Practice 27th May

Welcome to everybody inside the shrine room, and welcome to our busy virtual shrine room this morning. Louise, Claire, Matt, and Ian, everyone's waving from here. They're not actually Wave to the people. Everyone's waving now. You can't see them, but they are waving. And we will begin this morning's practice with a Dharma glimpse by Sharon, and Philip is going to read it for us. Over to you, Philip.

Thank you.

Today my dog Poppy and I did our usual walk, and I was thinking what I could share of my recent experiences to put into this Dharma glimpse. As I was pondering this, a set of two legs and two wheels came running past us sniffing flowers. It was an elderly Labrador who had still had use of his front legs but not his back. His owner spoke to me and said they'd got him his wheels. So he could still get out and about. I have heard people say that it's not fair to keep a disabled dog, and at this point it would be better to put it down to end its life. This made me think, were the owners being selfish, refusing to accept the impermanence of even those we love? I thought around this, but in the end I decided that I didn't think so. I think they were recognizing that even when suffering ill health and age, their friend was still a sentient being, as we know from Buddhism, and he could still have some quality of life if only using wheels. He didn't seem to be in pain, was happily sniffing and trotting along. If with the odd bash into a tree. Life is impermanent and involves suffering. We can, however, value the simple joys that we have and appreciate our life in this minute right now. It may be that at some point the choices will be harder, but for now, let's smell the flowers using legs or wheels if we need them. Namaste.

Thank you, Philip. Thank you, Sharon. Okay, so we will be sitting quietly together for a little while now. And, um, when the doors open and it's so beautiful outside, I always enjoy, um, some listening meditation. Just allowing the sounds that are around you to be present, trying not to grasp onto them or follow them, but just allowing them to kind of wash through you. The sounds of the birds, the rustling of people in the room, the traffic coming past. Hopefully if you're on Zoom, you might have a little bit of birdsong of your own, but if not, listen to whatever you can hear. And as the sounds come and go, just allow your body to settle, your thoughts to settle, your feelings to settle. When you get distracted, just come back to listening. And then after a while of silence, we will chant together. Do join in as soon as you get the hang of whatever it is we're going to chant, which I haven't decided yet. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Namah Shivaya! Om Mani Padme Humri. Om Mani Padme Humri. Om Mani Padme Humri. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Humri! Om Mani Padme Hungry! Om Mane Pa Me Hongreee... Ohm Malepa Mehungrie? Oma le pa me hungreem— Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om mani padme hum kri om naye padme hum kri om naye padme hum kri om mané padmé houm gri Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mane Padme Humri. Om Mane Padme Humri. Om Mane Padme Humri. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Oh, my name is Parmeet. Oh, my name is Parmeet. Oh, my name is Parmeet.

So we'll now recite the refuges, vows, and precepts together, which are on the A5 liturgy sheet. 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 Buddhaya.

Namo Buddhaya.

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 Dharmaya.

Namo Dharmaya.

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.

Namo Sanghaya.

With faith in the Three Jewels.

With faith in the Three Jewels.

I pray that I may not take life.

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— —that I might avoid wrong-speech—

I pray that I may avoid 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. No blame. Be kind. Be kind. Love everything.

Love everything.

Innumerable are sentient beings. We vow 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 fulfill Kambeet lee.

