What is the SANGHA

(11) What is The SANGHA ? ...it's 'dedicated' community

( 11 ) What is SANGHA ? – Non-Isolation

3 Jewels • Buddha • Dharma • Sangha

• Are You Being Open to Practice-SUPPORT ?

To Spiritual Community? To Sangha?

• Sangha / Satsang .. Definition

• The Journey: to find, nourish and cultivate

wise, kind, good Dharma-friends

• The Buddha's "Rhinoceros Sutra"

• 'Connection' is our natural state

Allowing Yourself to Be ‘Supported’

You can’t do this journey alone !

• FREE Meditation-Practice Consultation:

Personal Support from our teacher n' crew

• Encoragement to keep sitting Regularly...

• "Sell your cleverness" ~ Rumi poem

• "You are part of a huge groundswell now"

• Having a consistent ongoing meditation

group for 'practice-support'

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c o m m u n i t y

Image:SudhodannaAndHisCourt.jpg

Maharaja Sudhodanna and His Royal Court in Attendance to The Buddha

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Non-Isolation

"Just as a drop of water falling into the great ocean

Is never depleted even before the ocean ever dries up –

Likewise, with the full 'Intent' I now dedicate to Awakening,

will never be depleted before my Enlightenment is fully attained."

~ Buddha Shakyamuni

♦ The Sangha / Satsang / Support:

Sincere & dedicated 'truth-seekers' –

who have a willing, supportive, shared,

local common spiritual-ground together

Sat: 'truth' • Sang: a 'community' with a focused intent. Sat-Sang-ha: to Sit Together in Truth.

Sincere & dedicated 'truth-seekers' who have a shared, 'identified', common spiritual-ground –

Companions on the Path: be it lay people or ordained monks & nuns – be it a Buddhist practice,

Advaita, Sufi, Red Road, Wicca, Gnostic, Abra'hamic, Indigenous or some other spiritual tradition

that has history and endured. They have 'Refuge'. ( "communities of faith" contemporary usage:

an open, honest, truth-sharing 'faith-based community'. We’re on our way to spoiling this word also )

"Spiritual Friendship" ~ a "good friend", a "virtuous friend", a "noble friend", an "admirable friend"

and most certainly, the 'Teacher' as a “Kalyana-Mitta” will be found in the next section that follows.

"Again, traveler - you have come a long way led by that star.

But the 'Kingdom of The Wish' is at the other end of the night.

May you fair well, compan'ero - Let us journey together joyfully,

Living on catastrophe, eating the pure light." ~ Thomas McGrath

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Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle,

and the life of that candle will not be shortened.

Happiness never decreases by being shared. ~ The Buddha

We are all birthed into a ‘Sangha’ - into 'sacred community'.

It's called the 'World'. It is flowing – it feels and it moves. ~ Adyashanti

In a properly organized group no 'faith' is required.

What is required is simply a little trust and even that

only for a little while, for the sooner a person begins

to verify for them-self all that they learn, the better it is. ~ G. I. Gurdjieff

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"Rhinoceros Sutra"

Friend, Journey to where one can

find & cultivate good Dharma-friends:

Those who are intelligent, learned

in clear, non-dual Dharma-Wisdom.

With their own mastery of the kind,

compassionate Dharma in Practice -

with freedom from 'misconceived' actions.

What the wise call 'Becoming Noble Beings'.

If one should find such wise, caring companions –

Well-behaved, open, kind, strong, rich with integrity -

Those practicing the overcoming of all 'internal-dangers' -

with a loving, kind mind, with delight at the prosperity of others -

Becoming content at heart, independent, attentive and mindful.

Understanding the Dharma, abandoning delusion & false belief,

unopposed to the whole world, unhindered by the entire world –

One should certainly journey the Way together in noble Sangha.

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Laying aside all violence towards all beings,

not harming even one amongst them,

benevolent and sympathetic with a loving, kind mind,

contented, one should wander alone like the wild rhinoceros.

If one should find a wise companion, a well-behaved, strong fellow,

who practices kindness, impartiality, mercy, freedom from impulses

– then overcoming all dangers, one should wander along with him,

satisfied at heart, mindful. Let us walk together like a pair of rhinoceros.

