lotusinthemud

what is nembutsu?

What is Nembutsu?

What is "Namo Amida Bu?" Namo Amida Bu is the Buddha prayer or nembutsu. "Namo" is the little, vulnerable, conditioned self calling out. "Amida Bu" is the Buddha on the Other Shore calling back. Whenever we conceptualize anything, there is always an "other shore", a beyond.

The act of conceptualising is a mental grasping that encompasses something and thus puts a boundary upon it. Amida is the boundariless. Beyond the born is the Unborn. Beyond the self is the Measureless. Beyond our frailty is Amida. We have been born - we are here - how can we make sense of it? Human beings seek to make meaning out of their existence. A great meaning cannot be accomplished within oneself, however, but only by going beyond oneself. The religions in the world offer ways to try to conceptualise this "beyond-self" experience. Buddhism does so in a way that does not load us with dogma, guilt, or an undue metaphysical burden. Some metaphysics are an unavoidable dimension of any kind of spiritual reflection, but we should know that metaphysics grows out of the experience of existence. I exist. I see that I am a small and vulnerable being in vital need of help of all kinds. I call out. Namo Amida Bu. I call out to the unknown that lies beyond myself. It is the power that forms and supports me. In order to be a self, one must alienate oneself from the rest of the universe. With Namo Amida Bu we call to our other half - though, of course, the "halves" are disproportionate, since I am virtually nothing and it is everything. So by calling the nembutsu, I recognise my own self assertion: I recognize both the strength and the foolishness of my project to be somebody - and I celebrate the fact that the universe is always calling me back.

Dharmavidya - 29 March 2005

11 tips from 11 years sick

What I’ve learned from 11 years of chronic illness.

Published on May 29, 2012 by Toni Bernhard, J.D. in Turning Straw Into Gold

A year ago, I posted a piece titled, “10 Tips from 10 Years Sick.” Well, a year has gone by and I’m still sick. So, I’ve re-visited that post, changing some of the tips and adding to others. And, of course, there are now 11 tips, not 10! At the end of the post, I hope you’ll share your own experiences.

1. The onset of chronic illness or pain is the beginning of a grieving process.

I could have weathered the first three stages of the grieving process—denial, anger, sadness—with a lot more grace had I known that grief is a natural response to a sudden, unexpected change in health. But I didn’t know. The onset of chronic pain or illness is a major life event. Looking back on what happened to me, now it seems obvious that losing my ability to freely function would trigger denial, anger, and sadness. But it took me many years to understand this and, until I did, I wasn’t able to come close to touching that fourth stage of grief: acceptance.

:: link to article here

amida at sukhavati house, london

You are welcome to visit and to attend any courses.

Here is their new website - have a look through it for details

porridge for breakfast (and thoughts on micro-productivity) - from michael

I've been reading Michael's blog, listening to his podcasts and reading his charming books for a number of years. Michael, who has M.E., as do I, is so good at maintaining a life of creativity around his limited energy. Today he writes:

Last week was a busy week.

As well as running the Get The One Thing a Day Habit course for the first time I was working hard on getting some sample pages ready for the book I’m working on for Perigee Books.

I thought I’d planned things well, leaving myself plenty of time for rest and recuperation, but problems with my home Internet connection meant that I had to go to town everyday to upload material for the course and the book and do all the other things that I rely on having a connection to the web for (most of what I do!).

Being forced to focus

At the beginning of the week I really enjoyed my trips to town. I was forced to focus, carefully planning and fitting everything I needed to do into the couple of hours I was in town for. Making (I thought) the very best use of my time.

falafel burgers recipe - Recipes - BBC Good Food

Falafel burgers recipe - Recipes - BBC Good Food.

transforming our terror

Here's Vishvapani's interview with Christopher Titmuss:

As the Iraq war waged meditation teacher Christopher Titmuss wrote Transforming our Terror, exploring the response to 9/11 and the drive to war: ‘They decided that the way to combat their fear was to hit out.’ Vishvapani met him in Totnes to discuss the book and Buddhist responses in a time of war

Christopher greeted me at his house in Totnes, southwest England, in a large black hat, long black raincoat, and trailing black scarf. A senior teacher in the Insight Meditation movement, Christopher is without the cool reserve of some of his contemporaries. In Buddhist circles he has dispensed with his surname and now prefers to be known simply as Christopher. He has large, friendly eyes and an immediately engaging manner. Engagement is one of his themes. ‘I recently told one Dharma group, ‘I think I prefer Moslems to Buddhists. At least they have some fire, some passion …’. It was a provocative way of saying that I think Buddhists can be so ‘nice’, and so passive.’

We met to discuss a book Christopher had published in 2002 in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, called Transforming Our Terror: a spiritual approach to making sense of senseless tragedy. ‘I have been visiting the US for 25 years, but mainly just to lead retreats. So the America I encounter is the American mind. And I noticed that after 9/11 there was a great deal more fear and anxiety among the people I was teaching. I started to ask myself, what can Buddhist practice say to this experience?’

