Week 99 - Sitting in the Power

Sangha

In Buddhism, there’s a Sanskrit word they use for community. Sangha.  Sangha is not just a gathering of people.  It is people gathering with the intention to produce a mindfulness and purpose to create a harmony of togetherness.

We are an intentional community where we gather and harmonize our energies while holding respect for each other, being present with each other and authentic. Each of us participates as we struggle with the division of our minds and our hearts.

We have been gathering for 98 weeks which totals one year, 10 months and 16 days of Saturdays. We have built community together.  Our community is based on silence, intention, active presence, and bearing witness to each other to foster respect, shared ownership, and emotional depth.

Extracted from a Dharma talk by Thich Nhat Hanh in 2002.

"Taking refuge in sangha is a very deep practice. You trust the sangha. You become the sangha. If you are a drop of water, you might wonder whether you have the capacity to go to the ocean. But when you become a river, you are sure you don’t have to worry. You will certainly come to the ocean. We don’t want to be a drop of water. We want to be a river." "And by practicing becoming a river, we suffer much less. Individual suffering can be transformed very easily when we share the concern of the sangha, the happiness of the sangha, the dedication of the sangha.And that is why when we come and sit together, when we come and walk together, when we come and eat together, and work together, there’s a powerful energy in us. That energy is the energy of mindfulness. That energy is embracing the pain, looking deeply into the pain in order for us to understand the pain and to have the kind of insight that will lead to the transformation of the pain."

This is no small task. You each bring 100% of yourself to this community. It doesn’t matter if you are miserable when you come, you show up. Because you not only bring your physical body full of all the experiences you have endured in this life. You are more. You bring your energy body with its acute awareness of who you are.

Your energy body cannot be defined by your mind. Your energy body is connected to your soul, to authenticity, to your truth, your essence. It is defined by your heart, which I believe is the true mind of your being.

We are moving away from the mind’s focus as the central hub of thinking to a heart-focused capacity for being.  In all the literature I read and the mentors I learn from and the wisdom within, we are living through this transition to the heart. It is not easy. And it is well underway.

We have heard the phrase a tipping point. I have always understood a tipping point to be a point at which a gathering of energy or mass or whatever has reached the point where there is more gathered to change what was to what is.

Taken from an article on heartfulness.org, they discuss…the awakening of consciousness that is happening around the world, and the need for humanity to reach a tipping point where we can make the leap into a higher way of being.

More and more people are turning towards their heart to guide them rather than depending on their minds to figure out their direction.

It feels like a battle of sorts that has drawn two sides. It doesn’t take rocket science to feel the struggle. We are in this.

The article continues,

“You find divisions everywhere in the United States. It’s become 50-50, tossing the dice on who’s going one way and who’s going the other. But, when it comes down to it, love can heal those divisions.”

So be gentle with yourself. You are finding your tipping point. You are living proof of the struggle. You are doing nothing wrong. You are living the dichotomy of life right now, feeling the unfairness, the strife while capturing those moments of incredible harmony surrounded by intentional values. 

Love will win. Love that is not airy-fairy. Love that is fierce and exact and without question the most powerful energy in the Universe.

Love wins.