A Buddhist practice session celebrating Kaspar's 40th birthday, mixing informal reflections on joy and mindfulness with formal elements like chanting, refuge recitations, and Bodhisattva vows. The group explores daily practice through walking meditation and letting go of preoccupations.
Chapters
Good morning everybody, and very special welcome to Jesse who's here for the first time and Gere who's also here for the first time. Really lovely to see both and everybody else. So just wait for Kusma's audio to kick in. Good morning, Kusma. So today is a very special day. It is Kaspar Lita's 40th birthday.
He's very young.
He continues to tell us the grey hairs I found this morning. He continues to be much younger than me, which is really annoying. I'm kind of waiting, but it's, uh, he's not catching up yet. And so I thought I might talk about the Four Noble Sights today: old age, sickness, death. That's a joke.
Okay, sounds like a good talk to me.
So I thought I'd talk, rather than old age, sickness, and death, about joy. And in spiritual practice, I think that it's tempting to get a bit bogged down sometimes. I think for me, I turn to my spiritual practice when I'm in need often when I'm feeling a bit lonely or despairing or frightened. And so the spiritual practice can come to be associated with these big events in life. You know, we turn to spirituality at christenings and funerals and those kinds of big events that have a real gravity to them. One of the things that I think we are all gifted, if we remember to pay attention to it, is the small joys that come when we connect to something bigger than us. And I particularly think, I'm thinking as I'm talking this morning about the walking meditation we were doing in the temple garden before the lockdown happened in December, on a Saturday morning at the end of March, we will again be beginning our practice in the garden and just walking very slowly around the little paths that David has made for us, passing the hellebores that are just coming out under the, the tree, the little primroses Passing the pond, which is absolutely heaving with frog spawn already. Going through the bamboo. I remember the bam— whenever I pass the bamboo these days, I remember that there was a dead jackdaw in it once. It was absolutely stunning, just the black and white kind of— it just obviously had chosen the bamboo as a place to die and just fell and was kind of lodged in the bamboo. Do you remember? It's beautiful. You must have seen it anyway. And our little dog's following us because they really enjoy walking meditation in the garden. And what really brings me the most joy in life isn't the big things that happen, but the little tiny things that we allow ourselves to pause and take in the almond croissant we just had for breakfast, the way that your mum made a card with lots of photos on it from Caspar's history. Just those little things are, for me, the kind of the daily bread that sustains me, and keeps me, keeps me going, keeps me connected. So what does that have to do with the Buddha? Good question. For me, the thing that gets between me and these little things that happen, these little gifts, are often like clouds. They're clouds of preoccupation. Maybe I'll be thinking too hard about what I'm going to say to that person, or how that project's going to turn out, something I've been worrying over. They might be clouds of fantasy. I might be thinking about what I'm going to have for dinner, or the little cottage I'm going to move into when we move out from the temple in hopefully a decade's time, or the kinds of things that fill all of our heads. And I've been really conscious of these things. I don't usually do lots of meditation, but because I've been doing my daily, my daily vigil outside, and I've been sitting quietly for an hour every day, I've been really conscious of how busy it is in there. There's whole teams of parts of me that are engaged in all sorts of tasks. We're training one of our dogs at the moment, and there's like a whole team of parts of me that are thinking all the time about how I can where the next training session is going to happen and what I'm going to do and how that's all going to work. Lots of my parts think about work and things that need doing around the house or the garden. All of that stuff takes up bandwidth. It separates me from what's actually there. And the Buddha's presence It reminds me that I don't have to carry all of that on my own, that I can hand it over to the Buddha, that the Buddha will take care of those things while I'm not actively engaged in them. I don't need to keep carrying them and worrying them and feeling that I'm entirely responsible for them. The Buddha also helps me with my fears. Because when I lean in, I remember that I'm okay. I don't need to— that bad things will happen, but that I don't need to be afraid because the Buddha will always be with me. So the Buddha acts for me like the kind of the sun on mist. He, she burns away some of the preoccupation and allows little motes of sun to kind of poke through here and there and reminds me of how if all those preoccupations cleared away, that I'm already in the Pure Land. I'm already in a place that is shining and jeweled and beautiful, full of grace, full of beauty. So hopefully today, in honor of Casper's birthday, you'll all have some little moments where something just steps forwards and asks it to— asks you to appreciate it. It might just be a nice smell, or it might be your children's cheeks, or it might be a piece of toast. All of these ordinary things can bless us if we are in the right state of mind, if we are open if we are willing. So I'm tempted to ask you all to sing Happy Birthday, but that doesn't seem quite appropriate. I'm sure we'll do that later, maybe after we finish recording. And as we go into our silence this morning, you might just want to imagine the light of Amida from far away, reaching you as if you were right next to the Buddha, that the strength of the light, it penetrates all objects and it doesn't lose any strength. It's available to us wherever we are, no matter what is surrounding us. So just imagine bathing in that light and allowing your mind to settle a little bit. And then I'll start chanting at a certain point, and we'll do Amitabha. So the word is Amitabha, and you'll pick up the tune sure enough, soon enough, I'm sure. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
Thank you. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. We'll now do some chanting together. Unfortunately, you'll have to stay on mute, and I hesitated when I was going to say what we were chanting today because what I really wanted to do was to share Kusuma's chant with you, and I couldn't quite remember it, so I just sneaked next door when I was coughing and had a listen. So this tune came to Kusuma directly from the Buddha, I think we agreed. And the words are 'namo,' which means 'I take refuge in' or 'I call out to,' 'Amida,' who's the Buddha of infinite light, and 'Butsu,' which is Japanese for Buddha. What are you thinking?
