Satya Robyn leads a Buddhist practice session with group reading, guided meditation, and chanting. Dave reads from Notes on Nothing while the facilitator reflects on non-self, impermanence, and letting go of attachment, drawing on Dogen and other teachings.
Chapters
Welcome everybody. We're going to begin with a reading Dave has agreed to read. This is from a book that's coming out about someone who had a powerful spiritual experience and then the work they did to integrate that into their own lives. And, um, this excerpt is the part where they describe the experience.
It's from Notes on Nothing: The Joy of Being Nobody. A particular desert broom bush appeared to expand to fill my field of vision. A dense, almost impossibly complex tangle of branching green stems formed a net of shadow through which little white butterflies and crane flies occasionally flitted, catching sunlight. My body was abruptly filled with a deep stillness, as if my whole nervous system had suddenly relaxed much more deeply than, than I was used to. I had a sense of dissolving, of spreading outwards. The boundaries not just of my body but of my selfhood seemed to be thinning out and then merging with the garden. And the leaf shadowed morning. No time, no boundaries in space. All that was left was just life. It was seen very clearly that there was nothing and no one. No one was here, nothing was happening. And it was seen that not only was there nothing, but there had always been nothing. No one was ever here, nothing had ever happened. Just this, without time, without space, without end, and without beginning.
So I'll share some reflections on that piece later, but for now, moving into meditation. Perhaps bringing awareness to the breath, not trying to change the breath, just noticing how it is moment to moment. And as thoughts, feelings, and sensations come into your awareness, noticing them Releasing them, returning to the breath. So we'll chant the word Amitabha together, the name of the Buddha of Infinite Light.
Amita, Amita, Amita.
Amita, Amita, Amita. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh.
Amitabh.
Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. So in a moment I will ask you to repeat after me, and we'll recite the refuges and precepts, and then the Bodhisattva Verses in call and response. If you want to see the words written down, they are on the liturgy sheet next to you. 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.
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 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.
Namo Sanghaya.
With faith in the Three Jewels.
With faith in the Three Jewels.
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. Of when I fall into wrong speech.
I pray that I may become aware.
I pray that I may become aware of when I become intoxicated. Of when I become intoxicated.
No blame.
No blame.
Be kind.
Be kind.
Love everything.
Love everything.
We vow to save them all.
Inexhaustible.
We vow to transform them.
Immeasurable are the Dharma teachings.
We vow to master them.
Infinite is the Buddha's way.
We vow to fulfill it completely. I said I'd reflect a little bit on the reading. The author wishes to remain anonymous, partly because they have a family and a sort of mainstream career, and I think they were unsure what publishing a book about a spiritual experience, like how that would affect how people saw them in their— who knows what their job is, right? Insurance salesperson, I don't know, that's my fantasy, something like that. But also that came out of this sense of, well, I'm not— I'm nobody special, like I've had this experience, and one of the things it me was, um, not to get egotistical, not to be big-headed. So I don't want to put my name to this in case I end up falling into that trap. And they speak about this experience in two different ways. The first thing they say is, oh, I realized there was just life here. No, no, no me and the world separately, but just life unfolding, just this dance of movement and things growing and changing, just life. But from this point of view, inside this spiritual experience, can't be portioned up into this is where I end and the this is where the world begins and other people begin. A real, not just interconnectedness, but a real sense of oneness. And then they go on to describe it in negative terms. Nothingness, no thing. I don't exist, time doesn't exist, space doesn't exist. Which is another way of trying to approach the same thing but from a very different direction. And Buddhism actually uses both of those languages at different times. The Heart Sutra, for example, no ear, no eye, no nose, no tongue, no thoughts, no feeling. No samsara, no nirvana. And on the other hand, texts like the Pure Land that speak of this world full of light and color and iridescence and musical instruments and liveliness. Both ways of trying to describe how it is to be in the world when your ego bursts for a moment or for a while. In a much more mundane setting, Dogen describes— I mean, Dogen has this experience, right, that he calls the dropping away of body and mind, um And that's his