If one should not find a good companion, a well-behaved fellow,

then like the king who has abandoned the realm that he had conquered,

one should wander alone like the noble solo wild rhinoceros.

~ The Gandhari "Rhinoceros Sutra" ( Khargavisana-sutra excerpt )

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The real accomplishment in life is

the Art of Being a ‘Spiritual Warrior'.

A ‘spiritual warrior’ is the only way to

balance the terror of being Human

with the wonder of being Human.

~ Carlos Castaneda

Good timber
does not grow with ease.
The stronger the wind –
the stronger the trees.

~ Williard Marriott

'Connection' is our natural state . . .

When plagued with a sense of unworthiness, it is easy to feel deficient and to see

the outside love of another person as the only possible solution to one’s plight.

Meditation tends to work against this assumption of 'deficiency' by restoring the

innate capacity for connection from the inside. It is like a stealth bomber that

sneaks through all the defenses and illuminates the central fortress of the heart.

In doing this, it challenges the common assumption of our culture about where

'connection' comes from. In the Buddhist view, connection is already present.

We are not as 'separate' and 'distinct' as we think we are.

'Connection' is our natural state – we just have to re-learn to permit it.

~ from psychiatrist Mark Epstein’s book, "Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart:

A Buddhist Perspective on Wholeness" – Mark is one of a growing number of

psychotherapists trying to integrate Buddhism with the concepts of Western

psychology in an effort to help people change their views and their lives.

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"East is East, and West is West,

and never the twain shall meet –

until Earth and Sky stand presently

at God’s great Judgment Seat.

But then there is neither East nor West,

nor Border, nor Breed, nor Birth – when

two strong, good men stand face to face,

tho’ they come from the ends of the earth !"

~ Rudyard Kipling

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" Aho Mitakuye Oyasin "

( Lakota language: a popular greeting that says

"To all My Relations & Relationships & Relatings" )

If the people lead,

then the leaders will follow !

We Are One Planet,

We Are One People,

We Are One Mind,

We Are One Spirit!"

~ Robert 'Standing Eagle' Marshall,

"We Are All Related" Foundation

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• What is SANGHA for ?

PRACTICE-SUPPORT

& ENCOURAGEMENT

• Allowing Yourself to Be ‘Supported’

In Your Practice By Your Practice

and By Your Fellow Meditators.

You can’t do this alone ! Why try?

A Sincere Inner-Inquiry: Are you a willingly 'Supportable'-type of person ?

Supportable - Do you reach out for meditation-practice support naturally?

A core characteristic of these 'Questions' comes up often in meditation class,

individual by individual over time – as meditator’s practices gradually progress.

Please do some gentle Inner-Inquiry here: With or Without ‘Judging-mind’ – yet just

notice if it’s there. How you ‘do allow’ or you ‘don’t allow’ yourself to be “supportable”.

How you avoid ‘support’ - or just don’t even know that support is available to you in all

that you do, and how you just go doggedly on – off on your own. Alone . . . These are

only some of the hidden, isolative scenarios of how people approach the difficult sides

of ‘spiritual practice’ – the Insight Meditation side – unwilling to engage the blissful inner-

devotee of Existence itself, simply the feel-good de-contraction side. There are both sides

you know – The ‘Devotional’ Side, and The Deep ‘Introspective-Insight’ Side. So please

ask yourself, inquire into how you do continually cultivate mutual collaboration on your

pilgrimage to Awakening. How you can become supportable in your inner-inquiry practice

of more & more frequently awakening Insight. Keep inviting others to relate with you . . .

Awareness-Practice is a very deep and personally engaging 'immersion' practice

to actually involve yourself in, within your self – actually getting IN there for sure! Scary !

That takes a sort of bravery ... and Ego is your ally, not your enemy. Ego will let your

silly Buddhist ‘practice’ go as FAR as you want it to - Ego will make sure your survive.

