This talk was given at Nottingham Buddhist Centre, Sangha Day 2019
Sangha Day is one of my favourite Buddhist festivals. It is a celebration of the spiritual community – both the existence and the activity of the spiritual community. We can become very accustomed to our festival days and maybe take them for granted. So it can be helpful to take a fresh look at why we have a particular festival day – how did it originate, what is the purpose, what do we want to achieve? Why are we here today?
There are three traditional Buddhist festivals celebrated by Buddhists in Asia which all have some connection to Sangha Day. There is the Magha Puja which is observed in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. This happens in the third lunar month ( corresponding to March) and is sometimes called Sangha Day. It is reputed to commemorate an incident that happened not long after the Buddha's Enlightenment when at the end of a rainy season his disciples all spontaneously came to visit him. The festival celebrates 'the creation of an ideal and exemplary community'.
Another Festival that has a connection to spiritual community is the Elephant Festival in Thailand. ( Has anybody seen this – it is supposed to be spectacular) This is an ancient festival that was originally something to do with elephant hunts but has been turned into a Buddhist festival. The story that makes it Buddhist may be just legend. It is said that the Buddha used the example of a young elephant being trained by it's elders as an illustration for his disciples of how the newer or younger disciples need to be mentored or trained by the more experienced. This is what we call Kalyana Mitrata or spiritual friendship. So the elephant festival is a celebration of spiritual friendship. It takes place on the third weekend of November.
Then there is the Katthina Festival. This marks the end of the rainy season retreat, the time just before all of the wanderers set off wandering again. It is a time for confession, apology, forgiveness; a time for mending robes; a time for the householders to give gifts to the wanderers – usually new robes.
Our Sangha Day is based on this last festival. Perhaps the fact that it is traditionally characterised by confession, apology, forgiveness and the giving of gifts is something for us to reflect on and maybe even act on. In this talk I want to draw lessons from each of these festivals, which are all concerned in one way or other with spiritual community, Sangha.
The Magha festival is about coming together, congregating , which is the foundation for a spiritual community, an ideal and exemplary community. The elephant festival is about spiritual friendship which is what creates spiritual community. The Katthina festival is about harmony and co-operation. That gives us our three C's of the title – congregating, creating and co-operating and that's what I'd like to talk about today.
Congregating means simply coming together, assembling. The important thing is being physically present. A person is not just a voice or a moving image on a computer screen. A person is something whole and complete that cannot be fully experienced except by being physically present. So for our communication to be whole or complete we have to actually meet each other in the flesh, so to speak. Communication is the essence of spiritual community and the more thorough and complete our communication the stronger and more stable is our community.
In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, which is the story of the Buddha's last days before his death, the Buddha talks about the conditions for the stability of the Sangha. ( Digha Nikaya, Sutta16) The very first of these conditions is meeting together frequently and in large numbers, in other words congregating. Congregating regularly and in large numbers is then a foundation for the building of spiritual community – you can't build anything without good foundations.
There is something special about meeting face to face. Skype or Zoom is okay, WhatsApp is okay but actually meeting is very different. There is an intimacy to meeting – the intimacy of touch – hugging etc., the intimacy of conversation , nuances, jokes – so much of which is non-verbal. Also when we meet we see and experience each other practising meditation and puja. It can alter our view of another person just seeing them make offerings to the shrine or seeing them meditate. Perhaps with someone we don't like or find difficult – it can change our perspective – seeing our common devotion, our common practice. It makes a difference.
Congregating is the foundation for spiritual community, what gives it stability. This is true when you already have a spiritual community,but before that it is the common commitment to spiritual practice which is the basis for spiritual community. The spiritual community is made up of all those who are committed to practising ethics, observing the five or ten precepts, meditating and reflecting. The practice of ethics, meditation and wisdom is the common ground on which Sangha is built. This is important: so often we will relate to others on the basis of shared politics or shared interests or even just a sharing of preferences. But this is not what a spiritual community is based on. We may have the same views about Brexit, or the same concerns about climate change or the same preference for music or movies and that may bring us closer to people but that is not spiritual community in the Buddhist sense. It is the shared practice of going for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha that makes a spiritual community possible. For us in the Triratna Buddhist Community this means ethical practice, it means going on retreat, it means regular meditation, it means spiritual friendship, it means Dharma study and discussion, it means reflecting on our lives, it means working with whatever mental states arise to transform the negative into positive, the unskilful into skilful. When we then relate to each other on the basis of this practice we have spiritual communion. And the more intensively we practice, the more dedicated we are the more alive will our spiritual community be.
