Sacred Sound and the Cosmos: Hearing the Sacred in the Everyday

Thank you for coming everyone. It's really lovely to see there's a lot of people. I was ordained in December, so this is my first talk. So I've decided to do a talk which kind of goes with my new name, which is Sangita Shraddha. Really because— and I forgot to close the door, I'm ever so sorry. Really because— thank you, Ross. Sorry. Really because my name Sangita Shraddha very much represents who I am anyway. It was given to me by my teacher, Reverend Kasparita here, and he chose very well because my name means music of faith, music of heart faith. And really many things came together when I was given that new name, and it really brought to mind my true aspiration, which made it more concrete in my mind, which is to, in every moment, to try and make every moment a moment of music of faith. I feel that's what I want to do, that's what I want to do. And in this tradition, this Pure Land tradition, we have the chant 'Nam-myoho-renge-kyo' and 'Nam-myoho-renge-kyo' is about the relationship between me, this vulnerable being, and Amida Buddha and the light of Amida Buddha. The light of Amida Buddha is everywhere, it fills absolutely everything, And the chant 'Nam-myoho-renge-kyo' is both a concrete manifestation of this relationship, and it also represents in word form the light of Amida Buddha penetrating all beings. So the light of Amida Buddha is absolutely everywhere, but also 'Nam-myoho-renge-kyo' is a form of music, both in terms of just saying it, 'Na mo Amida bu'— there are ups and downs in it, there's rhythm to it, it is music as well. So it's light and it's music and it's the breath of Amida. It's everything, it's everywhere. So this talk is about finding that light in the mundane all around me, and responding spontaneously to that light that's in everything, to Namo Amitabha in everything. And this spontaneous reaction to that is also Namo Amitabha, and it can be expressed as Namo Amitabha. But even if I'm not expressing it as Namo Amitabha, then that response is still there, hidden underneath maybe. So I've got some cue cards to help me. I don't want to miss anything. Well, it doesn't matter if I do. So if any of you are new to Pure Land Buddhism, Namo Amida Butsu means homage to Amida Buddha, but it's come to take on other aspects from within it. So for example, Namo also represents me, the vulnerable being. So when the phrase is put together, Namo Amida Butsu, Amida Butsu is Amida Buddha. So then the two things are coming together—Amida Buddha, the light of Amida Buddha that's everywhere, and me, the vulnerable being. So it expresses that relationship between the light and myself. It's filling me, and if I respond to that, then to me that's the music of faith, so music of heart faith. So when I respond to these sounds in the mundane, It can sometimes be at difficult times or stressful times, but that relationship is still there. So if I can in every moment actualize that relationship through some sort of musical thing that's going on— I see it that way— then even in difficult times, then that relationship is available to me and and that light is available to me. So I'm going to read a little extract from Ippon. Ippon was a Pure Land master in Japan, 1239 to 1289, and this is pretty well my favorite Pure Land quote. I just love it. The context of it is a letter that he wrote, and I'm just going to read a little bit of the letter before the beautiful quote, just to give an idea of the context in the letter. So Ippon wrote, Master Kūya was once asked how a person should go about saying the Nembutsu. The Nembutsu is Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, or in his case, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. And he responded, just discard just like a little phrase, which you get in Buddhism very often, these little phrases which you kind of have to interpret, but not really intellectually. Somehow have to get to the root of these little phrases. So Master Kūya said, 'Just discard.' Samyiddhin then goes on to say, 'When in this way you raise your voice more and more in utterance'— that's in utterance of 'namo amida butsu'— 'there is neither Buddha nor self.' The realms of good and evil are all the Pure Land. Outside of this, do not aspire, do not renounce. And then it goes on to this really gorgeous part of the letter: Among all living things, mountains and rivers, grasses and trees, even the sounds of blowing winds and rising waves, there is nothing that is not the Nembutsu. Namo amida butsu. It is not human beings alone who share in the all-surpassing vow. When he writes about the all-surpassing vow, this is the vow of Amida Buddha to save all beings. So in this letter, he's— Ippon is indicating that all living things, the sounds that all living things make, and he includes mountains and