This is an extract from a post on Dew on the Grass, a blog written by a handful of Buddhists practicing within this tradition (Serene Reflection Meditation Tradition, Soto Zen). It’s a hidden gem which deserves a wider audience. This post is from Anna and kicks off a series on creative responses to the Pandemic. This one just fell into my lap this evening. Many thanks, good friends in the Dharma.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In essence, this is about the power to create”.

As I went to buy groceries today and I was looking around, I had to acknowledge that everything I saw, the streets, the pavement, the buildings, the supermarket, the aisles with food, with products, money, the clothes I was wearing, my house, the tap I use to wash my hands, everything, started as a concept, a word in the mind. The world as we know it started as a concept, started as a word; our world is the result of our innate power to create. We can use this power for self-serving goals or use it to create a world that is inclusive and beneficial to all. Now that we are collectively forced to a halt and forced to reassess our unsustainable way of life, enormous creative energy rises to find alternatives, to consider choices that take into account our interconnectedness.

See the rest of this post at Dew on the Grass, Words by Anna

In recent years I have spent much of my time in solitude and would like to offer some thoughts on loneliness, especially now when many of us are having to live in isolation. Most of the advice going around at the moment addresses loneliness through keeping up contact with family, friends and neighbours on various media and so on. This is good advice but what can be forgotten is the value there can be in allowing ourselves some space to explore the actual feeling of being lonely.

Written by Rev. Master Daishin Morgan, former Abbot of Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey
Find the entire article on the Throssel website.

If this video works to help re-anchor to the basic practice of generosity, kindness and the offering of one’s whole life to the ‘good’, all’s well. And good.

Words and appearances
can be deceptive
what’s behind them
isn’t.

Here is the final section in the series ‘Thoughts on Spiritual Merit. On Sunday I did a talk using more or less the words from these three posts. I believe the talk will be up online on Wednesday and I’ll link to it here. It is on video. Gulp!

I’m glad, and fortunate, to be here and to walk through my days with others. Following the same schedule of activity, including formal meditation and the daily round of ceremonies and getting on with my responsibilities. Best I can. However well-intentioned it might be, if you are tempted, it is a mistake to hold up the life of the monastery, of monks training, as a kind of gold standard. Each of us, within the physical setting, and form, we find ourselves, share equally within the life of the trusting heart of practice. We have an equal capacity to practice, to engage fully with what is asked of us. Differing forms, differing lives, same heart/mind.

However, some of the religious forms can be adapted and utilized, where ever and whoever you are. For example the meal time recitations. In the formal setting, there is a lengthy recitation during lunchtime. However saying the Five Thoughts aloud or silently at the start of a meal and the ending blessing verse at the end can re-anchor to the baseline intention, running in the background of ones being. In a certain setting, I’ll just think ‘Thank you’. There are many such ways to re-anchor and the sangha refuge is likely to come up with brilliant and creative ideas. I’ve said enough on this subject, although I could go on and on, and may well do so, on Throssels blog, or elsewhere. I’ve done my best to explain spiritual merit, as I practice and understand it. It is down to you to do whatever you feel is good, perhaps now having a deeper perspective, and understanding, and appreciation of the Buddhist teaching, that underpins merit.

To recap. The talk, which will be available later, is about how and why the transfer of spiritual merit works. Firstly, the Truth embedded in Anatta, no separate self and Sunyata, all existence is ’empty’ of individual aspect, means merit can’t help but circulate.  That’s through enlightened action, underpinned by keeping to the Three Pure Precepts. Secondly, the ‘resonance’ or ‘merit field’ established when good is generated means good simply flows, unimpeded by any ‘thing’.

Having established that acting from a clear baseline intention to ‘train’ oneself is ‘good’ and that the intention put into action (sitting formally included) has merit and has a positive impact on others, the questions are ‘How does merit work’? Does it make a difference? How do you know it works and how do you do it’?  These are questions best answered by entrusting oneself to a process. The process of daily practice, day in and day out. The answers come via anecdotes from people who have experienced receiving merit. I’ve had my own experience of that. Through talking to other trainees about what they understand, and how their practice of transferring merit takes form. Sometimes answers come when least expected.  So it is with training generally.

Personally, I don’t deliberately offer merit, although I do ask for the full name of people I hear of who are in extremity and keep a private list of names on my altar. During the day names come in and out of my mind, I regard this as giving a non-deliberate ‘push’ in their direction. Or is there a pull from those in need? I don’t know. They are included in some subtle way.

There has been a great call of recent weeks for people to join with others, on-line, to sit together and many are engaging with this, and benefitting as several people have reported. Similarly, we have posted videos of a couple of our ceremonies on the Throssel website, which people have joined in with, which is great. We normally encourage people, if they can, to sit with a meditation group, priory or the like because doing so has a positive impact on the meditation of all there, as mention before. The merit that is generated through this common activity is greater than the solo efforts of an individual alone. For those who sit with others, for any length of time, this is unmistakable. So, unseen and unacknowledged the merit of the meditation circulates and supports all present. Circulating no less for sitting on-line, together with others.

One of the reasons we recommend, and ask, that people follow the same tradition, Serene Reflection Tradition way of practice/sitting, is that there is a common unified baseline intention to – Just Sit. No add ons like visualizations, repetitions of a koan or mantra, for example. All fine within the tradition they come from, but that’s not our tradition. So, sitting together, reciting a scripture together, in unison expresses the truth of non-separation. We talk about reciting with ‘one voice’. It’s a way to alleviate the very real sense of being separate, individual, isolated, different and fundamentally alone. You could say that a kind of resonance is set up when people practice together in the same space. Much like when a bell is struck next to, but not touching, another bell. The vibration passes, unseen, between the bells and the second bell sounds.

The ‘big cry’ I mentioned early is that yearning of the heart to share in, connect with, be verified by, that deep resonance shared between those with a common purpose. Especially when that common purpose is formed in the deepest possible part of our consciousness.  Yes, people are joining together to sing and dance and exercise and practice yoga and check in with family and friends. Yes, and there is a joy and a bond which alleviates the isolation and basic loneliness many will be suffering. The big cry, the calling of the heart, however, is of a different order. Although it may not be that apparent, given how the social aspect of connecting to fellow sitters is a reward in itself.  For short I’m calling the resonance effect a ‘Merit Field’ which is unseen, unknowable, with the ordinary everyday mind, but none the less ‘real’.  This resonance cannot, in truth be hindered by physical distance, though clearly confirmed and reinforced, currently, via on-line connections.

Thus it is trainees act as spiritual ‘anchors’ as touchstones for one another. As I see it the monastery, priories and individual monks function in this way too. It should be understood however that, while such anchors are encouraging, they are not essential to practice. Which is just as well since even our trusty internet can fail us at any moment. And if it does, then what?

Obviously dear readers I’m preparing my talk here. I find I can think more clearly by typing into the editor on Jademountains. I’m in effect talking to somebody(s) and so doing I can find my voice. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being there.