Satya Robyn leads a small group in a Buddhist practice session on kindness. The facilitator discusses noticing unkind thoughts and their protective roots, then guides the group through sitting meditation, chanting Amitabha, reciting refuge vows, and prostrations.
Chapters
Welcome everybody. There are 6 people in the shrine room this evening, and we're joined by Yasudeva and Betty on Skype. Zoom this evening, so welcome to you three as well.
More people from the house here on Zoom than actually here. Yes, and they live here, but they're on holiday at the moment. Yeah, nice to see you.
And over to you.
So I wanted to— we always start by doing a little talk, and I wanted to talk this evening about two of the words that are on your sheet, which we'll use later, and those words are 'be kind.' They're two words out of six words that my friend Terry has as his kind of mantra, his, his guide for life: no blame, be kind, love everything. I was thinking about be kind, that we could sum Buddhism up as those two words, be kind. The Dalai Lama talks a lot about being kind, and it's a very, it's a very noble thing to try to be.. And I don't know about you, but when I try to be kind, I immediately come across situations where it's really difficult. I only have to scroll on Facebook for more than a few seconds to find some things I don't feel kind about, or somebody will say something unkind to me, or I'll disapprove of something that someone's done, and I just don't want to be kind. That happens a lot outside, but it also happens probably even more inside my head. There are lots of voices inside me that are not kind. So I've felt a little bit physically low over the past few days, and a voice in my head has kept saying, you should be working harder, you're not that ill, do more. I've got voices that tell me that I should do more gardening, or that I should be different. Lots of critical voices inside my head that aren't kind at all. So how do we be kind in those situations when we really just feel mean, or the voices inside our head are mean? The first thing to do is to notice when we're not being kind. So a lot of the time we just go about our business and we have feelings about people and we say things to people and we don't really check, we don't really notice when the tone of our voice is a little bit pointed or when the words we're using aren't very kind, or we might say some kind words and then inside our heads we're really not being kind at all. So the first thing is always to notice, and we can notice in a way that is kind. So we don't notice and say, 'Argh, you're not being kind again.' We just notice and say, 'Oh, there you are, you're not being kind.' If we do say, 'Oh, you're not being kind,' then we notice that. So we notice the voice that's being unkind to our unkind voice. And it can carry on and on, but we're always just trying to notice. The second thing to remember is that there is always a good reason for the voices inside our head, or the voices that we speak to other people. There's always a good reason for them to be unkind. My own experience of the voices inside my head that aren't kind to me is that they really think that they're helping. In a way that we might nag someone to clean up, clean their room, or complain about something that we don't think they're doing properly. We think that that's helping them to get better and improve. Of course it doesn't, but the voices in our head that are unkind don't know that. All they know is that if they're unkind, then maybe they might push us into being different, and that will be safer for us or better for us. And when we're mean to other people, it's usually because we feel like we need to defend ourselves, or we need to feel better about ourselves. Sometimes if we think other people are rubbish, then that makes us feel less rubbish. So the second thing to remember is that there's always a really good reason, even if we don't know what it is, for unkindness. And a better word than unkindness is a word like protection, or something that's trying to help us. And then the third thing to remember is that luckily we don't always have to be kind, because there's such a thing as Buddha, and A Buddha by definition is always kind. When the Buddha looks at us through Buddha eyes, the Buddha just sees all of our messy stuff, all of the bits we don't like about ourselves, and the Buddha feels kind towards all of those bits of us. And the Buddha looks at the people we don't like with kind eyes too. So the people we find really difficult, the Buddha sees them and understands why they are like that and feels kind towards them. So when we can't manage to be kind to ourselves or kind to other people, we can just imagine the Buddha, this Buddha here, or any Buddha, or any source of infinite love. It doesn't matter where it's coming from, maybe nature or God or wherever you want it to come from. Just imagine that the source of infinite kindness— and if it's a person we don't want to be kind to, we can just say, okay, I'm just going to not talk to them, I'll let the Buddha deal with them. And if it's an unkind voice in our head, we can just let the Buddha see that bit of us. And feel warm and forgiving and compassionate towards us. So I think the, the, the thing that I really want to say is that it's not at all easy to be kind, that we can head in that direction But we all have lots and lots of voices inside us that are protective rather than kind. And that's okay, because the Buddha loves us just as we are. And the more that we can relax into that, the more that we can let ourselves just feel like we're okay. The side effect of that is we get kinder, but that's not even the most important thing. The most important thing is trusting that we're loved. So the, the next thing that we'll do is sit quietly for a little while. And as we sit quietly, you might just want to imagine this Buddha, or maybe this one, or any of the Buddhas in this room. There's lots of different ones to choose from. Just imagine the Buddha just shining out kindness at you, like you're sunbathing. Just let this— let the kindness wash over you. And you can imagine the kindness getting into all the little nooks and crannies inside you that are a bit dusty, or a bit sorry for themselves, or a bit scared, or angry, or upset, or whatever they are. Just imagine that kindness sinking in. And if there are bits that aren't ready for the kindness yet, that's fine. Just let them stay protected. But you can just remind them that the kindness is there for when they're ready. And then after a while of sitting quietly with kindness washing over us, we'll do some chanting together. And the words that we'll chant is Amitabha, which means Buddha of infinite light. And once you've got the tune, just join in with the chanting. Namomidabu.
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. Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha.
Ami. Wow!
So we'll now recite some words together which are on the bit of paper. You won't need the bit of paper to start with, but I need it for the Bodhisattva vows. So the first few verses, just repeat after me. For refuge I go to the Buddha.
For refuge I go to the Buddha.
Namo Buddhaya.
Namo Buddhaya.
For refuge I go to the Dharma.
For refuge I go to the Dharma.
Namo Dharmaya.
Namo Dharmaya.
For refuge I go to the Sangha.
For refuge I go to Sangha—
Namo Sangaya! 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.
I pray this time fall into sexual misconduct.
With faith in the Three Jewels— I pray that I may 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 at this time there's always 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 completely.
So the next thing we do is make prostrations to the Buddha, which is a way of saying thank you or a way of just relaxing in front of the Buddha. So the words are Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, and if you're happy to copy my body, what my body's doing, then copy me. So in a minute I'll get up and go to the front. If you— you can stand anywhere in the room, but just make sure there's a little bit of, um, carpet in front of you to kneel down onto. And then we always finish by bowing first of all to each other. So when Fi rings the bell, Kasper will bow in that direction and I'll bow in this direction. So you two bow to each other and then turn around and bow in the opposite direction. Does that make sense? And then we bow to the Buddha. And then if you're— we bow to our seats, tidy our seats. If you're on Zoom, do unmute so we can say the closing verse together, which is on your bit of paper. Blessed by Amitabha's light, I care for all living beings and the holy earth. Namamitabhu. Sounds like we've got garlic. Maybe someone's got a sore throat. So we have a cup of tea now if you want to join us.
