Satya Robyn and others lead a Buddhist morning service with chants, prayers, and readings centered on Pure Land practice and the Nembutsu. The group takes refuge vows, recites precepts, and shares personal reflections including one speaker's account of a public vigil.
Chapters
Time has passed with the swiftness of light. It is already morning. Impermanence rushes upon us every moment. Mara follows every step. O practitioners of the way, strive diligently, attain nirvana. Rare is it to meet with the Dharma ultimate and profound, even though one seeks for hundreds and thousands of eons. Fortunately, we now hear and receive it. We pray that we may understand its time-just true meaning. Let the Blessed One teach the Dharma. Let the Sublime One teach the Dharma. There are beings with little dust in their eyes who are wasting through not hearing the Dharma. There will be those who will understand. The Buddha has said, open for them are the doors of the deathless. Let those with ears now show their faith. Buddhas throughout space and time, reverently do we adore you. Dharma is to the end of time, reverently do we adore you. Sanghas so exemplary, reverently do we adore you. To this holy place, O Nibbana Buddha, our highest one, bring your presence now.
We pray.
To this holy place, Shakyamuni, Enlightened One, bring your presence now, we pray. To this holy place, to targeters of all worlds, bring your presence now, we pray.
Namaste.
Summary of faith and practice.
For those having a karmic affinity with Amitābha Buddha, wishing to practice a religious life in true simple faith, Freeing themselves of sophistication and attachment to all forms of cleverness, the method of opening oneself to Amitabha's grace is the practice of ngenpo with body, speech, and mind, particularly verbal recitation of Namo Amitabha. This is not something done as a form of meditation, nor is it based on study, understanding, and wisdom. Or the revelation of deep meaning. Deep meaning is indeed there, for the Nembutsu is a window through which the whole universe of Buddha's teaching can be perceived in all its depth. But none of this is either necessary or even helpful to success in the practice. Rather, such study cultivates secondary faculties to be held separate from the mind of practice itself. The primary practice requires only one essential: realize that you are a totally foolish being who understands nothing, but who can with complete trust recite Namo Amitabha. Know that this will generate rebirth in the pure land without even knowing what rebirth in the pure land truly is. This is the practice of all Rigmarin beings. And ignorance is essential for its accomplishment. This practice automatically encompasses the three minds and the mind of contrition as a fourth. To pursue something more profound or more sophisticated, or to have a theory, or to think that understanding will yield greater enlightenment than this, is to be misled and to fall back into self-power. Whereby the whole practice is spoiled. However wise, learned, or skilled you may be, set it aside and be the foolish being completely in the performance of the practice. Nothing else is required, and anything else is too much. Faith and practice cannot be differentiated. The Buddha body is delineated by the precepts. How deficient we are by comparison. By our daily difficulty in the perceptual life, we awaken to the presence of the myriad karmic obstacles. Without which we would already perceive the land of love and bliss, we would be as the Vow Body of Buddha. Thus we know in experience that we are foolish beings of wayward passion. This knowledge of our condition is part of the essential basis when it gives rise to contrition. Thus all obstacles become impediments to faith unless we experience contrition and letting go. Saving grace, as was made clear by Shandao's dream and advice to Tao Tzu, only comes through the Sangha Mon. If you can perform the practice in this simple-minded way, Amida will receive you and you may fear for nothing. Since all is completely assured. Dwelling in this settled faith, you may then use your secondary faculties, your knowledge and skills and accumulated experience, as tools for helping all sentient beings. But do not then think that anything of relevance to your own salvation is thereby accomplished, nor that you are making something of yourself. Whatever merit there may be in your actions of this kind, Immediately and totally dedicate it to the benefit of others, that they may enter the Pure Land, and that you yourself may not be encumbered by consciousness of virtue, which will only contaminate the practice. As Honen says, without pedantic airs, fervently recite the hymn.
