Weekly Buddhist Practice with nembutsu 18th March

It's half 7, so we will begin. And we're in a new setting this evening in my office. There's a nice clear, clean, tidy spot just on camera, and then just out of view there's various disarray. And I'm Satya Robyn, the celebrant for this evening. Welcome everybody. So we will begin as we usually do with some walking meditation. We will be staying seated. If you can walk, then please do. And the word that we repeat is Amitābha, which is the Buddha of infinite light.

Amitabha. Amitabha.

Amitabha.

Amitabha.

Amitabha.

Amitabha. Amitabha.

Amitabha.

Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha.

Amitabha.

Amitabha. Amitabha. Amitabha.

Amitabha.

Amitabha. Amitabh. Amitabh.

Amitabh.

Amitabh.

Amitabh. Amitabh. Amitabha. Amitabha.

Namo Amida Butsu. Making me really happy to see the names pop up in the chat box. John and Becky and Jalme and Mark and Mattie and maybe Emma. So hello, those people, and whoever the other people are, very welcome to join us this evening. This is a kind of a modified version of what we usually do in the shrine room on a Wednesday evening. Yes, Emma's there. Yeah, so this is the Dharma talk bit, and what crazy times we are living through. Both me and Casper work as psychotherapists and My sense is that this is— what's happening at the moment is really huge in very different ways for different people, but there is a hugeness to it that is unprecedented. Where do we even begin? When we started recording this evening, we were trying to set the camera up so we could get the Buddha in and the candle in and light us up enough and kind of get into the right place. And Casper's pressed go live, and then I said, oh, my hair looks really dreadful. Is it really dreadful? I said something awful, something, and he said, oh, that's going to be in the recording. And I said, "Oh, never mind." And for me, there's something about Pure Land Buddhism which helps me to be okay with having dreadful hair and to be okay with revealing on camera that I'm worried about my dreadful hair. As a Buddhist priest, I should be beyond such things, but alas, not yet. And Pure Land Buddhism reminds us that we are bonbu, that we are foolish beings, away with passion. I've certainly witnessed plenty of foolishness over the past week, especially when things have ramped up, certainly in this country, around the measures to try to delay the spread of current— is it coronavirus? I heard someone pronounce it today. I've been saying coronavirus, virus, like the beer, but COVID-19. COVID-19, we'll go for that. We've been joined by a cat. So yeah, I've witnessed various behaviors in people And as human beings, when we encounter something like this, which is a shock and unprecedented and scary, and that has all sorts of ramifications for our lives, both financial potentially and practical and social and health and possibly even death, the kind of the biggie, we respond in ways that are the best we can do but that make things worse. So we try and hoard things, we try and make ourselves safe, um, we experience various feelings that maybe overwhelm us, or we do the opposite and kind of draw away and stay in a bit of denial.

That's—

I'm going to have to put up with this cat scratching the carpet in the shrine room— that our systems are shaken, and when our systems are shaken, we we do the survival things that our systems know how to do, and a lot of those cause extra problems, extra trouble. The thing that really helps me in my faith is to know that first of all, it's guaranteed that we will be bomboo because that's how we're made. We are The image of corks kind of bobbing around on the sea of greed and hate and delusion. We're driven by those, those forces in ways that we don't even know half the time. So that's, um, it's not a kind of like, oh, some people might be bambu. We are all bambu. There's no, um, there's no getting away from that. And for me, that's to know that I am the same as other people and that my dysfunction might seem more functional sometimes, but it's just as dysfunctional. It's just as driven by greed, hate, and delusion. And the other thing that is deeply, deeply reassuring to me in this tradition is that Amida Buddha, Amitābha sees all of our Bambú nature, all of our maladaptive ways of coping with difficulty, and accepts us just as we are. If you've been coming to services for a while, you might have heard that before, but if you're like me, there's something about— we can't hear it too often because we forget. We forget that it's true. We can't believe it. We can't believe that, that we could be accepted. Maybe that other person, but does the Buddha really know us? And being able to have that permission, to have that space to, to just react in the way we're reacting. Obviously we try to minimize the the fallout, knowing that we won't be able to minimize it completely, but to just know that that's okay, that we're made how we're made and we do what we can do, and some days are easier than others. So as we practice together this evening, we're taking refuge in the Three Jewels, we're taking refuge in each other. Those names I can see on the live chat, um, really fill my heart with warmth. We're connecting with the teachings of the Buddha, the wisdom that's been passed on to us. The, the things that I'm saying have all been passed on to me by my teachers, and back and back and back to the Buddha and other great teachers. And more than anything, we're taking refuge in that embodiment of compassion and wisdom and patience and acceptance that is the Buddha. And just sitting with him a while with all our foolishness pooled around us and knowing that it is all understood and accepted and that we are loved. So we will sit for some silence now. And in the silence, you might want to just imagine yourself sitting with the Buddha. Might be this one behind me, it might be a huge Buddha, or you might just want to lean against the Buddha's knee. However it is you'd like to be with the Buddha, just be with the Buddha and allow all your fears, all your confusion, all your anger, everything to just be there with you and see the Buddha seeing it all and accepting it. Namaste.

