Practice: Ponderings and Pigeon Dharma

Welcome to our evening practice session. Welcome if you're joining us for the first time, or for the first time after a long time. Welcome to Matt, Beth from Ledbury, and Claire joining us on Zoom this evening. Yeah, and this evening we're going to begin with a Dharma glimpse. Yeah, so this is written by Philip, who used to live here, and is going to be read by Tiamat. Thank you very much.

Dharma glimpse by Philip Walbridge. The genesis of this Dharma glimpse, or what I'm going to call a Dharma pondering, came as I— as increasingly seems to be the case at a Bright Earth practice. I've been listening to Beth's heartwarming and inspiring Dharma glimpse about saving a cockroach, and then Satya's invitation to take refuge in the following period of meditation. It became a period more of a contemplation for me. I find practices both calming and inspiring for me, which is perhaps why I get more glimpses or ponderings of them at the moment. I'm not always so calm when I'm on my, my own or interacting with others in or outside work. Taking refuge is one of the invitations and ideas which first struck me when I started exploring and practicing. Taking refuge, it has a nice, if not slightly strange, feel to it for me. Images of rain beating hard against the roof of a temple, arriving as a weary, bruised, and exhausted traveler. Maybe that's more taking shelter than refuge, I don't know. Maybe they are kind of the same thing. Hearing Satya's invitation today gave me a sense of calm and warmth. Taking refuge, I could do with some, if not a lot of it. It made me wonder about the relationship between the spiritual path and taking refuge at the start of the meditation period of practice. I expect taking refuge and progress on a spiritual path are a bit of a false dichotomy in my mind. But if you'll indulge me here, here are my ponderings. I wonder if it is about becoming whole or becoming with the whole. The whole of nature, the universe, the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Where the I and the ego disappear. We cannot do this on our own. Perhaps we need to keep trying with our enlightenment— with that, sorry, we need to keep trying with our delusions and harmful actions to follow a spiritual path towards love, wisdom, and enlightenment. Maybe for me to be brave enough to keep moving forwards, understanding and accepting the truth of attachment and impermanence, but also that we can rest, take refuge, be accepted and loved just as we are. Without having to be kinder, wiser, or more loving. Just as we are. Surrendering and seeking, being and doing, arriving and traveling. For some of us, we might need much more of the refuge to stop, feel safe, and be sheltered. Maybe because we've been in an endless cycle of harming others, ourselves, and being harmed. The world can be hard. We can become hardened. For others of us, we might feel safe and loved in the human world. Have the opportunities to experience happiness in things we do, and the people we are with. But we are still unfulfilled and hungry in a spiritual sense. We might need to seek more and discover more of the truth. We might need to provide the refuge and kindness more for others. For most of us, I suspect, we need both. We need both in different amounts at different times. Maybe different times is on a different day-to-day basis. And maybe we need both our heads and our hearts to know which we need. I'm trying to think of a clever or profound way now to end these ponderings, but I can't. Perhaps that in itself is a helpful thing. Glimpses, ponderings, hearts, heads, refuge-seeking— they aren't necessarily nice and neat things. They are maybe all part of the whole, where the more you become part of it and go towards it, the more the distinctions melt away. Wishing you love and happiness. Namah Amida Butsu.

Thank you, Jyamai, for reading. Thank you, Philip, for writing. So we'll go into a period of meditation now. Invitation to anchor your awareness with the breath if that's helpful, not trying to breathe in any particular way, just noticing how it is. And after about 15 minutes of sitting quietly, we will move into chanting Amitabha, which is a way of taking refuge in the Buddha of infinite light. And the light is love.

Amitabha.

Amitabha.

Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. 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. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh.

