A Buddhist community gathering where Dave shares how reframing suffering transformed his fieldwork, finding appreciation for butterflies instead of frustration. The group explores the balance between personal practice and studying teachings for beginners, with chanting, meditation, and a Dharma talk.
Chapters
Welcome everybody in the hot, hot shrine room. Welcome on Zoom, Yvelina, Matt, Ian. Nice to see you. We're going to begin this morning with Dave reading a glimpse that he's written, so I'll hand over.
Namaste.
Butterflies and suffering. I'm a very lucky man. As part of my job, I get to go out into the countryside and carry out ecological surveys. I get paid to look for bats, reptiles, and dormice amongst other things. It's a bit of a dream come true in some ways, but it's not all skipping through meadows and sniffing flowers. The going can be really tough. You can be out in all weathers sometimes and in very inhospitable conditions and in tricky terrain. A few weeks ago I had to travel down to Somerset to check some nest tubes that I'd put out earlier in the year to see if any dormice had made nests in them. I think it was April when I put them out. I placed them along the hedgerows bordering an agricultural field which was going to be turned into a quarry at some point in the future. It was during one of our mini heat waves that I was carrying out this check, and the vegetation had grown up quite considerably since April. What was once an empty field had now become a tall crop of corn, and the headland between the corn and the hedgerow was waist-high or higher with grasses, nettles, brambles, and thistles. I was struggling to travel from one nest tube to the next and having great difficulty finding them in the overgrown and bramble-covered hedges which had earlier in the year been easily accessible. As it was hot, I was dressed in a t-shirt and light trousers in an attempt to keep cool. Unfortunately, this did not give me much protection from the stinging nettles and thistles that I was literally surrounded by. To add to this, I was being bombarded with midges and other small flying insects that seemed to be attracted to my sweaty head. I was, I was hot and bothered and getting quite annoyed, desperately trying to avoid getting scratched and stung, weaving my way in and out of the aggressive vegetation, flinching at every sting and scratch. After a while, it dawned on me the futility of trying to avoid the situation. If I was going to do my job, I would just have to put up with it and wade in. Once I'd accepted this reality and stopped worrying about my discomfort, everything changed. To be honest, the pain was not actually that bad, and as my focus shifted from avoiding my relatively minor suffering, I began to look around and take in my surroundings with a calmer perspective. As well as the annoying midges and other flying insects that I mentioned previously, there were bumblebees, honeybees, hoverflies, and dragonflies. And as I got deeper into the midst of thistles, there were more and more butterflies. Dozens of them, big ones, little ones, about 6 or 7 different species, all brightly colored, flitting from thistle to thistle and flying around my head. Purple flower heads and butterflies as far as I could see. Once my perspective and focus had changed, I was transported from my minor personal hell into paradise. Buddhist teachings tell us that it is often our reaction to suffering that causes us the most distress. A secondary suffering of our own making. This was clearly brought home to me on this beautiful sunny day in my field full of butterflies. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
Monks in the Himalayas. Some monks in the Himalayas have a meditation practice of creating heat with their bodies enough to melt the snow. Unfortunately, I haven't sat at the feet of a master who knows the trick of generating cool enough to freeze the ground around you. So we're just, uh, moving into meditation and an invita— excuse me— an invitation to notice how it is moment to moment. Um, as Daishi Morgan says, this— the spirit is holding the question, oh, what's this? Uh, not that we're sort of asking that in an analytical way, just The spirit of curiosity.
Amitabha.
Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh, Amitabh, Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh.
Amitabh.
Amitabh. Mita, Ami, Mita, Ami. Mita. Mita.
Mita.
Amitabh Bachchan. Amitabh Bachchan.
Amitabh Bachchan.
Amitabh Bachchan. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Mita, Amita, Amita.
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.
Namo Buddha.
Namo Buddha.
For refuge I go to Dharma— for refuge all that guides us to wisdom and compassion—
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo!
