On completion of our first convention in North Yorkshire one of our Stager members referred to it as a "Sangha".

On completion of our first convention in North Yorkshire one of our Stager-members referred to it as a "Sangha". While "sangha" usually refers to a spiritual community associated with a particular tradition or religion, people who make up our sangha are from various backgrounds—Buddhist, Hindu, Christian. The spirit of our sangha is a mutual interest in the exploration of the ten stage truth outside of the context of a particular tradition, religion, or teaching. There is an openness to it. These conversations seemed to resonate with those who want to get to the real core of meditations and are looking beyond exterior trappings for a more unencumbered expression of a Ten Stage Truth.

Our sangha is, of course, made up of people who are interested in the ten stages and the way it evolvingly expresses itself. But our viewpoint is that we’re not really into the self; we’re into the Ten Stage Truth. The study is pointing to a more universal Truth and toward an experience of sangha that is beyond all the particular expressions or forms that Truth can take. To us, real sangha is whatever is in service to the silence of loving-kindfulness—wherever it shows up.

One of the most beautiful inquiries is, “What does my loving-kindfulness life serve?” This is a big question. It’s not asking, “What form is my kindfulness taking?” It doesn’t particularly matter what form our kindfulness takes when we are serving the serenity of the heart. The only thing that’s important is, “How is my life really serving kindfulness?”

All of us are dissociates, are we not? From the cradle to the grave, in some way we’re a dissociating into something. We can be a dissociate to many things: our minds, our desires, our fantasies, our ideas, our beliefs—and we’ve all been in dissociation to all of those at some point in our lives. When we have some awakening to our Ten Stage Truth—to what we actually are—then there is an opportunity to be a servant of that. When we realise what we are, we can serve what we are—instead of serving what we aren’t. To us this is what real ten stage sangha is all about.

Sangha can be very challenging hiking the high roads of North Yorkshire rambling from Ravenscar to Robin Hoods Bay. Steam Train Journeys.....