rivers, grasses and trees, even the sounds of blowing winds and rising waves. All those things are the Nembutsu. So I can hear the Nembutsu in all those things, and I can respond. I can respond either by using the Nembutsu, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, or I can respond in some circumstances in other ways which are also the Nembutsu, but to me they're the Nembutsu. So that might be the difference between If I've been having Pure Land faith and a different form of Buddhism, for me those things are all the nembutsu. So even if my response, because it's not appropriate in the social setting I'm in, to go 'nam-myoho-renge-kyo,' even if my response is only in my breath, I can hear my breath, and to me that breath is still the nembutsu. So to kind of illustrate that, I'm going to depart slightly from my cards, so that's fine. I'd rather do it all from the heart like Andrew did this morning, which I really loved, but I wanted to make sure I included everything. So would you be happy just to do a little experiment with me, just to get an idea of this? So what I'd like us to do, please, is just to sit quietly, straight as possible, without without straining yourself. And just allow the shoulders to relax and the spine to relax, jaw to relax, and the neck to relax, because I would like us to be really relaxed so that our response to the nenbutsu is natural, is spontaneous, not something that's contrived. And then relaxing the girdle of muscles around here and relaxing the rib cage so that you can breathe naturally and easily. And then see if you can feel the air against your skin, on your hands maybe. I can feel it really well on my hands. It's always tiny movements in the air. It's quite cool today. And then keeping that awareness of the air on your hands, bringing to mind that this air is also full of Amida's light, but also that this air effortlessly and easily, as we breathe, is going through our body. So bringing to mind the air on your skin, and your natural breathing. Just for a few moments, experience those two things together. Namaste. So I hope that gave you some idea of what I'm trying to get at in this talk, because the air is also full of music. Sometimes it's hard to hear, but every movement is vibration, and vibration is music. And if you have two things vibrating together, then you get this relationship between different pitches, different tones, which is the basis of music. So in this exercise, thinking about it musically, I'm thinking about sort of an underlying drone of Amida's light, which is in the form of Amida's breath, the air passing over my skin. I'm thinking about the music of my breath. If I listen to my breath, everyone's breath no doubt sounds different, but to me, my in-breath sounds like 'ah' and my out-breath sounds like 'oo,' which is great for me because 'Nam-myoho-renge-kyo' has got the 'ah' and the 'oo.' So really easily coming to my mind comes the 'ah' and the 'oo' of 'Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.' So in difficult times, if I remember to do it, which I don't always, it can be as simple— the music of faith for me can be as simple as the air passing over my skin and my breathing. So even in difficult situations, if I can remember, release these muscles so I can breathe naturally and spontaneously— it's not always easy in a stressful situation, but it's possible— then I can have that feeling and that response. So I've done a little bit of what I was going to do on this shoot already, but that's fine. I was going to talk about what prevents me from hearing deeply. So when I'm listening to the sounds of the mundane, what prevents me from hearing the nenbutsu? And I was really thinking about when we did that little exercise at the beginning about releasing the body. That is often what prevents me from hearing. It's something as simple as my body being tight. As soon as I remember to loosen my body then I can hear more clearly, and then the Nembutsu is more available to me. The light of Amida Buddha is more available to me. It's there all the time. If I don't hear it, it's not so easy in those difficult situations. So I use Alexander Technique to release my body, which is about sort of going through the whole body and making sure everything releases, all the joints. I'm just doing it now, so you can probably see little movements happening. And then ultimately the breath releases, and when that releases, suddenly the ears open— well, my ears open anyway. I think it's hard for me to hear unless my body is released. So that releasing of the body can be what is in between me and actually hearing deeply the sounds of the mundane. In Alexander Technique, I'll just go through the sequence briefly. It's— the technique is called refraining. I think some people call it the stop technique, but it's about refraining because it's the