Hành Trình Vô Ngã by
Vô Ngã Vô Ưu
Transcript of Thich Nhat Hanh English Dharma Talks
24 Sangha
Published in the Mindfulness Bell, #20 Winter 1997
We all need love.
Without enough love, we may not be able to survive, as individuals and as a
planet. It is said that the next Buddha will be named “Maitreya,” the Buddha of
Love. I believe that Maitreya might not take the form of an individual, but as
a community showing us the way of love and compassion.
The basic condition
for love is mindfulness. Unless you are present, it is not possible to love.
Learning to be present may sound easy, but until you get the habit, it is not.
We have been running for thousands of years, and it is difficult to stop, to
encounter life deeply in the present moment. We need to be supported in this
kind of learning, and that is the work of a Sangha.
In Buddhist circles,
we speak of Buddhakaya (Buddha body) and Dharmakaya (Dharma body), but we
rarely speak of Sanghakaya (Sangha body). As practitioners, we carry the body
of the Buddha in us. The body of the Buddha is mindfulness, and mindfulness
always leads to concentration, insight, and love. When we notice that we have
mindfulness, concentration, insight, and love, we know that the body of the
Buddha is in us. Mindfulness is something we can touch in ourselves.
The Dharma is the way
of calming, healing, looking deeply, and transforming. When we are able to walk
in mindfulness, the Dharma body is in us. Every time we take one peaceful step,
every time we breathe mindfully, the Buddha and Dharma bodies in us grow.
The Sangha is a
jewel, no less important than the Buddha and the Dharma. Please practice Sangha
building. Stick to your Sangha. Without a Sangha body, sooner or later you will
abandon the practice. Take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.
The Sangha always carries within it the Buddha and the Dharma. The Sangha is a
holy body. Don’t look for holiness somewhere else. Don’t think that holiness is
only for the Dalai Lama or the Pope. Holiness is within you and within the body
of your Sangha. When a community of people sit, breathe, walk, and eat in
mindfulness, holiness is there, and we can recognize it. When you take one
peaceful step, you touch the earth with your holiness. If members of the Sangha
practice mindfully together, the Sangha is holy. We have to learn to take care
of our Sangha body. We nourish our Sangha body by practicing deeply together
with friends. We know that such-and-such a food is toxic for us, but we
continue to eat it. Alone, we are tempted. But surrounded by others, it is easy
to stop. Ten years ago, a young boy came to Plum Village whose most acute
suffering was the absence of television. He felt he could not survive even one
day without TV. His mother persuaded him to stay half a day and we brought
other youngsters to play with him. At noon he decided to stay the whole day.
Then he stayed for another day, then for two weeks. He was able to survive
without television because of the Sangha. He found by being with other young
people that life is possible without television.
The Sangha can be
described as a stream of life going in the direction of emancipation, joy, and
peace. The only condition for us to enter the stream of the holy Sangha is that
we practice. If we do, we will obtain “stream entrance” right away. This was
the word used by the Buddha. If we embrace the practice of mindful living, we
join the Sangha and enter the stream. This is the first holy fruit we obtain as
a practitioner. It is not difficult. If you want to practice in a joyful way,
build a Sangha where you are. The Sangha is your protection. It is the raft
that will carry you to the shore of liberation. Without a Sangha, even with the
best of intentions, your practice will falter. “I take refuge in the Sangha” is
not a declaration of faith. It is a daily practice.
If there is love
between teacher and student and among the students themselves, you will be able
to put down roots in the Sangha. When I became a monk, I was loved by my
teacher and fellow monks. Later, when I had to leave the warm atmosphere of the
temple, I encountered many storms. But the roots that had grown in the temple
could never die, and I was able to continue steadily on the path of practice.
Many people today are unable to put down roots in their families, churches, or
society. If these people come to a Sangha of practice and see it as wholesome,
true, and worthy of their confidence, they will be able to put down roots. It
may be easier to love in a Sangha than in our own family, because in a Sangha
we are all going in the same direction. Later, we can return home and help
rebuild our family, church, and society.
If you are going to
dig a well, you cannot dig down a few inches and say, “I give up. There are too
many stones.” Your teacher and your brothers and sisters are the earth you are
digging into. Digging a well is not easy. If you throw away your practice — your
shovel — you will not succeed. Dig down inside yourself, into your own mind.
Drink the pure, sweet water of the earth. When you have difficulties with your
teacher or friends, you have to find the roots of the difficulties. It may be a
matter of needing to reorganize things or something simple like that. Be open
to discovering new ways of being together. Thanks to such difficulties, we see
how to continue the work of transforming.
If you have a
difficult Dharma sister or brother, help her, because she is you. If you cannot
help her, you will not be successful in your own practice. If you continue to
exist as an individual and think that happiness is an individual matter, you
will not succeed. When you have put your roots down in each other, the feelings
of isolation and loneliness will be transformed. You are no longer merely an
individual. You carry in your heart all your brothers, sisters, and ancestral
teachers.