Earlier I was, um, I've been feeling a bit low all day. You all right there? Oh, you know, I just thought, is this the bit where I speak? But earlier I was thinking, oh, how am I going to introduce the refuges? Well, I guess we'll do those first then. So the refuges and precepts and the three remembrances, I will say them and then you can repeat them, and then the Bodhisattva verse will be call and response. 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 Tamaya. Namo Tamaya. For refuge I go to the Sangha— for 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 3 Jewels—I pray that may steal; With faith in the Three Jewels, I pray that I may not fall into sexual misconduct. With faith in the Three Jewels, I pray that I may not fall into wrong speech. 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 the Buddha's passions.

We bow to transform them all.

Immeasurable are the Dharma teachings.

We bow to master them all. Infinite is the Buddha's way. We pause in confidence completely. In some schools of Buddhism, they believe that before the Buddha was enlightened, he was just he was already enlightened but behaving as a human being in order to show us what the spiritual life looked like. This is how you start as an ordinary person, and these are the stages you have to go through, and then you get enlightened. I'm already enlightened, I'm just demonstrating that for you to follow, but I'm just demonstrating my ordinary human nature. I can't— I use that excuse. So as I was going to say, I've been a bit tired and a bit low, and I, I found that what helped was reading some of Mary Oliver's essays from a book called— I think it's called Upstream. She hasn't published much prose, I don't think. It's a really beautiful collection of writing, and it's mostly centered around her experiences in the natural world. And the chapter I was reading is about the ponds that kind of surround where she lives between her place and the sea. And she says, this time of year, these very specific things happen. These birds appear. This is when the snapping turtles, you know, make their nests. This happens, and this happened to me. And now it's this time of year, and I know that this is what unfolds at this time of year. And then in the autumn and the winter and spring again. And I really understood from the quality of writing that she wasn't just looking in her field guide of things that happened at different times of year. She knew because she'd lived in that place and paid attention for a very long time. That's how she understood the year. And I put the book down and felt so sort of bereft of the natural world. I know the traffic was going past, I could hear my computer fan humming, or I don't even, maybe it wasn't even turned on, but I sort of imagined that sound and, and how constructed my life is and insulated from all those things. And how little I, I just felt, oh, I would never be able to describe things in that way. My comparing mind has been pretty active and it, it managed to stop while I was reading the prose and then it kicked straight back in afterwards. And then about half an hour later, I was sitting quietly in my chair looking out of the window. Onto the coach house roof, and it was really quiet. And two pigeons landed on the roof and sort of skittered down the tiles a little bit, and one of them looked me in the eye. And first of all, I thought, I'm behind the window, surely you won't be able to see me. But it held my eye contact for a really long time, and then it moved a little bit further and it looked up at me right in my eye again. And it— then it drank a little bit of water from the gutter and then came back up and stared at me again. And the other one was kind of ignoring me, but this, this one, maybe the one that was cooing just now through meditation, was really paying attention to me. And I guess it was just checking out, oh, I can see a being over there. I wonder if it's safe for me to go and drink out of the gutter, or is Casper gonna jump out of the window and try and get me? But here it was, this appearance of the wild world, these other living beings. And I felt like I could hear Mary Oliver's voice saying, just pay attention. You just need to pay attention.

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

So now we'll stand and make prostrations to the main shrine while reciting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

In gratitude, we dedicate the merits of this incense offering to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Throughout space and time. May it be fragrant as in the self, reflecting our careful efforts, our wholehearted awareness, and the fruit of understanding slowly ripened. May we and all beings, companions, We awaken and realize.

So we'll bow to each other first, one side and then the other, and to the main shrine. We'll tidy our places and back to our seats, and we'll finish by reciting the closing verse together, which is on top of the sheet. Do unmute if you're on Zoom and want to join us. Blessed by Amitābha's light, May we care for all living things and the Holy Earth. Om Namah Amida Butsu. Thank you, everybody. Do come back tomorrow, Franjus Kirtan, if you're in the area. And we've got a garden day on Saturday at 2 o'clock. Yeah. If the weather's sort of more or less okay. Yeah, it's great. The weather's going to be fine. Come and join us in the garden. At 2 and a listening circle at 6 on Saturday. Namaste.

Hi everybody at home. Oh, I stopped the