大象传媒

Please note:
This script cannot exactly reflect the transmission, as it was prepared before the service was broadcast. It may include editorial notes prepared by the producer, and minor spelling and other errors that were corrected before the radio broadcast.
It may contain gaps to be filled in at the time so that prayers may reflect the needs of the world, and changes may also be made at the last minute for timing reasons, or to reflect current events.

Music under speech:聽 Avro P盲rt: Spiegel im Spiegel聽Nicola Benedetti 鈥� Album: Fantasie
CHRIS:Boundless openness. The vastness of space, the expanse of the ocean, the limitlessness of the sky. Something infinitely richer, fuller and more inclusive than my often narrow, restricted, bounded perspective.聽
TONY:鈥淢y name is Tony 鈥� I鈥檝e been a Christian for a great number of years now.聽聽A few years ago now I went on a pilgrimage, on that pilgrimage I discovered silence in walking each day.I suddenly found in this time of quiet and silence that openness was far more important to me than a closed minded way of looking at things because after all we鈥檙e all human beings made in God鈥檚 image.The practise of Zen gives me the strength and confidence to know that we are all loved by God and that it鈥檚 important that we recognise that and it helps me to realise that I am becoming more the person that I was meant to be.鈥澛�
CHRIS:The words have a particular resonance for me as an Anglican priest and Zen teacher, many, including myself, who have found in the practice of Zen, a convergence with and enrichment of Christian faith and practice, rooted in silence and is to be found in all faith traditions, including Christianity.聽 Zen is a translation of the Sanskrit word Dhyana which simply means meditation.
Fr AMA Samy, the Jesuit priest and Zen Master living in India, has described boundless openness as the characteristic stance of Christians who practise Zen. Such openness takes us into the heart of the Easter mystery, for it demands that a Christian 鈥� in the words of Fr AMA Samy 鈥� 鈥榤ust learn to let go, to pass over, to die, for some, into Zen and Zen tradition. Having died, he or she can come back to resurrected life.鈥櫬�
Music: There鈥檚 a wideness in God鈥檚 mercy聽 (Tune: Corvedale)聽The University of Newcastle Chamber Choir
CHRIS:God of boundless openness, enable us to embrace life in all its fullness, so that, in the Spirit, we might know ourselves to be forever alive in your Risen Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Jesus comes, as the Gospel of John states, that we might have life. In these verses from Matthew chapter 6 we鈥檙e encouraged not to worry.聽
MARK:鈥楲ook at the birds of the air,鈥� Jesus says, 鈥榯hey neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.鈥� So why worry? 鈥楥onsider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you 鈥� you of little faith?鈥�
Music under reading: 'Syrinx' For Solo Flute 鈥� C. Debussy
DENNIS:聽鈥淢y name is Dennis, I like the practise of sitting in silence.聽I had a busy week, I have a stressful job, and now I have just come out of the session, I feel more at ease and more stable in myself and actually a bit happier.聽聽I feel a real difference in my breathing, it comes down to about 3 breaths a minute so that鈥檚 pretty nice actually.聽聽Also your thought process comes to standstill.鈥澛犅�
Music: How shall I sing that majesty聽Libera
CHRIS:Breath. In the Hebrew Scriptures and in the New Testament, that one word can be translated in three different ways in English: breath, wind and spirit. As Jesus dies he gives up his spirit, his breath. After his resurrection he breathes the Spirit on the disciples.聽 The Spirit, the source of life; the breath, that which sustains us in life. As we allow the body to become still, so the restlessness and agitation of our mind gives way to a deeper peace and stillness beyond. Jesus said, 鈥楶eace I leave with you; my peace I give to you鈥� (John 14: 27)鈥︹�橦e breathed on them and said, 鈥淩eceive the Holy Spirit鈥�.鈥�
Music: Come & Breathe聽Lucy Grimble聽
PATRICIA:鈥淚鈥檓 Patricia鈥� not long after we started this zen group I was walking along the beach in Whitby I looked up and someone had painted up the cliff, 鈥榖e here now鈥�, and that has become my Zen moto I think because it seems to sum up a lot of what Zen is about.聽Simply to be.聽 Not to be rationalising and thinking, just simply to be.聽 If I am sitting, I am just sitting.聽 And never mind what happened earlier or what will happen in an hours time. What is important is simply now.聽I think that Zen compliments Christian faith by this process of pure being.聽 In the Christian faith what prayer is about is not asking for things, not formulating things in words but being with God and I think Zen is pointing in the same direction.鈥澛犅�
