Podcast: Life of No Regret - "Your radiant face..."

download mp3. (10mb)

This is the talk from our evening service this week. It's the second in the series exploring the verse The Life of No Regret. This week I talked about what the first few lines might mean, and about spiritual experiences.

Your radiant face,

Like a mountain peak

Catching the first burst

Of morning light

Has awesome and

Unequalled majesty.

Like black ink by comparison

Are the sun, the moon, or the "mani" treasure.

(Click here to see the whole text)

How I came to Pureland Buddhism - by Fiona

"We are all quite acceptable to the Buddhas already, just as we are." Dharmavidya

For many years, I was a proud atheist. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to be spiritual or religious. Religion seemed to lead to conflict and small-mindedness. I couldn’t see any scientific evidence for anything other than the material world. I also saw people who had beliefs as taking an easy way out of ethical dilemmas rather than thinking things through for themselves (‘the Bible tells me I should do this’), and as having a weak dependence on something (God) that didn’t even exist.

Many years ago, I started to become interested in Buddhist ideas. I found quotes by Pema Chodron online, and they resonated so deeply with me that I looked her up, and discovered that she was a Buddhist nun. I read her books, and loved them. My friend Patrick started talking about Buddhism with me, and suggested I read ‘Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind’ by Suzuki Shunryu. I did, and although I found a lot of it difficult to grasp there was enough in it to get me well and truly hooked.

Buddhist ideas started helping me out in my day to day life. I saw the truth of impermanence for myself, and found that clinging to anything usually led to unhappiness. I also played around with the idea of ‘no self’, terrifying though it was, and I saw how it can help us to get closer to experiencing life exactly as it is, with all its transitory beauty and awfulness.

I identified myself as a ‘Soto Zen’ Buddhist for some time, because of my affinity with the writings of Suzuki Shunryu and other teachers such as Brad Warner. It was an easy form of Buddhism for me to stomach, as it didn’t seem to require me to believe in any kind of higher power, anything that felt like ‘God’. As a minimalist I was also draw to the austerity and simplicity of the practice – just sit. The simplest instruction, and the most impossible.

When I started a psychotherapy course at The Amida Trust, an organisation headed by David and Caroline Brazier, the optional Pureland Buddhist services I attended in the mornings before the course were completely alien to me. There was no zazen (just sitting), but there was a bewildering mix of chanting, banging on wooden instruments, walking meditation, singing, prostrations in front of the shrine… They used words and concepts I didn’t understand, like bombu and nembutsu. When Pureland was described to me as ‘a devotional form of Buddhism’ I was scared off even more – that sounded exactly like the kind of ‘silly religion’ I was so allergic to when I was younger.

Something kept me going back to the services. I was intrigued. I felt especially awkward bowing in front of the Buddha – and whenever I find something especially difficult, I know that it has something important to teach me. I learnt more about the ideas behind Pureland Buddhism – that Amida Buddha accepts us all just as we are, that it is helpful to accept our ‘bombu nature’ as foolish and failing human beings, that if we can do this and surrender our selves, lean into our faith, then all will be well. I began to experiment with resting in a faith in something bigger than me, something I didn’t understand, and worked my way up to feeling it might be alright to be someone who was… (and it still feels odd to say it) ‘religious’.

I’m still at the beginning of my journey into Pureland Buddhism. I have much to learn, and much to swish around in my head and make up my own mind about (which Shakyamuni Buddha encouraged us to do.) In some ways I’ve only just started dipping my toe in the water. What I do know, though, is that I feel at home here, in Pureland Buddhism, in Amida, and that I want to stay. I do hope you can start finding your way to your own home, either within Pureland Buddhism or with another school of Buddhism, or within any spiritual tradition. I do think it’s helpful for us to find a path and stick with it, especially when it gets difficult. I’m not sure I always agree with everything I hear about Pureland or any Buddhist tradition – that’s OK. What’s important is to stay, to practice on my own and with my sangha, to remember the example of the Buddha (and the multitude of teachers since Shakyamuni Buddha) and what he had to teach us all those years ago.

I have taken refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. It’s a pretty wonderful place to be.

Fiona
Namo Amida Bu

Podcast: Being Human

Being Human was the topic of this months Coffee, Cake, and Dharma Talk. This a chance for people to come and meet us, and here some of the dharma, without the smells and bells of a service.

The talk is about twenty minutes long, followed by some questions and discussion.



download mp3 39mb

Podcast: What does it mean to live a life of no regret?

Back when I was first dipping my toe in Buddhist waters I didn't know any Buddhist teachers in real life. Somehow I found that a small Buddhist group in the states were just starting to record their talks with an ipod and put them online.  Listening to them I felt plugged in to the Buddhist world in a way that just reading books didn't do for me.

In that spirit we're going to start recording the short talks from our evening services and posting them here.

We're beginning by thinking about the verse The Life of No Regret from The Larger Pureland Sutra. In this talk I think about the title of the verse, and what it might mean to live a life of no regret. If you want to see the text I'm talking about you can read and hear it  here.

