Mindfulness Meditation Group, Roanoke, Virginia

Sangha Building July 28, 2008

The dharma reading for this week and last week was Chapter Nine, “Sangha Building,” from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Touching Peace: Practicing the Art of Mindful Living, pp. 99-115. Here’s a summary.

Thay says he sees people without roots as hungry ghosts. A “hungry ghost” is “a wandering soul who is extremely hungry and thirsty but whose throat is too narrow for food or drink to pass through.” (p. 99) A hungry ghost longs for love and beauty, but is unable to receive or touch them, turning instead, in their search for meaning, to alcohol, drugs, or sex.

The main sickness of our time is the production by society of millions of persons with no roots, no happiness at home, nothing to believe in or belong to. How can a person survive with nothing to believe in, with no energy to smile or touch beauty? Drugs are not the cause of these problems, so attempts to control drugs will have only limited success. Rather, we need to rebuild the foundations of our communities to offer people something to believe in. Science, Marxism, even the God President Bush invoked against Iraq, are all too small. Many people are turned off by others who claim to represent traditions the deepest values of which they have not experienced for themselves.

Mindfulness, on the other hand, the awareness of what is going on in the present moment, is something we can believe in. Mindfulness is not an abstraction. When we drink a glass of water, when we sit, walk, stand or breathe, we know we are drinking a glass of water, sitting, walking, standing or breathing. Mindfulness is the living buddha inside us, “giving birth to insight, awakening, compassion, and love.” All people, not just Buddhists, have these seeds of mindfulness in them, and watering these seeds can restore families.

The “five powers” taught by the Buddha are faith, energy, mindfulness, and understanding. Faith brings about energy, and a good friend can inspire faith. (p. 102) We must put our trust in what is stable; “I take refuge in the sangha” means I trust a stable community. Friends in sangha are the most essential element of the practice.

Looking deeply, we discover that what we call our “self” is made entirely of non-self bits from society, nature, ancestors, and those we love. We may resist acknowledging roots that have made us suffer, but when we connect with them, our pain begins to melt away. We see our place in the continuation from our ancestors to future generations. Rather than throw away our traditions, we must find the best elements among them, living in a way that allows joy, peace, and liberation for our ancestors, ourselves, our children, and their children.

For those abused, beaten, rejected, or severely criticized by their parents, the meditation on the five-year-old child may be helpful. “Breathing in, I see myself as a five-year-old child. Breathing out, I smile at the five-year-old child in me.” You can acknowledge your vulnerability and the pain you received as a child. Next you can visualize your parent as a five-year-old child, acknowledging his or her vulnerability, even though he or she may have been very different later as a parent, possibly victims of their own ancestors. A parent who suffered much at the hands of his own parents may not have learned how to treat his own child well. In this way, the suffering, the circle of samsara, continues. With compassionate and mindful practice, your anger may dissolve, allowing you to smile and hug your parent, saying, “I understand you, Dad [or Mom]. You suffered very much during your childhood.” (p. 105)

Meditation helps us discover the value of our families’ traditions. Divisions between people based on religious traditions have added much to suffering over the centuries. This should not occur; any insight gained into interbeing, regardless of the religious tradition, is true meditation. We cannot ask hungry ghosts to go back to their own roots; they cannot absorb any nourishment there. We must offer them a new environment where they can take root. The sangha can be modeled after the family, with dharma brothers, dharma sisters, dharma aunts, uncles, mothers and fathers. In Plum Village, Thay is “Grandpa Teacher.” The sangha family offers a new opportunity to get rooted.

Intimate, deep relationships, first with one person, then with another, and gradually with others, bring peace and harmony to everyone in the sangha. A deep desire of Thay’s is that communities organized like large families, with all the brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents, not like isolated, non-communicative islands, will help people succeed in their practice. The small nuclear family is not such a good model: there is not enough air to breathe, nowhere to escape to. Seeds of suffering are too easily transmitted when the family is too constrictive. The large traditional family provides many avenues for help.

The single parent need not think he or she must remarry; he or she may be more stable without a partner. You can transform yourself into a hermitage with air, light, and order inside, a peaceful and joyful refuge for your child and friends, your dharma brothers and sisters in the practice community. Return to your hermitage and arrange things within, opening the windows to let healthy elements in, closing the windows to keep unhealthy elements out. The single parent can learn to be both father and mother, both disciplinarian and nurturer, and can succeed with the help of friends and the community. Other adults in the sangha can serve as aunts and uncles for the child. And the practice center will benefit from the presence of children. “Children are jewels who can help the practice. If the children are happy, all the parents and non-parents will enjoy the practice.” (p. 111)

Practicing together can bring real transformation, in a good sangha where people are happy and communication is open. Time, energy, and concentration are required to build a sangha; “we have to take care of each person, staying aware of his pain, her difficulties, his aspirations, her fears and hopes.” Each of us needs this. Without a sangha, burn-out will come quickly. (p.112)

To build a sangha, find one person to join in your practice. Eventually others will join, and the sangha will include “the trees, the birds, the meditation cushion, the bell, and even the air you breathe.” The sangha where all practice deeply together is a gem. Organize in a way that is enjoyable for everyone. It will never be perfect, but imperfect is good enough. When you practice together mindfully, resisting the speed, violence, and unwholesome ways of society, you are a sangha. Substance is most important; forms, such as those of churches or other religious traditions, can be adapted. Just do everything in mindfulness. The value will be evident, not in what you say, “but through your being.”