habitual reactions of my body and my mind which block me from hearing, in my case, how I would express it, the light of Amida in the mundane. It's that that blocks blocks my habitual reactions, my habitual reactions of body and mind, which are not separate because what I do with my body affects my mind, what I do with my mind affects my body. So basically the sequence goes like this: mouth and eyes to relax, because if they're not relaxed nothing's going to happen. Refrain from habitual reactions, so I just stop whatever I was going to do. Don't do it. Now, neck to release. When my neck releases, my head automatically goes upwards and forwards because my neck lengthens when it releases. Back to release and get longer. Front to release and get longer. Trunk to release and get wider. Hips to release thighs to release, knees to release and move forward, ankles to release. Ankles, knees, hips, top joint. Now I'm ready to listen. And now my reaction won't be the same. I'm not going to just do whatever it was I would normally do, whatever that is. It's probably something like pull my head back or something simple, but that just does something. That tension's then going through my entire body. And tensions go through my mind, and I'm then not receptive to whatever's going on. So if I can remember, stop, and just go through that sequence quickly, then I'm that much more open to the sounds of Amida Buddha in the mundane. And one thing that I've found really useful recently, I've been mesmerized by the seagulls which pass over roof of our new house. We'd moved to Birmingham from Leicester in October, and we're fairly close to some reservoirs on the edge of— western edge of Birmingham. And I discovered from my neighbor, who's a sailor, that what these gulls are doing is in the evening they fly over from where they've been feeding around Birmingham, from their feeding grounds all over the city, or in southern Birmingham anyway, and they spend the night on this reservoir, and they're just bobbing, bobbing, and they're sleeping or they're in trance, but they're not really concentrating, they're just sitting on the water like this. And then at dawn— but they're safe because they're on the water— and at dawn they all take off and they fly back over our house and they go to their feeding grounds all over southern Birmingham. So I think it's wonderful, but it really struck a chord with me because when they're on that reservoir the water is like Amida Buddha, or Amida Buddha's light, and the waves are like the music of Amida Buddha's light. And effortlessly and easily, they just sit there on the surface of the water. Their bodies know exactly what to do. They can release already. They're not tied up with habitual reactions like I am. Don't know why, but they're not. And so they just bob there, and they can fall asleep., and they still stay beautifully poised. So to me, their response is the Nembutsu. Their response to the light of Amida, to those waves, is Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. There's the big Nam-myoho-renge-kyo going underneath them, and then there's their response of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, and the two things meshing together as the phrase Nam-myoho-renge-kyo describes. So I've been really loving that, and I've written several hymns about that because I then find it so beautiful what these gulls are doing. I then hear some people saying negative things about gulls, but I just— I think that's when they're at the seaside. I've not seen it. I've never seen a little black-headed gull eating a chick of another bird. Maybe they do, but I've never witnessed that. I think it's the big gulls at the seaside who do things like that. So, I've had a bit of an experience myself in Birmingham because I have to commute to Leicester twice a week to my old hometown where my job is only 2 days a week, but those are very long days and I'm spending a long time at New Street station and New Street Station is kind of what you probably all know, it's kind of subterranean and very noisy. It's all the trains, they've all got their engines running. And so when I first was having to spend all that time down there, I really didn't feel very happy. I thought, this is not pleasant, it's really not pleasant. It's freezing cold down here, it's dark, and this is a— constantly going on like this. But I don't know, after a while, I don't know if I'd remember, I would remember to do Alexander Technique because I do it all the time. So at some point I released and I actually heard something strange was going on, that all the trains had one of three notes. But wow, they only have three notes. They have, this is not the exact pitch, I don't have perfect pitch, but they're relative pitches. It was either That one. Let's hold those notes, those 3 notes we're going on the whole time.

