Practice - New York Glimpse & spiritual training grounds

Good morning everybody, welcome. Enjoying the sound of the bell. Welcome to Suzanne and Ian joining us on everyone on Zoom this morning and everyone in the room. We will begin this morning with a Dharma glimpse by someone called Emily from New York who was in my book group that we've just finished, and Barbara will kindly read it for us. We didn't take this back last time, so I'm trying to remember to do that.

Big life, small life. By Emily Gitten. This line of thought will have no resolution since it's new to me, but I've been thinking a lot lately about a big life versus a small life. I was talking with one of the monastics about how my first year or two in Zen was the happiest period of my life. I didn't think about anything else. Every hour of my day was full. I woke up at 5:30, went to temple to sit, eat, and clean, went to one job, had an hour for lunch, went to my other job, had an hour for dinner, went to temple again, came home and showered, and went to bed at 9 to do it again the next day. I made meal offerings with a full prayer before every meal at the altar. During spring and fall, I wrote the text we were studying on high pieces of paper and taped them to the walls of my apartment. I was very, very happy. It's important to know that I was very mentally unwell when I came to Zen, so I had essentially forgotten about the world as I was healing through practice. When I told this to the monastic last week, she said I had had a very small life and it can be easier to be happy in a small life. Also that I can't go back. I think she's right. I was very happy in my small life. Over the years, I became more aware of things outside that I felt like I was missing out on. Friends outside of Zen, cute clothes that didn't cover my shoulders and knees, TV and people to talk about it with, vices. At first, when I left, I was overjoyed at feeling connection to all the people outside of Zen. Life got very big, but it's much lonelier. Even though I feel every person got more accessible, it makes me a very little fish in a big pond. Instead of a medium fish in a medium pond, back in my little world of Zen. Of course, New York City is known for this. It's very lonely despite there being so many people. Who knows what percentage of people are just the same, living in some little 8x8 room with few to no connections, in a city of 8.5 million. Anyway, my main point is, is there something wrong morally or spiritually with a very small life? I'm not sure I'm doing anyone any more good now in the big wide world than I was in my little world, but it feels like something is wrong with making a little world to be happy in. Why does it feel that way? I think because for me it meant disconnection from everyone outside. But are my new feelings of kinship with everyone actually benefiting me or them? How can I make it benefit? Am I and others better off if I just make a new little world? What do you do for people in a city where most people don't want to be interacted with in public, myself included? Here, if you are crying on the train, it's actually a kindness for everyone to ignore it. I know that seems odd to anyone not here, but you have to understand that there is no private life here. Almost no one lives without roommates, and anyone can hear you all the time. So it's a kindness to give each other this pretend privacy. So, that said, what does connection even look like here? I guess it means going places where people are actually looking for it. But isn't that making a little world then? I hope this counts as a Dharma glimpse. If nothing else, it's a glimpse for you about this city. And to me, this is the Dharma— giving some thought to things, questioning things.

Thank you, Baba. Thank you, Emily. And welcome to Philip and Matt as well. Hopefully you heard most of that lovely Dharma glimpse. If not, it will be online. So Casper and I have been reading the Nikan book by Greg Creech as part of our Bright Dawn studies, and maybe we will do a little Nikan this morning. Um, Naikan is a practice that gives us an opportunity to investigate the contingent nature of our being, the many causes and conditions and objects and people and systems that we rely on to be alive. And so as we move into the silence together I'll invite you to reflect on 3 questions. Over the past 24 hours, what have you received? What have you offered in return? And what trouble has your existence caused, or inconvenience, to others or to the planet? So just over the past 24 hours, what have you received? What have you given in return? And what trouble has your existence caused? It's not a competition to see who can come up with the most on their lists. Sometimes that's my experience. So, so allow the thoughts to have some space around them. And then we will move from Nikan into period of chanting, as we usually do. And when we start chanting, you can move into making an offering of everything that you've been thinking or everything you've been feeling to the Buddha. So just hand it all over. And allow peace to descend or to well up. So just to recap, during the silence we'll ask ourselves those 3 questions, and then when I start chanting, we will make offerings to the Buddha and allow peace to arise. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

Om Muni Muni Maha Muni Shakya Muni Swaha. Om Muni Muni Maha Muni Shakya Muni Swaha. Om muni munimaha muni shakya munisvaham! Om muni munima ha muni Shakya Munisvaham! Oh Mune— Mooni Ma Ha Moony Sha Kya Muunies Vahaha! Om muni munimaha muni shakya munisvaha! Oh Mune Munima ha— Om muni munimaha muni shakya mumisvah! Om muni munima ha munishakyamumisvah! Oh Mune Munimaha Mumishakyamunis— Om Mune mune mahamuni shaktya munisvaha! Om Mune mune mahamuni satya muniswaha! Om Mune mune mahamuni saktya munis— Om Nama'hamune Sathya Munisvaha! Om Namuna Mahamuni Shakti Amunishvaah! Oh my name's Muhneem Aha— Moonie Shakthiyamoonieshwaah! Om Namuna Mahamuni Shaaktya Mooneeshwaha! Om muni munimaha muni shatya munisvah ha! Om muni munimaha muni satya munisvah ha! Om muni munima hamunishatyamunisvaha ha! Om Nama'hamune Satyamunisvaha. Om Nama'hamune Satyamunisvaha. Om Nama'hamune Satyamunisvaha.

