Satya Robyn leads a Buddhist practice session with residents and remote participants. They discuss the Zen koan about the face before birth, chant Amitabha's name, and practice guided meditation with breath awareness and posture work.
Chapters
Good morning everybody, welcome this morning from inside the shrine room.
We have residents here who join us today. Philip Jame, Caspar, and me. Can you welcome yourself?
Of course we can.
And welcome on Zoom to Tony and Taylor, and welcome Janet to your first practice session. Good to see you. And Kusuma will slide in at some point, I'm sure, because she said she would. And Caspar is celebrant today, so you're in Caspar's Thank you.
Good morning, everybody. There's a Zen instruction: show me the face you had before you were born.
It's one of those classic Zen sayings that doesn't really make any sense on the surface, but there is something quite interesting about it when you start to unpeel the meaning. It's based on the idea of Buddha nature, this idea that at the core of humans, and then in later Buddhism every living being, and then in some cases in Japanese Buddhism at the core of everything trees, mountains, rivers, people.
There is Buddha nature, which is compassionate, loving, wise, has clarity about it, is courageous, is energetic.
This is the face before we're born. And when we're born into the world, very quickly layers and layers of accretions—
is that the right word?—
built up. Uh, we wrap ourselves in coping strategies and self-protection, which often manifest as greed, hate, and ignorance. And of course, from— in a classical Buddhist point of view, that isn't just happening in one lifetime, but across many lifetimes. We're born into the world already with some layers of this stuff from our last go-around. But the faith of Zen is that it is present, and it is possible that it breaks through those layers.
Sometimes.
The Sudden School of Zen teaches us that it can break through at any time. Sometimes it's when we're at our lowest ebb that we crack open and suddenly great love appears.
Sometimes it's when we're feeling particularly peaceful and all the conditions are perfect and we find our hearts open and we're just in tune with everything.
The gradual school of awakening in Zen suggests that it's a process that takes many years, and there's truth in both of those positions. It can break through. It can break through in any moment, regardless of the external conditions that we find. And the practice of paying attention to ourselves and to the mind and of cultivating good conditions like coming into the shrine room over many, many years makes that breaking through more likely. Sometimes in Pure Land Buddhism we say it's a grace because it's not dependent on those outside conditions, even though there's things we can do to make it more or less welcome. And if you read a history of Zen, or you start studying stories of the great teachers, you can get the impression that people are being awakened left, right, and center, and having these breakthroughs, and then living peacefully in the mountains or in their little village temples and teaching from this place of equanimity and open-heartedness. Of course, this is the history that spans hundreds of years, and they just tend to talk about the preeminent teachers. Pure Land Buddhism teaches us that it's really hard to find that original face before you were born. In fact, it teaches us that it's impossible to find. When you look for it using your willpower. It's impossible to find when you look for it using your willpower, because willpower is usually one of those coping strategies.
It's one of those accretions that we develop that gets in the way of our original mind. You can't fix something with a broken tool.
So our practice is one of trusting that not only is this place of compassion and wisdom at the center of each of us, covered up as it is, but also that it's out there in the universe, in a Buddha, and that the Buddha hasn't got it covered up. The Buddha's light is always shining. And we trust that by putting our attention on that light, that will guide us into a place where we discover the light within ourselves. Some pure land Buddhists will tell you you have to wait until you die before that happens, but in my experience, it can also happen in this lifetime. And certainly, um, relying on the sort of calculating minds to get there definitely doesn't work. So we put our faith in the one who is already awakened. This isn't a perfect analogy, but you know when an animal is born, when without a mother and it imprints onto the adult of another species and starts following, you know, a kitten starts following the mother hen around, or a duckling starts following the mother hen around, it begins to take on the qualities of that animal even though it's a completely different species with different characteristics.
Maybe we can think of it like this.
We We want to let the Buddha's awakening imprint onto us.
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. So sitting quietly with a fairly upright spine, natural curve to the spine, relaxed and upright, just noticing how you are. Moment to moment. The body remains still and the mind is a curious observer, noticing, noticing the breath, noticing physical sensations, noticing sounds.
Without getting attached to any of them, without building stories.
Well, that's the ideal, but we can say when we become, uh, involved in what we're noticing, when we start creating stories, just to step back and come back to the curious Observa.
Now we'll chant the name of the Buddha Amitabha. Amitabha is the Buddha who accepts us just as we are.
By reciting his name, we're tuning into the light of his awakening, and we're turning to his light. So we're just, uh, chanting the name Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabh.
Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha.
Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha.
We'll now recite the refuges and precepts together.
Please repeat after me.
For refuge, I go to the Buddha.
For refuge I go to the Buddha.
Namo Buddhaia. For refuge I go to the Dharma. Namo Dharmaya. For refuge I go to the Sangha. Namo Sanghaya.
With faith in the Three Jewels, I pray that I may not take life. I pray that I may not take life— With faith of three jewels... —i will never steal it again! "With my heart full love for you," Sir Ajahn Brahmachari Bhikkhu Venerable ...may fall into sexual misconduct." Again; "...fall" means to be deceived by lust or desire..." i am afraid!" "With My Heart Full Of Love For You...", ..."faith", ...the 3 jewells...... ...by Your Grace), ...,pray That May Not Fall Into Wrong Speech—" I pray that I may not fall into wrong speech. With faith in the Three Jewels, with faith in the Three Jewels, I pray that I may not become intoxicated. I pray that I may not become intoxicated. We vow to save them all. We vow to transform them all.
We vow to master them all.
Infinite is the Buddha's way.
We vow to forfeit completely. Namoha miyamu. Namoha miyamu.
Work with incense to Buddhist and bodhisattvas throughout space and time.
May their love and wisdom spread across the Earth as this fragrance of this incense spreads throughout the Dharma world. Great, so we'll recite the closing verse together. Blessed by Amitabha's light, may we endear all living beings and the holy dead.
