Satya Robyn leads an evening Buddhist practice featuring a reading from Zenkei Blanche Hartmann on beginner's mind, guided meditation, chanting of Amitābha, and recitation of refuges and precepts. The service explores loosening fixed views and cultivating intimacy with the world through Pure Land practice.
Chapters
Welcome everybody. Hi, if you're joining us on Zoom. Going to begin with a short reading from Zenkei Blanche Hartmann, American Zen Buddhist master, from her book Seeds for a Boundless life. This is called How Amazing the World Is. In her poem When Death Comes, Mary Oliver has a few lines that say, when it's over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom taking the world into my arms. This is beginner's mind. I've been a bride married to amazement. Just how amazing the world is, how amazing our life is, how amazing that the sun comes up in the morning or the wisteria blooms in the spring. A bride married to amazement. The bridegroom taking the world into my arms. Can you live your life with that kind of wholeheartedness, with that kind of thoroughness? This is the beginner's mind that Suzuki Roshi is pointing to, is encouraging us to cultivate. He is encouraging us to see us where we are stuck with fixed views and see if we can, as Kodo Uchiyama Roshi says, open the fixed hand, open the hand of thought, and let the fixed view go. This is our effort, this is our work, just to be here, ready to meet whatever is next, without expectation or prejudice or preconceptions, just What is it? What is this, I wonder? So please cultivate your beginner's mind. Be willing not to be an expert. Be willing not to know. Not knowing is nearest. Not knowing is most intimate. We move into a period of meditation, trying to get nearer to not knowing. Maybe not trying, maybe just allowing not knowing to appear. Bringing our curiosity to the breath, perhaps bringing our curiosity to sensations in the bodies, to sounds around us, just allowing the mind to be open, to be amazed. What's this? What's this in the present moment? We move into a short period of chanting together. We'll chant the name Amitābha, who is the Buddha of infinite light, the mythical Buddha that we particularly, uh, find ourselves in relationship with here. By saying the name Amitābha, which means infinite light, we're inviting the energy of that Buddha, the energy of enlightenment, to meet our ordinary minds. Or you could say we're remembering that the energy of enlightenment is already in every moment meeting our ordinary minds.
Amitābha, Amitābha, Amitābha.
Saba.
Amita, Amita.
Sí, gracias, Patrick. We'll now read the Statement of Faith together. You can find the words printed out next to you. You just bear with me, I'll pop a link to the words in the chat for those joining on Zoom.
Statement of faith.
The purpose of our practice is to open us to the wisdom and compassion of the Buddhas. Our heart practice is the Nembutsu, the recitation of Amida Buddha's name. We also connect with the Buddha's wisdom through practices like listening to teachings, meditation, and being in the natural world. We treasure Shakyamuni Buddha, who set the wheel of Dharma turning. We learn from Buddhist teachers throughout the ages, awakened beings everywhere, and the world itself. We especially revere the great Pure Land sages Honen and Shinran. Held in Amida's loving gaze, we come to know ourselves deeply. Both our bambú nature and our Buddha nature. As bambú beings, we grasp at unreliable refuges, and sometimes we cause harm. Knowing the harm we cause offers us the chance to lessen that harm. Seeing our fallible nature also strengthens our refuge in Amida Buddha. The more deeply we take refuge in Amida The more our greed, ill will, and delusion will melt like ice into water, allowing our natural compassion to flow into the world. We trust that at the center of each of us is the heart that loves all living beings and that wishes for their liberation. We take action powered by this love in response to suffering in the world. We pay attention to the causes of suffering. We mitigate for power. We practice discerning what work is ours to do. We wish that all who may benefit are able to access the jewels of the Buddha's teachings. Moved by the Buddha's love, we vow to take care of all living beings, including ourselves. Held by the Buddha, by the Buddha's love, we find clarity, consolation, and settled faith.