It is important to come together, to congregate. This means attending classes, festivals, retreats and so on. I would like to particularly emphasise the importance of the whole Sangha going on retreat together from time to time – that is a very crucial practice for the health and well-being of any local Sangha. If you can I would recommend that you make it a priority. It is one of the ways we can create an ideal and exemplary community, which is what the Magha Puja festival celebrates.
Now let's move on to the second of the three C's – Creating. When we come together we meet those we don't know so well or those we don't know at all. But we also meet our closer friends – people we know from study groups, or retreats, or being on a team together. We meet our Sangha pals . The spiritual community is essentially a great web of friendships, a network of friendships. It is spiritual friendship that creates spiritual community. If congregating is the foundation then spiritual friendships are the building blocks of Sangha.
The Elephant Festival in Thailand celebrates a particular kind of spiritual friendship – what Bhante Sangharakshita has called vertical friendship. This is the friendship where someone more experienced on the Path is helping and guiding someone less experienced just as the bigger elephants guide and help the smaller ones. Of course the less experienced have to be receptive if they are to receive help. As Bhante puts it “ Receptivity is the first requisite of the disciple and indeed of anyone who wants to learn anything.” (In case your wondering gratitude is the second requisite)
As well as vertical friendship there is of course horizontal friendship -friendship between peers – being mutually helpful, mutually supportive and encouraging. This is also of great importance. It is both the building blocks of spiritual community and the cement that holds it together.
Spiritual friendship was greatly praised by the Buddha: there is the famous occasion when he told Ananda that spiritual friendship was the whole of the spiritual life. Here is a passage from the Pali Canon where the Buddha is talking to King Pasenadi and he is telling him about the incident with Ananda, “ On one occasion Great King, I was living among the Sakyans, where there is a town of the Sakyans named Nagaraka. Then the bhikkhu Ananda approached me, paid homage to me, sat down at one side and said: 'Venerable Sir, This is half of the holy life, that is, good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship'. When this was said Great King, I told the Bhikkhu Ananda: Not so, Ananda! Not so, Ananda! This is the entire holy life, Ananda, that is good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship.” (The Connected Discourses (Samyutta Nikaya), trans. Bodhi,1:3:18, p.180)
In another place the Buddha says “With regard to external factors I don't envision any other single factor like friendship with admirable people as doing so much for a monk in training. A monk who is a friend with admirable people abandons what is unskilful and develops what is skilful.” (Itivuttaka 17)
Bhante Sangharakshita adds to this. He says: “ We can't be with our spiritual teacher all the time but we can be with spiritual friends all the time or at least much of the time. We can see them regularly, perhaps live with them, perhaps even work with them. If we spend time with spiritual friends in this way, we will get to know them better and they will get to know us better. If we have spiritual friends they will try to relate to us with metta and will expect us to relate to them with metta. Learning to relate to our friends in this way we will gradually learn to respond to the whole world with metta, with unselfishness. It is in this way that spiritual friendship is indeed the whole of the spiritual life.” (The Essential Sangharakshita, p.512)
This flow of metta between friends and out to the rest of the world is how a spiritual community is created. This is my experience over the last 35 years in the Triratna Community; I experience myself as being in a great and growing web of friendships, which is beautiful to see and beautiful to experience.
The third C is Co-operating. The Katthina festival which our Sangha Day is based on is a time to celebrate and foster harmony. Traditionally the wanderers confessed their failings and unskilfulness and apologised and extended forgiveness where appropriate. And the householders and supporters gave them gifts of new robes and provided for their basic needs. We don't have wanderers and householders, monks and laypeople – we just have people committed to living the spiritual life as fully and wholeheartedly as possible – Order Members, Mitras and Friends. But we do need to continually foster harmony.
Harmony does not mean everyone agreeing with everyone else. Harmony does not mean a total absence of conflict. Harmony is a movement, a process. It's a movement towards agreement, towards accord, towards congruence, towards a coincidence of wills. Harmony includes assonance and dissonance and is a movement between the two towards a higher unity. When there is disagreement, dialogue is a harmonising factor. When there is angry conflict, taking responsibility for one's own mental states is a harmonising factor.
Harmony isn't something fixed, a final state in which we all exist, like some dream of paradise. Harmony is the movement towards unity and that movement requires constant effort, constant direction, a constant exercise of will. When all of us are moving towards a unity of consciousness, through an effort of will, then there is a coincidence of wills, there is harmony. So for harmony to exist, there needs to be a common goal or common ideal. The co-operative movement of many individuals towards that ideal or goal is harmony.
