Caspar and a second speaker explore transitions and the Buddhist concept of bardo through Pure Land ideas and personal stories, including a difficult house purchase involving someone named Tommy. The talk draws on the Anthill Sutta, Shinran's teachings, and a Rumi poem, with a recommendation for George Gatenby's commentary on Shinran's hymns.
Chapters
So welcome everybody, nice to see you all. Been thinking about transition as Satya Robyn and I prepare to move house. And I mean that we're always in some kind of transition, right? We're heading in towards winter as we heard this morning. That's a transition. We just kind of sat down from being chatting. That's a transition. The Tibetan word bardo came to mind, which means between two. You mostly will have heard it speaking about the bardo between death and life, that transitional space. Which is important to Pure Land Buddhists, as it's the time, you know, traditionally it's a time when you would have been prepared to be met by Amida who would take you into the Pure Land. But today I'm interested in other sort, other kinds of between two things, things that we experience within this lifetime. As I said, we're always moving between one thing and another, hopefully between ignorance and wisdom. But as human beings, often then we move between wisdom to ignorance, happiness to sadness, to happiness, often in ways that we don't even notice. There's always some kind of movement going on, influenced by the smallest thing to sort of knock us onto a different course. This morning I found myself humming, uh, the song Rosemary from Interpol's album Antics, which is about 20 years old. And, um, I noticed that I was using rosemary-scented soap to wash my hands. Oh, how easily we are moved between one state and another sometimes. And as, uh, Angie was speaking about in practice this morning, as human beings we're very good at constructing stories about ourselves and the world, stories in which we become separate from the world So in one state, I know these things. For example, when I'm living in a temple, I know, oh, this is what that feels like. This is the sort of person I am. This is how I go about my day. There's a kind of safety in the identity that I construct, in the, in the sort of half-conscious rules that I have about myself that become more solid over time, the more settled into the role and the place and the state that I'm in. And in the future, I'll be in a different place, so I will have to tell different stories about myself, um, I'll inevitably— that's what human beings do— I will move into a different state of knowing where I am a different person in a different place. The rules of that place will be different. The stories I tell about myself will be different. The way in which I interact with the world will be different. And that will become known and potentially become solidified as a sort of safety in certainty. So I move between one state of safety into another state of safety. But in between these two things, in this bardo, there's an opportunity because for a little while there's chaos, there's unknowing, there's not being sure about things, not being sure when things will happen or if they will happen, not being sure of the sort of person I'll be or the sort of things I want to do. Um, there's a whole load of freshness in the unknown, and in that space there is a, an opportunity because it disrupts the stories we have about ourselves. It disrupts the solidity. It disrupts who I think I am, and who I think I am is not the whole of me. It's this sort of fixed version of myself that I carry around. That's the thing that gets disrupted. Those habit patterns can take a knock. And in that, there's an opportunity to see myself more wholly and fully and completely. Oh, all of these things are true about me as well. All of these possibilities exist. And there's an opportunity to be more fully with the world. Any story that I have about myself, any belief that I have about myself, inevitably excludes some truths. Quite a mundane example. Uh, you know, when I was little, I didn't like bell peppers. And if I had stuck to that belief, like, I never would have got to experience, as I grow and change, that, oh, actually I like them now. Um, and, and that's like a really inconsequential example, but there are lots of beliefs that we hold about ourselves that excludes certain feelings and thoughts. I'm this sort of person, I'm that sort of person, I shouldn't feel joy, I shouldn't get excited about things, whatever it is, that hide things that are