Satya Robyn leads a Buddhist practice session on rebirth and purifying karma. The sangha recites the Nembutsu together, hears Dharma teaching on Pure Land practice, and dedicates merit for someone who is ill.
Chapters
Welcome, small but perfectly formed. Hi Robyn. Welcome anybody watching later on the replay. Do pop a comment in and say hi if you're watching back on YouTube. Be nice to know who's there. We'll begin by reading the Summary of faith together. Statement of faith. Thank you. You can find the text for this on the website if you're watching later.
Statement of faith.
The purpose of our practice is to open us to the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha Our heart practice is the Nembutsu, the recitation of Amida Buddha's name. We also connect with the Buddha's wisdom through practices like listening to teachings, meditation, and being in the natural world. We treasure Shakyamuni Buddha, who set the wheel of Dharma turning. We learn from Buddhist teachers through the ages. Awakened beings everywhere and the world itself. We especially revere the great Pure Land sages Honen and Shinran. Held in Amida's loving gaze, we come to know ourselves deeply, both our bamboo nature and our foolish nature and our Buddha nature. As bamboo beings, we grasp at unreliable refuges And sometimes we cause harm. Knowing the harm we cause offers us the chance to lessen that harm. Seeing our fallible nature also strengthens our refuge in Amida Buddha. The more deeply we take refuge in Amida, the more our greed, ill will, and delusion will melt like ice into water. Allowing our natural compassion to flow into the world. We trust that at the center of each of us is the heart that loves all living beings and that wishes for their liberation. We take action powered by this love in response to suffering in the world. We pay attention to the causes of suffering. We mitigate for power. We practice discerning what work is ours to do. We wish that all who may benefit are able to access the jewels of the Buddha's teachings. Moved by the Buddha's love, we vow to take care of all living beings, including ourselves. Held tenderly by the Buddha's love, we find clarity, consolation, and settled faith.
Namokwanshi inbo sat. Namokwanshi inbo sat. Namokwanshi inbo sat. Namah Kwan Shin Bo Sat. Namah Kwan Shin Bo Sat. Namah Kwan Shin Bo Sat. Namah Kwan Shin Bosat. Namah Kwan Shin Bosat. Namah Kwan Shin Bosat. Namah Kwan Shin Bosat. Namah Kwan Shin Bosat. Namah Kwan Shin Bosat. Namah Kwan Shin Bosat. Namah Kwan Shin Bosat. Namah Kwan Shin Bosat. Namah Kwan Chi Invo Sas. Namah Kwan Chi Invo Sas. Namah Kwan Chi Invo Sas. Namah Kwan Shin Bosats. Namah Kwan Shin Bosats. Namah Kwan Shin Bosats. Namah Kwan Shin Bosats. Namah Kwan Shin Bosats. Namah Kwan Shin Bosats. Namokwanji in bosas. Namokwanji in bosas. Namokwanji in bosas. Namahwanshi Indra Satya. Namahwanshi Indra Satya. Namahwanshi Indra Satya. Namokwanji in Gosat. Namokwanji in Gosat. Namokwanji in Gosat. Namokwanji in vosat. Namokwanji in vosat. Namokwanji in vosat. Namokwan Shinpo San. Namokwan Shinpo San. Namokwan Shinpo San.
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 Buddhaya.
Namo Buddhaya.
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 Sangaya.
Namo Sangaya.
For refuge I go to the Earth.
For refuge I go to the Earth.
The holy ground of awakening.
The holy ground of awakening.
Namo Bhumiye.
Namo Bhumiye.
With faith in the Four Refuges.
With faith in the Four Refuges.
And in light of my human tendencies.
And in light of my human tendencies.
I pray that I may become aware.
I pray that I may become aware.
Of when I take life.
Of when I take life.
I pray that I may become aware—
—of when I take what is not freely given.
I pray that I may become aware— —of when I fall into sexual misconduct. I pray that I may become aware— Of when I fall into wrong speech.
Of when I fall into wrong speech.
I pray that I may become aware.
I pray that I may become aware.
Of when I become intoxicated. Of when I become intoxicated. No blame. No blame. Be kind. Be kind. Love everything.
Love everything. 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 fulfill it completely.