CHRIS:That was Sister Patricia from the Congregation of Jesus.聽In Christian language, it鈥檚 the Holy Spirit breathing in and through us, giving us life, sustaining all things in life, the same life in everything and everyone. Simply attending to the breath is a wordless prayer, in which the breath itself says, 鈥楥ome, Holy Spirit. Be in me the breath of life. Breathe in me the breath of life.鈥�
Music: Breathe on me, Breath of God聽The King鈥檚 Singers
CHRIS:Just as the breath expands our lungs and diaphragm, so our mind and heart expand, too. We become vulnerable to all that life brings. The First Noble Truth of Buddhism is that life is dukkha, which is to say that life unavoidably brings suffering, that in one sense it鈥檚 inescapably painful and unsatisfactory.聽 There鈥檚 a beautifully touching story from the Buddha鈥檚 own life which illustrates this, the story of Kisagotami.聽 聽
ROSEMARY 鈥� READING:聽
After losing her only child, Kisagotami became desperate and asked if anyone could help her. Her sorrow was so great that many thought she had lost her mind. An old man told her to see the Buddha. The Buddha told her that he could bring the child back to life if she could find white mustard seeds from a family where no one had died. She desperately went from house to house, but to her disappointment, she could not find a house that had not suffered the death of a family member. Finally the realisation struck her that there is no house free from mortality. She returned to the Buddha. With this she was awakened.
Music under reading:聽Henryk G贸recki: I Lento Sostenuto tranquillo ma cantabile.聽 Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs)Beth Gibbons and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra聽
CHRIS:Kisagotami is all of us. The experience of pain, grief and loss is universal. We鈥檝e all been there in one way or another. Some of us will be right there at this moment. In such circumstances Christians often ask why God allows us to suffer, although God does not will us to suffer, God can use suffering. Suffering 鈥� if we鈥檙e prepared to let it 鈥� can break us open, enlarge our hearts and awaken us to our solidarity with all suffering beings, the fruit and realisation of which is infinite compassion.聽
Music under speech: John Tavener聽 鈥� ShunyaPolyphony
ROGER:鈥淚鈥檓 Roger and I鈥檝e been practising Zen and other forms of meditation for about 40 years and every day I attend Morning Prayer and Holy Communion.I was climbing a mountain in California and my leg seized up and it turned out when I got back I was having knock on symptoms so I went up to the hospital and got scanned, and the scans showed I had a brain tumour.聽聽Dukkha is translated as suffering but, I didn鈥檛 have any physical pain, no physical pain at all 鈥� to me Dukkha is distress or stress.聽 So when I got this diagnosis my mind would race around 鈥� you know, what about this? What is going to become of me and so one?聽 But when I sat down and went inside, everything was calm and still, there wasn鈥檛 a problem, so if there wasn鈥檛 a problem in that moment, how could there be a problem in any other moment.聽 I mean it might sound flippant and silly, as I say it that way but that was pretty much my experience.聽 So what Zen did for me, and what it continues to do for me, is it gives me a reliable place to go to and there鈥檚 lots of ways of doing Zen, you know once a day for 20 minutes, or once a weekend, or all weekend, but I, my wife and I, Elizabeth and I we were already doing 100 day retreats before the diagnosis so that strengthened that capacity of the mind to be calm and still.聽聽it isn鈥檛 that your mind goes dead or you get a completely silent head, because it鈥檚 the nature of the mind to think, so thoughts are coming and going, but the critical thing is to not be attached to them, not follow the pathway that leads to where they want to go.鈥�
CHRIS:The only way out is to let go of the ways in which we try to give ourselves a fixed identity and reality, we have to learn to die, to let go of our self. This is what鈥檚 meant by the Buddhist notion of Shunya or Shunyata: emptiness.
