In this week’s FBA Podcast,“Love, Sangha and Amitabha”, Amitasuri introduces us to Amitabha: Buddha of love and compassion, looking at the love and sangha aspects of the red Buddha of the western realm. From this perspective Amitasuri reflects on our relationships and the preciousness of human life. She considers whether, with body speech and mind, there can be any more appropriate response to connecting with ourselves and each other than with love and compassion.
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Love, Sangha and Amitabha
(upbeat music) - This podcast is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for your life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you and happy listening. - I have selected the BS. I'm not sure whether I'm going to stay seated or stand up, so stay seated for now. And the board's there to help me keep track of where we're adopted, which you mind writing on. So, the love and compassion aspect of Amitabha. I was reading a poem, someone sent me a poem the other day and West, I was reading it, my heart opened and I realised that I'm coming to give a talk about love and I don't actually want to give a talk about love. I don't even want to give a talk. I want to feel it, I want to feel love. When I read this poem, I felt in touch with it. My heart was open and that's in it. I'd already sort of written what I wanted to talk about and one of the lines that I was heading, it was, "Tonight the focus will be love." But actually, I wasn't quite right and the poem that was sent to me was from a book by Daniel Ludinsky, a translation of our Persian poet called Havas and the book's called The Subject Tonight is Love. And that's what I've been trying to find. So, the subject tonight is love. And I don't just want that I feel it, I want that you feel it and I imagine that's what you want too. So, may that be so. And I was thinking to myself, "What are the ways that I connect with love and poetry?" It was one of the music of another. I went to a great gig last night at St George's in Bristol. I just felt I didn't know anyone I went on my own and then I met somebody I knew who met other people. So, actually, I felt in touch with a sense of loving myself that I could go there and be okay. So, what, we're going to explore what connects us with love, compassion, friendship. And one of the things, another thing is maybe standing up or sitting down to speak to people that many of you, most of you, I don't actually know. No, a few of you and it's good to see you. Yeah, so standing up are going to read a poem or do you have a Mr. Serumini or introduce someone or to play guitar? I'm sure we've all got our own versions of it. What puts us in touch with that experience of a liveness that can sometimes feel like love? So, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't even know if I'll continue to look at my notes at all, that whatever happens, it'll be okay if I'm in touch with that love. Yeah, so tonight I feel fortunate to be here to talk to you about Amitabha, the red Buddha of love and compassion. Tonight, the subject is love. So, Dr. Lila had asked me, would I send a little brief to Kima Jota about what I'm going to be talking about and I felt a bit ambitious before I wrote, but I introduced the evening as that we'll be looking at the love and sound aspects of Amitabha, the red Buddha of the Western realm. During the evening, love will be our focus and from this perspective, we will reflect on our relationships and the preciousness of human life. We will consider with body, speech and mind if there can be any more appropriate response to connecting with ourselves and each other than with love and compassion. So, how are we going to do that? I could have brought Vasantra's book, but I'm sure that as you've been looking at the mantle of the five Buddhas that you may have or you have had a chance to have a look at what Vasantra says about Amitabha. So, I'm going to tell you a bit about my experience and about love, well, taking that hand suggest that it's about knowing how to love ourselves. He said, "The real object of our love "is not outside of us. "The real object of our love is ourselves. "We have to know how to love ourselves, "know how to return to our true nature, "to see the wholesome, the good, the true "and the beautiful within us. "Then, we will be able to see that in others." And the Buddha also, the Buddha talked about us searching around the whole world looking for someone to love or worthy of our love and that there's no one worthy or deserving of our own love and compassion than ourself. Yeah. And I've been working up thinking about this talk and I saw something, I was at my parents' house and I saw a tragedy of some sort on the television and people responding. And I felt this longing in myself to contribute to the well-being of the world. And then I thought, well, I'm coming to, I'm going to be still, going to give a talk on love and compassion. And I thought, well, actually, that's it, that's what I'm doing, I may contribute to the world and whatever I do, and it doesn't have to be good. And then, me and all of us, poem came about, "You do not have to be good. "You just have to let the soft animal "of your body love what it loves." I thought, well, I love the Dharma. I can go and talk about