Sangha and The Superbowl

“Only the unexpected is real.” Nisargadatta Maharaj

I have a dear friend who lives in California. I practice with her and another woman on Skype, every week. We meet for the purpose of deep spiritual practice-this is our mutual intention. Last week she told us about a remarkable encounter that happened for her: she discovered sangha at a super bowl party. She had a conversation with two men at this party that evolved into a space of such deep love, caring, and respect that she was no longer herself by the end of it. Or we could say that she was more herself than she had ever been. She felt these men seeing her, witnessing the magnificence of who she is, and inviting her to step into her own recognition of that, right now.

It was startling and exciting to hear that this sacred encounter happened at a super bowl party. The raw truth of this possibility is calling out to us at this time, nudging us, tapping us on the shoulder. Instead of looking for these moments of communion in special places, with special people, our awakening, our evolution, is taking us somewhere else. It is asking us to come out of our bubbles, our cocoons, even our spiritual sanghas.

To have people with whom we can practice, people who our aligned with our own deep priorities, is a great blessing. I experience the good fortune of this as something beyond any other kind of good fortune. And still, we need to stay close to the deeper meaning of sangha, of community. Authentic community is not a place, it’s not a special group of people. It’s the intrinsic nature of life itself. Thich Nhat Hanh says it very precisely: Sangha is not just a community, it’s the nature of practice itself.

If I am deeply immersed in practice, I am engaged in an ongoing intimate conversation with life itself. Everything is part of this intimacy: birds, lakes, mountains, trees, family, friends, strangers, and Donald Trump. Even so called inanimate objects can participate in this conversation. My dishes, my chair, my pen, my lamp my shoes, are all speaking to me.

If I am wiling, I can be available for a true meeting with whomever, whatever, crosses my path. It might not happen. Just because I am ready doesn’t mean the postman is ready, or the person in line with me at the cafe, or my neighbour, or the woman I pass on the street. But I never know, unless I am ready, what is actually possible.

One day Jonathan and I were driving through the US border. I don’t remember how the space between us opened up. We said something to the border guard, who was a woman. It happened in one moment. All of a sudden she started talking to us about her practice of being in integrity with everyone who came through the border, of wanting to treat them with real kindness and respect. She told us about how she had lost that integrity, and what she has suffered as a consequence, how she was no longer willing to live that way. I sat there with my mouth open, my heart melting, and my mind stopped in amazement.

This can happen when we are traveling, because we know that we don’t know the person in front of us. If I think that I know you, sangha dies in that moment. True community is edgy, vulnerable, and disorienting. It’s where we commit to not knowing each other, forever. This is not an easy practice. We need each other to keep meeting in this way; we need our deep commitment to peeling off the layers of familiarity, projection, being right about each other.

When I can look you in the eye and say, “Oh, I was wrong about you, completely wrong. You are so much more than I ever imagined,”—that is sangha. And that can happen anywhere.

with love,
Shayla