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I'm not anti-Sangha, but...
...is it wrong for me to think that practicing/studying the Dharma should be primarily a personal activity? Perhaps it's because I began practicing Buddhism before a Sangha was available to me...or maybe it's because the only Sangha within reasonable distance now is Korean Zen and I consider myself Theravada and thusly it doesn't seem a very good fit for me.
But moreover, I feel that the Dharma should mean something special to you yourself as opposed to simply agreeing with what your teacher says. Of course I feel that other opinions can be beneficial, and I still do go to my temple for services. But I mostly do private practice without the assistance of a Sangha.
I guess my point of this post is this - what do you find beneficial about a Sangha? Is there something I'm missing?
But moreover, I feel that the Dharma should mean something special to you yourself as opposed to simply agreeing with what your teacher says. Of course I feel that other opinions can be beneficial, and I still do go to my temple for services. But I mostly do private practice without the assistance of a Sangha.
I guess my point of this post is this - what do you find beneficial about a Sangha? Is there something I'm missing?
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But he also said, in a famous sutta: Yes, you are totally right there. Spot on. The sense of a shared enthusiasm is very motivating. At the monastery there were all these other people keen on studying the suttas, keen on meditating, keen on living a wholesome life.
There is a shared purpose.
There was a sense of brotherhood (or sisterhood) and everyone supported everyone else.
If someone had a difficult question, they could ask anyone, and quickly other people would become involved, scriptures researched, people would remember if they had encountered such a question in the past, and the question would be answered.
If someone was having a hard time emotionally or mentally, they could go off by themselves and chill out for a few days or weeks if they liked, but they could also engage, and depend on their fellow dharma-buddies to help them out.
I would never even consider leading a Buddhist life without either a lay-sangha or a monastic one.
And here's the Buddha again: In terms of householders, the Buddha says in the Dighajanu Sutta (AN 8.54):
I am in your same boat. I am a Theravada practitioner with no Theravada monastery close(closest is an hour, and the one I go to most frequently is 5 hours away). I am also the only buddhist I know in my daily life. I find nothing wrong with this. I am fine when I am alone, and I'm fine when I am with Dhamma friends.
There is nothing wrong with both. The Buddha talked about dhamma friends being important, but he also talked about how we all must trod our own path, and this is what he had to say when it came down to the business of meditation -
"There is the case where a monk, having gone to the wilderness, to the shade of a tree, or to an empty building, sits down folding his legs crosswise, holding his body erect, and setting mindfulness to the fore.[1] Always mindful, he breathes in; mindful he breathes out.
I do not feel a dire need for a teacher, and the monastics I learn from that I consider teachers, like Bhante G who is five hours away from me, are very big on taking your practice directly from the four Nikayas. This is how they practice and this is how they teach. I have all four of those Nikayas and can access the Buddha's words any time. I also have the confidence to trust my gut in matters of meditation practice and lack little doubt as to its benefits and worth.
If you do have some doubts and troubles, having dhamma friends close can be of great help to your practice.
I admittedly have a preference to meditate alone in the places the Buddha mentioned. I have trouble meditating inside, even meditation halls. This has more to do with my own attachments and aversions then any person or community of course.
Maybe it comes down to personal style and preference in the end. The Buddha said to wander alone like a rhinoceros, but he also stressed the usefulness of a sangha. So there is lots of flexibility along that spectrum.
My approach so far has been a pretty communal one, with lots of monasteries and meditation centres nearby.
I sure miss my twice weekly or more contacts with my sangha from years ago. I really feel I'd be better off if I had one nearby now. I have to go great distances now to "go back home" to my "sangha." As it is, for now I'm stuck in South Carolina; it's a beautiful place full of beautiful people. However, as was once famously said by S.C. Congressman James Petigru in December of 1860 (when the special state convention voted 169 - 0 to secede from the Union): "South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum." Believe me, the people striving to follow dharma on Newbuddhist aren't a tenth as crazy as some of the people who inhabit my state.
A sangha is good grounding. To those who say it's an extra, who believe that the teaching is just "taught" and not "caught" from living vessels: "Don't say that, Ananda. Don't say that. Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life. When a monk has admirable people as friends, companions, & comrades, he can be expected to develop & pursue the noble eightfold path.
It helps you focus in specific ways but remains conditional to those surroundings.
Beyond that controlled environment is the chaos and compromises of a wider world that is society at large.
