By Subha Srinivasan

Vesak Day is the celebration of three key events in the life of the Buddha: his birth, his enlightenment, and his death. It is celebrated in the Buddhist tradition during the first full moon in May. Each spring, practitioners around the world gather together to commemorate Vesak and to renew their commitment: to the Buddha as a living source of compassion and understanding; to the Dharma as a path of mindful living to which the Buddha pointed in his teachings; and to the Sangha, the loving supportive community of practitioners who live these teachings into this world. Vesak celebrates taking refuge with the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha––inseparable from one another. It presents an opportunity to reflect on the power of community and the sense of belonging and friendship that the community can foster in us.

In one famous story (Upaddha Sutta, SN 45.2), the venerable Ananda is said to have commented to the Buddha that good friendship, good companionship, and good comradeship were half of the holy life. The Buddha is said to have responded: “Not so, Ananda, not so. This is the entire holy life!”

Have you ever wondered why it is that often, when you are meditating by yourself, your mind doesn’t seem to settle or gather in the way the mind does when you are practicing with others? This communal settling is one of the first tastes we get of the power of sangha. Noticing this deepening sense of mindful presence and ease when in community can motivate us to seek out others walking the path.

A second aspect of the gift of sangha is the steady support we receive in living an ethical life. By gently examining our thoughts, speech, action, and livelihood through mindfulness, we can ask ourselves if we are increasing or reducing suffering in the world around us. This nonjudgmental discernment is an integral part of the eightfold path and the deepening spiritual journey. Without the presence of our spiritual friends, it is easy to fall into the trap of dogma, self-righteousness, even self-hatred. But our interactions with sangha keep us centered and balanced; we walk this middle way without becoming attached to our views or our sense of self. As our practice gets deeper and we taste the freedom of non-clinging that the Buddha talked about, our spiritual friends support us so that our journey may ripen into clarity, wisdom, and compassion.

My earliest encounter with the Valley Insight meditation community took place sometime in 2007 or 2008, when I moved back to the area with my partner. A friend of mine had told me about the Monday evening sit, and I came to a session at the Friends Meeting house in Hanover, New Hampshire. On this particular day, a guest teacher was modeling how our posture can influence the attitude we bring to meditation, and they asked for a volunteer. At that time, I was already practicing meditation, had attended a few retreats, and was quite resolved to “do it right”!  So I raised my hand to volunteer, and I was chosen to model before the group. I remember the teacher’s subtle adjustments to my posture as a powerful, embodied experience that softened both the body and the mind. At the end of the evening, the then guiding teacher (and one of the founders) of Valley Insight came up to welcome me.

Thus began my decades-long relationship with Doreen Schweizer, with the Valley Insight Sangha, and with the posture of meditation.

This sangha has seen me through illness and wellness; pregnancy and motherhood; the transition from academic research to teaching high school math; daylong and weekend retreats; and, of course, Covid. And through these years of practice, I have come to appreciate the slow ripening of friendship that comes with time. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t come regularly to sitting groups or attend many of the offerings. In fact, as a new mother, I barely made it to any! And yet, each time I came to sit with the group, I was greeted with such affection and care that it warmed my heart and sustained my practice.

After some time, when my daughter was about ten (and Covid was about to hit the world), I decided to enter a two-year program to train as a mindfulness meditation teacher. And my community was right there with me! When I taught my practicum, my dear friends came to support me, to watch me grow, and to give me encouragement. They showed me where the path was heading when I could not see it for myself, and, always with kindness and compassion, they showed me where I needed to grow.

Often at the beginning of the path, we come to practice because we want something––peace, freedom, or insight. As our path matures and we receive the goodness of others around us, the path increasingly becomes about giving: of time, energy, friendship, kindness. And gradually, the sangha comes alive within us. We become sangha: the boundaries between self and other blur in the wake of non-clinging and compassion. And I am coming to realize that, just as I have been befriended, I have been befriending. In sharing my practice, my life, and my insights––along with my discovered joys in the Dharma teaching––I am actively participating in this ongoing co-creation of one another that happens in sangha.

I see this process alive in me––it has become so clear that without this community, I would not be who I am. The sense of belonging I have received is beyond anything words can describe. In receiving the generosity of others, I am moved to give back in whatever way I can. Most of all, this sangha has fueled in me the urgency to practice: “to cultivate the wholesome and abandon the unwholesome.” One moment at a time.

So, my invitation to you, my readers, in anticipation of this upcoming Vesak day, is to reflect on these questions: How has the sangha helped you to feel a sense of belonging; to cultivate and sustain a practice; and to live a balanced, healthy life? How have the spiritual friendships most dear to you shaped your journey? Have you in any way felt yourself “becoming sangha”? How have you been carrying this sangha that is within you forward into the world?

I leave you with the Buddha’s words on good friends (SN 45.49):

Mendicants, the dawn is the forerunner and harbinger of the sunrise. In the same way good friendship is the forerunner and harbinger of the noble eightfold path for a mendicant.

May you feel a deep sense of peace, belonging, and community, and may your spiritual friends support you in walking steadily on the eightfold path, one step at a time!