May 4, 2025 • 45 mins
In this episode we join UK Dharma Teacher, Murray Corke, at the Sangha Facilitators’ Retreat in Shallowford, as he unpacks why sangha is the whole of the spiritual life and offers tips from his own experience for nurturing strong, flexible communities of practice.
For information about Plum Village UK and our work as a community, visit https://plumvillage.uk/ The Being Peace Practice Centre in the UK will be a place for young people, families, activists, and people from all walks of life to come together and practice peace and transformation, inspired by the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. Find out more: https://beingpeace.uk/ For more links, see here: https://linktr.ee/plumvillageukMark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kev (00:05):
Welcome, dear friends, to Going as a River, a Plum Village
UK podcast.
I'm Kev, a companion in theriver today. In every episode,
we share from the stream ofDharma talks from teachers in
the UK, guided meditations,mindfulness songs and music, and
(00:31):
heartfelt conversations, allrooted in the joyful, applied
Buddhism of the Plum Villagetradition.
In today's episode, we joinMurray Corke at the Sangha
Facilitators' Retreat inShallowford, as he unpacks why
Sangha is the whole of thespiritual life, and offers tips
(00:54):
from his own experience fornurturing strong, flexible
communities of practice.
Wherever this greeting finds you,please remember that every drop
of water has a place in theriver. We do not go alone. We go
as a river.
Murray (01:52):
Dear friends, good morning.
It's the 25th of November, Ithink, and we're in Shallowford
and also online.
And this is the retreat forSangha facilitators.
(02:12):
We all need a Sangha if ourpractice is to be sustainable.
And I was very heartened to hearThay say that he set up Plum
Village for his own support.
And I think if it's good enoughfor Thay, then it's got to be
(02:33):
good enough for me too. So Ithink it is a really important
part of our
practice, being part of a Sangha.
We learn a lot from each otherand we learn a lot from having
to work with other people.things that we speak, things
(02:55):
that we wouldn't learn if wewere just practicing by
ourselves.
So when I first started in thispractice really there weren't
any local Sanghas.
Well, there was a group that metin London. I remember Vari
going to that group as well.
(03:17):
But it was you know, it waspeople coming from all over the
place, you know, once a month togo down to London for a meeting.
And then gradually, as we becamemore established, local Sanghas
started to spring up.
And Thay always made it veryclear that anybody could set up
(03:42):
a Sangha. Anybody who hadexperience of the practice could
set up a Sangha. And I have tosay, initially that seemed like
a very risky policy.
But it
really
works, and if the practice isstrong, then a new Sangha will
(04:08):
thrive and will continue. And ifthe practice is not strong, it
will disappear. So it's a kindof survival of the fittest.
And we've ended up with somereally strong Sanghas in the
UK, which is great.
(04:29):
And of course, the practice inthe Sangha relies quite heavily
on the people who arefacilitating that Sangha. And so
it relies on the practice of thefacilitators to keep the
atmosphere calm, steady andfocused,
(04:52):
as well as having fun. And Ithink the joy element is really
important.
Of course, it's not always easy.
Working with other people isoften more challenging than
doing the job ourselves.
And so it's a little like, youknow, pebbles in a bucket
(05:18):
rubbing against each other, youknow, we rub off the sharp edges
of each other and it's notalways a comfortable process.
But it is a very worthwhile one.
But it is a very worthwhile one.We have to learn to let go of
our own agendas and to acceptother people as they are and not
(05:40):
to get caught in judgments andopinions.
So in many ways, Sangha
facilitation is part of ourgrowing practice, our practice
of growing ourselves, growing ourcapacity for coping with the
(06:04):
world.
It's also an opportunity tooffer other people what we've
the
joy, the calm,
(06:26):
and the steadiness that we'vefound ourselves in the practice.
So it's a bodhisattva path.
So let's think a little bitabout facilitation.
I think it's worth saying at theoutset that the word facilitate
(06:49):
means to make easy.
doesn't mean to lead or tocontrol, it means to make easy
and I think that's a reallyhelpful
thing to bear in mind when
we're leading the practice ininverted commas.
(07:16):
So if we are going to facilitatewe need to be stable in our own
practice when we go into thatspace
and of course when we start tofacilitate it's quite natural to
feel anxious about it and
(07:39):
in some ways that actually helpsus to be present in the moment
you know but at the same time wealso need to know how to manage
that anxiety so that it doesn'ttransmit to the other people in
the group
and I know
(08:02):
if we have people in theCambridge Sangha who come
regularly maybe for a year thenwe will encourage them to become
facilitators
and I can see you know when theystart often they're quite
anxious you know they might beanxious about inviting the bell
(08:24):
they might be anxious aboutintroducing a subject or
facilitating a discussion groupand so we try to make sure that
they've got adequate support weusually have somebody who is
there as a second body tosupport them and my experience
of new Sangha is that usuallythe Sangha that survive are the
(08:48):
ones that start with at leasttwo people because they can
support each
other and
if we are going to ask people tobecome facilitators
then we also in Cambridge weactually have
(09:10):
semi-regular facilitatorsmeetings
and you probably couldn't tellby looking that this was a
facilitators meeting it lookslike people having fun we
usually have a meal together askpeople to bring food to share
it's often a really good mealand people tend to bring of
(09:33):
their best which is great andthen as I say there's lots of
chat lots of smiles lots offriendship and then after a
while we'll actually discussthings that might be relevant to
facilitation you know the waythat we do things any
difficulties that have come upthings that we might want to
(09:55):
change and it's it's reallyinteresting that that
approach of kind of sharing ameal automatically helps people
to kind of relax and be presentand rather than having a
business meeting to sort outdifficulties it's just a you
(10:16):
know part of a broader program
so um yes I mentioned last nightthe uh the very first thing that
I heard Tai say that you know ifour practice is not bringing us
peace and joy we're not reallypracticing
(10:39):
of course that may not always betrue it's not always going to be
joyful and peaceful but in inthe bigger picture those are
important criteria and and so weneed to think about you know
making our practice sustainableas facilitators so actually
(11:03):
finding
joy and peace in that practiceis important
and we also need to make surethat we don't um hog the
limelight you know we need togive space for other people and
(11:27):
um so again in the CambridgeSangha we we meet in each
other's homes most of the timeand we have a rule I think it's
the only rule that we have inthe Sangha that says whoever is
facilitating does not also hostso we spread the energy out um
and that has stood us in goodstead over time I've certainly
(11:50):
seen Sangha's that you know meetalways in one place in one
person's home that can get to bea burden after a while and we
need to think about those thingsso we don't actually get into
that doing things out of a senseof duty because when that
happens things start to go wrongI had this happen myself in
(12:13):
Cambridge because for a longtime I was asked to facilitate
and after a while it began to bea burden and at that point one
person in the Sangha started toquestion everything that I was
doing in quite a destructive wayand it wasn't of my choosing but
(12:42):
I was being perceived as beingthe person who had the power.
