American Buddhist Service

An American Buddhist Service
from Heartland Sangha

Summer Rain:
Dharma Weather Forecasting

rain.

Kansho Bell

Opening:

Life is a gift for which we are grateful. We gather in community to celebrate the glories and the mysteries of this great gift.
—Marjorie Montgomery

Gathering Leader:
May this gathering inspire us to help all beings create a spirit of awakening and understanding and live a life of peace and harmony.

Meditation:

It is our quiet time.
We do not speak, because the voices are within us.
It is our quiet time.
We do not walk, because the earth is all within us.
It is our quiet time.
We do not dance, because the music has lifted us to a place where the spirit is.
It is our quiet time.
We rest with all of nature.

Bell
Silent Meditation
Bell

Nourishment Offering (a cup of rice!)
With humble awareness we offer this gift of life. May each precious grain come to nourish body, mind and spirit—in the Way of Oneness.

Responsive Reading: The Winds Of Summer
Leader: You and I and all of us blew about with the winds of summer,

All: Following the sun in different ways of freedom and play.

Leader: Finding rest in the cool stillness of shadows, and moving to the slow heat-struck rhythms which turned the long hours of summer light.

All: Now it is time for gathering in. We come together at this time and in this place.

Leader: We have joys and sorrows and hopes to share, questions, things we care about and want to help make better,

All: Things that we would like to understand, ideas waiting to be heard.

Leader: Today, we are together in gladness, once more the special community that we call our sangha.

All: A community of all ages that sings its songs, tells its thoughts, asks its questions, and searches together with courage and with love.
—Patricia Shuttee

Dharma talk by Rev. Koyo S. Kubose
"Summer Rain: Dharma Weather Forecasting"

Meditation:

Come to meditation and open yourself inside to all of life. Open your creative energy to the activity you undertake every day, from the basic opening simply and quietly and introspectively move through the world performing the different acts you do daily. Refrain from the tendency to become negative in any respect. Allow that power of creative energy to work its magic around you. After a while your mind matures and you understand fully the nature of this creative process. Then you will surely be free.

Bell
Silent Meditation
Bell

Presentation of the Heartland Sangha’s Nourishment Offering:

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.
—Albert Schweitzer

Closing: Boundless Goodwill
All: Let us cultivate boundless goodwill.

Let none deceive another, or despise any being in any state.

Let none in anger or ill-will wish another harm.

Even as a mother watches over her child, so with boundless mind should one cherish all living beings,

Radiating friendliness over the whole world,beings,

Above, below, and all around, without limit.
—Metta Sutta

Bell (THREE TIMES)

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