Satya Robyn leads a Buddhist newcomer practice session with guided meditation, chanting, and Bodhisattva vows. The group explores other-power reliance through a dharma glimpse about Aretha Franklin and grace, with prostrations and community announcements.
Chapters
Good morning everybody, welcome, special welcome if it's your first.
Welcome to those who's joining us on Zoom. I'm Malcolm. So it's the first time this practice is morning, so I'll talk through a little bit about what we're doing as we go along.
But I can only give some of the meaning of what we're doing because it's a practice we do with our bodies and voices over and over again, and discovering the meaning of what we're doing really becomes possible through doing the thing. So I will point to it a little bit with my words so you don't feel completely lost. But just keep in mind that I can never be saying the whole story, and the bit of the story that I'm saying may not even be right for you at this time. So just hold everything lightly. We always start our practice sessions with a Dharma glimpse, which is written by a member of the community, a little insight, sharing some insight they've had or some experience that, yeah, was meaningful to them. So this morning Dylan has written something. He's not here to read it, so Satya is going to read instead.
Thank you. Yeah, it'd be about 3 AM for Dylan, so we can excuse him for not being here. And this is called Aretha Franklin and Grace. This past Monday was Independence Day in America. Or what one of my Buddhist friends likes to call Interdependence Day. In addition to the holiday, my company also gave us Tuesday and Wednesday off, so I had an extra long weekend to rest and reflect. In theory, anyway. I had grand plans to renew myself through swimming and writing, but between chores and family obligations, I made it all the way to Wednesday without having dipped into the water once and without having written a word other than a few short scribbles in my diary. So on Wednesday, I took myself up to Aquatic Park in San Francisco and swam for half an hour in the bay. The cold water was refreshing and renewing as it always is. I found a friendly vegan restaurant on Union Street where I ate veggies and noodles for lunch. Then I drove north to Stinson Beach to try some body surfing. The waves were low and easy. The people I was meeting were friendly and helpful. And I was thrilled to be able to sort of half catch a few waves. It was enough. It was more than enough. Staring into the bright silver light as the afternoon sun lit up the sea, looking for rideable waves, I felt right at home, blissed out in the embrace of the ocean. I may have even shouted, "Ocean!" as I dove into a wave once. Turning around to face the beach, the dark fog wreathed hills above Stinson's Wear were almost comically gorgeous. Perfect contrast to the shimmering light of the sea behind me. In short, I sought refuge in the sea and found it that day. I relaxed, and the discontented feeling that had been chasing me all week, week evaporated. On the drive home, I listened to some random recommendations queued up by my music app. What came up as I rolled down the broad strip of Van Ness Avenue the wide road built along the 1906 firebreak that saved half the city, was Aretha Franklin's 1972 performance of Amazing Grace at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, Los Angeles. Now, nearly every capitalized word in that last sentence—New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, Amazing Grace—except for Aretha's own name and the word amazing are practically a foreign language to me. These are places I normally don't go, but this uninhibited 10-minute exuberant praise of Grace hit me hard. I realized that my Buddhist practice doesn't include a lot of vocabulary, vocabulary, or songs for exaltation and exuberance, and that is sometimes just the mood you need. When something larger than you, something as big as the universe, catches you up and lifts you into its arms and reminds you that you are part of it, well, sometimes the right response is silent, or sometimes it's tears of joy, and sometimes you just need to shout and sing. I know this. I'm humble enough to acknowledge that I can be small-minded and respond out of conditioned annoyance instead of big mind. I'm grateful that big mind, bodhichitta, shinjin, grace, call it what you will, came to me on Wednesday, carried by some gentle waves off the Pacific and by Aretha's voice. So now I'm wondering, there are songs shouting praise to Jesus. Are there songs like this for Amida? Can we get a nice rocking rhythm section and a choir to back us up? On our joyful Plum Village songs and transform them from happy camp tunes into soaring revival hymns. Are there any good Zen gospel songs? It might take another generation or two, but I am sure they're coming. I hope I get a chance to hear them. To quote another song from the same album, I want to sing, I just want to shout this evening. My soul looks back in wonder how I got over.
