Practice - flags & tadpoles

Namomi debu. Good morning, everybody. Always puts me off when you reply. I know, it's like school.

Yes.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to everyone in the shrine room, and a very warm welcome to Ian, Matt, Stefano, and Suzanne. Great to see you, Stefano, your first practice with us. And, um, we always begin with a Dharma glimpse, which is a piece of writing that describes a moment of enlightenment. We all have moments of enlightenment. They pass quite quickly usually, but they're there. So I will hand over to Barbara, who's kindly agreed to read it for us, and it's by Oli.

Garden of Evening Mist. Sorry. Glimpse by Oli. On the side of the On the hill there is a flagpole. A Buddhist flag waves from the top of the pole. The Buddhist flag is vertical stripes of orange, white, red, yellow, and blue. The Buddhist flag image by Vinh Mai from Pixabay. Monk. Is it the wind that is in motion? Or is it only the flag that is moving?

Response: Both are moving, Holy One.

Monk, one day you will realize that there is no wind and the flag does not move. It is only the hearts of men that are restless. I wanted to share this quote from a glimpse this week as it inspired a real sense of reality and relatability in me. A restless state often takes hold of us without warning or reason, which I often find is the case in my job and home life. I'll create lists, think of what needs to be done next, and allow restlessness in without stepping back and taking a moment to breathe. I'm sure this quote could be picked apart and many meanings could be found, but I love the simplicity of the monk's response, which encourages us to look at inward causation rather than external factors. The imagery of the flag moving in the wind has stayed with me throughout this week, and when days have been busy and restless, it has been helpful to remind myself to bring to mind the monk's wise words and look inwardly for peace.

Okay, so peace— sometimes when we're lucky We find a little bit of peace when we sit quietly here in the shrine room together. Very aware today of all the things that happen in our lives when we're not here. A couple of people arrived today full of the the difficult weeks that have, uh, been happening. Demands, too much to do, conflict. And when we're here in this room together, it's an opportunity for at least the next 40 minutes to put all of that down, to, to give it to the Buddha and have a little break, connect in with that source of peace that's always available to us. That's not always possible because our brains can take a while to come down, like, for— keep spinning for a while even though we're not adding any extra energy to them. But even that, allowing them to spin and trying not to add too much more energy to the spinning is helpful. So as we sit quietly together, just keep handing things over to the Buddha, anything that arises that feels too much, and trust that the Buddha will give you back what you can handle in this moment. So if the Buddha, um, wants you to feel a little bit of sadness, or wants you to pay attention to a particular issue, the Buddha will let you know about that. But they will never give you more than you can handle. And after some silence, we'll start chanting together, so do join me in the chanting when we get to that.

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

This morning we will chant to the Medicine Buddha, and the words are on your liturgy sheets. I'm just going to type them in. So do join in when you get the hang of it. And if there's anyone particular who you would like to offer healing to this morning, you can imagine the Medicine Buddha shining on them, or you, or both.

Thaiyatha Om Bekken Je, Bekken Je, Maha Bekken Je, Ratsasamudgatesoha. Thaiyatha Om Bekken Je, Bekken Je, Maha Bekken Je, Ratsasamudgatesoha. Thaiyatha Om Bekam Je, Bekam Je, Maha Bekam Je, Ratsasambuddhate Soha. Thaiyatha Om Bekam Je, Bekam Je, Maha Bekam Je, Ratsasambuddhate Soha. Satya Robyn, bacon, bacon, maha bacon, rat sa samudra te sooha. Satya Robyn, bacon, bacon, maha bacon, rat sa samudra te sooha. Thai Atsaoom bacon jay bacon jay maha bacon jay ratsa sammutkath me soha. Thai Atsaoom bacon jay bacon jay maha bacon jay ratsa sammutkath Satya Robyn, bacon J, bacon J, maha bacon J, ratsa samudgati suha. Satya Robyn, bacon J, bacon J, maha bacon J, ratsa samudgati suha. Thai, Thai, Om, Bacon J, Bacon J, Maha Bacon J, Ratsasamukkha Tesuha. Thai, Thai, Om, Bacon J, Bacon J, Maha Bacon J, Ratsasamukkha Tesuha.