true. And in these moments of disruption, there's the possibility of catching a glimpse of those things. And not only that, of completely letting go of all those stories and beliefs and having an experience like the Buddha did of interconnectedness, of suddenly being with things just as they are, being with myself just as it is, just observing, oh, this is how I am in this moment, and then in the next moment, oh, this is how I am, and that's a bit different. And this is how the world is, and it's full of all those things that Aung Ji hinted at. Uncountable number of living beings, all of that movement, all of that dancing that I'm connected to. So in some ways the stress of house moving is the perfect conditions for enlightenment, except that isn't really what it feels like to go through it. You know, the Buddha went and sat underneath a tree, and I think in many ways that's more conducive. The actual experience of being disrupted. The first thing that happens when we're shunted out of our usual habit patterns, when we're thrown out of safety into chaos and into the unknown, is that we try and find safety again. And we do that in all the slightly dysfunctional or majorly dysfunctional ways that we've developed over the years. We compulsively reach for different kinds of distractions, or we become frozen and shut down. Um, we become angry at the world or at people, at people, at solicitors, at, uh, in an attempt to try and bring things that are uncontrollable back into our control. And when I was thinking of that experience, I was reminded of the Anthill Sutta, which describes a dream a monk had. A monk woke up and said to the Buddha, 'Oh, I had this wild dream last night. Maybe you can help me.' understand it. And the monk had dreamt of an anthill, but— and an angel came and said, just dig the— like, this would have been one of these really tall ones, right? Not a sort of British little thing. Just dig into the anthill and see what you find. And the first thing was a bar, an iron bar. And the angel's like, get rid of the bar. And then there's a toad, and get rid of the toad. And there's a fork, which is like a fork in the road, not an eating fork. Get rid of the fork. There's a sieve, there's a tortoise, there's an axe, uh, in a block, there's a piece of meat, and finally there's the naga serpent. And the angel says, don't throw away the naga serpent. And then the monk wakes up and is like, wow, that was quite a dream. I wonder what I had for dinner last night. And the Buddha says, oh well, the bar represents ignorance, and you're being told that's something to let go of. The toad represents anger, that's something to let go of. The sieve represents the five hindrances. Desire, ill will, sloth, torpor, restlessness, shame, and so on and so forth. And these are all the kind of ways that we react to the world when we're thrown into chaos. They're all the things we might find within ourselves. And this, uh, angel is saying, fine, they're normal reactions, but they're not serving you. I can't imagine that the monk went, all right, fine, I'll just let go of those. It's, uh, it takes work of noticing and getting to know them and holding them with compassion and making offerings of them to the Buddha, to Amida. But little by little, we release them. And what's left is the naga serpent. And the naga serpent represents, uh, the monk that has become enlightened. It represents the Buddha nature of the monk. Don't throw away that. In fact, you could say impossible to throw away that. That's what's left. And this is why these times of chaos, when we're in between one thing and another thing, are a great opportunity, because we get to see all of those things, our own versions of the bar and the sieve and the toad and the meat, which represents lust in this dream. And if we can find some space between them all Or even just trusting that beneath them all there is the naga serpent, there is Buddha nature. Or another way of saying that is that as well as all of these self-protective things, the Buddha is also present. The world is also present. We are here cutting ourselves off from the world in all these ways, and yet life continues and the Buddha continues to be with us. So two practices, I suppose, paying attention and trusting, the two practices of Pure Land Buddhists, if you like, noticing our human nature and noticing that the Buddha is always present. And what a great opportunity to do that when we are thrown out of our usual habit patterns and all of these things are suddenly exposed. Namami tove.