MUSIC: Angel聽Libera
CHRIS:Emptiness isn鈥檛 nothingness, it鈥檚 actually fullness. What it means is that we鈥檙e empty of a separate self, of separate existence. So the experience of emptiness is the experience of interconnectedness. This is what St Paul seems to be getting at when he uses the body as a metaphor to speak of unity in Christ. The foot, the hand, the eye, the ear all have their necessary functions as part of the body, but in isolation they aren鈥檛 the body; they can鈥檛 exist separately. The body鈥檚 all of them. So Paul asserts that 鈥榠f one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.鈥� For Paul, Jesus himself is the very embodiment of emptiness. In his letter to the Philippians, he coaxes them out of an attitude of concern for individual selves by urging them to look not to self-interest but to the interests of others. In order to do this, they鈥檙e to have the same mind in them as was in Christ Jesus, who 鈥榚mptied himself, taking the form of a slave.鈥� The mind of Christ is empty and in this emptiness is boundlessly open to everything and everyone.聽 This is what he demonstrates on the cross.聽
Music: Open Thou Mine Eyes 鈥� John Rutter聽Cambridge Singers
CHRIS:The gospels paint an all-too clear picture that Jesus flinched from the unbearable pain and suffering of crucifixion. Who wouldn鈥檛? In the Garden of Gethsemane, though, after an intense spiritual struggle, he accepted the invitation to embrace pain and suffering as the way in which these very things are ultimately deprived of their potency: 鈥楴ot what I want but what you want.鈥� In his willingness to endure the cross, Jesus affirmed his solidarity, his profound interconnectedness, with all who suffer. His acceptance of pain and suffering is the acceptance of the pain and suffering of the whole world.聽 By his wounds we are healed. The boundless openness of Jesus is the boundless openness of God, in whose compassion and love the pain and suffering of the whole world is contained. God is boundlessly open to us and calls us to be boundlessly open, too.
Music: The Lord鈥檚 My Shepherd 鈥� Stuart TownendThe Best of Stuart Townend Live
CHRIS:Simply attending to the breath can indeed lead to a sense of peace and stillness, but becoming fixated even on such things can also serve to block the flow of life. The underlying purpose is to open us up to the fullness of life, including its pain and suffering, and in so doing awaken us to our true nature as boundless openness, the realisation of which is wisdom and compassion.聽
Music under speech: Missa Brevis, Op.63, KyrieBenjamin BrittenChoir of St John鈥檚 College, Cambridge
CHRIS:Our true nature dances effortlessly in communion with everyone and everything. Once we wake up to this, we discover that however disturbing, distressing or painful life can be, however much these things threaten to throw us off course 鈥� and sometimes do, perhaps 鈥� nothing can finally shake the compassionate awareness which embraces everything. When we sit Zazen, sometimes there鈥檚 peace and stillness, at other times extreme turbulence. Such turbulence is embraced and held in a compassionate acceptance of ourselves and others and of all that life involves. Pain and suffering still occur but they come to be experienced differently.
This is perhaps the truth that was disclosed to Thomas when he finally met the Risen Christ on the evening of the first day of the week after Easter Day: that Christ had not been destroyed by the pain and suffering of the cross.聽
JANET:Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, 鈥榃e have seen the Lord.鈥櫬� But he said to them, 鈥楿nless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.鈥櫬燗 week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, 鈥楶eace be with you.鈥� Then he said to Thomas, 鈥楶ut your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.鈥� Thomas answered him, 鈥楳y Lord and my God!CHRIS:There鈥檚 a powerful message for all of us here. Waking up to the fullness of life will almost inevitably intensify our awareness of the pain and suffering of the world. The very fact of waking up, though, enables us to meet these things with a freedom, love and compassion which are indestructible, because they鈥檙e the very nature of the God who鈥檚 boundlessly open, and in whom, because we鈥檙e grounded in God, we discover ourselves to be boundless openness, too.
TONY 鈥� Evening Gatha:鈥楲ife and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken, awaken. Take heed: do not squander your life.鈥�
Music under prayers: Estampes, I. Pagodes聽Claude Debussy
ROSEMARY:Gracious God, we thank you that in Jesus Christ you show yourself to be boundlessly open. Enable us, as created in your image and likeness, to discover that same boundless openness in us.
Lord, hear us;聽Lord, graciously hear us.
MARK:We pray for all who suffer, that they might know your compassionate presence with them, enfolding and supporting them with every breath they take.
Lord, hear us;聽Lord, graciously hear us
JANET:We thank you for the gift of life and for the life of your Holy Spirit within and among us. With every breath we take help us to be open to the fullness of life, which is your gift to all in Christ.
Lord, hear us;聽Lord, graciously hear us
Music: The Lord鈥檚 Prayer 鈥� Robert StoneThe Cambridge Singers