The result is an enquiry into the nature of fear, grief, loss, and how the human mind processes and makes sense of them.

:: continue reading here

whispers from the bamboo grove - amida newsletter no 5

Uniting Zen and Pureland

'The essence of Zen is big mind and big heart. The essence of Pureland is that there is nowhere where the Light does not shine. These two are sides of a coin. Nothing is outside of the compass of one's spiritual life. There is nowhere where one's spiritual life is not supported.'
~ Dharmavidya

News from Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya was in Seville at the beginning of April taking the first legal steps toward the setting up of the
Instituto Terapia
Zen Internacional

 

Dharmavidya led a
workshop in Milan
13-15 April for the Mindfulness Project and gave a talk to a dance therapy school on the Sunday afternoon. These were well received and he will be going again the same time next year.

 

As part of the setting up of ITZI, Dharmavidya is moving his base of operations to Belgium in early May.

ITZI  already has local reps in UK, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Canada and USA

ITZI facebook group

 

uniting zen and pureland

Uniting Zen and Pureland
The essence of Zen is big mind and big heart. The essence of Pureland is that there is nowhere where the Light does not shine. These two are sides of a coin. Nothing is outside of the compass of one's spiritual life. There is nowhere where one's spiritual life is not supported.

~ Dharmavidya

whispers from the bamboo grove - amida newsletter no 4

Modgala's new grandson Max has arrived!
Here's a gorgeous photo of the two of them - and she doesn't look as though cuddling him is anything but a delight! Modgala is still 'down under' and has travelled on from New Zealand to Australia, where she is visiting Rob. Hard to leave Max and Nelson, I imagine!

From Amida Hawai'i
Two Amida Hawai'i sangha members, Michelle Medeiros and Jan Wizinowich, joined the Amida USA Board of Directors.

Katrien sends news from Belgium
where she is busy preparing her house for Dharmavidya and other sangha members, who will use it as a part-time 'seat' from the beginning of May, and a base for Amida and ITZI events and visitors:

In Belgium there is a big 'Silencemovement' where the quality of Silence and Simplicity in the inner and the outerspace is the focus. On 22 April, there will be a day in Oud-Turnhout, with its large silent nature reserve and a government that promotes the quality of Silence, to celebrate this and I'll join, as buddhistic participant.
On 28 April, we'll have our monthly sangha meeting in Oud-Turnhout and we'll share, we'll practice and we'll talk about the three minds, stimulated by Sumaya who spoke about that in the meeting with Dharmavidya in Louvain. On this day we will also prepare our weekend of 25 to 28 May in the hosthouse of Nico and Martine of the sangha. We organised 3 talks around 'Love § its disappointment' in Oud-Turnhout, Louvain and Gent in the houses of sangha members.
It is an exciting time here and we will see how things grow, led by Amida.
Namo Amida Bu

live your life without dishonourable complications

Dharmavidya writes:

Live your Life without Dishonourable Complications.

Why do we complicate our life? There are two kinds of complications, one good, one bad. Good complications are adornments. We adorn our life with honourable and beautiful things simply because they are honourable and beautiful. This is a kind of love. Bad complications are those that burden ourselves and others. The art is to be able to tell the difference.

the real meaning of mindfulness

Dharmavidya writes:

Today we have had a seminar on "The Real Meaning of Mindfulness". Here are some thoughts on the topic.

I have long thought that people are going a bit wrong in their understanding of Buddhism if they come to regard mindfulness are primarily a kind of psychological technique.

Mindfulness is not essentially just awareness in the sense of knowing one's present state. Knowing one's present state is part of it, not the whole or even the central part of it. It is a bit like mistaking the plate for the meal. The plate is useful, but it is not the meal. We don't eat the plate.

Mindfulness is about knowing your mind. It goes with ekagata, which means independence in a spiritual sense. The Buddha wanted to train people who do not just go along with the crowd but who know their own mind. Mindfulness, sati, smriti, is a study of the mind.

Further, mind does not just exist in the present moment. Mind exists in time and space.

Mind exists in space in that mind is what relates to what is not itself. The Buddhist definition of mind is that it is that which is clear in and of itself and cognises. However, although mind has an intrinsically clear quality, it is also a fertile field within which things appear. From the ancient perspective, these are perceptions, but they are not perceptions of this material world. The whole point of having a mind is to be able to perceive beyond this limited world. The purpose of the mind is that it is an organ that can communicate with angels - with the sacred.

Mind also exists in time. Mind refers forward and backward in time and that is one of its most important functions. By this means mind makes sense of things. It is not just that the mind can communicate with the hidden reality, it is also that mind remembers having done so. A spiritual life is a life lived within the frame of such memory. It is the memory of sacred moments that sustains a spiritual person and carries them through time when otherwise they would despair.

Why does the mind remember such moments? Because they are the times that feel most real. Those are the times that stand out. I do not remember the best icecream I ever ate. I do not remember the best orgasm I ever had. But I remember my spiritual experience. Pleasures come and go. They arise and they fade. Sacred things do not go.