the Dharma and the experience of the Dharma. Yeah, I want to live it, I want to share it, I want to, whatever happens, may I be connected with compassion. And Nyanoponika Teris is what is the highest manifestation of compassion to show the world, the path, leading to the end of suffering. The oath pointed out, trodden and realised to perfection by him, the exalted one, the Buddha, the path pointed out. Trodden and realised to perfection by him, the exalted one, the Buddha. So, maybe walk the path together tonight. Yeah, so, we're looking, we're going to look at Amitabha. And I'm going to talk a little bit about me and my experience. I'm going to, you're going to get an experience of yourselves, of your own, of love, compassion, sanga, Amitabha. And then, we're going to relate it to the world. And Banti talked about, talks about the Dharma being, about the theoretical and the practical. So, we can get a little bit of the experience, but much of the practical, the practice of it. And I went to a course by an NVC teacher, Sunakitu, and he was about sharing the Dharma. And there were three things that I found do helpful. He suggested that we explain, we explore, and we experience. So, that's my theme for this evening, that may I explain what we're going to do. May we explore it together, may we experience it. And in our body speech in mind, those three, the threefold way. So, I just want to check, it's the first night I've been here of this series of talks that you're doing. I just want to check who's been to the other talks about the Buddhist, can you put your hands up if you've been to any of the other talks. Okay, so for some of you, this is your first night of one of the talks about the archetypal five-genest. So, archetypal. Yeah, archetypal. I heard someone describe it as experiencing in the depths of the mind, that it's not the Buddha, what the Buddha is being a human being, who walked about Padma Samba. Yesterday, he's an archetypal Bodhisattva, but he also was a human being. So, Amitabha wasn't ever a human being, he's an archetypal Buddha, that we experience in the depths of our mind. And he's read, obviously. And like the, he's talking sexually loud, that the jinnas, the five Buddhas, are often described as one light, that it shines through a prism and becomes, so a white light shining through a prism becomes different colours. So, they're all aspects of the enlightened Buddha. Each of these five jinnas, five Buddhas, archetypal Buddhas are aspects of the Buddha, aspects of enlightenment. So, we're going to see how we connect with those aspects. So, we're going to hear firstly about me and my relationship to Amitabha. And with love at the centre, we're going to look at the preciousness of human life. Amitabha's presence at the sunset of life and death or spiritual death, he's often associated with death. Particularly in the Tibetan Book of the Dead and at the time of a Bardo, and a Bardo for anyone who's not aware of that word, is a sort of time of transition. That's how I describe it, a time of transition that often happens at death or in between death and rebirth or change, any sort of change. Compassionate response to suffering and empathy and non-violence in the way we think, speak and act. Yeah, so... So, main. As I mentioned, yes, I've had a kidney transplant recently and that we met at the time of my ordination and the ordination retreat that we were both on with Samushele and others. So, I'm going to say a little bit about those two things, and for me, they are going to be at the centre of a mandala of my experience. So, ordination for me, that was quite a big Bardo, a big, so the word Bardo, transition. It lasted three months up in the mountains of Spain, where there were lots of beautiful sunsets and lots of beautiful friendship. And, yeah, I went up there not knowing at the time of ordination, I knew that we take on a practice of a particular Buddha or Bodhisattva, and I felt a bit puzzled, a bit confused because I didn't feel entirely sure about which Buddha, Bodhisattva, felt the strongest connection with, because I seemed to have connections with each of them. And my preceptor, my tree, had asked me. So, do you have a connection? Do you have feelings for any particular Buddha or Bodhisattva? And I thought, for a moment, I said, "Well, yeah, I've got feelings for Padma Samba, that Amitabha's got feelings for me." Well, what can I say? So, it was a power, you know, I really like that energy, you know, I respond to the energy of Padma Samba, and I knew there was a lot of learning for me to, you know, even looking at Amitabha, the stoneness. At that time, I felt quite inactive, you know, energetic person, I was running 10Ks and I felt like I had a lot of energy, but it was something that I wanted to learn from this Buddha, that stoneness, that spaciousness, the wisdom of discrimination, discriminating wisdom, you know, seeing each person as unique and uniquely beautiful. And things happened on the retreat that helped point towards Amitabha's loyalty. Our love was being available, being present in my life. Unfortunately, you know, I got given this name Amitabha Shuri, which means boundless or limitless heroine. Yeah, so connect him with love and friendship on the retreat, and spiritual death really, there's a spiritual death that