Sangha

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

Sangha, the last of the Three Treasures, is most likely the most challenging for us in the United States. Not only are we an ego-centric and ethnocentric lot, but we have so little sense of real community. If we sit zazen and the self does, indeed, fall away, what do we have to support us? Our Lexus? Our salary? Our favorite television show?

We are not a people that puts ourselves out for the sake of the group. In fact, I suspect, we compete with and against the group in order to gain advantage in our hierarchical position within the group. Oh my.

And so, what is Sangha?

Typically we think of Sangha as a "community" of like minded individuals who have gathered together for mutual support in their practice. In olden times it was a gathering of monks. Today, its about anyone even to the vastness of all sentient beings. Way too large for me, that is. I like to know my group. I like to see them, smell them, touch them. I like to know they are human beings. That they eat, fart, and make mistakes. I like to know that they are willing to grow, to suck it up, to change. Its important that they be present when I am in need, and I am present when they are in need. Yet this cannot happen when we do not share.

Is it so challenging to unzip and step out of the jackets of our everyday existence? Is it so difficult to be known? To be vulnerable?

I suppose today it is and thus the challenge of Sangha. To take refuge in this treasure is one of the most difficult as it requires a level of trust that we don't ordinarily allow ourselves to have. Sometimes it will be abused. Sometimes there will be no one there to catch us as we fall and we will strike the floor. This should not matter. We are what we choose to be, regardless of the behavior of others.

To make Sangha work we must be Sangha from the inside out.

Consider this when you engage with someone or not engage with someone. In the end it is only your heart that matters, knowing that your heart is the heart of being.

Be well.