Tag. So I'm going to begin with a short poem by Rumi. Who makes these changes? Question mark. Who makes these changes? I shoot an arrow right, it lands left. I ride after a deer and find myself chased by a hog. I plan to get what I want and end up in prison. I dig pits to trap others and fall in. I should be suspicious of what I want. So in some ways I'm going to repeat Caspar's talk, but with a slightly different angle, because I have also lived through a year of not buying a house, trying to buy a house. And I like that you finished with the two parts of Pure Land Buddhism, kind of seeing our, our limited nature, seeing our bambu nature, our fallibility, and that very thing opening us up to the Buddha. The thing that I have really seen about myself this year is my wanting. Um, and I've arranged my life. I've been very lucky. I, I've been self-employed for many years. I haven't had a boss for a very long time. I've arranged my life in a particular way that means that I have had quite a lot of control over my diary, over the people I spend time with, over the, uh, the things I engage with and things I don't engage with. And I'm also pretty good at, um, I was going to say manipulating, but let's say influencing people. Um, for whatever reason, it's something that is a skill, and hopefully mostly I use that for good. But, but this year I met a man called Tommy who said that he wants to buy our house in June, and the Buddha sent him to show me something about myself. I was joking this morning over tea, the Buddha designed him very carefully to show me something about myself, which is that it is almost unbearable for me to not be able to influence someone. And I don't need them to change, but it, it would be really nice if they let me know something about, about how they were receiving me, or, or reply to questions, or, um, or give me some sign of whether the way that I was presenting things or the things that I was asking were going in or having any effect. I still don't know. I've been in relationship with Tommy for— since June. I still have no idea whether chasing him about things that he should have done and hasn't done helps or actually makes it much worse, whether he just— he hears my request and goes the other way. I have no idea. And I'm laughing because, um, because I'm usually very good at knowing how— what effect I'm having on someone else. And, um, over and over again, Tommy and other events this year have showed me that I am not in control. I'm not in control of whether we can have the house we want. There was a house very early on in our search that we both totally fell in love with, Walnut Crescent, and we didn't get it. It was a closed bid and we didn't get it. I'm not control— in control of, uh, the tenants that are living in the house we were selling. I'm not in control of Tommy. I'm not in— certainly not in control of Tommy's solicitors, um, not in control of our solicitors, not in control of myself. When things have become really stressful, I have behaved in ways that have harmed probably mostly Casper. And myself and maybe all of you. And it's been a demonstration of the limits to my control over the world that, that, that was only really matched by my experience of being in relationship with my ex who was alcoholic. Um, and I can say with total honesty that I am so grateful that Tommy came into my life, and I am so grateful that this year has been so complicated because, uh, as Tosha Silver would say, it's thrown me into the arms of God, um, as I have reached my absolute limits I've had no choice but to open myself to something that is bigger than me and something that has been able to hold me and remind me that I will be fine whatever happens. Um, and that's actually been a real gift, and I'll keep that gift. We might even get our house as well, fingers crossed. Don't count your chickens. Um, but whatever happens with the house, I will get to keep that gift. And if you told me 3 months ago, 5 months ago, 3 weeks ago that I'd be saying this, I would have laughed. So I wanted to just finish with what I've been thrown into the arms of. Um, there's actually a little verse. Let me just tell you what this book is. So this book is, um, I know Jahmay's been reading it, George Gatenby, a book of, um, commentaries by an Australian, uh, Shin Buddhist who, who died in 2021, George Gatenby, and it's his commentary on Shinran's hymns. So Shinran was born in 1173 in Japan and is the founder of our school of Buddhism, pretty much. And this is one of three volumes of commentary, so it's quite a hefty text altogether. But the hymns themselves, the wasans, were written by Shinran to really communicate with people like us rather than scholars or monks. Sorry if there's any scholars or monks in the room. So they're meant to be very accessible, and they're very beautiful, I think. So I'd recommend any of the 3 volumes, and you can pretty much just— it's the kind of book you can just open it and just read one, and we'll be doing a book group on it in the spring sometime. And one of the things that, that he says is, when we take refuge— this is one of the wasans, number 48— when we take refuge in the pure land of Amida, we take refuge in all the Buddhas. To praise the one Buddha Amida with the mind that is single is to praise all the unhindered ones. So this is my experience, is that when we connect really deeply with Amida, we connect with all