Question about the importance of a practice community

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
Post Reply
User avatar
zavk
Posts: 1161
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 12:04 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Question about the importance of a practice community

Post by zavk »

Hi friends,

I know that Thich Nhat Hanh gives a lot of emphasis on the benefits of practicing with a sangha and being part of a spiritual community with other practitioners.

My question is: Do you know of any teachers (of any tradition, but I'm especially curious about Theravadin ones) who advice the same? Or do you know of any text (modern or canonical) that suggest this to laypeople?

Thanks!
With metta,
zavk
User avatar
Ben
Posts: 18438
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Question about the importance of a practice community

Post by Ben »

Hi Zavk

As you know, my teacher, SN Goenka, recommends to his students to get together once a week for a 'group sit' as a means to encourage and support one's practice.
Kind regards

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
User avatar
kc2dpt
Posts: 957
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2009 3:48 pm

Re: Question about the importance of a practice community

Post by kc2dpt »

"Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life. When a monk has admirable people as friends, companions, & colleagues, he can be expected to develop & pursue the noble eightfold path." — SN 45.2
- Peter

Be heedful and you will accomplish your goal.
sattva
Posts: 1254
Joined: Thu May 07, 2009 10:07 pm

Re: Question about the importance of a practice community

Post by sattva »

It's funny about synchronicity. i have been talking about this subject recently and actually wanted to get a Theravadan perspective on it. i know in zen it is sometimes thought that wherever you are is a good place to practice and that the world with its challenges provides a place for transformation. i sometimes feel though that sangha and teacher nearby can help a person to form a base of calm, inspiration, and support which will help in dealing with the world in a way that practicing alone can't.
http://www.chatzy.com/25904628501622
User avatar
Cittasanto
Posts: 6646
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 10:31 pm
Location: Ellan Vannin
Contact:

Re: Question about the importance of a practice community

Post by Cittasanto »

I think this is a given, to any Theravada group or practitioner? I suppose it is more so noted in the monestaries of the Forest tradition but that may be a personal bias than fact?
Blog, Suttas, Aj Chah, Facebook.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
User avatar
retrofuturist
Posts: 27839
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Re: Question about the importance of a practice community

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,

Dhamma Wheel is my community of practice.

I wouldn't be taking additional precepts today were it not for the support and encouragement of this community.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
User avatar
zavk
Posts: 1161
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 12:04 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: Question about the importance of a practice community

Post by zavk »

Peter wrote:"Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life. When a monk has admirable people as friends, companions, & colleagues, he can be expected to develop & pursue the noble eightfold path." — SN 45.2
Thanks Peter.
retrofuturist wrote: Dhamma Wheel is my community of practice.

I wouldn't be taking additional precepts today were it not for the support and encouragement of this community.
Yes, Dhamma Wheel is my community of practice too. Indeed, it seems to me that it is the same of many of us here.

What inspired this question is this conference that I'm hoping to present at: http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ecps/conf ... unication/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The conference will have a wide interpretation of ‘religious communication’, including, but extending religious communication beyond ‘communication studies’ understood as ‘mass media’, to include religious modes of communication such as prayer, sermons, revelation, art, theatre and ritual, as well as religious uses of mass media. We invite papers from the perspectives across the humanities and social sciences, including literature, music, performance, film and television, anthropology, sociology and history, as well as religious studies and theology. We also invite papers from all religious perspectives.

The conference is particularly interested in exploring:

Religious affect and its relationship to different media (e.g., song, prayer, architecture, film, performance, images in general)
Religious interpretation and textual hermeneutics (e.g., literalism versus symbolism)
The use of communication media and art forms by religious groups to create a sense of community
Communication as a ‘portal’ or window to the ‘divine’ and/or the ‘sacred’
Cross-cultural adaptation and the creolisation of religious forms
Religion and the sacred in popular culture
Modernity, post-modernity and religious communication.

This conference will be held immediately prior to the World Parliament of Religions, providing an opportunity for reflection on religious practice and the relationship between religious identity and the aesthetic forms of religious communication, and cross cultural communication.
I think Dhamma Wheel would be an interesting example to talk about, if my paper gets accepted.
With metta,
zavk
User avatar
cooran
Posts: 8503
Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:32 pm
Location: Queensland, Australia

Re: Question about the importance of a practice community

Post by cooran »

Hello Zavk, all,

This will give some info.:

Kalyāṇa-mittatā
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/index-su ... anamittata" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalyana_mittata" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

metta
Chris
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
---It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---
Post Reply