Online Retreat: The Heart of Practice
Day 6
Resources for Day 6:
‘You can’t think yourself to awareness. You can’t think yourself to insight.’
Paramananda
Friday 8am
Welcome to Day 6
Salute to the Three Jewels
Reading
45 min unled meditation with bells marking 5 stages
If you speak delusions, everything becomes a delusion;
If you speak the truth, everything becomes the truth.
Outside the truth there is no delusion,
But outside delusion there is no special truth.
Followers of the Buddha’s way!
Why do you so earnestly seek the truth
in distant places?
Look for delusion and truth in the
bottom of your own hearts.
Ryoken
Friday 10.30am
Talk by Paramananda
Meditation
Lying down with drumming and chanting
Meditation
‘As long as we’re centred in small mind, we’re always going to be dissatisfied.’
Paramananda
May I learn to love myself deeply.
May I learn to relax fully into the heart.
May I open my heart.
May I fully realise the preciousness of this life.
May I be of service to the world.
May I support life.
May I allow myself to be supported by life.
May I realise that I am beloved by the world.
Paramananda
Friday 4pm
Meditation led by Paramananda
Q & A with Paramananda and Bodhilila
Sevenfold Puja
When You Stopped
When you stopped
Suddenly
Everything was there.
Not recognised
Just there
Known
without the knowing
The trail of December bird song
The weak sun
Catching dull fire
In the parquet floor
The high-pitched voices
of the school children
In the cold thin air
This morning saw
the first hard frost
of the season
and for an instance
the whole world
Frozen in glittering action
When you stopped.
Perhaps
Perhaps for you the kindness
is just leaving things alone
Most particularly yourself
Being at home when you call
not having somewhere to rush off to
sitting and letting your anxious hands
settle against your quivering body.
Breathing in the green all around
even in the city
A kind of abiding
we do with the dying
Or with young children recovering from tsunamis of the heart.
Moments of grace
when action falls away,
but more than just a witness
The distance collapsed,
a dark star
Trusting its own dark light.
Paramananda
THE SEVENFOLD PUJA
WORSHIP
With mandarava, blue lotus and jasmine, With all flowers, pleasing and fragrant, And with garlands skillfully woven,
I pay honour to the princes of the sages, So worthy of veneration.
I envelop them in clouds of incense,
Sweet and penetrating;
I make them offerings of food, hard and soft, And pleasing kinds of liquids to drink.
I offer them lamps encrusted with jewels, Festooned with golden lotus,
On the paving, sprinkled with perfume,
I scatter handfuls of beautiful flowers.
SHAKYAMUNI MANTRA
om muni muni maha muni sakyamuni svaha
SALUTATION
As many atoms as there are,
In the thousand million worlds,
So many times I make reverent salutation To all the Buddhas of the three eras,
To the Saddharma,
And to the excellent Community.
I pay homage to all the shrines
And places in which the Bodhisattvas have been. I make profound obeisance to the teachers
And those to whom respectful salutation is due.
GOING FOR REFUGE
This very day,
I go for my refuge
To the powerful Protectors,
Whose purpose is to guard the universe,
The mighty conquerors who overcome suffering everywhere.
Wholeheartedly also I take my refuge
In the Dharma they have ascertained,
Which is the abode of security against the rounds of rebirth; Likewise in the host of Bodhisattvas
I take my refuge.
refuges and precepts
Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammasambuddhassa Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammasambuddhassa Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammasambuddhassa
Buddham Saranam Gacchami Dhammam Saranam Gacchami Sangham Saranam Gacchami
Dutiyampi Buddham Saranam Gacchami Dutiyampi Dhammam Saranam Gacchami Dutiyampi Sangham Saranam Gacchami
Tatiyampi Buddham Saranam Gacchami Tatiyampi Dhammam Saranam Gacchami Tatiyampi Sangham Saranam Gacchami
translation
Homage to Him, the Blessed One, the Worthy One, the Perfectly Enlightened One! To the Buddha for refuge I go.
To the Dharma for refuge I go.
To the Sangha for refuge I go.
For the second time to the Buddha for refuge I go.
For the second time to the Dharma for refuge I go.
For the second time to the Sangha for refuge I go.
For the third time to the Buddha for refuge I go.
For the third time to the Dharma for refuge I go.
