The sangha of my sangha
Recently, at one of my Buddhist Fellowship gatherings, the Sensei spoke about the importance of “Going for Refuge to the Sangha.” In Buddhism, the 3 most important teachings are known as “the three jewels.” The first one is the Buddha, the man who came up with a set of philosophies and guidelines that Buddhism is based on. The second is the dharma, the set of teachings that are practiced in Buddhism. The third is the sangha, the community that we practice with.
The sangha that I am a member of now is a special community to me. They are a group of people, mostly local, who are interested in sharing the dharma with each other. We share and question what we learn. We connect to “the oneness of life” through each other. We take notice of our lives and how we impact each other.
To put it plainly, I love my sangha. They are people who have helped me to connect with my inner self. As I stumble through life, learning to accept my authentic self, these people hold my heart. They are compassionate listeners who do not hold judgement. They are the teachers who share the experiences of their own lives. Since COVID, the fellowship has been holding daily morning meditation sessions on Zoom. These sessions provide a more intimate way to connect. We sit together, meditate together, repeat our going for refuge affirmations and Bodhisattva vows together. We also listen. We listen to the challenges and joys that each of us share in our daily lives.
Not everyone in the larger fellowship attends the morning meditation practice. There seems to be a fixed set of folks who attend morning meditation during the course of each week. After over a year of this ritual of daily meditations, this smaller group has become connected. I mean REALLY connected. I don’t attend every day (some folks do), but still I feel as if this subset of my sangha has become my second family. Sometimes, they might feel a little better than my family. Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love my family, unconditionally. My family is my connection, my roots, my DNA. I know my family stands behind me and will help me with whatever I need. I too support them in anyway I can. My meditation sangha however, they define compassion. They too love me unconditionally. They also love without judgement. They take my challenges into their hearts and hold space for them. For that, I am eternally grateful.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the sangha, both the larger sangha of the Salt Lake Buddhist Fellowship Community (over 100 people) and my smaller sangha of daily meditators. I wonder, what got me to this group? How did my heart connect to this magical community?
Well, the obvious answer might be COVID. There would not have been a morning meditation on Zoom if it hadn’t been for COVID. When COVID lockdowns started, and our Fellowship could no longer meet in person, the Sensei decided to create the morning meditations to help everyone feel more connected in isolation. Bam! There you go. That’s the catalyst that connected me to this group.
But wait! No, that isn’t it. The connection to the larger sangha happened way before COVID. Back in the winter of 2016, the yoga studio I was connected to was being renovated. Suddenly, I couldn’t go to yoga class anymore. What was I to do? Well honestly, in Salt Lake City there seems to be a yoga studio on every corner. So just past my corner was the studio called Vitalize. I stepped in there one Sunday morning and found a new yoga class. I noticed that right after the class, a group of friendly-looking people were setting up cushions on the floor and chairs behind the cushions. I wondered why the heck these folks were putting out the chairs. One day after class I stayed to find out. These people were setting up for the Salt Lake Buddhist Fellowship gathering. That’s how I connected to my Sangha. Aha! That’s where it all started right?
Well, maybe no. I mean back in the summer of 2015, I actually moved to Salt Lake City from Ogden, Utah. That’s when I picked this house that is so close to Vitalize where I connected to the Sangha. Yeah, that’s when it happened.
Really? What about in 2005 when my family moved to Utah? I would have never chosen to move to Salt Lake City if I hadn’t been living in Utah and realized how connected I was to the mountains in this space.
But wait! I wouldn’t have moved to Utah if I hadn’t married my husband in 1985. I may not be with him anymore, but he was the reason we moved to Utah. He took a job here.
Ok, I can’t stop there. Maybe it was my being born that has connected me to my sangha. Could that be possible? When I ponder the concept that my birth is what brought me together with the sangha, I really have to wonder. Were there other sanghas out there that I didn’t connect to? Is it truly that the sangha was waiting for me for 55 years, or was I not ready to be part of a sangha until that fateful day that I stayed after yoga class? When I think about Buddhist teachings, I understand that as a sangha we connect to, “the oneness of life.” With that teaching in mind, I realize that the oneness of life has always been there. It was there before I was born, through my life, and when I introduced myself to the local sangha. So perhaps there were other beautiful, accepting sanghas in all the other spaces that I had lived. I just wasn’t ready to find them. And what am I so concerned about? Really what matters is today. Today I am connected with these wonderful people who help me to see the beauty in all of us.
