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The talk below was given on 12 December 1994 at the regular Monday night Dzogchen sitting group in Cambridge, MA.
Good evening everybody, and welcome. It seems to me there is a lot of talk in the spiritual and new age ghetto about enlightenment, wisdom, illumination, clarity, mindfulness, awareness, higher consciousness, and so on. It always seems to start from the head, and go upwards. I think we need to ground this talk in our bodies, and in the ground of our total experience, not just intellect. We must bring it down to the ground of being, not just in the skyscrapers of thinking and doing that we are all so high upon. I think our own life needs to be more grounded in a softness, a friendliness, a warmth that truly connects with earthiness, not just with rarefied heights of heavenliness.
In looking for Western ideas that are useful here, I have been thinking a lot lately about friendliness, friendship, and cheerfulness. You don't hear so much about that in the meditation halls, or maybe it has become so much a cliché that we hesitate to mention it. But without joy and celebration, where would we be? I think that sangha and collaboration is the yoga, the path, of the coming decade, maybe the coming centuries. This requires collaboration, friendliness, friendship, a sense of ourselves as kindred spirits working and exploring and playing together. There is wisdom and higher consciousness in that. There is everything that we talk about built into that, and without that we are dead in the water, like dinosaurs. All the Buddhist learning, all the scholarship is wasted, useless without that.
There is a story in the sutras: Ananda, Lord Buddha's long-time personal attendant and monk-disciple, asks Buddha:
"Lord, is it true what has been said, that good spiritual friends are fully half of the holy life?"
The Master replied, "No, Ananda, good spiritual friends are the whole of the holy life. Find refuge in the sangha community."
Lately I have been feeling this more and more. We cannot do it all on our own. Enlightenment needs a minyan! It is a collective endeavor, not an individualistic, selfish pursuit. Thich Nhat Hanh -- the Vietnamese Zen master, who has written wonderful books and is a fine teacher, peace activist, and living example -- says that Maitreya Buddha, the coming Buddha of the future, is the sangha. He means the coming Buddha is the community; not an individual, not a seven-foot tall human man as it says in some scriptural teaching myths. It is the sangha -- something taller in stature than any one of us. That's the meaning of this kind of teaching myth. Maybe a council of sangha beings, not just a new authority figure or patriarchal boss for another 2500 years who we can all look up to but can never quite be like. That's fine; that's one direction, but we need to have both directions to be centered: both up and deep, a joining of heaven and earth.
I feel it is very important that we work in this spirit in our own lives and feel it in the visceral level, with feelings, emotions, and passions. Viscerally feel and experience intimately the truth that is self-evident, as it were, very true and obvious when we tune into it, and let go of concepts and fixations, including our preconceived notions and self-centered striving. Then we can be more in touch with the source or center of things, the groundless ground, rather than being carried away by all the superficial ripples. The ripples are not a problem, but they are just on the surface; don't overlook the still, clean, infinite depth of the ocean, which we are in the midst of. I think this is really a time for us to do something together. And I am personally very gratified that we are doing this together. I love doing it together. No one of us can do this alone: It's just too vast, too mysterious to go it alone, without friends, teachers, and teachings. That's why when we talk Buddhism, we talk about taking refuge, or finding a reliable sanctuary, in the Buddha, Dharma, and the Sangha, the community of kindred spirits. We have the Buddha -- Buddha has been around for 2500 years (or forever, actually). We have the Dharma -- the Dharma teachings and books are everywhere. But do we have a sangha? We need the sangha also -- the sangha jewel, the third facet of the Triple Jewel, the three jewels of Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. We must cultivate a sangha community, both lay and monastic sanghas, here in this country, if we want the Dharma to flourish.
The Tibetan teachers always say that it's almost impossible to find a yogi or yogini who is like the Snow Leopard, the Snow Lion, who lives alone on the mountaintop, in a cave or forest, alone in the snow. One who can awaken alone is very rare in each generation. Most of us need to be part of, to interact with, a sangha. Also, many of us have benefited greatly from wise teachers. I think this is very important for us these days, especially when many of us have a tendency (and I find this in myself) toward individualism, which we are so good at in America. Individualism is also a virtue, but, like everything, it has its shadow. We must grow up and be independent, but we are also interdependent, so let's remember that. Let's not fall into narcissism, falling in love with our own image, as individualists, always being new and better and different. Let's recognize our common ground with all beings. The sangha jewel as a refuge can really help round off our rough edges, these points that are sticking out in all directions like some kind of uneven and jaggedly broken piece of ore from the goldmine. We need to be refined a little. The gold is there, but it might momentarily be more like a rough, jagged rock. On the other hand, the great Bodhisattvas -- those wise and compassionate, impeccable masters -- are like graceful swans, gliding among all the waterfowl without disturbing anyone or anything.
I had the privilege and opportunity to live in a formal sangha (in one usage, sangha means the monastic community). Usually I only talk about lay Buddhism and American Buddhism, and the things that come more easily to many of us here. But I learned something very interesting when I was privileged to for several years wear the Buddha's robes and shaved head in the three-year retreat cloisters. I learned that you don't always get to pick who you intimately travel the journey with. You might think you do, but don't be deceived. And the corollary of that -- and this is the real lesson which I want to share -- is that you start to realize that you can love anybody -- and must love anybody. We didn't have the privilege of deciding who we were as if married to for three and a half years in our cloister, from which we never went out and into which no one ever entered. And we found out that all these strange people gathered together, from all these different countries, with all different expectations and trips, were all on the same team. After living together for three and a half years and never seeing anybody else, you get to know, it seems, every single thought that everybody has there, twenty or twenty five people, monks and nuns. You find out we are all on the same team, all want and need pretty much the same things; that we are vastly more similar than different. This was very enlightening. I didn't always like everybody there, but after three or four years, you do find out that you love everybody there because you start to feel what they feel and where they are coming from. Empathy is a great part of compassion.
