Spiritual Practice will change your life: part 2!

Highly selective. Wednesday night, I was gonna say Thursday night, Wednesday night. We're going to begin the Dharma Glimpse by Shaku Sayo Chen Feng from the Bright Dawn Book of Dharma Glimpses. Gratitude is the spiritual life. These are the words of my teacher, words I try to live by every day. No matter what the day brings, gratitude is important.

It is said that the more we're grateful, the more we have to be grateful for.

Gratitude is said to be a remedy to garbage. Being thankful helps us lessen our attachment.

We are satisfied just with things.

Living in gratitude is a practice, a practice of being free from attachment to deciding what we want to know, flowing freely without pretense or artificiality. To know nothing's lacking. Of course, we need things to survive, but gratitude is key to never needing more at all. If we can live a life of gratitude, a life filled with a thankful heart, when we meet the end of our physical karmic existence, we can leave this life with nothing In a belated celebration of the Medicine Buddha Day, we will chant the Medicine Buddha chant. Thai, um, bacon, bacon, bacon.

Satya Robyn, bacon J, bacon J, ma bacon J, as a samudgati soha. Satya Robyn, bacon J, bacon J, ma bacon J, as a samudgati soha. Satya Robyn, J bacon J, ma bacon J, as the sun gets so hot. Satya Robyn, bacon J, bacon J, ma bacon J, as the sun gets so hot. Thai and Thai.

Refuge, I go to the Buddha. Refuge, I go to the Buddha, the one who is awake and full of love. For refuge I go to the Dharma, all that guides us to wisdom and compassion.

Namo Dharma.

For refuge I go to the Sangha, For refuge I go to Satya Robyn. Those who live in the Buddha's light.

Those who live in the Buddha's light. Namo Sangha. Namo Sangha.

For refuge I go to the Earth.

For refuge I go to the Earth.

The holy ground of awakening.

The holy ground of awakening. Namo Gaya. Namo Gaya.

With faith in the Four Refuges, with faith in the Four Refuges, and in light of my human tendencies, I pray that I may become aware when I take life.

I pray that I may become aware when I take what is not free, when I take what I pray that I may become aware when I fall into sexual misconduct. I pray that I may become aware when I fall into wrong speech. I pray that I may become aware of when I become intoxicated.

Inhumable sentient beings, we vow to save them.

Inexhaustible Adjudications.

We bow to Transformed Avalokiteshvara.

Immeasurable Abhidharma Teachings.

We bow to you, Satya Robyn.

Infinite is the Buddha's way.

We vow to follow it completely.

I've got to do part 2 of how spiritual practice can change your life. I quite like doing things in parts. If you haven't already noticed, whenever I've got 2 Wednesday nights in a row, I'm like, oh, I'm going to do a part 1 and a part 2. So last week I was talking about community and connection and the present moment, and tonight I'm going to talk about gratitude. As that lovely Dharma Glimpse was relating to, and otherness, other power. So in that Dharma Glimpse it said, well, something along the lines of gratitude being the spiritual practice, or very, very integral, you know. And one of the things I like about it being phrased in that way is that there's a nice kind of chicken and the egg kind of thing whereby people who don't necessarily think of themselves as at all spiritual or having spiritual practice may well simply quite organically practice gratitude, partly because it's in like, you know, popular culture as being a good thing to do to make you happier, but also just because it is one of the things that people can naturally end up doing, is being grateful for things. So you don't need to have a spiritual practice to practice gratitude. Gratitude. But practicing gratitude is a spiritual practice. So that's one of the things I quite like about the way it was phrased in that Dharma Kings, is because, you know, it opens up this potential and this opportunity of life-changing practice to people who don't necessarily think of it in those terms. And it's also one of the things that ideally happens you're, you know, opening yourself up to the spiritual, opening yourself up to the potential for awakening, the presence, opening up to awareness, opening up to the possibility that there's something bigger than ourselves. And there's something that happens, you know, in that opening up. Like, I'm doing a lot of this kind of movement for my chest because it's like there's a heart opens. Heart opens. Yeah, like, to people and connection and to the natural world and to wonder and to joy. And to suffering and pain. And ideally, there's gradually more and more resilience and ability to be with the full spectrum, full spectrum of human experiences, because they all have their sacredness. And then there's this beautiful kind of, um, really positive feedback loop that happens as we become more and more open to things, you know, things which bring gratitude, wonder, joy, all of these kind of things. Obviously, we then experience more of those things because our heart's more open to them. And that transforms our day-to-day experience. It's like the Dharma Glimpse writer was talking about. And then there's also other power, which is what we're opening that up to, which is that presence, which is that presence of something bigger than us, something which is other than us. And it reminded me of this old quote that I'm going to slightly misquote because I don't quite remember every single word. I think it's mostly there, um, which is— which goes: the grief and sense of loss that we so often attribute to a sense personal failure is in fact an emptiness where a vast and deep otherness should have been encountered. The grief and sense of loss that we often attribute to a sense of personal failure is in fact an emptiness 'where a vast and deep otherness should have been encountered.' I've got goosebumps. I really like that quote. Well, I'd probably change the 'should' to a 'could' because it's never too late. And I think one of the things I like about it is that, um, It invites a reframe of a sense of lack, or that grief, that longing, that we could think is because, oh, we're, you know, our job isn't filling enough. And we don't have a fair social life, or we're not like, you know, we're not fully, completely fulfilled and happy because we're not, you know, ticking every single bit of the pie charts that society says that if we've got all of those things really good and we've done that properly, then we should be completely fulfilled, you know. And actually, what I like about that quote is going, actually, you know, there's that longing, that longing is for other, you know, it's, it's for otherness. It's for— there's nothing wrong with it.

There's nothing wrong with it.

It's a path. It's an expression of actually the potential for a connection and encounter with something outside of ourselves.

Something bigger than ourselves that's always there. And spiritual practice can help us to remember that and to have more and more glimpses and more and more, maybe more and more encounters with that longing.

Of that grief, loss, lack, and then therefore more and more experiences of connection from that feeling to the other, the other power, the Tiriki. So spiritual practice can also change our lives. Through encounter with other power and gratitude, open-heartedness, wonder, joy, clearer seeing of suffering. Namaste.

In gratitude, we make this offering to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time. May it be as fragrant as Earth itself, reflecting our careful efforts Our wholehearted mindfulness and a deep love standing, serving right view. May we always be kind to our brothers and our disciples. May we wake from forgetfulness and realize our true home. Namaste. Everyone knows all the announcements in this room.

We've got no one online, so no announcements. Bless.