This content was created by Satya Robyn. This content was uploaded by Satya Robyn. This is a YouTube video titled "Practice: petrol stations and the three jewels" (created 2023-03-23). It records an English Buddhist practice/service held in a shrine room with remote participants on Zoom. The excerpt includes a Dharma glimpse written by Frankie (read by Katie), guided meditation instructions, extended Amitabha chanting, recitation of the refuges/vows (the Three Jewels), a short dharma talk on refuge and the Sangha/Dharma/Buddha, ritual prostrations and offerings, and final announcements about book groups and a retreat. Multiple participants speak (service leader, readers, congregation members; Claire is mentioned as joining on Zoom).
Chapters
Good evening, everybody. Welcome, welcome to Claire joining us on Zoom, and we will begin as we usually do with a Dharma glimpse, which which is a little piece of writing that describes a moment of inspiration, and this morning's is by Frankie, kindly read by Katie.
Thank you.
A couple of weeks ago, a small petrol station in the middle of town closed down. It was a family business and the owner has retired. It's something of an icon, the only petrol station actually right in town, situated in an awkward triangle of roads right on the port side. It's tiny, a couple of pumps, but what made it special was that the operators actually put the petrol in the car for you. No self-service, just like the old days when you handed over a note and said, 'Fill 'er up.' I don't drive, but for older drivers like my husband, it was such a boon not having to get out of the car. Figure out the self-service stuff and all that. The petrol station has been there forever, and it seems unthinkable that it won't continue to be part of our cityscape. I've always held a personal mantra that all change is good. I fully subscribe to the truth of impermanence. Yes, suffering is inevitable when change happens, but something good is always born out of it. But when I heard the news about the petrol station, I couldn't summon up my mantra. This particular change wasn't good for the people who relied on the ease of service, its familiarity, even its iconic status. It occurred to me that all change isn't good after all, but neither is it all bad, or anything in between. I suddenly realized that I could let go of always being obliged to cheerfully accept change find the positive, deny the negative. And far from feeling as if I'd taken a step backward and forgotten all of those lessons about impermanence, I felt liberated by accepting that change just is. No more or less than that. It just is.
Namu Amida Butsu. Thank you. So we always begin after the Dharma glimpse. We always move on to some quiet sitting together. Um, in this tradition of Buddhism, meditation isn't the main practice that we do. It's not the focus of our our practice, and it is a way of connecting with the Buddha and connecting with the qualities of the Buddha—peace, goodness, steadiness. And you just have to look at a Buddha and the expression on their face to get a taste of that, to get a taste of how it is to be able to sit quietly and still and allow the turmoil of our minds to, to very gradually settle down over time. Some of you may find that as you sit quietly, everything goes very still and quiet. That's not usual. What usually happens is the brain can keep going or even gets more noisy. And that, that's the practice, is that we sit still and we stay quiet and we just notice what's happening. We notice the, the turmoil, or we notice the thoughts or the feelings as they come and go. And we notice that, as Frankie says, they are impermanent, that they come and they go, they change in intensity. So as we sit quietly together, that's my invitation this evening, is to just notice the impermanence of everything in your mind and everything in your body. Everything's changing. Even our bones, the cells are being replaced bit by bit. And trusting that underneath that impermanence, or somehow included in the impermanence, is this— is the steadiness of the Buddha holding us. Protecting us. And then after some silence, I'll start chanting, and this evening we will chant Amitabha. So do join in with the chanting when you get the hang of it. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
Um, me, top. 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.
Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha.
So we'll now recite the vows, refuges, and precepts together. 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. 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 Dharmaya. Namo Dharmaya. For refuge I go to the Sangha. For refuge I go to the Sangha. Those who live in the Buddha's light.
Those who live in the Buddha's light. Namo Sanghaya.
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—I pray that I may not fall into sexual misconduct; 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 master them all. Infinite is the Buddha's way. We vow to follow it completely.