In a moment we'll recite the refuges and precepts and bodhisattva vows together. Well, I'll invite you to repeat them after me, but if you want to see the words, they're on the A5 liturgy sheet next to you. And again, I've just put the link in chat if people want to see the words to those. The refuges are the things we place our trust in. In a world that is unreliable, what can we trust? We can trust the Buddha, an awakened being, the Buddha's teachings, and the community of people practicing those teachings. So we can trust the Earth itself, we can trust reality itself. So please repeat after me. 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 Buddhaya. Namo Buddhaya. For refuge I go to the Dharma.
For refuge I go to the Dharma.
All that guides us to wisdom and compassion.
All that guides us to wisdom and compassion.
Namo Jamaya. 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 Sanghaya.
Namo Sanghaya.
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 Bhumi.
With faith in the Four Refuges—
With faith in the Four Refuges—
And in light of my human tendencies—
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. —of 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. 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 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 are the Vedic passions.
We bow to transport them all.
Immeasurable are the Dharma teachings.
We bow to master them all.
Infinitus bodhisvāy.
We vow to fulfill it completely.
Over the course of the next year, Satya Robyn and I are giving some talks on the liturgy that we've just read. Not in order because we didn't have the idea until after Satya had given the talk on the precepts. But you can find that one on YouTube. And then I'm speaking about refuge as part of the retreat day next Saturday, and then I'll be speaking about no blame the following month. Satya will speak about be kind, and then Love Any and Everything. And at some point I'm talking about the Bodhisattva Vows as well. We've got the dates of those on a flyer in the hallway. So I'm giving that talk next, like in 10 days' time at the retreat. And then I was down to lead practice this evening. And nobody was due to do it this coming Saturday, so I said I would do it. And then I felt like I didn't really know what I was going to say, any of these things. I had a little inclination about what I might speak about when I talk about refuge. I trust that will come. Satya Robyn offered to do practice on Sunday, so on Saturday, so I've handed that over. I still had no idea what I was going to name, what I was going to speak about this evening. And I, um, so I opened this book by Zenkei Blanch Hartmann, which is a collection of very short Dharma talks like the one I read at the beginning, and then The second half, slightly more substantial Dharma talks. And the page I opened it to, she says, I was talking to a friend of mine just before I had to give a Dharma talk later that day. I was talking to a friend of mine and the friend was saying, oh, come on, come and do this thing with me. And I said, no, no, I've got to go and prepare for this talk I'm giving. And her friend says, don't worry about that, you know it all anyway. And it's sort of true, right? When you're immersed in your tradition your whole life— and I think, um, Blanche Hartman is in her 80s now and has been practicing for decades— you can sort of pull things out, um, really, you know, little stories. But she said it's not really about that when you give a teaching or when you're practicing. It's not really about the things that you know. It's about developing this state of mind, which she speaks about in this earlier reading that I read, the the beginner's mind. That's the real trick. And you don't really need to know very much at all for that. You don't need to know the story of the Buddha's life. You don't need to know the story of Amida Buddha. Um, you don't need to read any of the liturgy that we do this evening, although it all helps. We just need to see the world as it is, which is very difficult. That's why we come here and do all of this stuff, right? To see the world as it really is means unraveling our biases, letting go of biases, letting go of the stories that we tell about ourselves. And the world that we really cling on to. This is why she mentions Ushiyama Roshi's hand, right? Because he was fond of doing this in his Dharma talks. Not this, this. And she's very honest, you know, she's an enlightened Zen master, but she says, I haven't got there. I've got closer in my lifetime, but I know I still see the world through a filter, through biases, through these stories. Sure, there's less of them, and I'm sure she's less reactive than she used to be, but she knows there's this human quality that still infects everything. So it's not necessarily even about getting somewhere, but about just moving closer to it, nearer to intimacy, as she says in the earlier reading. Nearer to intimacy. The Buddha said— Buddha Shakyamuni, who lived 2,500 years ago— that when we meet something, we— when we encounter anything in the world, we have a gut reaction to it, which essentially is sort of saying yes or no. I want to get closer to this thing. Oh, I don't want to be near it at all. And then very quickly, that gut reaction changes into a story that we tell about the object. This