and that person obviously had areaction to that so we need to
be aware of the dynamics
within this angle within thegroup and try and make sure that
we don't get into sort of power
(13:03):
situations
so when we take on the role of a
facilitator essentially whatwe're trying do is to create a
safe environment for people topractice in
(13:27):
and that means that we need to
have some consistency ofpractice so people have a sense
of safety they know you knowthere's going to be a bell and
then and so on it's very easy toget hung up on the form of the
(13:51):
practice and
i'm sure many of you are awarePlum Village change the form
quite regularly i used to bequite a stickler for the form
until i realised that and andactually with visiting a lot of
local sanghas i find thatactually the form tends to be
different in every sangha and idon't have a problem with
(14:14):
anymore it doesn't matter theimportant thing is that it's
consistent within that sanghaand
that means that if we've gotseveral facilitators we need to
agree amongst ourselves howwe're going to do it
(14:39):
so we also
help people to feel safe if weprovide a program of what's
going to happen and explain ifif you know any changes have to
happen then that's fine but wejust need to make it clear that
(15:00):
that's what's happening andflexibility is actually you know
one of the products of thepractice and a very important
part of it um that we do need tobe able to adapt to
circumstances you know here atShallowford we're actually
sitting when we meditate facinginwards yeah because the room is
(15:24):
not really big enough for us tosit you know two meters from the
wall facing the wall which isthe tradition in the zen uh
schools but of course you knowif you go to Plum Village people
sit facing out it's okay we'vechosen and we do our own thing
(15:45):
but as i say it's something thatwe need to think about and agree
with other people um and youknow when we find ourselves
coming to somewhere like thiswhere we've got quite a lot of
people in a room that's onlyjust big enough then we actually
have to adapt what we do so
(16:05):
Suzuki Roshi once said that youknow
we have to people often thinkthat they have to adapt the
circumstances to suit them wellactually in the Sangha we have
to adapt ourselves to suit thecircumstances
so when we're facilitating
(16:29):
the times we have to adaptourselves to suit them in our
way it's not just of course whatwe say or even what we do a lot
of human communication isactually non-verbal you see
different figures quotedsomewhere between 80 and 90
percent is non-verbal
so if we can be stable and calmand at ease then it helps the
(16:54):
people around us to feel thesame
aware of what to do and that'snot always easy we all have
difficulties come up in ourlives we all have difficult
times and
we all need at some point toswallow our ego and say i'm
sorry i can't do this would youmind taking over
(17:17):
i'm sorry i can't do this is agood thing to do and that's fine
that's part of the learningprocess so
(17:47):
we need when we're facilitatingto be as much at ease as
possible
if our muscles are tense thenthe sounds of the bell will be
harsh and people can hear that
we tend to talk too much
(18:09):
we tend to become controllingand all of those things are
unhelpful so we need be able todo what what we need to do as a
facilitator in a calm and steadyway
(18:30):
when we are sitting in a sangha
we tend to find you know that wehave a number of people there
who are likely to be experiencedin the practice and we may also
have newcomers
some of those newcomers may stayon and become regulars some of
(18:54):
them may move on that's fine thedoor swings both ways but it's
important i think you know thatwhen we do have newcomers come
to the sangha that we make themfeel welcome
we try and help them to knowwhat's going to happen but at
(19:14):
the same time not to make themfeel
self-conscious
and so it's helpful I think youknow if we're going to introduce
a session of walk sit walk sitactually that when we do that we
do it to everybody not just tothe newcomers and moreover we
(19:39):
stay in the present we deal withwhat's immediately coming up the
next bell means
please massage your legs
and the next bell when it comesmeans you'll stand up rather
than trying to give a whole longlist that people aren't going to
(20:00):
remember
and of course it's also worthreminding them but you know if
in doubt look around and seewhat other people are doing
so that's one aspect of helpingnew cat newcomers
(20:20):
and I think something else that
some people struggle with is tofind a comfortable sitting
position
and this is something thatactually changes with age I know
it's just an inch higher than Iused to because my knees are
getting a little more creaky andthat's fine but basically when
(20:44):
we're sitting we need to have aposition that's stable and
comfortable and upright you knowif we are in a chair and we're
sort of slumping
physically then our mind willstart to slump as well and so
you know if we are going to sitin a chair for meditation and
(21:06):
actually I would suggest sittingso that you know your weight is
partly on your feet both feetand and also on your bottom and
that you're not relying too muchon the back of the chair and the
same applies of you sitting onthe floor
and the height at which you sithas a big effect you know if if
(21:28):
I sit too high and I'm having toarch my shoulders forward to
keep my central gravity over mysitting bones and that means
that I'm going to get a pain inthe upper part of my back and if
I sit too low wait a minute yeahif I sit too I'll also get a
pain in my back yeah soadjusting your height uh to suit
(21:51):
yourself and if you you know ifyou have somebody who is clearly