To know one's mind is to be able to decide. One is able to decide when one knows what is real in one's mind. When one decides in this way, there is a sense in which one is never wrong because one has decided in accordance with what is real in one's heart. The decision may not meet with social approval, may be ridiculed, may lead you to lose a competition or even be burnt at the stake, but it will not have been wrong.

To know one's mind one has to study the mind and its process. To study the process of the mind is not just to limit yourself to a study of its present state. Obviously observation of its present state is part of it, but it is the process that matters. "He knows how the arising of the non-arisen comes to be and how the ceasing of the arisen comes to pass." Yet, even more important than thus learning that things pass, one learns what is real and what is contrived or imposed.

The human being is the best liar. Of all the species we seem to be the best at deception. This is what makes us good hunters and it is why we play. We are tricksters. This is fun and healthy, but it also bring with it the pitfall of hypocrisy and of self-deception. Modern people often have very little basis for their lives beyond received opinion and fashion, none of which is actually very reliable. One has to base one's life on something more solid and that requires an insight into what is really there.

To be smritimant, mindful, is really to know one's mind and to be able to observe one's mind at work and see what, within it, is real. By real we here mean spontaneously arising in a manner that does not give evidence of being manipulated. We mean what is enduring and true rather than ephemeral. This is why when we want to make ourselves feel or think something we do not trust the resulting state even when it arises. To be real it has to be beyond "picking and choosing" in the sense of trying to manipulate ourselves into something. The real sources of agency come from something deeper than our ego..

People feel regret when on their deathbed when they think that they have not lived their life. Nowadays especially, given the complexity of our society and its mass nature, innumerable people live their lives as though the real thing had been put off for some later date, or should not even be considered. What matters day to day is what one must do to conform or to be seen in a certain way or to ward off unwanted feelings or any number of other superficial influences all of which serve to replace real life which may seem hardly ever to actually be on the menu.

Buddha wanted to liberate us from this false consciousness existence, to bring into our purview a larger perspective that liberates us by putting us in a different relationship to the trivia of life and causing us to adopt the courage of a bigger heart and a bigger mind.

:: link

mindfulness - workshop in belgium

Mindfulness is an "in subject". However, our minds always are full of something. What is being missed is the question, mindful of what? Mindfulness does not just mean bare awareness of immediate reality. In the teaching of Buddha it means consciousness of what is beyond this reality - the "other shore", "other power", nirvana. That is what makes a life spiritual. There is more than just this. The key Zen text, the Heart Sutra, is about "going beyond"; the key Pureland text, the Sutra of Immeasurable Life, is about the beyond coming to us. Either way, Buddhism is about adding another dimension to our lives, not narrowing our consciousness, but expanding it and coming to life spiritually. In this world there is much beauty and much suffering. Buddhism is a path of love that sees beyond the immediate frustrations and disappointments to open up to a reality that is extraordinary and marvellous.

Workshop with Dharmavidya David Brazier - booking information here

Date and time: March 17, 2012 from 1:30pm to 5:30pm
Location: Don Bosco, Kessel-Lo, Leuven, Belgium

the big question

Richard writes:

Amida is the context in which we all live. This ‘Being Without Measure’ that all life unfolds within. Consider the dinosaurs, some of which stood the height of 3 double-decker busses; or the infinitely tiny virus, multitudes of which dance beneath our skin. All the breathing in and out of existence balanced upon Amida’s fingertip. All of which is innocent of malice. Only the Human animal and what it brings to the banquet gives us cause to pause.

When I invoke the Name Buddha, Amida, Christ or God, I do so tentatively, as shorthand pointing toward what is Sacred to my understanding - the quickening source of life itself in all its forms.

We live in a time of war, in a time of hanging on to wealth at any price. What a futile misuse of creativity and resources we spend on warfare. Weapons of mass destruction indeed. A genii let loose, and sold to the highest bidder.

like a circle in a spiral - an introduction to the labyrinth

Like a Circle in a Spiral....an Introduction to the Labyrinth

Date: March 11, 2012

Time: from 3pm to 6:30pm

Location: Amida Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne

Come and join us for an afternoon where you will be introduced to the spiritual journey of walking, or dancing, the labyrinth. The afternoon will be led by Jackie, who has trained as a facilitator with Veriditas and is a tribal dancer, and Sujatin, who has had a short training in using the labyrinth for therapeutic purposes.

We will combine this introduction with nembutsu odori - dancing the nembutsu - a traditional Pureland practice of Pureland masters such as Kuya and Ippen.

We will use a variety of drums and other musical instruments - bring your own if you have them. This will be the first of a number of labyrinth and dancing events.

 Cost: by donation. Suggested amount - £10 waged, £4 unwaged

:: link

:: register here to attend

the rain of dharma

The Tathagata pours down the rain of Dharma on great and poor, good and bad, alike. How we are affected depends upon our karmic condition, but grace cuts through karma.

~ Dharmavidya