So Buddhism speaks of impermanence, the truth of impermanence, the unavoidability of impermanence. And impermanence can be both good and bad depending on whether we want more of something or less of something. But the other piece of the puzzle, the, um, the, the thing that comes in and makes makes our knowledge of impermanence possible and helps us handle it, helps us deal with it, is refuge. And all Buddhists from all different traditions, very different looking traditions, like in Christianity, Buddhism can look very different. All traditions of Buddhists take refuge. Refuge. And they take refuge in the Three Jewels, which we mentioned in the precepts. With faith in the Three Jewels, I pray that I may not take life. And the Three Jewels are leaning into the Buddha, leaning into the Dharma, and leaning into the Sangha. So I'll start with the Sangha. It's maybe the easiest to talk about. The Sangha is us, people in this room. Sangha in Buddhist, in a Buddhist context, means Buddhists, but we can take the word Sangha to mean anyone who is attempting to live their lives with a spiritual kind of context or a wholesome, ethical context that is more than just what we can get or just staying afloat. There's some deeper meaning, there's some deeper grounding. And that when we take refuge in the Sangha, we're acknowledging that it's very difficult to stay connected to spiritual life on our own. That if we're on our own in our house, it can be easier to turn on the TV. Uh, I'm not anti-TV, I watch a lot of TV, but it can be easier to turn on the TV than it can be to do spiritual practice. Whereas when we come here, we're supported by each other as we practice together in this room. And people that have been coming for a long time are connected in with other people in this room in a way that supports their their spiritual life. We keep each other on the straight and narrow-ish, and we rely not on one person because we are all foolish beings, but we rely on a group of people attempting to live a spiritual life. And we trust that when one person lets us down, there might be someone else that can listen in a better way, or be more reliable in a particular way. We also take refuge in the Dharma, which usually means the teachings, the teaching, Buddhist teachings, the teachings of the Buddha who lived in India 2,500 years ago, and the teachings of all the disciples of the Buddha, all the teachers since then. There are a lot of them, and they wrote a lot and taught a lot, so that when we connect in with these teachings again, they, they help to remind us of what's important. They keep us grounded. They help us find insight, new insight. And teachings are also everywhere. So the Dharma is contained in Frankie's Dharma Glimpse. The Dharma is contained in a barking dog in the middle of meditation. Hopefully a couple of people became enlightened at that point. And then the third thing that we take refuge in is the Buddha, and this means both the Buddha, the historical Buddha who lived in India and who who created Buddhism. He didn't mean to create Buddhism, but the people that came after him created Buddhism as a religion. And something more ineffable than that, some kind of, um, essence of infinite compassion and infinite wisdom. That we trust that that is something that is available to us somehow, that exists in the universe, and that when we take refuge in the Buddha, we, we trust that that is there. Or we trust even that we don't feel like it is there, but someone we really respect says that they think it is. So we just kind of go with that for a while and just experiment with that idea of Knowing that we're not alone, that help is available, and that we are loved just as we are. So even if we only had the Three Refuges, we could probably practice with them for the rest of our lives, talk about them. Experience them. The Three Refuges, refuge is at the heart of Buddhism. And when we first start to practice, when we first come, it can all be a bit difficult to make sense of or to trust. But hopefully there's just a little glimpse of something, a little bit of peace or a little piece of wisdom that just lands, or a small feeling of being accepted that allows us to keep looking and to keep coming back, to keep doing this— these things we're doing together tonight here in the shrine room. I take refuge in the Buddha, the one who is awake and full of love. I take refuge in the Dharma, all that guides us to wisdom and compassion. And I take refuge in the Sangha, those who live in the Buddha's light. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. So in a minute we'll stand and make prostrations to the Buddha. Do join in as much as your body will allow you to. And as we prostrate, we chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
In gratitude, we offer this incense to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time. May it be as fragrant as earth itself, reflecting their carefulness, a wholehearted awareness, and the fruits of understanding and serving one another. May we and all beings be companions of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. May we awaken from forgetfulness and realize our true nature.
Turn to stand at your seats. We will now bow to each other, first one way and then the other. Tidy our seats and bow to our seats. Then we'll finish with the closing verse, which is on the liturgy sheet if you want to join in. Blessed by Amitabha's light.
May we care for all living things and the Holy Earth.
Namaste. So just a short announcement. There are cookies. That's not the announcement. We have a couple of places left on the book groups that we're running starting at the end of the month. We have one place left on Mainun Jamé's Promise of the Sacred World, which is on Zoom on Saturdays from 6 till 7. We have a few places left here at the temple at 7:30 on Sundays for the same book. We'll be studying with Dave, which will be a very lovely experience. And we have a couple of places left on Casper's Ocean, which is really good if you don't know much about Piyana Buddhism. And that will be here in the temple, or any Buddhism here at the temple, Sunday 6 PM till 7 PM. Yeah, from the end of April. All details on the website. If you've got any questions, let me know afterwards. They're very good, nice things to do. I think that's it, is it? Yeah, there's a retreat day on the 9th, something like the 9th, Saturday, the 9th of April. Yeah, because the first is April 8th. Who's on the website? Come on, meet Vic and pick up a tea. Say hello to Claire.