It would be good if we take seriously that Sangha Day is an opportunity to move towards greater harmony. We can do this by taking up the challenge to confess or own up to any unskilfulness and also an opportunity to forgive those who may have offended us. Forgiveness is a free gift we can give without losing anything. It is very important that any division between Sangha members is not allowed to fester like an open wound. In confessing we are taking responsibility for our own actions, speech and states of mind regardless of whether others do the same. In forgiving we are letting go of any need to get even or even be recompensed in any way. We are simply letting go of the state of feeling offended and moving on. We are in a sense giving ourselves the gift of freedom from a difficult state of mind as well as giving the other person the gift of freedom from guilty feelings.
It is worth noting that as Bhante Sangharakshita said in a letter a couple of years ago: “true forgiveness is unconditional. There should be no question of our laying down terms and conditions, such as that we will forgive the person their trespasses against us only if he or she repent and apologise for what they have done. Otherwise our so-called forgiveness is no more than a sort of bargaining. The granting of forgiveness is a free act of the true individual, and it has nothing to do the reactive mind.”
Elsewhere he invokes William Blake : “What William Blake says about mutual forgiveness could hardly be more suitable as a motto for a spiritual community like Triratna.” Mutual Forgiveness of each vice', 'such are the Gates of Paradise' (from The Gates of Paradise) Alexander Pope makes forgiveness a definite spiritual practice and quality when he says 'To err is human, to forgive divine '
Perhaps in the lead up to Sangha day this practice of confession, forgiveness and apology could be done ritually in our study groups, Order chapters, Going for Refuge groups and so on. It could be either specific, in relation to particular instances, or general – a general confession of any unskilfulness we may have committed and a general forgiveness for any offences caused.
As well as fostering harmony by clearing the air of disharmony and resentments, we can also create harmony by giving gifts. So we should perhaps take seriously that Sangha Day is our day for giving gifts – a kind of Buddhist Christmas – except without any expectation of reciprocity. We can give gifts to friends and we can give gifts to the Centre. The Centre is our point of contact with the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and we should cherish it and lavish our abundance on it. I know the Centre here is on a very tight budget, without enough reserves for building maintenance etc., This is a great shame and I'm sure the Sangha here could do something about it. Don't wait to be asked, don't wait for fundraising appeals – just give. That is the Buddhist tradition – giving as a practice.
We co-operate by creating harmony between us through confession, forgiveness and by giving gifts and from that basis we can offer our friendship and guidance to others. In this way the spiritual community thrives.
What is the purpose of a spiritual community – what is the point of it all? There are two aspects to this. Firstly a spiritual community is a condition which is necessary to enable most of us to live a spiritual life, to practise the Dharma. The mutual support and mutual inspiration is crucial in helping us to practise intensively and effectively. This is the aspect of friendship, guidance, learning and personal transformation.
The second purpose of the spiritual community is to enable us to give to others, to make the Dharma, the Buddhist teachings, available in an understandable and practical form. The Dharma is Ehipassiko. Ehipassiko means 'come and see', it's an invitation to try out the practices for yourself and the invitation is given by the sangha. The sangha, the spiritual community of those who are already practising is, in effect, saying to everybody else - here is something worthwhile, here is something really valuable and beneficial, come and see for yourself.
The spiritual is doing the inviting; we are the hosts – inviting people to our Centres and tending to their spiritual needs as best we can. The spiritual community has an altruistic purpose as well as a personal one.
The Katthina festival marks the end of the rainy season. Now that the rain has stopped the wanderers are going to set out wandering again. Why are they wandering? For two reasons – to practise meditation and living a simple life and to teach the Dharma to whoever wants to listen. They are wandering so that they can give the gift of the Dharma for the welfare of the many – as the Buddha asked them to do. He said to his early followers “Wander for the blessing of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world, for the benefit and welfare, blessing and happiness of gods and men.” (The Life of the Buddha, Nanamoli, p.52)
We don't wander, but we set up Buddhist Centres. Why do we have Buddhist centres? For two reasons - to create conditions for our own practice and to give the gift of the Dharma for the welfare of the many – as the Buddha has asked us to do. This is why we should do everything we can to support our local Buddhist Centre – it is vital to following through on the Buddha's request to his followers – to share the Dharma with others.
I'll leave the last word with the Buddha. In the Pali Canon he says: "Of two people who practise the Dhamma – one who practises for his own benefit and that of others and one who practises for his own benefit but not that of others – the one who practises for his own benefit but not that of others is, for that reason,blameworthy; the one who practises for his own benefit and that of others is, for that reason, praiseworthy.” (The Numerical Discourses,Anguttara Nikaya,trans. Bodhi, 7:68, P.1080)