Sa, ni, ga.

Let's go. That's how I was really— oh, this is really nice. I'm really enjoying this. So I was doing my breathing thing, so my breathing thing was going on, and then I was using a form of the Nembutsu called Namandabu, which is really easy to chant, it's only got 4 syllables. There's easy ways of doing Namaramitabu as well, but this simple one was just— it really went with the trains, so I started going, Namandabu, Namandabu, Namandabu, Namandabu.

Namo Buddhaya.

I just kept doing it, kept doing it. The train was late, it didn't matter, I was just having such a great time. And no one can hear you down there, it's so loud, so I just carried on singing. People around me, I didn't care if they could see my mouth moving in a repetitive way, which reminds me of Andrew's talk this morning about being considered to be a bit bizarre. Yeah, and occasionally people do look at me because I do it a lot now when I'm down there on New Street station. Um, yeah, they do, and I can see some sort of puzzlement, but it really doesn't bother me because I'm in the zone. I've got this drone going on, I've got Amida's light, I was coming out of this mundane experience, and I've got my Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. And it's— and it's— and the Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is reverberating through me as well. So I'm feeling all these vibrations, and I'm feeling these pictures in me, and I'm hearing the pictures out there. So I've got my other power out there coming in, coming in and filling me, and I've got my own response with the vibrations, and they're in harmony. They're coming together like the gulls on the water. It's all coming together. My effortless response— because the more you do the Nembutsu, the more it becomes effortless. It just comes to your mind. Do you know what I mean? It's not really— I mean, at first it may be effort because you've got to think 'namo amida buthu' or 'namo amida buthu,' but the more you do it, the more it just becomes a response. The same as the Alexander Technique, the stop or refrain technique, it just becomes a thing which just happens. So like the gulls on the water, there's the light of amida. For them it's the waves, for me it's the sound of the trains. And my response, my spontaneous response, like the girl's moving on the water, and for me this is Namaṃ dārvu. But when my voice gets tired, and my voice does get tired because I had years and years as a teacher, that really wrecked my voice unfortunately, then I've got the breath still, and for me the breath is still Namaṃ dārvu. It's still got the 'a' and still got the 'u', and even if it didn't, it still can be that. As Ikpen says it's in everything— all beings contain the nenbutsu, so all beings are singing the nenbutsu all the time. So I can then go into the breath or maybe I could do a hum just like 'mhm' so I can still do it and that might be what if I'm sitting on the train because the train carries on with that note—that's the wonderful thing! You get on the train and you just keep going but then someone sits next to me I might decide I'm not going to do it, I might not go 'nam-mong tharpu' because they can hear me on the train, so I don't necessarily do that, but I can still do an internal 'hum' and they can't hear it because it's in tune with the train. So that's, yeah, so that's a really good thing and it's been a great experience. Suddenly my journeys are no longer tiring and really quite stressful, they're now actually opportunities for practice, a really nice gentle practice, and I can look at the sunrise while I'm Namandarbhuring on the train, and the drone's happening, the Namandarbhu's happening, the sun's rising. It's just all very beautiful. Or the moon's in the sky at the same time as the sun's rising. There's all these amazing things going on, or the morning star. I remember one morning the sky was pink, beautiful pink, and there was the morning star and the moon, and I was Namandarbhuring, and there was the train drone. It was just beautiful. Beautiful. So the mundane took on this new, this new magical feeling. And I mean, in the past, maybe I would think, oh, there's a train, you know, the view wouldn't be quite— would be kind of marred by the situation. But now everything was just gorgeous coming together, including the situation. So I wonder if you could maybe reproduce some of that. Would you mind reproducing some of that experience? Would you be happy to sing it as Hamadrome with me and I'll sing Namandabu over the top? Just to get the feel of it? Thank you. So we'll try and get a pitch which will be comfortable for everyone. I'll do my best. I'm a singing leader, so hopefully I can do it. That should be okay.

And just join in with me, and then we can just have a laugh. Lovely. Keep that going, please. Namanda Bu Namanda Bu. Namanda Bu Namanda Bu. Namandabu namandabu!

