Caspar leads a Buddhist group practice session with a dharma talk on meditation, sitting practice, and chanting. The session includes recitation of refuges, precepts, and Bodhisattva vows, with participants joining from Zoom.
Chapters
Good morning.
So joining us from inside the shrine room today, we have Eke, Joining us so far on Zoom, we have James, Taylor, Nandesh, and Claire. Welcome everybody. And we also have various painters who are painting our window today, who are making an appearance outside the window. Over to Caspar.
Well, you know, St Francis used to preach to the birds. Maybe we'll just— I'll be preaching to builders and painters and decorators. Whether they like it or not. Yeah, I've been rereading, um, Not Always So by Suzuki Roshi, which is one of the very first books I bought 20 or so years ago when I was just getting into Buddhism and meditation.
Meditation.
And he talks about meditation having two aspects. Lots of people talk about this in Sanskrit, samatha and vipassana, or stop and look as he translates it. And it's hard for me this morning to— when I read or hear this phrase, stop and look, in my mind what happens is, stop, Hammer Time. So this is one of the things you can find when you stop and look into yourself, fragments of songs from many years ago. I'll resist performing the whole thing. Pema Chödrön says that when we stop and look in this way, everything that we need to become awakened is right here. This is the only thing we need to practice with, is ourselves, if we stop and look in the right way, because we discover how it is to be human. Oh, this is what it's like to be angry. This is what it's like to be resentful. This is what it's like to be joyful. This is what it's like to be lonely, content. All the ingredients are here. And Buddhism supports us to do this stopping and looking in various ways. One of the key qualities that we need in order to do this is faith. Or trust. Faith that we won't find anything too disturbing, nothing that isn't survivable. And some things are very disturbing. It's why we have to take some care when we begin exploring our own, uh, the contents of our own mind, of our own system. But we have this trust that there is something other than the disturbance, that there is the joy and contentment and equanimity and the love alongside the deep suffering. And we might trust that because we have already had a glimpse of it inside ourselves. As we do the stopping and things begin to settle in that quietness, sometimes we catch a glimpse of these other qualities. We might trust it because we've heard that other people have had that experience, even if we haven't had it ourselves. It's part of what we mean when we say we're practicing with all the ancestors, together with all the ancestors. We might trust that these qualities exist in the universe, in the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. These awakened spiritual beings that exist somehow, somewhere in the world. And if we can't manage to trust that, maybe we just experiment with the idea I think it was Stanislavski, the Russian theater director, who used to use this phrase, 'What if? What if this was true?' Now we can do the same in our Buddhist practice. Well, what if it is true that there is unconditional love? How can I sit? Just trying that idea out. So with this in mind, we're invited to stop, to be still. And actually what we're stopping is the mind that grasps and the mind that pushes away. It's not a sort of frozen, 'Oh, I'm going to be stopped now.' It's stopping the process of making something big out of our thoughts on the one hand, and stopping the process of locking them away or rejecting them or trying to get rid of them on the other hand. Sometimes Buddhists talk about acceptance. This is what's happening at the moment. I don't need to do anything to it. I stop my interfering with it. And then the curiosity, the looking part. Oh. It's this specifically that's arising at the moment. That's interesting. So these are the three qualities we bring to our practice: trusting in the ground of unconditional love refraining from getting involved in ourselves and maintaining a curiosity about what's happening. So in a moment, we will sit quietly together, and the invitation will be to practice just that stopping and looking, or we could say relaxing and paying attention at the same time. And then we'll move into reciting the Buddha's name, reminding us of that ground of unconditional love. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. If the mind is particularly busy this morning, you might want to choose a focus like the breath to support that stopping process. If it helps, just noticing the breath entering and leaving, and then noticing whatever it is that also happens to be around.
Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha.
Amitabha. Ame taba, ame taba, ame.
Amitabh.
Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh.
Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabh.
Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh.
Amitabh.
Amitabh. Ameesa. Ameesa.
Ameesa.
So we'll now recite the refuges and the Five Lovers' Prayer. Precepts and the Bodhisattva vows. So please repeat after me. For refuge I go to the Buddha. For refuge I go to the Buddha. Namo Buddha. Namo Buddha. For refuge I go to the Dharma.
For refuge I go to the Dharma.
Namo Dhammaya. Namo Dhammaya. For refuge I go to the Sangha.
For refuge I go to the Sangha.
Namo sangha. 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, With faith in the Three Jewels— I pray that I may not fall into sexual misconduct. With faith in the Three Jewels— I pray that I may not fall into wrong speech. With faith in the Three Jewels— I pray that I may avoid intoxication.
I pray that I may avoid intoxication. Innumerable are sentient beings. We vow to save them all. Inexhaustible are the rooted 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 perfect it completely.
In gratitude, we offer this incense to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time. May it be as fragrant as Earth herself, reflecting our careful efforts, our wholehearted awareness. May the fruits of understanding slowly ripen. May we and all beings be enlightened and awaken. What happens when Casper does something wrong? Let's say when Casper does something different. Yeah, something different.
Sorry, wrong word.
Unexpected. Unexpected.
Yeah, that might be a helpful Yes, I do unmute you on Zoom and we'll say the closing verse together. Bless Satya Robyn, Rinpoche, and the whole Sangha.
