Sangha is sanskrit for community — gathering together. In the buddhist sense, sangha supports our resilience, individually and collectively, when we meditate together and learn from our friends in dharma.
In these strange days of boredom and anxt, loneliness and zoom-fatigue, as we are collectively confronted with change and uncertainty beyond our control, we still have choices to make. Many of us are trying new things, exploring new coping strategies, learning new skills. We reach for things that feel like they might help, like meditation, like art-making, or joining the sourdough cult…
I find myself returning to old practices with a sense of renewed energy. I am grateful at this stage of life to have many familiar and well-used tools in my kit. And sangha is a key support to all the rest — companionship in practice.
And yet, when we gather and quiet ourselves a little, make room for rest, make space for contemplation, we may not be immediately satisfied with the experience. We wonder if this will work, are we doing it right, what is it even that we are doing? Arriving with curiosity is helpful, and perhaps even with a passion to explore: what is this state of luminous mind I have heard about and maybe, maybe, caught glimpses of already? What really is this thing called equanimity? Or fearless enlightenment?
These are questions that can be thought in words, and they are worth inquiring about, reading about, discussing. The answers, however, are beyond language. They are uncovered through experience. Again and again, coming back to a simple refrain, “what is this?” Becoming acquainted with our minds, building tolerance for experience, making friends with what we find there, never leaving the world we are in and made of: this is practice. Not a cure, not a remedy, but something that helps us to be truly here in our precious life.
It’s so lovely to practice together.
