Sangha – Giving of Yourself – August 10, 2011
Many people approach the concept of Sangha as some sort of organization or collection of practitioners whose purpose it to provide them with something. In other words people think that the Sangha exists for their benefit, and if they don’t see any benefit to themselves they see no value in participating.
Sangha is truly a community of believers and practitioners in the Dharma, but it is more than a collection of like-minded or like-practicing people. A Sangha is also not just the activities that take place on an occasional or regular basis within a physical space such as a temple. The Sangha is not simply the folks who gather on Sunday for sutra recitation or on some other day for meditation. Sangha isn’t some place we go to but is something that we immerse ourselves within.
Thich Nhat Hanh in his book Friends On The Path talks about how the Sangha in the twenty-first century is really the body of the Buddha. Just as a body consists of many cells, all of which are necessary to sustain life, so too does the Sangha consist of many individuals coming together to practice and each one is important to this 21st Century body of the Buddha.
If we think of Sangha in this way then the shift of focus moves away from what we as individuals can take away from the Sangha but what is our contribution to the Sangha. Being in the Sangha is more than what we can get from it but what we can give to it. It reminds me of John F. Kennedy’s famously quoted phrase: “…ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
Each of us has a responsibility, if we say we take refuge in the Buddha, and the Dharma to also take refuge in the Sangha. We can not effectively manifest the Dharma and the Buddha in society without our participation in making the body of the Buddha manifest in life.
Practicing Buddhism is not about what we can get from it for ourselves but what we can contribute to easing the suffering of mankind. To sit alone thinking we do not need the Sangha not only cuts us off from Sangha but also diminishes our effectiveness in carrying out the first of the Bodhisattva vows to save all beings.
When we go to the Sangha we benefit of course from the interactions with others. We also benefit from the removal of safety and security. We leave our comfort zone of our personal likes and pleasures and immerse ourselves into a living stream where we are constantly buffeted by the interactions, unscripted, and without filter, with others. It is too easy to sit alone by in isolation and surround ourselves with a filtered set of stimuli and think we are practicing correctly. Yet it is all to easy to cut ourselves off from the very things that will enable our growth. We may think, “all day long I am surrounded by people or things I really don’t find helpful with my practices and I don’t want to be around other people when I practice.’ Yet this is not how we grow in the Dharma.
This is the kind of thinking that results in viewing the Sangha as something that exists solely for ourselves and not as something that depends upon and requires our participation.
Being without a Sangha is like being without roots. Being without roots, or without connection is a common ailment in our society. People move frequently and are uprooted from family and friends. Some people come from or live in broken family situations. Many people feel rejected by society or feel they have no place in society. We live in a society of individuals, individuals who have either the desire to be free of society or family or individuals who see no other option.
Just as a plant requires roots to receive nourishment so to do we also need roots. Sitting alone at home with the TV or with a computer is not a living root from which we can receive the full nourishment of human interactions. Just as plants require a balanced nutrition provided in fertilizer and our bodies also require a variety of nutrients so too does our personality need different nutrients.
So the practice then becomes one of growing or establishing roots and then partaking the nourishment provided. The Sangha is just such a place. It is a place of transformation and healing of not only our self but of society as a whole, little by little. By taking refuge in the Sangha you can strengthen yourself, your understanding of Buddhism, your re-emergence into society, your compassion for not only yourself but for others as well. Within the Sangha you can participate in and create a new future story.
