A guided Buddhist morning practice from a retreat called Loving the Earth, Loving Ourselves. The session includes chanting, meditation, prostrations, and a Dharma talk on the Buddha's light, led by multiple speakers with the community participating in refuges, precepts, and Bodhisattva vows.
Chapters
Good morning.
Welcome to the inside part of our morning practice session, and welcome to the retreat day, Loving the Earth, Loving Ourselves. You're welcome to stay for as much or as little as you'd like, just to run through the schedule again. There's this practice session, and then at half past 10, I'll give a talk which will include some guided meditation on the theme. At midday, we'll go to join the outside meditation that is hosted by Extinction Rebellion in the center of town. Back here if you want to join us, if you want to bring some sandwiches back and share the experience of eating them with us. That's a very odd way of saying it. Yeah, bring your packed lunches here and we'll eat them together if you'd like to do that between 1 and 2, and then at 2 we'll meet for the mindful walk on the hills, or you're welcome to stay here and hang out. And then after the mindful walk, we'll finish with a closing circle here in the shrine room. Now, as I say, dip in and out as much as you need to. If you've got any questions, ask Satya Robyn, or myself. If you can't find one of us, Phee or Kema or Angie, or just anyone that you can grab really and see what answers they give you.
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
So we begin this practice session as always with a Dharma glimpse, which is a piece written by somebody from our community, little insight they experienced or an experience of living the Dharma that they want to share this morning, written by Chris Conway, who's taking this one of the book groups that we offer at the moment, and Angie has agreed to read.
Thank you.
I had a bit of a Dharma glimpse on a recent run. I'm very lucky to live by the sea, and there's nothing I love more than going for a run down the seafront to unwind after a long day. Unfortunately, a mile into the run, my Bluetooth headphones gave me the dreaded beep of low battery and then subsequently died just as I was about to hear my mile pace. Worse still, I was halfway through one of my favorite songs. With no music, no pace information, just the sound of my feet slapping the pavement and the sound of me huffing and puffing. I thought to myself, this is going to be a rubbish run. As you might guess, I never ever run without headphones. I sometimes see people run past me with no headphones on and think, God, how do they do it? Just running to the sound of Well, themselves, who would want that? Not me. But unfortunately, that was the reality for the remainder of this run. However, 3 miles of silence in, something started to happen towards the end of my run. I started to experience a bit of an unexpected runner's high. I started to notice my feet, but instead of the slapping of the pavement, I started to hear a rhythm that danced along to the pounding beat of my heart. Next, I noticed my breath as it moved in and out, much like the waves were doing on the beach below me. I also noticed the way the sea glistened like a blanket of beautiful jewels. Next, I noticed two people sat on the sea wall hugging. Their silhouettes around them merged into one. And then finally, the pièce de résistance. On my final stretch, I was graced with a beautiful sunset setting the sky on fire with beautiful shades of red and orange. I felt the warm rays of the sun on my face and was instantly reminded of Amida's rays of light. For those last few meters, I was completely present with a funny feeling of connection to everything in and around me. As I finished that run, I found myself saying out loud, 'Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.' And with a huge smile on my face, I thought to myself, maybe I'll leave the headphones at home next time.
Thank you, Angie. Thank you, Chris.
And what a beautiful setup as we go into a period of quiet meditation together. We don't have any headphones. It's part of the reason we come together like this, to let all of those different things in. So the invitation, as you sit this morning, just moving into a place of awareness and noticing, noticing How your body meets the ground through the chair, through the carpeted floor, through the cushion. Noticing how the world comes in through your ears and the touch of a breeze on your skin. Noticing sensations in the body, how each breath changes the shape of your body. And if, when you get caught by one particular thing, gently noticing that, at some point noticing that, and coming back to this state, more or less, of open awareness. So we'll move into a chanting practice, reciting the name of Guan Xian Bodhisattva, the one who hears the cries of the world. The one who acts compassionately for the sake of all beings, both invoking that spirit of compassion that's in our own hearts and also reminding ourselves that, that limitless compassion exists out there beyond yeah, beyond us somehow as well. So the words to this are Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, which are on the A5 piece of paper, but you probably pick it up as we go along.
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Namah Wanshi Imposat. Namah Wanshi Imposat. Namah Wanshi Imposat. Namah Wanchi Ngo Sa. Namah Wanchi Ngo Sa. Namah Wanchi Ngo Sa. Namah Wange Bosa. Namah Wange Bosa. Namah Wange Bosa. Namah wajihim hosa. Namah wajihim hosa. Namah wajihim hosa. Namah Wange Posah. Namah Wange Posah. Namah Wange Posah.
Namokwan Shinbosa. Namokwan Shinbosa. Namokwan Shinbosa. Namah Kwan Chim Bor Sam.
Namah Kwan Chim Bor Sam. Namah Kwan Chim Bor Sam. Nam wanchi in for Satya Robyn. Nam wanchi in for Satya Robyn. Nam wanchi in for Satya Robyn. Nam wanchi en bosa. Nam wanchi en bosa. Nam wanchi en bosa. Namah Wanshi Imbosa. Namah Wanshi Imbosa. Namah Wanshi Imbosa. Namah Wanshi Namo Sah. Namah Wanshi Namo Sah. Namah Wanshi Namo Sah. Namah Wanchi in Bosa. Namah Wanchi in Bosa. Namah Wanchi in Bosa.
Namah Kwan Shin Bosat. Namah Kwan Shin Bosat. Namah Kwan Shin Bosat.
Namokwanji in Bosa. Namokwanji in Bosa. Namokwanji in Bosa. Nam wah ji in bo sang. Nam wah ji in bo sang.