I'm just looking forward to hearing it.
So it's a simple chant, so you'll get the hang of it soon. And if you are able to join us, then please do. And as happens in Zoom, we can just imagine everybody's voices joining together.
Namo Amida Butsu. Namo Amida Butsu. Namo Amida Butsu. Namo Amida Butsu. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo!
Namoh Amida Butsu! Namah Amida Butsu! Namah Amida Butsu... Namo Amitabha— but su? "Namaha mi da buu tsuu." namoha ami daboo soooo na moa amii dabo soo nahoami daboosoouwamidibuutsu Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Namah Amida Butsu! Namohami da butzu... namo amidabutsu— namo ami dabutso? Nama mi tabusu?! nama midaboosoo?? Namoo Amida Butsu! Namo Amidabutsu—Namu Amita Buzu...
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo!
Namah Amitabhu Tsu! Namah Amitabhu Tsu! Namoh Amida Butsu! Namo Amidabutsu— Namo Amidabutsu... Namo Amidabutsu... Nam-myoho-renge-kyo! Namo Amida Butsu—Namo Amida Butsu... Namoo Amida Butsu! Namoo Amida Butsu— namo amita butzu... Namo ami tabutsu? No more amigo boo-tso?! Nam-myoho-renge-kyo! Nam-myoho-renge-kyo! Namoo ami dabu soo— namoo ami dabu soo—
namoo ami dabu soo— namoo ami dabu soo— namoo ami dabuuussoo! Namo Amida Butsu! Okay.
Trusima has a beautiful voice. I should really have handed over to her for that bit. Maybe next time. So we now chant the refuges and the precepts. And the Bodhisattva vows. So the refuges, which we'll do first, are a reminder that rather than taking refuge in impermanent things like chocolate and television and Facebook likes, youth, that we take refuge in the things that we can always rely on to be always there, and they are the Buddha, the Dharma, the Buddha's teachings, and the Sangha, the community, this bunch of people and other Buddhist practitioners and other spiritual practitioners. So if you'd like to repeat after me: For refuge, I go to the Buddha.
For refuge, I go to the Buddha.
Namo Buddhaya. Namo Buddhaya. For refuge, I go to the Dharma.
For refuge I go to the Dharma. Namo Dharmaya.
Namo Dharmaya. For refuge I go to the Sangha.
For refuge I go to the Sangha.
Namo Sanghaya. Namo Sanghaya. The precepts are commonly recited throughout the Buddhist world, and rather than rules that we are expected to comply with because we are foolish beings of wayward passion, they're directions to move towards. So when we say that we pray that we won't use wrong speech, we're not promising that we're not going to say anything bad about anyone ever again. We're just trying to remember that that's the direction that we're heading in. So please repeat after me: With faith in the Three Jewels, with faith in the Three Jewels, I pray that I may not take life.
I pray that I may not take life. 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 avoid intoxication.
I pray that I may avoid intoxication.
And then finally we have the Bodhisattva vows, which are vows. So again, they're idealized places that we're heading towards, and they're completely— as you'll hear, they're completely impossible to keep. So we vow to keep them and we will fail.
Innumerable are sentient beings, we vow to save them all. Inexhaustible are deluded passions, we vow to transform them all. Inexhaustible are the Dharma teachings, we vow to master them all. Infinite is the Buddha's way, we vow to fulfill it completely.
So then we'll now stand if you can, and we'll do 3 prostrations, and the words are 'namo amida bu,' so like 'namo amida butsu' but without the 'su.' And if you can't see us, you won't know what to do. Maybe you could watch Tony. It looks like we might be able to see Tony. So, Jesse, if you want to watch Tony, you better do it right, Tony. Namu amida bu. Making motions with his hands.
Namoh Amitabha.
Namoh Amitabha. Namoh Amitabha.
Namoh Amitabha. Namu Amitabha!
Namu Amitabh! Namah Amida Butsu! Namo Amidabe—
—namo amidabe namohamidabe namohamidabe.
Namoh Amitabha.
Namoh Amitabhu.
Namoh Amitabhu. Namoh Amitabhu. Namoh Amitabha.
Namoh Amitabh!
Namoh Amitabh Bhū! Namō Amida-bhū!
Namo'ami tabu!
Okay, so we will now bow to each other. This is the bit where me and Casper try not to bonk each other on the head. And then bow to your nearest Buddha. And then in the chat box there will be a verse which we will recite together. So for everybody, or whoever can unmute, want to unmute, we have a nice jumble of voices. Let me turn it up so I can hear you all. Blessed by Amitabha's light, may we care for all living things and the whole earth. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
