In our FBA Dharmabyte today, Viriyalila conjures up the image of the rock tumbler to explore how the practice of sangha creates jewels. But itand#8217;s the granite bottomed rivers in NH that gets evoked and#8211; in their crystal clarity and beauty may the Bodhicitta arise. and#8220;Bodhicitta Arising through Collective Practice,and#8221; is one of three short talks given at Aryaloka Buddhist Center, November, 2010 titled and#8220;Three Perspectives On the Practice of Spiritual Friendshipand#8221;.
Dharmabytes from free buddhist audio
Bodhicitta Arising With Collective Practice
[music] Dharma Bites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for your life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you, and happy listening. So I'll just start out by seeing the best part of preparing for this day was preparing for this day. So the three of us have spent about four hours together, I'd say, in the last couple of weeks planning this day. And that working group is what I'd like to talk about, sort of how we come together and what sort of context do we create in our lives to go deeper in our friendships with one another. So kind of picking off from where Sarchita was, a spiritual community is coming together, what Sandorashita calls, true individuals. So true individuals who embarked on a path of self-development, coming together with other true individuals, and forming a collective whole. And such an individual, he describes as someone who has developed awareness, emotional positivity, has a strong sense of responsibility, as well as intelligence, creativity, spontaneity, imagination, and insight. So how do we become a true individual? Well, it's through our practices of meditation, ethics, and the study of the Dharma. By deepening our understanding of ourselves and through allowing ourselves to be seen by others in that process, especially by our spiritual friends. Each of us has developed sufficiently, psychologically and spiritually to be able to stand in our own truth, to stand in our own faith, and to stand in our own understanding of the Dharma, while being wholly and openly in relationship with others aspiring to the same. Sandorashita, whose name means protector of the Sangha, has said that he was probably not the best person to start a spiritual community. But he did, and as we've already said, one of the most unique things about us as a community is that emphasis on spiritual friendship. Throughout the 70s and 80s and early 90s, in the Sri Ratna Buddhist community, as it was called Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, there was a lot of effort applied to creating conditions to take those friendships and that practice of community to deeper and deeper levels. There was a desire to create the grit that is needed in order to transcend the duality of self and other. Members of the Sangha quite frequently, spontaneously even, decided to live and to work together, and that was common in the spiritual centers and outlying areas. So, when I first came to Buddhism, to the F.W.B.O., as it was, and to Aria Loco, it was in 1994, and it was just the other side of the peak, I think, of a very active team-based right livelihood and residential community aspect of our worldwide community. It was kind of just over the height of that, I think, through the late 80s and early 90s. And if you wanted to read more about that, if you haven't already, the Aria Loco history, I think goes into that quite a bit in terms of how that was tried to be worked out here in America. So, within the first less than six months that I was here, I moved into a residential spiritual community with five other women, some of whom are here. And we lived together and tried to work out what does it mean to practice spiritual community in this way. And the thing that struck me the most was there was very little room to hide, actually, that when you come into the kitchen and you're at the toaster together and you're irritated with this person, it's very hard to hide that. And so it creates this context in which there's some grit to work with. And there's also tremendous opportunity for joy and for play and for exploration of the Dharma. And you're coming together in this space where we spend so much of our time. We're working out the principles of being spiritual practitioners together in a shared context in a very intense way. So I lived in this residential community probably until about 1998, and it changed forms quite a bit. And in the end, I was the last person left, basically. And from there, I decided to go and work in a team-based right livelihood business out in Missoula, Montana. And I was there for about 18 months, and it was between those two experiences, they were probably the most enriching spiritual experiences that I've had. They were very unpleasant sometimes, but they also put me square on the basis of which I was going for refuge, the basis of which faith informs my practice and how I live my life. So there's this description that I quite like that I think is quoted in what is the Sangha. And Sangha Ratchet talks about the spiritual community as being like a rock tumbler. It's an image that I can really relate to, and I even expanded it when I was writing this talk to remember spending quite a bit of time on a granite-based river on the western part of the state. So in granite river beds, you get this smoothed out process that happens over time. And when you're watching the river, you see these rocks spinning around in their eddies and their flow, and the sound is even quite beautiful. You hear these rocks very beautifully just moving around in the currents of the water, of the stream. But they weren't always like that, were they? We have a rock tumbler for a purpose, it creates smooth rocks. So when you put the rocks in, when the river first was created, the edges were quite sharp and rugged. But they're committed to each other. And over time, the granite stones become smoother and entering into this harmonious dance. But it's over time. The edges soften due to friction, due to discomfort, due to rubbing up against one another. In our commitment to spiritual community, we begin