Thank you. So that was Matt's My New Street experience. See how lovely it is? My partner now does that on the train station as well. Seriously, when he's on his own up on the train, he does that as well. So it's all happening. And now we're all going to Well, I'm sure Amida Buddha would be quite happy if you did. Okay, well, there's some interesting things to do with music, and oh, you know what I've gone and done? I've gone and left my kantele in the other room. I know where it is. Can I describe to someone where it is? Oh, thank you, Rose, thank you. It's, um, I've got a Hessian bag kind of in the corner behind the seat with the table at one side, you know, this little corner before the cabinet with all the glasses in. Yes. And there's a long black thing, that's my cantale. Thank you. Because, um, oh, Ross missed the next bit, so I'm going to blather about something while she's gone. So she doesn't miss the next bit. So I'm going to talk about some similar experiences, then Ros won't have missed anything material. So for example, at Christmas time there was the Bodhi Retreat here, and there was a 24-hour Nembutsu chanting I think only one person managed the entire 24 hours, but it's not an endurance test. You do what you can do. And the longest I did was an hour and a half, and then my voice started to go bididoo, bit bad, not so good. So I— thank you very much. So I did an hour and a half, was the longest. I did 4 periods over the time. Thank you very much. And at the end of one of the sessions, I I was walking back along the Worcester Road to the hotel where I was staying, and tyre noise— who'd have thought it— tyre noise could also contain Nembutsu. I don't like tyre noise, it's horrible, it's a horrible roaring sound all the time when you're on a busy road. But in this context, because we've been doing all this Nembutsu chanting, the tyre noise became Gom Wa Mi Ja Bu. And so as I walked back to the hotel, instead of the normal— because I normally really dislike that Worcester Road and think, oh, I wish there wasn't so much noise on this road, oh no— in this case, oh wow, I was in that same thing, like in New Street Station, but that was with tyre noise. So this is amazing. So musically, what's going on? There's various different things going on. And to me, these things are just as special. It is not like, so here's the science and this, now everything just collapses and becomes totally mundane. No, for me it's not like that. For me, the physically what's going on is also got Ameeda's voice in it, so Ameeda's light. So it's not just sort of now everything just becomes, falls apart and goes into physically what's happening. But this is my kantele, so that's my usual drone note, which is a And if I gently put my finger against— some of you may have already done this, but, um, so I don't stop it from vibrating by putting my finger against it. If I move my— I get extra notes. There's one, that's called a harmonic. There's another one. There's not one, but it's not here very well, but it still is one. There's one. So the— when the string vibrates, it's not just the whole length that vibrates. Sub-lengths of it also vibrate, and they all have their own notes. And we hear all those notes all the time. We just automatically turn it into one note, which is called the fundamental, which is the 'mm' note. We're hearing all those other notes as well, a whole spectrum of sound. So when I'm hearing the tyre noise, those tyres also contain lots and lots of notes, so my mind can, if it wants to, turn it into music. And this is what was happening. So instead of hearing normal tyre noise, I was hearing notes and because we've been doing all this chanting in the shrine room here, my mind was in the mode, in the kind of— it wanted to do that. I didn't have to say, 'I want to hear these notes.' My mind was already in that kind of mode, so it did that for me and converted it into a drone. And also, interestingly, it converted it into the notes of the the chant we've been doing. So my mind picked out the harmonics from the tire noise and turned them into Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, how it had just been sung when I left the shrine room. And I didn't have to do anything because my mind just did it. So I was just able to carry on walking and listen to Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Slightly different to an audio hallucination because because that could happen with no sound. So if there was no sound at all, you could have an auditory hallucination. If you've been chanting for a very long period of time, you can still hear the chant. But this is slightly different because this is about hearing the harmonics that comes out of the tyre noise rather than out of just straight out of my mind. My mind takes the tyre noise, takes the other power input, and turns it into the nembutsu. And I've got another example of that, which, when I was traveling on a train to see my dad— I spend a lot of time on trains, a lot of time, hours and hours every week— but I was on the train and I don't know why, but just something came to me, which is this. This is actually Cat Stevens.

The caste leaders then both say, 'Namoh Amida Butsu, Namoh Amida Butsu, Namoh Amida Butsu, Namoh Amida Butsu.' That's the introduction to 'Morning Has Broken.' Unless you recognized it.

