La Sangha

In Thích Nhất Hạnh’s book Going Home, there is a short chapter he calls Finding Refuge in the Island of Self . In it, he shares his own path to finding and creating community. It is simple to see companions in other people, but we also can find community without ourselves, and with other creatures and within the teeming life of our planet itself.

When the Buddha was eighty years old and about to die, he told his disciples they should take refuge in the island of self (attadipa). Because if they go back to themselves and look deeply, they will touch the Buddha [insight], the Dharma [teachings] and the Sangha [community] in themselves. This still remains a very important practice for all of us. Every time you feel lost, alienated, cut off from life, or from the world, every time you feel despair, anger, or instability, you have to know how to practice going home. Mindful breathing is a vehicle that you use to go back to your true home where you meet the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Mindful breathing brings you home — it generates the energy of mindfulness in you. Mindfulness is the substance of a Buddha.

The Sangha, the community, is a wonderful home. Every time you go back to the Sangha, you feel that you can breathe easier, you can walk more mindfully, and you can more fully enjoy the blue sky, the white clouds, and the cyrpus tree in your yard. Why? Because the Sangha members practice going home all day, through walking, breathing, cooking, and doing their daily activities mindfully.

There are things that you don’t do easily when you are alone. But surrounded by members of the Sangha, suddenly things become easy. You don’t need to mak emuch effort to do them, and you enjoy doing them a lot.

Sangha is the door of our true home.