Namaste. Now we have some time for sitting quietly in meditation together. Sometimes we make instructions or an invitation, but inspired by Zen Buddhism, often we just sit quietly together, noticing what we notice. And as we bring awareness to our thoughts and feelings and body sensations, the intention is neither to grasp hold of them and, and make them into something more, which is often the way it is. Oh, here's my sore shoulder, and then I think of why it might be there and what it's going to stop me from doing later, and this and that and and this, and then suddenly the bell rings. Instead, the invitation is to simply, oh, here's my sore shoulder, and oh, here's the temptation to start thinking about it. And of course, you get lost in thoughts, but noticing we get lost in thoughts is also a kind of awareness. And as we bring that curiosity, that noticing, to ourselves, often what we find is some space appears, and we discover that there is a pool of silence in the center of all that. Noise. You may notice a little bit of that today. You may, uh, not notice it at all, but I trust that in the long run, sitting in this way creates the conditions for us to become aware of that quiet center. So we'll sit for about 12 minutes. And then we'll move into some chanting, which I will talk about at that point. We're going to move from sitting quietly meditating to a chanting practice. Yesterday, Satya and I published a new page on the website, a list of assumptions that underpin more or less the temple and philosophy here. I thought I'd read the first few of those by way of introducing the chanting. There is a source of infinite love and wisdom that is always present and accepts us just as we are. This love is inside us, outside us, and moves through us. It's not always easy to see. A good life is lived in awareness of this love and guided by this love. One way of seeing this love is of the light of Amida Buddha, whose name means limitless life and light. There's actually a typo, it says life and life. Oops. Good to notice. And this is a representation of Amida Buddha next to me, and also the red figure, sitting figure in the tanka next to the mirror. And it's one way of representing our sense that there is infinite love and wisdom in the universe. So part of the practice of Pure Land Buddhism is saying the name of this Buddha in different ways as a way of invoking, being grateful for, remembering the presence of that force of love and wisdom that's all around us. So we're going to chant Amitābha, which is the Sanskrit name of Amida Buddha. Do join in when you get a sense of the melody.
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.
Ame Satya Robyn.
There are different ways this love appears in the world, this love and wisdom. One is through actual living teachers like the Buddha Shakyamuni. On the main shrine there, who lived 2,500 years ago in India. One is through the words of those teachers, the actual teachings that they give, and the spirit that they live their lives in. Like, they demonstrate the teachings through the way that they move and the things that they do. A third is through the whole community of people who are following those teachings and trying to put them to work in their own lives. And together, these three things are known as the Three Jewels in Buddhism, and they're things that we entrust ourselves to: living teachers, the teacher, and the community. Inspired by the light of this love, the more we dip into it, we find that naturally we tend to follow the ethical guidelines of Buddhism. And then often there is a movement to want to share this sense of peace and groundedness and openness with others. So now we're going to recite some words that reflect these things I've just described. The first, I will ask you to repeat after me, and the Bodhisattva vows are in call and response, and all of the words are on the piece of paper next to you if you want to read as we go along. 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.
For refuge I go to the Dharma.
For refuge I go to the Dharma.
All that guides us to compassion and wisdom.
All that guides us to compassion and wisdom. 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.
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. 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.
With faith in the Three Jewels—
—I pray that I may not fall into wrong speech.
With faith in the Three Jewels—
—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 devoted passion.
We vow to transform them Immeasurable are the Dharma teachings. We vow to master them all. Infinite is the Buddha's way. We vow to follow it completely.