having discomfort during thesitting you know it's worth
asking them you know if they'dlike some um help with finding
the right situation in which tosit and there's wrong of course
with sitting in a chair the onlydifference between sitting in a
(22:14):
chair and sitting on the flooris the position of the legs
that's not a critical feature umwe don't have to sit in full
lotus you know it's not notobligatory so um yeah but as I
say these are things that youknow you probably
(22:34):
might introduce after a littlewhile when somebody's been
sitting for a while and clearlyhaving some problem then you
might want to talk about that
something else that beginnerssometimes struggle with
(22:55):
is what meditation is
um I remember having adiscussion with my PhD
supervisor Harry will smilebecause he knows him
and he couldn't believe thatmedit when we were meditating we
(23:15):
weren't thinking about something
you know um it was a completeanathema to him he's not a
practitioner um and I think youknow often and I I I recognized
when I started sitting I it tookme a long time to realise that
actually when we're practicingmindful breathing what we're
(23:40):
trying to do is just experienceour breathing we're not thinking
about it yeah I can feel mybreathing down in my abdomen as
I'm talking now but I'm notthinking about it if
I'm doing mindfulness ofbreathing then I try to make
that the full focus of myattention but I'm not I'm not
(24:04):
thinking about when's the nextbreath coming is it going to
come you know I'm actually justexperiencing my breathing and if
I struggle to do that then Ifind putting my hand on my
abdomen and feeling my hand moveSo it's actually quite helpful
and I'll often introduce that asan idea to newcomers
(24:27):
of course staying with ourbreathing is not always easy
especially if we've got lots ofother things going on in our
heads thoughts come in and it'svery easy to kind of drift off
so um you know if we are
trying to practice
(24:50):
in a consistent way then we maychoose to actually to count our
breaths. It is a way of helpingto stay focused counting
breathing in breathing out onebreathing in breathing out two
and so on up to ten and thenstart again at
(25:14):
one. It just helps to maintainour focus.
Something else that is quitehelpful is actually to to
recognise our own mental statebefore we start and actually
think about you know am Ifeeling dozy? If I am I
(25:38):
definitely need to sit with myeyes open
so soft focus just a couple ofmeters in front of me, whereas
if my mind is racing thensometimes it's helpful to have
my eyes closed. Traditionally inZen practice we sit with our
eyes open. It doesn't have to belike that just as we don't have
(25:59):
to sit on a stool or on acushion. It's a question of
learning what we need and we canhelp other people in this anger
to to find their own needs torecognise their own needs and
respond appropriately asfacilitators
(26:21):
and of course we can also useguided meditations to help
people to kind of come into thepresent and get focused before
we then go
into mindfulness of breathingpractice.
I think something else that wehave to be careful of as a
little bit of as facilitators
(26:43):
is during Dharma sharing wedon't have to have all the
answers.
It's very easy for people tokind of you know come up with
the difficulty they're havingand for me then to want to help
them to fix it
(27:05):
and that is not necessarilyhelpful.
Just for somebody to be able tofeel safe enough to share a
difficulty is already helpingthem to deal with it.
It's
important I think to allow spaceand as facilitators there will
(27:30):
be plenty of wisdom in thesangha. It doesn't need us to
jump in all the time and come upwith all the answers.
In terms of dharma sharingobviously it depends on the size
of our sangha whether weactually do it you know all
together or whether we splitinto groups. Optimum size is
(27:55):
probably around between four andsix people in a group that
allows people plenty of time toshare. If we've got a bigger
group then we need to allow more
time or we might need to thinkabout splitting the group and
it's worth being aware that somepeople feel quite inhibited
(28:17):
about sharing in a big group.
Some people feel inhibited aboutsharing in a small group so we
have to try and find a balancefor these things
and it's always great to havenewcomers come to the sangha.
(28:37):
Beginners don't have anypreconceptions and
again Suzuki Rose used to say inthe beginner's mind there are
many possibilities, in theexpert's mind there is only one
where we need to experience that.And we need that
(28:58):
openness to allow people toshare their beginner's mind
because there's a freshnessabout their practice which we
can all benefit from.
I think
it's also important to
recognise that it's not all milkand honey in a sangha.
(29:23):
Difficulties will arise.
individuals have difficulties.There may be difficulties
between people in sanghas andit's important I think to
recognise those things and totry to address them in an
appropriate way.
I went to one sangha, it shouldbe nameless and don't think
(29:49):
there's anybody here from it butsomebody referred to them as a
wi sangha, a women's institutesangha, it was all very nice but
it wasn't going to any depthbecause people weren't actually
sharing difficulties anddifficulties weren't being
addressed
(30:09):
you know interpersonaldifficulties weren't being
addressed in the group.
So if we
have a personal difficulty Idon't know about you but my
tendency is to try and look theother way and pretend it doesn't
exist and I think we all tend todo that you know the Buddha said
(30:35):
you know difficulties will ariseyou know this is the first arrow
and it hurts.
