Practice with Kusuma

Good morning everybody, good morning to everybody online and in the shrine room. Finally it's cooled down a little bit, and I know that some of us are suffering with hay fever, so apologies if I sniffle. During proceedings. So we have a Dharma glimpse to start with, and I've chosen one of Casper's, and they're going to read it for us. Sorry.

We were going to London to see The Master and the Queue at the National Theatre. My best friend had ordered the tickets months ago, front row seats, and we were both looking forward to seeing it. I arrived at their house at 9:30 in the morning and we set off. We traveled by car and then by train and then by foot and arrived about half an hour before the show. The play was excellent. We left the theater and then immediately retraced our steps. We arrived back at their house at 9 o'clock in the evening. A long day for both of us. I drove home from there another hour and a quarter and collapsed into bed. In the middle of the night, I woke up running over the day in my head and analyzing the conversations with my friend. I hadn't listened properly here, I'd interrupted there, this joke had fallen flat, I distracted them during a difficult piece of driving. I concluded that I wouldn't hear at all from them this week and we must be drifting apart and real catastrophizing stuff. I tried to settle my thoughts. Whether my observations and conclusions were right or not, there wasn't any value in thinking these thoughts at this hour of the night. I recited the Nembutsu to myself, at first just using the repetitive words to clear my mind, and then bringing to mind the times I had felt connected to something bigger than my small self, times when I'd felt supported by Amida, by the unfolding of life itself, by dharmakaya. Another way of thinking about the day came to me. I remembered the many jokes we had shared during the day, the moments of tenderness. I remembered the signs of affection. The other negative things were true as well, but they were a small part of this big picture. How easy it is to tell different stories about the same day depending on what we focus on. How easily I chose the negative over the positive. The default story was one of rejection rather than support. How fortunate that the very big story of Amida accepting all beings just as they are allowed me to feel the actual positive experience of the day. My friend reached out to me the next day. We were as close as we ever were. There was nothing to those fears. And how grateful I am to the Nembutsu for finding a way through them. Namamitabun.

Namamitabun. And so we're going to move into a period of quiet, of meditation. And it's often at these times that, uh, our mind will start to wander off to our insecurities or worries. And that's where we can use our breath. Um, we think of it like an anchor, something that just grounds us and holds us. And just breathing in through your nose and out through your nose. If you can, and you're not full of hay fever. Um, just having that awareness of the breath and just using that to ground you. Or if you struggle with that, just having that awareness of the nenbutsu in your mind, just holding yourself steady with the breath. When difficulties arise— rise in your mind, you just let them go with the breath. We're going to start to pull ourselves back from our breathing and meditation and transition into the Nembutsu. And as we chant Amitabha We think about how that holds us in this space, safety and love, where we can offer all that we're worried about to Amida, to Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Ameeta. Ameeta. Ameeta. A mi sa. A mi sa. Ameesha. Ameesha. Amitabh. So we're going to move on to our refuges and the precepts. And we're trying out the new precepts again, and you'll find those on a piece of paper next to you if you're not familiar with them yet. And, uh, we'll see how we go. And I think do feedback, um, how you feel about them as well. It'd be really lovely to hear what people think. 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. 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. Namu Damaya.

Namu Damaya.

For refuge I go to the Sangha. For refuge I go to the Sangha. All who live in the Buddha's light. All who live in the Buddha's light. Namo Sanghaya.

Namo Sanghaya.

With faith in the Three Jewels.

With faith in the Three Jewels.

And in light of my human tendencies. And in light of my human tendencies. I pray that I may become aware— of when I take life. Of when I take life. I pray that I may become aware— I pray that I may become aware—of when I take what is not freely given. When I take what's not freely given. I pray that I may become aware—I pray that I may become aware—that my own ego has taken from others to feed itself. That it takes away their freedom Of for me to live fully within myself. when And so on down through each one until you've done them all I together.

Thank you very much!