Namoh Amitabhu.

Namoh Amitabh. Namoh Amitabh. Namoh Amitabh. Namo Amida Butsu! Namo Amida Butsu! Namu Amitabha— namo amitabhaya namanami dahe? Nahmo ami dahu...

nahmoo mi dahueh nanamani naahemanaa maaanmi ni waarimawaara no harami ga yohin kishirinuwa arigato gozaimasu!

I'm gonna do it again for you guys because this was so good that we had to repeat them all over again!

So here's another one of those beautiful chants from Japanese Buddhism called "Nam-myoho-renge-kyoku." It goes like this: Nama-miya-bhu.

Na ma mia bu. Nama myaha miyahaha nu.

Nam-o-a mi ya bi.

Namoha mi tamu! Namoha mi ta namoa mi tam—

So we're going to do evening service now, and if you haven't already got it open, the Nyenfo book you can find at the www.bit.ly, B-I-T dot L-Y, forward slash, I think it was Amida Book. Is that what we did?

Yeah.

So www.bit.ly/AmidaBook.

There's a link in the description to this video.

Oh, is there? That's the quickest way, just click on that.

And the evening service is on page 13 and 14.

With body, speech, and mind humbly I prostrate and make offerings for Satya Robyn and imagine I confess my wrong deeds from all time and rejoice in the virtues of all. Please stay until samsara ceases and turn the wheel of Dharma for us. I dedicate all virtues to Great Enlightenment. The ground sprinkled with perfume and spread with flowers, the great mountain for land, sun and moon, seen as a Buddha land and offered us. May all beings enjoy such pure lands. Itam guru ratnam mandala kamniri atayam. By the grace that I receive through Amitabha's vows, may I be moved to deeds for the benefit of all. By the grace that I receive through Amitabha's vows, may I be moved to deeds for the benefit of all. By the grace that I receive through Amitabha's vows, may I be moved to deeds for the benefit of all. The purpose of our practice is to be a pure container wherein the common passions mature as higher wisdom. The preliminary outlook comes with bowing and contrition, facing up to my obstructions and seizing life's first essence. Devotion to my teacher ends my smugness and dejection. Held by his compassion, I will find a straight direction. By refuge vows and precepts, recitation of the sutras, I grow through every challenge. Bodhisattva aspiration, cooperation in a sangha brings so many joys and freedoms. Through gentle words and gestures comes collective transformation. Settled faith and inner cleansing brings us home to life's great meaning. In the Four Divine Abidings, Buddha's light is always with us. Multitudes are disconcerted by impermanence and difference. With Dharma as true refuge, we dwell within the Pure Land. Now gratitude is overflowing, going forth, returning richly. I offer gifts of Dharma, Buddha's path bliss bestowed. 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 fulfill it completely. Invocation of Vakalanatha. Hail to the mandala! Let us so be engulfed within its praises evermore, that by our own wills and vigilance may we our fetters cut away. May we within the temple of our own hearts dwell amidst the myriad mountains.

Heil, heil, heil!

Invocation of Maha Kala. Let us be invoked within the mantle of the Sangha of Buddha. Hail, hail, the Arrow of Emptiness. Hail, hail, invocation of Vairochana Buddha. Hail, the beneficent mystic, the treasure.

Hail, hail.

The golden bell that rings but once.

Is upon the heaven. Maku'um. Maku'um.

Satya Robyn, you need to put your hands in Gassho.

Oh, okay, yeah.

I thought you might have some more words of wisdom to share.

No, I'm all out. So we bow to each other.

Oh.

And you.

And then we bow to the Buddha. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. There's no formal exit.

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

Lovely to know that other people are practicing at the same time as us, even if you can't be in the same space. It's second best. We'd much rather that the world situation allowed us all to be together in the same room, but we need to take care of each other's health and flatten the curve. So this is what we're doing for now. If you'd like more interactive content, come to the listening circle on Saturday at 6 o'clock UK time. Details are on the Amida Mandala webpage.

Yeah, that'll be on Zoom, so It went really well last week, it worked very well, so it'd be lovely to see any of you there. And it's really lovely that we've got an international group of people in the shrine room. I don't know if you've all met each other, but, um, John and Natty— Natty, I think you're in Spain, so I hope things are okay with you. And John's in America, so yeah, yeah, sending love to you all.

Yeah.

Bye!