Satya Robyn leads a Buddhist practice session centered on the sutta "The Fingernail," which uses the image of dirt under a fingernail to teach impermanence. The session includes guided meditation, chanting, and announcements about the sangha community.
Chapters
Good morning everyone. I'm especially pleased to see Rob here this morning because it took me 15 minutes to get Zoom to work. There was nobody here just before I went away. So thank you all for making that worth it. Um, this morning maybe people are soaking in the last of the sun. And this morning we're going to begin with a reading from this little book here, which is one of the many volumes of Suttas, which are the, the closest that we get to the Buddha's words. So when the Buddha was alive, there was no writing, so his teachings had to be passed on orally for several generations, and then they were written down in a language that no longer exists, and then translated into Pali, and then translated into Sanskrit, and here This collection is the Connected Discourses of the Buddha. There's also a whole book of short suttas, a whole book of medium-length suttas, a whole book of long suttas. There's numerical collections, and I pretty much opened it at random, and I really like the title of this little piece. When you read these, you have to get— I'd recommend reading them, they'll be in the library, but they're very repetitive. So they were written in a way that made them easier to remember so they could be passed on. So there's a lot of repetition, but there's actually some really good stories in here, and it's good sometimes to go back to the originals. It's a bit like the Bible, really, reading the Bible rather than commentaries on the Bible, which is what we do a lot as Buddhists. So this little piece is called The Fingernail. At Savati, sitting to one side, the bhikkhu said to the Blessed One— was the Buddha— is there, venerable sir, any form that is permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change, and that will remain the same just like eternity itself? Is there any feeling, any perception, any volitional formations, any consciousness that is permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change, and that will remain the same just like eternity itself? The Buddha says, bhikkhu, there is no form, no feeling, no perception, no volitional formations, no consciousness that is permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change, and that will remain the same just like eternity itself. Then the Blessed One took up a little bit of soil in his fingernail and said to that bhikkhu, bhikkhu, There is not even this much form that is permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change, and that will remain the same just like eternity itself. If there was this much form that was permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change, this living of the holy life for the complete destruction of suffering could not be discerned. But because there is not even this much form that is permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change, this living of the holy life for the complete destruction of suffering is discerned. There is not even this much feeling, perception, volitional formations, consciousness that is permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change, and that will remain the same just like eternity itself. If there was this much, dot dot dot, but because there is not even this much consciousness that is permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change, this living of the holy life for the complete destruction of suffering is discerned. What do you think, Bhikkhu? Is form permanent or impermanent? Impermanent, venerable sir. Therefore, seeing this, he understands there is no more for this state of being. So as we sit quietly in meditation this morning, today, you might want to do a little, um, reflection on your own impermanence, the impermanence of your physical being. There's a famous meditation where you first of all think about the solids in your body, the way that they come in and the way that they go. And then you think about the liquids in your body, the way that they enter and the way they pass away, and then the gases. And by the end of that meditation, pretty much your mind is blown when you really get a taste of how ephemeral we are. So you might just want to maybe think about the breath that comes and goes, the oxygen that enters into our bloodstream, the jobs it has in our body, and then the way that it dissolves away again. And just allow, allow yourself to rest in the impermanence. This morning, we only chant, inhale, tasa. Which is on the liturgy sheet. It's a list of honorifics, a list of epithets to let the Buddha know how much we honor them. Arahatu. Sat Sang Buddha Sah.
Nam Buddha Sah.
Ayya Watu. For refuge I go to the Buddha—
for refuge I go to the one who is awake full of love—
the one who's awakened from time—
Namo Buddhaya!
For refuge I go to the Dharma— all that guides us to wisdom and compassion—
all that guides us to wisdom and compassion—
Namo Dhamma! 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.
Namo Sangha.
With faith in the Three Jewels.
With faith in the Three Jewels.
And in light of our 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 this—I'm going to come away from it—and what is not freely given—but we're gonna take what is not really giving me—I pray that I may have gone well but afraid at times they've been unaware of when I fall into sexual misconduct—or will then I fall into section 2 misconduct? I pray that time has come back—that prayer's on my head now—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 sentient beings, we vow to save them all.
