What is the point of Global Sangha? The job of Global Sangha is to wage peace in the world. To demonstrate peace. To demonstrate harmony. To demonstrate an alternative to the greed, hate and delusion that is leading humankind toward disaster.
The world has changed and it goes on changing and not always in good ways. Humans have killed off more than two thirds of the other animals on the planet. We’ve destroyed their homes. We treat them as sport or commodities. We do not have peace and love in our collective heart for our fellow creatures. Sangha is the reverse of that. Sangha is a collective peaceful heart - a heart of love for all sentient beings.
We must spread the message of Global Sangha. We must go beyond the obstacles. We all have obstacles, attachments, old habits and so on. Even though we are all too human in just these ways, still, we are capable of reflecting the light of peace and love in the world; and the need for it grows more urgent by the day.
The world has changed and it goes on changing. We’ve seen great fires that have killed millions of living beings. We’ve seen floods, rising sea levels, terrible storms. We see that the oceans are full of our junk: the product of our over-consumption waste, and irresponsibility. We are killing off the living world and even the inanimate world is responding: the ice-caps are melting, the temperature of the planet is rising.
Global Sangha is a message of pure intention. It is a great vow to take to heart. It’s a vow worthy of bodhisattvas: “Oh, Blessed One, may I not come to the complete awakening, if, when I have done so, beings in all the lands throughout the ten directions, who are exposed to the light that is in me, do not experience profound mental and bodily peace and replenishment.”
When we embody Global Sangha, it spreads, it touches the hearts of others. This light is given to us freely by the Buddhas. Global Sangha is to join together in order to reflect and shed such a light in the world.
All my life I’ve been driven by a mission of love. But the path of love has many disappointments along the way. It’s often hard. We bump up against obstacles. Some of these are the afflictions we encounter in the world. Some others are the wounds that we carry in our own karmic stream. These obstacles being dead are rather solid. We bump up against them. Only what is not solid, what is still living and loving and flowing can go beyond them. We must be fluid and flow around. We must walk through the fire with the cooling balm of gentleness in our steps.
Let’s all commit ourselves to Global Sangha,
To waging love and peace in the world.
To walking gently upon the earth,
Extending love to oppressors and victims,
Rich and poor, healthy and sick,
Over-privileged and under-privileged,
Virtuous and wicked,
To all without exception.
Yet, let us be practical in doing so.
Let us always pursue the good in all manner of ways.
Global Sangha is to be for non-hate, is to be for non-greed.
Let us spread this spirit of Global Sangha in this changed and ever-changing world.
Namo Amida Bu
Thank you very much
Dharmavidya
David
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