Practice for first timers

Welcome everybody, lovely to see you all here. Satya Robyn reminded me moments before I came in the room that this is advertised as a practice session for newcomers, which was good to be reminded of. So I will, uh, I'll file the very complicated talk I had for another time. We're going to begin as we always do with an offering from the community at Dharma Glimpse, a piece that somebody from the congregation writes, something to do with their own experience of spiritual practice. Some insight that's occurred to them. Today, Matt from Cornwall is going to read his offering for us through the Zoom connection. Yeah, and I know that this is about Nembutsu, which is the main practice of this community, which is saying the name of a particular Buddha in order to build that connection with the Buddha, with Amitābha, who is the Buddha of infinite light and life. So we're connecting with compassion, loving kindness, seeing things as they really are through this chanting practice. So when Matt speaks about Nembutsu, that's what he's speaking about. And hopefully that's enough to go on, but there probably will be You know, it's been a long time since I was a beginner, so there may be things that I say that kind of don't land or don't make sense, and that's fine. Don't worry too much about those. Learning Buddhism is, for me anyway, it was not like, oh, I learned this as a beginner, and then I learned this, and then I learned that, and now I'm here. It was much more like doing a jigsaw. I'm like, oh, now I've got a bit of the sky over here, and now I've got a bit, and then the edge appears, and then you fill in and suddenly you get— I mean, you never have all the pieces, but at some point you think, oh, okay, I can— I've got enough to see at least the jigsaw that I'm building. So I think it can be like that. Anyway, I will pass over to Matt. Namaste. Thank you, Kasper.

Can you— can you hear me okay?

Can everyone hear? Yeah, everyone's nodding. Yeah, thank you.

This is, yeah, thank you. And nice to be reminded of that. And this is, this was actually prompted by one of the students I work with at Falmouth. We had a session during Interfaith Week as part of a weekly ecological citizenship meeting. On Interfaith Week, one of the first-year students from South Asia said she'd like to have a discussion around in the context of ecological collapse and whatever that means to us, who do we turn to for help? And we had a really great conversation. And then as I was driving home, I kind of realized that I hadn't really said anything about what that really means to me. I'd kept quite safe. I'd kept quite sort of, you know, interfaith safe and sort of, so I just tried to write a more honest reply. So this is, this is, this is about that, about who we turn to for help. This is a glimpse that arrived in two halves. The first half came a few weeks ago as I was giving my daughter Zoe a driving lesson. We had the satnav on, but for some reason we kept turning aside from the route it proposed to get back to where we'd started out from. If you've used a satnav, You'll know what happens next. The app just reorients and begins directing you again from whichever way you're now facing. Sometimes a moment lingers in the memory like an odd little question mark waiting to be understood. And I think this is what a Dharma glimpse means to me, but maybe a koan would be nearer the mark. The satnav's patient recalibration over and over as we kept failing to follow its advice felt like one of these moments. No opinion offered and no reproach. And where it's actually pointing us, regardless of how often we turn aside from it, hasn't actually moved or changed, has it? It just happens to be in this direction now instead of that. The second half of this glimpse happened when I was praying silent Nembutsu A week or so later, at some point, I must have slipped without noticing it from saying Namu Amida Bu to saying Maranatha, an Aramaic version of the Prayer of the Heart, which I learned from the Benedictine teacher Father John Main and have come back to many times over the years. It must have been a good 10 minutes before I even realized what had happened, and when I did, it seemed oddly funny, as if for once I'd been accidentally honest with Amida and with myself, as if the most honest way I could say Nembutsu was in fact to forget the correct words, to muddle them up and get them wrong. This isn't about advocating a mix-and-match approach to prayer, though. Trying to find the perfect blend sounds quite tiring. It smells of what we sometimes call calculating mind to me, which is to say, mixing and matching different approaches until I finally hit on just the right formula basically lives leaves this whole finding the way home thing up to me. Like I said, tiring. And based on evidence to date, if it's up to me, things aren't looking very promising. But whatever it means to open the defended heart to measureless, unmeasuring life, I suppose coming to Amida just as I am as we say, has to include— that has to include then this curious inability to settle properly on a given name. If I were to call myself a Pure Land Buddhist, it would be in this sense, I think. After decades of putting on one form of prayer after another, like so many borrowed shirts, It seems I've failed at even this simplest of bomboo practices— calling the name, sticking with it. And it's right here, in this obscure inability to settle, that Amida finds me just as I am, irrespective of how often I veer off one way or another. I've no idea what comes next, to be honest. But maybe that's not, not such a bad thing. Maybe that's the point. To be continued. Namaste.