Practising with a Sangha (those who pay homage to the Buddha and his teachings) is a training that challenges and hones ones meditative skills beyond all worlds, to flourish where ever you go.
For me, my teacher(s) are more guides. I don't listen to what my main teacher says and just take it as The Word or anything like that. I listen to what he says and take whatever I can use. Sometimes, I don't agree, and I am ok with that, and so is he. The path, the journey, is still very personal and very individual. But I really enjoy the support. Not just in teaching but in simply knowing others who are on the same path and who can nod in agreement when I have question or a problem. To share in joy in each others lives yet travel the path alone.
I did fine without a sangha. And 6 days a week I practice alone. But I appreciate and enjoy the one day a week I can come together with them as well. Kindred spirits are nice, especially when you feel surrounded by people who don't understand where you are coming from.
I use this site a bit as a sangha.
It often is a big dissapointment.
Sometimes its really usefull for some insights tough.
Definition of layman:
1. a man who is not a member of the clergy
or
2. a person who does not have specialized or professional knowledge of a subject
We could try harder but the disappointment is yours to deal with . . .
The reason for community is reinforcement for the karmically challenged. Some sangha and community have been at it for years. Water off a ducks back. They still quack. However there are far more who provide insight, experience, knowledge, an open ear and a spare mala. Some are even enlightened (it happens). :clap:
I guess the closest I've ever come to feeing the " energy" is last year on Vesak it was also an Uposatha day and there were about 8 of us who stayed up very late meditating with Bhante Seelananda. We arranged our cushions in a half circle and meditated. It was rough for me to meditate for so long but I did feel a bit of a connection with the others doing this special activity.
I will admit though to feeling an attraction to monastics and the life of a monastic, or else I would not be planning to become one. There is something impressive about this life that draws me towards it, but thats a bit off topic.
"You are your own teacher. Looking for teachers can’t solve your own doubts. Investigate yourself to find the truth - inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important." - Ajahn Chah
Perhaps its one of the same benefits of a sangha.
Alone: Questions arise; Questions get answered - through reading books, watching various teachers/Buddhist monks on video, and searching within oneself for the answers - (with the aid of the 4NTs and the 8 Fold path and perhaps even some suttas).
Within Sangha: Questions arise; Questions get answered - through readings suggested by teachers/Buddhist monks, with some one on one conversation, and being advised to do some searching within oneself for the answers - (with the aid of the 4NTs, the 8 Fold Path and more than likely some suttas) ....
Don't let anyone imply that you are somehow less a student of Buddhism if you can't - or don't wish to be - in a formal, real-life sangha. It is not for everyone, nor is it a strict requirement.
I don't think you necessarily HAVE to have a Sangha, but perhaps your case is just that you haven't found the "right" Sangha for you. Also, in a way, the people in this forum are a type of Sangha.
I tend to be of the belief that whether you belong to a Sangha or not, the entire Buddhist community worldwide is your Sangha. Whether you visit with your teacher in person or not, you would not be able to even be a Buddhist (most of us anyhow) without having teachers, even if your only teacher is Buddha himself only through the Sutras. No matter how solitary you are in your practice, you are still part of a larger Buddhist community simply by identifying as Buddhist.
To train with a Sangha is to be spiritually challenged through that interaction. So many beings in the proccess of trying to let go of a lifetime of identity habits with varying degrees of success. It is like living in a meditative gym where Individual delusions get very little support.
What you are missing by training alone is the taking on of group delusions that are often entangled in the practise itself.
Both have there pro's & cons.
Practicing with others, the danger is laziness.
In Zen, there is a sangha metaphor about a farmer who harvests his potatoes, puts them in a burlap bag, ties the top and throws them into a flowing stream. The potatoes rub against each other and become clean.
Chah is the only being In my experience where when people say he was enlightened I think.. "hmm, very possible".
from what I read and heard he would often push away students who grew too attached to him by sending them out of country to start their own monasteries lol.
I realize that I also should've mentioned about the Sangha I visit that's Korean Zen - the only person there that I converse with is the teacher; I'm inherently a very shy person and don't converse with the other members of the temple. That's of course by no fault of theirs - some of them have seen me by myself and have started up conversations. I think I'm just a pretty awkward person! Everyone is at least a decade older than I am and they all just seem so...far away. If that makes any sense.