Developing an ‘Awareness’ meditation practice does require an intelligently gentle, steady, willing

practice at your own pace, gradually developing a constantly re-newable patience within yourself

- and really, lots of kind, encouraging support from others - from both fellow-meditators –

Sangha - as well as your own individual PERSONAL “living” teacher(s) – not just some warm,

inspiring, but yet absent teacher in a ‘book’, or a deceased yogi or ascended-master. The whole

of the Buddhist Path and its spiritual practices, here or elsewhere, eventually becomes a totally

“Live Event” for you. Only another living, in-person, ‘live’ human-being can do that with you !

And .. You certainly can have more than one teacher – just make sure they are actually alive

( or were living when you studied with them ) and that you can sit and have tea with them at

sometime and have an everyday, normal conversation – sadly, distant big celebrity 'teachers'

very often aren't accessible after a certain point. Asses your Sangha needs: Do you still need

to ‘feel connected’ to something really Big – or is small yet personal ‘connectivity’ enough?

"When I see I am Nothing - that is Wisdom.
When I see I am Everything - that is Love.
And between these two, my life flows." ~ Nisargadatta

Allowing yourself to be 'supportable' in your meditation practice by opening into live, human contact is the

true ‘Sangha-part’ of the practice. Please, softly push against those tight tendencies to being so 'resistive'

or 'isolated' on your Inner-Journey – all masked up in just being a little shining face in a big huge crowd – all

goodie two shoes n' all. Please step right up, ask questions, ask for support, and ask how to volunteer your

support if possible. Think How Can I Help. Think Community. Think Universally. Think Getting Beyond Yourself.

You Definitely Won’t Be Alone. And also, the people are usually quite nice. You need to ask where the entry is...

French - Nous oublions aisément nos fautes lorsqu'elles ne sont sues que de nous !
English - We forget our faults too easily - when they are known to ourselves solely alone !
~ Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld

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The Whole of the Buddhist Sangha and Practice on its Path,

here or elsewhere, eventually becomes a totally ‘Live Event’.

The ‘Buddha’ is way gone – the ‘Dharma’ is a gracious gift of insight-filled words in pioneering

books, and now CDs, both Asian and Western teachers are crisscrossing the comprehensions

of the Net offering pod-cast classes and other Online instant accesses. Sitting-Sanghas are now

prolific and abundant. The Buddha’s Dharma is vitally here in the West to stay ! And yet –

you yourself actually do live locally somewhere, and your own neighborhood Sangha is the live,

fleshy part of the practice. A Haiku: “Sitting in meditation group someone’s feet smells.” Authentic

practice really can not be ‘electronic’ except for a little ‘net’ while before you want or need to go to

a live weekly Dharma sitting-group meditation. You involve live people in your life when you practice

meditation with a group. It’s that or be a spiritual shut-in. Or just wander as an ‘un-identified’ walker.

“Live Sangha” is a rich, wonderful sort of 'group therapy' – you with other human beings, everybody’s

warts and all – and you get to overcome numerous barriers that once got erected through you – but

are not you – and they serve you no wholesome support no more - and now can be allowed to trickle

away like so much loose sand. And you find you can live quite well without it. Yet “live-group” Sangha

practice is exposing – and you will find that you can handle that. Quite well, actually. Come join in

with a Sangha. The only snakes in your mailbox are in your head. Allow yourself to be welcome.

Short of being a full-blown Buddha –

You always should have a consistent

ongoing meditation group for 'practice-support',

or your meditation just falls apart. Ploop ! ~ Ka-Ching

Having the Courage to accept & receive ENCOURAGEMENT: We all need all the the encouragement

we can get in order to continue our practice effectively – Vipassana-Mindfulness is an 'inquiry' meditation

style that keeps asking you to constantly Question, look, inquire and train to be non-reactive and to gently,

yet continuously observe 'within' - and practice being mindfully awake in each moment...

mindful of whatever arises in the mind's eye of your experience.

Typical 'Yoga' class-styles of a more 'inspiring / popular' relaxation-meditation are much easier – stillness

after strenuous movement. Buddhist 'Insight-Awareness' meditation is certainly much less soothing –

sorry – and it asks you to consider philosophies that coach you to going against the grain & swim upstream.