Namaste. Thank you, Matt. Very nice. So move into a period of meditation now, not so long, maybe 10 or 12 minutes. Invitation to follow the breath as a focus, noticing cooler air entering at the tip of the nose, warmer air leaving Perhaps if your mind is particularly busy today, counting the breaths. In, out, 1. In, out, 2. Up to 10, and then starting from 1 again. And if you lose count, starting from 1 again. Maybe you don't get to 10, that's okay. And if you are distracted, if focus is taken away, not judging that, just noticing, oh, my mind's thinking about starting work next week, my mind's thinking about having dinner with a friend later, and then gently returning to the breath. Much of Buddhism is about practicing in order to get better at something. I will cultivate loving kindness, I will cultivate wisdom, I will cultivate compassion, as if we're adding things on. To ourselves. And there's another trend in Buddhism which trusts that, which says it isn't about adding things on, it's about letting go. Letting go of greed, letting go of ill will, letting go of ignorance. And that as we shed things, what is left behind are the qualities of the Buddha, or is the Buddha loving kindness, compassion, insight. Pure Land Buddhism invites us to trust that even though we aren't going to let go of all those things in this lifetime we can still trust that those other qualities are present, that deep within our hearts there is a compassionate center, and, and that deep within the universe there is compassion and loving kindness. And wisdom. So in a moment we'll chant the name Amitābha together, the Buddha of infinite light. And this is an act of remembering that those qualities exist. And sometimes in the practice we get a glimpse of that, or we feel closer to those things, and sometimes We don't. Either way, the act of entrusting ourselves, of remembering their existence, can bring a sense of solace and relief and ease. So we'll recite the name Amitabha together. There is a little tune, so if you're not sure, listen for a moment, but I encourage you to join in.

Misa. Misa. Misa. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Ame taba. Ame taba. Ame taba.

In a moment, we'll recite the refuges and precepts and bodhisattva vows together, the words are on the A5 liturgy sheet. The refuges, the three refuges, are the things we have in common with all Buddhists around the world, what we place our confidence in as Buddhists. The first, the Buddha, that there is such a thing as awakening and there are people who exemplify that, particularly Shakyamuni Buddha who lived 2,500 years ago. In India and Nepal. And Buddhists will disagree over exactly when he lived, what he taught. They will emphasize different things, but we all agree that there was something important there. We take refuge in the Dharma, the words that the Buddha spoke that were passed down to us, and, and more importantly, the meaning behind those words, what Suzuki Roshi called things as it is, which is partly, I think, because he didn't speak English that well as a Japanese immigrant. But it also really gets to some— at the same time, it really gets to something, um, we are waking up to things as it is. And then we take refuge in the sangha, the community of people that are practicing together. And we recite the Five Lay Precepts, which are also very traditional. And part of the reason for saying them is, is to join in with the community of Buddhists across the world and through history. And part of the reason is that they, you know, Buddhism is about noticing our mind, our actions, and the precepts provide a valuable mirror for that. And then finally, the Bodhisattva vows, which express the longing to bring awakening to all. Beings. And even if we've had a small taste of that ourselves, naturally we, we long to share it. So we'll, uh, we'll recite these together. So please repeat after me. For refuge I go to the Buddha, 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 Dhamma. For refuge I go to the Sangha, those who live in the Buddha's light. Namo Sangha.

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo—

With faith in The Three Jewels and in light of my human tendencies , I pray that I may become aware when I take life.

Of when I am taking life.

I pray that I may become aware. I pray so I might recover well from what I've taken which was not freely given. Of when I take what was not freely given.' 'I pray that I may become aware—' —'Of when I fall into sexual misconduct—' Of when I fall into sexual misconduct. '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—' of when I become intoxicated. Of when I become intoxicated. No blame. No blame. Be kind. Be kind. Love everything.

Love everything.

Innumerable sentient beings, we vow to save them all. Inexhaustible alu-dhitasha. 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 follow it completely.