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 Dhammaya. For refuge I go to the Sangha— for refuge those who live in Buddha's light— Namo Sanghaya! With faith in Three Jewels I pray that may not take life; with faith in The Three Jewels, I pray that might steal; No blame. Be kind. Love everything.

Innumerable are sentient beings. We vow to save them all. Inexhaustible are deluded passions. We vow to transform them all. Innumerable— no, immeasurable other Dharma teachings, we vow to master them all. Infinite is the Buddha's way, we bow to fall fair completely.

Grateful to Emily for her Dharma glimpse for a few reasons. This morning. One is that it does what all Dharma glimpses should do, which is give us a glimpse into someone else's life, someone else's process, someone else's experience. And that feels especially valuable when it's an experience that's quite different from our own in terms of her location or her life. The other is that it brings us to a place of curiosity. It's a, an entrance point to some questions, and I always love in book groups when people write questions as a part of their reflections because they're so much bigger than, uh, than being told what somebody knows. They open things up rather than close them down. And the third is the question itself, which is something about how we can live a good life in the circumstances that she described. Is it okay to carry on living a small life, or should we go out into the world? When we had the group where Emily presented this glimpse, there were a few people who, who sort of resisted the, the languaging around the small and the big life, because of course monastic life can be hugely big and deep.

Meaningful.

But I think there is still a question there about how, how we might connect with others when, if they don't want to be connected with, or how, how we might be in the world. And, and as, as Buddhists, if, if our Buddhism isn't helping us think about how we are in the world, then what good is it? And this brings me to thinking about the community that we have here in the temple, and particularly some of the rules that we have around how we do things. And I was thinking this morning about the rule we have as a part of our Friday community meal, where the person who cooks is aware of everybody else eating, and, and when a plate becomes empty, it's their job to stop eating, stand up, and offer that person some more food before they go back to carry on eating. And because there's 9 of us, sometimes that can be quite a big job. And I can remember when I first encountered this way of doing things in France, I think it was, or at the Buddhist House, I felt a little bit resentful. Like, I've done all this cooking, I'm just starting my meal and that person over there is free. They could go up and get their own seconds. Or how about someone else does it for a change? Um, and of course, as time's gone on, or not, of course, as time's gone on, I've come to value, uh, this, this sort of little tradition more and more because it gives us an opportunity to be in a position of of caring for the group, of being the one who is keeping an eye on how everybody is and what they might need. And it also gives us a little experience of putting our own food down to go and get some more food for someone else. And it also gives us an experience of being the one who has the empty plate and is given some more food by someone who stopped eating to do that. And that can also be, depending on our natures, it can be difficult. It could be that can be more difficult than being the one that has to stop and get the seconds. And the same things happen here in the shrine room. Um, Barbara has been willing to take a bit of leadership today by sitting at the front here and reading glimpse, and that we all benefit from that. We all benefit from Emily, who wrote the words that we've heard. We benefit from Angie, who means, you know, allows us to not sit forever in silence and to stand up and sit down. And as a bellmaster, our role is to be attentive to the celebrant. That's your job, is to serve the celebrant. You get an experience of that. And my job is to serve everybody, to kind of tune into who's in the room, to think about what I might say, to think about the chant that would best fit with the practice. So we're all getting these experiences in, in these spiritual training grounds all the time of being the one that receives or the one that offers. Being the one that leads or the one that follows. Being the one that speaks up and says something that maybe feels difficult to say, or the one that listens to something that's difficult to say, to hear. I'm thinking about that story of people crying on the tube that maybe sometimes There might be people who would appreciate being checked in with, and, and that's something we need to, to learn how to do. How can we, how can we tune into others and, and be curious about their experience and pick up their signals and respond as a bodhisattva or a Buddha might respond? And as Pure Land Buddhists, and as people, or as a person influenced by internal family systems, my sense is that we're more able to do this when we get out of the way, when we notice our own preoccupations and our protection, and we just ask it to relax for a second so we can just allow compassion to be present, so we can look through the eyes of the Buddha and see what needs to be done. Naikan is one way of, of doing that. It allows us to see the things that we take for granted, or the things that we, um, the things that we feel resentful about, when actually the exchange is often pretty unequal in terms of how much we receive. Compared to how much we've offered. And of course, as we do these, um, as we learn, as we practice, as we, as we enter the spiritual training ground, we also are kind to ourselves. We are bomboo beings. We are, um, mostly blobs of self-protection, just kind of blundering our way through life the best we can, with moments of clarity, moments of, of, uh, of generosity, moments of wisdom, little glimpses. Part of my Naikan practice today is to say thank you to whoever it was who cleaned the shrine room yesterday evening. It was really wonderful to come in this morning to a hoovered floor and clean shrines, and whoever cleaned the dining room, which is also very nice and sparkling. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. How lucky we are, namomi to be. In gratitude, we offer this incense offering to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time. May it be fragrant as Earth herself, reflecting our careful efforts, our wholehearted attention, and the fruits of understanding slowly ripening. May we and all beings be companions of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. May we awaken from forgetfulness and realize our true home. So, uh, me and Casper will be pulling ivy off in the snow after our cups of tea. If anyone else wants to join us, they'd be very welcome. But you can be there in spirit, I'm sure, if not in person. And we'll finish with the closing verse. Bless I Am, Father of the Light. May we care for all living things. Namomi Dabu. Oh, Namomi Dabu. Let me just stop the recording.