Encouragement is 'spurring-you-on' to practice. Be strong. Keep giving this 'encouragement' yet another

chance to merge with you. PRACTICE-SUPPORT: Allowing Yourself to Be Supported In Your Practice

FREE Meditation-Practice Consultation & Support

• "Sangha-Minded Mind Seeks Support"

So, HERE's an INVITATION for you . . .

But do you personally know how to accept a bona-fide, sincerely offered,

genuine rooty-tooty invitation? Just pick up the phone! That'll do it.

An Ongoing Personal Invitation from The Laughing Buddha Sangha

~ free and freely offered ! Really . . .

Dear Dharma Friends ~

To those of you who currently meditate with us now, or have been ongoing with us before,

and also for beginners who’ve just begun to explore 'Practice' . . this is absolutely for real !

In the Good Spirit of Sangha "Practice-Support" ~ please be sincerely invited to phone me about

meditation-consultation – freely offered – or with any questions on meditation practice you may have,

or additional instruction or tips, or any foggy confusions or unclear areas of practice or on the working

philosophy or 'unstructured' approach we use, or getting clarity about your concerns or notions about

'spiritual' growth and what it is, or further reading & study etc. Caution: it does mean being in contact.

Please DO NOT judge the amount of times a week you sit meditation, or do not judge the quality of your

attentiveness, or a dozen other imaginary, self-limiting thoughts about why you shouldn’t accept this

invitation or worst, whether you even ‘deserve’ it. If you simply want to do ‘practice’ and have some

difficulties ‘practicing’, but you are unwilling to quit on yourself – just call in. That's why it's called

"practice" rather than called "perfect". Be a bit brave ! Don't be shy or hesitant - or feel I'd be a bit

bothered. Please Bother Me ! If you get the voice-mail, I'll get back to you, or we'll arrange a mutually

workable phone-time to talk. Let us see together where this gesture of support goes with us.

It could work out fine ! . . . all my metta-karuna to you ~ Akasa Levi

Just pick up the phone and call. Noon to 6pm best phone times M-F. 310-450-2268

Try n’ SIT Meditation at home more regularly to train & strengthen the awareness-mind!

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"If milk is churned then one gets butter,

and one can use that butter, and it is very beneficial.

But, if one doesn’t do that and just leaves the milk there,

then eventually the milk is going to go bad –

and one will end up with neither butter nor milk nor anything.

So, similar to that, we have this wondrous human rebirth & human body-mind

which makes it possible for us to 'practice' and attain the 'highest realizations'.

But although it is such an absolutely perfect basis for this practice –

if we don’t use it, actualize it – then eventually it will just be lost like

so much excess when we move on to somewhere else in this life."

~ Khen Rinpoche

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ENCOURAGEMENT TO KEEP SITTING MEDITATION Regularly...

PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT 'MEDITATION' IS NOT 'SPIRITUAL' IN ITSELF !

Let's just de-mystify that up front, each for ourselves – Meditation is just a 'Tool' –

Silent Sitting Meditation is a valuable psycho-physical phenomena - in that Silent

Meditation awakens - sets up a w-I-d-e-r opening - gradually builds a wider conscious

space, room for the Spiritual to arise into ... for wisdom to arise on its own –

if and when it's ready – on it's own time. So learn how to just let it be Still inside.

Yet, you must hear and must study the Wisdom Teachings, but you can't force Wisdom !

So learn how to just let it be Still inside. The 'Wisdom-Spirit' will eventually appear

in it's own time. Your job is to keep the access door open & clear - and it does take

an increasing, gradual but consistent meditation sitting-practice - sitting right thru

the junk that also arises! As the mind get's more silent & peaceful - in the long run -

given steady practice - Silent-Awareness meditation really works !

HOW LONG? - Consistent meditation - a 25 minutes / to a half-hour daily sitting,

or just a few times a week, or every-other-day is really necessary to build-in and

develop a "mindfulness-region" in the newly developing 'meditative-brain'.

HOW DOES IT WORK? - a new, 'Aware'-part of the mind that now becomes strongly

preferred - rather than the 'old chaotic neurotic part' that has caused you so much trouble.

