Waking Up Together

I'd like to start with the story of our theme today.

It's called the Parable of the Prickly Porcupines.

It was the coldest winter ever,

So cold that many animals froze to death.

In an effort to save themselves from the icy fate,

The porcupines decided to gather together to fend off the chill.

They huddled close to each other,

Covered and protected from the elements and warmed by their collective body heat.

But their prickly quills proved to be a bit of a problem in close proximity.

They poked and stabbed each other,

Wounding their closest companions.

The warmth was wonderful,

But the mutual needling became increasingly uncomfortable.

Eventually they began to distance themselves from one another,

Scattering in the forest,

Only to end up alone and frozen.

Many died.

It soon became clear that they would have to choose between solitary deaths in the frigid wilderness and the discomfort of being needled by their companions' quills when they band together.

Wisely they decided to return to the huddle.

They learned to live with the little wounds caused by close relationship with their fellows in order to benefit from the collective heat they generated as a group.

In this way they were able to survive.

So our topic today is community,

Is relationship.

So part of the function of meditation is to calm ourselves down enough so that we can discover in some way in which we're connected to each other.

And we're connected to each other in profound ways as human beings.

And we start to feel that connection in practice.

There are ways in which we nourish each other and feed each other and support each other.

And there are ways that we needle each other and prickle each other.

But maybe as we learn them there's much less reason to to argue and to fight.

So in Buddhism and Buddhist communities community is a very important part of the practice and it's not always emphasized.

You know if you read books on Buddhism or even listen to a lot of my talks I don't think I emphasize community enough.

Community is considered to be one of the three jewels of Buddhism and the other two jewels are the Buddha,

The teachings of the Buddha and the Dharma.

And the Sangha,

The community is considered the third and it's emphasized that they're equal.

They're equal in value.

One teacher who really emphasized and who emphasizes the importance of community is Thich Nhat Hanh who once said that the next Buddha is will be the Sangha.

The next Buddha will be the community.

I think that's a very profound statement.

You know we've seen that our modern world has gotten a lot smaller and the need for us humans to get along with each other is becoming more and more important.

So perhaps it's time for us to wake up as a community of people as much as it is important for us to wake up individually.

So the next Buddha coming along at some point will be all of us together to wake up to ourselves as a community with each other.

I think because meditation is somewhat individualistic it's easy to close your eyes and just be internal and it's easy just to be alone,

To meditate alone.

You know in the Thai forest tradition,

This tradition that we follow,

The emphasis is on meditating alone.

And if you've ever been to a Thai forest monastery you know the abbot will assign you to basically an 8 by 10 hut and you'll have a practice schedule of sitting and walking with one visit with the teacher per day.

That's generally how it goes.

And I was really fortunate in the beginning of my Buddhist practice to be in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition in America where the emphasis was really on meditating together.

There's actually an emphasis on the importance of doing it together rather than doing it individually.

So much so that in this Japanese tradition it's considered improper to go off and meditate by yourself,

To go off and meditate outside the schedule.

There's this one story,

One of Suzuki Roshi's first students at the San Francisco Zen Center.

He decided to go to practice in one of the the premieres and monasteries in Japan and he felt when he got there living the life of a monastic that they weren't meditating enough.

There was a lot of work practice so he decided that he would go meditate extra for the whole community.

So he'd go into the meditation hall and he'd sit there and he meditate diligently.

So this is the dramatic part of the story.

At one point he noticed that the other monks were kind of descending on him in the meditation hall and the next thing he knew he woke up on a train.

They had shot him with a hypodermic needle filled with something that knocked him out and sent him away because he was being too individualistic.

He was doing something that was not part of the group.

So that was a funny story.

It's a little extreme.

Yeah,

I'm sure.

But what I'd like to emphasize today is the value of practicing in community.

One analogy that is sometimes useful or that's used is if you want to make a fire it's hard to have a fire with just one log.

But if you have lots of logs piled together then you can have a really great fire.

So in some ways it's hard to practice alone completely.

You need to have people and most people need a fair amount of support from others so they can really get their practice going.

That's been my case.

If you're living alone individually there's no one who's going to give you feedback about what's important.

The Buddha said that if someone gives you feedback that's useful you should treat them like a treasure.

They're so valuable to you.

And sure there's a certain kind of discomfort that's very helpful.

It helps you grow and develop.

I've gotten a lot of feedback from others in my practice and in my life.

So one of the definitions I like for a Buddhist community like our blossoming Roaring Fork Insight community is it's not just that the community has teachings that are meaningful to you.

It's not just that the people are nice and you feel some connection.

But the more profound meaning for Buddhist community is that it's a community that you're willing to be in conflict with.

Or that because conflict is part of human life we're gonna find ourselves in ways in which we prickle each other with our quills.

We're going to make mistakes and we're going to say the wrong thing and we're gonna perhaps you know offend each other at some point.

All kinds of things that we go through in our lives especially if we're trying to live a life of honesty.

A life of connection with each other.

So with conflict you know you don't need to go looking for it.

We don't need to make up conflict just to have conflict but it's normal.

I think for communities societies we have some degree of conflict and it's healthy.

And in Buddhist communities I've been exposed to it's kind of been like a willingness to work with the challenges.

A willingness to try to deal with it reasonably in an open and honest and caring way.

So one of the ideal ways that I'd like to think about creating a Buddhist community is creating a community that never that never turns their back on anyone.

It might be very hard.

It might be overly idealistic.

It could be very difficult at times but not turning our back means we're there to stay present and to try to find a way through however long it takes.

You know how does that sound?

So the idea that we would walk towards conflict and difficulty and bring it up and talk about it that there is in fact a way through it's very inspiring to me.

One of the values of a Buddhist community is that the community becomes wiser over time and it becomes wiser by learning how to be in conflict and how to work through things.

I think one of the greatest gifts to all of us that we can find our way and learn how to do this.

And sometimes we're gonna bump up against each other and as we bump up against each other our practice in part is that's kind of where our practice resides.

Our self-understanding our own self-exploration this will help us move towards freedom.

So community,

Spiritual friendship.

The value of it is kind of summarized in one little teaching the Buddha gave.

He said that the forerunner the precursor of the eightfold path the forerunner is good spiritual friendships.

So that gives you an idea of the importance of it.

So those are those are my thoughts this morning about the role and the value of community of waking up together and I'm certainly phenomenally grateful for all the the Buddhist communities that I've been a part of.

I certainly would have gone this far in my practice I wouldn't be here teaching without the tremendous support I received from many many people and I feel very supported by the people who come here all of you you know thank you so much.

It's really meaningful to be able to be together and support each other practicing.

I learned from you and I'm inspired by you and it's really a wonderful wonderful thing.

So thank you this morning.