So, but then, so I sang that over and over and over and over with the drone. I wasn't thinking about singing it with the drone of the train, I was just doing it, just how it ended up happening. Then I started, then I said, that's going now.

Namo Amida Butsu. Namo Amida Butsu. Namo Amida Butsu. —Mā mō anī dabū.

So I'm listening to the first chant, because I don't save any time, I've got the chain-drone happening, so I sing that over the top of it and that fits, and I know that fits, that's fine. So I'm singing that for ages and ages, then I think, oh, I need a third part for this, or I don't know, maybe I didn't think that, but I just started going—

Nā mō anī dabū, nā mō anī dabū. Na mo ami dabu. Na mo ami dabu.

I sang that over and over and over for a very long time, and then I thought, oh, I think I like that now. Yeah, that's how it is. Those are the 3 parts. That's working really well. So I stopped doing it, or maybe my voice was tired. I don't know what it was, but I stopped doing it, but the train drone was still going and my mind carried on singing all three parts. Amazing! And the train drone turned into a choir, a choir singing this song. So I was able to listen to it and I just listened to it. I thought, wow, that's amazing. And I thought, refrain from habitual reactions, which will stop. So I just sat there and I listened. And the people in this choir, they were really good because they were actually doing variations on this as well. So I listened to their variations, like, wow, that's a really nice variation. 'Why didn't I think of that?' I think eventually either the train stopped or it just gradually died out. But so that was my mind taking the harmonics from that drone, whole spectrum of that drone, and turning it into— but effortlessly, spontaneous, effortless. So it's again like those gulls on the water and to come in together, namo amitabha. So, another little story. Yes, but there's something which goes with this. I suppose I ought to keep an eye on the time. I've got a whole hour, haven't I? I think the whole— yeah, if we do some practice. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, okay, good, good. Thank you. Um, so, um, there's a thing I have, not very badly, but it's called tinnitus, and I hope maybe you all you know the word tinnitus? There's different forms of tinnitus, but unfortunately my tinnitus was caused by being too shy or not confident enough to speak up. I was in a work situation which was very loud, and what happens if you're in that kind of situation for a long time and you don't have the opportunity to rest your ears is that the— there's little filaments in the inner ears and they get damaged. They basically just give up the ghost, and you don't notice any difference generally speaking because you can still hear. It's just like one element of your, of your ear which is being damaged and you don't really know what's going on. But eventually you may start getting sounds happening, and it's common with everybody really. Most people develop as they get older a certain amount of tinnitus it does. But I wasn't really speaking up about it, and I should have done. So I have this constantly. It's not terrible though. I mean, lots of people have it a lot, lot worse than I do. It's like high-pitched whistling, like a kettle or something. And if there's lots of other noises going on, I don't even notice it. But at night, when I'm— we live in a very quiet place, very quiet part of farming, it's really quiet, it's an old country lane basically. I mean, it's got houses on it, but it's very, very quiet, it's not a through road. I hear it, so when I'm going to sleep, that's when I really hear it, these really high-pitched shh, shh things going on, on several different pitches. And it used to really disturb me, and it also used to really upset me. Because of the context. It was sort of my own foolishness or my own vulnerability. Well, you know, in Pure Land Buddhism we talk about 'bonbu beings.' We're not paragons of virtue. We're very vulnerable. We're very much— we have problems. We don't speak out when we should speak out. We speak out when we shouldn't. And part of Pure Land Buddhism is about realizing that, and once you realize that, I guess you probably do it slightly less, but you're not going to stop necessarily. You're going to make mistakes. And so for me, lying in bed with this whistling going on was actually quite negative because it was a constant reminder of how I hadn't— and also I hadn't spoken up for other people, and that was the really upsetting thing for me because I was working with very vulnerable people, and I should have spoken up for them. And so it was a very upsetting thing hearing this, this, this whistling. It was, yeah, not just about me, it was about other people as well that I should have protected and didn't. So, but, so it's a difficult, it's a difficult situation. But with this, this mindset, this mindset which has come about through practicing Pure Land Buddhism, with this mindset that listen has taken on a whole different characteristic. Now I lie in bed and I listen to it. I listen to that sound. There may be stories going on, but I just listen to that sound. And then I refrain from habitual reactions, so I release my body. So now my breathing is released. So now there's two things happening. There's a sound there which contains Amida's light. So I'm listening to that sound, and he was like, and there's my natural spontaneous response of my breathing, the two things come together and I smile and I fall asleep. So it's an example of, yeah, of what I'm talking about, this musical