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. All that guides us to wisdom and compassion. Namo Dharmaya. For refuge I go to the Sangha. Those who live in the Buddha's light.

Those who live in Buddha's light—

Namo Sanghaya! 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 that I may not fall into sexual misconduct.

With faith in the Three Jewels—

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. No blame! Be kind to everyone. Love everything. Love and think.

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 that war. Infinite is the Buddha's way. We vow to forfeit pompeii.

Namaste. This morning we did our usual walking meditation around the temple garden, and there was lots of spring springing. There's some beautiful, uh, hanging pink blossoms from a currant tree. Rubus, you said, Dave, is that right? Something like rubus. We're not entirely sure of the exact name, but really beautiful pink, and lots of trees kind of— you can see the leaves really starting to emerge. And we have a small pond and a big pond, and the big pond is newer. The small pond's been here a while now, and we've had, uh, tadpoles in it for 4 or 5 years maybe, and they are absolutely There's thousands of them in there. It's absolutely teeming with little black squiggles, kind of thriving, kind of squiggling around. And as I looked at them, as, as we passed, I noticed some kind of pleasure and some sadness, some kind of bittersweet feeling, knowing that hardly any of them will make it to froghood. That, that's the way it works for frogs, is that there are way more tadpoles than there are frogs. And they were so alive, and just knowing that, you know, I wondered which, which of them would, would make it into their, into their final form. And which wouldn't. And it reminded me of an essay I read recently in a book about dogs, a book of essays about dogs. And the author was going on a long journey with his old dog, this kind of elderly dog, and he was having a similar feeling to me. He was looking at his dog and thinking, oh, how much longer do we have? And then he had the thought 'we're all dying.' And then he had the thought, 'we're all alive right now.' There was something for me very moving about the juxtaposition of those three things: the acknowledging that his dog had not much time left, the remembering that we are all in that process of moving towards death, And that remembering, maybe even most importantly, that today we are alive. The tadpoles are all alive right now, and I hope that they're enjoying their life. Who knows if a tadpole manages to enjoy its life or not, but looking at them, I like to imagine so. And Buddhism speaks a lot about impermanence because the Buddha knew how central a problem this was to us, to us human beings with consciousness of our own mortality. The sights that he saw when he left the palace as a young man were We're all about impermanence, all about the reality of sickness and old age and death. And it is difficult to contain our reaction to those things sometimes. And so I guess that for me, what Buddhism helps me with is it gives me a container. It offers me something reliable. That holds me and that helps me to engage both with the alive and the dying right at the same time. And sometimes I manage that better than others, and it's perfectly natural that we all have mechanisms that kick in that, that keep us away in various ways, or that distract us, or that soothe us. But when I'm really alive, when I really am enjoying the best of life, when I'm really connecting to that freshness, it always includes the dying. It includes the, you know, that we've got a mixture of flowers on the shrine at the moment. We've got the daffodils that are fresh and bright And we've got the dried flowers that have been here for a while now. They're doing really well, and they're slowly, they're slowly deteriorating. Still beautiful, a different kind of beauty. So the Buddha helps us to welcome it all, to appreciate it all. Brings us comfort when we need it, and keeps reminding us to enjoy our lives. Namaste. So we'll now do some prostrations together, and, uh, do join us if you can.

Namoh Amida.

Namoh Amida. Namoh Amida.

Namoh Amida.

In gratitude, we offer this incense to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time. May this fragrance of earth itself, reflecting a fair purpose, our whole hearts adorn, and the fruits of understanding slowly ripen in us. May we and all beings be companions of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. May we awaken from forgetfulness. Realize that truth. To each other.

To the main shrine.

Ready our seats and bow to our seats. Blessed by Amitabha's light, may we care for all living things and the Holy Earth. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. We have a retreat day on Saturday, the 8th of April.

Here all day.

And I think that's it.

Namaste.

The theme of the retreat today is Foolish Things, because originally it was going to be today, which is like, of course, of course.