The Buddha's life

Good morning everybody, welcome to our very humid shrine room.

We're going to begin with a Dharma glimpse from Sonya, who is in one of the book groups at the moment, which Satya is going to read for us in a moment.

Dharma glimpse.

By Sonia. There are too many dead things in the house. I've been struggling with fatigue and lack of direction, and it's really been dragging. Reflection, journaling, soul-searching, reading tarot— I've tried everything except action, of course. And then I see it: there are too many dead things in the house. 'Potted plants in the wrong spot that really had no hope of surviving. Flowers left in vases for months, stems mouldering. Kitchen herbs completely dried out. Purposefully dried lavender now after several years faded to grey and with no scent at all. Gosh, are those fir cones still there in June? A wreath that I made with flowers I dried myself, still pretty but thick with cobwebs.' I just hadn't seen how much of it there was. I start to clear it out, but it takes me weeks, not because of the quantity, but because I'm struggling to part with all my dead things. In the last 10 years, I have lost, among other things, my career due to health and both my parents. It's interesting how much the absence of career looms large. Working in education had fulfilled a clear sense of purpose. Now I have nothing to pin my identity on. I know that I have trouble letting go. I wonder if letting go is so hard because I don't know what there is to fill the space yet. It means allowing uncertainty. And because dead, dry plants still make interesting shapes and I like them. It does feel better when all the dead material is gone. I get a new plant. I plan to get a few more. I can't wait to fill the space with living, breathing greenery. A few weeks later, I coax myself into the garden and through the pain of digging, feel energy flowing in my limbs again. I still don't have any answers to the big questions. I still don't have any direction, but I have started something, even if I can't work out exactly how it's related to larger losses. I think of the path as something grand and noble, romantic even. But perhaps it's just this: the daily negotiations of push and pull, attachment and loss, decay and growth. Small steps, small actions, building to a whole that we cannot see, cannot always grasp. I thought this was a bit— this is in brackets— I thought this was a bit depressing, so here is a haiku I wrote for July, approaching Leo season. Which sort of says the same thing. Leo rolls over, another year turned, nothing to show, just sunlight.

Thank you. Namamitabhu. We've got our own dead things on the shrine this morning as the hot, hot sun through the glass has withered the flowers and evaporated the water from the vases. In Zen temples around the world, the flowers are deliberately left to go brown before they're replaced, to remind us of impermanence, that things flourish and die. And then other flowers are brought into the shrine to remind us that, oh, this is also what impermanence means— new things appear as well. So we'll go into our meditation this morning noticing the impermanence of the breath. One breath enters that air leaves. Another breath enters and leaves, always changing. And maybe finding a still point in the midst of all this change.

Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabh.

For 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.

All that guides us to wisdom and compassion.

Namo Dhamma. For refuge I go to the Sangha.

For refuge I go to the Sangha.

Those who live in the Buddha's light.

Those who live in the Buddha's light.

Namo Sangha.

Namo Sangha.

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— —of when I take life. I pray that I may become aware— —of when I take what is not freely given. I pray that I may become aware— —of when I fall into sexual misconduct. I pray that I may become aware— of when I fall into wrong speech. I pray that I may become aware— of when I've become intoxicated. No blame. Be kind. Love everything.

Innumerable are sentient beings.

We vow to save them all.

Inexhaustible are 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 follow it completely.