For the third time to the Sangha for refuge I go.
five precepts
Panatipata Veramani Sikkhapadam Samadiyami
Adinnadana Veramani Sikkhapadam Samadiyami
Kamesu Micchacara Veramani Sikkhapadam Samadiyami
Musavada Veramani Sikkhapadam Samadiyami
Surameraya Majja Pamadatthana Veramani Sikkhapadam Samadiyami
translation
I undertake to abstain from taking life.
I undertake to abstain from taking the not-given. I undertake to abstain from sexual misconduct.
I undertake to abstain from false speech.
I undertake to abstain from taking intoxicants.
sadhu sadhu sadhu
the positive precepts
With deeds of loving kindness, I purify my body.
With open-handed generosity, I purify my body.
With stillness, simplicity, and contentment, I purify my body. With truthful communication, I purify my speech.
With mindfulness clear and radiant, I purify my mind.
CONFESSION OF FAULTS
The evil which I have heaped up
Through my ignorance and foolishness –
Evil in the world of everyday experience,
As well as evil in understanding and intelligence – All that I acknowledge to the Protectors.
Standing before them
With hands raised in reverence, And terrified of suffering,
I pay salutations again and again.
May the leaders receive this kindly, Just as it is, with its many faults! What is not good, O Protectors,
I shall not do again.
REJOICING IN MERIT
I rejoice with delight
In the good done by all beings, Through which they obtain rest
With the end of suffering.
May those who have suffered be happy!
I rejoice in the release of beings
From the sufferings of the rounds of existence; I rejoice in the nature of the Bodhisattva
And the Buddha,
Who are Protectors.
I rejoice in the arising of the Will to Enlightenment, And the Teaching:
Those oceans which bring happiness to all beings, And are the abode of welfare of all beings.
ENTREATY AND SUPPLICATION
Saluting them with folded hands
I entreat the Buddhas in all the quarters:
May they make shine the lamp of the Dharma For those wandering in the suffering of delusion!
With hands folded in reverence
I implore the conquerors desiring to enter Nirvana: May they remain here for endless ages,
So that life in this world does not grow dark.
HEART SUTRA
The Bodhisattva of Compassion,
When he meditated deeply,
Saw the emptiness of all five skandhas
And sundered the bonds that caused him suffering.
Here then,
Form is no other than emptiness,
Emptiness no other than form.
Form is only emptiness,
Emptiness only form.
Feeling, thought, and choice,
Consciousness itself,
Are the same as this.
All things are by nature void
They are not born or destroyed
Nor are they stained or pure
Nor do they wax or wane
So, in emptiness, no form,
No feeling, thought, or choice,
Nor is there consciousness.
No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind;
No colour, sound, smell, taste, touch,
Or what the mind takes hold of,
Nor even act of sensing.
No ignorance or end of it,
Nor all that comes of ignorance;
No withering, no death,
No end of them.
Nor is there pain, or cause of pain,
Or cease in pain, or noble path
To lead from pain;
Not even wisdom to attain!
Attainment too is emptiness.
So know that the Bodhisattva
Holding to nothing whatever,
But dwelling in Prajna wisdom,
Is freed of delusive hindrance,
Rid of the fear bred by it,
And reaches clearest Nirvana.
All Buddhas of past and present,
Buddhas of future time,
Using this Prajna wisdom,
Come to full and perfect vision.
Hear then the great dharani,
The radiant peerless mantra,
The Prajnaparamita
Whose words allay all pain;
Hear and believe its truth!
Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha
TRANSFERENCE OF MERIT AND SELF-SURRENDER
May the merit gained
In my acting thus
Go to the alleviation of the suffering of all beings.
My personality throughout my existences,
My possessions,
And my merit in all three ways,
I give up without regard to myself
For the benefit of all beings.
Just as the earth and other elements
Are serviceable in many ways
To the infinite number of beings,
Inhabiting limitless space,
So may I become
That which maintains all beings
Situated throughout space,
So long as all have not attained
To peace.
CLOSING MANTRAS
om mani padme hum (Avalokitesvara)
om a ra pa ca na dhih (Manjusri)
om vajrapani hum (Vajrapani)
om tare tuttare ture svaha (Tara)
om amideva hrih (Amitabha)
om muni muni maha muni sakyamuni svaha (Sakyamuni Buddha)
om ah hum vajra guru padma siddhi hum (Padmasambhava)
gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha (Prajnaparamita/blue sky)
om santi santi santi
