Winter happenings at Sangha House

Hi all!

Have you seen the videos or read about the Theravada monks walking for peace to DC? We have, and we’re inspired by it, and want to take part in some way. Which got us thinking about doing a walk for peace here in LA, on the same day the monks will arrive in DC, which is scheduled for 2/11. We’re having an organizing meeting this coming Tuesday 1/20, 6-8pm. If this is exciting to you and you’re able to attend, please let us know here.

This action is one of the beautiful things to transpire out of our community in the last few months (it’s been 3 months already since our last update), but it’s far from the only one. We have protested ICE; raised $16,000+ for our housemate Taylor to get a hearing aid; hosted guests from out of town; threw a NYE party; visioned the future of this community; and generally been living in regular blissful harmony. Along with Casiana and me, Liz had her first visit to Deer Park Monastery. And for our part, Liz and I traveled to Oakland and stayed at Canticle Farm, a wonderful, mature intentional community that has been around for decades. We brought home much inspiration and nuggets of insight from that trip.

The mindful NYE party was also particularly special to me. Since May of last year we have been hosting weekly meditations here on Wednesday evenings. When in December as a house we explored hosting a NYE party, and then realized that it fell on a Wednesday, we easily decided to stick with the schedule, hold our meditation + dharma sharing, and extend the gathering into a mindful celebration. And so in addition to sitting and sharing from the heart, we had Plum Village singing and music (thank you CJ and Rachel!), delicious compassionate vegan food cooked by our two head chefs (Liz and Taylor), karaoke, and a full house of friends.

As midnight approached, I really appreciated the contrast to previous times. In my 20s, I brought in the new year with friends, alcohol, marijuana. I “celebrated” the new year by escaping my mind and life — and there was genuinely a lot to seek relief from. Getting buzzed and numbing out: that was how I knew to do something “special” at the time. So after a sit, and an hour of dharma sharing, with 30+ humans who I know and am known by, who I really am in community with, then eating food cooked with love which I had helped prepare, I realized that this NYE festivity might reflect me more than any other I had experienced previously, and I felt both pride and gratitude.

Pride because I am aware of the journey I’ve been on to get here. I had to slay some dragons. I sailed forbidden seas. I descended into hell. Whatever it is you use to comfort, self-soothe, which you might’ve once used to survive — to go into withdrawal from that, to renounce it, then to slough off your whole slate of habits and past and look at them dispassionately, to sit with and explore deeply the pain from your childhood and early family dysfunction with no distraction: this is a hero’s labor. Genuinely. As a sponsor I tell guys in my program: the easy thing is to distract yourself with a shiny new object of fantasy (girlfriend, or “girlfriend”), or porn, or TikTok, or Amazon, or whatever. The hard thing is to sit with the discomfort — but if you do it it engenders a sense of self-respect.

Gratitude because it has been given to me. It’s a gift. As Richard Rohr says, no one ever really chooses to go on this journey, to “fall upwards.” It is “done unto us.” I sure as hell did not go out looking for SLAA or meditation or a Buddhist community to practice with as a solution to my troubles in my 20s. On the contrary, I stubbornly clung to what I knew. I doubled down on my flawed thinking until the chaos and desperation became incredible and I was ready to accept whatever possibility of help I could find. I finally became ready to fall. And as Joseph Campbell puts it, “where you stumble, there lies your treasure.”

I’m in a new era of my life now, where “sticking to the schedule” actually works for me. It’s a miracle, but these spiritual practices give a structure to my life which gives it solidity and depth and freedom. We have meditations here on Wednesdays, and that holds me. Friday nights I go to my home SLAA meeting, and that serves me. Calling my sponsor, working with sponsees, weekday morning meditation with my housemates at the Sangha House, dharma sharing circles, weekly emotional check-ins with my wife — I’m grateful for it all.

The structure holds me, and my prayer is that 12 step, the Sangha House, and the Plum Village community will continue to hold me. On the PV front, as I mentioned, I got to take Liz to Deer Park in December and it was wonderful. The monastery is always restorative, and I also got to reconnect with other new friends I made at a retreat last year. I am working with a Dharma Teacher, Pete Kuhn, and participating in Order of Interbeing study groups as an aspirant to the Order of Interbeing. Soon, I’ll book tickets to visit Plum Village Monastery in France this coming June. We’re also hoping to host monastics from Deer Park here at the house in the next few months, organizing a dharma talk to take place during one of our usual Wednesday sits.

In other words, I’m going deeper in this community. But I’m still new. I’m still a baby. My first SLAA sponsor said you’re a newcomer for your first 5 years in that program, and it seems applicable here too. I’m still figuring out how to be part of this community, how to organize within it and serve it and be served by it. What I know is that I need it to stay in my practice, to stay in reality, to move toward greater forms of maturity and integrity.