enlightenment experience, which is confirmed by his teacher, that he then takes back to Japan and starts this whole Zen tradition. But he also speaks of the mundane experience in the kitchen. He, in the instructions to the head chef of Zen temples, he said there should be no distance between you and the knife. And he's describing a kind of intimacy with the action where actually you, you become so completely involved in chopping the vegetables that you disappear, and all that exists is chopping vegetables. Life is unfolding, life is chopping vegetables. Reverend Haneda talks about impermanence, that, that how crucial impermanence is to understanding Buddhism. Everything fades away, but that the enlightened mind doesn't experience impermanence as loss, but as something that is creative and spontaneous. Because without change, there is not room for anything new. And this also speaks to this dance that is life. Everything is moving all of the time. Just in this moment, there's no past, there's no future, there's just this thing that isn't static. And then as human beings, we become attached to the way— one way things are. Oh, I'd like this to remain the same. I'd like this to be different. I'd like more of this and less of that. I want to know where I stand. Really what I'd like is to be in control. And we're pretty good at being in control in some ways. Look at the world that we've built, the way we've manipulated materials. We've been to the deepest depths. We I haven't been to the deepest depths of the ocean or on the moon, but other human beings have. And yet really we're not in control at all. Life just continues to happen. And the experience of letting go of attachment to things being a particular way is not a sort of resignation. It's easy to imagine, I think, and I first did when I first came into Buddhism, that it's a sort of like, oh, I guess things will just happen then. Like when you do the break in snooker, the balls go wherever they go because they follow the rules of physics, and some go in the pockets and some go over here and some go there. I'm like, the universe is— in some ways, the universe is like that, right? There was the Big Bang, and then all of this stuff happened afterwards. But the experience of letting go of attachment isn't to land in something that feels quite clinical and material and like just like snooker balls moving across a table. But actually discovering that there is something supportive and loving and kind that is also present, that maybe is life itself. This is why it's a spiritual experience rather than a sort of scientific experience or a rational experience. Because when we let go of attachment, what we discover is, is nirvana, which is, or the Pure Land, or the Buddha, which is lively and sometimes challenging and creative, but always loving. What the Buddha sees— like, when, when I look around, like, what I see is just ordinary people, some of whom are getting under my skin, some of whom I want to put on pedestals, some of whom I want to get closer to. When the Buddha looks around, the Buddha sees other Buddhas everywhere. And that is what the world is really like. It's what this text that Dave read is trying to describe. It's what the Pure Land texts are trying to describe. It's what I'm trying to describe today, and it's beyond words, so it's impossible to describe completely. Now, I don't— I, I have a really clear memory of sitting in a study group when I was in the Buddhist Palace, so like sometime between 15 and 20 years ago, and reading a Buddhist text where the Buddha described enlightenment— trying to describe enlightenment like trying to describe the taste of a fruit to somebody that hadn't eaten that fruit. Now, I've never been able to find that text again, so although it really exists as a clear memory, I suspect something's got a bit muddled in my brain, and maybe it was just what we were talking about. But there is something really true about it. It's hard to describe an orange to someone that hasn't eaten an orange. And yet I also sort of trust that we wouldn't be in this room, and maybe wouldn't even be on the planet, but certainly we wouldn't be in this room if we hadn't had a little taste of orange somewhere along the way. Now I need to be So in a moment we'll stand and make, uh, prostrations facing the main shrine. Reciting Namo Amitabha, which means I take refuge in the Buddha of Infinite Light.
In gratitude, we make this offering to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time. May it be fragrant as Earth herself. Reflecting our careful efforts, our wholehearted mindfulness, understanding slowly ripening. May we and all beings be companions of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. May we awaken from forgetfulness and realize our true person.
So we'll return to standing in our places. Back to each other. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Back to our places. Back to our seats. We finish with the closing verse, which is also on the liturgy if you want to read. Bless this life and its harvest light. May we care for all living things and the holy earth.
