In todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte, and#8220;Four Means of Unification of the Sanghaand#8221; Suvarnaprabha offers a thoroughly delightful guide as she explores the subject and#8220;What is the Sangha?and#8221; with a depth of feeling that comes startling through at times. An introduction to the idea of spiritual community in Buddhism this is a human and grounded presentation of one of the Dharmaand#8217;s best kept secrets, one of its greatest potential gifts to the West.
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Four Means of Unification of the Sangha
[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 was going to just briefly say something because I feel compelled to mention this idea of the four means of unification of Asanga. And I'm just going to say something very briefly about that, and then I will close. The four means of unification of Asanga are generosity, kindly speech, beneficial activity, and exemplification. And it occurred to me when I was looking at these, that they're all just ways for us to express love, really, and gratitude to the Asanga which helps us grow a lot. And for the doctrine types, this means helping us move beyond prison of the ego. Generosity just means being generous with our time, our money, our patience, our insights, our encouragement. Another kind of generosity I was thinking of is to forgive people. I think being able to forgive is essential in any group. And then kindly speech, not so much to say about that. I just wanted to say that it's not the same as being nice, which I think is sometimes dishonest. So speaking kindly means trying to be honest and helpful. And this is something that we should take very seriously, and I think the people in Asanga do take that very seriously. And beneficial activity, trying to be of service, doing what needs to be done regardless of what other people are doing. And then exemplification, I was thinking of this as really as deeply as possible seeing and reflecting on how our actions affect other people. I think just as mammals who've lived in social groups for millions of years, we're very, very sensitive to each other. It's just easy to forget that. So these are the means to unification of Asanga that were listed out by the Buddha, which allow us, as Shingarachtha said, to experience great joy and great relief with each other. Yeah, they allow us to tune into people, making other people just maybe a bit more important to us than they are now. We hope you enjoyed today's Dharma Bite. Please help us keep this stream. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. And thank you. [music fades out] [music fades out] [music fades out] You [BLANK_AUDIO]