I don't know if this makes any of your answers any different. Does me being a shy person make it any more excusable to almost dismiss the importance of a sangha in MY daily life? (Please please please do not read that as me dismissing its importance in general! I swear I understand the importance of a sangha to many Buddhists.)
So, no, I don't think you are awkward or anything, it's just who you are. But, don't let it stop you from doing something you *want* to do because you might wonder what the others think of you. Chances are, you feeling awkward is much more you worrying about what they think about you, and chances are, they don't think anything awkward about you at all.
Lastly, why do you feel a need to excuse the fact that you don't want, or feel the need to have a sangha? If you don't need it or want it, then that is ok. You don't need to come up with a reason or excuse to NOT have one in order to satisfy us, or anyone else. As long as you are satisfied with your practice, that is what matters.
At least that is true for me.
So when I joined a sangha –and in this context that word simply means a Buddhist group - I ran into my particular lack of skills and ineffective patterns of behavior. That really shouldn’t have been a surprise. I ran into them in my work, I would have encountered them in any other group that I wanted to become a part of.
Sangha turned out to be life; not a school for life; just life. When I look back I think I was naïve about that. I must have thought that a Buddhist group was a safe place like a swimming class and that the teacher was like the instructor maybe. But instead it turned out to be just deep water.
Some jump in knowing how to swim and they’re fine.
Some jump in and learn how to swim and they pass through some personal growth.
Some jump in and when they seem to drown someone sees it and is capable of giving the useful instructions.
But when you’re not so lucky you just drown and people laugh behind your back.
That’s life; that’s deep water; that’s sangha.
I’ll get to my point. I wonder how “practice” relates to “personal growth” and how “personal growth” relates to “waking up” and what the role of sangha in all of that is.
First of all I think sangha should be a safe place for practice. I don’t know about all Buddhist groups, but where I’ve been there was little organization. For instance when you finished a sesshin - and that can be an intense experience - you simply went back home. No-one there to help you sort it out.
The least they could have done was talk about it at the end of the sesshin and say something like:”Listen; this kind of serious meditation may actually do something to you. Take it easy for some time. Don’t do anything crazy. Here are some people you can call when you need to talk.”
Secondly personal growth is good for you, but in a sense it’s beside the point. For instance when you get a job like being the cook for the sesshin, you can learn a lot about how to cook and about how to organize the kitchen and about how to get a team to do a good job.
All of that is great; but it’s not the main reason you’re there. We’re all there to wake up.
In Zen we love a job well done. We love to have the place ridiculously clean and orderly at all times. We think the world ends when we miss a prescribed bow or a bell or a clap. The way we fold our napkin appears to be crucial for our chances to enlightenment.
But the truth is we can wake up to a mess. When we fuck up, that’s a great moment for having a glimpse. And – the way I see it – we can fully wake up and still don’t know how to run a kitchen.
Maybe we should ask ourselves these questions. This Buddhist group that we’re in is it a safe place? Why do people drop out? Do we care? Or are we really just competing with our fellow practitioners for status in the group and for getting close to the teacher?
And also; why are we really here? What we get all excited about; the folding of the napkin, the rituals and the robes; or even the personal growth, the social skills or the lack thereof; is that what our practice is about?
I woke up in the middle of the night and this is what I was thinking about. I wrote this and only after that I noticed this thread about the benefits of sangha.
I guess it depends on the sangha and on what you want from it.
You can get some “personal growth” in a safe sangha.
But “waking up” is done here and now.
Sorry for the long post
I may be one of the gawky awkward Buddhas - when I awaken.
The perfect sangha, perfect teacher and perfect practitioner is hard to find in the realm of samsara. Buddhists are often a little distant, comes from too much composure and equanimity. As our social skills can be improved, how can we go about this?
Maybe I will start with Instant Messaging . . . Anyone recommend a friendly Buddhist place for the socially inept?
:wave:
That's making what most people would see as a weakness, into a strength.
So, good work.
I've been to the dharma center twice now -- the first time I was really nervous, the second time I was a little better (especially after the discussion at the end. I didn't really say much, but I got a better sense of the other people) and got more out of meditating there, and I know the more I go the more I will get out of being there.
If this is something that you just don't feel is going to be helpful to you right now, that's ok. Everyone is different, and it may take more time before looking for a group and/or teacher is the right thing for you to do. Feeling shy and awkward (as I do much of the time) is not necessarily an easy thing to deal with, but it can get better -- but don't rush yourself. There's nothing wrong with doing things at your own pace.