Morning Practice. Taking care of each other and the world

Welcome everybody, good morning. Welcome to Chris joining on Zoom. Hello, if you're watching on YouTube, uh, later, we're going to begin this morning with a Dharma glimpse, a reflection from Angela. So I'll pass the mic over to you.

Thank you. Thank you, Casper.

Blue bells. I recently walked out of a trustees meeting. My manager parts had conveyed me there, where I was prepared to curl up in an armchair and silently record the minutes, counting the minutes until I could escape to the sanctuary of my duvet. To open the meeting, Casper invited us to arrive by speaking in turn about how we were feeling. I was undone. I could not speak of that honestly. I could not have words but only a flood of tears. I was neither agreeably synchronised with the positive outlook of several fellows in the room, nor honourably afflicted by concern for another. I was sitting with overwhelming sensations of wretchedness, of agony born of the frustration of my bomboo egoistic endeavours to secure happiness. My mother commented that the magnitude of my upset appeared disproportionate to the situation, Examination suggested that beneath the triviality of the ending of a brief relationship sat a thorny problem, an observation that I was repeating the same mistakes, a dawning realization that a paradigm shift was required for me to advance. My grief was fueled by an overwhelming sense of helplessness at how I was to make this happen, given how earnestly I tried. I left the meeting and took a walk on the hill. The bluebells, now dying back, were on show that day. They appear each year in spring. 584 million miles around the sun they travel, as do we, each year, effortlessly. All they must do is respond to environmental circumstances, such as temperature, light, and day length to grow. I've made that trip around the sun 47 times now. Around me as I do so, the seasons turn and display their show, and I do nothing to orchestrate this. Nothing I could do. No thing. No striving contrivance affects the work of the universe. The bluebell doesn't even think to contrive, so why do I? And that led me to this thought: if I follow my nature, I should be moved to the pivot point, and all I need do is rest there, and then the paradigm will shift without striving. If I place myself before the Buddha, the universal forces will turn, just as the Earth orbits the Sun and the seasons change. Conditions will arise where I will simply grow into who I am.

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

Thank you.

So we'll move into a period of meditation and then into chanting. We'll chant the name Amitabha, the name of the Buddha of light, infinite light and life. Who stands for the presence of compassion and wisdom that's available in every moment. There are lots of different ways of meditating, but the way I was taught— and so you mentioned resting— is to rest, simply rest with what is present. So noticing what's here, feelings, sensations, thoughts, noticing where the mind goes without getting caught up in things and without pushing things away. Ah, here's a thought about this. Okay, I don't need to tell a story about it. I don't need to get involved or make a big fantasy, and maybe I do, but I catch myself and step back to just noticing. And sometimes it can be helpful to have a positive focus for attention. So, invitation to notice the breath entering and leaving the body at the tip of your nose. Noticing the breath, noticing whatever arises without getting involved, without pushing it away. Amitabha.

Me.

Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Years ago, more than 20 years ago, when I was still living with my parents, um, and learning to meditate, I found a website that supported meditators. And the idea was, if you log on, it suggested that somebody else in the world somewhere would be logged on and you could both meditate together at the same time. And after a while, an animation and the noise of a fly started on the website. Very irritating to start with. And it said, oh, you should be able to include, you know, this in your meditation as well. A squeaking door isn't a fly, but here we are. Um, can you find peace these conditions. So we'll now recite the refuges and precepts, which you can find on the liturgy sheet, but 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 Buddhaia. For refuge I go to the Dharma.

For refuge I go to Dharma.

All that guides us to wisdom and compassion.

All that guides us to wisdom and compassion.

Namo Dhammaya.

Namo Dhammaya.

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.

For refuge I go to the Earth.

The holy ground of awakening.

The holy ground of awakening.

Namobhumyay.

Namobhumyay.

With faith in the Four Refuges.

With faith in the Four Refuges.

And awareness of my human tendencies.

And awareness of my human tendencies.

I pray that I may become aware— —of when I take life. Of when I take life.

I pray that I may become aware—

—of when I take what is not freely given. Of when I take what is not freely given. I pray that I may become aware— —of when I fall into sexual misconduct. Of when I fall into sexual misconduct— —I pray that I may become aware of it. Of when I fall into wrong speech... ...I pray that I may become aware of it! When I've become intoxicated... No blame? Be kind. Be kind. Love everything. Love everything.

Innumerable are sentient beings.

We vow to save them all.

Immeasurable are the Dharma teachings.

We vow to master them all.

What's the next one? That's it. Immensurable.

No, no, start again.

I'll do that again.