The second arrow may follow ifwe don't deal with the first
arrow in an appropriate way yeahand if we just try and pretend
that the first arrow didn't hitus then the consequences of that
(30:59):
will build up and the secondarrow will be even more painful
because it's the consequences ofnot dealing with the first arrow
so we definitely need to
address difficulties if theycome up and it's not it's not
easy um it may involve
(31:22):
having to begin anew withsomebody with whom we're having
difficulties in the Sangha I'vehad to do that a few times and
it's a really useful experienceit's a useful practice if you're
not familiar with it I'm notgoing to go into it in great
(31:43):
detail now but it's a way ofhelping both parties to hear
what the other person is sayingin a non-judgmental way
and as I say you'll find it inthe Manual of Practice on
the Plum Village UK website inthe resources
(32:07):
section there's
there's a useful Dharma talk byBrother Bao Tang from Plum
Village on it on YouTube as welland it is a really important
practice I think
(32:28):
and sometimes if somebody ishaving a difficulty it may be
that all they need is actually
to be able to share that and tofeel heard and so you know if
that is the case they may feelcomfortable sharing in the
Sangha or they may actuallyapproach somebody an individual
(32:50):
to want to talk about you knowif that happens somebody
approaches me if I can stay calmnot get caught up in their
difficulty
and I think that's somethingI've really seen in action in
(33:14):
Plum Village Dharma discussiongroups at times it really can
work very well when I first usedto go to Plum Village we had a
lot of
Vietnam vets come people who'dserved in Vietnam and many of
them had really severe mentalproblems after that PTSD and
(33:37):
many of them also drugaddictions and things like that
and actually just being in Ithink it's not something like
that's the same thing in my rolein that space and being heard
and being held
was enormously helpful to thosepeople and so it's important to
recognize that value of courseSangha is not intended it's not
(34:01):
a therapy group
we're not setting ourselves upas an alternative therapy but we
certainly can help with somesituations just by the way in
which we allow people to sharetheir difficulties
(34:23):
so just a sort of few things toshare I think
many Sanghas will use Dharmatalks
um often from the from PlumVillage um and I know in the
(34:43):
past we used to use CDs and Ihave to say that you know having
a video is a lot easier to stayfocused it's very easy if you're
just listening to a CD to kindof drift off into your own
thoughts whereas the movingimage makes quite a difference
and something that we tended todo in the
(35:06):
UK after a Dharma talk eithergiven by a Dharma teacher or a
Plum Village one is actuallythen to actually immediately
follow that with a chance topeople to ask any questions or
to emphasise any points thatthey'd like to because it helps
(35:29):
people to um you know processingthe information in that way
helps to fix it rather than justoh yeah just another video yeah
so that's something that I thinkis really quite helpful
other things that we've done inthe Cambridge Sangha which we've
(35:52):
found to be helpful um we had anewcomer uh actually just before
the pandemic um who came to usfrom mindfulness-based stress
reduction she had no experienceof Buddhism at all and she
really wanted to find out and uhafter a few months she said um
(36:14):
would it be okay to set up areading group and that was a
really good thing to do and itit's gone right the way through
the pandemic it's still goingyou know
reading around a topic
as a group, encouraging peopleto bring in their own thoughts
and their own
(36:35):
readings and exploring thebreadth of the Buddha Dharma.
There's a lot out there. I thinkwe started with Thay's book 'The
(36:57):
Heart of the Buddha's Teaching',you know, the one with all the
lists, the Four Noble Truths,the Eightfold Path, the 12
Nidana and so on and so forthand that was quite helpful in
terms of getting a grounding inbasic Buddhism.
(37:20):
To say that that's once a month,not on a Sangha evening, we have
it on a separate evening and wenow do it both on Zoom and in
person, so if people want to gettogether I can do but we also
have a Zoom link and the samewith our Sangha meetings now we
do that.
(37:44):
We also have an
outside walking meditation twicea month, three times a month at
the moment, on a Saturdaymorning at eight o'clock in the
morning, whatever the weather,in a country park in Cambridge,
or just outside Cambridge and wemeet and we possibly share a
(38:09):
short reading and then we walktogether for probably half an
hour in silence and then ifpeople want to talk after that
that's fine and then at the endof that time we'll go and have
breakfast in a cafe. Andactually it's been a really
bonding thing to do. We havesome people who come to that
(38:31):
with their children and theirdogs who we never see at any
other time but they still feelthey're part of this anger and
they really contribute to theenergy. So it's a really helpful
thing to do.
I think it's worth bearing inmind that many of us these days
(38:52):
work with our heads and that youknow for me when I was you know
working in the universityactually the most difficult
thing I ever did was sittingdoing sitting meditation trying
just to stay with the experience.
(39:13):
Much easier was actually
walking meditation. Or to doyoga or tai chi, things that
bring me out of my head and intomy body are really important I
think. And you know with a lotof us I think those things are
probably
going to be a useful way ofreconnecting with ourselves and
(39:39):
making it possible then for usto have a meaningful sitting
meditation. So I think it'sworth recognising the needs that
some people have in that respect.In the past when people worked
with their hands and I've donethat I worked as a boat builder
for two years and it's reallyinteresting the effect that it
(40:00):
had on my mind. my mind reallycalmed down and then I really
could do sitting meditation. NowI'm just
pretending. So you know thosethings do make a difference. And
of course in the past morepeople did work with their hands
and so the practice they neededwas different. And so horses for
(40:22):
courses.
So you know when we're asfacilitators talking about
having a day of mindfulness orthe way that the evening
practice will be structured weneed to try and keep a balance
of those things. You know abalance between sitting
(40:44):
meditation, body work of somedescription, open space, a
chance to get a chance toconnect with other people and
share. As well as time to havefun.
Singing is good. It's reallyinteresting I used to do a lot
of work with Quakers Woodbrookin Birmingham and you know often
(41:10):
when I introduced the idea ofsinging Plum Village songs
you know well you know there issomething very
heartwarming about singing. Itreally opens the heart and it
can be really helpful. And youknow some of the intervals in
(41:31):
some of the Plum Village songsalso have an emotional resonance.
You think of Namo Valo. At timesI find it difficult to sing that
without
crying. You know it really doeshave a big impact and so using
those things in the Sangha canalso be really helpful to help
(41:52):
people connect as well as tohelp them to deal with difficult
situations. and of course almostall those things are now
available on the Plum Villageapp so you know I don't have to
remember all the words or have ayou know capacity to hold the
key I can you know have the appon and we can use that as a
(42:15):
background
so yeah as I say I think
I I'm going to finish at thispoint just with a brief story
from the time of the Buddha andand then we'll open it for
questions or comments but oneday Ananda who was the Buddha's
(42:40):
attendant for many years he wasBuddha's cousin but he was his
attendant he'd been practicingwith the Buddha quite a long
time and he came to the Buddhawith you know saying oh I've had
this great insight
and the Buddha smiled andAnanda said I've just realised
(43:02):
that Sangha is half of thespiritual life
and the Buddha shook his head
no Ananda Sangha is the wholeof the spiritual life
Kev (44:03):
thank you for journeying with us today on Going As A
River if this episode nourishedplease share it with friends and
subscribe on your favouriteplatform you'll find upcoming
retreats in the UK localSangha's and many resources at
the website plumvillage. uk
(44:27):
wherever your day takes you mayyou go gently and in peace
until next time breathing andsmiling we can remember we do
not go alone we go as a river
Welcome, dear friends, to Going as a River, a Plum Village
UK podcast.
