she will come to give thanks. It was simple as that. Later, a Chinese friend explained that it was not customary for suppliants to bargain with the goddess. No need for the mother to promise to be good or undertake that her son would requite the favor in any way. Kuan Yin, being compassionate, would naturally be happy to grant such a wish. But suppose the girl has a daughter, I insisted, then the girl baby will be destined to a singularly fortunate existence. The goddess would not deny so harmless a request without good reason.
Kun shimbo sat. Thank you, Jharmay. So we'll move into a period of meditation, an invitation to notice Where there's a place of loving kindness in or around your body, may just be the size of a droplet. And to rest your awareness on that place. Some people notice it as a light, a color. Some people may have a felt sense. Some people might notice the temperature— there's a certain warmth there. And as you rest your awareness on that place, however large or small the loving kindness is, naturally it will tend to grow as your awareness rests there. Don't force it to change, just notice as with time it begins to expand, slowly fill the whole body. Maybe it doesn't go everywhere in your body, that's fine. We're not here to force anything. If it feels impossible today, trusting that even though there's clouds In your mind right now, the loving kindness of Amitābha is still flowing towards you. Almost always we can notice a drop somewhere in or around our bodies. If there's any places that do feel blocked. Without needing them to be any different, we can join those places up to the places where loving kindness dwells, almost as if we're saying, yes, you're here, I see you, and look, this other energy is also here as well.
Na kwan chin bo sat. Na kwan chin bo sat. Na kwan chin bo sat. Namah Shivaya. Namah Shivaya. Namah Shivaya. Namoh Shivam Gosat. Namoh Shivam Gosat. Namoh Shivam Gosat. Namah Shivaya. Namah Shivaya. Namah Shivaya. Namah Kwan Shin Bosat. Namah Kwan Shin Bosat. Namah Kwan Shin Bosat. Namah Kwan Chi Ingo Sat. Namah Kwan Chi Ingo Sat. Namah Kwan Chi Ingo Sat. Namah Wanshi Inbosaat! Naamoh Wan Shi Inbo Saat—Nam Oh Quan Chi Ngo Sat. Nah Mohhwan Shee Imboo Saaattt? Noo Moowwuan Shii Ind Booo Saat... Namah Shivaya.
Satya Robyn.
Namah Shivaya. Satya Robyn. Namah Shivaya. Namah Wanshi Ingo Sa!
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. Namo Dhamma. Namo Dhamma. 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 Sangha. Namo Sangha. For refuge I go to the Earth. For refuge I go to the Earth. The holy ground of awakening. The holy ground of awakening. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. With faith in the Four Refuges. With faith in the Four Refuges. And in light of my human tendencies. And in light of my human tendencies. I pray that I may become aware. 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— I pray that I may become aware of when I fall into wrong speech. I pray that I may become aware of when I become intoxicated. 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 follow it completely.
Mamita bhai, thanks everybody. Thanks, Jyamai, for that reading. It's a really good book. Maybe we'll do a book group on it. I would recommend it. A few days ago I was listening to a talk by Norman Fisher, the American Zen teacher. He was, um, I think he was a guest speaker at Green Gulch. Anyway, he'd been given an advanced copy of a new book by Uchiyama Roshi, new book in English. Uchiyama Roshi died quite a few years ago now. And it was— the book was— is about— which is coming out in the autumn, it's about Uchihama Roshi's relationship with Kwan Im. Uchihama Roshi as Japanese Zen master who was really straight down the line Zen and quite modernist, you know, just Tsar Zen. So in some ways quite a surprise for people to discover this devotional practice that he's had that's been very meaningful. To him. And in the book, Uchihama Roshi talks about after the Second World War, when it was really difficult to find work in Japan, ending up, um, working in the forests where they would cut wood for the charcoal burners, which is how Japanese people heated their homes at the time, with little charcoal burners inside. And in the winter, this was awful, you know, sort of getting frostbite and just really difficult physical conditions to work in. Not much money around. And he, he'd always resisted, uh, his— apparently Uchima's father had really— I think, well, there was some Pure Land Buddhism in the family, and he, he really didn't like it. He didn't like the Pure Land temple up the road where he'd grown up. He'd really, um, but he'd been immersed in those images. And particularly his mum had had a Kuan Yin shrine that she'd been very devoted to. And even though he thought all of that was nonsense, in that worst, one of those worst moments in his life when he was hungry and tired and freezing and seriously considering whether he could actually go on if things didn't change. What he found is that he started doing, reciting the name in Japanese, Kanseron. Kanseron Bosatsu, Kanseron Bosatsu, Namu Kanseron Bosatsu. And over the years developed this relationship with Kansiani. He, he says for him reciting the name is the same as zazen, does the same thing. So Norman Fisher is kind of riffing on, on this, and he tells the story of