interacting with each other in this context of deep faith and trust. This is established by a clear understanding of our common going for refuge. We understand where we are working, where our rough edges are, and we take risks with one another. It is through faith in our context that we listen to one another when those risks are being taken. So I ask, how transparent are we in our friendships with one another? Do we spend enough time together to really see each other deeply? Do we avoid people in the Sangha that we do not get along with? Those rocks in the riverbed cannot avoid one another. They could get trapped in a little eddy over there and be spinning around. But maybe they just need some solitary time. And eventually, they're going to come back in and join that harmonious dance. And even when on solitary retreat, during a solitary lifestyle, are we ever really solitary? How do we relate to this idea of spiritual hierarchy? Colliana Mitrata. Do we feel like we are able to manage our own lives, our own spiritual lives, independent of others, completely on our own? Something Sadhanaandi says in a talk that will listen to parts of this afternoon. Sadhanaandi is the chairperson at Taraloka retreat center in Wales, and she has been living in spiritual communities for about 25 years. And early on in her Buddhist life, one of her mentors, said, if you can really trust your context, then something will happen. Something will happen that is beyond your imaginings. This something I take to mean what Sanderachita coins as the third order of consciousness, a vital mutual awareness, or vital mutual responsiveness, that arises when a bunch of two individuals come together in a collective whole. They come together in committed Sangha relationships supporting one another to be more and more ourselves going for refuge to the three jewels. And it is through fully being ourselves in relation to each other that together we support each other in transcending this dualistic reality. So this third order of consciousness, he equates with the arising of the Bodhicitta. The will to enlightenment arises when two individuals come together and practice collectively in a committed, intense way. So this aspect of practice, this aspect of going to refuge to the three jewels, I find really intriguing, really subtle, deeply inspiring, and absolutely mysterious. And yet I know I can count on it. It's not just about being friendly with one another, which is important, it is about so much more. And we'll explore that a bit through our sessions of discussion this morning, as well as this afternoon. So what is our context here? Aria Loka, what is our context for creating those granite riverbeds? I remember having a serious heart to heart with Manjavatra before he left here. This would have been about 1995, so I'd moved in to the community. And I probably was having a hard time with it, and I was going to him and I was complaining about it. And I can't quite remember all the details of course, but I remember talking it through with him, and through that process I was able to reconnect with the higher ideal of this Bodhicitta arrival. And in a way, my discomfort started to fall away, and I was able to touch him to an aspect of faith and an aspect of courage to go back into the situation and say, "I'm uneasy with this, and I'm uncomfortable with this, can we talk about it?" And my friends were able to meet me and say, "Yes, let's talk about it, let's talk this through." As Manjavatra and I finished talking, he sensed that perhaps in America, residential communities and right livelihood businesses wouldn't have the same hold that they did in the UK. It could be timing, it could be culture, it could be all sorts of things. Because here in the 70s we had a lot of communities, like this didn't win, in the 70s. So he could see a little bit into the future, and he just asked me a very poignant question. And he started with a belief that he has, that living and working together provides a very rich ground for insight into the true nature of reality to arise. So if that's not going to happen here, what conditions will give rise to insight? What sort of context will be created here in America to allow that spirit to be a helpful aspect of us coming together in the spiritual community? And over the years I've thought about that question, I think it's a really important question. It's informed my practice quite a bit. And in the end I come down to spiritual friendship. And being able to engage with friends in areas that are sometimes uncomfortable, most of the time are met with incredible joy, receptivity and love, but sometimes we have to go into areas that are not so easy and not so comfortable, and yet something else begins to arise. And that's through lots of contact. Like I said, it's hard to avoid someone when you're standing at the toaster together. We need to meet up regularly, weekly, they even say daily, but weekly, and not just having a social cup of coffee, but actually going into issues with each other, getting to know each other, stepping into each other's lives, and starting to ask questions to help us deepen our understanding and our practice of the Dharma. So this third order of consciousness, this vital mutual awareness, it does deeply inspire me. It informs my commitment to the three jewels, and it keeps me active in trying again and again to become more and more a true individual myself, and to look for ways to create conditions for others to do the same. And it's not without mistakes on my part, I'm certainly becoming more and more aware of those mistakes, but I have faith and trust that in admitting those mistakes our friendships can only grow stronger. It's about taking responsibility in a search it has said to ask for forgiveness and to forgive, and to hold ourselves in that greater context of going for refuge and the arising of the bodhicitta, of that beautiful, granite riverbed harmoniously dancing. We hope you enjoyed today's Dharma Bite. Please help us keep this screen. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate, and thank you. [music fades out] [music fades out] [music fades out] [BLANK_AUDIO]