Something in Matt's Dharma glimpse. Reminded me of the life of Kyoza Amanshi, um, who— that some of us read his writings a couple of years ago, and, um, sort of in a book group. Yeah, we read them together in a book. We studied them together in one of the book groups. I was just trying to remember when he was alive. I think sort of big end of the beginning of the 20th century, end of the 19th century, something like that. Anyway, the— I was remembering that he became very ill. He, he was known— he wrote very beautifully about Buddhist practice and faith, but he was known as someone who pushed himself very hard, particularly— he didn't live that long, I think he was in his 30s when he died, but he was known as someone who pushed himself very hard, particularly in the first half of his life, a kind of insistence in Buddhist practice, but also in reforming the institutions that he taught in. And, and he became very ill with tuberculosis, and it was during this illness that the sort of, uh, the final revelation of his faith occurred. Because in the midst of that illness, when he was very weak, he couldn't really do very much. He couldn't do the Buddhist practices that he'd been doing. He couldn't do the study that he'd been doing. And in that failure to practice, he discovered the presence of the Buddha. He discovered, oh, there is something here beyond my own efforts that holds me. There is a compassion that I haven't created out of my own efforts, that hasn't come from the energy that I've been putting into this practice, that is nothing to do with any of my activity. Like a swimmer flailing around in the water who discovers that if they're still and lie back, the water lifts them and allows them to float. Shinran, the great teacher of Pure Land Buddhism, probably the most famous Japanese teacher of Pure Land Buddhism, who lived hundreds of years ago, similarly, in the midst of an illness discovered this sense of being held that was beyond any practice he was doing, beyond any chanting. He was, um, Shinran was very wise and produced a lot of writing. And the practice that he was doing before he became ill was he'd memorized the Larger Pure Land Sutra in the Chinese characters, and he would see each Chinese character in his mind's eye and then recite it like a photographic memory. Like if I was— got the thing, the, this text out of the drawer there and saw all the words, but actually if I didn't need to get it out the drawer and I just saw the words and said them all the way through, and there's It's quite a long text. It takes, you know, if you recite it at this speed, at one time the Buddha was sitting at the Vulture Peak at Rajagriha, at the time the Blessed One was surrounded by all of his disciples, takes about an hour and a half at that speed to say the whole thing. So it's quite a long text. And he'd memorized the whole thing. And this was his practice. But again, when he was ill, he couldn't do that. And he discovered it wasn't necessary. There was some other force that was present. I think it's at the very start of, uh, Manji's book, he says inside or outside, it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter where you think that force is. It's the sort of great mystery at the heart of Buddhism and the heart of Pure Land Buddhism. And all of these different traditions try in their own way to express something of this. And some of them will give you very precise instructions and very precise answers, which often is very appealing. Oh, I'll just do this exact thing and I'll get this exact result, or I'll look in this place and then I'll understand the meaning of the universe. But it's a bit more mysterious than that. So we don't say that it's not good to do these things, that, you know, we're here today doing some chanting and reciting some words together and doing meditation. They're all good things to do, but we try and do them in the spirit of remembering there is something else at work, something beyond our own little minds wearing away, trying to work it out or make the best of it. And when we first come into a shrine room, it can be hard to be like the swimmer who lies back and trusts the water because we're like, oh, I've never been in this pool before. Looking around. Where's the deep end? Where are the steps? Do I want to go on the slide later? When's the wave machine getting turned on? Trying to work it all out. How do I bow? Who am I supposed to bow to? Mostly it's about working out what, how, when to bow in the shrine room. But as some of those anxieties ease, Hopefully you get a taste of being— terrible, terrible mixed metaphor— a taste of being able to lie back and be supported by the water. Namaste. Now we're going to do some prostrations for Maitreya. We do 3 bows to the ground and we say— we sing the words now, I need to do another form of the Nambutsa, a different translation of Amitābha.

In gratitude, we make this offering to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time. May it be as fragrant as earth herself, reflecting our careful efforts, our wholehearted mindfulness, and the fruit of understanding slowly ripening. May we and all beings be companions of those Bodhisattvas A moment to come back to standing in our places.

Bow to each other, first one side and then the other, and then to the main shrine. And tidy our seats, bat our seats. Satya Robyn, the revised and updated with lots of new material and definitely worth reading even if you've got the old version book that Satya and I wrote is now available here in the temple, and you know, from Amazon, from bookshops, and so on. So I write my PayPal account. Yeah, if you haven't got cash and want to pay online, it's, um, it's only £10 in the temple, it's £12.99 everywhere else. So it's worth getting here. And if you want to know, really, if you want to know what happens here and about the Buddhism that we do. It's the best place to get all the info. Secondly, a donation bowl in the hallway. If you haven't got cash, please use the donation link on the website. We also encourage people to sign up to a regular monthly donation. Unfortunately, we can't pay the roofers with Dharma talks and meditation. It's the nature of the world that we live in. So if you value what you've experienced, uh, you can express that value using money. That would be greatly appreciated. Uh, yeah, and in a week's time we've got the first book study groups of the year starting, which will be on our new booklet. One on Zoom by Jyamé and one in the temple on Monday nights by Keima. So if you're interested in signing up to those let us know.

4 people in the room already signed up.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, 4 people in the room already signed up. Thank you. So we'll finish by reciting the closing verse together, which is on the top of the liturgy sheet. If you want to read along. Blessed by Amitābha's light, may we care for all living things and the holy earth.