Do we need a group to Meditate with?

written by YeShey on Monday, June 28th, 2010

I had a wonderful conversation with an old and dear friend yesterday.  She understands the benefits of meditation and can see that her mind is quite tenacious.  She finds that unchecked and unresolved life experiences have generated some negativity in her mind and she would love to learn how to turn that around and back to the positive and carefree mind she used to enjoy.

Her first question to me was about practicing with a group. She feels like the strength and support of a group would help her to practice meditation and has not found a group that she can do this with and finds this an obstacle.

This question comes up alot so I thought that I would do my best to share an answer here.

A group with a common vision and similar goals, is called  Sangha in Sanskrit.  In Buddhism this is an important aspect of the practise – so important that it is one of the three things we take refuge in.

We take refuge in the Buddha – not as a person to idolize but as someone that represents the ability in each of us to transform our suffering into happiness. He said “I cannot do, but point the way”.  Which means that he cannot be the one that ’saves’ us. He can give us all the tools and we can feel confident in his methods because he himself achieved liberation using these tools.

We take refuge in the Dharma or the teachings. We can listen to them, we can study them and we can learn how to put them into practise.  This will help us transform our delusion into wisdom.

We take refuge in the Sangha – or the community. The Sangha  members are all working on transforming delusion into wisdom and through our connection and interaction with them, we have a reference point, feedback and a general sense of being  connected and part of a community of like minded people.

It is true that the group can be of great support and indeed it is helpful to surround yourself with a community that will nurture your practice. We often can even get a boost from practicing in a room together.

The importance cannot be minimized. But, we also must acknowledge the quote from the Buddha above: ‘ I cannot do, but point the way’.  Ultimately we need to sit on the cushion and do the work ourselves. It is our own mind that we are working with and it is our own negative and habitual tendencies that we are trying to overcome.  This takes practice, this take patience and it takes diligent effort.

Yes, a group is fantastic to serve as support and provide love and encouragement- I wish for all of us to find  Sangha. But the group cannot do it for you.

With regard to mediation practise,  Sangha is a supplement. It is not a means unto itself.

We are very used to being externally stimulated and as modern people we are also very used to the fantastic and profound.  Meditation can have this result  but the process is much different for most of us. The process is subtle, it is personal, it is quite quiet and it is internal. We ultimately need to accept that if we are going to have a mediation practice, it is going to be done mostly at home and there is nothing else that we need to do or be before we begin.

The Meditation Village Mindfulness Meditation Program is designed so that you can practice on your own. We know it is difficult to find a group and have tried to eliminate this as an obstacle to learning how to meditate and reap the rewards of meditation.  We encourage you to know very clearly what your motivation to meditate is and use that as tool to overcome the tendancey of the mind to put it off.  We have forums and blogs to help answer questions and share experiences and revelations.

The best meditation resolution for me was to just do it and ignore the rest of mental chatter giving me reasons not to do it right now.

Love,

YeShey