Why Sangha?
“The next Buddha will be a Sangha” – Thich Nhat Hanh
Sanghas are communities of monastic and/or lay Buddist practitioners. A sangha is the best way to practice meditation, as it offers deep support and wisdom for beginners and seasoned practitioners alike, and can start with a minimum of four practitioners. Not only do they help create a routine and improve individual practice, but the energy of a community of practitioners can create ripples of understanding and compassion that reverberate throughout society and the world.
Why Sangha?
Alone we are vulnerable, but with brothers and sisters to work with, we can support each other
We cannot go to the ocean as a drop of water—we would evaporate before reaching our destination.
But if we become a river, if we go as a Sangha, we are sure to arrive at the ocean…
You need a sangha;
you need a brother or sister, or friend to remind you what you already know.
The Dharma is in you, but it needs to be watered in order to manifest and become a reality.
A Sangha is a community of resistance, resisting the speed, violence,
and unwholesome ways of living that are prevalent in our society.
There is no religion, no philosophy, no ideology higher than brotherhood and sisterhood.
Not even Buddhism.
In society, much of our suffering comes from feeling disconnected from one another. Being with the
Sangha can heal these feelings of isolation and separation. We practice together, share a room
together, eat side by side and clean pots together. Just by participating with other practitioners in the
daily activities we can experience a tangible feeling of love and acceptance.
A sangha is a garden, full of many varieties of trees and flowers.
When we can look at ourselves and at others as beautiful, unique flowers and trees
we can truly grow to understand and love one another.
One flower may bloom early in the spring and another flower may bloom in late summer. One tree
may bear many fruits and another tree may offer cool shade. No one plant is greater, or lesser, or the
same as any other plant in the garden. Each member of the sangha also has unique gifts
to offer to the community.
We each have areas that need attention as well. When we can appreciate each member’s contribution
and see our weaknesses as potential for growth we can learn to live together harmoniously. Our
practice is to see that we are a flower or a tree, and we are the whole garden as well, all interconnected.
https://plumvillage.app/a-short-guide-to-joining-or-starting-a-sangha/
Let’s work on our online Sangha here, at NB. With all that’s going on in the world….I miss my little safe place to practice. 🙏
Any ideas? Ways to foster the community feel and participation? More Buddhist topics, yes?
Comments
What a beautiful and timely sharing @Vastmind.
With the Buddha often offering several remedies for various ailments, and being precise on the right view on this and that issue, I nearly fell off my chair when I read the following story a few months ago:
Start of story (italic does not seem to work):
"Ananda went to his cousin, the one we call the Buddha.
Ananda was the Buddha’s assistant, so he was around all the time. That’s important to the story, just to say that Ananda heard essentially everything that the Buddha said.
So, one day Ananda went to his cousin, like I said. And Ananda said,
“I think spiritual friendship, sangha, is half of the spiritual path. It’s so important to our journey.”
And the Buddha replied, “Ananda, spiritual friendship is the whole way. Find refuge in the sangha."
(end).
I believe we have all indulged in a lot of divisive and harsh speech lately.
And so we are suffering the consequences. I too miss, as you say, "my little safe place to practice".
Mode Buddhist topics, definitely!
This is one reason I opened the "my Dharma practice today" thread that I am very happy to see has already gained some traction.
I think italic does work.
But you are right. How do we build the sangha? I heard there is a new film out called ‘Wisdom of Happiness’ in which the Dalai Lama talks you through his philosophy, which seems to be quite good. He is doing his bit at 90 years old to build the sangha.
We aren’t all as respected as the Dalai Lama, but we can fill our little corner of the internet with what eloquence we can gather together.
The Buddha Sangha is a tough call too. For example. The Dharma is everywhere in everything. One could say the three jewels are One and the Same...
https://billhulet.substack.com/p/internal-alchemy-part-four-ad1
Lobby, this part hit to me:
“ You can be an enlightened Buddhist master, for example, and still be an ethical moron who willingly supports the most oppressive regimes and who exploits his students.