We are all on the same side, the same team. To use the old-fashioned macho terms of the Indian Dharma teaching, we are joined together in battling with the kleshas, in struggling with egotism, suffering, and confusion. We are all aligned in that vital way. I think that working together in our sangha here, and in the broader Buddhist nation that we are a part of, is very helpful. It will prove to be very enlivening, enlightening, and grounding. It will put a little more soul into our depressed, dry, soulless Buddhist act! Not just trying to reach the rarefied height of the spiritual mountain, to stand on tiptoes and stretch toward the sky alone; but let's also descend into the valleys, the shadowy, smelly darkness of the jungle where life actually transpires, where the food grows, where the water runs.
It's OK if we want to stand tiptoe on the mountaintop, but somebody else has to be down in the valley bringing the food, farming, and that somebody else is all of us most of the time. Let's not overlook that. We must recognize our responsibility. It is there; we just don't always recognize it. Whether you call it sangha-making or community service or love and friendship or whatever, we are all working together, on the same team. It's not us and them. The person who cuts you off in traffic is also on your side, hurrying somewhere to try to be happier. He and us are on the same team, even though he happened to cut us off in traffic and drive us off the road. That sometimes happens, but, on the other hand, we might do the same sometime. We must cooperate and collaborate, not just compete. So let's keep showing up, being engaged with others and with our collective concerns, not escaping from our responsibilities.
I feel more and more committed to this sangha practice, this community practice, and the love and genuine human friendliness that we share. It's beautiful. I love collaborating. Moreover, I notice by being with other Western Buddhist teachers and experienced students, scholars, and friends, that they provide a mirror for me that is at least as clear, if not more clear, than that provided by any Asian or great holy teacher. The circle we sit in provides a mirror at least as clear as the mirror that gurus are supposed to provide, for there is no culture or language barrier there. So let's not overlook the possibility of really finding our true self, our true heart, through sangha practice. And living it in our life. Walking our talk. Really embodying a sane life here on this planet. Cultivating friendliness and warmth towards all.
I'm not a particularly apocalyptic person. Joanna Macy, a Buddhist scholar I know in California, is always talking about how we only have 20 or 30 years before everything explodes and implodes. I know there is a lot we can do about these global issues, but I think these things have been cycling around for a long time, and will continue to cycle around for a long time. Of course, we have to save the tropical rain forests and this planet's flora and fauna. The question is, Where do we find ourselves in that ongoing, universal cycle? Are we the victims of circumstances, or can we not assume the position of the source, the proactive end, and thus begin to embody true action -- proactivity, enlightened action, not just conditional reaction. In such a way, we can actualize impeccable activity, true creativity; not just semiconscious reactions. That's the big question of today for many people. For this is where freedom lies: in the art of enlightened living. I think if we can embody that kind of freedom and impeccability we can really be a true sangha, and like Buddhas, express a living, vital Dharma. We would be guiding lights in the world. I don't think that's too ambitious for us to aspire towards. We should go for it, and not squander our lives.
Especially now that the holidays are here, I feel all around town a spirit of friendliness and warmth and love. It is also a time when we will be tested, with whatever family gatherings or whatever situations we find during the holidays, so it is a good time to see what buttons we have left to be pushed. Ram Dass always used to say that after you have spent your 10 or 20 years in India being high as a kite or your weeks or months on a meditation cushion somewhere, go home and spend some time with your family and find out what work you might have left to do. It will all be revealed!
The first virtue of character to be developed, according to Mahayana Buddhist training, is generosity. That doesn't just mean giving money; it means letting go, openness, being generous, patient, and loving with yourself also -- a certain kind of good-natured ease, rather than constriction and tightness. Charity, in the Christian sense: caritas, which also includes love. Unconditional openness. It is something we can work on and develop in ourselves.
Generosity is the first transcendental perfection, paramita, in the Mahayana scheme of six paramitas. It is called dana paramita. There are different levels of it. Giving material help and sharing our good fortune is one level. Preserving, cherishing, and protecting life is another level of dana paramita. Selfless service, seva, is another form of dana practice; being helpful and even cheerful. Another level, said to be the highest level, is giving Dharma, which is both truth and love; sharing our most precious gifts, our purity of heart, by sharing the truth, helping people to awaken. Those are all practices of generosity that we can participate in, thus cultivating and enacting perfect giving. Generosity ennobles us. And the more we give, the more we receive, as the saying goes. Trusting is also a way of practicing dana. Dana implies non-attachment, letting go.
Many people have told me their lives have been changed just because, for example, they saw a poster on a telephone pole that somebody went to the trouble to post, introducing them to something significant and new in their lives; or they read a book or got a tape in their hands; or heard that there was such a thing as a Dalai Lama they could meet and learn from. My friend in Switzerland said that he's been missing something ever since I completed the three-year retreat in France. He said he always felt so happy, thinking of me in the three-year retreat, that it kept him going.
We can share in many ways. We can be generous with ourselves, generous with our emotions. Why are we so stingy with our emotions? What are we suppressing, hoarding, and saving them for? Why be afraid to experience our own feelings? Let's learn to genuinely experience our experience, just as it is, without restriction or inhibition. Let's share freely with each other, collaborating and networking towards a true sense of community.
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