Practice: Seeing ourselves and the Buddha

Welcome everybody, nice to see you all. Welcome to Philip, Beth, and Claire joining us online as well, and we'll begin this evening with Sam reading out a glimpse that he's written for us. I'll just move the microphone.

Thank you.

Finding the right community. I grew up as a Christian and I was lucky enough to be part of a nourishing community of Christians. Unfortunately, this community was built around a set— a particular set of beliefs and in the end I found that I could not believe in it, and therefore I could not continue to be a part of the church. I lost an important part of my identity, and I lost community. I went in search of something to fill the void. I ended up finding a replacement in the world of political ideology, giving me a new identity and a new community. I started my time at university in this state. I talked to some clever people and it became apparent that my new beliefs didn't stand up to scrutiny either. I didn't want to admit this, I really didn't. I denied it for a while until I couldn't. Now I was in crisis, having again lost an important part of my identity. And community. I came to the conclusion that political ideology was not a good foundation because it is not solid. No one really knows the answers, and so eventually you have to change your mind. I came to the conclusion that a more solid foundation for one's life would be spiritual principles, more like what I grew up with. For me, there are two essential principles. One is something like love or compassion or kindness. That I could find at church. But the second principle is something like reason or open-mindedness or non-attachment to ideas. For me, I couldn't find this in church because I could not belong to such a community. Without believing in something that went against my reason. In the end, I did find a good example of such community, living for a period of time at Bright Earth Buddhist Temple. But such community is not only here. It is, I think, fundamentally to be found wherever Buddha nature meets Buddha nature, and Buddha nature is in all of us. Namo Amitabha.

Namo Amitabha.

Thank you.

Moving into a period of meditation. If possible, tuning into the felt sense of the body. Our experience of having a body and what that feels like, noticing how as we breathe our body moves. If possible, not using— without using words to name our experience, but just being with the experience or just being the experience. When the attention is taken elsewhere, noticing that too, gently bringing it back to the present moment. To being with our bodies, to being Amitabh.

Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Me ta ba. Me ta ba. Me ta ba. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabha. Amitabha.

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. Those who live in the Buddha's light. Those who live in the Buddha's light. No, try again. For refuge I go to the Dharma. For refuge I go to the Dharma. The way of understanding and love. The way of understanding and love. Dharma. Yeah.

This is the old one. Oh, okay.

You know, I'm just an ordinary human.

Someone give that person a sheet.

It's okay, third time lucky. 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.

Yes.

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 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. I pray that I may not fall into sexual misconduct— With faith in the Three Jewels. —with faith in the Three Jewels. I pray that I may avoid wrong speech— I pray that I may avoid wrong speech— —with faith in the Three Jewels. —with faith in the Three Jewels. I pray that I may avoid intoxication— I pray that I may avoid intoxication. 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. Immeasurable are the Dharma teachings, we vow to master them all. Infinite is the Buddha's way, we vow to follow it completely. Practice is like a mirror. This evening I discover how easy it is to say the wrong words when my mind is somewhere else. My mind was trying to work out what I was going to say now to achieve the perfect effect, uh, so that everybody would become enlightened, or at least, well, something like that. I said, should I say this first and then this bit, or that? What? And then my mouth just rolls out something different on autopilot. Oh, okay, here's what I want to say. Practice is like a mirror. Sometimes it shows us ourselves really clearly. In everyday life, we can miss ourselves because we bounce from one thing to the next and we follow that train of thoughts that's distracting us or driving us. But in this space together, we are invited to do particular things. There's a kind of, uh, gentle restraint. And in that stillness, whether it's the stillness of sitting quietly or the stillness of bowing or the stillness that I try to bring to making offerings at the front our state of being is revealed. It's easier to spot ourselves in this container, and hopefully we can make the jump from spotting ourselves to being kind to ourselves and maybe even learning something, perhaps something particular. Oh, here's something I can think about approaching differently. Or perhaps something more general: oh, here's how it is to be human sometimes. And if that settles and clears, practice becomes a mirror for something deeper for the wisdom and compassion that we speak about when we talk about the Dharma. A few days ago, I made an incense offering before meditating, and as I sat in meditation, noticed the smoke moving across my skin and the scent of it. Oh, this is the Buddha. I'm saying that in words, but the first experience of it wasn't in words. It was just a knowing. Ah, this incense is the Buddha. And then later putting the words to it. The Buddha meaning a window into the interconnectedness of all things, the boundlessness, as we read in the Heart Sutra last week. Smoke is bounded, of course. But it evokes that boundless quality. Boundlessness and impermanence going together. Impermanence usually being the way we describe the kind of negative aspect of it. Oh, the incense stick is getting shorter. Oh, my life is getting shorter. The lives of those I care about is getting shorter. We're all burning down from the top to the bottom. Blossom and becoming ash. But also, we are boundless. We are made of the same stuff as the stars. We're deeply connected to each other, to the world, to the whole universe. And the stillness of practice can bring us into awareness of that every now and again. And that is why we practice in a particular way. It's why in some traditions they invite you to step through to the shrine room on a particular foot. So you have to pause and think, oh, which foot am I using? And maybe that's all you think the first few times you get that instruction. But you're pausing, and that interrupts the flow of ordinary life and ping-pong brain. And the pausing invites some stillness, and into the stillness, potentially, the Buddha appears. And I suppose another way of saying stillness is paying attention. Paying attention when we step into the shrine room, paying attention when we bow with our whole bodies, paying attention when we sit and meditate. The Buddha is already here. In every single detail. And the instructions for practice invite a different kind of paying attention, in the hope that we might see ourselves more clearly, that we might see the Buddha more clearly. Every now and again. Namaste.

Namaste.

So moving with stillness.

Namaste. Namaste. In gratitude, we offer this incense to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time. May it be fragrant as Earth herself, 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.

Blessed by Amitābha's light, may we care for all living things and the very earth. I'm learning to build.

I love objects. They're objects.