Nam wah ji in We'll now recite the refuges and precepts and bodhisattva vows together. The things that we place our trust in as Buddhists, or experiment with placing our trust in, like just putting a foot onto the earth and seeing, is, is this steady? Can I rest on this? And the precepts Similarly, I suppose, taking them as guides, reliable guides to life. And finally, the Bodhisattva vows, the impulse in the heart to bring loving kindness and awakening to all beings. So the words are on the piece of A5, but you can also listen and repeat. 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 Damaya. For refuge I go to the Sangha, those who live in the Buddha's light. Namo Sangaya. With faith in the Three Jewels, I pray that I may not take life, I pray that I may not take life— With faith in the Three Jewels!
—with faith in the Three Jewels!
I pray that I may not steal—
That I might break somebody's heart still—
with faith in the Three Jewels!
—and then three jewels—I pray that I may not fall into sexual misconduct—I believe it time they don't call this sexual misconduct—with faith in the Three Jewels! With faith in the Three Jewels!
I pray that I may avoid wrong speech—I prayed that I made avoid wrong speech. With faith in the Three Jewels, with faith in the Three Jewels, I pray that I may avoid intoxication.
I pray that I may avoid 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 fulfill them all.
Infinite is the Buddha's way.
We vow to fulfill it completely.
Namaste. I thought today might be the day I got through the liturgy without making a mistake. Not to be. There's always— there'll always be another chance in the future. This week I read a tweet by a Buddhist scholar that I follow, whose views I don't always agree with, but I'm always interested because he's got a very precise eye to the texts and translating things. And he just said, when scientists measure gravity in different places around the world, they find that it's always the same measurement. But when people talk about their spiritual experiences, they always describe them very differently. And I don't know if he was suggesting that that invalidates the spiritual experience somehow, but my take was, well, we don't have the equipment to receive those signals very clearly. Um, we're like radios that aren't quite tuned in, so we sort of get the gist of things. But of course we interpret things differently from the person next to us. But enough people have had experiences of being supported or guided or feeling held by loving kindness, by something beyond the kind of workings of their own hearts. And minds, that I really trust that there is something out there that comes towards us as much or as more than we are able to generate those things for ourselves. And, and here we talk about Buddhas, Amida Buddha, who is the Buddha of limitless light, the light of wisdom and compassion. Or Kuan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, whose thousand arms reach out to help us. Now, in other places around the world, they use different words to describe the experience of meeting something slightly indescribable. Jeff Wilson, a Jodo Shinshu priest, So a Pure Land priest in one of the big Japanese traditions, American, wrote a really lovely little book about Pure Land. Each chapter is just a page or two long, and feels like it was yesterday that I read it, but it was about 10 years ago at least, which I think is just a sign of aging more than anything else, that things that were a long time ago feel recent. And in one of the chapters, he describes the experience of, of coming into relationship with the Buddha like the experience of a rock on the shore coming into the relationship with the sea. The rough edges of the rock are smooth. By the continual meeting of the force of the water coming towards it. But it can take a long time. And on some days that feels a bit disheartening to me. Oh, I've got more things that I don't like, or more problems in, in the, you know, in my behavior or habit patterns. Can't they just all be transformed now? And then I can just enjoy my life. And sometimes it's quite reassuring to know that actually, despite my best efforts, I haven't been able, you know, I've changed, I haven't been able to change much about my life. And yet alongside my best efforts, there is something quietly working. In the background, slowly affecting me and nudging me in different directions and creating shifts. And then I turn around and go, oh, things are different than they used to be. Things have changed. Something has been working all this time, sometimes out of sight. That's quite reassuring. And of course, like rocks and shorelines meeting the power of the sea, sometimes they do all change in one go. You know, the, the waves work their magic for a long, long time, and then a big storm comes and a big chunk drops off and transforms. And sometimes our experience of practice is like that. It feels like in a moment suddenly we no longer need the old habits that we used to have, or the old way of seeing things. And partly that's happened because we've been exposing ourselves to the loving kindness of the Buddha. For a time up until that moment. So I like that analogy, although I think it misses something out, which is that we don't have to go to the sea, we don't have to go to the Buddha. The Buddha is always coming towards us. It's easier to notice that sometimes when you're in a place like this and there's a golden statue of the Buddha on the table. The Buddha's light is always coming towards us. We sometimes don't let it in. We struggle against it and put up walls and build barriers because we don't want to let go. We don't really trust that it's there. If rocks fought back against the sea, maybe that would give something of the flavor of that. So our practice and all the things we do in here are an invitation to trust, to trust the experience. If we haven't had the experience, to trust that it— that the Buddha's light is out there. Just allow it in a little bit, and little by little, trust that our rough edges get smoothed off. Transformation is possible. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. In a moment, we'll stand and make prostrations to the main shrine. Please do as much as your body allows you to do, which might be coming all the way from standing to the ground. It might be a standing bow, or it might be a bow from where you're sitting, and we'll recite the words Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, which is a way of saying I trust that that light is there. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
In gratitude, we offer this incense to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time. May it be fragrant as Earth herself, reflecting our careful efforts, our wholehearted awareness, and the fruits of understanding slowly ripening. May we and all beings be companions to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
Realize our truth. So do come back to your places and we'll bow to each other.
And to the main shrine. And we'll bow to our seats. Donation bowl is in the hallway, or you can make a donation electronically through the website. Thank you for joining us to this part of the day. We'll have a short break and then be back in here for the next section of the retreat day. Or if you're not staying, have a good day, whatever you're doing. And we'll finish with the closing verse together, which is on the top of the piece of paper. Blessed by Amitabha's light, may we care for all living beings. Feel free to make a drink if you want to. You're welcome to bring it back in for the next section, and we'll meet back in here in about 10 minutes. Namaste.
Did you stop it yet?
