In todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte, and#8220;and#8216;Faithand#8217; Followers and and#8216;Doctrineand#8217; Followersand#8221; Suvarnaprabha explores the variety of styles of practice and individuality withint the sangha. From the talk and#8220;What is the Sangha?and#8221; a wonderful introduction to the idea of spiritual community in Buddhism, one of its greatest potential gifts to the West.
Dharmabytes from free buddhist audio
‘Faith’ Followers and ‘Doctrine’ Followers
[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. [music] So I wanted to say that I think one of the aspects of Sangha is that we can encompass all different kinds of temperaments and styles of practice. And due to being in a tradition that is ecumenical in the sense that it's not associated with a particular country or a culture, I think we need to be that way even more. The tradition identifies in particular two types of temperaments. One is called a faith type or a faith follower. And the other is called a Dharma or a doctrine type or follower. So as you can probably imagine, faith types are said to be, you know, they just have admiration and love and faith sort of welling up uncontrollably in them. And they tend to be very devoted to teachers and to be very devotional kinds of practices. And doctrine types are a bit more interested in intellectual side of things than the rational side. And, you know, there's a lot of other classifications that we can make. But anyway, it's also true that I think the two types at one point start to kind of merge into each other. Like I've noticed, sometimes the Dharma types, at some point they really want to work on being more open-hearted, actively cultivating more faith. At some point, there might be more crossover, but I think at least when we initially start practicing, that's usually what we find. And while deepening involvement with the Sangha, I think at this center is pretty much always celebrated, I do hope that no one ever feels pressured into being more or less involved here. And generally, I think we're pretty good at this. I don't feel like we're forcing anybody to do any thing or that anybody wants to do that. Because we are a free association of individuals whose interest has brought them here of their free will. And then, of course, I have to add that the word "friend" actually comes from the old English word for "free." And for me, I guess at least in terms of choice and in terms of just being invited to be myself, I have always felt very free here. And I've been practicing here for about 15 years, so that's pretty good. So, I'll just say a little bit about saying a ratchet. His name means "the protector of" or "protected by" the Sangha. And he's written about the Sangha in several distinctive ways. For example, he's written about the distinction between the individual, the group, the spiritual community. He's written extensively about Kalyana Mitrata, which translates as "beautiful" or "spiritual friendship," which has been, I think, somewhat neglected sometimes in the Buddhist tradition. He writes about communication. He writes about communication in the Sangha as vital mutual responsiveness on the basis of a common ideal. So, in just talking about how important Sangha is to put his practice, we'll hear more about these topics later in this series and later in the year. So, here's another quotation by Sangha Ratchetta. Because we experience others as spiritual beings, we experience ourselves too as spiritual beings. And the pace of spiritual development is accelerated, and we experience ourselves more truly and intensely. We can be ourselves at our best, even at our worst if necessary, but be ourselves completely. There is no need to put up any defenses. There is no need to pretend. Therefore, within the spiritual community, you experience great relief and joy. So, this is how we can experience the Sangha. This is how we can create the Sangha to use a less passive word. As a place where we're ourselves, where we let our defenses down, and our personas, or at least they are weakened over time by just attempting to really communicate with people who share our values, share something. I feel that that word has been appropriated. Anyway, when I'm with the Sangha, I feel like there's very little to explain in a certain way, or at least certainly a lot less than there is with my husband, for example. It takes a long time. And there are many ways to experience and engage with and contribute to a community. But I think in Buddhism, we're always trying to strike a balance between the real and the ideal or the relative and the absolute. So, to me sometimes, Sankarachta seems to kind of lean fairly heavily on the sort of ideal side, which has made me kind of, I don't know, just brought out a kind of tension for me between ideals and what my actual experience is. So, I think it's just important in thinking about the Sangha or anything in Buddhism, we have to somehow figure out what that balance is. Because we have the Sangha, and we have the ideal, and we have the jewel, and they're all really important. But then we have the people we find ourselves practicing with. And worst of all, we have ourselves sometimes. 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 fades out] [music fades out] [music fades out] You [BLANK_AUDIO]