I'm Kev, a companion in theriver today. In every episode,
we share from the stream ofDharma talks from teachers in
the UK, guided meditations,mindfulness songs and music, and
(00:31):
heartfelt conversations, allrooted in the joyful, applied
Buddhism of the Plum Villagetradition.
In today's episode, we joinMurray Corke at the Sangha
Facilitators' Retreat inShallowford, as he unpacks why
Sangha is the whole of thespiritual life, and offers tips
(00:54):
from his own experience fornurturing strong, flexible
communities of practice.
Wherever this greeting finds you,please remember that every drop
of water has a place in theriver. We do not go alone. We go
as a river.
Murray (01:52):
Dear friends, good morning.
It's the 25th of November, Ithink, and we're in Shallowford
and also online.
And this is the retreat forSangha facilitators.
(02:12):
We all need a Sangha if ourpractice is to be sustainable.
And I was very heartened to hearThay say that he set up Plum
Village for his own support.
And I think if it's good enoughfor Thay, then it's got to be
(02:33):
good enough for me too. So Ithink it is a really important
part of our
practice, being part of a Sangha.
We learn a lot from each otherand we learn a lot from having
to work with other people.things that we speak, things
(02:55):
that we wouldn't learn if wewere just practicing by
ourselves.
So when I first started in thispractice really there weren't
any local Sanghas.
Well, there was a group that metin London. I remember Vari
going to that group as well.
(03:17):
But it was you know, it waspeople coming from all over the
place, you know, once a month togo down to London for a meeting.
And then gradually, as we becamemore established, local Sanghas
started to spring up.
And Thay always made it veryclear that anybody could set up
(03:42):
a Sangha. Anybody who hadexperience of the practice could
set up a Sangha. And I have tosay, initially that seemed like
a very risky policy.
But it
really
works, and if the practice isstrong, then a new Sangha will
(04:08):
thrive and will continue. And ifthe practice is not strong, it
will disappear. So it's a kindof survival of the fittest.
And we've ended up with somereally strong Sanghas in the
UK, which is great.
(04:29):
And of course, the practice inthe Sangha relies quite heavily
on the people who arefacilitating that Sangha. And so
it relies on the practice of thefacilitators to keep the
atmosphere calm, steady andfocused,
(04:52):
as well as having fun. And Ithink the joy element is really
important.
Of course, it's not always easy.
Working with other people isoften more challenging than
doing the job ourselves.
And so it's a little like, youknow, pebbles in a bucket
(05:18):
rubbing against each other, youknow, we rub off the sharp edges
of each other and it's notalways a comfortable process.
But it is a very worthwhile one.
But it is a very worthwhile one.We have to learn to let go of
our own agendas and to acceptother people as they are and not
(05:40):
to get caught in judgments andopinions.
So in many ways, Sangha
facilitation is part of ourgrowing practice, our practice
of growing ourselves, growing ourcapacity for coping with the
(06:04):
world.
It's also an opportunity tooffer other people what we've
the
joy, the calm,
(06:26):
and the steadiness that we'vefound ourselves in the practice.
So it's a bodhisattva path.
So let's think a little bitabout facilitation.
I think it's worth saying at theoutset that the word facilitate
(06:49):
means to make easy.
doesn't mean to lead or tocontrol, it means to make easy
and I think that's a reallyhelpful
thing to bear in mind when
we're leading the practice ininverted commas.
(07:16):
So if we are going to facilitatewe need to be stable in our own
practice when we go into thatspace
and of course when we start tofacilitate it's quite natural to
feel anxious about it and
(07:39):
in some ways that actually helpsus to be present in the moment
you know but at the same time wealso need to know how to manage
that anxiety so that it doesn'ttransmit to the other people in
the group
and I know
(08:02):
if we have people in theCambridge Sangha who come
regularly maybe for a year thenwe will encourage them to become
facilitators
and I can see you know when theystart often they're quite
anxious you know they might beanxious about inviting the bell
(08:24):
they might be anxious aboutintroducing a subject or
facilitating a discussion groupand so we try to make sure that
they've got adequate support weusually have somebody who is
there as a second body tosupport them and my experience
of new Sangha is that usuallythe Sangha that survive are the
(08:48):
ones that start with at leasttwo people because they can
support each
other and
if we are going to ask people tobecome facilitators
then we also in Cambridge weactually have
(09:10):
semi-regular facilitatorsmeetings
and you probably couldn't tellby looking that this was a
facilitators meeting it lookslike people having fun we
usually have a meal together askpeople to bring food to share
it's often a really good mealand people tend to bring of
(09:33):
their best which is great andthen as I say there's lots of
chat lots of smiles lots offriendship and then after a
while we'll actually discussthings that might be relevant to
facilitation you know the waythat we do things any
difficulties that have come upthings that we might want to
(09:55):
change and it's it's reallyinteresting that that
approach of kind of sharing ameal automatically helps people
to kind of relax and be presentand rather than having a
business meeting to sort outdifficulties it's just a you
(10:16):
know part of a broader program
so um yes I mentioned last nightthe uh the very first thing that
I heard Tai say that you know ifour practice is not bringing us
peace and joy we're not reallypracticing
(10:39):
of course that may not always betrue it's not always going to be
joyful and peaceful but in inthe bigger picture those are
important criteria and and so weneed to think about you know
making our practice sustainableas facilitators so actually
(11:03):
finding
joy and peace in that practiceis important
and we also need to make surethat we don't um hog the
limelight you know we need togive space for other people and
(11:27):
um so again in the CambridgeSangha we we meet in each
other's homes most of the timeand we have a rule I think it's
the only rule that we have inthe Sangha that says whoever is
facilitating does not also hostso we spread the energy out um
and that has stood us in goodstead over time I've certainly
(11:50):
seen Sangha's that you know meetalways in one place in one
person's home that can get to bea burden after a while and we
need to think about those thingsso we don't actually get into
that doing things out of a senseof duty because when that
happens things start to go wrongI had this happen myself in
(12:13):
Cambridge because for a longtime I was asked to facilitate
and after a while it began to bea burden and at that point one
person in the Sangha started toquestion everything that I was
doing in quite a destructive wayand it wasn't of my choosing but
(12:42):
I was being perceived as beingthe person who had the power.