happens, you go through this journey, this process, and I knew I was becoming a new being. I didn't know what my name was going to be, but definitely sat with myself, you know, I learned even just from sitting in that posture, you know, when we sit in that posture, there's something can happen, we do it in our meditation practice. It's often the first image that people come into contact with Buddhism is as Amitabha, meditation, Buddha and meditation. Yeah, so I'm still learning what what happens here in this space that he incubates with the sort of gentleness of his two thumbs touching. I'm still learning about how to be with that uncertainty, you know, what's there. And up there, up in the mountains, my granddad, during the ordination retreat, and we were doing a practice called the six element practice, and Amitabha felt really, really present, you know, but was reading a bit about the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and the people, my friends in the ordination retreat, they would do a practice with me, just with the awareness of my granddad. Yeah, so, I mean, there's even in Japan and China, there's traditions that are, say, up around Amitabha, pure land schools, and because when they say, when you die, that you may be born and reborn, and that in a pure land, a happy land, the land of bliss, which is called Succavity, and there's sutras written about this land, Succavity, and actually, in some ways, we don't know if it's a place or actually can we create this pure land in life while we're alive. Yeah, so, I take on the practice of Amitabha, and as you can see, my red tights and red things to celebrate on this evening and connect with that, there's a lot of, well, warmth and warm associations that I have in relation to Amitabha. I've even also got this as seed syllable. [laughter] Does Andy know what it is? Hui. Hui. Hui. So, hui, where there's hong or omahong. So, hui is, I would say, to Martin tonight, blush. It's a blush, or there's a counterpart called Apatrapia, Hui and Apatrapia. If we ever do something unskillful, or we're not sure what to do, what's the right thing to do, we can think of our teacher, respect that we might have for some, or the Buddha, think of the Buddha, what would the Buddha do in this situation? And if we do something that doesn't quite meet that, we might feel a sense of hui or shame. So, there's shame associated with hui, and Apatrapia is respect for the wise. So, if we act in a way that's not respectful of the wisdom of our teacher, then we might feel a sense of hui. And it's often associated with practice and confession, or telling a friend, and sort of resolving not to do it again. So, that's Amitabha's seed syllable. And, I was just in the meditation there, I just realised that I'm back in Bristol, where just more than five years ago I did a Karen appeal here. So, very fond associations of being in Bristol. And it was straight after that that really I got quite ill. And I just come back from coordination, and I ended up in hospital for a while, with my kidneys really starting to fail. And over the course of that five years, it's just been sort of a steady decline, the function. So, I've had to bring in a lot of Amitabha's compassion. And just awareness that, you know, my body's deteriorating. Well, not my little body, but my kidneys, but it affected everything, energy. I had to ask people for more help. Gradually, I had to actually ask people for a kidney, which was a bit hard at times. You know, some people actually offered without me even asking, or before I needed one. In the movement, people that I know were extremely generous in their offer, even people that didn't really know me that well. And it was quite overwhelming. Each time that I realised people were willing to consider doing that. Yes, so there was a real turning towards. And I like this idea of turning towards and looking at what might be difficult or painful in relation to Amitabha, because his time of day is the sunset, the setting sun. And the setting sun is a time which we can actually look at the sun. You know, at the midday sun, or, you know, when it's really hot, you have to wear your sunglasses or you can't really look at it. But the setting sun, we can sit and watch. And you often have romantic associations that love associations, or feel connected to something beautiful when we turn towards it and can look at it. So that was a strong practice for me in my journey towards my transplant. You know, I was in and out of hospital a bit, and the last since January really got ill again, and I had two transplants cancelled. One was actually on the day of admission. And it turned out I got my kidney out eight weeks before the transplant. The surgeon didn't want to risk operating. I got risk giving me a transplant with my own kidneys. And I was, again, I was feeling some fear. What would it mean? And then if I was afraid that I would lose the donor, so I sort of had to feel compassion towards that. Okay, well, if I lose the donor, you know, it's safer for me. My life is precious. And people do it, you know? I got to experience dialysis and that people do that for all their life, and the donor stayed with me. And she just had this generous volition that she wanted to donate, and was glad that it was to me. So, yeah, really compassion