Community/Sangha

Community has been perpetually on my mind for quite some time. In many ancient cultures, community, or sangha, is thought to be the most important factor in staying strong and finding peace during challenging times.

Like a lot of you, I recently binge-watched “Wild, Wild Country”, and binge-listened to the 30 for 30 podcast about Bikram. I have also been obsessed with the premise of the book “Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging” by Sebastian Junger for a little over a year. If these references are all just random blabbering to you, just know that each one of these show the power of community to get people to go to extremes to feel as though they belong, and they also demonstrate that community is absolutely essential for humans to feel fulfilled and content. 

For so many of us, this life-force of community is lacking as we have disappeared into increasingly more urban environments, and we are so throttled with stimuli that we often feel we need to shut out the multitudes of random people we encounter on a day-to-day basis. The part that historically appears to be hard to balance is maintaining a moral code and a willingness to examine the cultures we identify with. I have many teachers who have said that a “healthy” lineage, or school, or community, is one that is constantly examining its own beliefs and making minor corrections to prevent stagnation or dogma. As an unfortunate number of communities have proven, when we blindly follow one person or one idea, we can enter sheep-like mindsets where we blatantly sit on the sidelines and turn a blind eye to gross abuses of power. 

One of my favorite sayings is “Don’t believe everything you think”. Use the sharpness of your mind to continually upgrade your philosophies and systems of relating to the world. 

All this being said, I believe we have come to an era where finding a community in which we feel heard, and that we belong, and where we can see our impact on our microcosm is increasingly important. We need more opportunities to find and experience joy. We need to know that we all have an affect on the lives of those we come into contact with. 

This is why I feel passionate about leading retreats. When we take a step away from the monotony of our day-to-day lives and enter into an adventure with a group of people, we have space to pause and breathe and evaluate our place in the world. Healing takes place. We establish meaningful relationships with the people we surround ourselves with, and then are able to take these subtle shifts back with us to our everyday lives.

Sometimes all we need for a bit of perspective is to take a step back, breathe, and realign with our deepest truth via giving ourselves space and permission to do so. And I truly believe that, breath by breath, we find ourselves more compassionate and able to face our own shadows when we give ourselves time to just practice.