the Buddhas, we connect with all the, um, the teachers and the enlightened ones, as Angie was saying this morning. So for us, Amida is the one that we maybe have the, the biggest connection with, but that doesn't mean that we just have to only talk about Amida. So when I said God earlier, I meant Amida. When I say Amida, I mean God, which I know is a bit controversial for some people. So just a couple of verses that I thought were a way of kind of saying something of my experience this year of being connected back into the Dharma, the Buddha. So this is 87. Amida, full of compassion for those lost in the great night of ignorance, the wheel of light of Dharma body being boundless, took the form of the Buddha of unhindered light and appeared in the land of peace. What I really love about this one is that that I'm lost in the great night of ignorance, and that really felt like my year. And Amida takes the form that, that they take for us. For me, I'm probably still quite lost in the great night of ignorance. If you're not lost in the great night of ignorance, then you maybe don't need Amida. And then this one I thought was really lovely as an image to kind of leave with us. And in this one are Avalokiteshvara and Mahasthamaprakta. So Amida is traditionally flanked by two bodhisattvas, and one of them is Avalokiteshvara. We have lots of Avalokiteshvaras around. The shrine behind you with the wooden statue is Avalokiteshvara's shrine, also known as Kwan Yin. And Mahasthamaprakta is less well-known. Taishi Chi, who's on the hanging on the wall there, and also the shrine behind Luna at the back. We bought that, um, tai shishi especially from somewhere or other. Um, so yeah, and, and in the first line of this wasan is the nenbutsu, which, um, if you don't know what— the, the people who've come here before know what nenbutsu is, but nenbutsu is, is the way that we connect with Amida Buddha. So it's just saying their name, basically. And when we did our prostrations and we chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, that's the Nembutsu. And when we do our continuous chanting after lunch, that will also be Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. So, Wassam 108: When we say Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, Avalokiteshvara and Mahasthamaprapta, together with bodhisattvas countless as the Ganges sands, or as particles, accompany us just as shadows do things. So when we say Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, Avalokiteshvara and Mahasamaprapta, together with bodhisattvas countless as the Ganges sands or as particles, accompany us just as shadows do things. Thought that was a really beautiful image. And I guess the thing about our shadows is that they're usually behind us or to the side of us. Sometimes they're to the front of us, depends where the sun is. Are they often behind us? If you're facing the sun, I've never considered this before, but I, I imagine my shadow is often behind me, so can we go with that for the metaphor?
Great.
Our shadow's there, but we don't always notice it. And to notice it, we have to look either behind us or even down in front. And because we're foolish beings, because we're bombu Um, it's not even as if we forget to look. It's like, it's like Amida's there going, here, here, and we're like, la la la, I need some chocolate. So it takes— sometimes it takes something big to get us to look, and that is where the opportunity is in, uh, difficulty. Is, um, it's sometimes just kind of difficulty that happens naturally. I don't think we need to add any extra difficulty to our lives. Difficulty sometimes just nudges us and nudges us, or shoves us and shoves us, until we realize that we can't do something, or that we're powerless, or that we, um, we find our limits. And we are invited to look for our shadow. And even when the sun is directly overhead, the physics is going to be dodgy here, but our shadow never leaves us because we— if we lift up a foot, it's still there. Does that work? So yeah, gratitude for Tommy, uh, there's a Buddha called Gadgadasvara who appears in the form that the person needs them to appear. So they can turn up as a mug or as a, or as a beautiful animal, wild animal. I'm wondering if Tommy might be a Gadgadasvara. Yes. Gratitude to him, gratitude to the solicitors, gratitude to this place which has been a container for my learning this year, and gratitude to you all for listening to me and Caspar. Namaste. So we've got a little bit of time if anyone has any profound questions or ordinary questions about anything we've said, or about practice. Yeah, not, not like about anything, just keep it Buddhist related if you can. Does this mean you're all enlightened? Well, we've got 10 minutes if you want to come in. He's on next year. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Well, we'll maybe have a— we could have, um, oh no, we can't start early because people might just be coming for the— yeah, so we'll have a nice long tea break. Um, you might even want to go look in the garden because I think it stopped raining. And we'll be back here at 11:30.
Yeah, that's true, that's true.
Yeah, a reasonable tea break. Yeah, so we'll be back here at 11:30 for— you can stop it if you want— a workshop with Kema about Dharma glimpses. So those of you that were here this morning heard Dharma glimpse in practice. And I'm looking forward to it. Ameen taboo.
