Sangha

This is my favorite book about Buddhism and meditiation. It defines the terms in an understandable way. It’s written by an American man from Long Island, New York, a contemporary, who lost friends when he was in college during the political turmoil of the 1960s and 70s. That redirected his nascent personal ambitions and set him on a journey that eventually led him to Nepal.

He defines sangha as a “reliable spiritual community, a place to safely rest your heart and mind.”

I am lucky to have two of these: a Sunday recovery meditation group and a Thursday women’s meditation group. Both are online (a real gift of the pandemic). They both last one hour when we meditate for twenty minutes, read about buddhism and living kindly, and discuss how we can do that in our lives.

I find meditation by myself is basic, but meditating with a like-minded group is a boon. I look forward to the groups every week.

Before I realized that life was consistently a spiritual journey not a work or relationship one, I was essentially a loner. I’m not a people person by any means, but I do need people. This life is a group experience. It is not me against them. It’s we and us in it all together.

The topic of a recent women’s sangha was the lifting of fear. One member shared that for her fear lives in the future based or the past, and the remedy is returning to the present, and living here. She returns to her breath.

So much time, hours, days, weeks even, are wasted by fear. It deprives you of everything: the ability to love, to create, to produce, to help, to enjoy your life.

And by the past, I don’t mean, back when I was a child… No , it’s what happened in the last moment, something my boss, or dean, or director, or colleague, or partner, … said about my work, my participation, my attention …

I’m safe in this very moment. Now. I can only adjust, move on, forgive, change course in the present. Be kind, in the present.

Revolutionary for me. Instead of getting stuck in a petty argument for the whole evening, or in that negative energy. To pause, to breathe, to return to my body, to look at my feet, and know I am are here. And everything is changing.

Namaste.