This point hasn’t been lost on the Buddhist tradition, which is why many teachers put a big emphasis on the concept of “compassion”. The idea is that you don’t just learn how your mind operates, but you also put a lot of work into building up your sense of compassion for all other sentient beings. Indeed, my first meditation teacher told me that “smart guys like you need to REALLY work on compassion because you can get so angry at the stupidity you see all around you”. Sage advice indeed.”
I will admit, anger and frustration has been getting the better of me …..And, truthfully, I’ve been justifying that anger by what I think/feel is the compassion that fuels it. Quite the mind mix-up, hahaha.
Next part of the read:
“ There is a complexity to compassion however. You need to learn what is and is not something to get upset or compassionate about. It is easy to see the simple problem when a gang of criminals rob you. But there are types of crime that are totally invisible unless you have the information needed and the intelligence to “make the connection”. There are also a great many responses that one can have to any given situation. It is one thing to recite the Metta Sutta when you are the passive recipient of violence, it is another thing altogether to find a way to act on the basis of the urgings of your compassionate heart. And once you accept that compassion is more than just passively responding to whatever conventional morality dictates as being “bad”, then there has to be some sort of process for deciding when and how one needs to respond.”
This. I’ve really been practicing this lately ….once I saw that I didn’t like how/where the anger was showing itself. Once WFH was revoked, being in cubicles all day with many different types of people, I’ve been working on it. Pray for me, 😜….. And even here, I do recognize there have many times when responding was a knee jerk reaction that later, I felt did the NB Sangha a disservice.
May we be the inspirational type. 😁
Gratitude for the teaching I received. 🙏 ❤️
Do you have his next post after that refers to Practical Philosophy? I do see he has a book that came out that next year (2016)…I think I’ll support him and buy it, either way
@lobster
Who's the teacher?
Bill…from substack.
Its the link that Lobster posted. Read it., it’s good.
...seems old and wise. Still posting on Mastodon. She is also an alchemist. Androgenous with many false trails for the record...
Whatever happens you will end up with pure Sangha gold...
https://billhulet.substack.com/p/the-new-book-is-almost-here
My sangha is largely nature these days. Old white pines have much to teach. As did the songs of 2 Grey Jays while hiking this afternoon. The pattern of the wind on the water. I don't live remotely close to anyone who does Buddhist teachings.
We had a small group here once upon a time that dissolved after the teacher decided he didn't want to deal with a group so far from his home location (even though he only saw us once a year). He helped us start a local group and then we did a yearly retreat together, and also watched his weekly teachings remotely for several years. If I'm being honest it made me a little bitter that I took refuge vows with him where we both made promises in the student-teacher relationship and he bailed after saying he was responsible to be my teacher forever 😆 The local guy who started that Sangha no longer considers himself Buddhist. Several of the people were older and have since passed. A group leader I am not. I miss gathering in a group with like-minded curiosity and interest. It was especially nice in meditation. The pitfalls of living in a rural town with 3,000 residents 😂 Our local Presbyterians do a meditation group, I have considered joining them even though it is Christan-focused just to have the group connection.
It’s nice to hear about your surroundings @karasti. I live in the flevopolder, a large area of land reclaimed from the sea in the sixties. It’s flat, no hills, and mostly a meter or two below sea level. A large area is now a nature reserve of wetlands, the rest is farmland and there are two large towns, in the smaller of which I live. About 80,000 inhabitants.
The sangha, being a group of spiritual friends, isn’t so easy to find around here either. There are many diverse streams of culture in the town, which has more than its fair share of Turkish, Maroccan, Surinam and Indonesian immigrants. There are mosques and churches, but no Buddhist temples. I heard of a Buddhist nun from Myanmar who had come to stay, perhaps I will look her up. Otherwise I make do with an online sangha.