Rebirth, one of the sort of commonly misunderstood doctrines of Buddhism, often thrown away by Westerners who say, well, there's no evidence for that, I don't like the sound of it. I want to speak a little bit about what it is and what it isn't. The analogy that was given to me many years ago, I think by a Theravada monk, was it's like snooker balls knocking into each other. When you hit the cue ball, it moves and hits a red, say. The red ball moves, the cue ball stays in that position. The momentum is transferred from one ball to the other. That's physics. That's my new catchphrase. That's physics. And the idea of rebirth in Buddhism is like this. The two lives are separate. It isn't me that gets reborn each time, but something of the energy, which is to say the habit patterns, the karma. Plus the energy of enlightenment, if there, if there's any of that present. That's what gets moved forward from one life into the next. You know, when people occasionally hear stories of, uh, previous lives, or even remember previous lives, they don't have a memory of 'Oh, this was me, Casper, but just in another place. But you know, I still felt the same.' And I, you know, it kind of had a sense of, 'Oh, this is me, this is my identity, Casper, but in the Middle Ages.' It's more like, uh, I was this person with a different name and a different face and And yet something is passed down from person to person. In, in the modern world, we know about genetic inheritance, which comes through our family lines. We also know about like our psychological inheritance that comes through family lines, intergenerational trauma, for example. The, uh, the traditional teachings of Buddhism suggest that karma from a previous life can pop up outside your families. There was a study done in India that I read about years ago, and most of the people who had memories of previous lives, it was within just a few villages, um, like the energy hadn't gone very far. Um, none of them were claiming to be Cleopatra, which is often what I hear about when I hear about previous lives from people in the UK. I was an Egyptian princess.
Okay.
And I'm not here to say, well, you must believe in it, or you, you know, I'm not here to convince you one way or the other. It is true. I will tell you that until the Dalai Lama was about 5 or 6 years old, he says he had very clear memories of his previous lives, previous incarnations, and that they faded as he moved into adulthood. And he was sort of suggesting like I guess. And if none of you remember, that's why. It's because you're all adults now. Um, but the point is that whether it comes through genetics, whether it comes through psychological inheritance or cultural inheritance, whether, whether, like the Buddha suggests, it's a more mysterious process that the energy of our previous lives can be in different places. The teaching is that we don't arrive into the world as a blank slate. We have some tendencies. We have some tendencies towards compassion, perhaps, but we also have tendencies towards the three poisons and a particular style of that. When I speak to parents with more than one child, they sort of, they often say, oh, they were very— all my children are very different, and I could see they were very different very quickly. It's not just to do with nurture. We arrive with a character. And the practice of Buddhism is about transforming, as we heard in the Bodhisattva verse, transforming greed, hate, and delusion into wisdom and compassion. So the traditional teaching of Pure Land Buddhism, which stretches across lifetimes, is that the Pure Land is an easy place to do that. Right, that's why everyone loved Amitabha's Pure Land, because you arrive there with all your character inside a closed lotus flower, and slowly the light of the Buddha dissolves all of your karma, and the lotus flower opens, and you step out into the jeweled trees with a golden body with no greed, hate, and delusion. And then you can collapse that timeline shorter and shorter, show that it happens within one life, or a version of it happens within one life, or even within one moment when you say the Nembutsu, the Buddha's love. Arrives with you, some greed, hate, and delusion dissipates. And we have a sort of responsibility to future generations to do this practice, you know. We're not just doing it for ourselves. And when you think of the timeline, you know, past, present, and future, like, it's really easy to see what all living beings means if I behave like a shit and I pass that on to the people, like, that spreads like a virus. Um, if I can contain what has been passed on to me and transform it, let it be transformed into something wiser and more compassionate, that's what gets passed on, and there's more hope for future generations. So this is one way of understanding the work of a Buddhist Our job is to let our karma be transformed. Namamitubhu. Namamitubhu.
Namaste.
Alas, people busily engaged in secular affairs take no notice of life wearing away day by day, night by night. Like a lamp in the wind, how long can it last? In the six realms of va-samsara, there is no fixed abode until we are emancipated by the seeds of affliction. How can we rest in peace? Should we not be afraid? While we still have strength, let us each hear Dharma. Let us strive and diligently seek the path to eternity.
You know, when I'm giving a talk later at 5 o'clock on Zoom, which you're very welcome to attend, both of you, tickets available on the website. In fact, it would be really lovely to have some people there. Summer dates are always quieter. And when I'm doing practice on the same day, I think I really thought, oh, I don't want to talk about the same thing. And what I find is because I'm sort of living inside the world of the themes, it's really hard not to sort of It just ends up coming out anyway, so there's been a little bit of a sneak preview, even though I started from a different place. But it will be, it will be different. So before we finish, I want to transfer merit to Jaume's sister Holly, who is very ill in hospital at the moment. So pray that she can be received by the Buddha's wise, compassionate, and healing light.
By your vows and through your grace, a pure land is blessed by Amitabha's light.
May we care for all living things and the Holy Earth.
