Sangha Strengthening Weekend Retreat: Putting Down Deeper Roots

Dear Friends
Please find below a wonderful sharing that was recently submitted to the Mindfulness Bell as a report on our World Beat Sangha retreat together to Deer Park last spring. Our weekly gathering at the World Beat Center strengthens our practice and our connections to each other. The retreat was a wonderful way to grow those connections and roots even more deeply. Thanks to all who provided input for the article and Phuong for so masterfully and skillfully bringing it together. I can't wait to see you all again this Sunday!
Enjoy


Sangha Strengthening Weekend Retreat: Putting Down Deeper Roots

By Phuong Ai La, True Compassion of the Heart, and Nhu Quynh La, True Gentleness of the Heart, with insight from Velma Carrio, Healing Practice of the Heart, Barbara Casler, Jim Cook, Ron Forster, Joyous Equanimity of the Heart, Jim Hornsby, Namaste Reid, Joyful River of the Heart, and David Viafora, True Mountain of Meditation

Deer Park, Spring 2009, green and misty—a new Dharma door had opened for the World Beat Sangha from San Diego, CA. Originally some of us had the simple wish to gather for days of mindfulness at Deer Park. Thay Phap Dung and the other brothers and sisters wisely went about nurturing this tiny seed. A few dedicated sangha members nourished the sapling, and the wish finally bloomed into a full weekend retreat. While the road to the retreat was smooth for some, it presented more challenges for others who had to rearrange their lives temporarily to make this appointment with Life. And so tortoise or hare, we all made the trek up the rocky hills, turned the knob, opened the door, and entered an experience that was as manifold as our 56 eyes but also unique in its magic.

Magic in things so ordinary as breathing, sitting, walking, singing, working, eating, drinking tea, and studying? How could this be? Perhaps there were secret ingredients in the soup. It was like starting a vegetarian broth. Throw in the carrot of generosity and the sweet onion of inclusion. The sangha had collectively determined that everyone who wanted to could attend. Sangha members practiced dana and contributed money to assist those who couldn’t afford the full cost of the retreat.

For a broth sweeter and richer by far, toss in some apples, like the exquisite loving-kindness and care that the monastics took to plan and lead some of the retreat activities. Thay Phap Dung, Thay Phap Thanh, and Thay Phap Ho explained the Sutra on the Four Nutriments and answered many questions from members puzzled or bewildered by this provocative sutra. One member observed that this was the highlight of the retreat for him and shared “How very fortunate we all are to have had such a beautiful experience.”

Thay Phap Dung taught the World Beat Sangha how to conduct our first formal Tea Ceremony. In our different ways, we all participated. Some baked cookies. Four served as hosts. Two offered incense and flowers to our ancestors. We enjoyed the songs of musicians, the humor of a puppeteer, the laughter and poetry of children, and dharma jokes. We all listened deeply. For one sangha member, “The tea ceremony was special. Walking in and sharing a bow with each host in turn. Then sitting peacefully on the cushion with the Abbott embodying solidity… For moments, we let go of discrimination, of judgment, of past and future. We just laughed, sang, and drank deeply of the joy of living together.”

But it was not all cookie, tea, and song. There was work to be done. Joyfully and mindfully. We couldn’t live off of a thin, watery broth. We needed substance—protein and nutriments— chunks of squash, slices of daikon, cubed tofu, and chopped scallions. We rallied to the beck and call of the dedicated Plant Sangha and the good cheer of Thay Phap De, who doled out our gardening gloves, shovels, and hoes. For several hours, with refreshment and rest in between, we were dutiful Weed Whackers, Planters, and Mulchers. We managed to clear an area that had been full of weeds before. Trees were nourished and several young plants put down roots that day, ready to welcome Thay and the Plum Village sangha for the summer.

But in truth we were really fertilizing and mulching ourselves. We were the young plants that had put down deeper roots that day in the hazy sun. To practice is to stop, or at least slow down. And when you stop the monkey mind, just as when the morning or night is at its quietest, the strangest, shyest creatures emerge. The daily stress, frustration, and countless negative habit energies that catch us unawares, that push us unceasingly away from a genuine connection with life—they come up and we say, “Ah, hello friend, so there you are.” A fellow sangha sister shared her fertilizing moment when she had encountered difficulty upon arriving and getting settled and felt frustration and disappointment. Through it all, she was reminded that “a more respectful, saner solution with the help of breathing and a little more mindfulness might help. It did.” Another sangha friend penned a poem about that weekend, and his own encounter with stopping:

so slow down relax breath notice your breath notice your green relatives with white flowers notice other relatives have green leaves and red flowers notice your relatives gift pure air in the pure land on the pure mountainside so slow down ask for buddha mindfulness remember the “enjoy your footsteps” sign and enter enjoyment slow down your footsteps end suffering enter peace

The traditional Buddhist literature teaches that there are 84,000 dharma doors. Thay inspires us to find new dharma doors appropriate for our brave new world. That weekend we found one. We found one not with just one pair of eyes, but 28. This manifold quality of the unfolding of the weekend was present in the diverse range in age, ethnicity, and culture within the sangha group; the coyotes, caterpillars, frogs and toads, turtles, and rabbits; and the light footsteps of our two young Sangha members, Ananda and Micah. No one could forget little 3-year old Ananda, dancing and prancing, moving from person to person, hugging and tickling and hanging from our serious-looking and stoically-seated practitioners who were trying hard not to burst into laughter. A sangha member shared “I felt like part of a family and a community! Definitely having the kids involved was special—and seeing how the kids warmed up to us as we all spent time together.”

Reflecting upon the fruits of this Sangha Strengthening weekend, one sangha organizer shared this beautiful insight:

“We at the World Beat Sangha recognize our great fortune of being in such proximity to Deer Park Monastery. A sangha weekend together may be less feasible for those much further away from a major practice center. But the local sanghas in California, on the East Coast, in France, Germany, and elsewhere may also like to take advantage of being near a practice center, and explore this wonderful Dharma-Sangha door.”

Perhaps this metaphor from yet another happy sangha sister describes the experience most aptly: “Each of us is precious and complete on our own. However, as members of our Sangha, we become richer. We become a nutritious, celestial bowl of World Beat Sangha Soup!” And it was a magic soup indeed, a soup of our collective practice. We hope that your local sanghas will open your own dharma doors, enter, and cook up a bit of magic too.


World Beat Sangha has been meeting since 2008 at the World Beat Center in Balboa Park in San Diego. We offer meditation and mindfulness practice sessions every Sunday evening. Our group is a diverse community of mindfulness practitioners.