and that person obviously had areaction to that so we need to
be aware of the dynamics
within this angle within thegroup and try and make sure that
we don't get into sort of power
(13:03):
situations
so when we take on the role of a
facilitator essentially whatwe're trying do is to create a
safe environment for people topractice in
(13:27):
and that means that we need to
have some consistency ofpractice so people have a sense
of safety they know you knowthere's going to be a bell and
then and so on it's very easy toget hung up on the form of the
(13:51):
practice and
i'm sure many of you are awarePlum Village change the form
quite regularly i used to bequite a stickler for the form
until i realised that and andactually with visiting a lot of
local sanghas i find thatactually the form tends to be
different in every sangha and idon't have a problem with
(14:14):
anymore it doesn't matter theimportant thing is that it's
consistent within that sanghaand
that means that if we've gotseveral facilitators we need to
agree amongst ourselves howwe're going to do it
(14:39):
so we also
help people to feel safe if weprovide a program of what's
going to happen and explain ifif you know any changes have to
happen then that's fine but wejust need to make it clear that
(15:00):
that's what's happening andflexibility is actually you know
one of the products of thepractice and a very important
part of it um that we do need tobe able to adapt to
circumstances you know here atShallowford we're actually
sitting when we meditate facinginwards yeah because the room is
(15:24):
not really big enough for us tosit you know two meters from the
wall facing the wall which isthe tradition in the zen uh
schools but of course you knowif you go to Plum Village people
sit facing out it's okay we'vechosen and we do our own thing
(15:45):
but as i say it's something thatwe need to think about and agree
with other people um and youknow when we find ourselves
coming to somewhere like thiswhere we've got quite a lot of
people in a room that's onlyjust big enough then we actually
have to adapt what we do so
(16:05):
Suzuki Roshi once said that youknow
we have to people often thinkthat they have to adapt the
circumstances to suit them wellactually in the Sangha we have
to adapt ourselves to suit thecircumstances
so when we're facilitating
(16:29):
the times we have to adaptourselves to suit them in our
way it's not just of course whatwe say or even what we do a lot
of human communication isactually non-verbal you see
different figures quotedsomewhere between 80 and 90
percent is non-verbal
so if we can be stable and calmand at ease then it helps the
(16:54):
people around us to feel thesame
aware of what to do and that'snot always easy we all have
difficulties come up in ourlives we all have difficult
times and
we all need at some point toswallow our ego and say i'm
sorry i can't do this would youmind taking over
(17:17):
i'm sorry i can't do this is agood thing to do and that's fine
that's part of the learningprocess so
(17:47):
we need when we're facilitatingto be as much at ease as
possible
if our muscles are tense thenthe sounds of the bell will be
harsh and people can hear that
we tend to talk too much
(18:09):
we tend to become controllingand all of those things are
unhelpful so we need be able todo what what we need to do as a
facilitator in a calm and steadyway
(18:30):
when we are sitting in a sangha
we tend to find you know that wehave a number of people there
who are likely to be experiencedin the practice and we may also
have newcomers
some of those newcomers may stayon and become regulars some of
(18:54):
them may move on that's fine thedoor swings both ways but it's
important i think you know thatwhen we do have newcomers come
to the sangha that we make themfeel welcome
we try and help them to knowwhat's going to happen but at
(19:14):
the same time not to make themfeel
self-conscious
and so it's helpful I think youknow if we're going to introduce
a session of walk sit walk sitactually that when we do that we
do it to everybody not just tothe newcomers and moreover we
(19:39):
stay in the present we deal withwhat's immediately coming up the
next bell means
please massage your legs
and the next bell when it comesmeans you'll stand up rather
than trying to give a whole longlist that people aren't going to
(20:00):
remember
and of course it's also worthreminding them but you know if
in doubt look around and seewhat other people are doing
so that's one aspect of helpingnew cat newcomers
(20:20):
and I think something else that
some people struggle with is tofind a comfortable sitting
position
and this is something thatactually changes with age I know
it's just an inch higher than Iused to because my knees are
getting a little more creaky andthat's fine but basically when
(20:44):
we're sitting we need to have aposition that's stable and
comfortable and upright you knowif we are in a chair and we're
sort of slumping
physically then our mind willstart to slump as well and so
you know if we are going to sitin a chair for meditation and
(21:06):
actually I would suggest sittingso that you know your weight is
partly on your feet both feetand and also on your bottom and
that you're not relying too muchon the back of the chair and the
same applies of you sitting onthe floor
and the height at which you sithas a big effect you know if if
(21:28):
I sit too high and I'm having toarch my shoulders forward to
keep my central gravity over mysitting bones and that means
that I'm going to get a pain inthe upper part of my back and if
I sit too low wait a minute yeahif I sit too I'll also get a
pain in my back yeah soadjusting your height uh to suit
(21:51):
yourself and if you you know ifyou have somebody who is clearly
having discomfort during thesitting you know it's worth
asking them you know if they'dlike some um help with finding
the right situation in which tosit and there's wrong of course
with sitting in a chair the onlydifference between sitting in a
(22:14):
chair and sitting on the flooris the position of the legs
that's not a critical feature umwe don't have to sit in full
lotus you know it's not notobligatory so um yeah but as I
say these are things that youknow you probably
(22:34):
might introduce after a littlewhile when somebody's been
sitting for a while and clearlyhaving some problem then you
might want to talk about that
something else that beginnerssometimes struggle with
(22:55):
is what meditation is
um I remember having adiscussion with my PhD
supervisor Harry will smilebecause he knows him
and he couldn't believe thatmedit when we were meditating we
(23:15):
weren't thinking about something
you know um it was a completeanathema to him he's not a
practitioner um and I think youknow often and I I I recognized
when I started sitting I it tookme a long time to realise that
actually when we're practicingmindful breathing what we're
(23:40):
trying to do is just experienceour breathing we're not thinking
about it yeah I can feel mybreathing down in my abdomen as
I'm talking now but I'm notthinking about it if
I'm doing mindfulness ofbreathing then I try to make
that the full focus of myattention but I'm not I'm not
(24:04):
thinking about when's the nextbreath coming is it going to
come you know I'm actually justexperiencing my breathing and if
I struggle to do that then Ifind putting my hand on my
abdomen and feeling my hand moveSo it's actually quite helpful
and I'll often introduce that asan idea to newcomers
(24:27):
of course staying with ourbreathing is not always easy
especially if we've got lots ofother things going on in our
heads thoughts come in and it'svery easy to kind of drift off
so um you know if we are
trying to practice
(24:50):
in a consistent way then we maychoose to actually to count our
breaths. It is a way of helpingto stay focused counting
breathing in breathing out onebreathing in breathing out two
and so on up to ten and thenstart again at
(25:14):
one. It just helps to maintainour focus.