is the sort of thing I like. This is the sort of thing I don't like. These sorts of people are like this. This sort of experience is like this. You don't want to go there. I do want this sort of thing to happen to me. And in telling that story, we create ourselves. I am the sort of person that likes these sort of people, quiet people, not noisy people. I'm the sort of person who likes this sort of food, this sort of activity. I don't like doing these things. This is right. And this is wrong. You are right and you are wrong. And those kind of stories about the world create something solid. Oh, now I know who I am. And every time that happens, we become less intimate in the world. We have less and less beginner's mind, more and more fixed mind. But it's really normal. It's a really normal process. And one of the practices that Buddhists do is noticing when that happens. You might feel it in your body. Oh, suddenly I'm clenched. Oh, I'm having a big anxiety reaction, or I feel angry. You might notice the thoughts, you might notice the stories that you're telling, and in noticing, a little bit of space appears. You can practice not taking that seriously. Oh yeah, I noticed that I thought they were the bad guy, but what if that isn't true? And that moves you closer to beginner's mind, means moves you closer to intimacy with the world again. But that's quite a difficult practice to do on your own because most of the— because all of the most powerful reactions that we have that create that fixed sense of self are based in fear. And because we're scared, we don't want to change, we don't want to let them go. If I let them go, something awful might happen. That's why we hold on to them so tightly. From the Buddhist point of view, the most fundamental fear is of being on our own, separate from everything. And all of these stories help create safety in a world where I'm terrified actually that I'm alone. So it's really, it's a really hard practice to do. Pure Land Buddhism, the teachings we're inspired by here, is sometimes called the easy path, which I think is partly like just Pure Land Buddhists trying to give themselves good publicity. It's not You know, actually it's still difficult. Any kind of practice is difficult, but we begin from this position that there is an energy of Amitābha that loves us and accepts us just as we are. We just trust that even if we don't feel it deep within our bones. And when we know that we are loved just as we are, It's less frightening to begin to let go of the stories, to allow for the possibility that we might be wrong, that that fixed sense of self and other isn't the whole truth. Because we're not terrified of being alone, we're not terrified of being separate from the world. And what we discover is, as we trust in that loving presence, as we begin to release those stories and ideas, it's not loneliness that appears, but connection with the Buddha, with the whole world, with each other. This is why, however you do it, um, we aim to move nearer to beginner's mind and to feel like, uh, what was it Mary Oliver said? That I'm a bridegroom waiting to take the whole world. In my arms. Namami Amida Butsu. So in a moment we'll stand and we'll make 3 prostrations to the main shrine, and we do make gassho, or the anjali in Sanskrit, which just means this prayer gesture. Here, so this is saying like I'm bowing with my whole body, and then here in front of our mouths, and this is like I'm bowing with my words, thoughts, and spoken words. And here I'm bowing with my whole heart. And as we do that in this tradition, we also chant Namo Amitabha, which is, um, you can say is I am connecting with that energy of loving kindness. I'm connecting with the love of Amitabha Buddha.
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 and study. May we and all beings be companions of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. May we awaken from forgetfulness and realize our true home.
We can go back to some of our places. Okay, rings the bell, we'll bow to each other. Tidy our seats and bow to our seats.
Announcements before we close.
On Saturday after practice, we've got a Sangha meeting. If you've got energy to help with temple events, fundraising, volunteering, do come along to that, all welcome. I mentioned the talk series that the flyers are outside for, and the 11th of April is the retreat day celebrating the Buddha's birthday. So that'll start in the morning with practice as usual and go through the day. Yes, so some of us on Easter Sunday very, very early in the morning are joining another Buddhist group doing a pilgrimage to watch the sunrise. We'll be chanting as we go, making prostrations to the ground. So if you want to join with that, speak to Satya Robyn or myself. And I say very early, it's about 5 o'clock in the morning. 5:50. Much more civilized. Not here, British British. Yeah, we can let people know the details. So in a moment we'll have the closing verse. You're very welcome to join for a cup of tea. There's a donation bowl and a card machine in the hallway. If the card machine's gone to sleep, let one of us know and we'll figure out how to wake it up again. If you're online, stay there and I'll come back and say hello once I've left, once the shrine room's empty. Blessed by Amitabha's light, may we care for all living things. Amma Hariyaa.