way of looking at the nenbutsu and about how in my aspiration coming from my name, in all circumstances, including difficult circumstances, I can aspire to having that relationship with Amida Buddha, that musical relationship with Amida Buddha. And it doesn't take away the negative things, but it just puts it into a context of the light being there. That light being there regardless, that light is there. That's another thing in Pure Land Buddhism we talk about, just as you are, you're accepted just as you are. You've made mistakes, you've done things you're not happy about, but that light is still there supporting you. You can go on, you can move on, you can do the next thing. And as you get more in tune with the light, hopefully, maybe we'll start to act a little a little more skillfully. But even if we don't, we're still— the light's still there and we can still, we can still contact it. So, oh yes, I was going to talk a little bit about tinnitus. And there's actually a form of tinnitus where people are, instead of hearing whistles, their mind is exactly what I was saying about where you— where it picks up harmonics. Some people, in circulating whistles, hear hymns being sung by celestial choirs. I used to know someone who worked for the Tinnitus Association, and she told me that. I thought, oh, that's really interesting, because our neighbour had— was kept hearing choirs. A very elderly woman lived next door. She said, I keep hearing— who's singing hymns? She kept saying. Then this person, who was a friend who worked for the Tinnitus Association, I said, oh, that's a form of tinnitus. You hear heavenly choirs. It's a very nice form of tinnitus, yeah. And I've induced that in myself with the tyre noise and with the train noise, and it's nice, it's good, it's okay. So I've spoken about pretty well everything I wanted to speak about. You've got maybe 10 minutes to do— have some questions, which I could— I'll do my best to answer. And then we've got 5 minutes to do a little bit of Nembutsu practice at the end. Does anyone have any questions? Or would you like me to just carry on? I can talk more no doubt. Does anyone want to know anything about my experience with the Nembutsu and music of heart faith? Yeah, you got any, any aspect you would like to know about? Just like, what's the experience to you when, like, when you first realize that you're actually having a full experience, like, not little snippets? I think that was on the train, that time on the train when I was singing. I'll just say briefly about how I came into the Nembutsu, so this is like a progression. It was at the height of this health and safety thing at work, it was not going well. I had actually started to speak up and I had to get the union in, but it was not going well. At all. It was not what the people wanted to hear, that some people's health might be being— people who can't actually speak, like, their health might be being damaged. So this is not what they wanted to hear. Not good. So yeah, you kind of hope, you kind of hope at the back of your mind that actually it'll be listened to when people say, well, let's see if we 'You can do something about that,' you know, because it's actually not that big a deal, it's just about turning a volume knob basically. I mean, it literally is that simple. But obviously we're all bamboo beings, and in a situation I'm a bamboo being who's not spoken up as soon as I should have done. There's other bamboo beings who've got vested interests in things being how they want it to be, and so it's not a good situation. But at that very moment, the very climax of that health and safety dispute, my mum became terminally ill and had maybe 2 to 3 weeks to live, something like that. So the two things together really made things exceptionally difficult, and I had no idea— the only thing I knew about Pure Land Faith is a little seed at the back of my mind that I knew that there was a type of Buddhism where people chant the name of Amitābha Buddha. That I knew the name Amitābha, not Amida, so I didn't know what the chant was, I just knew that there was this form of Buddhism where people chant the name of Amitābha Buddha. And me and my partner went on holiday to the Lincolnshire coast because it was we were gonna— we just needed to have a break, but it meant if we went there, we could go via Lincoln where my mum was in hospital. So we went, so we saw— and could take Dad, because Dad didn't have a car, didn't, doesn't, didn't have a car anymore because he was quite elderly. So we could take him to the hospital, see my mum, go to the coast, come back, see my mum again. And while we were at the coast, um, I was the— because we grew up on that coast, on that Lincolnshire coast, we used to go there all the time with Mum, and I just found the thing that that was just too much, you know. It wasn't actually this nice break at all. It was like everywhere just reminded me of Mum being well and us being children and having a good time together. So then that little seed just sort of germinated, and I just thought, I've just got to do that. So I didn't know, I didn't know the chant that's done, but it worked anyway. I sang the name of Shakyamuni Buddha because I knew a chant that went with that, and I just did that. Just sat in a room upstairs overlooking the Lincolnshire marsh, marshland before the sea, and I used my hand as a sort of a rosary, and I just think I just studied Indian classical music and you use your hand hand as a rosary you've got 16 things—places like that on the joints—and then if you subdivide them so you can—you subdivide and you subdivide.

