Fi leads a Buddhist practice session with sangha members, opening with a talk called "The Grief and Love of Stones" that connects quarrying and environmental activism. The group then sits together, chants Amitabha, recites refuges and precepts, and makes offerings in reverence for all living and non-living things.
Chapters
Good evening.
Welcome.
Um, uh, welcome to Claire joining us on Zoom. And everyone in the shrine room, this evening we are beginning with a Dharma glimpse by Fi. And if you haven't heard a Dharma glimpse before, it's pretty much what it says on the tin. It's a glimpse of the Dharma.
So I will hand over to Fi without further ado.
This is called 'The Grief and Love of Stones.' As part of last year's Bodhi Day, I sat with fellow sangha members and Extinction Rebellion activists at a regular vigil for the earth in the middle of my hometown. Round our necks, we wore the placards that said 'In love and grief for the earth.' At some point during the hour that I sat there, I leaned into the Malvern stone facade of the wall beside me and suddenly experienced a profound and physical sense of what two elements of that phrase meant to me, even if not actually in the order they were written on my chest. First of all, I felt acutely the separation of those stones from their bedrock only a few miles away, where they had developed over deep time and remained undisturbed until humans tore them from the hills with destructive tools and probably dynamite. People far more knowledgeable than I am about earth mysteries posit that the history of quarrying leaves a psychic scar on the land. I thought about that and found myself apologizing to those stones for their violent relocation. And then I realized I was on familiar territory. Here was a lesson to me in the pervasiveness of dukkha, that to build something required damage to something else, that there was an inevitability about that. And as always, I needed to find a way of sitting with this and accepting it. And then I had a second experience of the earth that those stones represented. As their coolness seeped into my shoulder, and maybe a tiny part of my human warmth seeped into them, I was reminded that stones can also represent connection. In recent years, it has become increasingly popular to paint stones and either gift them or leave them for people to find. One of our former temple residents is very well known for this locally. I have a pebble that was painted for me by a dear friend and former boss. She did one for each of her staff before she left. Though she is not herself a Buddhist, she researched Buddhist art before painting a mandala on one side of the pebble for me and telling me to carry it with me to help me feel grounded when I needed it. Such stones can represent many images and ideas But the underlying theme that the givers and receive— is that the givers and receivers care about each other and want to connect, and we use a small part of the earth as our medium to do so. In doing so, we bear witness to our universal connection, or love, just as the Buddha did in reaching down and touching the earth on the morning of his enlightenment. Which brings me back full circle to what made me choose to sit on those steps in the middle of town on a December afternoon.
Namaste.
So we'll sit together quietly for a while. Maybe we'll sit with the stones this evening. And we can imagine the rock underneath us somewhere, all the stones of the hill behind us. As you sit, just allow your mind to settle. If it refuses to settle, that's okay. And if you get moments of peace, just dwell in the peace.
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.
Amitabh.
Amitabh.
Amitabh. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha.
I'll now recite the refuges and precepts together. You can either just repeat them after me, and they're also on the bit of paper next to you. For refuge I go to the Buddha.
For refuge I go to the Buddha.
Namo Buddhaya.
Namo Buddhaia—
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 sangha. Namah sangeyya—
nah moh sa ngay ah!
With faith in the Three Jewels, with faith in the three jewels, I pray that time may not take life.
Oh my God, it's like they're not taking mine.
With faith in the Three Jewels, we have faith in the Three Jewels, I pray that time may not steal.
I pray that I may not steal— With faith in The Three Jewels .
—with Faith In The 3 jewels... ...With Faith In The 3 jewel... "I pray that I might fall into sexual misconduct." "...with Faith In The 3 Jewel..." ..."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 sentient beings, we vow to save them all. Inexhaustible are the Lotus 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 fall flat completely.
Thinking about rocks, and as I think about rocks, I'm looking at the chandelier and noticing that more and more of the bulbs are going. Thinking about objects that aren't us. Dogen The Zen master said— this isn't a direct quote, but something like, um, trees and rocks, walls and fences all contain Buddha nature. This idea that all objects are animated by something, whether they're alive in a biological sense or not. And in some ways that makes no sense at all. But when I think about my, my lived experience, when I am feeling closer to the Buddha, when I am in a state of being less protected by all the parts of me that protect me, when my heart is more open, when I feel more spacious, what naturally seems to happen is that I relate to the objects around me in a different way. So rather than them being something for me to use as an extension of myself, either to protect me or support me or feed me or get something I want. They become things in themselves. They, they take on a quality of being that, that gives them their own, um, it's very difficult to think of words. They are themselves and they are important. And when I'm in this state of mind, I notice that I'm more likely to be kind to the objects around me. I might turn off the water in between doing things in the sink to conserve water, or I might be conscious of the the water that I've used, and I don't quite get as far as putting it on the garden, but I might have that thought, oh, this could go onto the garden and look after some roots. I might place something just more gently back where it lives. I might even clean— a rare thing. It reminds me of a very long time ago, I went to a Zen center where I used to live. It was just a little house in an ordinary road. And a few of the things that the woman who ran this center did really stayed with me. And one of those was after a practice session, which was 40 minutes of looking at a wall, which was very strange to me. She— wouldn't be so strange now. She noticed that someone had treated a service book a little bit kind of casually, and she very gently, with a lot of love, it wasn't shaming at all, she just said, 'Just everybody, this is how we put the service book on the floor,' and she just kind of really carefully placed it because it was an object of reverence. And when we're in the right state of mind, everything around us becomes like that service book. Doesn't have to be a religious artifact. It can be the door that we close a little bit more gently, or noticing a stain that we try and clean up. Or— and somehow this doesn't make— this makes even less sense than what I've already said. I feel like the objects around me kind of reciprocate. They're grateful to me. That I'm treating them well. The service book just smiles gently as it's placed on the floor. So I loved hearing that bit in your Dharma Gansfi where you're just leaning against the wall and suddenly it's like the rock kind of takes on the quality of being alive and speaks to you, kind of shares something with you. And then you, you share back. And I wish that I lived like that more often, but all sorts of things get in the way. And even so, it's helpful for me to remember that it's possible to live in that way, to remember that we can see everything around us as containing Buddha nature. And if we treat rocks with reverence, we're more likely to treat our dogs with reverence and our friends with reverence and the people that annoy us on the internet with reverence. Sometimes. Namomi debri.
Namoha ni damu. Namoha ni damu. Namoha ni damu. Namoha ni damu.
May the soup we offer this incense to Buddha and bodhisattvas throughout space and time, may it be as fragrant as earth itself. Reflecting our careful efforts, our wholehearted awareness, 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.
Let's return to standing at your seats. We always finish by bowing to each other. And to Buddha. Find our seats and bow to our seats. I'm going to unmute. Finish with the closing verse, which is on the bit of paper if you want to read it. It starts, 'Blessed by Amitābha's light, may we care for all living things and the Holy Earth.' Namō Amida Butsu.
And the non-living things as well.
Yeah, holy earth, the holy earth.
Thanks, V. I knew that we put that in there somewhere.