So this— I've been talking a lot already. This is, this is usually the part where one of us gives a little talk. Um, hopefully no one's too tired of my voice. I'll say a few things, a few more things. Um, I was really conscious of my sore shoulder this morning I don't quite know what I did, but about a month ago I pulled something and it's never really recovered since then, partly because it's the same muscle that's involved in using the mouse at my computer and scrolling on Twitter. And I've stopped using this hand on my phone, which I think has helped a little bit, but I can't use a mouse left-handed, so I think I'm just slightly aggravating it. And then this week, At the end of a yoga practice when I should have been warm and limber, I did one stretch and pulled something in my right calf. So this side of my body, I'm really aware of how aching it is this morning. And I hadn't slept very well, and I was conscious that we're doing a first-timer service, and I was really groggy this morning and feeling a bit frail and just Noticing, you know, oh, my body feels a bit worn out. My mind feels a bit worn out today as well, cause I haven't slept for a few days as well as I usually do. And it's hot and I don't do well in the heat. And how lucky I am that I'm also Supported. The earth is underneath me, holding me up. There's air for me to breathe. I'm in a community of people who are supportive, and there is somehow all of that speaks to this force of love that I find in all different areas of my life if I really start to pay attention. And I think I'm particularly aware of that today because it, it's clear that I physically, mentally, maybe even spiritually, I haven't got much capacity for generating that myself. And yet it's still present. We would say the Buddha is still here somehow, whatever that means. I remember reading a while ago an interview with a Zen priest who'd been ordained for years and teaching sitting meditation for years, and he was coming into old age, and he said, actually, my practice is changing the older I get. The more frail my body becomes, the less reliable my mind becomes in meditation practice. And I find that I'm moving from what we call a self-power practice, which is, I guess, crudely characterized as I am sitting here doing something that is going to create some result, into another power practice, trusting that actually there is something carrying me along, which isn't to do with anything I'm I create something positive carrying me along. And I think ultimately, whatever tradition of Buddhism you practice in, if you practice for long enough, you find yourself in a place where you let go of the idea that it's you doing it. Sometimes this is talked about as oneness with the universe, but of course the universe is much bigger than us. And really feeling that sense of interconnectedness and dependence is like discovering— well, I suppose the classic analogy is like that we are the tip of a wave, a little bit of froth, but the ocean is enormous, and we rise and fall and are carried where we need to be by these bigger currents. Uh, in this school of Buddhism, we start from that position. You don't have to practice for years to find that out. There is something carrying us to where we need to be. That doesn't necessarily mean that in our life things are going to get better, although sometimes they do. It doesn't necessarily mean that particular traumas are sent to us because we are supposed to learn from them, although we can always learn from them. It does mean that we are always being guided to realize that we can land in a place of loving kindness regardless of what is happening around us. And that, as I said before we started the chanting, that loving kindness can be described as outside us, inside us, and moving through us.
Namami tobu.
So now all the things we do in the shrine room really are encouraging us to point in that direction, and we're going to finish by making prostrations to the main shrine, which is a way of pointing with our whole bodies, and we We make 3 bows and we go down onto the floor if our bodies are capable of doing that. And we say Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, which is the Japanese way of calling to the Buddha of Infinite Light. So it's a bit, it's like you have to say something, you have to do something with your hands and your body. Don't worry too much. Most of us here know what we're doing. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
to Buddha's and Bodhisattva's direct faith and song. May it be fragrant as air for yourself, reflecting how careful it is to have a wholehearted awareness and the fruit of understanding slowly happening. May we in well-being be in thankfulness for Please return to your places standing.
The last little bit of ritual, so we will bow to one another, first to one side and then the other. Finish by tidying our places and then bowing to our seats. Lots of expressions of gratitude through bowing in Buddhist practice. Or if not gratitude, then respect.
Um, do we want to make any announcements before— yeah, there's a donation bowl in the hallway which we appreciate donations being made to so we can keep this place running.
You're very welcome to join us for a cup of tea if you'd like to.
We have some new dates for kirtans. Angie's leading a couple of kirtans at the end of this month and next, so that will be on the website soon. And that's it, I think.
All right, so we'll finish by reading the closing verse together, which you can find on the top one of the sides of your A5 piece of paper.
Blessed by Amitābha's light, may we care for all living things and the holy earth. Namo Amida Butsu. And then we have an interview.
So I'll stop the recording and say the
