What we get from the Buddha

So, good evening, welcome everybody. The verse that we just recited was spoken by a monk called Dharmakara, and he did complete his vows and become a Buddha, and he became Amida Buddha, the red Buddha that's on the wall. The Buddha of infinite light and life, the Buddha of compassion, acceptance, and wisdom. Now, we don't know if this Buddha historically existed in this world or not. We don't know whether Dharmakara existed in this world or not. We do know that the person who told the story about them, Shakyamuni Buddha, lived in India 2,500 years ago. It sort of doesn't matter whether they existed historically or not, because what the Buddha's pointing to, the point of the story that he tells about Dharmakara becoming Amida, is that Amida Buddha is accessible whenever and wherever you are. In your spiritual practice, you can call to the Buddha of Infinite Light, an infinite light. He's describing something greater than any individual. He's describing something that you can lean back into and take refuge in. And he uses this archetypal story of an ordinary person becoming a mystical Buddha. And creating a pure land. Now, recently we've been very good at talking about human nature, about how foolish we are as ordinary human beings. This is the reality that we start from in this form of Buddhism. We recognize our state as human beings full of wayward passions, and knowing that, we call out to Amida Buddha, and he draws us forward into his pure land. He draws us forward into love. So this is very much a practice of being carried rather than of carrying yourself. Now, Dhammakara Buddha made lots of different vows that describe how he was going to become a Buddha. And some of them talk about the kind of people that are going to call out to him once he's become enlightened. So us, what is it like for us to be in relationship with Amida? So one of the things that he said was, "Beings in all Buddha lands throughout the 10 directions who are exposed to my light," do not thereby experience a profound mental and bodily peace and replenishment surpassing the pleasures of the heavens. So those people who are engaged in Buddhist practice, who have taken refuge in the Buddha, in any Buddha, not necessarily in Amitabha, so in any school of Buddhism, who call out to Amitabha Buddha, or who fix their minds upon Amida Buddha. We do that here through the chanting practice. One of the things they'll receive is a sense of peace, a sense of their mind and body becoming replenished. And it says this peace surpasses the pleasures of the heavens, and what that means is The heavens in Buddhist cosmology are quite hedonistic places. The gods indulge themselves in pleasure because they've got the power to do so. Certainly some of them do. They're musicians and dancers and all sorts, and those are all nice pleasant things. And we've got those sorts of pleasures in this world as well. We also have lots of suffering, but the peace that comes from being in relationship with the Buddha is a deeper sense of peace, a deeper sense of pleasure than the pleasure that you get through mundane activities. Yeah, maybe this doesn't happen overnight, but in time, the more you bring yourself in relationship to Amitabha Buddha, the more likely it is that your body and mind will become replenished and that you'll experience this deep sense of peace. And in my experience, this almost happens regardless of what my conscious mind is doing. I remember a chanting day a few years ago, I think it was a 12-hour chanting day, and my mind was going around in circles. I was questioning this and questioning that. And if at the end of the chanting day you'd ask me whether I'd had a good day or not, I probably would have said, "Well, it wasn't the best experience in the world because my mind was very busy." But actually, as I went away from that chanting day and started talking to people and went back into the world, I noticed that I was much happier when I was speaking to people. As soon as I saw somebody, I smiled, which was very unlike me in those days. And I felt much lighter. I felt like my body and mind had been replenished. And that had happened despite my best efforts, actually. It happened, sort of, it slipped below the radar. So this association that we bring ourselves in with the Buddha is very powerful. It can work even despite ourselves. And the other thing I wanted to say, well, draw attention to that he says is, "Those who listen to my name do not thereby acquire—" well, "Those who listen to my name will acquire the dharma of constancy, unarising and unceasing, the dharani power sufficient to sustain them to their ultimate spiritual goal." This is saying, not only will you receive this wonderful peace, but you'll also be given the fuel you'll be given the energy to complete your spiritual goal, to take you to awakening. Once you're hooked by the Buddha, by the Dharma, that's it then. Even if you turn away from it, it doesn't turn away from you. And the more that you take refuge in the Buddha, the deeper this sense of consistency becomes, until you are drawn forwards to liberation by the loving power of Amitābha. Now these stories and the words that I'm using are all, they're human stories and words. They're what in the Buddhist tradition is called skillful means, but they're pointing to an experience that many practitioners in this tradition have had through the ages. That there is something that we can lean into. There's something that's often described as an infinite light that is accessible to us in our spiritual practice, that isn't created by us, that isn't dependent on us, but that will open our hearts in time and liberate us. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.