Listen to the talk online: 

download mp3 (11.7mb)

If you like listening to things, you can hear Fiona and I talking about our experience on silent retreat recently here.: Entering the silence.

Podcast: Life of No Regret - the verse

I'll be giving short talks in our evening services on this verse over the next few weeks, and recording audio files of them to post online. This post contains the text of the verse, which you can refer to whilst listening to the talks, if you want to, as well as a recording of some of our group reading the verse together last night.

Listen to the verse being read:

dowload the audio file 2.6mb

Life of No Regret

Your radiant face,

Like a mountain peak

Catching the first burst

Of morning light

Has awesome and

Unequalled majesty.

Like black ink by comparison

Are the sun, the moon, or the "mani" treasure.

Tathagata,

Such is your incomparable face.

The melody of your enlightenment

Fills the world

Rare and precious

Are your precepts,

Learning, energy, meditation,

Wisdom and amazing virtue.

The oceanic Dharma

Of all Buddhas

Which you fathom

To its deepest depths

Dispels the 3 poisons

From the heart -

You are like a lion:

Valiant and divinely pure.

Great power!

Deep wisdom!

Awesome light!

Reverberation -

A prayer I make, a Buddha to become

Equal to you, my Dharma king,

To lead all beings to the other shore

Leaving none behind.

The six paramitas

To perfect

With prajna at their head.

Should I become Buddha:

I will fulfil

This prayer completely:

To everyone

I'll bring great peace.

To Buddhas countless

As sand grains

My offerings I make,

And do not flinch

From the trials

Of the incomparable Way,

Powerful,

Straight and true.

Though Buddha lands

And worldly realms

Be numberless

Like sand,

By sheer power

Of aspiration

I'll fill them all

With light.

Let me become a Buddha

And the multitude

Of beings

Will all enjoy

My primordial

Nirvana world.

By indiscriminate compassion

I will enlighten all.

Reborn here from no matter where

In my country their hearts

Will lighten and be joyful,

Happy and at ease.

Oh you Buddha, witness my vow,

My true aspiration,

Establishing my vow on you

Gives me the strength to fulfil it.

Buddhas throughout space and time

Of unimpeded wisdom

Always witness

My heart's practice.

No matter the obstacles, the hardships,

My practice will endure

Through all,

Without regret.

TAN BUTSU GE*

Podcast: Entering the Silence

This morning Fiona and I recorded our first podcast together. We talked about our experience of being on silent retreat together. We don't speak about sudden enlightenment experiences, just a little about the dust of our minds settling, and how that allows space for other things to arrive.

You can listen to the podcast here: Writing Out Way Home Blog: Entering the Silence

Entering the Silence and Being Human

Fiona and I spent the third week of our marriage not speaking to each other. We were in silent retreat, in France, of course, and I hope you'll forgive me if you've read that joke elsewhere as it's not quite the first time I've made it.

It does highlight how strange the business of going on a silent retreat can appear though. We sat in the lotus position, or kneeled for half an hour at a time. A bell would ring and in response we would walk slowly around the dharma hall, an old stone barn, before sitting again.

When you sit in this way, and avoid communication with other people and with the outside world, it is mostly your own mind that keeps you company. Occasionally I would connect with the world: with the bright green fat lizard that zig-zagged from the pond across the garden, or the beautiful swallow tail butterflies that flitted to and from the lavender bush and the entrance to the hall.

Much of the time I was occupied with my own thoughts. Spending so long living in close proximity with them, I again had a sense of how deep and intractable my own karma is. This retreat I worked with the koan that "it's impossible to please all of the people all of the time" exploring how my fear of that plays out in my life, and watching it play out in the retreat as I noticed my resistance to entering and leaving the meditation hall whilst others were meditating, my resistance to doing anything that might disturb the others.

There were moments of spiritual bliss as well, of deep peace. And moments of deep irritation and boredom.

At the end of the retreat we all shared a little of our experience. What struck me powerfully was the humanness of each person's experience. We were not a group of saints, each person had their own traumas and their own karma to contend with as well as finding their own joy in the experience.

We'll be exploring the theme of being human, and what that means - how we can live with ourselves, if you like, this Saturday (23rd July). I'll give a talk at 10:30am, then we'll have discussion and cake afterwards. You can arrive from 10am, and do let me know if you are coming so we have some idea of how much cake to make :) You can reply to this email or call 01684 572 444. If you're on Facebook, do RSVP to the event here, and share with any friends who might be interested.

Other events of note:

In August Blue Ginger (in Cradley) are hosting a Tea-Ceremony Kimonos & Green Tea. There is an art to the tea ceremony which embodies the Japanese Buddhist philosophy. It's the 21st August, the day after our 'How to live an meaningful life event'. More details on the Blue Ginger website.

In November and December the Buddhist House in Leicestershire are celebrating the Buddha's Enlightenment (Bodhi Day) with a series of retreats. There is a sesshin from 16th November, and then the first 10 day continous nembutsu chanting retreat in the UK (possibly in the West) from 22nd November to 2nd December, followed by a week of ceremonies. See here for more information.