was alive for me. And, like, actually what I said about the connections that I had, people really sent me cards. And, you know, there was a Facebook communication. Another friend had agreed to do some updates and send out to other friends in the movement in my order, my friends, my family. And they got to hear about it. So sometimes I got, like, 20 cards a day in the hospital, and I was so overwhelming, I just had to be patient and take my whole day to open them and cry and share with people that weren't so upset to me. So I really felt the love. I felt the love out of people that I didn't really even know very well, that had taken my effort to get up, write a card, get my address. So it really touched me, each thing that I imagined somebody did to move towards me and express their care and well-wishing for me. And then I could translate that into all these, sort of, older ladies in my ward that couldn't reach the box of dishes or something. You know, once I was mobile again, I could sort of translate that and express it to my friends. Yeah. So definitely someone described my experience of me as "swoops" as my heart was blown open by meta. And, yeah, I did feel the presence of Amitabha. You know, all the way through that, sometimes I didn't, well, a lot of the time I didn't meditate, but I had a chant. I had my mother there with me. After my first operation, I had my queso. Somebody helped put my queso on just when I was coming out and sat with me, someone else after the transplant came up and anonymously sponsored Mahasuka. Someone who does chanting and movemently sponsored him to come and chant to me in the ward. So it was all, you know, some real connections. And I didn't know him from afar over the years, but, you know, that was beautiful. So I felt that the rest of the ward got to benefit from the chant. It was a shakimini chant. Yeah. So I talked about expression there. And the idea that the thought, from the thought, manifests the word, from the word manifests the deed or the action. So in relation to what we're looking at tonight, bodies speak to mind. So I did feel a lot of compassion for my body, which was suffering, how to be with that in my mind, to turn towards that feeling, the panic or worry, and let it transform into the feeling, the love, you know, and my actions at the time, I felt a lot of gratitude and it was really easy to express it. It just came through me because people were, you know, holding me with such care. And their heart is even from afar. I knew people were thinking about me as well. And one of the things that really helped me has, over that last five years, has been learning about communication, particularly NVC non-violent communication. So I'm mentioning that because it helps me know what I'm feeling and what I value. There's four key things, but the middle two are about what we feel and our bodies and what our needs are or our values are what's important to us. So I'm mentioning that because that's relevant to what we're going to do. So it was an extremely generous act for this person to donate a kidney. And also blood, I had blood transfusions where I actually felt like the red blood was going in me and it was making a difference at the time, even the next day. I felt a bit more aware each time I had blood. And some, you know, you go to the blood bank and you don't know who's going to get it and the difference it's going to make to someone's life. It was pretty touch and go at the time that I had the blood transfusions. I didn't see myself as somebody who would, but I would be in that situation to need that. And then it was there and I just felt so much gratitude for these anonymous people who'd given blood. Thanks everybody if it was you, if it was. So that was about me. The next part I'm going to, well I'm not quite going to hear about you, but you're going to, in fact, if you could tell me, you've told me who's been here and who's not been here before. What I'd like to do is get set this section and let it write up a few things that you call out. And I want you to, if you can remember, some of the, what, what are the buddhas that you've looked at already? Which buddhas have you looked at in these evenings so far? Yellow buddha. Ratnasambhava. Yeah, ratnasambhava. And, like shobia, is it too? And you've got one took after Amitabh. You've got Amogasity. Okay. And Vlochna. Okay, so of ratnasambhava and exsobia, or maybe you looked at an overview as well at the beginning. I think there might have been a wee overview. If you can remember, what were the qualities that you associate with, with the buddhas that you've heard of previously? You could play some of them up. No, I think we'll round about them, okay? If I'm doing this, I'd love to know if there's anyone. Determination, or should it? Transformation. Transformation. Transformation. Transformation. [silence] Do you like one of the two? [silence] Unshakeability. [silence] [silence] [silence] Artistic appreciation. [silence] [silence] So these are all aspects of chakimune, of the enlightened mind. And they all like the prism. They're from the same light. They enter, enter, relate. I think that's all we're going to write for the time. We will write again a bit more. And these qualities, I was hearing about one of the previous talks that named Nagamuja had said that