For refuge I go to Sangha— those who live in Buddha's light— 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—
I pray that I may become aware—
Of when I take life—
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.
Of when I take what is not freely given.
I pray that I may become aware—
—when I fall into sexual misconduct. Of when I fall into sexual misconduct.
I pray that I may become aware—
—of when I fall into wrong speech. When I fall into wrong speech.
I pray that I may become aware—
of when I become intoxicated. Of when I become intoxicated. No blame.
No blame. Be kind. Be kind. Love everything.
Love everything.
Innumerable sentient beings, we vow to save them all. Inexhaustible arduous compassion, 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 follow it.
Completely.
I was reading the newsletter from a Zen priest in Hawaii last week, maybe this week. I can't remember what her name is. Um, anyway, she'd been asked to write an article about the Four Noble Truths, so she'd put the teaching in the newsletter about the Four Noble Truths. But in the introduction was the bit that I was interested, where she said, I don't normally do, uh, much of this for beginners. The most important thing we tell people is how to sit, and we direct their attention to the body. We give them meditation instruction, we don't give them teachings. And they do that for quite a long time before going, okay, now here's a teaching to listen to. In Jodo Shinshu, of course, the main practice is listening to the Dharma, which often does mean listening to teachings, and they don't really emphasize practice at all. Although it is true in some of the Buddhist Churches of America, they now teach meditation because that's what Americans want to learn when they go to Buddhist centers. We're somewhere in the middle, encouraging practice and encouraging listening to and reading teachings. And both of these approaches have their limitations. If you only listen to teachings or read teachings, you can end up missing what that really means in your own life. You can— the, the danger is that you shape yourself to fit what you're being told and ignore the parts of your experience that don't match that, or that you rely heavily on someone else's map of the Dharma to the extent that you miss the actual world and yourself in the world. Now, at some point, because we're human beings and so on, like Actually, if all you're doing is listening to teachings, at some point if you want to progress, you'll, you'll have to transcend that limitation and come into your own relationship with the Buddha. And the— from the opposite point of view, if, if you spend all your time doing personal practice but neglect listening to the experience of teachers and elders. You can be biased. Your— the insights arrive that can be, can be biased by self-protective parts, by unconscious beliefs, by things we don't really want to pay attention to. It's really easy to use meditation as a tool for repression, for example. And this is why it's so important to have external mirrors, whether it's in the form of teachings or teachers. You know, one of the things they do in Zen temples, of course, is that you get an interview with the teacher who checks out how your practice is doing and how you're doing and gives you a little nudge. In the right direction. I'm partly thinking about this, um, because of when beginners come to practice thinking, how much words do I give you and how much do I just say, just do the practice? And sometimes go one way and sometimes the other way. And some people really want an explanation and some people aren't so worried about that. And there isn't a perfect solution, right? There's no perfect formula that means somebody's going to stick. But I do think it's important to have both of these ingredients, the encouragement to really be present in the experience of the practice and also the kind of external scaffolding that a teaching gives. I'm not really sure what the point of this Dharma talk is, because in this community we already do both of these things. Yeah, well, I guess I'm also— I'm thinking about how, how all of us welcome new people as well, and how all of us transmit the Dharma. And actually, that something for us all to keep in mind is the encouragement to really taste it and find out for yourself, and also to pay attention to, to the experience of those that have gone before us. Namamitabodhi.
Nam.
In gratitude, we offer this incense to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space. Time. May it be fragrant as the earth itself, reflecting our careful efforts, our wholehearted awareness, and fruits of understanding so delightful. May we and all beings be companions of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. May we awaken from connectedness and realize our true home.
I was really thrown in frustrations by what's one thing, my color, and then I was thrown by the thought, oh, what, surely you shouldn't be disturbed by this after all these years of Buddhist practice. But it turns out I was disturbed. Blessed by Amitabha's light, may we care for all living things and the living earth.
Please stop the film. Yeah.