Namomi debu. So I am on day Day 7 today of my daily vigil. So I'm spending an hour in the centre of Malvern every day with a sign around my neck that says— that has a picture of the planet and says, 'With love and grief for the Earth,' and I'm holding silence and keeping my eyes shut, and I noticed yesterday as I was setting out my stall, I put a little notice up next to me so people can read about what I'm doing if they want to, and I have a little notice in front of me that says I'm holding silence so they don't try and talk to me, although that doesn't always work, and I have an hourglass with pink sand in it it's half an hour, so at the beginning I turn it over and then half an hour through I have a bell that goes off and I turn it over again. I realized as I was performing these actions to sort of get ready to start and starting, that I was performing a sacred ritual and that the space that I inhabit at the bottom of the steps in the middle of town opposite the post office, where lorries go past and noise and people, is that I have made a little tiny pure land around myself by treating the objects and the space as sacred. And it was interesting because I didn't know that I was doing that until I'd been doing it for a little while. I was like, "Oh yes, the way that I place that reminds me of how I place things on the shrine." And there's something for me that's really valuable about those actions that we repeat over and over again. As we recited Summary of Faith and Practice together, the three of us, I was thinking, how many times have we done that together now? I don't know, a lot. Sometimes with other people, sometimes without. And that there's something in the repetition that reinforces something about our sacred connection with the Buddha. And then I've also been thinking about how being in the shrine room this morning is strange. The last time me and Caspar were in the shrine room at this time was March this year. It's now November, and in March when the pandemic hit, we separated into a separate household. So the people that live in the temple stayed up here with their kitchen, and we went down to our flat with our our separate kitchen and didn't mix, and we offered these services from my little office, kind of crammed into a little corner for a while, and then when we realised it was possible, we went into the Temple Garden and we've been doing the service out there for 4 months maybe, something like that. And I missed the garden this morning, looking at it as we were walking past and thinking, 'Oh, we'd be walking all around the garden right now with the dogs following us,' and getting cold fingers. And also it feels really special to be back in here, and it means that people like Matt can join us again, which is really wonderful. So there's something about that combination of doing the same things over and over with reverence and also being able to take it all very likely. Who knows what will happen next week? Maybe the temple will burn down. Maybe, uh, we'll be back in the garden again before too long. But that whatever happens, we can do whatever we're doing with the reverence that I turn over my hourglass, or even I take a selfie of myself at the beginning of each session of sitting outside, and it feels like even that selfie-taking has become a part of the sacred ritual. We can lean into the repetition and take it lightly because all of this ritual, all of these things that we do in this room are stand-ins for, are kind of different languages for, or different words for refuge in the Buddha. We might have different, a different language than a Theravada Buddhist has, or a Theravada Buddhist. We might have different language than a Quaker or a Methodist or a Muslim, but we're all speaking of something that is at the center of everything. And that is always holding us steady. And that as we speak of this in whatever language we choose, we realize how— we remember how strong the connection is. I don't think that the connection needs to be any stronger because Amida is always there, is always present, but the clouds move aside a little bit so we can see So we can feel that being with the Buddha. So we will now move into some silence, and we'll begin with chanting the name of the Buddha. And he doesn't need any encouragement, she doesn't need any encouragement to be with us, but we need encouragement. So it's all, it's all for us. Namomi to be.
Ama, mi da bhuna, mi da bhuna, amo.
Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha.
Namoh Amida Butu.
Amo a mi da. Amo a mi abu. Amo a mi abu. Amo a mi da. Namoh Amida. Namoh Amida. Namoh Amida. Namanda bu. Namanda bu. Namanda bu. Namanda bu.
For refuge I go to Amida.
For refuge I go to Amida.
Namo Amitabha.
Namo Amitabha.
For refuge I go to the Buddha.
For refuge I go to the Buddha.
Namo Buddha.
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 the Sangha.
Namo Sanghaya!
Namo Sanghaya!
For refuge I go to the Pure Land.
For refuge I go to the Pure Land.
Namo Buddhakshatriya!
Namo Buddhakshatriya!
With faith in the Three Jewels—
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! With faith in the Three Jewels— With faith in the Three Jewels— I pray that I may not fall into wrong speech.
I pray that I may not fall into 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.
Namah tassa agamato, agamato samma sammuttasam. Namur, Tasa, Ananatu, Ananatu, Shama, Samudra, Sha. Namaste. Satya Robyn.
Now sing Tai Chi Cheese Prayer, which is on page 18, I believe.
In the western sky is a great sun disc, cause its face of un of cloud. Original nature is dark and light, and I myself will pray to him. Sai Shiji, aid me now. The Dharma may be summarized as good and purity of heart, but I have never mastered all. The precepts, ko san mahadi, tai ji ji eiminao. The great sage pointed out three ways. Two are ignoble, one is true. A foolish being such as I may walk the middle pathway. Tai Chi Chi aid me now. Ah, great good fortune will be ours if we can go beyond conceit and think of others more than self, trusting the Tathagata. Tai Chi Chi aid me now. Within my heart the bitterness remains like mud in a deep pool. I pray the sun above the blue will make utterance open now. Tai Chi Chi, aid me now. To know the mind original is to know darkness more than light. The light will work its own good work. If only we will trust it. Tai Chi Chi aid me now. When I look into your sad eyes and see the harm my acts have done, what is it that I would defend? Springing to my own defense, Tai Chi Chi aid me now. The ego is insatiable, its sharp teeth cling tenaciously. Oh, so that it may soon find peace, may tenderness enfold me. Tai Chi Chi Aid Me Now. Oh, the harm that's done by me is by three poisons set in train. They neither can begin nor cease. I cannot be proud thereof. Tai Chi, Chi aid me now. My body, speech, and mind are weak. Conditions change and so do I. I weep for all the harm I've done, and yet my heart is not undone. Tai Chi Chi, aid me now.
I see my mind committing wrong.
My eyes are open to the truth. No longer my own advocate, may I now find a refuge. Tai Chi Chi, aid me now. By my own power I am betrayed. By Buddha's power I am redeemed. The glory of the clouds on high comes from the hidden sun beyond. Tai Chi, Chi aid me now.
The original and sacred vows are the unique and essential grace by which to enter the pure land. Therefore, with body, speech, and mind, we are devoted to the teachings that all may attain a state of bliss. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