Namaste, Mooji. So I'm sorry, as always, Zooming people, that you didn't get to join us in the temple garden this morning. Because it was a cracker. We've been away for a week, Caspar and I have been in Shropshire, and during that week the flowers have all just come out. And there's the row of irises along the wall, there's various— what you call them— alliums, those alliums that have got all the bells that kind of hang off them. There is geraniums and the peonies are all budding and getting ready to, to burst. And the most amazing poppy, which I hope you all saw. If you don't, you must go down into the garden again after practice. I think I've— what was it I sent you down to have another look at? I can't remember. The irises. Yeah, Philip's been sent down to see the irises after practice. And smell the orange blossoms, the little white flowers in the big moundy hedge. You must smell the orange blossoms. This poppy, I think we planted, I think we bought it and planted it maybe in the first couple of years of being here, I can't remember, but every year it comes back and it's just stunning. It's got huge deep kind of scarlet ruffled petals and massive black fuzzy stamen, and yeah, it's really amazing. So that was something I really just wanted to share with you. And the other thing that I wanted to share was that as we were walking around the corner towards the poppy, past the hedge that's made of— not very good at remembering plant names— the Laural. Thank you, Kasplater. There were loads of bees there, and the thought I had as I walked past the buzzing bees was, they're buzzing the Nembutsu. And the Nembutsu is at the heart of our offering here in Bright Earth, in the temple, in the Bright Earth community. Nembutsu is very simply making a connection with Amitābha Buddha, who is the Buddha of infinite light, and knowing that— well, coming to know that we are accepted just as we are. And if you don't know anything else about what we do here, that's enough. We connect with the Buddha and we are acceptable just as we are. And the Nembutsu is saying the name of the Buddha. It's saying, 'Namo— I call out to— Amida-bu— Amida Buddha.' And in a minute we will do prostrations chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, chanting the Nembutsu. And we can say the Nembutsu, and we can also hear the Nembutsu, and we can hear the Nembutsu If our ears are like clicked into the right frequency, we can hear the Nembutsu everywhere. We can hear it in the bees buzzing in the laurel. We can hear it in the birdsong. We can hear it in the suffering of other people and our own suffering. We can see it in the candle flame on the shrine. The Nembutsu is always available, and we talk quite a lot about saying it as Pure Land Buddhists, but the original texts talk about hearing it. That we, in order to hear it, we mostly, we say it and then we hear it having said it. But we can also see the Nembutsu as being ever-present and always reaching out to us in all sorts of different ways. And the proof, you could say the proof of the pudding, is that we are all here this morning rather than lying on the grass in the sunshine, which hopefully some of you will do later. So we will now move into prostrations and Louise, you won't know what we're doing now and you won't be able to see very well, so if you just want to chant along. We still need to do that video of frustrations, I'll make a note afterwards, but everybody else will just stand up in a minute and point towards the main shrine and find a bit of floor in front of you and copy what we're doing.

Namoh Amita. Namoh Amita. Namoh Amita.

We dedicate the merits of this incense offering to all Buddhas and ladies and Satyabhāvas throughout space and time.

May it be fragrant as Earth herself, reflecting our careful efforts, our wholehearted awareness, and the fruit of understanding slowly ripening. May we and all beings be companions No need to be.

So if you'd like to come to stand back at your seat. So we finish by bowing first to one side and then the other. So I will bow to Casper to start with, and Philip will bow to Sam. So the rest of you work out amongst yourselves. It is hard when there's an odd number. And then we bow to the Buddha on the main shrine. Tidy our seats and bow to our seats. So announcements. This Wednesday evening we have a change from our usual Wednesday practice, which is a talk from Enrique from, uh, Jojo Shinshu. He's a Jojo Shinshu priest, and he's just come back from travels in Japan, and he's going to share about his pilgrimage and talk about Shinran. It'll be really lovely. So that's 7:30 this Wednesday. I think we'll hopefully— we'll Zoom it, folks, but I'll confirm with him. Then this Saturday coming, not today, next week, we have in the morning we'll have some stuff, dharma talks, something or other, and then we'll have a lunch hopefully in the garden, and then my friend Jane, who is an oncology whiz, will be leading a bio blitz, so we're going to be investigating all the plants and creepy crawlies in the temple garden. So if you just want to come to that, you can come at 2 o'clock, or just join us, join us for lunch. And then the Saturday after that, the 8th of June, I think-ish, is a mindful maintenance morning. And you've seen the garden, you can see how much weeding we need to do. If anyone is free to join us, that would be much appreciated. Me and Casper have to disappear to a wedding, unfortunately, So if there's someone here who could say hi to the Zoom guys and especially see if Louise has got any questions, and if someone could look after Holly, that would be wonderful. And we will finish with the closing prayers, which is on the little sheet of paper if you want to join in. Starts blessed Blessed by Amitabha's light, may you care for all living things. And may you— namo mi devi. Someone— yeah.