Sangha building is an
art. To take care of the Sangha is to take care of the Buddha. Through a
Sangha, it is possible to be in touch with the living Dharma. To take care of
the Sangha is to take care of ourselves, and to take care of ourselves is to
take care of our Sangha. When we eat and drink in moderation, we are looking
after our Sangha body. When we look after a brother or sister and help them
smile again, we are looking after the Sangha. When we take our younger sister’s
hand and console her, we are looking after the Sangha. When we reconcile with
our brother, the whole community will feel better, and we are looking after the
Sangha. It is not enough just to go into the meditation halland offer incense
to the Buddha. When we cause our Sangha to be healed, we are healing the body
of the Buddha.
A young man told me,
“I am happy to take refuge in the Buddha and the Dharma, but I cannot respect
the Sangha.” He did not understand that each jewel contains all three jewels.
Without the Sangha, there can be no Buddha and no Dharma. An elderly friend
told me, “I only take refuge in a Holy Sangha, the Sangha of saints who lived
in the past. In the present time, there is no Holy Sangha.” But a Sangha that
is made of people of this world is the only Sangha we have. If my friend had
been on Vulture Peak when the Buddha was giving teachings, he would have seen
many disturbing elements in the Buddha’s own Sangha. When we read the Vinaya,
we can see that. We need a Sangha that we can touch in the present moment, made
up of all kinds of people. They may not be fully enlightened, but if they can
support us in our practice, that alone makes them a worthy object of our
refuge. They may not be saints, but they are the Sangha we have.
The best way to
improve the quality of the Sangha is to improve the quality of our own
practice. If members of the Sangha practice mindfulness and have been liberated
from the worst part of their suffering, the Sangha is a jewel that can help
many people. Our community in Plum Village is by no means perfect. It is a
community of ordinary people on the path of practice. But if our Sangha
practices well, it can become a Sangha of deep realization. The holy element is
there in each member of the Sangha. And with daily practice, we practice
holiness every day.
In any community, it
is clear that some people have more peace than others. If we leave a Sangha
because some of its members are not very holy, we are leaving the holy elements
as well. The practice is to help build a Sangha that has peace and joy. Every
member of the community can practice this. This is the way to cultivate faith in
the Sangha.
If you do not have
the means to travel and live with an established Sangha, create a Sangha where
you are. It can be a small community of practice with your family and friends.
You can meet every day, or once a week, or even just once a month to recite the
mindfulness trainings together. The work you do for the Sangha is not just
washing the dishes, working in the office, or performing ceremonies. It is
organizing yourself and your life in a way that brings happiness to the Sangha.
We have to learn to
practice meditation collectively — as a family, a city, a nation, and a
community of nations. A Sangha that practices love and compassion together is
the Buddha we need for the twenty-first century. It is up to us to bring the
next Buddha into existence — Maitreya, the Buddha of Love, Ms. Love, Mr. Love.
We have the privilege and the duty to prepare the ground for bringing that
Buddha to life — for our sake and the sake of our children and our planet. Each
of us has a role to play. Each of us can bring the Buddha into our daily life
by practicing mindful living. Each of us is a cell in Maitreya Buddha, the
Buddha of the twenty-first century, the Buddha of Love.
This article, based
on a Dharma talk given at Plum Village in September 1996, will appear as a
chapter in Thich Nhat Hanh’s forthcoming book, The Heart of the Buddha’s
Teaching, to be published by Parallax Press.
The Six Concords
The Buddha taught Six
Concords to help his disciples have happiness in their daily life together.
Concord is the basis of a Sanghakaya.
The first is the
Concord of “bodily action.” A Sangha lives together like a family. Our actions
affect all those with whom we live, so our actions need to be conducive to
concord.
The second is the
Concord of “sharing the benefits.” We share food, sleeping accommodations, and
the opportunity to practice sitting and walking meditation. We listen to the
Dharma together. We share all sorts of benefits with each other. If one person
has three days to go on retreat, others in the Sangha should have the same
opportunity at some time. We support each other.
The third is the
Concord of “keeping the same mindfulness trainings.” Our aspirations are the
same, and we agree that practicing the same mindfulness trainings is the best
way to realize those aspirations.
The fourth is the
Concord of “speech.” Our speech also needs to inspire concord. We need to base
our speaking on certain principles, such as knowing how not to react when we
hear something we do not like, knowing how to make note of what the other says
in order to be able to meditate on it before we reply, and knowing how to
encourage and increase the confidence of those we talk to.
The fifth is the
Concord of “view.” We come from different backgrounds. We cannot possibly share
the views of everyone in our community. But we do not assume that our view is
correct and others’ views are wrong. We don’t argue about our different views.
When we have an idea, we share it with the other members of our Sangha, and we
modify our ideas as we listen to others. A Dharma discussion is an opportunity
to listen carefully to all the different viewpoints in order to have deeper
insight. Our own idea is only one small part of the picture. When others speak,
we listen carefully to find the wisdom in their words. If we cannot listen to
others, we cannot learn. We need to help others know they are accepted and
appreciated.
The sixth is the
Concord of “activity of mind” We have different ways of thinking and different
feelings. We should not isolate ourselves on the island of our thinking. We
have to communicate. When we see someone drowning in their thinking, their
sadness, and their suffering, we can say to them, “A penny for your thoughts,”
or, “A penny for your feelings.” When the other person is able to share his
feeling, he is no longer isolated. When we express what is happening in our
mind to another person, it relieves our isolation. If you ask someone, “What
are you feeling?” and she says, “I am unhappy,” you can practice walking
meditation together and that alone will bring some joy.
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