Satya Robyn leads a small Buddhist group through a meditation service centered on the Vedic line "May I be able to look upon all beings with the eye of a friend." The session includes a short talk on compassion and non-violence, loving-kindness meditation, Amitabha chanting, and recitation of refuges and precepts.
Chapters
Welcome everybody, small group in the shrine room this evening, and we're joined by Beth and Bruce. So welcome to you as well.
Namaste. Finding the Buddha particularly beautiful this evening. I think Dave's done the flowers as well, hasn't he? So I was in the hallway before coming in and noticed that this leaflet was on the notice board because it's the Week of Prayer for World Peace. This week. And looking through the various prayers, the one that caught my eye is one from the Vedas, and it is, 'May I be able to look upon all beings with the eye of a friend. May we look upon one another with the eye of a friend.' And that goes together with an experience I had downstairs just before I came up, which was looking on Twitter. And I can't remember who it was now, you might be able to remember, but there was someone on there saying something.
Oh, I know who that was.
That was just really annoying. I can't remember who it was, but anyway, I can remember the feeling very clearly, and it was a feeling of intense dislike and just wanting to just kind of erase that person. They were saying something about climate, I think, and it was like a sort of a final straw kind of moment. And I was just putting those two things together, that experience of really just wanting to dismiss somebody entirely, and this encouragement that we look at everybody with the eye of a friend. And I was thinking about the quote to start with. I thought it meant that we have to really look at everybody and feel kindly towards them all the time, but that's not what it's saying. It's saying that we should look at them as if they are a friend. And that reminded me that we're not always happy with our friends. We can be very upset with our friends sometimes, and for good reasons. But there's something different about the quality of that upset because it's held within a context of relationship. It's held within that kind of 3-dimensional complicated exchange that's existed over time. And ideally, our friends can do things that upset us, or we can just dislike parts of them, but that, that, that doesn't, um, that doesn't lead to that kind of wanting to erase them that I felt towards this person, whoever it was, earlier this evening. And it also just reminds me how hard it is to live, um, to live in a way that's non-violent. I've been reading a lot about non-violence recently and how Gandhi would say that it, it's, it's not just a method that we use in order to get something that we want, it's a way of life. It's a, it's a, it's, um, it's completely embedded in us. In all of our relationships, in all of our dealings with the world. And I'm quite good at seeing the humanity in someone else when I'm advising someone how to deal with them. But when I'm having my own tangles with people, it's, it's very different and can be massively triggering. I kind of like the idea of looking at people with the eye of a friend. It's, it's a little bit softer somehow than, than the idea that we should love, we should look at them with love, that that feels a bit hard sometimes. My experience is that when we get to know people, when we, even if we don't become friends with them, when we understand them a bit better, when we hang out with them for a long time, It's often easier to feel softer towards them because we know more about them, and we also understand some of the context of the bits of them that are tricky. And it's always good to know that we have a fallback, which is when we can't manage to look at others in that way. We remember that the Buddha looks at people in that way, and that we can hand those people over to the Buddha. But we can't always manage it, and that's fine. We're not Buddhas. So as we sit quietly, we'll maybe do a version of kind of loving kindness meditation. And as different people come to your mind, Imagine looking at them with the eye of a friend. And if people arise who are just a little bit too difficult to look at in that way right now, just hand them over to the Buddha, and the Buddha will look after them instead. And after a little while, you might just want to Swap roles and be the person that is being looked at kindly. Be the person that the Buddha is gazing at. You might want to start with that depending on what kind of day you've had. Just ordinary, gentle kindness. With an acknowledgement of our human limits. May I be able to look upon all beings with the eye of a friend. Moving out of silence. In a minute we'll do some chanting together. Please do join in. The chant is for Amitabha, and we'll chant for a little while, then I'll get quiet, and then we'll have a little more silence. Amitabha.
Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha.
Amitabha. So we'll now recite the refuges and precepts together. They're on the bit of paper behind you if you want to read them, or just behind you, or it's just repeat after me. So for refuge we go to the Buddha.
For refuge we go to the Buddha.
Namo Buddha. For refuge we go to the Dharma.
For refuge we go to the Dharma.
Namo Dharma. For refuge we go to the Sangha—
for refuge you get this anger—
Namo sanghaya! With faith in the Three Jewels—
with faith in the three jewels—
we pray that we may not take life—
We pray that we may not stay alive—
with faith in the Three Jewels—
Faithful Jews—
we pray that we may not steal—
we pray that we may not still—
with faith in the Three Jewels—
with faith in the Three Jewels— we pray that we may not cause harm—
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo!
For Refuge of Buddha Amida Butsu. Thank You so much.
may not fall into sexual misconduct—
we pray that we may not all have to sexually misbehave—
With faith in The Three Jewels , We Pray That We May Avoid Wrong Speech—
We pray that we avoid wrong speech—
With Faith In The 3 Jewels —We pray that we might avoid intoxication—
No Blame No blame. Be kind.
Be kind.
Love everything.
Love everything.
Innumerable sentient beings, we vow to save them all. Inexhaustible 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 fulfill it completely.
We will now make prostrations to the Buddha. So the chant is Namo Amitabha, and do join us in a full prostration if your body is happy for you to do that. If not, you can stay standing or seating or Whatever's comfortable. Seating, sitting, seated. Namaste. Let's return to our seats.
Return to our places.
Return to our places.
Very good.
And when Phoebe rings the bell, we'll bow to each other, and then we'll bow to the Buddha. And then we're back to our seats and tidy our seats, and we say one more verse together, which is on a bit of paper, and it's called the closing verse. To top—
that's it. You're on mute if you're on Zoom and want to join in.
Blessed by Amitabha's light, may we care for all living things and adore the Buddha. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. You're gonna stop the thing. Welcome.