When disciples became of the Buddha's, became Buddhists, became, or became monks and nuns, he would ask them 3 times to take refuge to make sure they were really serious. That's why there's 3 lines in our refuge vows, in echoes of that. Well, I missed one today, as some of you may have noticed. But everything we do in the shrine room is an act of refuge, so I think we're okay. My mind's been turning back to the life story of Shakyamuni Buddha, the founder of our tradition 2,500 years ago, and his comings and goings and the push and pull of his life. The sort of myth of the Buddhist story is that he grew up insulated from suffering. He never had to experience the travails of life that the rest of us to. His mother died in childbirth, and then he was taken up by his father, the king. I mean, it wasn't really a monarchy in the way that we understand monarchies, uh, in Europe, but the lead— the leader of quite a large community and his stepmother, one of the king's other wives, and protected from suffering, given all the best things, all the best teachers, learnt bow and arrow, and surrounded by beautiful people. Sick people were whisked away, so he never had to be around sickness or ill health, and was given the best care and doctors himself. Partly out of a fear of his father. When the Buddha was born, his father invited a load of fortune tellers to come and predict the life of the Buddha, and most of them said, "Oh, he's going to go on to become a great king like you, in fact even greater than you." a wheel-turning monarch, which is like a king that changes history, that turns the wheel of history. But one of the fortune tellers said, could be a king, could also turn out to be a great spiritual leader. And the king, his father, was like, oh, I don't think we want that. 'Well, that doesn't sound like what I want for my son, so I'm going to keep him away from anything that might derail the plan for him to become this wheel-turning monarch.' And although I said it's not like a Western royal family, you can imagine if the heir to the throne said, if, you know, if Prince William said to King Charles— maybe not with these personalities, Charles is quite spiritual, right? But I'm— but if there were no other heirs, let's say, which was true for the Buddha, said, oh, you know what, I don't think I do want to become king. You can imagine that would send a ripple through the institution of the firm, as it's, as the royal family is known, and that they would do everything they could to get that back on track. But clearly in the Buddha's case, that didn't work. He did go on to become a great spiritual leader. As a young man with his own child and wife, he started to become disillusioned with home life and snuck out in the night to go into the world and, and saw these four sights— this, the sick person, the old person and a dead body, and suddenly is confronted with suffering and impermanence in a way that just wasn't true before. Or maybe it landed in a way that it hadn't landed before and really was quite shaken by this. It started the old cogs turning. And then the fourth sight, seeing the holy person. It's pretty common in India in those days for people, older people, older men especially, but older, but also women, to, to leave home after they'd like retired from work, to leave home and become a wandering ascetic doing various yoga practices, maybe finding a teacher. There were loads of these spiritual teachers around, um, begging for food. And the Buddha sees this holy person and is struck by something like, oh, it's not just suffering, there's also this, this calm, this equanimity, this steadiness in the midst of all this chaos. There is something different that's possible. And then he went home and maybe tried not to think about it too much because it would be a big change, right? But it said, it said he woke up in the night surrounded by court sons. Prostitutes, maybe all the women of the court, this party, and that they were drooling and like in their sleep and snoring. And he looked around and thought, oh, last night I was like really intoxicated by this party, but these are just ordinary, like these people are also going to suffer. Maybe had a hangover, I don't know. And so he left, he left the palace and went to find a spiritual teacher, went to find one of these holy people. And he spent time with a few different spiritual teachers, learning different things, always feeling like, oh, you've taught me a lot, but there's something else. So I'll go to another teacher, another teacher, and eventually ending up on his own practicing quite severely, fasting. That didn't work. He fainted because he hadn't been eating enough. Was revived by the care of this working-class woman, Sujata. And then, boosted by that act of compassion, sat under the Bodhi tree meditating. And as the morning star came over, came in the sky the next morning, suddenly was enlightened. And in— so that's based on a true story. We don't know exactly what the details are, and we know that it's very similar to the story of Mahavira, who was another spiritual teacher at the same time who founded Jainism. There's lots of parallels. And in Buddhism, there's the idea that— so this was the real Buddha, but there were Buddhas before him. There were beings that had woken up in the past. There's beings all through the universe that have woken up. And whenever their life stories are told, these other non-historical Buddhas, it follows the same sequence of events as the life story of Shakyamuni Buddha. They live a kind of, um, an easy life. They encounter some suffering which inspires them to, to try and figure something out. They find a spiritual teacher. And they become enlightened. Or in the Buddha's case, several teachers, a working-class woman, and a star. Teachers can take any shape. And there is something archetypal about that journey. It's the same in our own lives. Things are going okay, and then something trips us up. Maybe like Sonia, we lose our career or a loved one. We get a bit lost, and then something from the outside— we notice something in the world, we notice somebody else, we realize, oh It's not just suffering. We follow that thread and it brings us to teachers in all different shapes and forms. These days, you know, we've got books, we've got talks online, uh, and slowly that draws us to awakening, which is realizing the compassionate Heart at the center of all living things. For Pure Land Buddhists. And it's striking that the story of Amida Buddha— Amida, the kind of archetypal Buddha, the face of loving kindness and wisdom that is available in the present moment, like the spirit of enlightenment that is still with us even after the death of the historical Buddha— the sort of myth or story of Amida Buddha is the same. There was a person in a castle, Dharmakara, who, who suddenly experienced suffering, left the castle, found a spiritual teacher, and eventually became Amida Buddha, who is present for us now. And then our lives follow the same trajectory. There is suffering, there is dukkha. It's unavoidable. Things happen. Flowers die and need replacing. And there is also the presence of the Buddha, our own compassionate heart, and also the universal compassionate heart that surrounds us in every moment. Namamitabha.

In gratitude, we offer this incense to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time. May it be fragrant as Earth herself, reflecting our careful efforts, our wholehearted mindfulness, and the fruits of understanding slowly ripening. May we and all beings be companions of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. May we awaken from forgetfulness and realize our true home.

So come back to stand in our places. When Satya Robyn's bell will bow to each other, so just first to one side. And then the other, then it's the main shine. Tied our seats, burnt our seats. Thanks for joining us for practice this morning. Just a reminder, the donation bowl is in the hallway. If you come to practice regularly or semi-regularly, or even if you never come at all, what we really like is if people set up a direct debit, which you could do through the website. You can also add gift aid onto that if you want, and then it's much easier for us to budget things and know where we are because we can sort of see what's coming in. And with a 200-year-old building, there are— unfortunately, there are always things that need paying for. In lots of Buddhist centers, they'll tell you like it's good karma and you get a lot of merit for donating to Buddhist temples, which is true, although slightly feels like maybe slightly coercive. But it is true, you will get a lot of merit for it. Of course, in Pure Land Buddhism, you don't need any merit because everyone goes to the Pure Land. But unfortunately, builders and power companies don't accept America's payments, so we do need cash coming in.

Uh, now I need to— I say about the email. Oh yeah, so hopefully everyone in the room is already on our main newsletter, the Bright Earth newsletter, which goes out to 600 people.

Yeah, that's the one that has the teachings on.

Yeah, we also have a Google group for people that live in Malvern and want to know about what's happening locally. So if you're not on that and you'd like to be on it, let Casper know.

I've got a meeting.

Okay, let Casper know or email us. And there's also a WhatsApp group, so if you're not on that and you'd like to be, then let Casper know.

Yeah, Robyn, if you want to join the WhatsApp group, let me know and I can add you as well. And I need to do Satya Robyn's closing verse. Blessed by Amitabha's light, may we care for all living things.