Namaste. fall into sexual misconduct— of when I have fallen to sexual misconduct—I pray that I may become aware— I will be able to make it go away— of when I fall into wrong speech— or if well, I've fought into wrong speech—I'd pray that I may become aware— I'm afraid this time you come back— 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 forfeit Kam Nee Vee. So there's lots of things going on at the moment within, um, our little community around The Vows and the Precepts. So that has been an inspiration for my Dharma talk, and I wanted to start with a little bit of text that may or may not be familiar to some of you. A prayer I make: a Buddha to become equal to you, my Dharma King, to lead all beings to the other shore. Leaving none behind. And these words are dharmakara in the larger Pure Land Sutra. And I always— they always get to me. I don't know what it is, but the last little part of to lead all beings to the other shore, leaving none behind. And I would say that in— there's a tiny seed of that in all of us. That we just want to pull everybody towards the Pure Land. And it's such a powerful vow. You know, here we are, our bamboo selves. You know, we struggle to hold the precepts that we sit with weekly. You know, the vows that we make seem so small. Um, compared to Dharmakara, who's seeking Buddhahood. And, you know, it— you think, wow, that's really bold, you know, he's gonna do all this. Gosh, I feel so inferior in front of that. Um, but, you know, he's, he's not doing it for himself, he's doing it for everyone, for all of us. And I think it's so, it's so powerful to connect with humanity in that way. And then I was thinking about how we keep our own vows from all walks of life, the vows that we made to— not, you know, not just in here but in other parts of our lives. And there's been a few dog walks this week where I've been thinking about vows that I've made in the past and the vows that are coming up soon. Um, what will change? How have I changed? What things in my life are different? And, uh, yeah, I always think a dog walk solves everything. If you're not a dog owner, you're missing out. And, um, you know, an example of vows that we were thinking about in our house the other day was marriage vows. You know, my husband and I have been married for 19 years, and I don't think he'll mind me saying that. We, we were sitting in the kitchen and I said, I don't even remember what we promised you. And he was like, no. And, um, I started to, uh, I've forgotten it now, but I started to do the Guide Law. Do you remember the Gaud and the Scout? I promise that I will do my best. And he went, to do my duty. We were like, oh yeah, that's Scouts and Guides and had a bit of a joke about it. But it's true, you know, and even that as an example, if you ever did the Scouts or the Guides, which I did ever so briefly, I didn't make a very good Guide at all, um, but I remember having to, you know, really learn this Guide lore, and this is the thing we'd have to stand up and say. And, uh, you know, I'm not sure how much we really thought about it when we did it, we just knew it was part of having the badge to get in, um, but, uh, you know, there are some vows that are, you know, okay, we say it because we have to say it, but then there are the vows that we say in here that are more than that. You know, this is about trying to change ourselves, not, not as in change ourselves, but have an awareness of when we do something that affects somebody else. Yeah, so I started looking at a book called Everyday Buddhism. I don't know if anybody's familiar with it. I know some people will be. And so Wendy Shinjo Haylett, who's a Bright Dawn teacher, which some of you will have come across, her book Everyday Buddhism spends a lot of time going through the path, and she looks at the 10 non-virtues and groups them together in body, speech, and mind, and You know, we're all familiar with things around that. And, um, you know, she puts it so beautifully about how, uh, we should look at the vows. And she said, you know, basically the Buddha's trying to tell us that, you know, we just need to use this as a way to try and make the world a better place. And she says, you know, it's the small stuff that matters. And I love that idea of just, it's the small stuff. It's not the really big stuff because the small stuff adds up to the big stuff. And then she gives examples like, you know, if you use the toilet roll up, do you think to put another toilet roll on? You know, and then sometimes, or, you know, if you leave something, you know, leaving something on the stairs, well, somebody could fall on that. So we don't leave something on the stairs. So it's— it's— I should tell that to my kids when they leave stuff around. Um, yeah, so it's all the small things. And I love that she writes, heaven is built on small things, or the Pure Land is built on small things, however you want to do it. So it's that good things happen from helping other people, and that's all that we can try and do. And then I started to explore when we hold our hands, because we hold our hands in gassho, and, uh, you know, what that, what that means when we do that. Are we making a promise? Is it, um, no, is it something that's grounding us? What is it connecting us with? Something. And in Jodo Shinshu, um, I was reading that they have, uh, the idea that the left represents our human realm and the right represents awakening and enlightenment. So then when we put them together, we bring in this union that's perfect. If you hold your hands up in front of you, most of us have hands that align, they match, we're lucky enough, you know. It's about this perfect union, and the Buddha in me meets the Buddha in you when we bow to each other. So, um, I'm giving you a little exercise as part of my Dharma talk. I want you to hold your hands out in front of you, and I want you to look at the front and the back and just breathe for a moment and just reflect on how many times you can think of where your hands have helped somebody else, the purposes that they've had, what you've done with them that may have contributed to the support of somebody else. You might have given somebody medicine, you might have carried somebody's groceries, your hands might have picked somebody else up, you might have held somebody when they felt alone. And all those actions, they're all part of what we talk about in the precepts. So when we perhaps don't feel comfortable with the words, even if we just sit with our hands together and just breathe and just reflect on how our hands can help others, that can just be enough just to help us to to feel that we have that purpose. And, um, when we put the hands together, it's about creating this sort of positive action. And, um, I grabbed a quote from Clark Strand from Tricycle magazine. He's one of their editors who wrote, for every moment of delusion Every act of greed, folly, or confusion, there is Amida right beside us, embracing us as we are. If it were necessary to change first in order to be worthy of birth in the Pure Land, few of us could attain it. Fortunately, all that is required is that we unite with Tathagata. When we join the palms together in this way, in an expression of simple faith and utter the words Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. And whether we count our beads or not, all is taken care of. Amida embraces us on the spot. So if you're feeling wobbly with your vows, then, uh, just putting our hands together and those three beautiful little words, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. It's all we really have to be present with. Namaste. I invite you to stand and we'll do prostrations. She says with a dodgy foot. Oh, okay. Namoh Amida. Namoh Amida. Namoh Amida. Namoh Amida. 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. May we awaken from forgetfulness and realize our true home. And bow to each other and to our seats and have a tidy. Do we have any announcements that we need to make? If you are willing to put your name on the sheet in the hallway to do a dharmadhamma at some point in the future— thank you, David— um, you'd be very welcome to. We'll do our final blessing. Let us fire and Saba's light.

May we care for all living things and the Holy Earth.

Namah Mani Padme Hum. Thank you everyone. I had a horrible thought that you might have had your name down for today. I did, yeah. Sorry! So that's my system that I haven't actually used. Right.

So I didn't actually stop it.

Yeah. We're still getting it in. Yeah. So thank you so much. It's like, it's such a surprise to have a name, wasn't it?