Inexhaustible are the rooted 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 bow to Bodhisattva Kombini. So I was imagining that the Buddha has very neatly clipped fingernails. So that the amount of dirt that he would have got from the ground was very, very small. And that's the point that he's making, that not even a tiny fragment of soil is permanent. And he says that because there is not even this much formant is permanent, not subject to change, This living of the holy life for the complete destruction of suffering is discerned. And I was— it's slightly funny English. I was wondering what that meant, and luckily an image came to me in meditation, so I'm trusting it came from somewhere good, which was of a person in a river that's running really fast, clinging on to just like a, like a reed or something that's, that's coming off the edge of the river, it's coming off the riverbank and clinging on to it and being buffeted by the water as it goes past. But they're clinging because it's permanent, they're clinging because there's something that can hold them still, that helps them to feel less afraid. And the spiritual life is letting go of the reed. The spiritual life is allowing the river to carry us and to hold us, allowing Amida's wisdom and love to hold us, or the— however you want to talk about that, Gaia, the Divine. But if we think that there is something permanent, then it's in our nature as, as human beings to, to hold on to it really tight. And we do that all the time. We hold on to all sorts of different things. We hold on to— the first example that comes to my mind is chocolate. We hold on to, um, the kind of status that our jobs give us. We hold on to the meaning we get from helping other people and feeling like a good person. We hold on to our identities more than anything. Some people hold on to money, some people hold on to popularity. And all of those things, we hope we can just find a tiny part of them that we could keep, that we can, uh, that we can anchor ourselves on, that we can steady ourselves with. And the Buddha's teachings suggest that we're on to a loser because everything is impermanent. That we lose our job, that a new manager comes in that doesn't like us, our money. Thinking about my friend Caroline, who had lots of money in a particular place before the vote for whether we left, the Brexit vote. She had to decide whether or not to move it or not, depending on what was going to happen with Brexit. And she thought, it's not gonna— we're not gonna leave the EU, and then lost a lot of money. That can happen just like that. I'm not even going to go to the house moving process now because I know that everyone else has heard enough about all those. But we can't— we want to rely on these things, but we can't. We can't ultimately rely on them. And of course, it's human to have all sorts of those things around us and to, to just lean into them briefly and let ourselves have a little break. Numb out a little bit or allow ourselves to feel a bit nice when people give us praise. That's, that's, that's human, that's okay. But thinking that that's enough, thinking that that's going to carry us for our whole lives, is— the Buddha says it's just inaccurate, it's just not true. Because not even a grain of soil is permanent. And practice is— practice is practicing seeing that. Practice is experimenting with waking up to the truth of impermanence. There are lots of different windows into the Buddha's teaching. As you can see, he gave a few, he gave a few teachings, and he gave different teachings to different people because different people needed to hear different things. So there's lots and lots and lots of different windows. Dave was talking about mindfulness recently as being one of his main practices, that just, you know, being mindful as we pour our tea and taste our tea. That's Buddhist practice. Staying in a butsu, coming together to practice, walking around the garden slowly, reading the sutras, reading Buddhist books, joining book groups. All of these ways are different windows into the Dharma, and we need to choose the ones that suit us best. But it's really very simple at the end of the day. It's, it's about waking up to reality and seeing our impermanence and the impermanence of the world and turning to something that is reliable, turning to a refuge that we, that we know never goes. Even if we don't feel it all the time, we know that the Buddha is present, that the Buddha's teachings are present, and that our fellow, our fellow seekers are present. Ready for that?
Ammo. Ammo. Ammo. Ammo. Ammo. In gratitude, we offer this incense to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time. May it be 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 when we awaken from forgetfulness and realize that we are So Angie's book group has already started, but Dave is running a book group here in the temple. Is it Monday evenings? I can't really remember, but it will be good. So if you've got— I can't remember either. I think it's not— you can't remember? I don't think it's Mondays. Yeah, 8 o'clock. Anyway, talk to Jay and he'll look up when he's running the workgroup if you would like to join. Um, I think that's the only announcement. Um, just to let you know that, um, our sangha member Chris from Newcastle, who gave her kidney to her husband a couple of days ago, is doing well. She's back at home. And her husband is also recovering well. There are actually 6 of them involved, so she gave her kidney, there are 3 people receiving kidneys and 3 people donating kidneys. So I thought we could transfer merit to all 6 of them today for their, for their recovery. Let her know that she had a wave of merit. So I will come back and say hello if you're still here, guys, want to, in a minute. Finish with the closing verse. Blessed by Amitabha's light, may we care for all living things on the whole earth. So nice! That's the best bit!