he had written about was going to come for the Chobia night, and he found himself bringing in some of the qualities of Ramasambhava and all the other bridges. And that's what happens, you know? It's not just purely Amitabha. It's, you know, we bring in wisdom, determination, you know, this transformation, appreciation. So Amitabha has this particular flavour. And I know there's an expression that the Dalai Lama talked about. And I heard also that recently in a talk that if you're not able to, if I'm not able to connect with a particular aspect of enlightenment, I might go to the other side of the mandala and see what's there that I can try and maybe give, you know, some sangerage to say if you can't do anything to connect, you can give, you can always give the Dalai Lama says of it, generosity is the most natural outward expression of an inner attitude of compassion and loving kindness. Generosity is the most natural outward expression of an inner attitude of compassion and loving kindness. So I'd like you to just be quiet for it. I know you're not saying anything, but be quiet for a moment. I'll be quiet for a moment. And I'd like you just to consider any qualities or values in Amitabha that you particularly appreciate. I want you to turn to someone beside you and just tell them what you connect with or what it is, what it is that you value about Amitabha, what qualities, associations, what you connect with. So if you want to just take an meditation posture, a posture that's comfortable, you're just going to pick one of those qualities or one of those values that is meaningful to you. And I'm going to close our eyes and feel how it feels and how it affects you when you're connected to it. So connecting with it, now not thinking about it, but feeling it in your body, let's really feel where it is in our body and how we are connected to that value, that quality. So we feel it in our face, in our heart, in our hands, how do our hands feel when we're connected to it? Our legs, our calves, our feet. Breathe it through our body. ♪ Okay, keep your eyes closed and now we're going to take a moment to be disconnected from it. Feel how it feels when we're not connected to that quality. We're distant, we're removed from it. We're not in touch with it. Maybe even we're in touch with it's opposite if there is one. You can make sound if you like how it feels in a body. ♪ ♪ It feels in our face, so shoulders, our arms, abdomen. ♪ Okay, that's enough. Now we can reconnect with that quality. Just breathe it in again with the value. What it is that we appreciate and what matters to us. Breathe it through our body. ♪ You can make a sound again without you. ♪ Feel it in our hands, our face, our legs. ♪ So I was glad to have tried that with K-Majote earlier because I hadn't actually done that and it was sketch experience. What it was like, and it was glad she helped me realise that it was helpful to have a little chat at the end of it. Thanks. Yes, so I don't know what specifically you talked about, but I imagine that you had an experience of something that will allow you that's important to you, and Sankapa says that the heart of goodness is in each of us. You don't need to rely on anybody else's goodness. You have a resource already, which is your own goodness. You are already good and you can actually transmit that goodness to others. In Buddhism, we call this Buddha nature. Examine yourself and your state of being. You will find that you have the heart of goodness in you. So, yeah, in the Dalai Lama, when we feel love and kindness towards others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace. He goes on to say, "Love is the absence of judgment." Now, from personal experience, I can find that really hard, or to notice when my thoughts are. There's judgment either on myself or on another, and that's where I found it. An unbound communication, really helpful to notice and to do the inner work that I need to do to translate that judgment, that message that I'm telling myself, to translate it into what I'm actually feeling, and what is important to me, and so what you did there. You know, we're feeling in our body what is our physical, our felt experience, and what is it that matters to us. And that thing that you, the value that you've let you do under the quality, that that matters to each of us, all of us, I don't know which one you chose, but I'm sure you want that for yourself, like you want it for all in any of us. It's a universal quality, a universal value. Maybe, depending on what you thought of, but I imagine that to be so. So, maybe meditation, and Amitabha, sort of the Buddha of meditation, may we notice those thoughts that we have, those messages and look underneath them how we feel, and what is it that really matters to us, what way are we coming from, what is, what do we need in that situation, and what to be long for. You know, if it's fear, maybe we want some ease, or to be able to relax. If it's frustration, maybe we want some simplicity. And so, what do we feel, and what is it that it's important to us in that situation? And we may have a story that points towards that message, points towards it. If we can turn towards it, like Amitabha, turns towards the setting sun, it may take the energy away from it, and maybe transform it into kindness and