So it was Nelson Mandela who said,
No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or her background or his religion.
People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate they can be taught to love.
For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
We've been exploring these refuges in this Buddhist tradition and last week we looked at the first refuge of refuge in the Buddha or the awakened nature within us.
The second refuge is in the Dharma,
The Tao,
The teachings of opening to the way things are.
And the topic for today is the third refuge,
The refuge in Sangha,
The refuge in Sangha community.
It's the recognition that we can't do this alone.
And so the third refuge,
This Pali word Sangha,
It means something like association.
It represents a support or an orientation that we can feel.
So when I first started practicing meditation at Green Gulch Farm which was part of the San Francisco Zen Center,
Something that I noticed straight away was that I would talk to people who were living at the Green Gulch Farm where I was practicing and you know at first I would play these sort of social games that I did when I was still actively drinking or right after I got sober and then I went to the farm and started practicing.
But I would play these games like you know I would say things to sort of get their approval or prop myself up in some way to get them to like me,
To you know kind of put across this idea of myself as smart.
I would build up this sense of self so I could belong to this community.
And what was so striking for me is that there wouldn't be a really strong response to all of the propping up.
It's like the monastics didn't participate in the game that I was playing and in their non-response I was mirrored.
Like I could really see myself more clearly in what I was doing.
What I was trying to do,
This propping myself up to be seen in a particular way kind of bounced back at me and I saw it much more clearly.
And at first it was sort of uncomfortable but it was it really genuinely is what inspired me.
Like I want to be around people that I don't have to prop myself up because I'd rather learn what I'm doing that's kind of off-putting and correct for it than to go along unconsciously because I'm not seeing it.
So being in this community I wasn't conforming to the group but in a sense it felt like I was becoming more myself.
The idea of people liking me or fitting in that was all part of this conforming that I had just been doing my whole life trying to get you to like me.
And so my connection first to the Zen Center and then later with Goenka Vipassana Centers and then I found Spirit Rock.
It wasn't about conforming to the community but the community supporting me becoming more fully myself.
But not the kind of self that is caught in building up a sense of self,
A preoccupied self or self-centeredness you know.
I could see all those things operating but it was really helpful because I didn't have to believe it so much.
I could let go of it.
And in this way I started to become freer and I think with this aspect of community I think we're constantly or consistently working with becoming freer to be ourselves.
One of the tasks of community is to help you become freer in yourself.
And you don't become freer by conforming or blindly just going along.
You know your voice matters.
Your thoughts and opinions,
They matter.
Some people believe that in order to be a good practitioner you know you're supposed to conform.
And one way to conform is there's a general sense that you know a meditation community is highly valued for being kind and accepting of what is.
But if what you're feeling isn't kind maybe it's angry or annoyed.
What about that?
What happens is many people in spiritual communities stuff their feelings or hide them or pretend that they're not there.
So the thing that's valued,
This kindness,
This acceptance,
That's seen but those aspects that you perceive as not valued we're not willing to show them.
And the invitation that I'm offering is show them.
Show them.
It's okay.
You're safe here you know to show them.
I remember hearing this really funny story about the Zen teacher Ed Brown and Ed Brown he married my husband and I and he wrote this lovely book called the Tassajara Bread Book.
Some of you might know it.
And he ran the kitchen at Tassajara Zen Center which was part of the San Francisco Zen Center but it was a remote location in the Carmel Valley.
And he also ran the kitchen at Green Gulch Farm for a period of time and Green's restaurant in San Francisco that was part of Zen Center too.
And Ed is a really really sweet man and he has a pretty volatile side to him.
He had a lot of trauma growing up.
And so kitchens are kind of like pressure cookers in retreat centers and in those early days my current teacher Gil Fronsdal was working in the kitchen with Ed and Ed got really pissed off at somebody and Gil shared that he took a knife and he threw it in the direction of this person this monastic that he was angry with.
And it didn't hit him but that's what happened.
And when there's a conflict and you know they you know when there's a conflict in a Buddhist community the idea is that this is an opportunity to meet and get to the other side of the conflict.
Every conflict represents some golden opportunity.
So we don't want to push away aspects of ourselves into the shadows and we don't want to get so irritated that we throw our knives either.
And fortunately we have a practice that is kind of corrective to working with our shadow side.
When we see these sides of ourselves or they've been mirrored back to us in some way through our community we become freer.
We grow.
It's not a bad thing to see your shadow side.
It can be humbling and it's a part of this practice.
It can be corrective.
You know in my personal experience quite recently as some of you know I've been committed really committed to building this meditation community since 2016.
Offering classes and retreats,
Hosting potlucks.
Some of you remember in the early days I would bake cookies and bring them to the chapel.
Just efforting,
Efforting,
Efforting.
But not saying that underneath all of this effort I wasn't asking for help.
In fact I have such a hard time asking for help that the tendency is that I'll wait until I'm absolutely desperate before reaching out.
And so I'm completely spent and I didn't see it until I was kind of ready to stop teaching altogether and just walk away.
You know I keep teaching about community and I'm attached.
You know I see my attachment to building the community but I wasn't it wasn't until I started to say something to you all that I can't do this by myself.
I can't do this alone.
And it was uncomfortable to say that.
We need each other.
It's so humbling to know that this Sangha cannot grow without each other contributing to it.
And I know for myself having practiced in community so deeply when I was in California before moving to Colorado.
You know the first thing when we moved here that I felt was that missing of the community of practitioners.
That's why I started this community of Roaring Fork Insight because I know from my early experience that I can't I can't practice without a community of people practicing along with me.
I can't have practice without people who have been practicing some of you longer than me who show up and give me a sense of encouragement along the way.
I can't practice without having teachers saying keep going.
I'm fortunate to have the zoom access to have my teacher say keep going.
When I was in the Bay Area I was I lived five minutes from Spirit Rock Meditation Center.
So I had a lot of peers and teachers to support and give me feedback and to mirror my behavior.
And the value of that is immeasurable.
We were really mirrors for each other.
We really are.
So as one of my aspirations as we build community is that we build a community where it's okay to have conflict,
Disagreement.
I sent out a survey just last night.
You know there's a possibility of a Mid Valley location at Emma Schoolhouse and it's a funky place.
There's an outhouse and it's kind of dilapidated and it's very different than what we're coming from.
I want to hear from you about that if that feels like it's something you want or not want.
No one's going to turn your back here.
Rather we can discuss and we can find out how people feel.
It's supportive to be in a community that has the value of it's okay to have conflict or disagreement.
We can be dedicated to being honest.
One of my dearest friends she's a Dharma sister and a really deep practitioner.
Some years ago she came to visit with her family and it wasn't a good visit because her daughter she got altitude sickness and my son didn't get along with her because they didn't have a whole lot in common.
And our family is pretty athletic and her family is really not.
So there was this tension and at the time we didn't talk about it and after she left we didn't talk for like a month which was really unusual for us because we talked every week.
So I finally called her and I asked her what was up and she very kindly pointed to my shortcomings on what happened for her in the visit.
My selfishness.
How it occurred for her to be here.
And it was some strong feedback.
And after some long uncomfortable silence and thinking through what I was hearing I was able to respond.
And because of that conflict we are closer than we've ever been.
We learned something about ourselves and it was really good.
The Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh has stated that the next Buddha may be the Sangha the community of practitioners.
And my hope is that we grow together as our understanding of our interdependence grows.
You know together collectively we help one another grow and awaken.
So thank you for your kind attention.
These are my reflections on Sangha and I'd like to hear yours.
So thank you.