Something else that is quitehelpful is actually to to
recognise our own mental statebefore we start and actually
think about you know am Ifeeling dozy? If I am I
(25:38):
definitely need to sit with myeyes open
so soft focus just a couple ofmeters in front of me, whereas
if my mind is racing thensometimes it's helpful to have
my eyes closed. Traditionally inZen practice we sit with our
eyes open. It doesn't have to belike that just as we don't have
(25:59):
to sit on a stool or on acushion. It's a question of
learning what we need and we canhelp other people in this anger
to to find their own needs torecognise their own needs and
respond appropriately asfacilitators
(26:21):
and of course we can also useguided meditations to help
people to kind of come into thepresent and get focused before
we then go
into mindfulness of breathingpractice.
I think something else that wehave to be careful of as a
little bit of as facilitators
(26:43):
is during Dharma sharing wedon't have to have all the
answers.
It's very easy for people tokind of you know come up with
the difficulty they're havingand for me then to want to help
them to fix it
(27:05):
and that is not necessarilyhelpful.
Just for somebody to be able tofeel safe enough to share a
difficulty is already helpingthem to deal with it.
It's
important I think to allow spaceand as facilitators there will
(27:30):
be plenty of wisdom in thesangha. It doesn't need us to
jump in all the time and come upwith all the answers.
In terms of dharma sharingobviously it depends on the size
of our sangha whether weactually do it you know all
together or whether we splitinto groups. Optimum size is
(27:55):
probably around between four andsix people in a group that
allows people plenty of time toshare. If we've got a bigger
group then we need to allow more
time or we might need to thinkabout splitting the group and
it's worth being aware that somepeople feel quite inhibited
(28:17):
about sharing in a big group.
Some people feel inhibited aboutsharing in a small group so we
have to try and find a balancefor these things
and it's always great to havenewcomers come to the sangha.
(28:37):
Beginners don't have anypreconceptions and
again Suzuki Rose used to say inthe beginner's mind there are
many possibilities, in theexpert's mind there is only one
where we need to experience that.And we need that
(28:58):
openness to allow people toshare their beginner's mind
because there's a freshnessabout their practice which we
can all benefit from.
I think
it's also important to
recognise that it's not all milkand honey in a sangha.
(29:23):
Difficulties will arise.
individuals have difficulties.There may be difficulties
between people in sanghas andit's important I think to
recognise those things and totry to address them in an
appropriate way.
I went to one sangha, it shouldbe nameless and don't think
(29:49):
there's anybody here from it butsomebody referred to them as a
wi sangha, a women's institutesangha, it was all very nice but
it wasn't going to any depthbecause people weren't actually
sharing difficulties anddifficulties weren't being
addressed
(30:09):
you know interpersonaldifficulties weren't being
addressed in the group.
So if we
have a personal difficulty Idon't know about you but my
tendency is to try and look theother way and pretend it doesn't
exist and I think we all tend todo that you know the Buddha said
(30:35):
you know difficulties will ariseyou know this is the first arrow
and it hurts.
