Mindfulness Practice Community of Toronto

Even a Buddha Needs a Sangha!

We all need a sangha. The practice of mindfulness, meditation, and the teachings of the Buddha are meant to be shared. Alone, our practice will be difficult to sustain. We need a community of practitioners – friends along the path – helping us to water and to cultivate the wholesome seeds of loving kindness, compassion and understanding in ourselves, in each other, and in our world. That is the purpose of the sangha – to be a refuge for all of us.

Mindfulness is a way of being in the world. When we practice alone, the energy of mindfulness and concentration may not flourish. With a sangha we have an opportunity to listen deeply to each other, to learn from each other, and to practice deep listening and loving speech, skills that will surely help us to bring this wonderful practice into our homes, our communities, and our world. We need a sangha; we need friends to remind us what we already know. The Dharma is in us, but it needs to be watered in order to manifest and become a reality.

“Like a drop of water flowing towards the sea, it knows that it can hardly succeed alone. It could evaporate half-way, become a cloud, wander here and there and never reach the sea. But if that drop of water enters a river and allows the river to embrace and transform it, then for sure it will arrive at the sea. As practitioners we must allow the sangha to lead, embrace, and carry us, for us to succeed.”

Thich Nhat Hanh -True Sangha

A sangha is a community of resistance, resisting the speed, violence, and unwholesome ways of living that are prevalent in our society. Much of our suffering comes from feeling disconnected from one another. Being with the sangha can help us heal our feelings of isolation and loneliness. 

A sangha is like a garden, full of many varieties of trees and flowers. When we are able to look at ourselves and at each other, and witness the beauty and variety of this human garden, we have a wonderful opportunity to grow, to deepen our understanding and love for one another. One flower may bloom early in the spring and another flower may bloom in late summer. One tree may bear many fruits and another tree may offer cool shade. No one plant is greater, or lesser, or the same as any other plant in the garden. Our practice is to see that we are each a flower or a tree, and we are also the whole garden. We are interconnected.