compassion. So, we're going to do another exercise, which takes this exercise, we're going to play with it a bit. You can stay seated near where your partners are, because we're going to do a sort of spoken practice, where we're going to tell our partner that in our speaking, and then the partner is listening, we're going to be practicing meta. So, it's not just in our felt experience, it's in our spoken experience, and the word from the word springs. From the thought springs the word, from the word springs the action. So, we've just been feeling that in ourselves, we're going to communicate to friends. So, if you want to sit beside your partner. The Buddha says, if your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. And whatever words we utter should be chosen with care, for people who hear them, and be influenced by them for good or for ill, said the Buddha. So, you're going to share with your partner your experience of meta towards yourself. And you can say it in a sense of okay, what you feel, okay, I enjoy, because I really value. So, when you speak about yourself, I don't want to censor yourself and say, "Oh, sometimes I'm quite good at such and such." You know, go for it. Go for it, really connect with that self-compassion and love and say, "You know, I really love listening and I really love being in friendship with someone." And then your friend, when your partner listens, they're listening to the second person that's there. So, that's the second stage in the listening. Okay. So, the site is going to go first, and I'll ring the bell halfway when you... No, okay. So, the person who speaks first beside now, who's person A and who's person B. Okay, so once you've decided that, person A is going to speak first, and they're going to speak out the first stage of the meta. They're going to say, "So, for me, I really enjoy listening. I love really hearing, and I love that when I don't understand, I'll ask the person for clarity." I don't know right now. Yes, exactly. Okay, so we'll do that for a couple minutes, and then we'll listen for the bell. And the person B just listens and receives. The second stage, person B, is going to share with person B some appreciation that we have for a good friend. And because your partner was talking about someone, the listener may not have known, that was both the friend and the neutral person. So, we're going to do the same with a difficult person. And we're going to speak kindly and see if there's something in that friend, that difficult person, that we can appreciate and speak kindly of. But truthfully, honestly, you know. And let it come back. Come back to that feeling and yourself that you want well-being for yourself and all beings. I love to sing how we feel in our body, where we experience those feelings, any aliveness that we're in touch with. Any positive emotion that we're in contact with. Noticing how we experience it in our body, each part of our body. We're just going to widen our perspective and open up to each other in the room with that warm response that we have to ourself, our friend, neutral person, difficult person, to each other here in the room. In the city and the surroundings. We're going to sing in touch with that compassionate response, that loving response we have to ourselves. Winding our circle of compassion and love to embrace and include beings further and further field all around the country. And overseas, in the seas, overseas. All across all the lands and seas in the world. Extend our circle of love and compassion and well-witching and all beings everywhere. [music] When I see the misery of those in this world, their sadness becomes mine. Oh, that my monk's robe were wide enough to gather up all the suffering people in this floating world. Nothing makes me happier than Amida Buddha's vow to save everyone. [silence] And I'm aware that we've come to the end of the evening. And I did have a little mantra off my sleeve, but I'm wondering who are going to do it? Okay, we're going to give the mantra go. If you want to leave and have a cup of tea and if you've finished it's fine. If you want to, this is a mantra that we've got two shuris in the room just now. This is a third shuri. This is a mantra that Ratna Shuri, for some of you may have met at Tara Luka. Ratna Shuri wrote as part of a puja. And I was doing a puja and a tune came and I took it back to her and I said, "Listen, I've got this tune to mantra." "Well, do you want to hear it?" "Oh yeah." So I chanted it to her, "Is this your mind if I take it about the place and share it?" "Oh, no, I'm a bit delighted." So it involves this sleeve. I'm going to chant it twice so that you can hear it and then I'll ring the bell and I'll start again. I just want you to hear it completely so you know the full mantra. [Singing in foreign language] [Singing in foreign language] [Singing in foreign language] [Singing in foreign language] [Singing in foreign language] [Singing in foreign language] [Singing in foreign language] [Singing in foreign language] [Singing in foreign language] [Singing in foreign language] [Singing in foreign language] [Singing in foreign language] We hope you enjoyed this week's podcast. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. And thank you. [Singing in foreign language] [Singing in foreign language]