The second arrow may follow ifwe don't deal with the first
arrow in an appropriate way yeahand if we just try and pretend
that the first arrow didn't hitus then the consequences of that
(30:59):
will build up and the secondarrow will be even more painful
because it's the consequences ofnot dealing with the first arrow
so we definitely need to
address difficulties if theycome up and it's not it's not
easy um it may involve
(31:22):
having to begin anew withsomebody with whom we're having
difficulties in the Sangha I'vehad to do that a few times and
it's a really useful experienceit's a useful practice if you're
not familiar with it I'm notgoing to go into it in great
(31:43):
detail now but it's a way ofhelping both parties to hear
what the other person is sayingin a non-judgmental way
and as I say you'll find it inthe Manual of Practice on
the Plum Village UK website inthe resources
(32:07):
section there's
there's a useful Dharma talk byBrother Bao Tang from Plum
Village on it on YouTube as welland it is a really important
practice I think
(32:28):
and sometimes if somebody ishaving a difficulty it may be
that all they need is actually
to be able to share that and tofeel heard and so you know if
that is the case they may feelcomfortable sharing in the
Sangha or they may actuallyapproach somebody an individual
(32:50):
to want to talk about you knowif that happens somebody
approaches me if I can stay calmnot get caught up in their
difficulty
and I think that's somethingI've really seen in action in
(33:14):
Plum Village Dharma discussiongroups at times it really can
work very well when I first usedto go to Plum Village we had a
lot of
Vietnam vets come people who'dserved in Vietnam and many of
them had really severe mentalproblems after that PTSD and
(33:37):
many of them also drugaddictions and things like that
and actually just being in Ithink it's not something like
that's the same thing in my rolein that space and being heard
and being held
was enormously helpful to thosepeople and so it's important to
recognize that value of courseSangha is not intended it's not
(34:01):
a therapy group
we're not setting ourselves upas an alternative therapy but we
certainly can help with somesituations just by the way in
which we allow people to sharetheir difficulties
(34:23):
so just a sort of few things toshare I think
many Sanghas will use Dharmatalks
um often from the from PlumVillage um and I know in the
(34:43):
past we used to use CDs and Ihave to say that you know having
a video is a lot easier to stayfocused it's very easy if you're
just listening to a CD to kindof drift off into your own
thoughts whereas the movingimage makes quite a difference
and something that we tended todo in the
(35:06):
UK after a Dharma talk eithergiven by a Dharma teacher or a
Plum Village one is actuallythen to actually immediately
follow that with a chance topeople to ask any questions or
to emphasise any points thatthey'd like to because it helps
(35:29):
people to um you know processingthe information in that way
helps to fix it rather than justoh yeah just another video yeah
so that's something that I thinkis really quite helpful
other things that we've done inthe Cambridge Sangha which we've
(35:52):
found to be helpful um we had anewcomer uh actually just before
the pandemic um who came to usfrom mindfulness-based stress
reduction she had no experienceof Buddhism at all and she
really wanted to find out and uhafter a few months she said um
(36:14):
would it be okay to set up areading group and that was a
really good thing to do and itit's gone right the way through
the pandemic it's still goingyou know
reading around a topic
as a group, encouraging peopleto bring in their own thoughts
and their own
(36:35):
readings and exploring thebreadth of the Buddha Dharma.
There's a lot out there. I thinkwe started with Thay's book 'The
(36:57):
Heart of the Buddha's Teaching',you know, the one with all the
lists, the Four Noble Truths,the Eightfold Path, the 12
Nidana and so on and so forthand that was quite helpful in
terms of getting a grounding inbasic Buddhism.
(37:20):
To say that that's once a month,not on a Sangha evening, we have
it on a separate evening and wenow do it both on Zoom and in
person, so if people want to gettogether I can do but we also
have a Zoom link and the samewith our Sangha meetings now we
do that.
(37:44):
We also have an
outside walking meditation twicea month, three times a month at
the moment, on a Saturdaymorning at eight o'clock in the
morning, whatever the weather,in a country park in Cambridge,
or just outside Cambridge and wemeet and we possibly share a
(38:09):
short reading and then we walktogether for probably half an
hour in silence and then ifpeople want to talk after that
that's fine and then at the endof that time we'll go and have
breakfast in a cafe. Andactually it's been a really
bonding thing to do. We havesome people who come to that
(38:31):
with their children and theirdogs who we never see at any
other time but they still feelthey're part of this anger and
they really contribute to theenergy. So it's a really helpful
thing to do.
I think it's worth bearing inmind that many of us these days
(38:52):
work with our heads and that youknow for me when I was you know
working in the universityactually the most difficult
thing I ever did was sittingdoing sitting meditation trying
just to stay with the experience.
(39:13):
Much easier was actually
walking meditation. Or to doyoga or tai chi, things that
bring me out of my head and intomy body are really important I
think. And you know with a lotof us I think those things are
probably
going to be a useful way ofreconnecting with ourselves and
(39:39):
making it possible then for usto have a meaningful sitting
meditation. So I think it'sworth recognising the needs that
some people have in that respect.In the past when people worked
with their hands and I've donethat I worked as a boat builder
for two years and it's reallyinteresting the effect that it
(40:00):
had on my mind. my mind reallycalmed down and then I really
could do sitting meditation. NowI'm just
pretending. So you know thosethings do make a difference. And
of course in the past morepeople did work with their hands
and so the practice they neededwas different. And so horses for
(40:22):
courses.
So you know when we're asfacilitators talking about
having a day of mindfulness orthe way that the evening
practice will be structured weneed to try and keep a balance
of those things. You know abalance between sitting
(40:44):
meditation, body work of somedescription, open space, a
chance to get a chance toconnect with other people and
share. As well as time to havefun.
Singing is good. It's reallyinteresting I used to do a lot
of work with Quakers Woodbrookin Birmingham and you know often
(41:10):
when I introduced the idea ofsinging Plum Village songs
you know well you know there issomething very
heartwarming about singing. Itreally opens the heart and it
can be really helpful. And youknow some of the intervals in
(41:31):
some of the Plum Village songsalso have an emotional resonance.
You think of Namo Valo. At timesI find it difficult to sing that
without
crying. You know it really doeshave a big impact and so using
those things in the Sangha canalso be really helpful to help
(41:52):
people connect as well as tohelp them to deal with difficult
situations. and of course almostall those things are now
available on the Plum Villageapp so you know I don't have to
remember all the words or have ayou know capacity to hold the
key I can you know have the appon and we can use that as a
(42:15):
background
so yeah as I say I think
I I'm going to finish at thispoint just with a brief story
from the time of the Buddha andand then we'll open it for
questions or comments but oneday Ananda who was the Buddha's
(42:40):
attendant for many years he wasBuddha's cousin but he was his
attendant he'd been practicingwith the Buddha quite a long
time and he came to the Buddhawith you know saying oh I've had
this great insight
and the Buddha smiled andAnanda said I've just realised
(43:02):
that Sangha is half of thespiritual life
and the Buddha shook his head
no Ananda Sangha is the wholeof the spiritual life
Kev (44:03):
thank you for journeying with us today on Going As A
River if this episode nourishedplease share it with friends and
subscribe on your favouriteplatform you'll find upcoming
retreats in the UK localSangha's and many resources at
the website plumvillage. uk
(44:27):
wherever your day takes you mayyou go gently and in peace
until next time breathing andsmiling we can remember we do
not go alone we go as a river
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