So I did groups of hundred chants Om Muni Munimaa Muni Ma Shakyamuni Swaha Om Muni Munimaa Muni Sha— Satya Muni Swaha.

And it was the only time I got any sense of calm. And so then when we got home, I went onto the internet, and to my surprise, there was lots of different versions of the Nam Gurusu. I had no idea which one to use, so I made my own one, which took bits from the different ones that I had. So then I had this practice then using using the name of Amida. I then knew it was Amida, but there were various different versions. And then after my mum had died, I just felt I need to go on a Pure Land Buddhist retreat. So I looked on the line, discovered there was two possibilities. There's a temple, at that time anyway, there was a temple in London, and by the Kegashi Honganji Temple in Japan. And there's a temple in Malvern. Well, Malvern was a lot cheaper place to stay, basically, so I went for the cheap option and came here and did my practice. And then the congregation here was very, very lovely and allowed me to— Kema Shalini allowed me to sit in the garden at the end of the— because I was very— I was on drugs, basically, not recreational drugs, I was on prescription drugs and came to Shri Yukteswar and he was very kind and allowed me to sit in the garden by the Buddha statue down there after the service had ended, and passed Caspar and Satya Robyn away. So I sat down there and I just had a wonderful retreat, and so then my Nembutsu practice developed from there. But it was on the train that this relationship came about, and then when Rev. Aspalita gave me the name, which he chose. But sometimes things just come together, don't they? Sometimes things just come together. Then that sort of, then sort of gave me this sense of what I want to do, what I want to do in life, what I would like to do. And it's a simple thing. I want it to be a simple thing because I wanted to think— I wanted to be a thing that I'm capable of doing in all times, difficult times, easy times, and something that I can share with other people and can be of benefit, hopefully. Namaste, Guruji. Namaste, Guruji. Got time for another question, if you'd like? Or we could do some practice. Let's do some practice. I feel like doing something really informal. I feel like doing a really informal number soon. I just feel— that just feels like what I want to do. I'm going to sing the Namaṁ Daṣbhu, my New Street— I shouldn't call it my New Street thing because it's not my New Street thing, it's emerged, it's emerged in my mind, let's make it mine. There's one of the precepts, bhuta, before we get ordained where— I probably can't remember the words exactly, but where you 'You don't own anything, don't take any ownership of anything.' Do you know the exact words, Master Ethan? No, not at the moment. Anyway, or maybe it's from the Longa Sutra. Maybe it's one of the vows in the Longa Sutra. The Longa Sutra is the vows of Amida Buddha. One of the vows is that people in his Pure Land have don't even have no sense of ownership even of their own bodies. That's right. So that's right. Thank you. I don't know what I mean to do. So I'm just going to sing it and then join in with me, and then if you feel like doing it at your own tempo with breath where you want to, then, then do, please.

Namana bu namanda bu. Namana bu namanda bu. Namana bu namanda bu. Namanda bu—