Then, with fairly regular sitting practice, when the old part arises - the NEW part will

automatically, mindfully kick in. This new default-mode kicking in will eventually happen

quicker and quicker. And stay longer & longer. Meditation is done for most of your life.

Meditation is too slow an ongoing 'process' to just fix what needs to be fixed and then

drop the meditation. Meditation does not work well for crisis-mode. After relief, it might.

Meditation is a human-style evolutionary process. Evolving out of being crisis-prone.

So we totally honor your coming here and your taking-on your life-challenges!

Our job is to support you in observing those life-challenges... sitting 'em through.

By simply sitting still with yourself. Hey, we are all here on the same journey...

You know quite well, deep within you --

That there is only a single magic,

a single power, a single salvation ...

and that single force is called 'Loving'.

Well then, you must also love your 'suffering' too!

Do not resist it, do not deny it, do not flee from it.

It is your aversion to it that hurts, nothing else. ~ Hermann Hesse

'Aversion' is a big main ingredient to observe in Buddhist practice –

to observe it well over repeated 'witnessings' of it. A lot thru sitting.

There is 'Pain' - and there is your 'Aversion' to Pain. It's not the pain

that we're working on - that's not the main focus of observation - it's

the tendency to slip into Aversion that we re working with.

There is a start to healing. Seeing 'it', 'Aversion', for precisely

what it is from it's side, not yours – and beginning to forgive it

for what it is from your side. As Hesse says:

"It is your aversion to it that hurts, nothing else." – a bit tricky.

The continual 'Practice of Forgiveness' is almost always the cure!

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"Sell your cleverness

and buy bewilderment." ~ Rumi

From a Sufi Contemplation: Journey Into The Garden of The Heart

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
Cleverness is mere opinion,
Bewilderment is intuition.

The spiritual path wrecks the body

And afterwards restores it to health.

It destroys the house to unearth the treasure,

And with that treasure builds it better than before.

The day you were born, a ladder was set up

to help you escape from this world.

Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.

Don’t try to see through the distances.

That’s not for human beings.

Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.

Don’t open the door to the study and just begin reading,

Take down a musical instrument, instead.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of other ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Love is that flame that once kindled, burns everything -

and only the mystery and the journey remain.

We rarely hear the inward music,

but we’re all dancing to it nevertheless. ~ Mevlana Jellaludin Rumi 1300 AD

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"Stop thinking this is all there is... Realize that for every on-going war

and religious outrage and environmental devastation there are a thousand

counter-balancing acts of staggering generosity and humanity and art and

beauty happening all over the world, right now, on a breathtaking scale,

from flower box to cathedral...

Resist the temptation to drown in fatalism, to shake your head and sigh

and just throw in the karmic towel... Realize that this is the perfect moment

to change the energy of the world, to step right up and crank your personal

volume – right when it all seems dark and bitter and offensive and acrimonious

and conflicted and bilious... there's your opening. Remember magic. And,

finally, believe you are part of a groundswell, a resistance, a seemingly

small but actually very, very large impending karmic overhaul, a great shift,

the beginning of something important and potent and unstoppable."

~ Mark Morford - from San Francisco Sun magazine

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Vulture's Peak ~ up the mountain outside the village of Rajgir with its hot springs in the state of Bihar, India.

Rajgir is an hour by country bus at dawn on back roads from Bodhgaya and the sacred Bodhi Tree. During

the late summer three-month Rains-Retreat season, The Buddha would seclude himself in a tiny hut up here,

with his monks around on the other hills and in caves. Some of the foundation stones still endure here today.

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please also see . . .

at section ( 17 )

Our 'Connecting'

Information & 'Seva'

Service Associations

• "How Can I Personally Be Helped?" You Can !

Other Laughing Buddha-Blogs are here. . .

• Have QUESTIONS • QUESTIONS • QUESTIONS ?

• and .. Where's UPDATED Current Information ?

• "How Can I Personally Help?" Yes, You Can !

• some very good Humanitarian web-links here

• and some much APPRECIATED ASSOCIATIONS

• Retreat Centers: Regional & International

• Other Local Sanghas & Meditation Sitting Groups

• more empathy-based learning quotes