Quotes & Sayings About Sangha

As Buddhism has been integrated into the West, the meaning of sangha has come to include all our contemporaries who in various ways are consciously pursuing a path of awakening. We are held by sangha when we work individually with a therapist or healer, or when a close friend lets us be vulnerable and real. Taking refuge in the sangha reminds us that we are in good company: We belong with all those who long to awaken, with all those who seek the teachings and practices that lead to genuine peace. — Tara Brach

We are birthed into sangha, into sacred community. It is called the world. — Adyashanti

Everyone I meet is in my sangha. I don't know if that's the proper definition, but that's the way I'm going to hold it in my mind. — Jeff Bridges

We yield to none in our love, admiration and respect for the Buddha-the Dharma-the Sangha. They are all ours. Their glories are ours and ours their failures. — Vinayak Damodar Savarkar

The "Higher Self" camp is notoriously immune to social concerns. Everything that happens to one is said to be "one's own choice" - the hyper-agentic Higher Self is responsible for everything that happens - this is the monological and totally disengaged Ego gone horribly amok in omnipotent self-only fantasies. This simply represses the networks of communions that are just as important as agency in constituting the manifestation of Spirit. This is not Eros; this is Phobos - a withdrawal from social engagement and intersubjective action. All of this totally overlooks the fact that Spirit manifests not only as Self (I) but as intersubjective Community (We) and as an objective State of Affairs (It) - as Buddha, Sangha, Dharma - each inseparably interwoven with the others and interwoven in the Good and the Goodness of the All. — Ken Wilber

In Buddhism, there are three gems: Buddha, the awakened one; Dharma,
the way of understanding and loving; and Sangha, the community that
lives in harmony and awareness. The three are interrelated, and at
times it is hard to distinguish one from another. In everyone there
is the capacity to wake up, to understand, and to love. So in
ourselves we find Buddha, and we also find Dharma and Sangha. — Nhat Hanh

Buddhas continue to live on through their teachings as dharma bodies. Their spirits become manifest in the sangha (spiritual community) where their teachings are passed on. — Shinjo Ito

Buddha was a responsible guy and believed in his monks being responsible, their responsibility would no longer be to their practice or to the sangha, but to their child because that's the only honest way to do it. You can't have it both ways. So anytime a monk would have sex, there was always that possibility and it was a very big deal. — Brad Warner

Dharma companions filling mountains, a sangha forms of itself: chanting, sitting ch'an stillness. Looking out from distant city walls, people see only white clouds. — David Hinton

When we speak of the sangha, we speak of the "arya sangha," which means the "exalted sangha". At the time of the Buddha this referred to the arhats and bodhisattvas, the disciples who studied under him and achieved various levels of realization through their practice. But now who is the arya sangha? It is all of us, all of the practitioners of the present time. The moment we take refuge, which is to begin on the path, we hold the title of "sangha". As such, you should understand that you are one of the Three Jewels. You shouldn't put the Three Jewels outside of yourselves; you should always think of yourselves as being one of the Three Jewels - and that includes your body, your speech, and your mind. — Dhomang Yangthang

The sangha is a community where there should be harmony and peace and understanding. That is something created by our daily life together. If love is there in the community, if we've been nourished by the harmony in the community, then we will never move away from love. — Nhat Hanh

My sangha, what I seem to attract, are people who have been practicing a long time, they're teaching, they're more serious about their spiritual journey. — Beryl Bender Birch

Going for refuge to Buddha,Dharma, and Sangha means that we apply effort to receiving Buddha's blessings, to putting Dharma into practice, and to receiving help from Sangha. — Geshe Kelsang Gyatso