a, a friend of his who's been meditating for 30 years and, and never quite like struggling, struggling to feel good in meditation, struggling to think that he's got the hang of it. And, and he says, one day this friend comes to me after 30 years of practice and says, I finally got it, I've got the meditation, I, I know I'm doing that, something like that. And Norman Fisher says, oh, what's the secret? And this guy says, now when I'm breathing I say, please help me, please help me, please help me. And Norman Fisher said, I said to him, that's great, who are you speaking to? And this guy sort of looked flummoxed, like he, that question had never occurred to him. He was just asking for help through meditating, and help arrived. I guess that, that was the something about asking for help transformed his practice. And then in this talk I was watching, Norman Fisher says, and it doesn't matter because, uh, Kwan Shin, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, God, all these things are the same. The place we connect with, with satsang, we're just asking for help and something compassionate responds, and we don't really know what it is, and it's all the same. And there's, there's something to that view, but I think there's a loss in that as well. In my experience, when I call out to Kuan Yin, or when I have a sense of Kuan Yin's presence, that's a different quality. Appears to when I have a sense of Amida's presence, or Manjushri, or Medicine Buddha. They're all vastly compassionate, they're all immeasurably wise, and yet they each have this slightly different quality. To them. So I wanted to revisit briefly the trikaya nature teaching from Mahayana Buddhism, which says that the Buddha has three bodies— trikaya. Any Buddha, any awakened being has three bodies: the body that takes action, which is to say the physical body in this world, That's at one end of the spectrum. And then there's the, like, ineffable body, which is ultimate truth, ultimate reality, which is sort of unknowable by the human mind. It can't be contained in its boundlessness. And in between, there's what's called the dream body, sambhogakaya, or the bliss body, which is the way that Buddhas and bodhisattvas appear to us in ways that we can understand. When Kwan Yin comes in a dream, or when you have a feeling of the presence of a Buddha as you're making prostrations— this is the bliss body of the Buddha. Almost as if enlightenment itself sends forth these different beings, Buddhas, bodhisattvas, holy ones that will speak to us of slightly different things at different times. So the compassion of Kuan Yin for me is, is one that really meets me where I am and feels very personal and like I can really connect with quite a human level of being cared for when I'm practicing with Kwan Yin. Like there is the care of a close parent with me if I'm working through something difficult and I call on Kwan Yin, I have that sense of close support. If I call on Amitābha Buddha, I often have this sense of vastness and spaciousness and that how big the earth is and how big the sky is and how unending the spirit of enlightenment is. Manjushri, famous for the sword that cuts through ignorance. People call on that bodhisattva when they want clear seeing, when they want to, rather than unraveling some knot, just cut it clean through. And I think to many Western Buddhists, there is something that feels uncomfortable about this. It feels a bit too religious, a bit too strange, a bit too shamanistic, a bit too woo woo. And yet, apart from in the modern— apart from modernism in the West, every culture through history in the world has a sense of helping beings that are available, that, that come with this energy. As John Blofeld said, Kwan Yin comes, you don't have to bargain for anything. She just offers and offers and offers compassion. Now really, of course, I'm trying to convince Norman Fisher, who isn't here, but it seemed like a nice way of inviting some curiosity about, well, how can we in our personal practice have a relationship with these different helping beings? You know, go away and learn about the different Buddhas and bodhisattvas and And notice how they begin to appear to support you. Namaste. Now, like the boat women in that cave from decades ago, we make our own frustrations.
Amo, amo.
Gratitude we make this offering to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time. May it be as fragrant as earth herself, reflecting our careful efforts, our wholehearted mindfulness, and the fruit 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. Before we close practice, I want to transfer merit to Nick, uh, a son of one of Elaine's friends who's having his life support turned off today. So we transfer this morning the merit from this morning's practice, but also knowing that Amida's vast source of merit is available to everyone everywhere, and particularly praying that suffering beings can be received by that. Namami to Guru. And, um, A reminder that it's kirtan tomorrow evening. You're welcome to come to the temple and join in an evening of sacred singing and chanting. Anything else? That's all the announcements. Great, so we'll close practice. Look, I've been away for a while. Let's inspire Amitabha's light, may we care for all living beings and the holy earth. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