Innumerable are sentient beings, we bow to save them all. Inexhaustible 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. There is a tradition in some Buddhist schools of understanding that whatever the Buddha did, even when he changed his mind later or sort of seemed to do things that were very human, that that was also also just a demonstration for the sake of teaching others, which is, um, you know, there's some truth in that, right? We can always learn from what anybody does. Everybody is always a Buddha, and to see them in that way reveals something about the nature of reality. And everybody is also human, makes mistakes, and both of those things are true. They're both useful windows to look through. A few days ago I went into the bathroom in the library and there was a huge dry puddle of piss on the floor. That's how I'm opening my Dharma Talk today. And yeah, well, it used to be a puddle. Yeah, and someone said, and I, you know, I cleaned it and I've cleaned the whole bathroom, and somebody said, well, who would have done such a thing? And I thought, well, probably someone that doesn't know that they did it, actually. Um, somebody who was unaware. It made me think of, um, and I know what it's like to be unaware. I'm always leaving cupboard doors open and putting things back in the wrong place or not putting things away. I work really hard to get better on that, and there's been a little bit of improvement, but still, Satya walks through the flat closing cupboards. She doesn't know how many cupboards I've closed compared to the ones I used to. She just sees the ones that are still open, right? But I know how easy— for me, it's my mind's thinking about the next thing, and 20-plus years of meditating have slowed it down somewhat. So I encourage you to imagine what it was like a long time ago. There's an old Zen story that begins, as they always do, with a disciple and a master talking, and they're visiting the house of another Buddhist master. Then the disciple is sort of beginning to think that they're enlightened as well, and they're chatting inside the house, and the master says, "Well, when we came in, which side of the door did you leave the umbrella on?" And the disciple goes, 'Oh, I haven't got a clue.' And the master's like, 'Okay, so there's still room for improvement.' I don't think that— I hope that remembering where you put everything is not a sign of enlightenment, but it does point to one of the fundamental Buddhist teachings, not just of awareness, but awareness because we want to care for the world, because we want to care for the other beings around us. Because actually, when we're really feeling compassionate, we don't want somebody else to have to come through the flat and close all the cupboard doors and put the squash back on the shelf. And we don't want somebody else to have to clean the bathroom after we've made a mess in it. If we're Japanese or Chinese, we want to be able to smoothly take the umbrella like we're performing ballet, you know, and put it above the master's head. It's why we recite the precepts. They invite us to become aware of the impact that we're having on other people in the world. And as human beings, we, we always have an impact. And I'm not sure that in one lifetime it's possible to get to a place where we're never having any negative impact on anybody else or on the environment, but it is possible to practice reducing harm. That's an act of generosity for the people we live with, for the people around us, for the world itself. It's possible to push too far in that direction, of course, and try to change ourselves into something that we're not ready for, to be keeping an extra eye on ourselves all the time, to be hard on ourselves when we slip up, to really effort our way through practice. And going to that extreme is a mistake. Fundamentally, our practice, as Anja said earlier, is trusting in the unfolding of practice, that when we put ourselves in these conditions, when we put ourselves in the shrine room, when we do meditation, when we say the name of the Buddhas, we're bringing ourselves into relationship with something that has an effect on us. This almost out-of-sight process, so that we look back one day and go, oh, I am different to the person that I used to be. So I'm inviting you to both trust that unconscious process, to have faith in practice and faith in the Buddha and the teachings of the Buddha, and also to be conscious as well, to be mindful of the impact that we have on others. To notice where we fall short of the precepts and just adjust a little bit here and a little bit there to practice generosity, to practice restraint. The Buddha once had a disciple— a whole family became ordained, and the son was a musician. And he was super keen to get enlightened, this young man. Walking meditation was one of the main practices that he did, and he would mindfully walk through the jungle and mindfully walk through the jungle over and over again, focusing the mind. And eventually someone came up to the Buddha and says, you should have a word with, um, I think his name was Sona. You should have a word with Sona because his His feet are cut to ribbons from all the walking meditation that he's been doing. So the Buddha sat him down, had a chat, and he said, 'You're a musician. It's like when you tune a stringed instrument. You don't want the string too tight, the note will be high. You don't want it too loose, the note will be flat.' You're aiming for just right. It's the same in your Buddhist practice. Can you find this balance? So it's the same for us. Can we find the balance between keeping an eye on ourselves, keeping the precepts, noticing the effects we have on others And on the other hand, just trusting the process and that entering into the stream of the Dharma means that eventually one day in a future lifetime we will all become Buddhas. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. We'll now stand for frustrations.

Alas, people busily engaged in secular matters Take no notice of life wearing away day by day, night by night. Like a lamp in the wind, how long can it last? In the six realms of va-samsara, there is no fixed abode. Until we are emancipated from the seas of affliction, how can we rest in peace? While still young, And strong, let us each hear the Dharma. Let us strive and diligently seek the path to eternity.

Announcements before the closing verse. Tomorrow evening, Ravana is leading the monthly sacred singing and chanting session from 7:30. Here in the shrine room, which includes Buddhist chants as well as chants and songs from other spiritual traditions. If you're not on the WhatsApp group or the Google group and you'd like to go on, do let me or Satya know and we can get you added. Please leave a donation for the— you know, I talked about the importance of generosity. It's one way practicing generosity. And there's always something to do, you know, the temple is like the fourth bridge. We were joking yesterday, you get to one end of repairing it and then something's fallen off the other end. There's a bowl in the hallway, or there's a QR code if you want to make a donation online.

If you're not on WhatsApp, you might know that I set a challenge to see if anyone would write either one Dharma Gems or three Dharma Gems by the end of the summer. So if you're up for that, then let me know. Thanks to those who already said they are, especially if you haven't remembered before.

And please join us for a cup of tea after practice. 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 the holy earth. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.