Our FBA Dharmabyte today explores the question: and#8220;Who creates Spiritual Community?and#8221; by Sangharakshita. Where is the spiritual community to be found? What do the members of the spiritual community do for themselves, for one another, and for the world?
From the talk: and#8220;The Meaning of Spiritual Communityand#8221; given in 1975 as part of the series and#8220;Human Enlightenmentand#8220;.
[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. Who are the members of the spiritual community? So this is what we're going to consider first. Who are the members of the spiritual community? And in brief we may say that members of the spiritual community are individuals who have gone for refuge, individuals who have committed themselves to what are called the three jewels. What the three jewels are, we shall see in a minute. First of all, I want to draw attention to this world, with this world individual. The spiritual community consists of individuals. That is to say, it consists of people who have made an individual choice and an individual decision. People who have accepted responsibility for their own lives. People who have decided that they want to develop, want to grow. So that the spiritual community is not a group in the ordinary sense. In other words, the spiritual community is not something collective. It doesn't have a collective mind, or a collective soul, or collective identity in which you become submerged. In which you lose your identity, no. The spiritual community is a voluntary association of free individuals. Of individuals who have come together on account of a common commitment. A common idea, commitment to what we call the three jewels. And the three jewels are, first, the ideal of human enlightenment. Secondly, the path of the higher evolution. That is to say, the successively higher levels of consciousness, from self-consciousness to absolute consciousness. And thirdly, the spiritual community itself. These are the three jewels. The ideal of human enlightenment, the path of higher evolution, and the spiritual community itself. And by spiritual community in this context, we mean all those who have gone for refuge, all those who have committed themselves to the three jewels. In other words, all those who, with the object of attaining enlightenment, are devoting themselves to the development of skillful, rather than unskillful, mental states. And in the highest sense, the third jewel is what we call the transcendental community. That is to say, it's that part of the spiritual community, which has not only gone for refuge, not only developed skillful, mental states, not only become absorbed, but that part of the spiritual community which has developed insight, which sees, at least for a moment, reality face to face, which has broken the first three fetters, as they are called. It consists of those who are prepared to die in order that they may be reborn, spiritually reborn, consists of those whose practice of the path is how hearted, not merely conventional, and whose commitment is absolute, without any reservations whatsoever. Now in traditional Buddhist language, the three jewels are known as the jewel of the Buddha, or the Buddha jewel, the jewel of the Dharma, or the Dharma jewel, and the jewel of the Sangha, or the Sangha jewel. And they are called jewels because simply jewels are very precious. In fact, until modern times, jewels were the most precious of all material things. So in this way, the three jewels represent what is spiritually most precious, spiritually most valuable, spiritually most worthwhile represent, in a word, the highest values of and for human existence. In more concrete terms, the members of the spiritual community are all those who have been what we call ordained, using this English word ordained in a very provisional sense. In other words, all those who have committed themselves to the three jewels fully and openly, in other words, not just mentally, who have committed themselves with body and speech as well, in other words, with their whole being, and further whose commitment has been acknowledged by existing members of the spiritual community, in particular by a senior member of that community, and who coached themselves through the observance of certain moral precepts. Now, members of the spiritual community, in this sense, maybe male or female, maybe young or old, maybe living at home with their family, better to say outwardly living in the world, or they may have gone forth in the literal sense. Maybe lay brothers or lay sisters, as we call them, or maybe monks or nuns, to use rather unrealistic expressions, maybe more or less spiritually advanced, but all have gone for refuge, all are committed to the three jewels, and all are equally members of the spiritual community. We hope you enjoyed today's Dharma Bite. Please help us keep this screen. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donny. And thank you. [music] [music] [music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
