2024: The Year of Sangha, the practice and refuge of community
We are in a period of destabilization: the widening war in the
middle east, the deep divisions in our country, the uncertain future of democracy. Some in our nation live in a starkly different realities than others do, and it can feel impossible to even have a conversation on any agreed ground.
What can we offer in loving response? The opposite of division and mistrust is community and acceptance. The opposite of hatred and fear is oneness and love.
In our tradition, the enacted form of this is sangha, or, as is so often referenced in the sutras as a remedy for suffering, noble friends and noble conversation. We need each other for support, to bring us back to the innate qualities of our being when the world seems too violent.
Sangha is both a practice and a refuge. The fact that community is one of the three pillars of practice underscores a fundamental understanding that practice and life are inseparable. One has little meaning without the other.
Let 2024 be the Year Of Sangha.
At the heart of sangha is love.
Someone said recently: whenever someone walks in the doors of the meditation center, they are looking for community.
Sangha here is a practice. It is creating safety, both for ourselves and safety for others. There are three practice central to the practice of community:
acceptance
forbearance
forgiveness
It’s OK to be imperfect.
It’s OK to be confused, to be wounded.
On Sunday, we explored what it feels like to receive these three qualities:
- warm
- peaceful
- safe
- held
- open
- free humbling
- whole
- energizing
- understood
- connected
- values
- blessed
- welcome
- not alone
- gratitude
Looking at the list, these are powerful experiences. It’s hard to doubt that if these were given and received, there would not be much room for conflict or othering in the world.
PRACTICE ACCEPTANCE
barrier: judgement
Acceptance is to find the commonalities with others, so see them in ourselves and ourselves in others. It is practiced first internally – self acceptance – in order to be practiced outwardly. Even when those around us act in ways that challenge peace and calm, acceptance understands the states from which that fear and aggression comes from. We know them too, and can find common ground with others in pain.
The deeper realization, that form is emptiness, we are all made from the same essence of pure, open, transparent awareness, is the oneness that transcends our appearing separateness.
The historical Jesus once said, love others as yourself. In our tradition, see others as yourself.
PRACTICE FORBEARANCE
barrier: impatience
Forbearance is the holding needed when irritated by the behavior of those around us. Someone is driving too slowly, or to recklessly. Their opinions or decisions don’t seem correct. Someone is late or thoughtless. Forbearance is to see our own inner agitation and hold it with kindness, for ourselves and for those around us.
PRACTICE FORGIVENESS
barrier: resentment
We all know what it is like to withhold forgiveness, and what it feels like to extend or receive it. There’s a lightness and relief, that we can start over and try again.
These practices are wrapped in the foundation of cultivating them inwardly first, like the instruction on an airplane to put your own oxygen mask on before helping others.
Approach these practices as with metta practice. Start with yourself, then to those you love, then to random people you encounter, and finally to those who are difficult.
Do this by actively finding the edges of your acceptance, forbearance, and forgiveness – of yourself and others, and staying present. Notice and honor the places where you are holding back, to a self image, or a belief, or to control.
And show up. Look at the communities that benefit you and others. Show up. Support.
Conflict and hatred are not things to be approached with fear. This is what we took birth for. This is what we practice for. Don’t practice because you are looking for a particular result. Cultivate these things because they are the innate qualities of your beautiful heart.
As Rumi wrote:
Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.
Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings. Move within,
But don’t move the way fear makes you move.
with love,
Susan